"Samantha," Cynthia stated with a scowl as she emerged from behind the wheel of the black panel van. "I should have known I'd find you here."
It took her over an hour to grace us with her presence, and now that she was here of course she was acting like this whole thing was my fault. As if I had Sally killed specifically to inconvenience Cynthia.
And two weeks ago she gave me attitude for not being around when Carlos was found. Of course she'd give me even more attitude for being present this time.
Victor emerged from the passenger seat of the van while Cyn was hassling me. He ignored the rest of us and moved straight for the body where it still lay on the channel wall next to the water.
"Cynthia I am so glad you're here," I responded without a drop of sarcasm in my tone. And frankly I should have got a fucking Oscar for that performance.
Jessica interrupted before Cyn could get a really good glare going at me. "We don't know where she was killed, but her body was brought here in the back of that pick-up truck. I caught the scent. Bit of luck, I was on Queen over the river as the pick-up went by on the highway below. I followed the scent on foot, it took me about twenty minutes to track it here."
She added, "When I got here the body was in the water, but the head's still in the back of the truck. We think the Hunter must have realized I was tracking them and took off before they finished dumping the remains."
"Hmmm," Cynthia responded as she looked around with a scowl.
Victor was poking around the corpse while we all watched and waited.
I pointed out, "That's two enforcers in two weeks. We're going to have trouble covering the whole city. It might not be a bad idea to let a couple of the older enforcers bring in some new recruits."
I glanced at Jess and asked, "You're overdue right? You, Reuben, even Anthony should be ready for his second turn."
Jessica sighed, "I've asked twice in the last fifteen years. I had two ideal candidates, and they were both denied."
"Seriously?" I frowned. "I wonder if -"
Cynthia cut me off, "It takes at least a year just to get a fresh turn to the point they can patrol with their mentor. And another six or seven years before they can patrol on their own. Meanwhile their sire or dame has to babysit. We're already shorthanded since your stunt three years ago Samantha. We can't afford to take anyone else off patrol right now."
That set off alarm bells in my head. I stayed quiet but my thoughts were racing. As long as I'd been a vampire, there hadn't been a single enforcer allowed to turn anyone. I was the youngest enforcer. Well, Tara was youngest but she was still a trainee. And for that matter my turn wasn't approved either.
Marcus was the next youngest enforcer and he was almost fifteen years older than me. He was the last approved enforcer turn, and that was nearly fifty years ago. I knew they approved a request in Cheryl's crew about ten years back, so they were still allowing turns. Just not by enforcers, from the sound of it.
That worried me. It worried me even more knowing at least some of them were asking and being denied. That only made sense if you specifically didn't want any more enforcers running around. If you meant to get rid of us, the last thing you'd want was new recruits.
During all of this Tara remained quiet as she stood by my side. She'd basically made a point to keep her mouth shut and stay out of everyone's way. Not surprising, Cynthia would only yell at her if she said anything.
Me and Jessica agreed not mention our suspected 'hunter' being a fellow vamp, we'd leave that up to our boss to figure out on her own. The information would definitely spread out among the other enforcers though.
While we were waiting for our fearless leader to arrive we'd had a thorough look around the area and come up with some other conclusions.
We knew the vamp in question didn't double back the way they came, or Jessica would have seen or smelled them as she came in from the east. And neither Tara or I picked up a vampire scent on our way here from the west. That meant the vamp didn't leave the area on foot. They could have got past us in a car, that would have hidden their scent. Another possibility, though less likely, was they could have used a boat and motored off across the harbour.
My money was on another car. The vamp probably meant to stage a crime scene with Sally's body before they left. They must have realized Jess was on their trail and took off before finishing the job.
We didn't find any weapons in the pick-up, no bow or sword or axe. That told me either the weapons were transferred to the get-away vehicle, or they were never in the pick-up to begin with. I couldn't be sure whoever was driving the pick-up was the killer, but they were definitely involved if they were moving and dumping the body.
And I was sure this was how they did it two weeks ago with Carlos. He was probably killed elsewhere then his remains were placed under the viaduct. And we knew he wasn't there long so it was likely the human cops were alerted as soon as the body was in position. It made sense they'd have done the same thing here if they weren't interrupted.
Victor confirmed what me and Jess suspected about the time of death, Sally was probably killed thirty or forty minutes before Jessica first picked up the scent. After looking over the body and the head, he opened up the back of the van and pulled out a body bag then got to work.
I could tell Tara was getting nauseous again, even looking away didn't help since she could hear everything our creepy vampire 'doctor' was doing.
"Hey Cynthia? Since you've taken charge of the scene, Tara and I are going to patrol up the west bank of the river. We'll see if we can find anything, maybe catch a scent or whatever."
Cyn glared at me for a few moments. I had to fight to keep a straight face, she hated whenever I suggested something she knew was a good idea. It meant she either had to go along with it and accept that my idea was worthwhile, or if she refused it then the pressure was on her to come up with something better.
"Fine," Cynthia finally stated. "Jessica you do the same, go up the east bank."
Jess started to protest but I gave her a look then told Cynthia, "Good idea boss."
There was no pedestrian access to the east bank, it was just the highway on that side until you got to Riverdale Park. Either Cynthia didn't know that or she forgot. Or maybe she expected Jessica to walk along the side of the highway.
I figured Jess was better off with me and Tara anyways. If it ever came up, Jess could just say she was inspecting the east bank from the footpath on the west bank.
"C'mon Jess," I added, "Let's get started. We can keep each other in sight as we go."
She suppressed a smile as she nodded, "Right."
The three of us got moving. We followed Jess's route east to the Don Roadway then north, and finally crossed the mouth of the river on a footbridge. From there we had a footpath that followed the bank of the river. I couldn't remember how far north it went, but I knew it went some distance past Bloor which was as far as we needed to go.
We were all quiet for the first few minutes, till we passed the railroad bridge and were well away from Cynthia and Victor.
"Pffft," Jessica rolled her eyes. "She's useless. I can't believe Isabelle put her in charge. Does she even patrol at all anymore?"
"No idea," I shrugged. "I doubt it though."
Jess shook her head, "That's why we liked you Samantha. And Isabelle, when she was top enforcer. You two did the job along with the rest of us. You didn't just sit around the mansion pretending you were above all that."
Tara asked quietly, "Why'd she put Cynthia in charge? If she's not that good at the job?"
"Favouritism," Jessica stated. "Or nepotism? I'm not sure if you can call it that. Cynthia was Isabelle's first turn though."
I shrugged, "Yeah she was. Maybe that's why."
I had a feeling there was more to it than that. The Isabelle I used to know would have picked someone else. Reuben would have been my first choice to replace me, and the old Isabelle would have known that as well. If it was just about nepotism Cynthia would have had the job from the start. I suspected it was because Cyn was more compliant, she toed the party line and didn't ask questions.
From what I knew now, the old Isabelle was the one who promoted me right before... Before whatever happened to her when she became matriarch. Then it would have been too obvious if she immediately demoted me. Especially when I had the respect of almost all the other enforcers. She had to wait until I screwed up, which took me a full decade.
We were all quiet again for a while as we kept walking. I wasn't even really paying attention to my surroundings, my mind was caught up again in the conspiracy stuff. Cynthia said we couldn't afford to take an enforcer or two off the streets to look after a new turn. That was a great excuse but it felt like she used it too early. Still, it meant they could bump one of us off every few weeks to keep us 'on alert' while slowly picking away at our numbers. If there weren't enough of us to spare one now, it would be even harder to convince them to spare one after a couple more of us were killed.
They could keep doing that, one or two a month, and soon enough there'd be no enforcers left at all. The Family would be defenceless. And the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that this was the plan.
"Were you patrolling alone Jessica?" Tara asked, breaking the silence.
Jess replied "Yeah. Cynthia never acted on that suggestion to have us in pairs."
"Fuck," I sighed. "Do me a favour Jess? Suggest it again tomorrow? Maybe send it as a group email, like send it to Cynthia but copy everyone? Try and word it so it's like, you're suggesting it to her since she's the boss, like stroke her ego a bit. But copy everyone. So the idea's in everyone's head, and if Cynthia denies it or just ignores it, folks will question. Maybe even pair up without her knowing."
"Yeah I get it," Jessica nodded. "I'll do that as soon as I get home."
We all stuck together as we continued following the path upriver. We passed the footbridge at the park, Jessica stayed with me and Tara on the west side and we followed the railroad tracks. The viaduct wasn't too much further than that, and three of us came to a stop there. We weren't far from where Carlos's body was found.
"I've had nothing for a while," Jess said. "The scent's gone."
The highway was about two hundred meters away from where we were, on the opposite side of the valley. I took a deep breath then sighed, "It's really faint but I can pick up something. Odds are they got her up in her own territory, then stuffed her in the pickup and drove her south. No idea why."
Jess stared at me, "You can pick up the scent from here?"
I back-pedalled a bit, "Uh, I thought I could? It's faint. Maybe just my imagination."
"Sam? That spot on the channel where they dumped her, was that in your area?" Tara asked, maybe as a distraction.
"I'm not sure actually," I replied with a frown. "Technically my patrol area goes as far as the Don. If you count the channel as part of the river then all the port lands on the south side of the channel are on the other side of the river. That's Carlos's old territory."
"Mine now," Jess added with a sigh.
Tara asked, "Where Carlos was found, that was in your area though?"
My frown remained, "You know that's a bit of a question too. The northern limit of my patrol is Bloor Street. It was definitely my side of the river. If you wanted to split hairs, he might have been on Sally's turf. Depends on which side of the bridge support he was on."
Jessica was frowning as well now. "So are they picking your turf? Or picking border areas, where it's not clear who's responsible?"
I shrugged, "Or are they staying close to the river?"
"Two data points isn't enough to know for sure," Tara pointed out.
"I really don't want any more data points," I stated. "Two is already too many."
Jessica and Tara both agreed with that.
"Let's go home," I suggested. "C'mon Jess, we'll walk you up to Bloor. You can catch the subway home."
We avoided the art school by climbing up out of the valley on the north side of the viaduct this time. That was closer to the subway station anyways. Tara and I walked Jess to the station then bid her a good night. She headed down the steps while me and Tara set out on foot for our place.
Dawn was hours away, we still had half the night left but I didn't feel like doing any more work. Sally wasn't a friend but she was a colleague, and I hated to see another one of us go like that.
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