I spent the next two hours in my office poring over the file Gladys had given me. I was on my own with this case. The LAPD had effectively shelved the case, and, quite frankly, I was Gladys's only hope.
Perhaps Veronica's only hope, too.
No pressure or anything.
There was a time when I was without hope, too. A pathetic, hopeless drunk. There had also been a time when I couldn't have been happier. A wonderful marriage. A sweet little son. Within a matter of years, two tragic accidents, and a lot of alcohol later, it was all lost to me. My wife, my son, and my freedom. I had spent a year in prison, sobering up.
Vehicular manslaughter.
With that afternoon's donuts still churning sluggishly in my digestive system, I locked up my office and decided to hit the first name on the list.
According to Gladys's notes, the first name was Veronica's best friend. Gladys didn't have a number for the girl, but she knew where she worked. She car-hopped at Industrial Burger in Hollywood.
"Oh, goody," I said to my empty Camry. "More grease."
I was in luck. And luck is imperative in my business.
In this case, my luck consisted of catching Veronica's good friend, Nicole, on the right day at work. According to the manager, (after, of course, I showed him my P.I. license and slipped him a $20 bill), her shift would start in just under an hour.
Happy that the investigation was off to a good start - not always the case, trust me - I ordered a Diet Coke and sat in my car and waited.
While I waited, I did some research on my iPhone; in particular, I Googled vampire slayers. I was disheartened to see nearly three million hits came up, most about Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
I adjusted my search parameters: vampire slayer -Buffy.
Better. Only five hundred thousand. So I settled in with my diet soda and spent the next hour or so reading about all things undead and those who hunt them.
My conclusion after an hour of reading?
Well, outside of popular literature, no one took vampires or vampire hunting very seriously. There seemed, in fact, to be very little evidence of real vampires anywhere. Outside of a vampire hunting kit on display at the Ripley Museum in Niagara Falls, NY, and the ludicrous incident of the Highgate Vampire Hunt in England, which featured a couple of goofballs running around a cemetery claiming to be hunting vampires, there was remarkably little information about honest-to-God vampire hunters. Unlike ghost hunters, whole groups of which numbered in the tens of thousands around the world.
So what was I to make of this?
Apparently, more people saw a need to hunt ghosts than vampires. In fact - a quick Google search later - there were no legitimate vampire hunting groups out there.
Conclusion: obviously more people believed in ghosts than vampires.
I sat back in my hot seat and thought about it. So why in the hell would a teenage girl claim to be a vampire slayer?
I opened Gladys's file next to me and took out the two blown up pictures I had of Veronica. Included with the two pictures was a hand written note apologizing that these were the only two pictures she had.
The girl in the picture was not small. In fact, the girl seemed to have grown three or four inches between the two pictures. One featured a defiant-looking young teenager at a BBQ, holding a paper plate overflowing with food. She was looking at the camera with a smoldering look, daring the picture taker to take another shot. Her hair was pitch black, short and completely straight. She was wearing shorts and sandals and a lot of attitude.
The second picture couldn't have been more different. Her short hair was now long. Gone was the attitude, now replaced with an underlying confidence. In the picture she was standing with Gladys, her arm around the elderly woman's shoulders. Veronica had perfect posture, shoulders thrown back, back perfectly straight, easily a half a foot taller than her adopted grandmother. Veronica wasn't smiling in this picture, either. Most interesting, she seemed like a young lady who was very secure in who she was.
A rare feat if you ask me.
She also didn't look crazy. She wasn't dressed in the typical goth fashion, either, which I had suspected she would. If anything, she looked like the captain of her high school volleyball team or the center for the basketball team. She radiated calm and poise and great inner strength.
Again, a rare feat for a girl so young
Hell, if this girl in the picture told me she was a vampire hunter, I'd almost be inclined to believe it.
Which brought me back to Gladys. The old lady was looking more and more like she was, as Detective Hammer put it so eloquently, off her rocker.
It was at that moment, as I sat there perplexed and sweating, that a young lady skated smoothly across the baking pavement and rolled expertly up to my window.
"Bobby said you wanted to speak with me?" she said.
Nicole was still in high school. She was fit and athletic and seemed to have this skating thing down pat. I would have killed myself many times over.
I showed her my P.I. license. "I've been hired to find your friend Veronica."
She leaned down and studied the picture, then looked at me and studied me. She nodded. Apparently, I checked out. Oh, goody.
"Did Gladys hire you?" she asked.
"Yes, and please tell me she's just a crazy old lady whom I shouldn't take seriously."
Despite her youth, the girl smiled at me knowingly. "Unfortunately, she's probably the sanest of us all."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
She grinned. "I think we need to talk."
"I couldn't agree more."
"Then you need to order something, or my boss will be all over my ass."
I said sure and she handed me a menu. I scanned it.
"You have anything here that won't give me a heart attack before we're done talking?"
"We have side salads."
"Fine. Then get me two of those with some extra ranch."
She laughed and rolled away. The waitresses here all wore bright yellow shiny spandex pants that made them look like life-sized gold statues. Perhaps that was fitting here in Oscarland.
A few minutes later, Nicole returned with only a single salad and one small container of low-calorie vinaigrette. I looked at the meager offerings.
"This is what you meant to order," she said, setting the containers on the window tray.
"But I thought the customer was always right," I said.
"You were right," she said, "until you opened your mouth and ordered."
I sighed and drizzled the dressing over my salad, and while I dug into my rabbit food, she told me what she knew. She and Veronica were pretty close, as they had been for these past few years. Yeah, Veronica was different. I asked how different, and she asked how much did I know about Veronica? I said I knew enough that Veronica was running around telling people she was a vampire slayer. Nicole opened her mouth to reply but then a car pulled up a few slots down. She told me to hold on and I did, finishing off the rest of the salad. Would have been better with cheese and extra ranch.
I looked down at my gut. Probably not better for my gut, though. It wasn't a huge gut, granted, but it was big enough to be on my mind. I worked out when I could, jogging and walking and lifting weights at home, but the gut seemed impervious to my efforts.
It's hell hitting 38.
Nicole skated across the parking lot to turn in the driver's order. She returned a moment later with another Diet Coke.
"How did you know I had diet?" I asked.
"I didn't."
"Is my gut that big?" I asked.
"Big enough."
"Ouch."
"Where were we?" she said.
"You were going to tell me the difference between a vampire hunter and a vampire slayer."
"There is no difference. But probably slayer is the most accurate."
"Accurate in what way?" I asked.
Nicole leaned a hip against my Camry and seemed to consider what to say next. I'm sure the sheet metal was piping hot in the California sun. Maybe her shiny pants were just as hot. Maybe there was going to be some sort of nuclear reaction. Or not.
"Slayers kill vampires. And that's what Veronica does. You know, on the side. Not all the time. Mostly, she's looking for one vampire in particular."
I stared at her. She stared at me. The sun stared down, too.
"You're serious, aren't you?" I asked.
"Serious as a heart attack."
"And Veronica is a vampire slayer?"
"Yes. Exactly."
Another car pulled up, but Nicole ignored it. Luckily, another girl wearing flaming yellow pants appeared to take the order. I could feel the sweat dribbling down between my brows. I studied the young girl's face. A small film of sweat coated her brow and upper lip. Had it been me out there on skates, I would have been a sweating mess, and would have soaked my yellow spandex pants. Probably why they hired girls and not overweight middle-aged men.
I finally said, "I don't know what to say."
"Then maybe you should let this go and walk away."
"I can't do that," I said. "A girl is missing."
"This girl can take care of herself, trust me."
"I'll decide that for myself, no offense."
We sat staring at each other some more. We sweated some more, although her not so much.
I said, "And why on God's green earth would she kill vampires?"
"She has her reasons, apparently."
I took a breath. If I hadn't been given good money by a kindly old lady who really seemed to need help, I would have been certain someone was pulling my leg. Hell, I still wasn't entirely certain someone wasn't pulling my leg. I exhaled.
I asked, "How many people has she told this to?"
"Not many."
I said, "And you believe her?"
Nicole looked at me hard, and she suddenly looked ten years older. She bit her lower lip, struggling with something internally. Finally, she said, "I've seen her when she...returns."
"Returns from where?"
"Doing what she does."
"Killing vampires?"
"Yes. She's...she's covered in blood. Everything is covered in blood. It's disgusting."
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to think. I did know that I wanted something a lot stronger than a Diet Coke. I drummed my fingers on my steering. I thought some more, then decided to try a different angle.
"When was the last time you saw Veronica?"
"A week ago. We were shopping together."
"What was the last thing you two discussed?"
"That she was going on the biggest hunt of her life."
Deep breaths, I thought.
"And where would that be?" I asked.
Nicole smiled at me as another car pulled up. And as the car pulled up, I heard her boss bellow at her to get moving.
"She wouldn't tell me," said Nicole. "She never does. Says it's safer that way. Okay, I gotta go."
"She's been missing a week," I said. "Aren't you worried about her?"
Nicole looked back and grinned mischievously. I almost didn't see her grin due to the sun reflecting brightly off her yellow spandex pants and searing my retinas.
"It's the vampire that needs to be worried," she said, and turned and quickly skated away.