Murder in Vein (2010) (15 page)

"What's it to be, Madison?" he asked her, his tone a bit more
civilized than before. "You in or not?"

"You'll have my back?" she asked Colin.

He nodded.

Madison closed her eyes. When she did, she saw the raw
wounds of the dead women. "I'm in."

"Hold still, Madison," Pauline told her. "We want to get this
right."

Madison and Pauline were seated at the Dedham kitchen
table. Pauline, with an iron grip on Madison's left hand, was
using a henna tattoo kit to make a bloodline on the palm. Spying exactly the spot she wanted to target, Pauline drew a thin and slightly curved fine line between Madison's real lifeline and one
of her other palm lines. Madison squirmed.

"I can't help it," she said to Pauline. "It tickles."

Pauline let go of Madison's hand. "There" She consulted
the package instructions, peering through the reading glasses
perched at the end of her nose. "It says you have to let that dry
for six hours."

"Six hours!"

"That's what it says." Pauline showed Madison the box. "So
no washing that hand. Good thing you're right-handed."

It was now eleven. Madison did the math. "That means not
until at least five. I wanted to go back to bed. I hardly got any
sleep last night."

"You can go to bed as soon as that stuff is off-maybe a little
sooner. We don't want it to get too dark. Meanwhile, take it easy.
From what I understand, you've got a big night ahead of you."

"How did you even know to bring henna?"

"Mrs. D left me a voice mail to pick it up on my way in. That's
why I was late. I had to wait for the beauty supply shop to open.
That's how we mostly communicate, by texting and voice mail,"
Pauline explained, "since they're usually in bed by the time I
get here. Today her message said to bring henna and give you a
bloodline. Mrs. D also told me what's going on-about a new
dead girl and her being your friend and all."

Madison studied the line of thick paste drying on her hand.
"I must be out of my mind, going along with this."

Pauline put the cap back on the applicator. "You're doing a
good thing, Madison. A very good thing."

"But what about Mike Notchey? Shouldn't he be doing stuff
like this? He wasn't even there when they told me about it"

"He's really not working these murders officially."

"He's a cop, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely. But these aren't his cases or his jurisdiction. He's sort of the vampires' man on the inside."

Madison frowned with understanding. "You mean he's on
their payroll."

Pauline shook her head and laughed. "No, nothing like that.
He's a clean cop, but over the years he's become close to the Dedhams and to the vampire community, as many of us have. He
keeps their secrets and helps them out, and sometimes they help
him out. These murders are something he's nosing about on
his own time. Not to mention the cops already think they have
the guy who did the earlier killings." She paused and looked off
toward the wall while she gave it more thought. "Mike's a complicated guy who has seen more than his share of personal tragedy. He can be crotchety, but he's one of the good guys."

Pauline looked at the henna instructions again. "Says it will
stay good for four weeks in the fridge." She headed for the refrigerator with the leftover henna dye. "Good. That way, if we need
to, we can refresh that line"

"Four weeks?" Madison's jaw dropped. "You really think it
will take that long?"

Pauline shrugged. "Who knows?"

An extended time frame gave Madison a whole new worry.
She couldn't stay with the Dedhams for four weeks. She had a
life to get back to, not to mention a job. Kyle had said he'd only
hold her job for a week. She decided to address that in a couple
of days. Certainly, no one expected her to be here indefinitely.
Then she remembered that the concept of time to the vampires was different than it was to her. She had a finite allotment of it.
They didn't.

After a few minutes, Madison addressed something else on
her mind. "Have you met the vampires on the council, Pauline?"

Pauline gathered up the henna package and put it aside on
the counter, then washed her hands. "Yes, I've met the present
council and most of those who served on past councils. Mr. D
has been on the council only for about six or seven years. Some
of the others were on it from the start, like Stacie Neroni and
Colin Reddy."

"Why do Stacie and Colin hate each other?"

"Fighting, were they?"

Madison nodded.

Pauline shook her head and made a clucking noise. "It's
something that happened several years ago involving a mutual
friend of theirs named Julie-Julie Argudo."

Madison's curiosity perked up. "Another vampire-or a
beater?"

"A vampire. A very new one." Pauline paused, trying to
remember. "I don't know exactly what happened, but Julie was
tried and convicted by the council. Stacie and Colin blame each
other for it."

"What happened to Julie?"

Pauline shrugged. "Not sure. Suddenly, she was gone-like
she never existed."

"What did she do to get into so much trouble?"

Pauline gave another shrug. "No one talks about it."

A buzzer sounded, and Pauline went to the laundry room
off the kitchen and returned with a basket of freshly washed and
dried towels. She put the basket down on the table and started folding the towels. Madison started to help, but Pauline stopped
her. "Your hand," she reminded her.

Frustrated, Madison put the warm towel down. "How boring
is it going to be to sit here and do nothing all day?"

Pauline smiled. "When I think of a one-handed job, I'll give
you a holler"

After folding a couple of towels, Pauline continued telling
Madison about the council. "The Dedhams are thick as thieves
with Kate Thornton and her husband. The four of them do a
lot together-bridge, opera, stuff like that. Colin does a good
impression of an English James Dean-sullen, brooding, and
angry-but he must be solid or Samuel wouldn't have him on
the council. Eddie Gonzales is a small, paunchy man with a big
brain for business."

"I didn't meet him," Madison said. "Samuel said two of the
members weren't there, but he didn't give names."

Pauline again paused to think. "Stacie handles most of the
domestic legal work for vampires in this area. When people live
for hundreds of years, things like estates, taxes, and property can
get pretty complicated, not to mention people start to notice
when someone doesn't age over twenty or thirty years. She makes
sure no red flags are flying. She and Eddie work together a lot to
protect the assets of their vampire clients."

"Colin called her a'puritanical do-gooder.' What did he mean
by that?"

"Stacie also runs a weekly legal-aid clinic for the homeless."

"There are vampire homeless?"

"No," Pauline laughed. "She does it for the living, for beaters.
She believes in giving back to the community, as does Mrs. D. Stacie brings her old clothing she collects, and Mrs. D mends and
fixes them so they can be redistributed to the needy."

"That's a far cry from the vampires on TV."

"There are some out there like that-selfish and brutal-but
Samuel La Croix keeps a tight rein on them." Pauline paused to
think, counting the council members on her fingers. "Oh yeah,
there's also Isabella Claussen. Did you meet her?"

Madison shook her head.

"I'm not sure what Isabella does," Pauline continued, "but I've
heard she runs a lot of errands for Samuel all over the worldsort of like an ambassador for the council with other vampire
groups. Can't miss her. She looks like a high-class runway model."

Madison looked up at Pauline with rapt interest. "Tell me
about Samuel."

Pauline stopped folding towels. "Child, that man's a puzzle-both dangerous and kind in one handsome, elegant box.
He can charm the pants off you, as well as scare them off,
simultaneously."

"So I noticed." Madison fingered the edge of the plastic
clothes basket. "Is he really blind?"

"You saw his eyes?"

Madison nodded, leaving out the part where she had stupidly
snatched Samuel's sunglasses from his face.

"Physically," Pauline continued, "his eyes are as useless as
Stevie Wonder's, but he can see as good as the two of us, maybe
better." Pauline started back on the towels. "Strange things happen to people when they turn, physical things. A lot of their
senses increase, like hearing, strength, speed. Other times they
are returned to better health. Mr. D tells it that he was bent from
arthritis. But look at him now, tall and straight as a pine tree. Well, Samuel's eyesight was returned, even though his eyes still
appear blind." She put the folded towel aside. "Some people say
Samuel La Croix can see right through to a person's soul."

At this, Madison shuddered, remembering how Samuel's
blind eyes had pierced her own, digging for the foundation of
her existence, as if he could read her life story like a paperback
novel.

"He's not African-American," Madison said. "Where is he
from?"

"The way I hear it, he was sold into slavery as a young boy
in Africa, eventually ending up in Egypt. It was during the time
Rome ruled Egypt."

"Rome? You mean like during the time of Cleopatra?"

"No, after that. It was in Egypt that his master blinded him.
Never heard why, but he was a young man by then. He was
turned into a vampire several years later." Pauline stopped folding and looked around, then bent toward Madison. "I heard," she
whispered, "that Samuel tracked down the man who blinded him
and drank the blood of each of his three daughters until they
died, forcing the man to watch"

Again, Madison shuddered. "Then he killed the man?"

Pauline shook her head. "Samuel spared his life, forcing him
to live with the horror. The man ended up taking his own life."
She paused. "At least that's what I've heard."

olin Reddy came by to pick Madison up around nine thirty.
He was dressed all in black again, with a black leather jacket.
Madison was wearing jeans and boots, with a long-sleeved
cardigan sweater over a tee shirt. When she came down the stairs,
he and the Dedhams were waiting for her.

Colin looked her over with a critical eye. "Is that what you're
wearing?"

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"You look straight off a farm in Iowa"

"Well, excuuuuuse me," Madison snarled.

"I'm afraid that's my fault, Colin," Dodie told him. "I didn't
bring many of Madison's things over."

Madison looked at Dodie. "You could have brought my entire
closet and it wouldn't have mattered." She turned to Colin. "I'm
a little too busy in my life to worry about club fashion, let alone
have the money to buy it."

"I anticipated that." Colin held out a bag he was holding in
one hand. "Go back up and put these on. I think I got the sizes right." He studied her again. "The boots and hair are perfect, but
put on a lot more makeup."