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  “Hello Leon, I’m glad you returned my call,” Jacob said. “My name is Detective Jacob Cooper, from the Glenmore Park police department.”

  “Glenmore Park?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Uh… Massachusetts, sir. About twenty miles north of Boston.” Jacob said, doodling thoughtfully on a piece of paper. If Leon really didn’t know where Glenmore Park was, he didn’t know his sister was living there.

  “Okay. Why are you calling me, Detective?”

  “Do you have a sister named Kendele Byers?” Jacob asked.

  “That’s right,” Leon’s voice tensed up. “Did you find her?”

  “Were we supposed to be looking for her, Mr. Byers?”

  “I reported her missing a week ago.”

  “Mr. Byers, where exactly did you report her missing?”

  “The police, of course.”

  “There is no missing persons description that matches your sister in Glenmore Park, sir.”

  “Why would there be? She lived in San Francisco.”

  “I see. For how long has she been living in San Francisco, sir?” Jacob asked.

  “For the past six months or so.”

  “Mr. Byers, why would you think that Kendele lives in San Francisco?”

  “Because that’s what she told me, of course.”

  Jacob glanced at Mitchell, who was listening to the call and frowning. Why would Kendele give a false address to her brother?

  “Mr. Byers, I’m sorry to say that I think we have recovered your sister’s body.”

  The seconds went by in silence. “What?” Leon finally said. “Are… Are you sure? My sister is not even close to the East Coast. I think you must be mistaken, I—”

  “Was your sister about five six, Caucasian, with red hair?”

  “Yes, but listen—”

  “Did she have a root canal as a child?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you could find out, it will help us clear up this case. If your sister really does live in San Francisco, perhaps we misidentified the body.”

  “S… Sure. What do you need?”

  “Can you give me the name and address of the dentist she went to as a child?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Leon said. “We’ve been going to the same dentist for years. His name is Doctor Harrow. Hang on, I’ll get his address.” Jacob waited. Finally Leon found the address and dictated it to Jacob.

  “Okay,” Jacob said. “We’ll get a warrant for her dental records and will cross reference them with our Jane Doe’s as soon as we get them.”

  “Okay. I’m sure you have the wrong person, Detective. Please let me know once you’re sure?”

  “Of course. Thank you, Mr. Byers.”

  Jacob hung up. A second later Kendele’s phone beeped. Mitchell picked it up and glanced at it. He showed the message to Jacob. Kendele, please call me, it’s urgent!!!

  “What do you think?” Jacob asked.

  Mitchell fiddled with the phone a bit. “It has a San Francisco area code,” he told Jacob.

  “Maybe she really did move to San Francisco at first,” Jacob said.

  “Or she got the phone number with this area code, to make it seem that way.”

  “Let’s try and get that warrant,” Jacob said without enthusiasm.

  It was one of those days when bureaucracy didn’t fight back. They had the warrant within an hour, and it took only forty five minutes more to receive the dental records from Doctor Harrow. They passed them over to Annie, who compared them to the body’s teeth immediately.

  The body was Kendele Byers.

  Chapter Four

  Something was beeping in the darkness. What did it want, this alien sound, its shrill pitch assaulting her ears in the middle of the night? Did it seek to destroy her? Drive her to madness? Was it the sound of pure, malignant evil?

  No, Marissa slowly realized, it was the sound of her husband’s alarm clock. It wasn’t really the middle of the night; it was four in the morning, which was almost as bad. He had mentioned the night before that he’d be getting up very early.

  “Jacob,” she mumbled, and nudged him. “Jacob.”

  “Harummmmph,” he muttered into his pillow.

  “Jacob, wake up.”

  “No, it’s okay, there’s no need. I’ll clean it later.”

  “Jacob, your alarm clock.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “Jacob!” she barked impatiently.

  Jacob sat up, confused, his eyes open wide.

  “What? What happened?”

  “Your alarm is beeping!”

  “Oh. Oh! Right!” Jacob finally turned the damn thing off. “Sorry, hon, go back to sleep.”

  “’kay,” she mumbled and rolled to her side. “Have a nice day.”

  Her husband got up and quietly began to dress. Or, at least, dressing quietly was his intention. Jacob always thought of himself as a morning person, but Marissa knew well that in the first thirty minutes of the day her husband’s cognitive abilities were quite similar to the abilities of a toddler—and not a bright toddler, at that.

  It was even worse when he woke up early. Pants were dropped, as well as socks. He managed to somehow bump his head on the closet door, though Marissa couldn’t begin to imagine how. He tried to close their bathroom door silently, and instead slammed it like an angry teenager making a point. Beyond the door she heard the cup that held their toothbrushes fall on the floor, heard her husband curse. She sighed.

  Finally, he was more or less ready, but this was just the first act. Now it was time for the main event. The “Where is my stuff” show. She heard him opening drawers and cupboards. That went on for a while, then he tiptoed back to the bedroom.

  “Marissa,” he whispered, as if the fact that he spoke quietly would wake her up any less.

  “Hmmmmm?”

  “Do you know where my car keys are?”

  “On the kitchen table, hon.”

  “Okay, sorry. Go back to sleep.”

  A bit of silence. Then some additional drawers and cupboards opened and closed. More muttered curses from beyond the bedroom door.

  The door opened again.

  “Sorry, hon,” he whispered. “But I have to go and—”

  “Your wallet is probably in your coat pocket. If not, it’s on the small table by the front door.”

  “Okay. Thanks hon, you’re the best.”

  “Go away, you oaf. I’m trying to sleep.”

  Even with her eyes closed, she could almost see his grin as he left the bedroom. She smiled a small, content smile. There were some hours till morning. She rolled over to his side of the bed, took a deep breath of his pillow, where his scent still lingered, and slowly fell back to sleep.

  The detectives’ careful planning fell completely apart due to unforeseen roadwork on I-93. It delayed them for forty minutes, which meant they hit heavy traffic in Boston, which in turn resulted in another delay. Mitchell nearly ground his teeth to dust in frustration as they inched ever so slowly toward Ronnie Kuperman’s address. Finally, at ten to eight in the morning, they knocked on Ronnie’s door, hoping that by some miracle he was still at home. To their surprise, he was.

  His housekeeper led them through Kuperman’s large apartment and into his study. It could have been mistaken for a low level bank manager’s office, if it weren’t for all the movie posters that covered the walls. These were not posters of thought-provoking and deep dramas. There were scantily clad women, blood, and corpses on the posters, in pretty much equal amounts. The movie names depicted on the posters were The Catacombs of Sensuality, The Attack of the Octopus People, and Bloody Love Mountain.

  Ronnie Kuperman sat behind a mahogany desk, his fingers tap-dancing on his laptop’s keyboard. He was dressed in a brown suit that clashed violently with his blue tie. He was a thin man, with a haircut that looked as if his mother had done it; his auburn hair circled his head like a helmet. He had a
mustache that automatically made Mitchell annoyed. Mitchell didn’t believe in mustaches; he called them “lip toupees.” But even mustaches had better and worse versions, and this one, a sort of horizontal slug trail, was one of the worst he’d ever seen.

  A few seconds after they entered the room, Ronnie lifted his eyes and looked at them.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “You’re early. Please sit down.” His voice was high-pitched and his words wavered as if he weren’t sure if he was asking a question or making a statement.

  Mitchell, whose nerves were completely frayed, felt this voice was sent from hell to torture him for his sinful past. All he really wanted was to curl up in the back of their car and go to sleep. It was clear that Ronnie Kuperman had mistaken them for someone else, but Jacob said nothing, and Mitchell didn’t have the energy to correct the man.

  “I’ll get straight to the point; I know you two are busy. Do you want some coffee? Tea? Something stronger?” He pressed on without waiting for them to respond. “The short pitch, or the long pitch? I’ll start with the short pitch—ha ha—everyone wants the short pitch first, am I right? Here’s the short pitch: It’s When Harry Met Sally, but with vampires. Got your attention now, haven’t I? Intrigued? So here’s the thing—vampires, they’re the real deal, right? I’m talking about Twilight. I’m talking about True Blood. Do you need any more examples? No, you don’t, ‘cause everyone knows, they’re the best. Now, vampire movies, they’re always sexy, right? But you know something? People are getting old-fashioned again. They want their childhood movies. They want romantic comedies. And we’ve already established that vampires are romantic, right? So there you go. You’ve got your vampire. You’ve got his best friend, maybe a neighbor or something. He always wants to drink her blood. Half the movie’s jokes are based on that. And the girl has to be played by Keira Knightley. That’s non-negotiable. What you need to understand—”

  “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken us for someone else, Mr. Kuperman,” Jacob said, finally. “We’re not from the entertainment business.”

  “You’re not?” Kuperman seemed perplexed.

  “No. I’m Detective Jacob Cooper, from the Glenmore Park police department. This is my partner, Detective Mitchell Lonnie.”

  “Seriously?” Kuperman stared at them. “That’s so weird. You look just like… I thought you were a couple of producers I was supposed to meet.”

  “You’re a director?” Mitchell hazarded.

  “A screenwriter,” Ronnie said. “Detectives, huh? What are you doing here?”

  “We wanted to ask you some questions.”

  “What about? Should I be calling my lawyer?”

  “That’s up to you, Mr. Kuperman,” Jacob said. “We just wanted to ask about Kendele Byers.”

  “Who the hell is Kendele Byers?”

  “You might know her as pantyGirl,” Mitchell said.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “I might know her, huh?” Kuperman finally said. “What is it that you wanted to ask me, Detectives?”

  “Can you tell us how you know pantyGirl?”

  “I never said I knew her,” Ronnie Kuperman said.

  “I’d say you did,” Mitchell said, losing his patience. “I’d say she sent you three thongs and a set of crotchless panties she wore for twenty-four hours each, two months ago. We have a PayPal invoice from your e-mail, sent to her, for three hundred dollars. Now, you can cooperate with us right now, or maybe you’d rather we let some reporter know that Ronnie Kuperman regularly orders used underpants online?”

  Ronnie Kuperman looked at Mitchell, then at Jacob. He cleared his throat

  “I recognize this scene,” he said. “This is the scene where I start to cry and beg, right? Oh please, Officer, don’t expose my dirty little secrets. I have a wife and two daughters, and they know nothing, Officer! I’ll tell you everything, Officer, just don’t ruin my life. I should probably burst into tears, wringing my hands in weakness. Maybe fall to my knees, clutching at the lapels of your jacket. That’s what you had in mind, right? Kind of clichéd, really overused, but I guess an actor like David Paymer could make it work. Is this really what you want here?”

  “Look, Mr. Kuperman—” Jacob started to say.

  “I sniff used underpants, Detective,” Ronnie Kuperman said sharply, interrupting him. “It’s a fetish, not a mark of Cain. My wife knows about it; the people I work with know about it. I joke about it all the time. There was an article on Buzzfeed, titled Five amazing things you didn’t know about Ronnie Kuperman, and my underpants fetish was mentioned there—and it wasn’t even the top thing on the list! So if you manage to find a reporter who’s interested in the story, be my guest. God knows I could do with a little publicity!”

  “Mr. Kuperman, calm down,” Jacob said. “My partner didn’t really mean anything by what he said. We are, like you said, just playing our part in a well-known scene. But Kendele Byers has been murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Ronnie Kuperman said in shock, his eyes widening in alarm. “How? When?”

  “We can’t divulge that information. However, we would like to rule you out as a suspect. If you cooperate with us, things will be much easier.”

  “I… Yes. Of course. What do you need?”

  “How did you meet Kendele Byers?”

  “I never met her, Detective. I chatted on Reddit with someone who identified herself as pantyGirl.”

  “Reddit?” Jacob asked.

  “It’s a site… a forum,” Mitchell explained to his partner. “I’ll show you later.”

  “Anyway, that was it. I never really knew her, and all our chats were about what type of underpants she had, and how much they cost.”

  “Do you know her address?”

  “No.”

  “Was there a return address on any of the packages she sent?”

  “She sent two packages, and no, I don’t think there was a return address.”

  “Can we see the boxes?”

  “I threw them away. I can show you the underpants.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Can you give us your whereabouts between the 20th and 22nd of October?”

  Kuperman nodded. He tapped some keys on his laptop and then exhaled. His shoulders sagged. “Sure,” he said. “I was in Canada. We were filming there.”

  “Any witnesses who could attest to that?”

  “A full filming crew, about two dozen actors—one of them a well-known porn actress—and some of the locals.”

  “When did you film the movie, exactly?”

  “Between the 14th and the 25th.”

  “I see,” Jacob said. He glanced at Mitchell.

  “Mr. Kuperman, did you at any time contact pantyGirl other than in e-mails?”

  “Not beyond our first chat on Reddit,” Kuperman said, shrugging. “It was a very professional relationship.”

  “We’d like a contact list of the people who were on the film set with you, as well as the subreddit in which you met Kendele Byers,” Mitchell said

  “No problem, I’ll have my secretary send the information to you.”

  Mitchell handed Ronnie Kuperman a business card. “Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Kuperman.”

  “Sure.”

  The detectives stood up. Just as they were about to leave, the door opened and two men came into the office. It was one of the strangest moments in Mitchell’s life. He now understood why Ronnie Kuperman mistook them for someone else. The men were uncannily similar to Jacob and Mitchell, if the two detectives had chosen careers as movie producers. The Jacob clone was a bit chubbier, and wore an expensive black suit and a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses. The Mitchell clone looked almost identical, except his face was happy, small laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, and his skin was completely smooth, no stubble in sight.

  The four men stared at each other for a moment as confusion settled around them. There was nothing to say or do that would make sense of this peculiar encounter. Finally, Jacob strode forward, shouldering h
is clone on the way out of the office, almost as if he was offended by the entire thing.

  Mitchell quickly followed him. As he closed the door, he heard Kuperman say “Gentleman! Do you want some coffee? Tea? Something stronger? Should I give you the short pitch, or the long pitch? Think When Harry Met Sally, but with vampires…”

  Chapter Five

  They decided to interview Debbie, the only girl who seemed to have talked to Kendele on a regular basis, according to Kendele’s phone. They called her on the way back from Boston, and she answered her phone almost immediately. She had trouble hearing the conversation because of the background noise. She was on her way to work, she explained, and there was road construction. Mitchell said that they were detectives and they wanted to ask her some questions. He had to repeat this sentence several times, and by the end he was practically hollering into the phone, with Jacob flinching visibly as he listened. Well, she was about to start her shift, so they could meet her at work, she suggested. She worked at Paulie’s Peppery Poultry. Mitchell asked her to repeat the place’s name once more, just to be sure he heard right.

  They reached Paulie’s Peppery Poultry, a fast food restaurant on Sun Valley Boulevard, just after noon. The exterior of the restaurant was painted in clashing yellow and red stripes, and on the roof just above the double glass doors was a huge oval sign with a picture of a manic, grinning duck and the letters PPP painted in a garish green.

  They were surprised to find that the place was packed. Apparently a lot of people loved peppery poultry, at least when Paulie was involved. Each table was occupied, covered with red trays brimming with unattractive oily chicken bits. The walls were decorated by photos of meals that were not, in Mitchell’s opinion, even distant family members of the things he could see on the customers’ trays. On each picture the same psychotic-looking duck from the sign outside smiled at the meal.

  Three young women stood behind the counter at the far end of the restaurant, taking orders from customers. They all wore the same uniform, its white and red colors matching the colors of the restaurant’s mascot, and each wore a hat that looked like the top half of the duck’s face. It was the worst branding Mitchell had ever seen, and he was amazed at the place’s apparent success. Perhaps the food, despite its appearance, was really good.