Though the sun had gone down a full hour ago, the big vamp remained in her coffin. Nothing stirred in the dressing room.
Fletcher said in a whisper, “She likes to sleep late. I usually come in here just before dark to help her put on her face. Since she can’t use a mirror, it’s my job to prepare Ivory for her public. It sometimes takes an hour, and I have to tell her a dozen times how beautiful she looks, since she can’t see her reflection.”
“Where’s the gun?” I asked.
Fletcher slid open one of the vanity drawers to reveal a Smith & Wesson revolver, a big gleaming thing that could have been in a vampire’s collection since the Civil War. Ballistics would prove whether or not this was the gun that had shot me, but it was too much of a coincidence to swallow.
Sheyenne nudged the makeup jars and bottles. “And if I find a vial of toadstool poison, that would be the cherry on top of the sundae.”
Hearing the unmistakable sound of a creaking coffin lid, the three of us turned like startled rabbits facing the same rattlesnake. The big-breasted vampire extended her hands into the air, stretching, then sat up, yawning and rubbing the fuzz of sleep from her eyes.
When she saw us standing there, she recoiled as if she were the rabbit and we the rattlesnakes. “What are you all doing here? This is my private dressing room. Get out!” She quickly covered her face. “You can’t see me like this!”
Ivory did look a lot different without her makeup. She turned her gaze on the manager. Vampires are able to manipulate people with a seductive hypnotic glamour, but what she gave Fletcher was exactly the opposite. He shivered under the glare.
“We found the gun, Ivory.” I took a step forward to intervene. “What did I ever do to you? What made you upset enough to kill me?”
The vamp looked baffled. “Kill you, sugar? What are you talking about?”
Sheyenne pulled the Smith & Wesson from the drawer. “I’ve always known you poisoned me, and this is the gun that shot Dan, right here in your dressing room. Did you kill him because he was investigating my murder? Were you worried he’d catch you?”
I pulled my own .38 from the shoulder holster. The silver-jacketed slugs would do the trick.
More annoyed than afraid, the vampire diva climbed out, indignant but embarrassed by her fresh-out-of-the-coffin appearance. “I didn’t even have that gun when Dan was murdered, sugar. I just bought it two weeks ago.”
“What do you need a gun for?” I asked.
“For protection! In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the star here, and I’ve got my share of obsessive fans . . . though not as many as I’d like. Sometimes they don’t take no for an answer, so I decided to get a gun for peace of mind.” She turned her sultry gaze on me. “Although you never learned how to take yes for an answer, sugar.”
I tried to stay on point. “Then where did you get the gun?”
“I wanted something big, sturdy, reliable. It was a private sale. Cash. Very anonymous.”
“Ivory, if that’s the gun that murdered me, I deserve to know who owned it.”
The vamp considered that and agreed. “All right, but don’t tell him I told you. He might cut off my supplies, and I can’t have that.”
“Who?” Sheyenne demanded.
“Brondon Morris. He sold me the gun.”
Chapter 41
Leaving Basilisk, we rushed to the factory of Jekyll Lifestyle Products & Necroceuticals. McGoo would already be there with Robin, but he didn’t know that Harvey Jekyll wasn’t acting alone. Brondon Morris did some of Jekyll’s dirty work; apparently, he carried more than product samples in his case.
When we arrived after dark, the company was locked up tight, and a thick chain secured the fence gate and sally port. I was stuck outside.
The separate administrative building was dark and quiet, but I could see lights and hear nighttime generators humming inside the industrial complex. Perfumey vapors wafted from the smokestacks, venting the chemical operations on the process floor.
Sheyenne rattled, tugged, and twisted the padlocks and chain with her poltergeist hands, then drifted back, dismayed. “I can only do so much, Beaux. How did Robin and Officer McGoohan get in? Do you think he called for backup?”
“I’m guessing McGoo won’t want to share credit for the big arrest—he needs every brownie point for his personnel file.” I looked around, but saw no sign of them. I pulled out my phone and called Robin’s number. No answer. Maybe they had gone back to the offices in defeat, so I punched in that number, but the phone rang and rang until the voice mail kicked in. I tried one last call, to McGoo’s private phone. Again, no answer.
“We’ve got to get in there,” I said, very worried now. “Spooky, go scope the place out. Check the offices. I want to know where Robin and McGoo are—and if there’s anybody else inside.”
“Leave you here? I won’t be much good in a fight if I can’t touch Jekyll or Brondon—”
“Right now I’ll settle for recon.” She blew me a kiss, then flitted off through the fence and into the dark compound.
The bright lights from the factory windows told me something was going on in the main building. I regarded the fence, the razor wire on top. If my friends were in trouble, I wasn’t going to stay stuck out here in the cheap seats.
Bracing myself, I grabbed the chain links with stiff fingers, poked the toes of my shoes into the gaps, and hauled myself up. This was not my favorite thing to do. When I lurched over the curled razor wire, the sharp metal barbs tore the fabric of my shirt and pants, and I didn’t want to think what it was doing to my skin. I’d be seeing Miss Lujean Eccles for another patchup as soon as this was over. But if Robin and McGoo were in there and in trouble, I didn’t care how battered I got trying to save them. As I let myself drop, I heard a ripping sound, then I fell free. I got to my feet, brushed myself off, and staggered toward the factory and the open loading dock door.
From my earlier infiltration of JLPN during the garlic-laced shampoo case, I was already familiar with the big chemical vats on the process floor, the tanks of fragrances, base chemicals, active agents, dyes, and fillers. Mammoth horizontal stirrers churned the huge cauldrons, and the mixtures were piped off to bottling lines that filled containers, pasted on labels, sealed caps, and boxed up the necroceuticals for distribution.
During daylight hours, the factory was a synchronized, bustling place, filled with workers. Now most of the machinery was turned off, but I could still hear the sighing, burbling sounds of fermenting mixtures and chemical reactions.
I also heard voices, a man and a woman.