Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives

By the time the traffic cleared and he had a chance to get across the road, she’d disappeared. He crossed anyway, although he had no idea which way she’d gone or what he’d do if he caught up to her. He knew better. He was on a syndicated vampire show, for crying out loud, he’d had crazy stalking fans before. Not as many as Mason, but then, Lee wasn’t the one actually wearing the fangs.

He wondered if she was homeless. The unchanging wardrobe suggested as much. There really wasn’t much he could do, except give her money, but he found he wanted to do something. Be the hero.

He didn’t get much chance to do that these days.

It had been another fifteen-hour day, and all Tony wanted was a chance to spend some time with Lee before falling into bed and starting the whole grind all over again in the morning. The flashing lights on the patrol cars and other emergency vehicles, not to mention the bored looking police officer approaching his car, suggested otherwise.

“Sorry, only residents are allowed into the building right now.”

“I live here.”

Her gaze flicked down to his car. When it flicked back up, she didn’t even pretend to hide her disbelief. “Driver’s license, please.”

Tony handed it over and stared past her as she checked his name against a list. Two EMTs were rolling an elderly man wearing sweatpants and a UNBC t-shirt out of the building on a stretcher.

Tony knew dead.

He knew freshly dead.

He knew long dead and decaying.

He knew undead.

This guy, he was dead.

“Who is he?” he asked, as a man in a rumpled trench coat zipped up the body bag.

The officer glanced over her shoulder. “No idea, no identification. Custodian found him in the mechanical room.” She handed Tony back his license. “ME says natural causes. You’re good to go, Mr. Foster.”

Lee was distracted that night but hey, dead guy in the mechanical room so Tony figured he had cause.

Hoped that was the cause.

Next morning, when Tony pulled into the studio parking lot, he found himself parking next to Constable Jack Elson’s red pickup. Jack had started coming around when a bit player had died under suspicious circumstances, had hung in there when the circumstances had changed from suspicious to really fucking strange, and continued to come around because he was dating the production company’s recently promoted office manager. Leaning on the tailgate, he was obviously waiting for Tony.

“Go easy in there,” he said, as Tony joined him. “Amy’s…”

“In a mood?”

“That’ll do.” Jack rubbed his hand over his head, ruffling his hair up into pale blond spikes. “I had to cancel on her again. I’m working a missing person case and unless he magically appears in the next twenty minutes there’s no way I’ll be free for lunch.” Blue eyes narrowed. “He’s not likely to magically appear in the next twenty minutes is he?”

Tony rolled his eyes. The RCMP constable had been a part of what Amy liked to call “CB Productions and the Attack of the Big Red Demon Thing” where all cards had been laid on the table — and then incinerated — and was remarkably open-minded for a cop, while still managing to maintain his profession’s suspicious nature. “Not as far as I know. Why?”

“He was seen four days ago in Gastown. You were in Gastown four days ago. Know a twenty-seven year old named Casey Yuen?”

“Name doesn’t sound familiar.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You know they … well, we found a body in an alley down the street from our shoot?”

“The John Doe? I heard you found him. And I checked him out, but he’s about seventy years too old.”

“They found another elderly John Doe in the mechanical room at Lee’s condo last night.”

“I heard. You weren’t there when it happened.”

“You checked?”

Jack shrugged. “Things happen around you. But I also heard it was natural causes both times. And that the first guy’s heart had a good reason to give out.”

Valerie. Who he’d seen outside their building the morning of the day the old man had died. It hadn’t even occurred to him to tie her to the second death until Jack’s innuendo.

“The death occurred in the early evening,” Jack pointed out after Tony filled him in, “and I think I’d have heard if it was a second death by hand job. That’d make it a pattern and we watch for those.”

“Neither man had ID.”

“That’s not as uncommon as you might think.” Jack studied him shrewdly. “I’ll check to see if the second body gave any indication of recent sexual activity but I suspect there’s another reason your working girl is hanging around. Lee was playing white knight at the scene and she showed up at the shoot later.”

“How—” Tony cut himself off. “Amy.”

Jack shrugged. “All I’m saying is that if the girl was outside your building, odds are good she was there for Lee not because she’s been helping absent minded old men die happy.”

“I’m not jealous.”