Page 46 of Their Haunted Hearts
“Don’t you believe men can be vampires too?” Kane’s intent gaze moved over him. “If so, why haven’t you murdered them?”
“I wish I didn’t have to speak to foolish people who don’t understand.” The pastor tossed his head in annoyance. “There is only one male in this town and he sends his females to get him suitable candidates for feeding. He uses his glamor so no one can see him. His powers are endless. A mere mortal like me wouldn’t have a chance against him.”
“Surely, they would need to be fed on a regular basis?” Kane watched the killer with an unwavering stare. “What makes you believe they only feed over Halloween?”
“They can remain dormant for centuries, but they rise at Halloween because it’s a time they can slip into society and nobody recognizes them.” The pastor moved around on his chair. “I do, and I take them out before they turn anyone.”
Clearing her throat, Jenna flicked a glance toward Kane. “Why don’t you walk me through your first kill, and tell me, what made you certain your victims were vampires? You see, your last victim, Julie Wolfe, I’ve known since she was a small child. It seems you made a big mistake with her.”
The pastor looked at her, shaking his head as if in sympathy. Then he blew out a long breath as if he might just as well give them the facts to finish the interview.
“They always arrive in town after dark.” The pastor leaned forward staring at Jenna. His eyes danced as if reliving the moment gave him a thrill. “Most times they’re in trouble or acting as if they haven’t got enough to buy themselves a meal, or the friend they were expecting to arrive didn’t show. They always have an excuse of one thing or another to find someone who will feel sorry for them. I’m just a Good Samaritan and buy them a coffee. I slip a drug into it so they don’t cause me any problems. I offer them a ride to anywhere they want to go and by the time they’re inside my truck they’re under my control. I take them to my shed, where I have a setup to drain their blood.” He smiled at Jenna. “They need to be alive and sometimes they wake but they’re too weak to fight.”
“Do you drink their blood?” Kane’s mouth formed a thin line.
“I’m not a vampire, Deputy Kane.” The pastor chuckled. “No, sir, but I take them to a place where they’ll be seen by the townsfolk and stake them so they can’t rise. I leave them as a warning. I’m not evil or a murderer. I’m doing the community a service.”
“Why did you leave Darlene’s locket on a pig?” Kane wrinkled his nose. “That was a waste of good meat.”
“I found the pig dumped at the landfill. It was a perfect decoy, wasn’t it?” The pastor shrugged. “I needed you out of the office, so I could find out if you suspected me.” He grinned. “No one told me details, so I needed to find out myself. I waited for Maggie to leave to use the bathroom and then read the witnesses’ statements.” He stared from one to the other. “Seems to me everyone in town believes in vampires now. My job is done here. I need to move on.”
Considering her next question with care, Jenna let the minutes tick by and observed him. His swollen eye where Wolfe had hit him was turning a dark shade of blue and was almost shut but, Rio had informed her, he’d refused to ice it. Maybe it was another ploy for sympathy. Moving into a trigger situation could be dangerous. “When did this obsession with vampires come about? Someone must have told you about them and how to deal with them. It’s not something you would come up with on your own. Who was your greatest influencer?”
“That would be my dad.” The pastor nodded his head slowly. “He tried to help people as well and ended up dying in prison.”
“How so?” Kane’s cheek twitched but he remained like a statue. “How old were you when he told you about vampires?”
“Seven.” The pastor closed his eyes as if seeing the past. “It was Halloween but he’d often go out at night, and that time I followed him. He had a cabin not far from the house, alongside the river. His fishing cabin he called it. I figured he was going fishing and I went to the door and peeked inside. That’s when I saw the vampire. She had blood on her mouth and my dad had marks on his neck, like scratches. He tossed her onto a bench and used his knife for gutting fish to stab her through the heart. She bled all over. I can still smell the blood when I close my eyes.”
Jenna swallowed hard. “How did it make you feel?”
“Excited and then frightened when my dad saw me watching. I figured he’d yell at me but he didn’t.” The pastor smiled. “He took my arm and led me right up to her. He made me kiss her and run my hands through the blood. It was warm and I asked him why he’d killed her. That’s when he told me she was already dead and a vampire and he needed to kill her to save us. After that, when he brought them home, he showed me how to drain their blood. He used to be a mortician.”
“Why did he drain their blood?” Kane’s face was like stone.
“In case the drug wore off and they tried to bite him.” The pastor nodded. “It makes them weak. He’d learned his lesson with the one in the cabin. She made so much mess. Draining the blood is easy.” He gave Jenna a disgruntled look. “The cops didn’t believe him about vampires either.”
“How long have you been slaying vampires?” Raven rested his hands on the table. “I gather you participated in all your dad’s kills?”
“Yeah, but we decided to bury them deep in the forest.” He snorted. “Or in new graves. You know how easy it is to dig down another foot or so and drop in a body and then cover it up. The next day a coffin is placed on top and someone else gets the job of filling in the hole.”
Noticing a tremor in the pastor’s hand, Jenna wanted to conclude the interview. A triggered psychopath had incredible strength and talking about his kills was triggering him. “Just one more question. Why did you change the system? No one has found your past murders, have they?”
“Like I said before, Sheriff.” The pastor gave her a smug smile. “I wanted to warn the town, so why should I hide the bodies? Like I told you, they’d been dead for centuries before I touched them. I released them from purgatory.” He met her gaze and held it. “You won’t be able to stop me, Sheriff. I’ll keep taking down vampires until the day I die. It’s my mission in life.”
Jenna nodded and stood. “That’s all for now. You’ll be taken to County. I’ll be ordering a psychological profile on you and I would strongly suggest you take the offer of a lawyer.” She turned off the recording devices and scanned her card before easing into the hallway. Kane and Raven followed close behind. She looked at them. “Well, that was interesting. I’ll send a copy of the interview to the DA. What do you think?” She looked from one to the other.
“He’s batshit crazy.” Kane rubbed his chin.
“You can say that again.” Raven leaned against the wall. “I doubt that ring in the table will hold him if he goes off.”
Jenna nodded. “He won’t get through the door and we have tranquilizer darts and tasers if necessary to get him into the truck to County.” She shook her head slowly, unable to believe what she’d heard. “This is a Halloween story I won’t be telling the kids, that’s for darn sure.”
Forty-Eight
Saturday
Although they’d worked late into the night on Friday, Jenna arrived at the office early on Saturday morning. The background checks she’d ordered on Pastor Dimock and the other stranger, Doug Lowe, had arrived from Kalo. Lowe turned out to be a wrangler out of Wyoming with a clean sheet, but Pastor Dimock wasn’t a pastor after all. He lived in town for some months and Father Derry had never laid eyes on him. Jenna shook her head. If this information had arrived earlier, they’d have hauled him in for questioning. She made a note in her files about Lowe, sometime in the future she might need another deputy.
