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“Tell me about taking the humans out of here,” Dahlia said. “How did you come to leave this one behind?”
Gerhard stiffened. “Are you saying I was derelict in my duties?”
“I’m trying to find out what happened,” Dahlia said, not too patiently. “Your execution of your duties is not my concern, but Joaquin’s. The man is here. He isn’t supposed to be. How did that come about?”
Gerhard was obliged to reply. “I gathered the humans together to leave. We came to the kitchen. I followed procedure by showing them the food and drink provided. After ten minutes, I told them it was time to go. I counted as we left, and the number was correct.”
“But here he is,” Katamori said, straightening from his crouched position by the body. “So either your count was incorrect, you are lying, or an extra human took his place. What is your explanation?”
“I have none,” Gerhard said, in a voice so stiff it might have been starched.
“Go to Joaquin and tell him that,”
Dahlia said, without an ounce of sympathy.
“Well, then.” Gerhard became even more defensive. “This man and I had come to an arrangement. I left him here because upon my return we were to spend time together.”
“Though he had already donated this evening,” Dahlia said.
“His name was Arthur Allthorp. I have been with him before,” Gerhard said. “He could take a lot of . . . donation. He loved it.”
“A fangbanger,” Katamori said. Fangbangers, extreme vampire groupies, were notorious for ignoring limits.
Gerhard gave an abrupt nod.
Neither Dahlia nor Katamori remarked on the fact that Gerhard had initially lied to them. They knew, as did Gerhard, that he would pay for that.
“He was my weakness,” Gerhard said violently. “I am glad he is dead.”
This sudden burst of passion startled Dahlia and disgusted Katamori, who let Gerhard read that in his face. Gerhard whirled around to leave the kitchen, but Dahlia said, “What time did you leave with the humans? Was anyone in here with the man Arthur when you took the others away?”
Gerhard thought for a second. “I bade them get into the vans at ten o’clock, since that was the time appointed by the agency that sent them. There was no one in here. But I could hear people coming down the hall as I waited for the other donors to exit. I’m sure one of them was Taffy.”
Dahlia would have said something unpleasant if she’d been by herself. As it was, she was aware of Katamori’s quick sideways glance. Everyone in the nest knew that Dahlia and Taffy were friends, despite Taffy’s unfortunate marriage. Dahlia’s own brief marriage to a werewolf had been forgiven, since it had lasted such a short time. But Taffy showed every sign of continuing her relationship with Don, and even of being happy in it, to the bafflement of the other vampires of Rhodes. “We’ll have to find Taffy and Don and ask them some questions,” she said. “Gerhard, would you request this of Joaquin?”
Gerhard gave a jerky nod and barged out the door, shoving it with such force that it was left to swing to and fro in an annoying way.
Dahlia turned her attention back to the spray of blood on the fixtures and the blood pooled on the floor, still wet. “In my experience,” she said to Katamori, “it takes over an hour for blood to begin to dry. Given its tacky quality and the low temperature of this room, I believe the body has lain here for at least thirty minutes, give or take.”
Katamori nodded. They were both experts on blood. They looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall. It read ten forty-five.
“If Gerhard did leave with the humans at ten o’clock . . . say it took him five minutes to encourage them to put their dishes by the sink, and to get them out the door . . . then this Arthur was left by himself at ten oh five or ten ten. I talked to Cedric, and then I danced with Melponeus.” Dahlia was trying to figure out when the scream had brought the party to a halt.
“We heard Diantha at ten thirty,” Katamori said. With some surprise, Dahlia saw that he was wearing a watch, an unusual accessory for a vampire.
“And we were in here within a minute and a half of that. We’ve been investigating for perhaps twenty minutes. So someone entered the kitchen between ten minutes after ten and twenty-five minutes after ten, by the narrowest reckoning.”
“And this Arthur died of his throat being ripped out,” Katamori said.
“Yes. Though he may have been choked before that. Without the excised material it’s hard to say.”
“It’s over here.” Katamori pointed to a grisly little mound of skin and bone half-hidden under a chair.
Dahlia squatted to peer at the discarded handful. “This is so mangled, I still can’t say whether he was choked. This tissue was tossed aside, not consumed.”
Katamori made a moue of distaste.
Dahlia said, “I was thinking of the trace of werewolf, and all that that implies.” Werewolves would eat human flesh, at least when they were in their wolf forms.
