Thinking of the three stories I have told here so far, the case of Charlotte's death, the school case, and the hospital case, I realize that, taken together, they could give you the impression that my employer's investigations always proceed in the same general way: a crime is committed (or attempted), she talks to people and does some basic physical investigation, and then she pronounces the solution, all within a few hours.

This is not always true. Some of her cases are long and complex, some involve physical peril, and a few never have been solved. The one I'm going to recount here, which we've always referred to as "the vampire case," was not easy, and, while it was solved, it was certainly not solved in the first few hours.

My employer and I ate lunch from time to time in a very small coffee shop, apparently called "Eat." The hotel where we lived and worked was quite a distance from the hospital, and the coffee shop was about at the halfway point, so it was convenient, especially since my employer often got light-headed if she went too long without food.

It was there, immediately after the conclusion of the hospital case, where we first heard about the possibility that there might be vampires in U-town.

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