"So we're back to…"

  "Whiskey tango foxtrot," Karl said. "Exactly." He walked slowly around the bed, staring at the corpse of Lester Howard the whole time. "I think we better give Homer, or whoever does the post, some specific instructions, Stan."

  "Such as?"

  "Have him look at the wound track, if he can work with one that small. See if it gradually narrows, the way it would if fangs made the puncture – or if it's uniform the whole way down, as if somebody used…"

  "A couple of needles. Yeah, I gotcha. And I agree. Anything else you wanna tell Homer?" I said.

  Karl was looking closely at the bite marks – or whatever they were.

  "Yeah, let's have him test the wound for vampire saliva," he said. "He might not do that unless we ask him. Could be he sees what looks like fang marks, figures 'vampire', and never gives the wound a close look. But it needs a close look."

  "Goddamn right it does. And I was thinking we oughta ask him for a tox screen, too. If somebody drained this guy using some kind of needle, they'd need a way to make him lay still the whole time. And no bruises means they didn't just hold him down while they did it."

  "I like the way you think," Karl said.

  "All this stuff is leading us to a bigger question," I said.

  "You mean whiskey tango foxtrot again?"

  "Kind of. Assuming it wasn't one of the undead who chilled this guy – why the fuck would somebody kill him and want to make it look like a vampire did it?"

  "Could be misdirection," Karl said. "Point suspicion away from the human killer. A jealous husband, maybe. Judging from the size of this guy's schlong, it isn't out of the question."

  "Maybe," I said. "Or it could be something a lot worse than that."

  "Such as?"

  "Helter Skelter, buddy. Helter fucking Skelter."

  Karl blew breath out between pursed lips. "You figure they're working both sides at once? Killing supes to make the supe community pissed off, and killing humans in a way that looks like a supe did it?"

  "I hope I'm wrong," I said. "Because if I'm not, this isn't the work of one lone nutcase, or even a couple of them. This could be bigger than we thought."

  Karl gave me the grin again. "Bigger than both of us?"

  "Nothing's that big."

  A Dell desktop computer sat on a small desk in one corner of the room. I made a mental note to have Forensics copy the hard drive for me to look at later. The computer was still on, but had gone into sleep mode. Using the tip of my pen, I moved the mouse a couple of inches – just enough to wake the machine up, and see the last thing that Lester Howard had been doing with it.

  The screen came to life, and I was looking at

DRAC'S LIST

FOR VAMPIRES AND THE THOSE WHO LOVE THEM.

  No matter who the murder victim is – or the killer, for that matter – the detective routine is the same. A forensics crew arrived as we were leaving Howard's apartment, and went in to do their CSI thing. Scanlon and his boys from Homicide never did show up. I guess the word had already gone out that this was a vampire kill, which made it a problem for the Supe Squad alone. I'd send Scanlon a copy of our report anyway.

  Karl and I checked for witnesses by interviewing every tenant on Howard's floor. Nobody we talked to said they had seen or heard anything unusual. Nobody ever sees or hears anything, but you still have to go through the routine. We made note of the apartments where nobody answered the door, so they could be canvassed later. All told, we spent about three hours inside Franklin Towers.

  Back at the car, we'd barely got the doors closed when my cell phone started playing "Tubular Bells". The caller ID simply read "Unknown Caller."

  "This is Markowski."

  "Sergeant, it's Victor Castle. We spoke recently at my place of business."

  "Yeah, how you doing?"

  "Less than optimal, I'm afraid. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

  "So talk."

  "I much prefer to discuss this kind of thing in person, Sergeant."

  "Listen, Castle," I said, "we haven't got time to swing by the rug store right now. Maybe we–"

  "That won't be necessary. I'm only a hundred feet or so away from you. With your permission, I could appear in your back seat almost immediately."

  "If you're so close, why don't you just walk over and get in?" I said.

  "I'd rather be unobtrusive. Your car is not under observation – I determined that while waiting for you to complete your business in that apartment building," he said. "Still, I would prefer not to take the chance that we be seen speaking together at this stage."

  "All right. If that's the way you want it, come on in."

  "Very well. I will see you very shortly."

  I closed the phone and said to Karl, "Don't jump – Castle is about to magic himself into our back seat."

  "Huh? Why the hell would he do that?"

  "Because I think it wise not to be seen talking with you officers," Castle's voice said from behind us. Despite my warning, Karl jumped a little. We turned, and there was the Supefather. He was wearing the jacket that went with his three-piece this time.

  "If you can do this," I said, "and it seems pretty clear that you can, why wait until we got back? You could've been waiting back there when we got in."

  "That would show rather bad manners on my part, Sergeant. In any case, I did not want to startle you officers, and run the risk of a violent response on your part."

  Karl turned to me. "Isn't there a spell on all police vehicles designed to repel magic?"

  "Yes, there was," Castle said, as if he'd been the one Karl asked. "Very competent journeyman work. I dismantled it while waiting for you to return."

  "Who the fuck said you could do that?" Karl said. "Now we're helpless against magic!"