"I think you've got a vampire on your hands, Sergeant Freemont."
They both frowned at me. "Look at the body parts that are missing. The legs of the one boy were cut off after he died. The femoral artery is in the thigh near the groin. I've seen vamps take blood from that in preference to the neck. Cut off the legs, and no fang marks."
"What about the other two?" Freemont asked.
"Maybe the smallest boy was bitten. His neck was sliced twice for no reason. Maybe it was just a little extra violence like the disfigurement of the face. I don't know. But a vamp can take blood from the wrist, the bend of the arm. All parts that are missing."
"One of their brains is missing," Freemont said.
Larry swayed gently beside me. He wiped a hand over his suddenly sweating face.
"You going to be alright?" I asked.
He nodded, not trusting his voice. Brave Larry.
"What better way to throw us off the track than to take something a vamp wouldn't be interested in?" I said.
"Okay, say it makes some sense. Why this way? This is..." She spread her hands wide, staring down at the carnage. She was the only one of the three of us still looking at it. "This is nuts. If it was human, I'd say we had a serial killer on our hands."
"We may have," I said softly.
Freemont stared at me. "What the hell do you mean?"
"A vampire was a person once. Just being dead doesn't cure you of any problems you had as a live human being. If you have a violent pathology before death, that won't change just because you're dead."
Freemont looked at me like I was the one who was crazy. I think it was the word "dead" that was bothering her. Once her suspects were dead, they weren't suspects anymore. I tried again. "Say Johnny is a serial killer. He becomes a vampire. Why should being a vampire make him suddenly less violent? Why not more violent?"
"Oh, my God," Larry said.
Freemont took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slow. "Okay, maybe you're right. I'm not saying you are. I've seen pictures of vampire victims and they don't look like this, but if you are, what do you need from me?"
"The pictures from the first crime scene. And a look at where it happened."
"I'll send the file to your hotel," she said.
"Where was the couple killed?"
"Just a few hundred yards from here."
"Let's go take a look."
"I'll have one of the troopers take you over," she said.
"This is a damn small geographic area. I assume you searched it."
"With a fine-tooth comb. But frankly, Ms. Blake, I wasn't sure what we were looking for. The leaves and the dry weather make it almost impossible to find tracks."
"Yeah," I said. "Tracks would help." I glanced back the way I'd come. The leaves were disturbed coming up the hill. "If it is a vampire..."
Freemont cut me off. "What do you mean, if?"
I met her suddenly accusing eyes. "Look, Sergeant, if it is a vampire it has more mind control than I've ever seen. I've never met a vampire, even a master vampire, that could hold three humans in thrall while he killed them. Until I saw this, I'd have said it couldn't be done."
"What else could it be?" Larry asked.
I shrugged. "I think it's a vamp, but if I said I was a hundred percent sure, I'd be lying. I try not to lie to the police. There may be no tracks up the hill even if the ground was soft, because the vampire could have flown in."
"Like a bat?" Freemont asked.