Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Harriet
Naturally Sloane had to use the most excessive packaging imaginable for Alexandru’s ridiculous calling card case. I toss out the be-ribboned bag and tissue paper into a garbage bin and shove the bubble-wrapped thing into my pocket, because of course Alexandru doesn’t carry his own purchases.
Some kids have set up some kind of obstacle course in Gazebo Park. They’re screaming and laughing. A few adults cluster around a picnic table nearby. The scent of burgers reaches my nose.
I want to ask him if he really punished Gregor for forgetting to pack a calling card case, but I’m afraid to hear the answer.
Alexandru can sometimes be weirdly charming or stick up for me in a way that I’m not used to, but then he’ll reveal some disturbing moral opinion, or he’ll make Gregor scrub the dungeon with a toothbrush, and I’ll remember that he’s a very bad guy.
Correction: not a guy. He’s a beast, a monster, and his good qualities make him all the more dangerous.
“The timeline is not looking so good for Dooley so far,” I say. “The murder took place at 1:20 and he’s heading for Gable’s Grocery just after one. But he obviously wasn’t carrying a crossbow, or people would’ve noticed.”
“Agreed,” Alexandru says. “But he could have hidden it in the alley beforehand.”
True enough.
We head into the brightly lit world of Gable’s Grocery. I’m glad to see somebody I know is on duty—Marcy from history class in high school. I introduce her to Alexandru and ask about Dooley.
“Officer Cooper and Officer Wright were just here a little while ago asking about that,” she says, confused. “Do you know Dooley or something?”
“A little bit,” I say. “We’re just checking things out, is all.”
Marcy glances over at Alexandru like she’s not so sure about him. Like he might do something unexpected, which is a pretty sound instinct. “Once a journalist, always a journalist, huh?”
“Something like that,” I say.
“Well, I can tell you what I told them. Dooley came in here just after one o’clock.
The man wandered around. I knew who he was of course, and I kept a good eye on him.
I can tell you that he stared at the apples for a long time.
Talked to one of the produce boys. I went over to make sure things were cool, but basically, he just wanted to know how many varieties of apples there were, and he was all kinds of impressed about that.
I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have different apples in prison or something. ”
“And his demeanor?” Alexandru asks. “Was there anything unusual in his bearing?”
Marcy blinks at the English accent coming out of this six-foot-something man in a wide-brimmed hat.
It’s a surprisingly good question, given that Dooley would presumably be about to kill somebody at this point.
I find myself studying Alexandru’s profile—the sharp line of his jaw, his dark lashes—as Marcy goes on about apples and then something about the freezer section and different kinds of ice cream.
“...he seemed really interested in the oat ice cream. He wanted me to tell him why they would make ice cream out of oats, and I explained about the whole non-dairy thing. Fifteen years away, I guess you miss a few things, like the non-wheat, non-dairy, non-groundnut thing.”
“The non-wheat, non-dairy, non-groundnut thing?” Alexandru asks, astonished. “What do you mean?”
“You know, all the people that don’t eat bread and cheese and sugar and nuts and all?”
“I do not understand. Eating is one of the few pleasures afforded to humans in their short and pathetic lives.”
“Um…” Marcy looks confused.
“Alexandru is from a microstate in Eastern Europe, and they haven’t caught up to the allergen thing.”
“Well, it’s a thing,” Marcy says. “Like I told the police, Dooley left a bit after one. I was busy with a return, and nobody was really paying attention. And no, I didn’t see which way he went.”
“Anything else you can tell us that we have not asked,” Alexandru says.
Another good question. There were times in our last investigation when people didn’t tell us things we could’ve used, just because we hadn’t asked the right questions.
“He did ask if we had any job openings. I told him no. It’s the truth, but I don’t know that Mr. Gable would hire him even if we did have an opening, what with his murder record.
But then again, Mr. Gable does take a chance on people, so who knows.
And then Dooley looked at the bulletin board for a while.
” Here she lowers her voice. “You didn’t get this from me, but when Maverick and his partner were over there, looking at the board, I could hear them saying that he was probably just pretending to look at the board, but really scoping out the sidewalk for a victim. ”
We wander over to the bulletin board, which is ruffled with flyers and business cards advertising everything from pet sitting to psychic readings.
I point to a flyer for a summer nature camp—"BAT NIGHT AT SKELLY PEAK! Bring the kids to learn about Ohio’s flying friends!
” “Look, Alexandru! Bat night! Right up your alley!”
Alexandru grumbles. He has informed me in no uncertain terms that he does not transform into a bat and that vampires truly have nothing to do with bats. He really has a thing about it.
“Ohio’s flying friends,” I repeat.
He ignores this. “One could do worse, as a vantage point for selecting a victim.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“I have never required a bulletin board.” He says it like that would be an insult.
The alley next to Gable’s yields nothing of interest—just a few dumpsters. The police found the murder weapon behind one of them.
“It all seems really straightforward so far,” I say once we’re in the car heading back.
“Almost too straightforward. If Dooley did it, it’s an incredibly stupid way to commit murder.
And if somebody’s framing him, it’s just so ham-handed.
” I drum my fingers on the steering wheel.
“We need more data. We have to find out if he had a relationship to the victim that nobody is seeing.”
Alexandru’s gaze drifts toward the window. “Are you suggesting a visit to these Snag Tooth Riders? Do they have a lair of some sort? A den?”
“They have a clubhouse, but I don’t think we can just waltz in there.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s private, and these are not people who welcome drop-ins.”
Alexandru turns to look at me, something almost like amusement in his dark eyes. “They would not be able to bar me; I would allow no harm to come to your person. Not even an untoward stare.”
“No untoward stares? What would you do, pluck the offending eyes out with your super vampire speed?”
“With relish.”
“There are other ways to talk to the motorcycle gang,” I say, suddenly very interested in the road ahead. “Kip’s bar, for example.”
“Yes, where they consume the repellant nachos plate known as the Widowmaker,” he says.
“Also known as the beard greaser. So gross.” I look over and find him smiling at me, which is strangely unsettling.
“Such is the way of fighting men,” Alexandru says. “In every age, they find the most repulsive thing on the table and devour it with pride.”
Alexandru told me once that he was born in 1003, and that he was at one time a soldier.
Was he one of the men who consumed repulsive things?
Did he actually see men in armor get pierced by crossbow bolts, bleeding into their suits like tin cups like he told Hardware Sam?
He so rarely talks about his past, and then he’ll come out with these statements that feel very firsthand knowledge-y.
I tease him when he goes all medieval, but a thousand years is a lot to carry around in your head.
I shouldn’t laugh when he calls my iPad an electronic ledger or asks, in complete seriousness, where the scribes who do the writing and ciphering are.
Sometimes when he uses a word like laptop, I’m not sure he fully understands what it is.
And he won’t stop asking about the ice cream shop.
He knows there’s something there. I keep thinking maybe I should just tell him the whole thing, how my little half brother vanished when I was twelve, how it was my fault because I was there at that ice cream shop, flirting with a boy instead of picking him up at the playground and walking him home like I was supposed to.
The mistake that separates before from after.
But sometimes I like that there is this one person who didn’t automatically see me as the girl who left her eight-year-old brother to be stolen by the Cuyahoga Killer.
One person who doesn’t see me as the girl who never recovered from it, like I’m driven by damage. Like my spreadsheets are a trauma response, my hyper-organization “compensatory” instead of simply the best way to do things. As if every system I build is me trying to undo the past.
Then again, my BFF, Josie, knows my history, and she doesn’t see me as hopeless and damaged. Mom and Granabelle don’t look at me like that.
Maybe I should trust Alexandru with the truth. We aren’t exactly friends, but we are partners of a sort.
It’s dark by the time we’re back at Kingston Manor.
Gregor is in the foyer, as usual, awaiting our arrival.
Alexandru hands him his hat and then begins to remove his gloves, tugging the leather over one finger after another with lazy precision.
The motion shouldn’t be compelling; it’s just a man removing gloves.
But there’s something about the way the leather slides over his knuckles, the glimpse of skin beneath, the flex of tendons in those large hands that makes it impossible to look away.
I’m still staring when he pulls the second glove free and passes it to Gregor.
“What is it, Ms. Renfield?”