Violets Are Blue

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    He cocked his head and stared intently into my eyes. Westin was looking for something; I couldn’t tell what. I held his gaze, and that seemed to irritate him. “Fuck off,” he snapped.
    “What is it?” I finally asked. “What’s on your mind, Peter? Is it that I’m not worthy to question you now?”
    He smiled — and there was even a hint of warmth in it. He could be charming, I knew. I’d found that out in the library in Santa Barbara.
    “
If
I talked to you,
if
I told you everything that I feel and believe, you wouldn’t understand,” he said. “You would be even more lost and confused than you are now.”
    “Try me,” I said.
    He smiled again but said nothing.
    “I know that you miss William and Michael. You don’t show it, but you loved them,” I said. “I know that much about you. I know you feel things deeply.”
    Then Peter Westin nodded, almost imperceptibly. The gesture was regal. He did miss William and Michael. I was right about that. He was sad that they were dead.
    He finally spoke again. “Yes, Detective Cross, I
feel
more deeply than you can begin to imagine. You have no idea. You have no clue how someone like me thinks.”
    Then he was quiet again. The Sire had nothing more to say. We mere mortals just wouldn’t understand. I left him like that.
    It was over.

Part Five

VIOLETS ARE BLUE

Chapter 93

    I WAS feeling partially relieved, better anyway. The murder case seemed to be solved, at least. Peter Westin was in jail. We’d done everything we could about his cult. The pressure had been eliminated. We’d stopped the bleeding.
    Jamilla had left the previous night; we promised to keep in touch and I knew we would. I was headed up to the airport that morning to catch a flight from San Francisco to D.C. I was going home, and that felt good.
    The details were still coming in, but I feared we would never know everything about the strange, murderous cult that had sprung up in California. It was usually that way in Homicide. You never knew as much as you wanted to know. That’s the single most basic truth about being a detective, and you never see it on TV or in the movies. I guess the endings wouldn’t be as satisfying if they were closer to reality.
    Peter Westin had met Daniel and Charles when they had played in Los Angeles. Westin already had his own followers in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, but he feigned allegiance until he felt he was strong enough to be the Sire. Then he dispatched William and Michael Alexander to do his dirty work. Supposedly, there were followers in nearly a hundred cities, especially now that the Internet had brought us all so close together.
    Something was still bothering me. I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was, but it troubled me all the way to San Francisco. It was eating me from the inside out. Fear and dread. But about what?
    There was a forty-five-minute layover, and I got off the plane. A jumble of bad thoughts played through my brain. I felt wired, itchy.
    The original San Francisco vampire murders were still on my mind.
    And the fucking Mastermind.
    Jamilla was here in San Francisco. But that was a whole other subject.
    What was bothering me?
    Then I thought I knew what it was. Maybe I’d known all along. I called Jam at her office in the Hall of Justice. I was informed that she had the day off.
    I called her apartment, but there was no answer. Maybe she was out on one of the five-mile runs she bragged about. Or she had a date with Tim Bradley from the
Examiner
, as if that was any of my business.
    But maybe not.
    Where was she?
    Had something happened to her, or was I just being paranoid beyond belief? I was definitely working too hard. I didn’t need this. I really didn’t need this.
    I couldn’t take the chance. I hurried to the American Airlines counter and cancelled my flight out of San Francisco. I called Nana and told her I had to stay in California for a few hours. I would be in later tonight.
    “Someone out here might be in trouble,” I said.
    “Yes, and that someone is you,” Nana said. “Good-bye, Alex.” She hung up on me again. She was right to want me home, but I was right in not wanting anybody else to be hurt.
    I rented a car from Budget, beginning to feel that I was completely losing it. Charles Manson’s words came to mind:
Total paranoia is just total awareness
. I had always thought that Manson was wrong about everything, but maybe he wasn’t; maybe he was dead-on