Under Suspicion

Chapter Four

Once we got home, and I was able to unclench my fists, I handed Nina my laptop. “Knock yourself out,” I told her.

She looked over my head, a serene smile on her face. “Once my vampire novel becomes a best seller, Harley and I can go on book tours together.”

“That would be nice. The author who writes about vampires that don’t exist, and the vampire who loves him.”

“You have no emotional depth.”

I sighed while Nina tucked my Mac under her arm and pierced the blood bag she was holding, then sucked voraciously. “Thanks. Sorry about Will.”

I shrugged. Though I was semi-used to Nina’s driving, Will was not. He’d spent the majority of the ride with his head tucked between his knees. Before the car had even come to a complete stop, he was hightailing it across our apartment building’s underground parking lot, frantically mashing the elevator’s UP button.

“He’ll recover.”

“Uh, Soph?” Nina gulped. “You have a message.”

I glanced over my shoulder to where Nina had the laptop open. The glow from the screen made her pale skin look an odd, translucent silver.

I spun the laptop to face me and read the subject line slowly. “‘Someone has responded to your request from yourfamilytree.com.’” I blinked at Nina. “What should I do?”

“You should open it.”

Before I could think better of it, I clicked the icon and an animated tree popped up, a single green leaf blinking jauntily begging me to Click and see who’s looking for you!

My heart thundered against my chest and my stomach churned.

“Who is it?” Nina’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I can’t. What—what if it’s him?”

I had grown up under the care of my maternal grandmother. She was the most amazing, special, intelligent woman I have ever known. Of course, when I was an overemotional preteen, she was horrendously embarrassing, odd, and loud. She wore scarves and costume jewelry that made more noise than a tambourine trio; she read palms, tea leaves, and right into my deep-seated fear of forever being an outcast. She died just after I graduated college; and not too long ago, began the unsettling habit of appearing in shiny or glossy objects (cut cantaloupe was a particularly disconcerting fave), giving me advice and ominous clues about my parents and their shady past. Namely, that my mother had committed suicide to protect me.

Oh.

And also that there was a pretty good chance that my dad was Satan. Not the “Your dad is a really bad guy—bad like the devil!” but more the “No, really, your dad is the absolute Prince of Darkness.”

“Just look. You don’t have to do anything about it. Don’t you want to know?”

My finger hovered above the track pad and I focused on that stupid little leaf.

Nina crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Come on, Soph. What are the odds that el Diablo would sign up on Your Family Tree? I would think he’d have better things to do, you know, like Filet-O-Fish Genghis Khan or whisper in J.Lo’s ear or whatever. If anything, I think this is probably a good sign.”

I blew out a sigh. “You know what? You’re right.” I slammed the laptop shut. “It’s probably just another penis ad that slipped through the Family Tree filters. I’ll check it tomorrow. Right now”—I piled up Nina’s selection of vampire-romance reference material—“is all about you and this amazing novel you’re going to write. I’m totally supportive. I totally want you to do this.”

“You’re totally chickenshit.” Nina smiled.

“Totally. See you in the morning.”

I groaned and tried to slap the two morning DJs who cackled in my ear from my alarm clock. Instead, I knocked the picture of my grandmother and me off my nightstand and scared ChaCha half to death, causing her to spring up on her tiny little doggie legs and bark ferociously while backing herself underneath the covers.

I went to the kitchen in search of coffee, but I stopped at the dining-room table, where Nina was slumped over. Her dark eyes were a weird combination of glassy and milky, open, but staring into nothingness. I poked her stone cold arm.

“Nina?”

Her head lolled at the sound of my voice and she blinked up at me. “Is that you, Sophie?”

I did a quick once-over, checking Nina’s pale face and arms for evidence of bruising, bloodletting, or general malaise.

Nothing.

Heat started to crawl up my neck and I crouched down and shook her shoulder violently. “Nina! Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Nina pushed herself up, slowly, painfully. I clutched my thudding heart. “My God, I thought you were dead! Again.”

“I might as well be,” Nina said, full lips pressed into a mournful pout.

“What’s going on?”

Nina blew out a tremendous sigh. “I have writer’s block. It’s horrendous. Awful. Crippling. I now know why authors are so tortured.”

“Well, maybe I can help you. I wrote a little for my high-school newspaper.”

Actually, I wrote a lot for my high-school newspaper and stashed every poignant well-worded “Letter to the Editor” in my locker, along with reams of sorrowful poetry about waxing moons, waning sunlight, and one of the guys from the New Kids on the Block. I never had the guts to submit anything. In high school, I barely had the guts to walk down the hall. I just wanted to blend in then, to quietly hide in my B.U.M. sweatshirts and stretch pants, dissolving into the spiral permed masses, but I always had the unfortunate ability to stand out.

First, on account of my fire engine red hair, which curled in all the wrong ways. Of course, that was correctable and forgettable, but my nickname—bestowed upon me by one of the prettiest, perkiest girls to ever don a Mercy High uniform—stuck. Year after year I endured the whispers, coughs, and downright shouts of “Here comes Special Sophie, the Freak of Nineteenth Street!”

It didn’t matter that Nineteenth was an avenue.

I sat down across from Nina and poked her arm. “Read me what you have so far.”

“That’s just it!” Nina moaned. “I’m paralyzed. I haven’t written a single word!”

“You have to have written something to have writer’s block. Otherwise, we all have it.”

It was nearly ten A.M. and the pace was humming along at UDA, but I couldn’t concentrate. Each time I tried to open a new file, my mind drifted back to Mrs. Henderson, to the putrid odor and the brackish water that was seeping into her carpet and linens. Finally I pushed everything aside and knocked on Dixon’s door.

“Ah, Ms. Lawson, come on in.”

“Hi, Dixon. I was wondering if you had a chance to look over the information I gave you regarding the”—I paused, my stomach folding in on itself—“the incident over at the Hendersons’ house.”

A sympathetic look washed over Dixon’s hard angles. “I did take a look at the information, Ms. Lawson.” He shook his head. “Such a tragedy.”

I sat down. “So what are we going to do about it? I was thinking I could go over there, maybe talk to some of the neighbors, see if they heard or saw anything—”

Dixon held up a single hand, pressing his lips into a smile that was meant to be disarming, but it came off as completely patronizing. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“No, I’m happy to help. Mrs. Henderson—well, as difficult as she was, she was a very dear friend to me. I’d like to be involved in finding her—her killer.”

Dixon’s eyebrows rose. “Her killer?” He licked his lips, his smile inappropriately sly. “Look, Ms. Lawson, I’m aware of some of your previous endeavors, crime fighting and all”—he chuckled, a sound that sent ice water shooting through my veins—“but I sent the Investigations team over to the Henderson house myself, and they assure me that while the house was in disarray, there was absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing.”

“No evidence of wrongdoing? The place was destroyed. There were windows broken and rotting food and ... what do you think? The whole family just up and died all at once?”

Dixon remained very still, very firm. His countenance was marble solid and menacing. The slick smile was gone from his lips; they were slightly parted now, just enough to show the angled bottom of his front fangs. “The Henderson children are with their father. Now, Ms. Lawson, I’ll thank you to stick to your job responsibilities, and those responsibilities only. You need to keep your nose out of things that do not involve you.” Dixon jabbed a long, elegant pointer finger at me. “You are a very important part of this community, Ms. Lawson. You offer a specialized skill in the Fallen Angel Division. But if I find that you’re not giving your own job responsibilities the attention they deserve, you can be replaced.”

Dixon laced his fingers together and offered me a kind, milquetoast smile. “Is there anything else?”

I wanted to stand up and scream—or stake him through the heart—or remind him that I had single-handedly brought down the biggest baddie the Underworld had ever seen, but all I could do was nod mutely. The rage simmered underneath my skin.

“Thank you,” I finally managed.

I was walking back to my office when Nina linked arms with me, hers ice cold and refreshing to the heat that pulsed in mine. “Someone’s walking with purpose.”

“Dixon,” I muttered. “I told him about Mrs. Henderson and he tossed me off the case.”

Nina stopped and unwound my arm from hers, crossing hers in front of her chest. “What case?”

“Not a case, per se, but something is weird there,” I hissed.

“Did he say he was looking into it?”

“He said he had the Investigations team check it out, but there’s something wrong, Nina. I just know it.”

“What’d Alex say about it?”

I swallowed. “He said to leave it alone.”

Nina raised a coy eyebrow. Her lips arced up into a “well, then, leave it alone” kind of smile.

“Something is wrong here,” I repeated. “I have a hunch.”

Nina pirouetted. “Is your hunch that this is the perfect lunching-with-Harley dress?”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning.”

“Is your hunch that this dress is the perfect brunching-with-Harley dress then?”

I rubbed my temples. “You know, I don’t know why I even bother. When are you going for brunch?”

“We’re not. At least not officially. But it behooves a woman to be prepared.”

“Yes. While demons disappear, a woman should always be prepared for brunch.”

Nina narrowed her eyes. “You know what? My heroine’s going to be a go-get-’em crime fighter like you.”

“And, like me, is everyone going to think your crime-fighting heroine is blowing things out of proportion?”

Nina pushed out her bottom lip. “No. That’s not sexy. Cover for me if I’m not back from lunch in time for dinner?”

Nina left me standing alone in the UDA hallway, the fluorescent light buzzing overhead, the hum and din of demons and paper shuffling all around me. My mind went back to the squalid scene at the Henderson house, and I tried to dismiss it, tried to let my suspicions rest, let Dixon’s investigative team allay them.

But something kept niggling at me.

“Alex?” I was upstairs at the police station, rapping on Alex’s office door.

“You’re going to have to knock a lot louder than that,” someone said as they coasted by me. “He ain’t here anymore.”

I felt my eyebrows go up and pushed the door open an inch, poking my nose in. I snaked an arm in and flicked the light switch and then stepped in.

“Alex?”

The room was empty, every cardboard box gone. Alex’s desk was still pushed against the wall, chair stacked on top, but other than that, the room was spartan. It looked as though Alex had never existed—or was never coming back.

An unexpected sob choked in my throat.

“He left? He didn’t even say good-bye.” I sniffled pitifully, feeling tiny and alone.

“Aren’t you Sophie Lawson?”

Had there been anything in the room, I would have tumbled over it when the man spoke. Instead, I clutched my heart and stumbled backward, hyperventilating like a COPD ad.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

The man who was trying to coax me down from my near heart attack was dressed in a pristine San Francisco police uniform, which he didn’t look quite old enough to wear. He had smooth, dark skin and thick eyebrows, which stood out underneath a close-cropped Caesar cut. “I’m Officer Romero. I worked with Alex a couple of times. Are you okay?”

I used the heel of my hand to wipe away my few piteous tears. “Yeah, I just ... um, I’m allergic to carpet and it’s not been cleaned yet. How do you know my name?”

“You’re the one Alex used to call when things were ... weird, right?”

I nodded miserably. Sophie Lawson, Call When Weird. “Yeah.”

“Then it’s a good thing I found you.”

“Look, I really should be heading back to work—”

“We found something.”

I stopped. “Something?”

Officer Romero nodded. “They just pulled it in from the Bay.”

“What is it?”

“We were hoping you could tell us.”

I was following Officer Romero in his squad car, lights flashing (him), Lady Gaga blaring (me). Our little motorcade sliced through the streets, and yellow taxicabs and rental cars swerved to avoid us. I would have felt very presidential and important if it weren’t for the cold stone sitting at the pit of my stomach.

Officer Romero had called what they pulled from the Bay “it.”

When I pulled up to the docks, police barricades were already set up, and a crowd of people hunkered over them. They crowded along the sidewalks, and were rolling up on tiptoes, trying to get a better look. Phones flashed and people chatted as Officer Romero led me through the crowd. I heard the word “chupacabra” uttered under someone’s breath. A woman, with wide brown eyes, whispered, “Tiamat” and pointed toward the dock.

Officer Romero slowed; and when I caught up to him, he leaned into me. “We hardly had the thing out of the water before people started coming down. Everyone’s got a weird idea about it. Frankly, I’m pretty sure it’s just a regular man in a pretty advanced state of decomposition. He’s probably been submerged for quite a while.”

He shook his head and I pulled my sweater tighter across my chest.

“Let me see him.”

I edged around the assembled officers and sucked in a deep breath of ocean-tinged air. Three police officers were standing in a semicircle around a body-shaped lump covered in a blue tarp and leaking seawater. Officer Romero leaned down and edged the tarp back. I saw the dark hair first, tangled with kelp and trash. The smooth arc of his neck was purpled and marred, a thin piece of plastic rope coiled around and around his throat. I saw where his lips were slightly puckered and pale, the scratches at his neck where he must have pulled at the rope. My saliva went sour and I felt that familiar sickening need to vomit. My eyes teared up, and my breathing became hoarse and ragged.

Officer Romero moved the tarp a bit more and I could see the broad, naked shoulders of the man, his lifeless limbs. My heart started a spastic palpitation as the arch of his spine gave way to coarse, sand-sprinkled fur. I knew why the police officers were shaking their heads, while the people gathered at the barricades were uttering the names of legendary creatures.

“It’s a centaur,” I mumbled.

There were very few centaurs registered with the UDA, and this one was curled in on itself. His human hands were bound in front of him; his flank and cloven feet were puckered with clean knife wounds and wound with thin strips of the same plastic-looking rope.

“Did you say something?” Officer Romero asked.

“Who else has seen this?”

Officer Romero opened his mouth to answer but stopped as we were both drawn to a scuffle behind the police barricades. A floodlight had gone up and a camera crew had arrived. In record time the smooth-voiced narrator was going into his spiel.

I knew that smooth voice.

Harley had one hand wrapped around a microphone, the other resting on the stooped shoulder of a woman with dark hair pulled back into a hasty ponytail, half covered by a hairnet. The camera rolled in front of them and Harley asked the woman to describe what she saw; his brows were knitted, eyes rapt.

“Es un demonio.” She clawed her hands and growled, her lips curling into a fearsome snarl. “Es un chupacabra. No lo creia, pero lo vi con mis propios ojos.”

“She says it’s a chupacabra,” Officer Romero informed me with a disbelieving head shake. “My grandmother used to tell us the chupacabra would snatch us from our beds if we didn’t go to sleep. I thought it was a legend.”

“It is,” I said, beelining toward Harley.

By the time I got to him, he was on to another woman, zeroing in on her as she used huge arm gestures. Her cheeks were flushed as she stared into the camera.

“It was Tiamat,” she said, with an exaggerated shudder. “They pulled her in, and when she opened her mouth, I saw the serpent inside.”

Harley had a slight, abusive smile on his face as he ping-ponged his microphone between the two women.

“No, no,” the other woman shook her head, stepping in front of Harley’s camera angle. “Es un chupacabra!” She did the growl again, and a team behind her nodded enthusiastically, backing her up with a chorus of “Sí! Sí!”

I yanked on Harley’s sleeve. “Can I talk to you, please?”

Harley hid his annoyance at my disruption like an absolute pro; his smile never faltered even as he ushered aside his interviewees still fighting over the identity of the body on the dock.

“Sophie, right?”

“What are you doing? You’re riling everybody up.”

“I’m simply interviewing these bystanders.”

I put my hands on my hips and cocked an eyebrow. “For your next book?”

Harley stared me down. “What does it matter? Do you have a theory on John Doe over there you’d like to kick in?” Harley’s brown eyes slid over me, head to toe, and I stiffened, feeling immediately violated. “I bet you’d look great on camera.”

“Aren’t you interested in my best friend?”

Harley blew out a sigh and waggled the microphone in front of me. “Do you have something to add or not? This is for a major network, you know. Not cable.”

“I don’t care. There is nothing to see here. If you know that”—I pointed to the body that was now being moved, still under cover of the tarp—“is a regular John Doe, why are you interviewing these people?”

“I sell books, Sophie, and people like these”—he spread his arms as if he were among his brethren— “keep the myths that I debunk alive. More myths, more books.”

“More sales.”

“Spoken like a true capitalist.” He pressed the microphone underneath my nose. “Are you sure you don’t have anything to add?”

I looked from the fallen centaur to the woman with the hairnet, wringing her hands; the woman beside her was still muttering “Tiamat” and describing the evil attributes of the sea legend.

Harley may not have had fangs, but he looked every inch the bloodsucker lurking beside them, his microphone at the ready.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

I was inching through traffic and listening to Nina’s cell phone ring in my ear after my run-in with Harley and the centaur. By the time a Muni bus cut me off, and a line of Art Institute students zigzagged in front of my car, Nina picked up and I screamed, “Finally!”

There was a short pause and then, “Sophie?”

“Sorry, Neens. I’m stuck in traffic and I just came from the docks.”

“Trolling for dates again? Do we need to have another talk about acceptable places to meet men?”

My left eye started to twitch. “I was on the dock because the police pulled a centaur out of the Bay.”

“That’s weird. Centaurs are not known for their swimming prowess.”

“He’d been murdered.”

“Oh.”

“I called Dixon. Investigations is coming out to take care of it.” I shook my head, tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. “This is scaring me, Nina. First Mrs. Henderson, and now a body in the Bay?”

Nina harrumphed. “Do you know how many bodies there are in the Bay? I’m guessing thousands. That centaur could have been in there for ages and just washed up now. It’s not pleasant, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

“I guess.” I rested my foot on the brake, staring at the flashing lights in front of me. “You know who else I ran into? Harley.”

Nina let out a pained little yip. “Harley? My Harley?”

“He’s already your Harley?”

Nina ignored me, prattling on. “Oh my gosh, is he okay?”

“He’s fine, but I can’t say as much for the people he was talking to. He was here preying on their beliefs. He had an entire camera crew and was interviewing people who saw the—the body.”

“Chupacabra? Anything that looks somewhat odd around here and it’s a chupacabra.”

I nodded, inching my car forward as the light in front of me changed. “Yes, but ... he was practically making fun of them. He was using them to prove his stupid debunking theories—making them look like idiots, like they all believed in these silly, made-up stories.”

Nina blew out a sigh, and I imagined her on the other end of the phone, examining her manicure. “That’s what he does, Sophie. He’s an author. He has to interview people, has to introduce the myths so that he can debunk them. It’s no big deal. It’s what sells his books. Besides, half the legends that people believe in are made-up.”

I wanted to zing Nina with something about her being a vampire, about her being one of the most made-up myths of all, but my mind was still churning, folding over the crumpled centaur and Harley’s shiny white veneers as he listened to the women argue. Dollar signs were practically glistening in his eyes.

“He’s mean, Nina. And he’s wrong. There was a dead demon forty paces from him and he was interviewing some old ladies, getting them riled up about a chupacabra and Tiamat.”

“So what do you want me to do? Drag him to the Underworld to prove that he’s wrong? I’m not sure if you’ve recently read the UDA bylaws, but keeping the whole demon thing under wraps is really something we rely on around here.”

“Doesn’t it bother you at all that you’re all hot and bothered by a man whose entire career centers around the idea that we don’t exist?”

I could hear the rustle of cellophane as Nina unwrapped a blood bag on her end of the line. “According to him, you do exist. I don’t.”

I paused and Nina relented. “What are you really upset about, Sophie?”

My bottom lip pushed out and I slumped lower in the driver’s seat.

“I’m not sure.”