"Yeah, but we'll start with finding out whether they knew each other. The ultimate common factor."

  "Maybe Rachel can help out with that," he said. "Once she gets back."

  "Assuming she's not still mad at us," I said.

  "What do you mean us, kimosabe? I'm not the one who asked her to do the fucking necromancy."

  We were kidding around, a little – we both knew that Rachel Proctor didn't hold a grudge against either of us. Although I wouldn't blame her if she did, in my case.

  Last summer, I'd prevailed upon Rachel to conduct a necromancy so I could talk to the spirit of a murder victim. She'd agreed, against her better judgment. Turned out her judgment was right on the money, because things had gone very wrong. But she said she didn't blame me for any of it, and even gave me some of the credit for later getting her out of the mess that I'd gotten her into in the first place. Nice lady, that Rachel.

  As we reached the gate I saw that the media had arrived in force, although the uniforms were keeping them behind a barrier of crime scene tape that split the parking lot in two. It looked like the four local networks had each sent a camera crew, and a couple of print reporters for the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre papers had shown up, too.

  As soon as they saw us, a couple of mini-spotlights came on, along with the red lights atop the video cameras. The reporters were all yelling questions at us, but Karl and I just squinted against the glare and kept walking. If I made any statements without prior authorization, McGuire would disembowel me with a spoon. Anyway, I don't like journalists, much. I know they're just doing their jobs – but then, you could probably say the same thing for the guards at Bergen-Belsen.

  As I started the car, Karl said, "About two hours to sunrise," which meant two hours before he had to be back inside his apartment's bedroom, in a sleeping bag with a blanket over it.

  "Still time to accomplish a couple of things which might actually prove helpful. I'm gonna call Doc Watson and leave a message on his machine. See if he can spare us some time tomorrow night."

  Terence K. Watson, MD, had been born in the Mississippi delta, the heart of blues country. That's where the nickname came from, although Doc says he can't even carry a tune in the shower. But he's a good psychiatrist, and he's been helpful to us in the past.

  "You mentioned a couple of things," Karl said. "What's the other one?"

  "I want to talk to those two Feebies."

Thorwald and Greer were set up in the squad's break room. It isn't much – a Mister Coffee that nobody every cleans, a small urn with hot water for the tea drinkers, a beat-up table, and some chairs. There's a small refrigerator that nobody ever uses, although Karl's been talking about keeping a bottle of O-positive in there, just for laughs.

  The two Feds were looking through a pile of our old case files, although I couldn't figure what they thought they'd find. As we walked in, I said, "Got a minute?"

  Greer glanced at his partner, then said, "Sure," with a little gesture toward the vacant chairs. We sat down, and I noticed that Karl was staring at Thorwald. Maybe he was considering her as a possible volunteer blood donor. She might've read his mind because she returned the stare and said to him, "You're undead, aren't you?"

  I guess Greer wasn't as sharp as his partner, because he looked at Thorwald in surprise, then transferred the look to Karl. The surprised expression quickly turned into some thing wary. Maybe he thought Karl was going to jump across the table and go for his jugular. I figured Greer didn't have much experience with vampires – maybe neither of them did.

  Karl just nodded at Thorwald's question. There was a time when he would've tried to charm her with a smile, but nowadays his fangs tend to spoil the effect. He usually keeps them covered around strangers.

  "I didn't know that the Scranton PD was recruiting vampires," Thorwald said. She didn't have Greer's leery expression, but didn't look like she was about to ask Karl to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance, either.

  "They're not, far as I know," Karl said. "I was a cop before I was a vamp." He said it as if he was discussing tomorrow's weather.

  "He was… changed… in the line of duty," I said.

  Karl nodded and added, "It's a long story," meaning one he wasn't interested in telling now, if ever.

  "I wanted to ask you about these videos," I said.

  "What about 'em?" Greer asked.

  "You said there were four, so far," I said.

  Greer shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

  "So how do you know there's only been four?"

  There was a battery-powered clock on the wall near us, and I heard it tick seven times before Thorwald said, "You've got a point, Sergeant. There could be more of these atrocities than the four we have copies of. But our agents nationwide have been pushing their contacts and informants pretty hard, especially now that they know what to look for."

  She took a sip of what looked like cold coffee, and I gave her credit for not grimacing, even though it probably tasted like battery acid.

  "My best estimate is that there are only four, so far," she said. "But I won't discount the possibility that there are others out there."

  "And there'll probably be more soon," Greer said. "Unless we find these fuckers first."

  "You've seen all four of them," I said.

  Thorwald made a face that would have gone well with the cold coffee. "Several times each," she said. "It doesn't get any easier with repetition." Maybe she wasn't quite the hard-bitten Feebie that she acted like.

  "Were all of them filmed in the same place?" I asked.

  "We think so," she said. "Although the lights are focused on the protective circle, there are some shots, pans mostly, that give a quick glimpse of one of the walls."

  "Red brick," Greer said. "We took screen caps from each video and compared them for the same basic shot in each one – a head-on view of the victim in his chair before the fun begins. The configurations of the bricks in the background are identical. That means–"

  Karl interrupted him. "It means that the camera angle is exactly the same each time. It has to be. And if the camera hasn't been moved from one murder to the next, that's another point in favor of the location being the same each time."