"03 - Circus of the Damned 4.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to drive to Arnold. I didn't want
to stare at dead bodies before breakfast. I wanted to go home. But somehow I
didn't think Dolph would understand. Police have very little sense of humor when
they're working on a murder case. Come to think of it, neither did I.




Chapter 2



The man's body lay on its back, pale and naked in the weak morning sunlight.
Even limp with death his body was good, a lot of weights, maybe jogging. His
longish yellow hair mixed with the still-green lawn. The smooth skin of his neck
was punctured twice with neat fang marks. The right arm was pierced at the bend
of the elbow, where a doctor draws blood. The skin of the left wrist was
shredded, like an animal had gnawed it. White bone gleamed in the fragile light.
I had measured the bite marks with my trusty tape measure. They were different
sizes. At least three different vamps, but I would have bet everything I owned
that it was five different vampires. A master and his pack, or flock, or
whatever the hell you call a group of vampires.
The grass was wet from early morning mist. The moisture soaked through the knees
of the coveralls I had put on to protect my suit. Black Nikes and surgical
gloves completed my crime-scene kit. I used to wear white Nikes, but they showed
blood too easily.
I said a silent apology for what I had to do, then spread the corpse's legs
apart. The legs moved easily, no rigor. I was betting that he hadn't been dead
eight hours, not enough time for rigor mortis to set in. Semen had dried on his
shriveled privates. One last joy before dying. The vamps hadn't cleaned him off.
On the inside of his thigh, close to the groin, were more fang marks. They
weren't as savage as the wrist wound, but they weren't neat either.
There was no blood on the skin around the wounds, not even the wrist wound. Had
they cleaned the blood off? Wherever he was killed, there was a lot of blood.
They'd never be able to clean it all up. If we could find where he died, we'd
have all sorts of clues. But in the neatly clipped lawn in the middle of a very
ordinary neighborhood, there were no clues. I was betting on that. They'd dumped
the body in a place as sterile and unhelpful as the dark side of the moon.
Mist floated over the small residential neighborhood like waiting ghosts. The
mist was so low to the ground that it was like walking through sheets of
drizzling rain. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the body where the mist had
condensed. Beads collected in my hair like silver pearls.
I stood in the front yard of a small, lime-green house with white trim. A
chain-link fence peeked around one side encircling a roomy backyard. It was
October, and the grass was still green. The top of a sugar maple loomed over the
house. Its leaves were that brilliant orangey-yellow that is peculiar to sugar
maples, as if their leaves were carved from flame. The mist helped the illusion,
and the colors seemed to bleed on the wet air.
All down the street were other small houses with autumn-bright trees and bright
green lawns. It was still early enough that most people hadn't gone to work yet,