Chapter Forty-Four
We were connecting some of the dots now. Finally. I hoped we would be able to put together the whole vampire puzzle soon. By the following afternoon, the FBI had identified twelve cities on the East Coast where murders involving vampire-like bites had occurred as early as 1989.1 put the names on one of my index cards. Then I stared at the list long and hard. What could possibly link these cities? Atlanta Birmingham Charleston Charlotte Charlottesville Gainesuille Jacksonville New Orleans Orlando Richmond Savannah Washington, DC The breadth of the list was a problem. Scarier and more mystifying was the fact that the murders might have been going on for over a decade. Next I made an even longer list of cities where non-lethal attacks by supposed 'vampires' had been reported and investigated. I stared at the list and got a little depressed. This was starting to look like an impossible conspiracy.
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VIOLETS ARE BLUE
New York City Boston Philadelphia Pittsburgh Virginia Beach White Plains Newburgh Trenton Atlanta Newark Atlantic City Tom's River Baltimore Santa Cruz Princeton Miami Gainesuille Memphis College Park Charlottesville Rochester Buffalo Albany The Violent Crime unit in Quantico was working round the clock on the murders. Kyle and I were pretty sure that other cities would turn up, and that the pattern might even go back further than eleven years. In Atlanta, Gainesville, New Orleans, and Savannah there appeared to have been murders in at least two different years. So far, Charlotte, North Carolina, was the worst hit: there were three suspicious murders going back to 1989. It was even possible that the killing spree had started in Charlotte. The FBI had moved agents into the twelve cities where the murders had taken place, and special task forces had been set up in Charlotte, Atlanta, and New Orleans. I finished up with my investigation in Charleston. It didn't
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accomplish too much. At this point, the media didn't have the story about the wide net of murder locations, and we wanted to keep it that way for as long as we could. That night, I visited Spooky Tooth, the only club in the Charleston area that was a hangout for Goths and vampire wannabes. What I found there was a nest of young people, mostly under twenty. They were still in high school or college. I interviewed the owner of the nightclub, and questioned some of the clientele. They were definitely angry and restless, but no one seemed a likely murder suspect. I made sure I was back in Washington the next afternoon. At seven-thirty, Nana, Jannie, little Alex and I went to one of the Boys Choir concerts. The choir sounded better than ever. Damon was one of the featured singers. He had a beautiful solo,'The Ash Grove'. 'See what you've been missing,' Nana leaned in close and said.
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