Blast from the Past # 5: Rosewood

Rosewood

by Matt and Vicki
with love for Tamara
Dec/93

"Mommy, which would you rather were real, werewolves or vampires?"

Heather McGuire looked over at her daughter, who was about to run over a jogger with her bike. "Watch where you're going, Daisy!" Heather warned the youngster.

"Don't call me that, Mommy! You know my name's Blossom!" But she did manage to swerve in time to miss the runner in her path.

Heather smiled and said, "Last month it was Daisy, the month before that it was Violet, before that was ... you've got quite a thing for floral names, you know. I can barely remember what name your father and I gave you seven years ago."

"I like Blossom. Daisy was a dumb name!"

"Yes, well you were younger then. Anyway, what was the question again?"

Her daughter slowed her bike to a halt, and Heather did the same. "If you had a choice, and had to pick one, which would you rather were real: werewolves, or vampires?"

Heather could see that this subject was something that her horror-movie addicted daughter considered important. Friends of the McGuire clan who had children themselves shuddered at the thought of a seven-year old child watching movies such as Jaws, Psycho, Halloween and Lost Boys. But Heather realized that her daughter knew the difference between fantasy and reality, and since the girl seemed to sleep fine at nights even after watching the scariest scenes, she didn't see any harm in it. At least she knew that her child wouldn't grow up to be afraid of things that go bump in the night.

"But honey, neither of those things are real."

"I know that, but if they were..."

Trying to sound sincere, Heather said, "Wellll, if I really had to pick one.."

"You do."

"And if I had to choose between vampires and werewolves..."

"You do."

"Then, I guess I would have to pick vampires."

The seven year old squinted up at Heather. "You would?" she asked. "How come?"

"Well, they're so much easier to spot. You know they can't come out during the day, and they always look so pale, and they don't have a reflection in a mirror... Now, werewolves, on the other hand, look just like you and me, except when there's a full moon, and then.... arroooooo!" She did her best baying-at-the-moon impression.

"Arroooooo" Now mother and daughter were both howling at the top of their lungs, much to the delight of passersby.

The next day, werewolves and vampires were the furthest thing from Heather's mind as she worked on her feature article at the newspaper office. Her editor had offered her two pages in the Sunday supplement if she could dig up enough material on his topic of the month, blood disorders. He'd told her that, with the amount of public attention currently focused on AIDS, the readers were primed for related stories.

Heather called Jim Simpson, the co-op student who acted as her gopher, from where he was flirting with the typing pool.

"You rang, oh legendary newshound?"

"I'm not a legend yet, Jim, but I'm working on it. I'd like you to see what you can find in the tombs for me."

"What's the subject, boss lady?"

"Blood disorders, but not AIDS. I know that cuts out ninety percent of the recent articles, but see what you can do, OK?"

Jim saluted and said, "You got it, chieftain! Sounds like a bit of a snoozer, if you ask me, but... Hey, wait a minute. I heard something about blood problems somewhere just a little while ago. Where was it? Somebody told me about seeing more than your usual number of anemic patients. It must've been my Aunt Lucy in Rosewood, since she's the only person I know who works in a hospital."

Heather frowned and said, "Now it's my turn to ring a bell, because the name Rosewood seems familiar."

Laughing, Jim offered, "Wasn't that your daughter's name when I started here?"

Heather smiled and said, "You're probably right! What a kid!"

When Jim returned from the records room an hour later, Heather met him with a question. "Do you think it would be OK if I called your aunt and asked her about the comment she made to you?"

"Oh sure, chief. But I have to warn you, she's a talker. I'll get you her work number." With that, Jim dropped off the material he'd brought out of the tombs, and left to rummage through the disaster area he called his desk.

After a forty-five minute phone call to Rosewood, Heather had that peculiar itch at the back of her head that usually signalled a lead. Jim's aunt had spent much of the three quarters of an hour singing the praises of her favourite nephew, but Heather had managed to steer the conversation to the matter at hand long enough to learn a few interesting facts.

Lucy Simpson worked at Rosewood General, the one and only hospital in a town of about ten thousand people. Lucy was a diagnosing physician at the hospital, and had been for almost ten years. She told Heather that, in the last few months there had been more and more cases of blood disorders such as anemia or low cell counts showing up in blood tests. There was no pattern to the occurences. The tests ranged from those done as part of yearly physicals, to pregnancy tests, to pre-surgery bloodwork. Lucy had a theory which she enthusiastically shared with Heather. She believed that some form of chemical was responsible, possibly a pollutant by-product. When Heather pressed her on this subject, however, Lucy had to admit that there hadn't been very many new factories or manufacturing plants opened in Rosewood lately. Lucy steadfastly asserted that something wasn't right. She believed that even some of her co-workers had less energy than they had a few months ago, a common symptom of anemia.

Heather sat back and closed her eyes. The name Rosewood kept running through her mind. Where had she seen it? It had to have been on the teletype, because she had no visual image to go along with the name, as she would if it had been a TV story. She jumped up. Moving to the hardcopy file for the teletype, she began scanning the printouts looking for any occurrence of the name Rosewood.

Just as she was about to quit and write off the idea, she stumbled upon a small item which read,

API - Crime Takes A Holiday - The following five cities showed marked drops in crime rate statistics over the months of March, April and May of this year: Smallville, Central City, Coast City, River Heights, and Rosewood. The greatest decrease was shown in Rosewood, where the crime rate (reported crimes only) plummeted from 10 per month way down to 2. Of the other cities...

As soon as she began to read the item, Heather recalled that she'd used some of the numbers from it in an article called Crime in the 90s.

With a confident stride, she made her way to the office of the editor of the Sunday supplement.

"Gordo, have I got a deal for you!"

Gordon Callahan looked up over his glasses at Heather, and sighed. "It's funny, you don't look much like Monty Hall. And I'm not dressed up as a flamenco dancer. But I'm sure that's not going to stop you from getting me to look behind Door # 3."

Heather took a deep breath, and then said, "I've got a great idea for a road trip. There's this place called Rosewood that may be having high incidents of blood diseases, and also managed to show the biggest drop in crime last quarter. The way I figure it, I've got a chance to bring home two stories for the price of one! Now is that a deal?"

Gordon took off his glasses, and wiped them very carefully on a coffee stained napkin. "How are we going to use a crime story, when you already did an article on it just two or three weeks ago?"

Heather replied, "It's a great followup angle. First I told you about it, then I went there. You remember how many letters we got on that article when it ran?"

Gordon stood up and tucked in his shirt. "Let's cut to the chase, McGuire. How many nights, what kind of mileage, and how much in miscellaneous expenses are we talking here?"

"Worst case, I see two nights. You know I don't like to leave my family for longer than that, anyway. Pat is a great dad and all, but..."

"But Bluebell's a handful for any sane person."

"Bluebell? And she complains that I don't keep up! So, what do you say?"

"I say I'm a chump, but you've never let me down before. Just don't make this a first time, OK? This is Monday, we need to have a final version by Thursday, so you'd better get cracking."

The next several hours saw Heather breaking the news to her husband and daughter, packing up for a short trip, and getting on the road. Rosewood was a good five hour drive, not counting pit stops.

The sun hadn't quite set as Heather got her first glimpse of her destination. Rosewood was situated in a hollow between two hills. As her car moved down the road that lead into the town, the shadows cast confusing images all around her. The long drive had left her drowsy and so, when the young woman stepped out in front of her car, it was all Heather could do to veer off the road and miss her. Fortunately, the grassy shoulder was of the forgiving variety, and Heather had lots of time to come to a stop without hitting anything.

Getting out of her car quickly, she ran to see the woman who, in Heather's opinion, had more luck than brains.

"Are you all right?" Heather asked when she caught up with the woman. "Do you realize I almost ran you down?"

"What?" The other woman turned a bewildered face toward Heather.

"I said, are you all right?"

"Sure. Yeah, I guess so."

Heather tried a new tack. "Why are you walking along this road? There isn't a sidewalk, and cars move pretty quickly here."

"I don't know. I can't remember how I got here. I must be going home, I guess."

Heather motioned the woman toward her car. "Why don't you let me drive you home?"

"OK, sure."

Helping her companion into the passenger side seat, Heather asked, "Where do you live?"

"Um, that way," she said, pointing in the direction from which she'd come.

"But that means you were walking the wrong way."

"I guess so. That's kind of funny. I'm tired." And she yawned.

After a few wrong turns, the woman was finally able to direct Heather to her home. By now it was quite dark out. But as the woman was getting out of the car, Heather thought she could see a spot of blood on the woman's neck, illuminated by the interior car light.

The woman walked toward her house without any word of thanks, or even a goodbye. Heather decided that it must've been a really bad date, and wondered just what kind of men lived in Rosewood.

Heather resumed her drive into the business district of Rosewood. She noticed that the billboard welcoming visitors to the town had been attacked by vandals with spraypaint. They'd quite artistically changed the double os in Rosewood to double es.

"Roseweed. Now there's a floral name if ever I heard one."

She began to look for a hotel. On the main street she cruised by a fast food joint, a drug store, and a rundown movie theatre. On the marquee for the theatre were the words, "Now Playing: The Fear Machine". Heather begrudgingly admitted that she'd never heard of the film. It must not have played in the city for very long, but it was strange that it would be showing in a small town.

Just beyond the movie theatre, Heather spotted what looked to be the only hotel in Rosewood. It was a three-story, two-star affair. She'd seen worse in her travels. She knew before she entered the lobby that there wouldn't be an elevator.

While registering, Heather began to chat with the hotel clerk. His name was Billy, which struck her as a funny name for a man who was at least sixty years old.

"So what brings you to this neck of the woods, Miss... McGuire?" Billy asked.

"Well, my paper wants a story about the drop in crime that you folks have been blessed with lately. I figured I'd interview the sheriff, some store-owners, and maybe do a person-on-the-street or two. What do you think of the drop? Have you even noticed it?"

Billy scratched his head and thought for a moment. "Seems to me I did see something about it in the Weekly Gazette a few weeks back. Can't say as I've personally noticed much of a difference. I wouldn't say there are as many people out and about at night as usual, so maybe that's all it is. Fewer pigeons to be plucked, so to speak."

Heather said, "Speaking of people out and about at night, I had a run-in with a woman named Meredith on the drive in. She was wandering on the road, rather dazed-looking, and I nearly ran her over!"

"That'd be Meredith Crandle," Billy replied. "There's only one Meredith in town. You say she was staggering around?"

"Well, I don't want to start any town gossip or anything like that, but she certainly didn't seem altogether together, if you know what I mean." Heather noticed that a middle-aged gentleman had entered the hotel lobby while she was talking to Billy, and at the mention of the young Crandle woman, he seemed to become interested in the conversation. He walked slowly, with the aid of a cane, but it appeared to Heather that his step slowed even more as he passed the front desk.

Heather fumbled in her purse, pretending to be looking for her credit card, and took enough time that the man with the cane passed by before she uttered, "Ah hah! I knew it was in here somewhere!" and presented her card to Billy.

"Who was that man who just walked by?" she asked innocently of Billy.

"That's Mr... just a second, let me look it up... Mr. Heidegger, from Lapeer, as I recall. He's been in town about a month. Don't know what his business is here. Bit of a strange fellow, if you ask me. Spends a lot of the day in his room, and goes out at weird hours at night. I know sometimes when he goes out he goes to the theatre next door, cause I see the ticket stubs in his room when I go to change the sheets."

"The theatre? Oh, right, I saw it on the way here. The movie playing - The Fear Machine - what is it? I've never heard of it."

Billy shook his head. "Can't say as I know. I'm not one for movies, myself. I think I lost interest in them when they started using colour."

Heather said, "Well, it sounds like a horror film, and my daughter just loves them. Maybe I'll check it out and see if it's something that I could rent for her to watch." With that she thanked Billy for his time and took the key to her 3rd floor room. As expected, there was no elevator to be found.

An hour later, Heather had washed up and unpacked. She decided that she would head out. As she was locating her coat and handbag Heather heard a tap-tap-tap down the hall. "That sounds like a cane!" she thought to herself. She quickly opened the door but no one was there. "Hmmmm, I wonder if that was really a cane?" Heather grabbed her bag and headed out to the stairs. Just as she was crossing the lobby of the hotel she saw Mr. Heidegger going out through the door. She decided to see where he was off to.

She quietly followed along the street a safe distance behind him. She watched as he paused in front of the movie theatre. Mr. Heidegger seemed to make up his mind, and disappeared into the theatre. Heather mused, "That's a funny movie for him to want to see."

Heather approached the box office to find a youngish gentlemen selling the tickets. She struck up a conversation with the man and discovered that his name was Johnson and that he owned the movie theatre.

"How long have you been in the theatre business?" Heather asked Mr Johnson.

"Oh, about three months in this town. One of my distributers told me about this great little theatre for sale in Rosewood. I decided it was time for a change of scenery, so I decided to move on," Mr. Johnson replied.

"What town were you in before?" Heather queried, her news-reporter instincts rising to the surface. At that moment a group of five teenagers came up to the box office window for tickets. Heather decided not to wait for an answer to her question, and entered the theatre.

She bought popcorn and Coke from the self-service vending machines and headed into the movie theatre. She noticed Mr Heidegger about half way down on the right. She decided to sit well back from him and picked a seat near the wall so as to be inconspicuous.

Forty minutes later, just as The Fear Machine was getting interesting, she noticed Mr. Heidegger get up from his seat. "That's funny," she thought, "it really has me on the edge of my seat, why would he leave now?"

She decided that The Fear Machine was suitable for her daughter and enjoyed the movie to the end. As she headed back to the hotel, she noticed a lady staggering along as though she were lost. She had a dazed, puzzled look on her face.

"Is this Monday?" she asked Heather.

"Why no, it's Tuesday," Heather replied. "Are you alright?"

The lady just wandered off, past a long alleyway that was by the side of the theatre. Heather turned to see if she could find someone to help the young woman. There wasn't anyone else on the street. By the time she looked back at the spot where she'd last seen the confused woman, there was no sign of her. She trotted a few hundred feet in that direction, but the street was clear. "Oh, well," thought Heather, "she must've gotten her act together after all." Heather went back to her hotel room, and got ready for bed.

The next morning, Heather was up with the roosters. She sat on her bed following her shower and tried to organize a plan of attack for the day. She decided that she needed to accomplish the following: talk to someone in the Law Enforcement office in Rosewood, interview Jim Simpson's aunt Lucy, check in with the office, and then re-evaluate the situation and take it from there. "Well, any plan is better than no plan at all," she sighed, as she looked at the scantiness of her outline.

At the Sheriff's office an hour later, she began to think that she'd gotten up a little too early. Sheriff Hawkins sat in his swivel chair, feet up on his oak desk, snoring away. The clerk's desk was vacant. It was the cliche picture of a small-town sheriff's office, and then some.

Heather cleared her throat loudly, hoping to stir the Sheriff from his nap. He snored on. She stamped her feet as if she were running across the floor. He snored on. Finally, she nudged him on the shoulder, and said, "Sheriff, yoohoo!" near his ear.

Floyd Hawkins looked up sleepily, saw Heather, smiled, and seemed content to resume his nap. Heather spoke up before he could drift off again. "Sheriff, I just need a few minutes of your time, if you don't mind. My name is Heather McGuire. I'm a reporter doing a story on your decline in crime. As the number One Officer of the Law here in Rosewood, you must have some ideas on why crime has taken a holiday here?"

Sheriff Hawkins slowly drew his feet down from his desk. He sat slightly forward in his chair and looked at Heather with as much intensity as he seemed capable of at that time, which wasn't much. "My ideas, Miss, and the facts themselves, are pretty much one and the same. When I was elected to this post two years ago, I got elected because I promised to clean up crime." He stopped for a moment, and then seemed to remember what he had wanted to say. "The criminals in this town know that if they do the crime, they do the time. It's every bit as simple as that. You big city folks could learn from our example."

Heather asked, "So what exactly did you put in place that made the criminals realize that crime doesn't pay?"

"It's not any one thing, Miss, it's more of... an attitude. I admit my plan took awhile to take root, but once it did a few months ago..." His voice dropped off. He appeared to have completely lost his train of thought. Heather thanked him for his time and left the office.

Heather phoned Lucy Simpson at the hospital and arranged to meet her for lunch. She had several hours to kill before that meeting, so she headed to Rosewood's Land Registry Office. She wanted to look into Lucy's allegations that possibly some new company had opened up in the area and was dumping chemical wastes of some sort that might account for the strange behaviour she was encountering again and again in the town. Three hours later she'd determined that only three new industrial companies had come to the area recently. One had come so recently that it hadn't even begun operation yet. A second had opened nearly a year ago, and so seemed unlikely. The third company roughly matched her criteria, but it was a dairy pasturization plant and Heather was fairly certain there was nothing dangerous in that kind of work.

Heather had a fifteen minute wait at the restaurant before Lucy arrived. Lucy apologized and explained that an emergency had come up at the hospital at eleven thirty. Heather assured her that she had no reason to apologize. Heather took an instant liking to her older companion. She could tell the woman was in her late forties or early fifties, but was in quite good shape for her age. Her manner was very friendly, and she quickly had Heather feeling that she'd known her for years. Lucy pumped Heather for all kinds of information on how Jim was doing at the newspaper, and then finally the conversation came around to Lucy's suspicions and the strange goings-on in Rosewood that Heather had seen for herself.

"Well, I'm a believer now!" Heather exclaimed. She told Lucy of the run-ins with Meredith Crandle, the woman outside the movie theatre, and even the Sheriff. "It's hard to believe that man could get elected Queen For A Day, let alone Sheriff!"

"That's just it, dear," Lucy said. "Floyd Hawkins was a dynamo up until a month or two ago. I didn't always agree with his politics, and the boy was certainly never a rocket scientist, but there was no denying that he had the drive and enthusiasm of a teenager when he took over that job! And you saw what he's like now. He's just one of dozens... maybe hundreds, for all I know! Something is not right. I'm sure the people you've described would show the same low blood cell count that we've seen in our tests, but we have no idea what's causing it. It's like nothing I've ever seen before, that's for sure."

Although Heather thoroughly enjoyed her lunch with Lucy, she left it feeling none the wiser. "Mystery loves company," she thought, but didn't laugh at her own pun.

Back at the hotel that afternoon, Heather called Jim Simpson at the newspaper office. She told him how much she'd enjoyed meeting his aunt, and then turned to business. "Have you got any more data for me on the blood disorder angle, Jimbo?" She reflected on how dependable Jim was. She didn't have a single doubt that he'd kept digging after she'd left on assignment.

"As a matter of fact, Big Honcho, I do. Turns out that something very similar to your Rosewood situation happened a few months back in Lapeer. Lasted about eight weeks, give or take a month, and then things went back to normal. Didn't last long enough for anyone to really get a good handle on the cause. Then when the symptoms went away, I'm guessing everybody just breathed a sigh of relief. Well, everybody but one, that is. One woman died during that time, apparently from something very like extreme anemia."

"Wow," Heather said, "that puts things in a different light. I had no idea you could die from this! And it can't be a coincidence that a certain strange man who's been roaming the streets at night just happens to hail from Lapeer, either! He's tied into this somehow. But I need to find out how."

"Almost sounds to me like you're thinking of pulling some Lois Lane type maneuver, Chief! I don't think that's a very smart idea, if you want my opinion!"

"That's very sweet, Jim, but I can take care of myself. This is real life, not some comic book. Anyway, I've gotta run. Tell Gordo I'm hot on the trail, and should be calling in or hand-delivering a story tomorrow or the next day."

Heather spent the next half hour on the phone to her family. She didn't say much about the stories she was working on, for fear of worrying her husband Pat.

Supper that night was cheese, an apple, and some dinner rolls that she'd bought earlier in the day. She sat in her hotel room and pondered her next move. She'd just decided that she should try to interview Mr. Heidegger on some pretext when she heard his cane tap-tap-tapping down the hall. She changed her mind and resolved to follow him before confronting him in any way.

Less than a block away from the hotel, Mr. Heidegger turned into a coffee shop. Heather deliberated with herself as to what to do next. She decided to wait across the street from the restaurant for awhile and see what, if anything, happened. She picked a darkened alley to stand in, from which she could clearly see the coffee shop and in fact could even vaguely see the table Mr. Heidegger was sitting at.

Fifteen minutes later, a door suddenly opened in the alley where Heather was crouching. Bright light poured out of the doorway, temporarily blinding Heather. As her vision was clearing, a large male figure strode toward her from the now closing doorway. As the light disappeared, Heather couldn't quite make out any distinguishing characteristics about her uninvited companion.

"What are you doing there?" a voice asked. Heather couldn't place the voice at first, but finally recognized it as belonging to Mr. Johnson, the movie theatre owner. Then she realized where she was. She had been crouching in a narrow alleyway between the movie theatre and a drugstore, and the doorway through which Mr. Johnson had entered the alley led into the theatre.

"Hi, Mr. Johnson," she said, sheepishly. "I'm not really up to any mischief in your alleyway. I'm trying to keep an eye on Mr. Heidegger over there, because I think he's somehow behind all of the strange behaviour going on in your town. He came here from Lapeer not long ago, and he seems to have brought some form of illness with him."

"Your detective work is to be commended, my dear," Mr. Johnson said with a slight smile. "You have the right idea, but not the right man. You see, it isn't Mr. Heidegger you're after; it's me."

Heather started to move away, but Mr. Johnson reached out and grabbed her wrists in his large hands.

"I don't normally kill, if I can help it. But you've gotten a little too close for me to let you live. Normally I can count on my victims to be confused to the point of partial amnesia after I'm done with them, but I can't afford to take a chance with you. That woman in Lapeer learned the same lesson you're about to learn." His teeth gleamed in the darkness, less than a foot from Heather's throat.

Just then, Heather heard a tapping noise behind her. She tried to turn, but Mr. Johnson's grip on her wrists was too tight. She kicked at her attacker's right knee with all her strength, forcing him to let go of her. Before he could recover, he was set upon by Mr. Heidegger who crashed clumsily into him.

The two man grappled for a moment, then Mr. Johnson threw his opponent heavily against the theatre wall. The blow shattered the older man's cane and seemed to knock the wind out of its owner. Heather rushed to his side, hoping to move him before Mr. Johnson could make another move. She quickly realized the futility of her action, however, as Mr. Johnson snarled and strode quickly toward her. She frantically groped around on the ground for something to defend herself with, and her hand came to rest on a long slender piece of wood. She pulled the object toward her just as Mr. Johnson lunged at her, and the end result was that her attacker landed with his full weight on the sharp end of Mr. Heidegger's broken cane.

Heather pushed the bleeding body off of her, and hurried into the theatre to call for an ambulance. When she returned to the alley, Mr. Heidegger was standing over the still-breathing form of the theatre owner. She feared for a moment that he was going to kill the younger man, but he seemed content to merely stare down at him.

Later, after Mr. Johnson had been rushed off to the hospital, Mr. Heidegger and Heather found themselves sitting in Sheriff Hawkins' office, trying to sort out exactly what had happened. Heather had called Lucy at the hospital to tell her about Mr. Johnson, and Lucy was on her way to the Sheriff's office.

Mr. Heidegger began his story. "Several months ago, my daughter Laura became concerned about some of the homeless people who sometimes stayed at the shelter where she worked. Many of the people were acting increasingly sluggish and tired all the time. She started looking into their activities to see if she could figure out the cause. I didn't know any of this at the time. I pieced it together after she... died. You see she collapsed on a street corner in Lapeer, and was rushed to the hospital. They ran tests, but by the time the results were in, she was already gone. The doctors said that her blood cell count was so low that her body just gave up. They'd seen several similar cases recently, but never as extreme."

He paused for a moment, and then continued. "I asked some of Laura's co-workers if they had any idea what might have happened to her, and gradually came to realize that she must've stumbled onto the cause of whatever was affecting the homeless, or at least been exposed to it in some way. I retraced her tracks as best as I could, and began to suspect that this Johnson fellow was involved. He then promptly packed up and left town. It took me weeks to find where he'd gone. Finally, by luck, I stumbled on a small news item about a decrease in crime activity in Rosewood. The same sort of thing had happened in Lapeer. It wasn't much of a clue, but I took a chance and came to Rosewood. I wasn't very surprised to find Johnson here. I'm not sure what I planned to do, but I knew he was part of the problem, somehow."

"Why in Sam Hill didn't you get some help from us?" asked Sheriff Hawkins.

"I did ask, Sheriff, but you weren't particularly interested, remember?" Mr. Heidegger said, with a sharp glance at the sheriff.

Heather quipped, "Obviously, you were too busy keeping that crime rate down, Sheriff."

Lucy Simpson had arrived a moment earlier, and had eavesdropped on the last few exchanges. She piped up, "Don't be too hard on our good sheriff, Heather, he's probably one of Mr. Johnson's victims."

"Huh? What are you talkin' about?" Sheriff Hawkins demanded.

Lucy said, "You, and many other Rosewood residents, were likely targets of attacks my our late Mr. Johnson."

"Late?" gasped Heather. "You mean, he's..."

"Yup, he's dead. But don't shed any tears for him, dear, he doesn't deserve any. Let me tell you what we know so far.

"Mr. Vincent Johnson had an extremely rare kind of blood disorder. So rare, in fact, that we went through about ten phone calls, and several countries, before we found someone who could speak on the subject. This disease of his is hard to describe. He could infect others by contact with their blood stream, which I think he accomplished by biting them, likely on the neck. Let me take a look at your neck for a moment, Sheriff." She inspected the police officer's throat beneath his collar. "Sure enough, you've been bitten at least four or five times." Sheriff Hawkins stared at her like she'd told him he had two heads.

Lucy continued, "Now, I can only guess that Johnson knew about his condition, otherwise there'd be no reason for him to attack people in that fashion. Possibly he stumbled on the fact earlier this year, when he accidentally bit someone or infected them in some manner. At any rate, he must've taken particular pleasure in attacking people, judging by the number of incidents that've occurred over the past few months in Rosewood. One side-effect of the infection is that the victim becomes very confused after the attack, and most likely forgets the entire event a few hours later. A wonderful trick, from Johnson's point of view, I'm sure."

Mr. Heidegger asked, "Miss, could he kill in that fashion?"

Lucy paused to consider the question. "Yes, I think he could, if he tried. He could simply increase the concentration by repeated bites over a short period of time, I imagine."

"My poor Laura," Mr. Heidegger sighed. Heather explained to Lucy about the Lapeer incidents, and Mr. Heidegger's involvement following his daughter's death.

"I'm terribly sorry for your loss, Mr. Heidegger," Lucy said softly. "At least you can draw comfort from the fact that he won't get any more chances to cause that kind of misery to anyone else. Although from what Heather told me over the phone, he must've had his heart set on killing her before you intervened. You're a very brave man."

"I didn't think I was going to make it in time to do any good," he said. "I was sitting in the cafe trying to think what to do next when a flash of light in the alleyway beside the theatre caught my eye. I'd chosen that spot to sit so as to be able to keep an eye on the front of the theatre. I suspected that Johnson left the projection booth during the movie and did something, but I had never been able to catch him in the act. My leg, it's not good for this kind of work, I'm afraid. It always kept me from keeping up with Johnson whenever I tried to follow him."

Heather snapped her fingers. "That's what you were up to last night when you left the theatre! I couldn't figure out why you would leave in the middle like that."

"Yes," he said, "I had been in the theatre last week when the film broke. It seemed like it took too long for Johnson to splice the film and resume the movie. It wasn't until later that it dawned on me that he might have been out of the booth for a few minutes, and come back to find the film broken. So I decided that I would wait for the third or fourth reel, and then try to sneak up to the projection booth and find it empty. Instead, the man who works the popcorn stand spotted me and threw me out."

Heather said, "I'm sure Johnson thought that he should have an alibi just in case anyone ever did remember being attacked, and reported it. No one would suspect a man who was running a movie projector in front of dozens of witnesses. In fact, most or all of the attacks in Rosewood probably occurred between eight and midnight."

"Something I don't understand," said Mr. Heidegger, "is why there was a decrease in crime while Johnson was in town. It happened in two different cities. It couldn't just be a coincidence."

Heather replied, "With all due respect to Sheriff Hawkins here, I think the criminal element was likely among Johnson's victims. After all, he'd be out on the street fairly late at night, generally after dark, and the law of averages would likely favour small-time crooks during that time of night. A purse-thief here, a break-and-enter artist there, each of whom is way too confused and vague after the attack to carry off whatever plan they initially had for the evening. Before long, you start to have less crime. Maybe some of them even decided Rosewood, and Lapeer before it, is just not a good town for criminals. That's my guess anyway. Sorry, Sheriff! It looks like your War on Crime may've just had a casualty!"

Lucy sighed and said, "It's a pretty poor War on Crime that needs help from a human vampire."

"Vampire?" Heather said. "I hadn't thought of that. But he was, wasn't he? Biting people on the neck, kind of hypnotizing them into forgetting he was there."

"And that inhuman monster died from a wooden stake through his heart, if he had a heart," Mr. Heidegger said. He added, "I'll gladly get myself a new cane to replace the one that put an end to that foul life!"

Heather suddenly remembered something. "You know," she said, "just a few days ago my daughter asked me which I'd rather were real: vampires or werewolves. I didn't think very hard about my answer, and picked vampires. Next time, I think I'm going to answer her the way people often answer me. I'm giving her a firm No Comment!"