Stretching once more, she flung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet sank into the soft carpet. Using her arms as leverage, Kenzie stood up and walked over to the dresser. The day, as was fairly customary in Bridgeport, looked cloudy and dark, so she pulled out a pair of jeans and a blue sweater. Then she flattened out her hair, which always got frizzy after a shower and during high humidity, not to mention after she slept all night.
After putting on her makeup, Kenzie decided she could use some breakfast, but her hotel room lacked a kitchen. However, there was a small cafe downstairs that offered meals. So she grabbed her purse and evidence kit – she called it that since it held her camera, rubber gloves, fingerprint dusting powder, and other mystery solving items – then took her fully charged cell phone off the charger, locked her door, and rode the elevator downstairs. Once in the lobby, she continued down a short hallway to the cafe.
A few other tourists were there enjoying coffee and donuts. Kenzie had been informed on the phone when she'd first heard about this case that Bridgeport was a very popular place to visit due to celebrities living there, but tourism had plummeted when all the bodies kept showing up. That was yet another reason for her to solve the case.
Kenzie walked up to the serving table and grabbed a bowl. She poured some cereal and milk into it and orange juice into a small cup. She then sat down at a nearby table and began eating. All the while, she was thinking about potential suspects.
One of the worst parts about trying to catch a criminal was lack of evidence to do so. Another bad part was not having any suspects. So far, all she had to go on were bloodless victims and puncture wounds in their necks. And all that led her to was more speculation about creatures that couldn’t possibly exist.
She decided that her first course of action that day would be consulting the coroner about her findings. When she finished her breakfast, she threw the paper bowl into the large trash can and dialed Carson.
“Carson?” she asked. “Could you please give me the contact information for the coroner? I want to ask her something.”
“I’d love to, but there’s no point. You can ask her yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
“I just got a call. Two more bodies have just been discovered at the beach. The coroner will meet us there.”
“What? Two more bodies?”
“I’m afraid so. Same signs from the sounds of it, too.”
“I’ll meet you at the station.”
Kenzie hung up her phone and dashed outside. Great. She hadn’t been in Bridgeport for 24 hours yet and the body count was still piling up.
She reached the police station in a matter of minutes since it thankfully wasn’t far from the hotel. She then followed Carson’s police cruiser to Smuggler’s Cove.
The drive took about 10 minutes. Kenzie couldn’t believe two more bodies had been discovered already. At this rate, someone would have to start repopulating the city.
Carson turned off into a small parking area and Kenzie followed suit. Once everyone was outside, they walked down to what looked like a pretty dreary beach. Yellow crime tape was strewn around an area close to the water and two officers were standing inside the tape. They ducked under it when they saw Carson approaching.
“What have we got?” Carson asked his men.
“Two Caucasians, one male, one female, no ID on them, drained of their blood just like the others,” the taller man said.
“Puncture wounds?”
“Affirmative.”
Carson sighed. Kenzie was already pulling out her camera. Every detective knew that to solve a case, good pictures were a big help. She approached the crime scene tape but the shorter officer held a hand out in front of her.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m taking pictures as evidence.”
“And you are…?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Carson said, coming out of his trance. “This is Kenzie Howell from Riverview. I told you she’d be coming.”
Both officers stopped frowning and stretched their hands out. “Sorry Ms. Howell. Pleased to meet you.”
Kenzie shook both their hands, then gestured toward the crime scene. The men nodded.
Kenzie stepped under the tape and her feet sunk a little deeper into the sand. Seeing the bodies in person as opposed to photographs was even more horrific. The smell wasn’t appealing either.
Sucking in her breath, Kenzie raised the camera to her face and began snapping. She tried to get shots from every angle and various zooms. She didn’t touch the bodies, however, because that wasn’t allowed until a coroner released the scene. Thankfully, the coroner arrived a few moments later.
“Sorry I’m late,” the woman said as she emerged from a large van with Coroner written on the side. Her hair was light auburn speckled with gray and she was slightly hefty.
“No need to apologize, Margo,” Carson said, “we just arrived here ourselves.”
Margo approached the crime tape and eyed Kenzie.
“Miss, I’m going to need to ask you to step aside please.”
“Of course. I wasn’t touching anything, just taking pictures.”
“You must be the detective Carson keeps talking about.”
“Yes, I’m Kenzie Howell.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard all about you. But if I may be so bold, I don’t know what you’re hoping to find here in the form of evidence. People from right here in Bridgeport haven’t found anything, so what makes you think you can?”
Kenzie was slightly taken aback. She’d dealt with her share of rude people before, but she wasn’t expecting the next person to treat her in such a way to be someone of authority.
“Margo, that’ll do,” Carson said. “Ms. Howell is here to help, and she’s one of the best.”
Margo snorted. “Well, she may be one of the best but she’s also one of the youngest. Young people, they think they know everything.”
Kenzie detected bitterness in the woman’s voice, but sensed it was coming from another source and had nothing to do with her. Margo conspicuously rolled her eyes and turned toward the crime scene and the bodies. As she was looking them over to confirm that they were, indeed, already dead, and release the scene, a cell phone rang. Kenzie saw Carson put his to his ear. She could tell by his face that he wasn’t looking forward to talking to who was on the other end.
“Yes ma’am, I understand,” he was saying while nodding his head up and down as if to physically reassure both himself and whoever he was talking to. “We’ll take care of it as soon as possible.”
Some inaudible words were said on the other line before Carson said one more “I understand” and hung up. At this time, Margo officially released the crime scene, so Kenzie could go search the bodies for anything else.
Carson sighed and answered the unspoken question. "That was the mayor. She’s very concerned. She has no idea what’s going on and she’s been getting a bunch of phone calls from citizens demanding to know what’s happening.”
“By citizens, you mean celebrities?” Kenzie inquired, knowing that Bridgeport was the ideal place for celebrities to start out.
“Of course, but regular citizens as well. This is supposed to be one of the best places to start out as a celeb, and now it’s turning into a giant graveyard. Some people have already moved out. Not to mention the tourism has plummeted.”
Kenzie nodded and continued inspecting the corpses. She’d already taken photos of the puncture wounds in both victims’ necks, but now she could get even closer to inspect them. The puncture wounds appeared to be pretty deep, and they were indeed shaped like fangs. Bones were protruding from underneath the skin like the bodies hadn't eaten anything in weeks, and there appeared to be no other openings on the bodies for blood to have come out of.
What was truly odd to Kenzie wasn’t the lack of anything on the corpses – no ID, no stray fibers, hairs, or anything – but rather where the corpses were. Smuggler’s Cove wasn’t exactly an abandoned place. Anyone could go to the beach and find these corpses. It was almost like whoever did this went out of their way to make sure the bodies were found.
She brought this up to Carson and he nodded. “That makes sense. So far all the corpses we’ve found have been in relatively public places. First the graveyard, then the park, and various other places where people tend to gather. We were wondering why the bodies weren’t hidden.”
“Maybe they wanted them to be found, to show how…” Margo started but stopped herself when Carson glanced at her.
"To show how what?" Kenzie pressed.
"To send a message," Margo replied, her brow furrowed.
Carson sighed once again and glanced at the sky. The sun was shining, but it was hidden behind grey clouds. It seemed that most of the light of Bridgeport came from the clubs and lounges in the evening hours. During the day, it was usually hazy and dreary, always threatening to rain. The tall buildings tended to cast perpetual shadows across the city, so seeing the sun at all even when it peeked through the clouds was truly something to savor.
As she followed Carson's gaze, Kenzie got the odd sensation that she was being watched. She looked around skeptically, but she couldn't see anyone or anything out of the ordinary (with the exception of the two corpses on the ground, which Margo was now instructing the officers to help her load into the back of her van).
Her gut feelings were usually spot-on, and given the creepiness of this case, Kenzie couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
Finally, Carson said, "Thank you for coming, Ms. Howell. I’m sorry but I have to get back to work right now, but if you find anything out, let me know.”
“I will, and as soon as I can, I’ll send you copies of these photos.”
“Sounds great, just email them to me.”
Carson wrote his email address on a notepad he extracted from his pocket and gave it to Kenzie. Margo drove off, so before Carson could get back into his cruiser, Kenzie stopped him and quickly asked, "What did Margo mean about someone leaving the bodies here to send a message? Does she know something we don't?"
Carson just shook his head and explained, "Margo has a teenage daughter who's obsessed with vampires. Which, in this day and age, isn't very uncommon. But Valerie's taken it to the extreme. She's gone goth, tries to get out of going to school because she only wants to go out at night, and she's even insisted that she wants to become a vampire. Margo herself is a strong believer in them too."
"Why's that?"
"She's quite the history buff, and legend has it that Bridgeport was once a haven for vampires. She's found all kinds of facts about vampires from over the centuries, and with her daughter's recent rebellions and now these strange deaths, she's even more convinced those things still exist. I think she's crazy, but she has the right to believe what she wants, I suppose."
"So she thinks a vampire's responsible for all these deaths, and she thinks the bodies have all been left out in the open to send a message of some sort to the public?"
"Apparently, but I'm hoping you can find a more rational explanation."
"Well, I'll certainly try."
Carson nodded before excusing himself and getting into his police cruiser. He drove off, leaving Kenzie standing on the beach alone. She glanced out at the water and shivered. It wasn't very cold in Bridgeport, but she couldn't imagine going to the beach with no sun shining.
Finally, Kenzie went back to her car and climbed inside. She fastened her seatbelt and headed back toward the police station. She wanted to catch Margo during the autopsy for more questions.
As she drove, Kenzie occasionally glanced in the rear-view mirror. Maybe she was being paranoid, or maybe she was slightly scared considering what Margo believed and the evidence that was on all the bodies, but she swore that a fancy black sports car followed her all the way to the police station, taking every turn she did, until she pulled up into a vacant parking space. Then it drove off.
Kenzie tried to tell herself that it was nothing. No one was following her. What reason would anyone have to do so?
Finally, her head held high, she walked inside the building and tried not to think of the invisible eyes that might have been burning into her back.
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