None of us argued; we just slipped the little plastic-bootie things over our shoes and then gloved ourselves. Now, whoever was walking through the crime scene wouldn’t accidentally track in evidence, or step on evidence in the house, and we wouldn’t be getting forensics excited about a fingerprint that didn’t match the family.
A tall man, as in taller than Dev, walked into the room. He was almost completely bald with just an edge of dark hair trimmed short. His jacket was a subdued gray check, pants solid gray; he wore a white button-down shirt that seemed to be handed out to all detectives in America, and here, bisected by a tie that almost matched the jacket. Once I would have thought it matched, but I’d been dating Jean-Claude and Nathaniel too long, and it had made me pickier.
“Forrester, good that you’re here, and you as well, Marshal Blake.” He was wearing gloves, so there were no handshakes with this inspector, who was introduced as Superintendent Pearson, either. He glanced at the men around us. “And who are these gentlemen?”
Names weren’t what Pearson wanted to know. He wanted to know what good they were going to be inside his crime scene. How could they help the investigation? The four of them stayed silent and let Edward and me do the talking. They probably didn’t know what to say either.
Edward said, “It depends on what kind of scene we have here. Everyone has their specialties.”
Pearson nodded, as if that made sense. “Currently, we’re trying to decide if it’s safe to move the vampires out of the house. Do you remember the vampire that burned up on us before you came in on the investigation?”
Edward turned to me. “Paramedics got called to an unconscious victim, but when they tried to take him out of the house on a stretcher the sun was up.”
I gave him wide eyes. “He burst into flames?”
Edward and both of the inspectors nodded.
“Wow, that must have been quite the surprise for the paramedics.”
“According to witnesses the vampire woke up as it was burning to death and started screaming. The paramedics weren’t prepared and didn’t know what to do to help the victim . . . the vampire.”
“Once they go up in flames from sunlight there isn’t always a way to put out the fire,” I said.
“May I interject?” Jake asked.
“If you have something useful to add,” Pearson said.
“Once a vampire is out of direct sunlight, you simply extinguish the flames as you would on anyone, though admittedly some types of vampires burn more violently than others.”
“Marshal Forrester has been trying to enlighten us on the variety of vampirekind,” Pearson said.
Sheridan asked, “If the paramedics had put the vampire in the ambulance, would they have been able to put out the fire, or would the entire ambulance have gone up in flames?”
“I’d have rushed him back to the house—more room to work with and less likely that you’ll burn down an entire house. I am not certain I would want to take a combusting vampire into the back of an ambulance. You say this one was screaming and thrashing around?”
“Witnesses say he was,” Pearson said.
“The vampire was panicking at that point and might have reached out for the medics. If the vampire had grabbed hold of them in his panic he could have burned them, too, and the interior of the ambulance could have gone up with them inside it.”
“They attempted to douse the flames but didn’t think to try to get him out of the sunlight,” Pearson said.
“I told them that the only thing I’d ever used sunlight for was to burn vampires. I’d never tried to save one, so I didn’t know if it was possible,” Edward said.
“I’ve never tried to save one from sunlight, not once they caught fire anyway,” I said.
“I am glad that I could add something to the conversation,” Jake said.
Pearson was looking at him closely. “We have a house full of paramedics who are wanting more information on how to treat vampires medically.”
“I will be happy to lend what knowledge I possess.”
“Is that why you have so many ambulances out front, because you’re treating the vampires and the victims both?” I asked.
“We transported everyone in the house that didn’t have fangs as victims found unresponsive at the scene,” he said.
“I told them that fangs were one way they could tell vampire from victim,” Edward said.
“The not breathing is a clue, too,” I said.
“But some coma patients have respiration so shallow that it can barely be detected, Marshal Blake. A doctor with better equipment needs to make that decision.”
“That’s fair. So how many . . . victims with fangs do we have left, and are they what the three ambulances are waiting for?”
“We have three possible vampires on site,” Pearson said.
“How many nonvamps did you transport?” I asked.
“Four.”
“What are you doing with them?” I asked.
Sheridan answered, “The hospital is trying to figure out if they are alive, dead, or other, and if there’s anything they can do to bring them back.”
“I just read a new study on brain activity in vampires. It turns out that unlike the true dead, bodies that are going to rise as vampires don’t go completely brain dead,” I said.
“Does that mean that vampires aren’t the walking dead?” Dev asked. “I mean, brain death is one of the ways they decide whether to pull the plug on life support, so does that mean vampires don’t really die?”