Sams led me into the detective’s bedroom. It was small but attractive, with a sky blue ceiling. Someone had once told me that color was supposed to keep winged insects from nesting there.
Maureen Cooke was a redhead, tall and thin, probably in her early thirties. She had been hung by her bare feet from a chandelier. Her nails were painted red. The detective was naked except for a delicate silver bracelet on her wrist.
Blood streaks were all over her body, but there was no sign of blood pooling on the floor or anywhere else.
I walked up close to her. “Sad,” I whispered under my breath. A human life gone—just like that. Another detective dead.
I looked at Mitchell Sams. He was waiting for me to talk first.
“This might not have been done by the same killers,” I said, and shook my head. “The bite wounds look different to me. They’re superficial. Something’s changed.”
I stepped back from the body of Maureen Cooke and took in her bedroom. There were photographs that I recognized as part of E. J. Bellocq’s study of Storyville prostitutes. Strange, but fitting for a vice detective. A couple of Asian fans had been framed over the bed—which looked as if it had been slept in. Or possibly the bed hadn’t been made the previous day.
My cell phone rang. I hit a button with my thumb. I felt out of it. Numb. I needed sleep.
“Did you find her yet, Dr. Cross? What do you think? Give me your best guess on how to stop these terrible murders. You must have it figured out by now.”
The Mastermind was on the line. How did he know?
Suddenly I was yelling into the phone. “I’m going to take you down. I’ve figured that much out, asshole!”
I hung up on him, then I shut the phone off. I looked around the bedroom. Kyle Craig was watching me
from the doorway.
“Are you all right, Alex?” he whispered.
Chapter 79
WHEN I got back to the Dauphine Hotel it was ten-thirty in the morning. I was too tired and too worked up to sleep. My heart was still racing. There was a message for me: Inspector Hughes had called from San Francisco.
I stretched out on the bed and called Jamilla back. I shut my eyes. I wanted to hear a friendly voice, especially hers.
“I might have something good for you,” she said when I reached her at home. “In my spare time, ha-ha, I’ve been taking a close look at Santa Cruz. Why Santa Cruz? you might ask. There have been several unsolved disappearances there. Too many. I plotted them out myself. Alex, something is happening down there. It fits in with the rest of this case.”
“Santa Cruz was on our original list,” I said. I was trying to focus on what she had just told me. I couldn’t remember exactly where Santa Cruz was located.
“You sound tired. Are you all right?” she asked.
“I just got back to the hotel a few minutes ago. Long night.”
“Alex, go to sleep! This can wait. Good night.”
“No, I can’t sleep anyway. Tell me about Santa Cruz. I want to hear it.”
“All right. I talked to Lieutenant Conover with the Santa Cruz PD. Interesting conversation. Annoying too. They’re aware of the disappearances, of course. They’ve also noted house pets and livestock disappearing in the past year. Lot of ranches in the area. Nobody believes in vampires, of course. But—Santa Cruz has a certain reputation. The kiddies call it the vampire capital of the U.S. Occasionally, the kids are right.”
“I need to see what you have so far,” I told her. “I’m going to try and get a little sleep. But I want to read whatever Santa Cruz sends you. Can you send it to me?”
“My friend Tim at the Examiner promised to send me the relevant files. Meanwhile, today’s my day off. I might just take a ride.”
I opened my eyes wide. “If you go, bring somebody along. Bring Tim. I mean it.” I told her about the murder of the vice detective, Maureen Cooke, here in New Orleans. “Don’t go there alone. We still don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
“I’ll take somebody along,” she promised, but I didn’t know if I could believe her.
“Jamilla, be careful. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“You’re just tired. Get some sleep. I’m a big girl.”