3

Rain coming in indeed. Thunder grumbled to the west while he checked the equipment in the patrol car's trunk. Climbing into the car, Garreth racked the shotgun and switched on the ignition prepatory to testing the lights and siren.

All hell broke loose. Above him the siren screamed. Red and white lights flashing across the building and the other cars in the lot told him the light bar was on, too, and the left turn signal. Both the car and police radios blared at top volume and the windshield wipers scraped across the windshield at full speed. The air conditioner blasted him with cold air. A knee cracked against the steering column as he jumped in startlement. With the pain, though, panicky confusion—what did he turn off first?—gave way to a return of rational thought. He switched off the key, then opened the door to lean out and glare back at the department's rear door.

"You're dead, Lebekov."

Maggie grinned wickedly from the top of the steps and jumped back inside.

Shutting off all the switches before he tried the ignition switch again, Garreth chuckled. But amusement faded by the time he pulled onto the street. The problem of the bloodmobile seeped back up. What could he do? He had manufactured a bout with flu the last time, so the excuse of illness had been used up. He needed something else this time.

"Bellamy S.O.," Sheriff Lou Pfeifer's voice drawled on the radio, calling his office. "Emma, call Dell Gehrt and tell him he has cattle out on 282 north of the river again. I almost hit one of his steers."

Garreth swung the car onto Kansas Avenue. The motorcade was in full swing, two lines of traffic on each side of the railroad spur running up the middle of Baumen's main street, teenagers from Baumen and surrounding farms and smaller towns driving cars, pickup trucks, and vans on an endless loop that stretched north to the Sonic Drive-in this side of the railroad station, across the tracks, and south past Baumen's three-block shopping area to the A & W near the edge of town before turning north again. The vehicles parked down both sides of the street and along the tracks belonged to patrons of Bauman's movie theater, open only on weekends, and to adults drinking and dancing in the local bars and private clubs.

Garreth cruised south. His radio muttered sporadically, mostly with traffic from the Bellamy PD and sheriff's offices in Bellamy and surrounding counties. Around him kids honked horns at each other and shouted back and forth between cars. A few cars zigged around others to catch special friends and he kept an eye on one pickup he remembered citing twice last month for jumping lights, but for the most part, traffic remained orderly, following its ritual pattern.

He passed Nat Toews checking the doors of businesses and honked a greeting at the stocky cop.

When the cruise circuit crossed the tracks and turned north. Garreth did, too. Presently a sleek black Firebird with four girls inside pulled up beside him on the inside lane. A blond girl in the passenger seat rolled down her window and leaned out, smiling.

"Hello, Garreth."

Garreth sighed. Amy Dreiling. Well, it was inevitable that he run into her sooner or later this evening. "Good evening, Miss Dreiling."

"Do you have to be so formal?" She pouted prettily. "You always called my brother by his first name."

Only to his face. For a long time Garreth had other names for the banker's son he used in private and with fellow officers. "Scott and I shared what you might call a professional relationship."

"If I buy a customized van and drag race and run stop signs with it like Scott did, will you call me by my first name, too?"

Mention of the van abruptly took Garreth back to another night on this street, an icy one two Thanksgivings ago with him struggling across the treacherous, deserted thoroughfare, bleeding and weak from arrow wounds Lane had inflicted. He held the beautiful vampire prisoner, helpless in the rosary he had managed to wrap around her neck. At the roar of a motor he looked up to see Scott's van and a pickup dragging on the far side of the street. Inspiration flashed . . . a way to destroy Lane by using this boy who continually dared the police to arrest the son of a city father. He hurled himself and Lane across the tracks into the van's path, snapping Lane's neck as he did so.

Brakes screamed in memory, followed by the shriek of metal as the skidding van wrapped around a telephone pole in a vain attempt to avoid hitting the two of them. Then fire enveloped it, set by Garreth to incinerate Lane's body.

Later, however, he had made friends with the boy, stabbed by guilt at the sight of a pale, frightened Scott facing charges of vehicular homicide in juvenile court. With the arrogance knocked out of him, Scott was not a bad kid. Garreth had actually come to enjoy having him ride along on weekends.

Garreth smiled politely at Amy. "You'll do better driving carefully. Good night, Miss Dreiling."

He turned right at the next corner and patrolled the side streets. It netted him two cars with expired tags and one without handicap identification parked in a handicap zone. It gave him satisfaction to call for a tow of the latter, then while waiting for the truck, he also wrote the car up for a broken outside mirror and a missing lens on a tail light.

Thunder growled louder in the west.

Nat's voice came over the radio announcing he was back in his car.

The pace of the evening picked up. Garreth answered a complaint of a barking dog and vandalism on parked cars in a residential area. Between calls, his mind churned. What was he going to do about the bloodmobile?

Lightning flashed in the west, now, accompanying the nearing thunder.

On a swing back down Kansas Avenue, Garreth spotted Nat parked at Schaller Ford and turned in to pull up window-to-window with the other officer's car.

Nat grinned beneath his mustache, a red bush matching his sideburns, though his hair was dark. "How's the groupie? I saw you flirting with her."

Garreth grimaced. "I don't know what's worse, a juvie daring us to pick him up, or one inviting me to. Oh, speaking of juvies, our antenna-twister struck again. Three cars on Poplar. One of the neighbors saw some kids in the area, one matching Jimmy Pflughoff's description."

Nat scowled. "The little shit. If only we could catch him at it."

"He's hit Poplar three times out of five. How about planting a car there, something flashy and inviting, with fairy dust on the antenna?"

Nat arched a brow. "Fine. Now if we can find a night dry enough not to wash off the marker, what car do we use . . . a certain flashy red ZX?"

"You go to hell."

"Not devoted enough to sacrifice you own car, huh?" Nat grinned. "Speaking of flashy cars, there's someone new in town you ought to meet."

"What's he driving?"

"A Continental, but that isn't why you ought to meet him. The car just reminded me of him. He was at the Driscoll Hotel when I went by, asking Esther at the desk if a Madelaine Bieber lives around here."

Garreth fought an irrational desire to run. Don't be ridiculous. What do you have to be afraid of? Nothing . . . except questions that might revive others he preferred everyone to forget. He knew Lane was dead but to everyone else she had mysteriously disappeared. She had been disguised as a man that night. After the fire, of course, what remained of her body had been unrecognizable and Garreth never volunteered her identity. Why should Anna Bieber have to learn her daughter was a killer?

Garreth forced a casual tone. "Did he say why he's looking for Mada? Who is he?"

"He's English. His name's Julian Fowler and he's a writer. I told him no one's seen Miss Bieber for over a year but he still wanted to talk to her family. I sent him over to your great-grandmother."

Despite the knots in his gut, Garreth felt a rush of relief. Now he could stop pretending calm. "What! You sent a stranger we don't know anything about to visit an old woman who lives alone? You should have had him talk to me!" He slammed the patrol car into gear and gunned backward in a tight Y-turn.

"What could you tell him?" Nat yelled after him. "You only met her the once. I'm not stupid, though. I looked over his identification before I gave him the directions. He's—"

"I'm still checking on Anna," Garreth interrupted.