Violets Are Blue

friends.”
    “I have to go now, Nana. Please give Damon and Jannie my love. Give little Alex a big hug.”
    “Alex, you give them love and hugs yourself,” she said. Then she hung up on me. She had never done that before. Well, she hadn’t done it very often.
    I sat there, pinned to my chair, thinking over what had just been said, wondering whether or not I was guilty as charged. I knew that I spent more time with the kids than a lot of fathers, but as Nana had so skillfully argued, they were growing up fast, and without a mother. I had to do an even better job, and there were no goddamn excuses.
    I called home a few more times. There was no answer, and I figured I was being punished. I finally caught up with Damon around six that night. He had just gotten home from a rehearsal for his concert with the Boys’ Choir. I heard his voice come on the line, and I sang a little Tupac rap ditty he likes.
    He thought that was funny, so I knew everything was okay. He had forgiven me. He’s a good boy, the best I could have hoped for. I suddenly remembered my wife, Maria, and was sad that she wasn’t here to see how well Damon was turning out.
You would really like Damon, Maria. I’m sorry you’re missing it
.
    “I got your message. I’m sorry, Damon. I wish I were going to hear you tomorrow. You know I do. Can’t be helped, buddy.”
    Damon sighed dramatically. “If wishes had wings,” he said. It was one of his grandmother’s pet sayings. I had been hearing it for years, ever since I was around his age.
    “Beat me, whip me, beat me,” I told him.
    “Naw. It’s all right, Daddy,” Damon said, and sighed again. “I know you have to work and that it’s probably important stuff. It’s just hard for us sometimes. You know how it is.”
    “I love you, and I should be there, and I won’t miss the next concert,” I said to him.
    “I’ll hold you to that,” Damon said.
    “I’ll hold myself to it,” I told him.

Chapter 24

    I WAS still at the precinct house in Brentwood at around seven-thirty that night. I was tired and finally looked up from a thick sheaf of police reports on the sadistic murders that had taken place in nine West Coast cities, plus the one in D.C. that we knew about. The case was scaring the hell out of me, and certainly not because I believed in vampires.
    I
did
believe in the weird and horrible things people could sometimes do to one another: savage bites, sadistic hangings, draining blood out of bodies, attack tigers. For once, I couldn’t begin to imagine what the killers might be like. I couldn’t profile them. Neither could the FBI’s behavioral science unit. Kyle Craig had admitted as much to me. That was one reason he was out here himself. Kyle was stumped too. There was no precedent for this string of murders.
    Jamilla appeared at my desk around quarter to eight. She had been working down the hall. She had a very pretty face, but tonight she just looked tired. There is a simple fact of life about police work. Adrenaline gets flowing during bad cases. It makes everybody’s feelings more intense. Attractions grow and can cause unanticipated problems. I had been there before, and maybe so had Jamilla. She acted like it. Maybe that was why we were a little tentative around each other.
    She leaned over my desk, and I could smell a light cologne. “I have to go back to San Francisco, Alex. I’m heading out to the airport now. I left beaucoup notes for you and Kyle on some of the files I was able to get through. I’ll tell you what, though: It doesn’t seem,
to me
, that all the murders were committed by the same killers. That’s my contribution for today.”
    “Why do you say that?” I asked. Actually, I’d had the same feeling. Nothing to substantiate it, though. Just a gut reaction to the evidence we had gathered so far.
    Jamilla rubbed the bridge of her nose, then she wrinkled it some. Her mannerisms were funny and made me smile. “The patterns keep changing. Especially if you look at the most recent murders versus the ones from a year or two ago. In the earlier murders the killers were methodical, very careful. The last couple of murders are slapdash, Alex. More violent too.”
    “I don’t disagree. I’ll look at all the files carefully. So will Kyle and his folks at Quantico. Anything else bothering you?” I asked.
    She thought about it. “A strange crime was reported this morning. Might be something. Funeral home in Woodland Hills. Somebody broke in, ravaged