you’d relocated to British Columbia.” “Yeah, well, I came back.”
“I suppose that might account for the improvement over the last month or so in a certain detective we both know.”
She couldn’t resist asking. “Was he really bad while I was gone?”
Brandon laughed. “He was unbearable and, as you know, I am able to bear a great deal. So, are you still in the same line of work?”
“Yes, I am.” Yes, she was. God, it felt good. “Are you still the Assistant Coroner?”
“Yes, I am. As I think I can safely assume you didn’t call me, at home, long after office hours, just to inform me that you’re back on the job, what do you want?”
Vicki winced. “I was wondering if you’d had a look at Mac Eisler.”
“Yes, Victoria, I have. And I’m wondering why you can’t call me during regular business hours. You must know how much I enjoy discussing autopsies in front of my children.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry Brandon, but it’s important.”
“Yes. It always is.” His tone was so dry it crumbled. “But since you’ve already interrupted my evening, try to keep my part of the conversation to a simple yes or no.”
“Did you do a blood volume check on Eisler?”
“Yes.”
“Was there any missing?”
“No. Fortunately, in spite of the trauma to the neck the integrity of the blood vessels had not been breached.”
So much for yes or no; she knew he couldn’t keep to it. “You’ve been a big help, Brandon, thanks.”
“I’d say any time, but you’d likely hold me to it.” He hung up abruptly.
Vicki replaced the receiver and frowned. She—the other—hadn’t fed. The odds moved in favor of Eisler killed because he murdered Irene.
“Well, if it isn’t Andrew P.” Vicki leaned back against the black Trans Am and adjusted the pair of nonprescription glasses she’d picked up just after sunset. With her hair brushed off her face and the window-glass lenses in front of her eyes, she didn’t look much different than she had a year ago. Until she smiled.
The pimp stopped dead in his tracks, bluster fading before he could get the first obscenity out. He swallowed, audibly. “Nelson. I heard you were gone.”
Listening to his heart race, Vicki’s smile broadened. “I came back. I need some information. I need the name of one of Eisler’s other girls.”
“I don’t know.” Unable to look away, he started to shake. “I didn’t have anything to do with him. I don’t remember.”
Vicki straightened and took a slow step towards him. “Try, Andrew.”
There was a sudden smell of urine and a darkening stain down the front of the pimp’s cotton drawstring pants. “Uh, D … D … Debbie Ho. That’s all I can remember. Really.”
“And she works?”
“Middle of the track.” His tongue tripped over the words in the rush to spit them at her. “Jarvis and Carlton.”
“Thank you.” Sweeping a hand towards his car, Vicki stepped aside.
He dove past her and into the driver’s seat, jabbing the key into the ignition. The powerful engine roared to life and with one last panicked look into the shadows, he screamed out of the driveway, ground his way through three gear changes, and hit eighty before he reached the corner.
The two cops, quietly sitting in the parking lot of the donut shop on that same corner, hit their siren and took off after him.
Vicki slipped the glasses into the inner pocket of the tweed jacket she’d borrowed from Celluci’s closet and grinned. “To paraphrase a certain adolescent crime-fighting amphibian, I love being a vampire.”
“I need to talk to you, Debbie.”
The young woman started and whirled around, glaring suspiciously at Vicki. “You a cop?”
Vicki sighed. “Not any more.” Apparently, it was easier to hide the vampire than the detective. “I’m a private investigator and I want to ask you some questions about Irene Macdonald.”
“If you’re looking for the shithead who killed her, you’re too late. Someone already found him.”
“And that’s who I’m looking for.”
“Why?” Debbie shifted her weight to one hip.
“Maybe I want to give them a medal.”
The hooker’s laugh held little humor. “You got that right. Mac got everything he deserved.”
“Did Irene ever do women?”
Debbie snorted. “Not for free,” she said pointedly.
Vicki handed her a twenty.
“Yeah, sometimes. It’s safer, medically, you know?”
Editing out Phil’s more ornate phrases, Vicki repeated his description of the woman in the alley.
Debbie snorted again. “Who the hell looks at their faces?”
“You’d remember this one if you saw her. She’s …” Vicki weighed and discarded several possibilities and finally settled on, “… powerful.”
“Powerful.” Debbie hesitated, frowned, and continued in