EIGHTEEN

“Could you repeat that? You did what with his head?”

“I stuffed his mouth with garlic. Pay attention.”

Jason checked his notes. Yes. He’d heard her correctly. His boss would scream, but his conscience demanded the next question: “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a lawyer present?” Because you need one. In five years on the job, I have never seen a suspect more in need of legal assistance. And I am including the guy who killed his accountant with a harpoon.

“No lawyer!” The witness/suspect sat bolt upright, though that might have been because the chairs in the interview room were designed by masochists who assumed everyone loved back cramps. “I’m guilty.”

It certainly looked that way. He’d come upon the scene and taken it all in before he even had his ID out. The victim, naked and in pieces. The witness, gloved and wearing old clothes she wouldn’t care were ruined. The grave she’d been digging in the salsa garden. The blooming pink roses behind her, as well as the bright yellow boots on her feet (grave digging = muddy) had been the perfect surreal touch.

The matter-of-fact neighbor who’d called 911 summed it up quite well: “Y’know how when people find out a killer lived in the neighborhood, they’re all ‘But they were so quiet and nice!’? Yeah, not these guys. They’re both fucking crazy. And loud. But mostly with the crazy.” Jason’d written it down verbatim. Too good to paraphrase.

She’d certainly been chatty on the way to the station, waiving Miranda and bitching about the traffic. She was a petite brunette with hair that had been slicked back with so much product, he could almost see his reflection in the top of her head when he handcuffed her. Old jeans, faded paint-spattered T-shirt, no jacket, and those cheerful yellow boots. Hazel eyes, freckles. Small and wiry and she looked adorable, which made sense. Most murderers didn’t look dangerous until they’d gone ahead and taken a life. Sometimes not even then. He’d learned that two weeks into the job.

“So there’s no point in calling a lawyer,” she finished.

“There is, because—”

“No lawyer, flatfoot!”

“What year do you think it is? That is not sarcasm, by the way. That’s a legitimate question because I’m not sure you’re, ah, cognizant.”

“I’m plenty cognizant. It’s 2017, which is just ridiculous given what I had to do this morning.”

“Early this morning, in fact.” He’d gotten the call at 6:37 a.m.

“Well, yeah. I couldn’t kill him at night, obviously.”

I can hear the italics when she talks. “Is that why you drove a stake through his torso?”

“No! I mean, I’m the one who staked him, but I was aiming for his heart. It wasn’t like in the movies,” she admitted.

He sympathized. “Few things are.”

“It was really hard to get it in there.”

“I hear that a lot.”

“I practiced on all those mannequins for nothing!”

“That’s a new one, though.” Jason wasn’t a doctor, but he was pretty sure her blade caught on a rib, which was great news since protecting the heart is their job. But in the end, it made no difference. Despite the miss, the victim had rapidly bled out.

“It was so fast! It was like his body was a garden hose and he was spraying his blood everywhere.”

He checked his notes again. “And you did these things because you thought he was a vampire.”

“Yes.”

“Despite the fact that he had never, not once, per your statement, tried to suck your blood or turn into a bat—”

“Oh, please, that one’s just pure myth.”

“—or burn in sunlight?”

“I said he was a vampire, not that he is one.” She was all irritability and wrath in sunshine yellow boots. “Don’t you know anything?”

“Clearly not.”

“He drank all my blood in a past life.”

“So this was payback?”

“Yes.” This with the expression of “someone’s finally catching up” on her face.

“Which you understand has been illegal since Darrow vs. Henry VIII?” he persisted for the record. “Back in 1964?”

“Yes. It’s why I had to take care of it myself.” The suspect crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a smile almost as cheery as her boots. “There’s not a jury in the world who’ll judge me for it.”

“By definition, every jury judges the defendant, even if the outcome of that judgment is positive.”

She waved away his summary of the American legal system. “They’ll get it.”

“I have to say, you certainly have a positive attitude.”

“Oh, yes.” She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “I’m generally a positive person. Things will work out and if they don’t, don’t give up! You can fix it, you just can’t be afraid of doing the work.”

If she doesn’t go to prison, this woman has a real shot at being a Hollywood spin doctor.

“You are by far the most cheerful person I have ever arrested.”

The woman who had cut off her brother’s head and tried to drive a chair leg (which she’d whittled to a point over the last three months) through his heart beamed. “Thank you!”

“Time to get photographed and fingerprinted,” he said kindly, and she jumped to her feet, clearly ready for the next phase of her adventure.

“That’s okay, why else d’you think I got highlights?”

“Why else, indeed?” he replied, and escorted her out.