Her name was Gladys Melbourne and she was crying.
We were sitting together in my office, with the door closed. Outside, the street sounds came through my partially open window. A particularly loud Harley rumbled by so loudly that the fillings in my teeth nearly rattled out.
Gladys ignored the Harley. She was looking away and wiping tears from her high cheekbones.
Women crying in my presence wasn't something new to me, and so I calmly waited it out. Meanwhile, my natural shyness to people in general prevented me from saying the soothing words she no doubt needed to hear.
I waited. She buried her face in both hands. I looked at the ceiling and sat back in the chair, and silently wished I could find it within me to say something, anything.
She continued crying.
Outside, a street person yelled something. I thought I recognized the voice. I knew most of the street people. When I'm feeling generous, especially when work is steady, I usually gave abundantly to the local homeless.
A bird squawked outside my window. I was sure it was a crow, although it could have been a raven. I wasn't sure which was which, although both struck upon some primal fear within me. Perhaps in a past life I had my eyes pecked out by such a bird. A black, soulless, pitiless bird.
Gladys's shoulders quaked. A tissue appeared in her hands. She used it to dab her eyes. She looked up at me and I promptly looked away.
Her breathing was harsh and ragged. She was still not ready to speak.
On my desk was a closed laptop, a clear plastic cup of half-finished iced coffee, a pen, my car keys and my cell phone. Next to the laptop was a picture of my dead wife and son. As I looked at them, I smelled again their burning flesh. I would never, ever forget the smell, or the image of their blackened bodies. I kept the pictures up on my desk to remind myself that they were so much more than blackened lumps of charred flesh.
But it never worked. Always, I saw them burning, burning.
I closed my eyes. The smoke stung them all over again.
As I rubbed my eyes, I finally remembered the forgotten dream I had had just this morning, the haunting memory of which had been plaguing me all morning. And so now the memory of it came blazing back into my consciousness, awakened by the woman's heartbreak and the psychosomatic scent of burning flesh....
I was in a forest with my son, holding his hand. Massive tree trunks punctuated the earth, rising up like magnified hair follicles. A sticky mist lay over the forest and the sound of falling water was nearby. We were heading to the falling water. I sensed our great need for water. For hydration. No, I sensed it for my son's benefit. He needed the water. Desperately. And now I was recklessly crashing through the forest like a bear drunk on fermented elderberries, dangerously towing my son behind me. I looked down at him but his sweet, angelic face was blank, his lips parched and dry and white. The forest opened into a clearing and there before us was a beautiful waterfall, cascading down through the mist as if falling from heaven itself. And when I looked down again, I saw that I was holding my son's dead and blackened hand. The water crashed idyllically just a few feet away. I held his scorched hand and sat in the high grass and wept.
The woman in front of me was breathing normally again. When I came back from the forest, when my wet vision cleared again, I saw that she was watching me curiously. I tried to smile, but smiling never came easy to me.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I need help."
"I know."
"I'm sorry for crying."
She needed encouragement. She needed to know it was okay to cry in my presence, that everything would be okay. I said nothing. I was never very good at small talk. I was never very good at much, and sometimes nothing was okay. Sometimes things crashed around you, and they kept on crashing for years to come.
"My granddaughter ran away," she said. "Step granddaughter."
I sat back. I thought the woman was going to cry again, but she held it together. Thank God. Instead, she gazed at me steadily, her wet eyes unwavering.
She went on, "I was told you specialize in finding the missing. Missing children, in particular."
I did find them. And sometimes I found them dead. But I did not tell her that. With a runaway, there was still hope.
"When did your granddaughter run away?" I asked quietly, taking out a notepad and a pen from my top drawer.
"A week ago. Six days ago, to be exact."
"Who told you I could help you?"
"Detective Hammer. He said it wouldn't hurt to see you. That you had a knack for this sort of thing."
I did. When it came to finding missing children, one needed to be dogged and relentless. No stone left unturned. Having good instincts helped, too. But the funny thing about instincts was that one never knew when they would kick in. That's where the dogged and relentless part came in.
"How old is your granddaughter?" I asked. Always use the present. Never, ever refer to a child in the past tense.
"Sixteen or seventeen. I'm not really sure. Her birthday is next month."
My son's birthday would have been next month, too, but I didn't say anything about that. There was enough heartache in this room without bringing that up. He would have been thirteen. Instead, he died when he was nine.
At the thought of my son's birthday, my breath caught, and I was briefly back in the forest, sitting in the short grass, holding his charred hand as the nearby water bubbled with life.
Presently, a small breeze made its way through the open window behind me. Los Angeles smelled of exhaust and oil and burned rubber.
"Has she run away before?" I asked.
"No."
"Do you have a photo of her?"
"Yes."
She reached into an oversized purse and pulled out a manila file. "At Detective Hammer's suggestion, I put together a package for you. Everything about her is in here, pictures, friends, her likes and dislikes, favorite places to hang out, anything and everything I could think of. There's even a list of her favorite books. All vampire books."
I took the proffered file, flipped through it. I got to the list of vampire books. She seemed to prefer one author in particular.
"Thanks," I said. "This will help a lot."
Gladys nodded. "I have some more information that might help you, Mr. Spinoza."
I waited.
"Her parents were killed three years ago. She's lived with us off and on ever since."
She waited, as if expecting a reply. None came. She went on awkwardly. "Yes, well, there's something else you should know about her. Something that worries me a great deal."
I waited some more, although I did nod encouragingly.
She went on, "Veronica is a little...different."
"Different how?"
I was imagining a slower child. Perhaps one with autism. Some sort of disability. Gladys was looking increasingly uncomfortable. She took in some air and leveled her stare at me.
"She sort of lives in her own fantasy world, Mr. Spinoza."
"What does that mean?"
"She calls herself a slayer."
"A slayer?" I said. "As in dragons?"
"No, as in vampires."
Gladys blinked slowly, but didn't look away. I think my mouth might have opened, but no words came out. Finally, I nodded.
"You mean like in Dungeons & Dragons," I said. "Or that World of Witchcraft, or whatever it's called. A slayer is like her - what do they call it? - her avatar?"
Gladys smiled gently. "I'm not sure I understood half of what you just said, Mr. Spinoza, but what I do know is that she really thinks she's a vampire slayer."
"Do you have her on any medication?"
Gladys shook her head. "She won't see a doctor, and won't go to school."
"So she just stays with you?"
"Yes."
I thought about that. "How did you meet her, Gladys?"
"Veronica just...appeared at our house one day. Bloodied and in a horrible mess. She always refused to talk about where she came from or what happened to her. But I later understood her parents had been in a horrible accident."
I rubbed my temples. If I had known that by putting a simple ad in the Yellow Pages I would be meeting the world's whackos, I might never have gotten into this business.
Not true, I suddenly thought. Getting into this business was something I had to do. Needed to do. Looking for the missing was, in fact, the only thing I could do.
I asked, "Are you on medication, Gladys?"
"Many," she said, smiling. "But not the kind you're thinking of. I assure you, Mr. Spinoza, everything I have told you is true."
"And this girl is sixteen?"
"Give or take a few years."
"What does that mean?"
"She would never tell us her exact age."
I thought about that. "When she appeared at your house, did you report her to the authorities?"
"She warned us that if we did, she would run away and we would never see her again."
"And you didn't want her to run away."
"No. It was so...nice having someone in the house with us. Jack is in a wheelchair, you see, and she was always so helpful, even from the beginning."
"You enjoyed her company," I said.
"We loved having her around. She was a breath of fresh air, despite...despite her problems."
"Problems?"
"You know, typical teenage stuff. Always sad, depressed. Of course, back then we didn't know why she was so sad and depressed. But later we figured it was about her parents. We didn't ask her too many questions. She didn't like questions."
"And you didn't want her to run off because you liked her company."
"We loved her company. We loved her. She was like a real granddaughter to us."
"Do you have any kids, Gladys?"
"One. But we do not speak anymore. She disowned us decades ago. All over a fight. One single fight."
And now she did weep again, although softer than before. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, which squeaked under my considerable weight.
"Veronica was our last chance to do it right, and she was our gift from God."
We were silent. Outside my office window, the streets of Los Angeles weren't silent. I studied Gladys. She seemed sane enough. But I have been fooled before.
She went on, "Since we didn't know her exact age, my husband and I agreed that she was at least eighteen, and so we felt comfortable about not reporting her. Of course, we would have preferred to contact the proper authorities, or her parents, but she wasn't giving us many options. In the end, we wanted her safe and well fed and properly cared for."
I nodded, wondering if Veronica's best interests were really being considered. I looked down at my notes. "And Veronica has lived with you for the past three years?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"Sometimes? What does that mean?"
"It means that sometimes she disappears for a few days and nights."
"Days and nights?"
"Yes.
"Where does she go?" I asked, and already I was dreading the answer. My feelings of dread weren't unfounded.
"Hunting vampires," said Gladys. She said the words so calmly, so conversationally, so pleasantly, that I nearly burst out laughing. Hearing the words "hunting vampires" come out of this sweet, elderly lady nearly made me question my own sanity.
Maybe I'm the one going insane.
"That's what I get for asking," I said, mostly to myself. Gladys looked at me curiously.
"Excuse me?" she said.
I waved off my comment. "Never mind. So when she's not out hunting vampires, where do you think she really goes? A boyfriend's house? Parties? Weekend drinking binges in Vegas?"
Gladys shook her head to all of the above. "No," she said. "I believe she really hunts vampires."
"Of course you do." I took in some air. I nearly asked her to leave my office. Nearly. "And she's been missing a week?"
"Yes."
"How long does it usually take to hunt a vampire?"
"Three days, tops."
"Of course," I said. "So this latest vampire hunt is lasting longer than usual."
She nodded and reached a shaking hand into her purse, removing a badly wrinkled and very used tissue. Crazy or not, Gladys was a woman in need, and my heart went out to her. It always did. To everyone. I may not always be able to voice my concerns or sympathies, but I did the next best thing. I helped people with my actions. I knew in my heart I would help her. One way or another, I would give this crazy old woman peace of mind.
"Mr. Spinoza," she said. "Veronica was a gift from God. An angel, if you want to know the truth. What she's involved in, I don't know. How she became involved with it, I don't know, but I love that girl, and I need someone to help me find her."
I sat back and steepled my fingers in front of me. I had two pending cases sitting on my desk. Both were cheating spouse cases. Oh, joy.
I had, of course, already made my decision.
"I will do all I can to help you, Gladys."
She nodded and smiled and cried, and finally I was able to force myself to stand and walk around the desk, and give the old woman a deep hug.
