Next I made an even longer list of cities where nonlethal attacks by supposed vampires had been reported and investigated. I stared at the list and got a little depressed. This was starting to look like an impossible conspiracy.
New York City
Boston
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Virginia Beach
White Plains
Newburgh
Trenton
Atlanta
Newark
Atlantic City
Toms River
Baltimore
Princeton
Miami
Gainesville
Memphis
College Park
Charlottesville
Rochester
Buffalo
Albany
The violent crime unit in Quantico was working round the clock on the murders. Kyle and I were pretty sure that other cities would turn up, and that the pattern might go back longer than eleven years.
In Atlanta, Gainesville, New Orleans, and Savannah there appeared to have been murders in at least two different years. So far, Charlotte, North Carolina, was the worst hit: There were three suspicious murders going back to 1989. It was even possible that the killing spree had started in Charlotte.
The FBI had moved agents into the twelve cities where murders had happened, and special task forces had been set up in Charlotte, Atlanta, and New Orleans.
I finished up with my investigation in Charleston. It didn’t accomplish too much. At this point, the media didn’t have the story about the wide net of murder cities, and we wanted to keep it that way for as long as we could.
That night, I visited Spooky Tooth, the only club in the Charleston area that was a hangout for Goths and vampire wanna-bes. What I found there was a nest of young people, mostly under twenty. They were still in high school or college. I interviewed the owner of the nightclub and questioned some of the clientele. They were definitely angry and restless, but no one seemed a likely murder suspect.
I made sure I was back in Washington the next afternoon. At seven-thirty, Nana, Jannie, little Alex, and I went to a Boys’ Choir concert.
The choir sounded better than ever. Damon was one of the featured singers. He had a beautiful solo, “The Ash Grove.”
“See what you’ve been missing?” Nana leaned in close and said.
Chapter 45
WILLIAM AND Michael liked being in the South. It was wild and free-spirited, just like they were. Most important, they were right on schedule.
They had arrived in Savannah, Georgia. William drove the van along Oglethorpe Street and stopped at the famous Colonial Park Cemetery. Then he went on to Abercorn. Then along Perry Street, passing Chippewa and Orleans Squares. He told Michael, lectured to him, “Savannah is built on its dead. A whole lot of this port city is built on the graveyards.” Also that Savannah had been spared in the Civil War and now was one of the best-preserved Southern cities.
William liked this beautiful city very much and was pleased that they had to take a victim in Savannah. It would be a pleasure to feed here, and to fulfill their mission. He lost track of the street names as he took in the sights of the historic district. Magnificent Federal-period town houses, nineteenth-century churches, fancy ironwork with scrolls and Greek motifs, flowers everywhere. He admired the famous old houses: Green-Meldrim, Hamilton-Turner, Joe Odom’s first house.
“It’s beautiful and elegant,” he told his brother. “I could live here. You think we should settle down one day? Would you like that?”
“I’m famished. Let’s settle down soon,” Michael replied with a laugh. “Let’s settle down and feast on the finest that Savannah has to offer.”
William finally parked the van on a street called West Bay, and he and his brother got out and stretched their arms and legs.
Two young girls in Savannah College of Art and Design T-shirts and blue-jean cutoffs came strolling up to the van. They had long, shapely legs, butterscotch tans, and seemed not to have a care in the world.
“Can we give blood here?” the smaller of the girls asked with a conquering smile. She looked to be around sixteen or seventeen. She had lip studs and wild cherry Jell-O–dyed hair.
“Aren’t you the dainty morsel?” said Michael as he locked eyes with the girl.
“I’m a lot of things,” she said, and looked over at her friend, “but dainty sure isn’t one of ’em. Don’t you agree, Carla?” The other girl nodded and rolled her green eyes.
William looked the girls over and thought they could do better in Savannah. These two tramps weren’t worthy of him and Michael.
“We’re closed for business right now. Sorry.” He was polite and smiled graciously, even seductively. “Maybe a little later, ladies. Why don’t you two come back tonight? How about that?”
The short girl snapped, “You don’t have to get an attitude. We were just making conversation.”
William lazily ran his hand back through his long blond hair. He continued to smile. “Oh, I know that. So was I. Who could blame me for chatting up two beautiful girls like yourselves? Like I said, maybe we’ll see you later tonight. Of course we’ll take your blood for the cause.”
William and Michael decided to take a stroll toward the Savannah River and an area called Riverfront Plaza. They barely noticed the freighters and tugs on the water, or the gaily festooned paddleboat, the Savannah River Queen, or even the “Waving Girl” statue, towering and bronze, a young woman waving a sad farewell to departing sailors. They preferred to check out the men and women walking through the plaza. They were looking for prey, even though they knew it would be dangerous to strike here in broad daylight. A flea market was in progress, and the various local artists had drawn a respectable crowd—a few soldiers, but mostly women, some of them very attractive.
“I do want to take someone. Maybe right here in this oh-so-fucking-pretty river park,” William finally said.
“He’d do nicely,” Michael said, as he pointed out a slender male in a black T-shirt and blue-jean cutoffs.
“Or maybe just a snack. How about that delectable two year old in the sandbox there? Yum. Much better than that sickly sugar sweetness I smell everywhere.”
William enjoyed his brother’s humor. “That’s pralines you smell. The barbecue is supposed to be especially good here too. Very spicy,” he said.
“I don’t want any stringy pork or beef.” Michael wrinkled his nose.
“Well,” William finally began to relent, “maybe we could have a quick bite. What do you see that you like? You can have anything you want.”
Michael pointed out his choice.
“Perfect,” whispered William.
Chapter 46
THIS WAS bad. There had been another grisly vampire-style murder—in Savannah. Kyle and I rushed down to Georgia in a shiny black Bell Jet helicopter that would have done Darth Vader proud. Kyle wouldn’t let the case go. He wouldn’t let me go either.
Even from the air, the seaport city was stunningly beautiful, with its clusters of mansions, quaint shopping districts, and the Savannah River winding through golden yellow marshes out to the Atlantic. Why were the attacks taking place in crowded, attractive locales? Why these particular cities?
There had to be a reason this was eluding all of us so far. The killers had to be playing out a complex story / fantasy. What the hell was it?
An FBI sedan was waiting and it rushed us to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The church was on East Harris, in the historic district. Police cruisers were parked everywhere among the antebellum homes. So were EMS vans.
“The highways around Savannah are completely blockaded,” Kyle told me as we made our way through the heavy traffic near the church. “This is the most bizarre and lurid thing to happen around here since John Berendt’s book. Or, I suppose, the murder that inspired it. Should bring in lots more tourists, though, don’t you think? Maybe the vampire tour will come to rival the one for Midnight in the Garden of
Good and Evil.”
“Not the kind of visitors the chamber of commerce, or especially the residents, probably want to see here,” I said. “Kyle, what the hell is going on? The killers are working right in our face. They’re telling us something. They strike in beautiful cities. They murder in public parks, in luxury hotels, even in a cathedral. Do they want to get caught? Or do they believe they can’t be caught?”
Kyle looked at the church spires up ahead. “Maybe it’s a little of both. I agree, though. They are reckless for some reason I don’t quite fathom. That’s why you’re here. You’re the profiler. You’re the one who understands how their sick minds work.”
I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that these killers wanted to get caught. Why did they want to get caught?
Chapter 47
KYLE AND I got out of the sedan and hurried toward the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. A gold-and-white banner over the main door proclaimed, “One Faith, One Family.”
The twin spires of the church rose high over the city of Savannah. The style was French Gothic: grand arches and traceries, impressive stained-glass windows, an Italian-marble altar. I was taking everything in—everything. But nothing had clicked yet.
The murder had been discovered less than two hours ago. Kyle and I were in the air minutes after we heard the news from the Savannah police. The story was already all over TV.
The sweet smell of incense was in my nose. I could see the victim as we entered the cathedral. I groaned and felt a little sick to my stomach. It was a twenty-one-year-old male, which I had known from the early reports; an art history major at the University of Georgia named Stephen Fenton. The killers had left Fenton’s wallet and money. Nothing had been stolen—except his shirt.
The cathedral was large and could probably hold as many as a thousand worshipers. The flow of light from the stained-glass windows created a pattern of colored patches on the floor. Even from a distance, I could see that the victim’s neck had been torn open. The shirtless body was toned and sculpted, just like the others. It lay at the foot of a station of the cross, the thirteenth. The floor was stained with blood, but not much liquid remained.
Did they drink the blood here in the cathedral? Was this about sacrilege? Religion? The stations of the cross?
Kyle and I approached Stephen Fenton. A body bag was already laid out in the nave. Technicians from the Savannah Police Department stood by. They were restless and angry, anxious to do their work and get out of there. We were holding them up. The local medical examiner was doing his examination of the body.
Kyle and I knelt over the body together. I pulled on a pair of plastic gloves. Kyle almost never used them. He rarely seemed to touch evidence at a crime scene. I had always wondered why. His instincts were good, though.
But if we were both so good, why didn’t we have any clue as to where the killers had gone or when they might strike next? That was the question that nagged me more and more at each murder site. What was this gruesome rampage about?
“They’re so goddamn impulsive,” I muttered to Kyle. “I suspect they’re both under thirty. Maybe early twenties or even younger. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in their late teens.”
“Makes sense to me. They don’t seem to have any fear at all.” Kyle spoke softly as he looked at the student’s wounds. “It’s as if a wild animal has been turned loose. Like the tiger. First in California. Now here on the East Coast. The problem is that we don’t really know how far back the killings go, or how many killers are involved, or even if they’re working out of this country.”
“That’s three problems. Three subsets that require answers we don’t have. Your agents still talking to people at the Goth and vampire clubs? The Internet? Somebody has to know something.”
“If anybody knows, they’re keeping it to themselves. I have over three hundred agents full-time on this case, Alex. We can’t keep this heat up.”
I looked up at the wooden station of the cross. It depicted Jesus being taken down from the cross and laid in his mother’s arms. The crown of thorns. The Crucifixion. Piercings. Blood. Was blood the connection here? Eternal life? I wondered. In Santa Barbara, Peter Westin had mentioned that some vampires were spiritual. Was this a ritual killing or a random one? Should I talk to Peter Westin again? He seemed to know more about vampires than anyone else I’d met.
The victim was wearing khaki trousers and new Reebok sneakers. I examined the wounds to his neck. There were also gouges on his left shoulder and parts of the upper chest. One or both of the killers was very angry, close to a rage state.
“Why take the shirt?” Kyle asked. “Same thing in Marin.”
“Maybe because it was blood soaked,” I answered as I continued to look at the student’s wounds. “These are definitely human bites. But they’re attacking like animals. The tiger is a model, a symbol, something important. What, though?”
Kyle’s cell phone sounded, and he flipped it open. I couldn’t help thinking of the Mastermind—his constant calls to me. Kyle listened to whoever it was for about twenty seconds.
Then he turned to me. “We’re going to Charlotte right now. There’s been another murder, Alex. They struck again. They’re already in North Carolina.”
“God damn them! What the hell are they doing?”
Kyle and I raced toward the doors of the cathedral. We ran as if we were being chased.
Chapter 48
EVERY ONCE in a while, a single murder, or a series of murders, horrifies us, catches the public’s imagination in an almost obscene way. Jeffrey Dahmer’s bizarre spree in Milwaukee; the murder of Gianni Versace and subsequent killings by Andrew Philip Cunanan; the Russian, Andrei Chikatilo, reputed to be the worst. Now this bloody rampage on two coasts of the United States.
It was fortunate that we had the FBI helicopter to get us out of Savannah and over to Charlotte. While we were still in the air, Kyle was in contact with his operators on the ground, who had surrounded a ramshackle farmhouse about fourteen miles outside Charlotte. I had never seen Kyle so animated and excited about a case before, not even Casanova or the Gentleman Caller.
“Looks like we caught a break,” Kyle said to me. “No one will get out of that house until we get there. I like our chances.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “I’m not convinced these are the same people.” I had stopped making assumptions about the killers. Why Charlotte, North Carolina? This would be the fourth attack in the same city. Had everything been leading us to Charlotte? Why?
Kyle listened to another situation report from agents on the scene, then he related the relevant details to me. “The parents of a seventeen-year-old Charlotte boy were attacked in bed late last night. Both bludgeoned to death. A claw hammer was found at the scene. There were bites on the bodies. There’s evidence that either a large animal attacked the two adults, or the assailant was wearing sharpened metal fangs.” Kyle rolled his eyes. He still didn’t have much truck with vampires.
“The boy then fled to an abandoned farmhouse near the Loblolly River outside Charlotte. As far as we know, the people loitering in the house are mostly teenagers. Apparently, some are as young as twelve or thirteen. It’s a mess, Alex. Everything is on hold until we get there. The age of some of these kids is a real problem.”
A little more than ten minutes later we landed in a wide meadow brimming with wildflowers. We were less than three miles from the house where the killer might be hiding. This was Bonnie and Clyde stuff. By the time we got to the thick woods surrounding the house it was past five o’clock. It would be dark soon enough.
The house was a two-story wood-framed structure obscured by an overgrowth of wisteria and myrtle. Pinecones, hickory nuts, and what are known locally as sweet gum monkey balls covered the ground where we hid and watched. Everything about the place brought back memories of where I had grown up in the South. Not too many happy moments, unfortunately. My mother and father had both died in their thirties, well before their time. My therapist has a th
eory that I see myself dying young because both my parents did. The Mastermind seems to hold a similar theory, and perhaps wants to put it into action soon.
The roof of the old house was sharply pitched; a narrow attic window was broken in two places. The peeling white-painted clapboards were mostly intact, but the asbestos-shingled roof was bare in spots, revealing tar paper. Creepy, creepy, creepy.
The FBI was supersensitive to the fact that most of those inside the house were probably under twenty years old. They didn’t know exactly who they were or if any had police records. There was no proof they were involved with the murders. It was decided that as long as we remained undetected, we’d wait until night to see if anyone left or entered. Then we would move on the house. The situation was getting sticky, maybe political, and there would be consequences if a minor got hurt or killed.
In sharp contrast, everything seemed peaceful in the woods; the ramshackle house was strangely quiet considering all the young people who were supposed to be in there. No loud laughter or rock music, no smells of cooking. Dim lights were flickering.
My growing fear was that the killer was already gone, that we were too late.
Chapter 49
SOMEONE WAS whispering close to my ear—it was Kyle.
“Let’s go, Alex. It’s time to move on them.”
At four in the morning, he gave the signal to breach the house. Kyle was calling all the shots. He had authority over the locals too.
I accompanied a dozen agents outfitted in blue windbreakers. Nobody was feeling too secure about the raid. We moved cautiously to within seventy-five yards of the house, the edge of the pine forest. Two snipers, who had dug in about thirty yards from the house, radioed that it was still quiet inside. Too quiet?
“These are mostly young kids,” Kyle reminded us before we went in. “But protect yourselves first.”