“Help you how?”
“Do your thing. Use your murderer-catching mojo. Get Morrie to break laws and Heathcliff to break bones if necessary. I don’t care. I need to see this killer brought to justice, and the police aren’t going to do it. I’ll get you access to any information you need. Just find the bastard who did this to Fiona.”
I swallowed. “Jo, you do realize you could get in a lot of trouble if they catch me snooping around?”
“I know that. I’m not asking you because I’m crazy with grief and not thinking straight. Well, I am crazy with grief.” Jo reached into her pocket and set a small black jewelry box on the table. “I was going to propose to her at the Halloween festival.”
“Oh, Jo.” Tears pooled in my eyes.
“Yeah, I was going to tell you today, and you were going to try and talk me out of it and tell me that it’s too soon and we’re too young and I would’ve said but we’re in love and what’s the point waiting when you’re in love but nowshe’s dead.” Jo’s hands trembled as she gripped her glass. “I know I’m putting my job and reputation at risk here, but I also know that you get results when the police can’t. You’re not bound by the same rules as they are—”
You could say that again.I thought of Quoth shapeshifting into his raven form to sneak in an open window when we were investigating Ginny Button, or Morrie starting a business to help people fake their own deaths.
“—and you’re a good friend and you’ll protect me if you can.” Jo leaned across the table and squeezed my hand. Her fingers trembled. My heart broke for her. If something happened to one of the guys, I didn’t know what I’d do. I remembered the horrible panic that tore through me when Morrie went over the cliff a few months ago, or when I thought Quoth had been hurt by Christina Hathaway.
My stomach twisted. The truth was, we didn’t need an investigation. I knew who the killer was – Dracula. My next-door neighbor. I just couldn’t say that to Jo.
I could never tell her who I really was or what was going on. Science ruled Jo’s life. She believed in empirical evidence and scoffed at the slightest suggestion of spooky goings-on. If I tried to convince her Fiona was murdered by Dracula himself, she’d think I was crazy or taking the piss. She’d never talk to me again.
If we had access to Jo’s autopsy findings and the police reports, we might be able to see a pattern in the killings, learn how he was picking these victims, and maybe stop him before he piled up another body.
“Jo, of course I’ll investigate. I’ll get the guys on the case. Now, let me buy you another drink and you can tell me everything you know about Fiona and the other victims.”
Chapter Six
“Ican’t believe she’s gone…” Jo stumbled on the steps, her arms flailing wildly as she struggled to stay upright. “I…hic…don’t know…hic…how I’ll live without her.”
As I helped a distraught and wasted Jo up the last step to her flat, my mind flicked back to the brief period we lived together. Jo had been an…interesting flatmate. Between the hearts in the fridge and the plague of locusts she unleashed inside the house, we never had a dull moment.
As soon as I entered, I noticed a lingering scent – a floral perfume nothing like Jo’s usual smoky blend. I flicked on the lights and noticed batik pillows on the sofa, a travel clothesline pegged with outdoorsy clothing, and Polaroid photographs of sights around Barsetshire tagged to the wall – little touches of the life Jo and Fiona had started to forge together.
“So the last time you saw Fiona, she was heading out to the cemetery?”
“Yes. She came to Argleton because her grandfather is buried in the old cemetery and she wanted to place something on his grave. She wanted me to go with her, but I had to go to work, so I said I’d meet her at the Rose & Wimple after. When she didn’t show up, I went to the cemetery to look for her, and there she was.” Jo jammed her fists into her eye sockets as fresh tears flowed down her cheeks. “I just don’t understand it. Who’d kill Fiona just to steal an old box of dirt?”
“What?”
“Fiona’s box wasn’t with her body. The killer must’ve taken it.” Jo took out her phone and scrolled through the images. I held the phone up to the light, squinting at the screen to make out the vague shape of Fiona holding a small wooden box with an inlaid lid. “Here. That box is filled with dirt from Romania. Fiona visited her family’s old farm there – because her grandfather wanted to be buried there, but they’d had to sell it. It’s such a sentimental thing, but that was what she was like, you know? So caring…”
Jo trailed off into more sobs. I took the phone from her hands, staring into Fiona’s bright face. She inherited her Swedish mother’s looks – the statuesque features, the golden blonde hair, the sunshine smile that was for my Jo.She had so much to look forward to.
Dracula killed her and stole this box, but that didn’t give us any clue as to where he hid it.
“Tell me about the other victims.” I pulled Jo down onto the couch. My fingers searched the table for a box of tissues. I felt around a couple of empty wine glasses and something squishy that I’d rather remain ignorant on, but no tissues. I pulled off my scarf and handed it to her, and she blew her nose on it with a loud honk. That was real friendship, right there.
I turned on my phone’s voice recorder and set it down in front of Jo. She hugged herself. “The first victim is Miriam Bledisloe, an office worker and keen hiker. Fiona actually met her a few times at meetings of the Argleton Ramblers. Miriam came back from a hike in the Carpathian mountains a couple of weeks ago, and she was found murdered in her home. There was no sign of a break-in, and the only window open was a tiny one way up high that no human could fit through. The police believe the killer was known to her and she let him in the house, and he locked the door after he left. They didn’t find anything missing, but Miriam lived alone so it’s hard to confirm.”
“Okay.” So she’d been to Romania recently, hiking in a remote place. She could have brought some dirt home with her. But how would Dracula know this?
Jo continued. “The second victim was Dana Hill, the archaeologist. She was found in the woodshed behind her place. What the papers didn’t tell you is that she’s been stealing artifacts from the sites she worked on and selling them online to private collectors. When police searched the woodshed, they found all kinds of coins and things she’s pilfered from sites around the world. What they didn’t find was a shoebox filled with the skull of an Ottoman, still in situ with some jewelry and pottery shards, in the dirt it was found in. Dana had been trying to sell it online that week.”
I nodded along, making a mental note to check if this artifact had any connection to Romania.
“Our third victim was Jenna Mclarey. She was the one found in the cemetery, laying over a grave, the body positioned after death with her arms out, like a crucifix. She works in the village market. She’s married; the husband’s a bit of a troglodyte.” Jo took a shuddering breath. “And then there’s Fiona. As far as connecting the victims, we’re stumped. They didn’t know each other – Fiona vaguely knew Miriam, as I said, and Jenna probably knows everyone in the village from her job, but no deep connections. Both Fiona and Miriam have recently traveled to Romania, but there’s no suggestion the other two have any connection to that country. Both Jenna and Fiona were killed in the cemetery, but not the others. Why? The only thing suggesting a serial killer is the method of murder, and the only time I’ve seen anything like it was the Jane Doe in Kate Danvers’ case…”
As Jo rambled on, her drunken thoughts leaping from place to place, I texted Morrie to ask him to find out if Dana Hill’s Ottoman warrior came from a Romanian site. I wished I could tell my friend what I already knew for a fact – all four victims were in possession of Romanian dirt, and all of them had their blood drained by a monster so that he could become strong enough to drain the world dry.
And Nevermore Bookshop was the only thing standing in his way. No pressure.
