Charlaine Harris: Many Bloody Returns

“Having driven past it approximately twenty-eight times tonight, I doubt I’ll ever forget it.”

“Pick me up there.”

“Aye aye—”

“Once was funny. After that it gets old.”

“Yes, beloved.”

“That one never gets old.”

“Neither do we,” Mark said, and broke the connection.

Stella wasn’t in sight when he drove up but appeared at his window almost immediately. “Move over.” She climbed in and, as she got the car moving, tossed a yellow legal pad and a videotape into his lap.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“My notes from my talk with Norcomb and a copy of the Wal-Mart security tape. Or rather the copy of his copy that I had him make. If he’d had a photocopier, I’d have copied the case files, too.”

“He had all that at his house?”

“For one, your talk today got him thinking about Jane again, and for another, I think he’s a little obsessed with her.”

“Clearly.” Then a thought occurred to him. “He didn’t kill her himself, did he?”

“Nancy Drew would be proud of you,” she said approvingly, “but no, he did not. I asked.”

“You’re sure? How thoroughly did you bespell him?”

“Deeply enough that he won’t remember me, you, or Aunt Estelle. I could have made him forget his own address while I was at it, but that seemed a bit excessive.”

“You’ve got to teach me how to do that.”

“It just takes practice,” she said.

“What else did he tell you?”

“Everything he knows about the case, but there wasn’t a lot more than what he told you, unless you count the forensic details: decomposition, tissue damage, lividity. I’d have been done half an hour sooner if I hadn’t had to ask what all the terminology means.”

“You’ll have to watch more CSI. Any leads we can use?”

“Possibly. It turns out that Jane was at Benny’s the day she went to Wal-Mart.”

“That’s where I met Norcomb. Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Not really. How many restaurants do you think there are in Allenville?”

“Good point. Was she there before or after her shopping spree?”

“Before, when her outfit was still noticeable. Black on black, with a skull ring.”

“No wonder she threw it away.”

“A good thing she did, or the murderer would have disposed of it along with the clothes she was wearing when he killed her.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, it turns out my cousin is one devoted investigator. He went to the dump and found Jane’s old clothes, still stuffed in the shopping bag.”

“Don’t tell me he had that at his house, too?”

“He did. Having a boy like that in the family does my heart proud.”

“And well it might. Did you learn anything from the clothes?”

“I didn’t want to handle them too much—I’ve watched enough CSI to know about contaminating evidence—but I did get a good whiff of them. Of course, I got a good whiff of garbage from the dump, too, but still, I’ve got Jane’s scent.”

“Stella, how good do you smell?”

“Sweet enough to make bees give up roses, according to the perfume bottle.”

“Granted, even without the perfume, but I was referring to your sense of smell. Compared to, say, a bloodhound’s.”

“I’ve never made the comparison,” she said, “but I am considered gifted, even for a vampire.”

“Gifted enough that you’ll be able to track her after two years?”

“It’s a long shot, but since this whole idea is a long shot…”

“True enough.”

It took a while for Stella to find a secluded parking place somewhat near where Jane’s body had been found, though it was still a long enough walk that Mark was glad they were wearing running shoes. Even vampires got blisters on their feet from walking too far in dress shoes.

Finally they found the spot Stella was sure matched the description in the police report, just past a decrepit wooden fence. The neon of Benny’s was visible as a glow above the tree line.

“Now I know why you reeked when you came to bed today,” she said.

Mark inhaled deeply and regretted it. “I see what you mean about chicken farms. They’re foul. Or fowl, if you’d rather.”

“It’s not the chicken,” Stella said. “Yes, I smell them, and yes, they are foul, but there’s something else.”

He started to ask what she meant, but she was leaning over, sniffing at the ground. Mark decided further bloodhound references would not go over well, so concentrated on staying out of her way as she wandered this way and that, sometimes breaking into a run so fast that he’d have lost her if he weren’t a vampire, too.

Finally, after he’d chased her over what seemed like half the state, Stella came to a dead stop. “Here.”

“You actually tracked her?” he said incredulously.

“No, you were right. It’s been too long. I caught a trace of Jane’s scent back where the body was, but that’s it.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“I smelled somebody else. There’s another body here, Mark—we’re standing on the grave.”

“Are you sure?”

“Can’t you smell it?”

“You know I’m new at this,” he grumbled, but leaned over and tried again. She was right. The stench of death was there, though masked by the chickens’ stink and several feet of earth between them and the corpse. “It’s not fresh.”

“No, but I think the one over there is.” She pointed a little bit away.

“There’s another?”

“More than that, I think.”

“Jesus, Stella, what have we gotten ourselves into?”

Between their sense of self-preservation and the realization that dawn was coming, they made their way back to the car and drove back to the hotel, arguing as they went. Mark was in favor of an anonymous call to Norcomb about the bodies, along with another bout of be-spelling him if necessary, but Stella wasn’t willing to risk their involvement coming to light.

Or so she said, but Mark suspected that she just didn’t want to give up their investigation, and when he said so, she pulled rank on him. He objected, and by the time they got back to the hotel, they were no longer speaking.

Mark was still angry when he woke the next day, and both ignored Stella and pretended he’d never heard of Jane Doe. It was only when he’d gone out for lunch, defiantly eating a large bowl of chili with onions on top, that his resolve weakened, as it always did with Stella. She was older, richer, stronger, and faster than he was, and had other vampiric abilities he was just beginning to discover, and he still felt protective of her. He had no idea if it was a man-woman thing, a vampire-sire thing, or just a Mark-Stella thing. Whatever it was, he went to buy something they were going to need, and nearly had it set up when Stella woke.

Her nose wrinkled, so he knew she smelled his lunch despite his using a whole bottle of mouthwash, but she refrained from comment. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I got a VCR so we can watch the security tape.” He made the last connection, turned on the TV and VCR, and reached for the tape.

Stella got to it first. “We don’t have to do this,” she said. “ You don’t have to do this.”

“I know.”

“All that ‘I’m your sire and I say so!’ stuff is bullshit!”

Mark blinked at that—Stella rarely swore—and repeated, “I know.”

“Then why did you get the VCR?”

“Consider it a belated birthday gift.”

She smiled. “Only if you come here and let me give you an early birthday gift.”

He started to join her on the bed but then stopped. “My lunch was kind of smelly.”

“So I won’t kiss you. Not on the lips, anyway.”