The elevator door opened, and we headed down the corridor that led to the parking lot.

  "But talking about public relations," Karl said, "always reminds me of this dumb-ass I knew in high school."

  "Did the dumb-ass go into PR?"

  "Nah, he had this idea that he was gonna move out to Nevada and run one of those legal brothels they have there."

  "Interesting career path," I said. "Don't know about the pay, but I bet the benefit package is outstanding. So, what'd the guy do – head out west after graduation?"

  "Uh-uh. He wanted to go to college first, so he applied to the U. He said they had a degree program that would be good preparation."

  "He really was a dumb-ass, then. The University of Scranton is a Catholic college, and I'm pretty sure the Church still discourages prostitution."

  "Yeah, I know. Turned out he'd read their catalog wrong."

  "What do you mean, he misunderstood the catalog? It's written so high school seniors can understand it, for Chrissake."

  "Like I said, he wasn't too smart. He thought they offered a degree in Pubic Administration."

There are several nice apartment complexes just outside of Scranton that spread over several acres, allowing quite a lot of people to live there while creating the illusion of open space. But in town, real estate is too expensive for stuff like that. There are plenty of apartments, but they're mostly in buildings like Franklin Towers on McEvoy Avenue. Like a lot of these places, it doesn't live up to its pretentious name. There may have been somebody named Franklin involved in the design, but there wasn't a tower to be seen – just the usual big concrete rectangle on its side with a bunch of windows.

  Lester Howard had lived, and died, in apartment 518. The uniform stationed at the door peeled back the crime scene tape to let us in.

  The uniform's name was Meroni. I knew him well enough to nod "Hi" in the halls, but that was all.

  "Forensics been here yet?"

  "Not yet, Sarge. Busy night for them. There was a murder over in Dunmore – looks like a domestic, I hear." Dunmore's a suburb of Scranton. They've got their own police department, but it's too small to afford its own Forensics and SWAT, so they share with us.

  "Another crew's over on Mulberry," Meroni went on. "I hear a couple of vamps were found staked in their house. Good riddance, you ask me. Somebody should stake 'em all."

  I glanced at Karl, but apart from a mildly disgusted expression, he didn't react. I didn't say anything about it, either – but there was a time when I might've agreed with Meroni.

  "Just let us in, will you?" I said.

  The apartment looked like it had seen the services of an interior decorator. Not only was it not done in Early Man Cave – which is the style most young single guys adopt – I'm pretty sure most men living alone don't have curtains that coordinate with the walls. Hell, most guys don't even have curtains.

  That impression of quiet good taste continued in the bedroom – apart from the corpse on the bed, which probably wasn't part of the decorator's original plan for the room. I figured it sure wasn't part of Lester Howard's plan.

  In life he had been a thirty-something white male, in decent physical shape, who wore his hair long and his beard short. His penis was large and uncircumcised. In death he was just an extremely pale naked corpse on the bed with two small holes in his neck, his brown eyes staring at something only the dead can see.

  I've been to a few vampire murder scenes. Not many. Vampires don't have to kill to get nourishment, especially in this age, with everything out in the open. But just as there are sicko humans who'd rather rape a woman than have consensual sex, there are some vampires who think that blood tastes best when you take it by force.

  Other times, it's just loss of control. A vampire, especially a baby vamp who's new to the undead state, might be having such a good time at somebody's neck that he can't make himself stop. And the victim, if that's the word, won't always call a halt to it, even when vision starts to fade. I understand that being fanged feels really good, which is why there seem to be so many humans willing to part with a pint or two of their life's essence in return for the pleasure involved in giving it up.

  But something about this murder scene was off, and it took me a minute to figure out what it was. "Look at his facial expression," I said to Karl.

  "Doesn't have much of one, does he?"

  "The guy looks… placid, like somebody laid out in a funeral home – what Mom used to call a 'corpse house'."

  "Your mom sounds like somebody I could've learned to like," Karl said. "But you're right – he doesn't look like any vampire victim I've ever seen."

  "If he gave it up willingly, he oughta look… blissful, not neutral. Like somebody who'd died from an overdose of marijuana."

  "Um, I don't think that's possible, Stan."

  "I'm just sayin'."

  "Yeah, I know. And if he was attacked, there should be bruising and contusions. And his face would look frightened, or angry. Just like anybody else who's being murdered."

  "Which means we have a serious case here of whiskey tango foxtrot."

  He looked at me. "Say what?"

  "Phonetic alphabet for WTF, or–"

  "What the fuck. Yeah, OK. That's pretty good."

  "Christine says they use it at work all the time."

  "Not to the people calling in, I hope." Karl went to the bed, leaned over the corpse, and inhaled loudly. Then he moved a couple of feet down and did it again.

  "You're gonna let me in on what you're doing eventually, right?" I said.

  He straightened up and turned to me. "Vampire senses are more acute than human. All of them, not just sight. You knew that, right?"

  "Yeah, I guess I did."

  "Not all vampires are alike, and I hope you know that, too. But they all give off that characteristic vampire scent. I don't know how to describe it, but it smells like nothing else. And I'm not getting it from this guy, Stan. Not even a whiff."