Free Die and Stay Dead by Nicholas Kaufmann Page B

six inches above the floor. But as strange as the floating chair was, the creature inside it was even stranger. He was vaguely humanoid in form, but unbelievably obese, the swollen bulges of his body shrouded within a big, shapeless dashiki. Where it was exposed, his flabby, charcoal gray skin was creased with folds and stretch marks. While the chair looked wide enough for two people of average girth, he appeared to be stuffed into it, with rolls of flesh drooping over the edges and armrests. He didn’t have any legs. His body was turnip shaped, flat on the bottom. He didn’t have a neck, either. His head rested right on his shoulders. The sheer size of his cranium was astonishing. I’d never seen a head so big. It swelled up and back from his brow, extending halfway down the back of the chair. His wide, toothy mouth dropped open in surprise when he saw us. He tried to slam the door shut again.
    Philip caught it with one arm and held it open. “Surprise.”
    “Yrouel, I presume?” I asked.
    Unable to close the door, Yrouel retreated, his chair gliding quickly back from us. “Who are you? What do you want? This is private property!”
    I stepped through the doorway. “We’re here about Calliope.”
    “I don’t know any Calliope!” Yrouel shouted.
    His chair spun around and began gliding quickly down the well-lit foyer, away from me. A blur zoomed past him, and suddenly Philip was standing in his way.
    Yrouel turned back to me, his eyes widening with panic. “I told you, I don’t know who you’re talking about!”
    “You don’t know Calliope?” I asked. “That’s funny, because she was supposed to meet you here tonight. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s why you opened the door when I knocked. You thought it was her.”
    “It’s okay, Yrouel,” Bethany said, trying to calm him. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to ask you some questions.”
    Yrouel glided back toward us. “I really must insist you leave immediately! You’re trespassing!”
    Philip caught Yrouel by the arm and held him in place. “Did you kill Calliope, Yrouel? Because right now you’re acting guilty as hell.”
    Yrouel looked up at him in surprise. “Calliope is dead?”
    “See? You know her after all. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Philip said. “Now, here’s the thing. My friends here are good people. They’re patient. They’re willing to hear you out. But I’m not like them. I’m not a good person.”
    “You’re a vampire,” Yrouel said, swallowing nervously.
    Philip nodded. “And I don’t like when people lie to me. So how about we start over?”
    Yrouel nodded, and Philip released his arm. “I didn’t kill Calliope. But yes, I know her. Knew her. I—I didn’t know she was dead. What happened?”
    “Sometime between yesterday and today she was killed in her home,” I said. “She was cut open and her body was nailed to the ceiling.”
    “Well, there you go,” Yrouel said. “I couldn’t have killed her, could I? Does it look like I could nail someone to the ceiling?”
    “Depends,” Philip said. “How high can that chair float?”
    Yrouel scowled at him, then glided over to the door and closed it. “You’d better come inside.”
    He turned around and led the way into what appeared to be a large, luxury apartment directly beneath the alley. The foyer opened into a long, wide hallway. Hanging on the walls were paintings by Vermeer, Matisse, Cézanne, and artists even older than that—da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli. Granted, I was no art expert, but the paintings looked authentic to me, right down to the wear and tear on the frames. The collection had to be worth a fortune.
    “You’re not police, are you?” Yrouel asked. “I won’t talk to police.”
    “Do we look like cops?” I asked.
    Yrouel laughed bitterly. “You force your way into my home, manhandle me, and accuse me of a crime I didn’t commit. That sounds like cops to me. But if you’re not, then who are you?”
    “We’re