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Vampire Murders Part 19

"The arsonists are caught on video. Eran makes a new friend and ally."

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The fire suppression system kicked on quickly and the fire died in a matter of a few minutes. Rather than evacuate with Leona, Slade stood and watched as the flames licked the room and then they were gone. Of course, the furnishings in the room sustained damage and replacement was necessary. Leona's coffin fell apart from the flames that swallowed it, but she had a spare in the back of the warehouse.

While Leona got her coffin and moved it to one of the other rooms in the warehouse, Slade called Eran at home, had her retrieve a forensics kit and come to the warehouse. The people who created this fire left around a lot of evidence. Slade wanted to get this evidence before it disappeared or grew cold. It was about an hour before sunrise when Eran arrived. She drove into the warehouse and climbed out of her car with the forensics kit. Slade showed her where the discarded containers for the lighter fluid, copper wire and other combustibles were. She quickly got to work and gathered several nice clear fingerprints from them. She set up her laptop computer and connected to the main Crime Scene Investigators database servers to run the prints.

Eran logged each of the containers into the case files for the murders. The prints came back belonging to the new vampires that Slade, Connie and Eran searched for, related to the six murder victims. Now they had concrete evidence to arrest the vampires. Until now, they knew the vampires committed the crimes but did not have hard evidence to prove it. With the arson done in the warehouse, they had enough to post warrants for them and their human friends. The only problem was where were they now?

"We have enough evidence now to get a warrant to arrest the vampires and their human friends." Slade told Eran. "We finally have them committing a crime that will allow us to arrest them. This will make Leona, Gustaf and Connie pleased."

"Are you sure we have enough? We have a fire that was set, but we never reported it to the Fire Marshal or called them to put it out." Eran injected. "Yes we have their fingerprints on some empty bottles and things, but are they tied to the fire?"

"Damn, we blew it! Wait a minute. Maybe we have them cold now. We need to get the surveillance video from this warehouse for last night. That will show who was really here and committed the arson." Slade told her. "Fortunately the data is written to a DVD as it is recorded. I will go to The Main Artery and retrieve the discs."

"We may get a license plate number from the truck you saw leaving when you arrived," added Eran. "If we get that and tie them to it we have a good case for arson, but the murders still may be hard to prove."

Slade sat at a table in the dining area and rested his head on the table. It was a long day and everything seemed to weigh heavily on him now. Eran busied herself making a new pot of coffee to get Slade going again. She made enough noise to keep him awake.

"Slade, I am going to call the Fire Marshal and his investigation team. We can have them examine the room and determine what created the fire and the materials used. Then we will have it tied up nicely." Eran told him.

"Good, make the call. Let's get this done fast. I want to get more than just us looking for these people. I will call The Main Artery to get the video we need. Hopefully it will contain what we need." Slade replied groggily.

Eran opened her department phone and called the Fire Marshal, who notified the arson investigation team. They arrived thirty minutes later with a team of investigators. The investigators took samples of the area where the fire started and the materials used. They looked around the rest of the warehouse and concluded that the fire covered only that one room. They dusted the trash bin and its contents for fingerprints, bagged and tagged the evidence. Ninety minutes after they arrived, they left with the evidence and gave Eran an itemized list of every piece they took. Eran filed it away, asked that they keep her and Slade appraised of their findings and thanked them for their prompt attention.

Before the investigators arrived, Slade retired to the same room where Leona slept in her new coffin. He slept in the bed after taking all his clothes off and laying them on the couch. Eran entered the room to tell Slade the investigators were gone, but found him sound asleep. Slade, while he slept, threw the covers off the bed, exposing the fact he slept in the nude. She stood at the foot of the bed, as she admired Slade's naked body. After a few minutes, she felt embarrassed, blushed and bent to cover him up. She quietly retreated from the room and closed the door not making a sound.

Eran sat at the table huddled over her laptop. She entered what the investigators told her about the fire. About an hour after they left, the big overhead door rolled up and a black SUV rolled into the warehouse. A strapping, well-built, muscular man exited the SUV and walked to Eran. He stood quietly, while Eran finished her typing and looked up.

"Are you with the police?" He asked. He introduced himself, as Kevin, a member of the security staff.

"Yes, do you have something for me?" Eran replied.

"I have the DVDs from the surveillance of this warehouse. They are from yesterday and last night, until the alarm went off early this morning." He replied.

Eran took the package, thanked the man and set up her laptop to display the DVDs on the large screen TV. Kevin sat next to her and watched her work the DVD display software on her laptop. She fast-forwarded through the first DVD, seeing nothing interesting but an empty warehouse.

About half way through the second DVD, the truck entered the warehouse. The time code on the DVD read 8:35:27 P.M. Five males got out of the truck and opened the back. Eran stopped the DVD and made a note of the plate number along with the make and model of the truck.

When she started up the DVD, the five men carried jugs of what appeared to be a flammable liquid, a bale of wire and a huge package of paper towels into the kitchen area. Eran stopped the DVD at a frame where all the men looked up at the camera. She captured the frame for later offline printing of the suspects' pictures.

She turned to Kevin and asked, "Do you recognize any of the men in the picture?"

"Not by name, but I saw two of them with their girlfriends at the club several times. They sat in the VIP section with the owner." He replied hesitantly. "The other three appeared on other video we have of another warehouse. They were doing something to different girls on several occasions."

"Can we get copies of those DVDs, please?" Eran asked nicely with a soft little plea in her voice, as she placed her hand on his knee.

"Mr. Gustaf may not like it, but for you I will do it. Please don't tell anyone how you got them." He smiled blushing at Eran. He put his hand on top of hers.

She looked over at Kevin, smiled and removed her hand from his leg. They watched the rest of the DVD as the five men continued moving around the warehouse. The men put all the stuff they carried on the table and went to the refrigerator. They took out what appeared to be bottles of beer and sat in front of the giant screen TV watching a soccer game. The men were boisterous and cheered one team on to victory. When the game ended, they picked up their trash and cleaned up the area.

They proceeded to wrap and tape batteries to one of the empty bottles making it a giant battery pack. They stripped a lot of the copper wire and wound it around the batteries. They attached the wire to the ends of the batteries but left two long pieces for something. They took the paper towels and wrapped them around this whole package. It looked like a giant paper ball with two long wires sticking out of it. They carried it to Leona's sleep chamber along with the jugs of lighter fluid.

There were no cameras in the sleep chambers, but the five men spent a great deal of time in there. When they came out, they carried the empty jugs, but no paper ball. That indicated they placed or left the paper ball in the room. They tossed the jugs in the trash and went back to watch more TV. At 4:30 A.M., they gathered up their trash, put it away and set everything to look as if no one visited that night. When they finished, they got in their truck, backed out and left.

Shortly after the five men left, Slade and Leona arrived. They appeared on camera and walked around the warehouse cautiously. They searched for something, but found only the trash left behind. Slade seemed to sense a strong smell and followed it to one of the sleep chambers. He walked into the room, but signaled for Leona to get in the car. She went into the car and sat in the driver's seat waiting for Slade.

Soon, a bright flash appeared in the camera lens, which caused it to shutdown and forced a system reset. The DVD ended there, but looking at the time stamp at the end, it was in line with the log displayed from the fire suppression system. So, everything fit into place and they had a good case to present to the District Attorney's office.

All that remained to do was tie these five men to the six murders of the young women. That was a bit more difficult, but if the DVD surveillance was as good as, what she had here, it was an easy task. Time played into their hands now. Eran reached over and hugged Kevin in a gesture of thanks. Kevin blushed, but hugged her back.

Eran took the DVDs put them each in their own individual evidence bag, marked them and logged them in her file system. Now they were part of the investigation. When she got to the squad room, she would hand them to the technician who made the copies and when copied, put the originals into archive storage.

Kevin stood, took Eran's hand and kissed it. She blushed, as he walked to the car, turned and waved goodbye. Eran sat and watched him leave. She found a new friend who was handsome and liked her. "This job is great!" She thought.

When the five men drove away from the warehouse earlier, they went to the transport company, which the vampire kidnapper family owned. The family was dead and the company still doing business was all but shutdown. They drove into the back storage area where goods transported spent time waiting for the next truckload to ship. It was not like the warehouse they used to inhabit, but it had what they needed to live and evade the police.

When the five men entered their new living area, the two vampires split of and joined their vampire girlfriends to sleep the day away. The other three men went to get some food in the kitchen and watch some more TV while they ate. They scanned the local news channels hoping to see the results of their night's work. So far, nothing appeared about a fire or explosion at a warehouse. This should have bothered them but they did not seem to care. They went back to watching cartoons and soccer match reruns.

After Kevin left, Eran sat at her computer dreaming about what it would be like to date Kevin. She looked at her computer and shook her head to make Kevin disappear for now. She looked at the notes she took as they watched the DVDs.

The plate number was a commercial plate for the truck so it was easier to trace the owners. She connected to the state Department of Motor Vehicles and entered the plate number. Within seconds, a page of information came back showing the make, model, color and year of the truck. The owner of the truck was the vampire family who owned the estate for which they had a search warrant. The registration however was to the transport company where the five men stayed now.

Eran sent the results to the squad room printer for when she arrived at work. She worked diligently to check the scope of the existing warrant to ascertain if it covered searching the business address too. She called the District Attorney's office and spoke to the Assistant District Attorney who got the warrant processed.

"Hello, I am looking at a warrant that you handled for us to search the home of a family of kidnappers." Eran said.

"Yes, I remember that warrant," replied the ADA.

"Does it cover searching their place of business too?" Eran asked meekly.

"Hold on for a minute while I check," said the ADA. A few minutes later, she came back on the line. "Yes, the warrant covers their business address too when searching for any vehicles used. Why do you ask?"

"Well, we have one of their trucks used in the commission of another crime related to the kidnapping, six murders and now an act of arson." Eran quickly replied.

"Wait, we may want to amend the warrant to include the arson case and the murders. We want to have it broad in scope, but specific in the reason for the warrant." The ADA injected. "Send me an email with the pertinent facts and I will make sure you have a new warrant when you get to work later today."

"That sounds good. I will send it to you now. Thank you for your help." Eran cheerfully replied. She hung up the phone and smiled about the possibility of finally getting the three humans, the two vampires and their two girlfriends.

Eran quickly created the email for the ADA citing the Fire Marshal's report number and the DVD evidence of the arsonists doing their job. She added the plate number and the information received from the DMV. She thought that would be enough to include the transport company search in the scope of the warrant. She sent the email off and made a note to look for the updated warrant when she arrived in the squad room later.

It was coming up on noon and Eran was hungry. She decided to look around the warehouse checking for food to eat and stuff to drink. She opened the cabinets above the stove and sinks and found a lot of dried foods. She looked in the refrigerator and found fresh eggs, butter and milk. She decided she wanted some macaroni and cheese. She took down a box and found a pot to cook it. She made enough so that Slade could have some when he woke up.

As she finished the meal and put it on a plate for herself, the door to the room where Slade slept opened and he walked out wrapped in a towel. He looked over and saw Eran standing in the kitchen with a pot in her hand. She saw him, smiled and reached for another plate. She dished up some food for him and put it on the counter.

Slade waved to her, turned around and went back in the room closing the door. Five minutes later, he emerged dressed and ready to go to work.

"I smelled the food cooking and wondered who was here. I was glad it was you." Slade said.

"I have been here all morning getting things done. I tracked down the truck that left. I saw who was in the truck and what they did on DVD." Eran added.

"That is great. We have the DVDs of the arsonists. What else did you do?" Slade inquired.

"I got the search warrant to include the businesses of the kidnapper family. The truck that left here was theirs. So, we get a new search warrant later today. There were five men here to create the fire and we have them all on video." Eran blurted out quickly.

Slade nodded, smiled and said, "You have done a fair bit of work this morning and made a lot of progress on the arson. What else have you done?"

"Yes, I did. I think I will have evidence of who killed the six young women soon." Eran shyly added.

"How, um, did you do that? We have not been able to get anything on them. If you did that, I may have to get you hired on permanently for me." Slade added quizzically.

"Kevin, the security person from the warehouse, told me that they have DVDs of the activity of the five men and two women with each of the murdered young women. He is getting me the full set of DVDs. I hope he does it." She slowly told him.

"Wow, this has been a very productive morning for you. I should leave you alone more often. You get things done. This is a great day for us. I can't wait to tell Leona about it all." Slade said excitedly. "Hmmm, maybe I better not tell her. She might get angry about the DVDs, if she knew about them."

"Yes, I felt the same way. I think we need to take them, log them in and review them. We also may want to get a District Attorney involved to make sure we have not gotten them in an illegal manner. It can be a very delicate situation we face here." Eran spouted.

"Yes, we need to tread very carefully from now on." Slade said quietly.

Published 
Written by frogprince
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