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Delta Blues

The afternoon was hot, and humid, as it usually got on the delta in the summertime. The precinct’s air conditioner fought hard to keep up, but was sadly succumbing to the siege of heat coming from outside. Detective Kaomin MacDonald was hoping for a breeze to come up off the lake, as it sometimes did, but it was only a hope.

His desk was cluttered, several cases lay open where he could peruse them yet again as if he was able to resurrect a clue by sheer willpower. The clutter matched the dingy, off white walls and brown linoleum floor, as well as the single door with ‘Supernatural Investigations Unit Two’ stenciled on it in reverse. He had no window. It was better than ‘Broom Closet’, which he was sure had been stenciled on the door before the Commissioner had decided to create a unit dedicated to vampire related investigations. He was still awaiting his file cabinet, and the promised partner. The detective was fairly sure they wouldn’t find anyone foolish enough to volunteer, but seriously how hard was it to find a file cabinet.

MacDonald was just about to get a coffee when there was a knock on the door and his Sergeant stepped in.?

“Hey, Mac,” the Sergeant began, “it’s hot as hell up here, open the friggin’ door already.”

“If I open it,” Kaomin said, “people come in. What brings you upstairs, Sarge?”

The big man huffed a short laugh. “Got a case you might be interested in. The gang unit responded to a fight between the Lobos and the Kings this morning, we got about half a dozen of each in the morgue.”?

“Yea, heard about that, but they’re were-creature related. I’m a vamp guy,” he offered, not bothering to add that he was the only ‘vamp guy’.

“One of the bodies was exsanguinated,” the Sergeant stated, “looks like it was already there when the fight started, or so the coroner thinks. Found him nude without any blood, or his junk.”

Kaomin was already sitting up. “Emasculated? That’s a new one. Post mortem, or pre?”

“Does it matter?” the Sergeant asked, “whoever offed him took his johnson.”

“Yea it matters,” MacDonald shot back as he stood up and grabbed his suit jacket. “One is sadistic torture and the other is a trophy. Speaks to the kind of psychopath that did it. Might even have been an accidental overfeeding incident, and the vampire wanted a lover’s momento.”

“You’re one creepy bastard, Mac,” the Sergeant said shaking his head. “Body’s at the morgue now, crime scene’s over on Canal near Second. Detective Brewster has the files, he’ll brief you. Good luck.”?

“Great,” Kaomin said to himself after the sergeant had left, “Brewster. Fuckin’ were-bear asshole.”

Brewster was a big man, just under seven feet tall, and well over three hundred pounds. MacDonald was, of course, of slightly less than average height and build. “Hey, Brewster,” he called out as he entered the bullpen, “Sarge says you got the file on the exsanguination victim.”

Standing up, Brewster scanned the room at his own eye level. “Who said that?” he teased. “Stand up and show yourself.” He held the file up over his head, inches from the ceiling, “got the file right here.”

“Shite,” Kaomin muttered. Going ‘dark’, a trait of his dhampiric nature that rendered him, if not invisible, at least completely unnoticed, he jumped to Brewster’s empty chair and leaped over him, snagging the file in mid jump.

“Thanks mate,” he called back with the file in his hand, “you rock!”

As he strolled out several of the other Supernatural Investigation Unit One officers snickered as Brewster stood there open mouthed. Finally the were-bear closed his mouth and muttered, “creepy lil’ fucker.”

The neighborhood around Second and Canal was run-down industrial. Old brick warehouses and workshops shared space with salvage yards and peeling clapboard houses. The area reeked of oil and stagnant water sweltering in the summer heat. There were chalk outlines everywhere and tatters of forgotten crime scene tape still fluttered in the faint breeze.

MacDonald took the photos out of the file folder and walked around, getting a feel for the scene and orienting himself. Finally he located the narrow culvert where the vampire victim was discovered. He knelt down, holding the best photo in line with the area in front of him.

Suddenly he was overshadowed and he looked up to see who was blocking his light. “Here, this is a crime scene,” he said, “I’ll have to ask you to stand back.”

“You MacDonald?” a female voice asked. She was backlit by the summer sun, so Kaomin couldn’t get a good look at her. He could, however, tell she was holding out a police shield.

“Aye,” he replied, “call me Mac, and who might you be?”

“Your new partner,” the interloper stated.?

MacDonald stood up to get a better look at his ‘new partner’. “I expected the file cabinet first,” he stated, “who did you piss off to get assigned to S.I.2?”

“How about everyone?” Romy Livingston merely shrugged. The world they lived in wasn’t an easy one. It was basically all about who you knew or rather who you didn’t. A lot of people in the force didn’t exactly like her. There were a couple of reasons for that. For one, she was a woman. That of course was somehow the least offensive on her resume, changed times and all that jam. Though the force in its entirety was still very much a boy’s club, they were gradually easing into the whole concept of women being around for more than just glorified coffee makers.?

The second reason for her not being quite so popular was the fact that she was rather young in the grand scheme of things. A 26 year old police officer wasn’t that out of the ordinary, but one out of uniform quite so soon? I started up the rumor mile. Surely she had to be screwing someone at the top to work herself up the ranks quite so quickly. Didn’t really matter that none of those rumors were actually true. Once people made up their minds about things, damn did they make up their minds.?

The third reason of course was the most obvious. Her not being quite as human as she probably ought to be. Not a wolf though. Nope, that would of course be far too easy. Were cat more precisely. People, especially humans tended to dislike having a partner that changed into a white leopard every time she tended to get angry. It was quite the relationship breaker as well as it turned out to be.?

And then of course there was the fact that the last case she had been working on, while in uniform she had actually broken a perp’s nose just because things got a little personal. Hey, what could you do. She had ordered him to stay down. When people didn’t listen they tended to get what was coming to them.?

“Romy Livingston,” The young woman introduced, extending her hand. “Would say that it’s good to meet you but that of course still remains to be seen.” Polite yet not beating around the bush, Romy honestly didn’t seem the point in that. “So what do we have here? Fill me in?”?

As he held out his hand to shake his new partner’s Kaomin said, “my apologies for the disappointment. I’m assuming you’ve been briefed on me, so I’ll spare you the gory details.” She was young for a detective, and easy on the eyes at least. Kaomin figured it could have been worse, they could have saddled him with a moronic lout like Brewster. Livingston seemed at the very worst inexperienced, but somewhat intelligent, and she moved with a grace that screamed ‘werecreature’. He decided that he could work with her, at least for a few days.

“This here,” Kaomin continued, turning his attention to the scene, “was the site of a rather nasty gang fight last night. When they were collecting evidence, our very good friends at S.I.-one found an extra corpse. Seems he had been dead a few extra hours, possibly a day, and exsanguinated.” He winked, “that means he didn’t have a drop of blood in him, which is when they called in S.I.-two, that’s us, the vampire hunters.”

Offering a slight grimace Kaomin added, “oh, and whoever did it stole his family jewels as well. We’ll have to check in with the coroner next to see exactly what bits are missing.”

He scanned the area again and then passed Romy the file. “I was hoping to gather some evidence, but the whole crime scene’s been compromised by both the gang bangers and the investigators this morning. All we got’s in that file, and on the body. There’s a coffee shop on the next block, how about we give you a few minutes to read that out of the heat?”