I Read What?!

So last time, Jack and Bobbi reached a relationship milestone. And some artist dude might know about vampires. Eh, it's good for Jack to have friends.



So hilariously, apparently vampire bottoming knocks Jack the fuck out. Bobbi's more than a little worried when her boyfriend doesn't move for hours. But, per Jack, "what a great way to go."

Jack thinks it has to do with the blood loss, even though he'd just eaten, and that does make a certain amount of sense if you think about it. When Jack drinks from Bobbi, it's a sexual thing, but he can also drink blood in a non-sexual, strictly nourishment way.

But when someone drinks blood from the vampire? There's no nourishment there. That's sex all the way. Jack's still riding the afterglow, though poor Bobbi's a bit freaked out.

But also full of healthy curiosity. She mentions that a friend said that sometimes sex is so good for her that she passes out, and asks if that's the same for Jack. Apparently so. Also, Jack, I feel like that's a sign you should work harder...then again, passing out after having your blood drained is probably a bad sign when you're not a supernatural being.

They chat a bit about Bobbi's upcoming radio job. She's got to figure out what to wear, which puzzles Jack a bit since the audience can't see her. She points out that the studio folk can, as can her co-workers. She sings better when she knows she looks good, and since the OTHER women will dress up, so will she?

Jack does the good boyfriend thing by saying she'd "look like a queen even in a gunnysack", which Bobbi appreciates. But she still wants to look good.

Banter goes back to vampirism, and vamprie bottoming, and Bobbi has a fairly armor piercing question when she asks if it was "this way" when Gaylen forced her to turn him.

Ouch. But it's probably good that they're talking about it. Bobbi backs off immediately, but Jack is actually willing to talk about it, basically saying that what they do together is making love, while what Gaylen did to him was a kind of rape. It's a very different experience.

We shift scenes after that, to Jack heading home to meet Escott. Apparently Barb Steler's car is there! Jack decides to park further away and sneak in so as not to cockblock his not-canon-but-canon-in-my-heart throuple partner. Sadly, when he goes inside, he hears Barb and Escott talking about current events.

Hitler's rise, actually. Escott has the advantage of being an author's pet, so he gets to be right about Hitler having ambitions beyond Germany. He also gets to very vocally denounce the anti-Semitic propaganda.

I poke gentle fun, but Elrod's not really a McCaffrey about it. Escott is right, as we in the future well know, but we've had three books establish him as a character who keeps up with national and international news, has a worldly expertise, a keen sense of human nature, and is not terribly wrapped up in common prejudices of the time period. So it makes SENSE that he's right.

And Barb isn't presented as unreasonable here. She does have a "look at the good he's done" line (which leads Escott to denounce the propaganda), but that's not an uncommon view of people at the time period. It's pretty clear she doesn't agree with the anti-Semitism either. She just doesn't know what the future holds. Fair enough.

They definitely seem to be hitting it off, but when Jack deliberately makes a noise shutting the door, Escott's quick to invite him up. Barb, as it turns out, isn't paying a social call. She has news about Dimmy Wallace. Apparently both he and his henchman have an alibi for Sandra's murder.

It seems like a pretty good one. His car broke down on the other side of the city, and some priests helped give him a lift and stayed at the garage while his car was repaired. The henchman was at the bar.

So Wallace is off the hook for Sandra's murder. He's still in trouble for the trying to murder a dude thing, at least. And that means Alex is back to being suspect number one. The police don't much care that Alex had gone after the mobsters because he'd thought they did it.

There's a moment of sparkage between Jack and Barb when he points out that Alex is still under a cloud of suspicion from another woman's death.

Her look lanced through me with the same kind of force and intent as Wallace’s gunshot. Escott had been quiet before, now he turned to stone waiting to see what happened. She drew a deep breath as though to call me a few names, but changed her mind and let it out very slowly.

“I hope you will believe that I am trying to help him now. Or perhaps you’re testing me again?” There was enough ice in her voice to start a new glacier, a suitable contrast to the fire in her eyes.

“We all need to be aware of what he’s up against, that’s why I mentioned it. I know you’re trying to help, or you wouldn’t be here.”

The fires banked, at least for the moment, but she was anything but happy at being reminded of her past smear campaign.

Elrod's a very dialogue heavy writer, but I really do love this moment.

Anyway, it sounds like the police are planning to arrest Alex, but are waiting until they've talked to Sandra's friends and business associates.

Escott notes that he'll need a lawyer. Barb bristles a bit, thinking that they're assuming he's guilty. But Jack backs Escott up, they don't think he's guilty, but he's still in enough trouble to need one.

Good lesson for everyone. Copaganda likes to pretend that only guilty people need attorneys. Fuck that shit. EVERYONE should have an attorney.

Barb does seem a little irked by Charles's optimism (not realizing, of course, that Charles has a nice vampire assistant to help find clues), and has Jack walk her out. That said, Barb is rather interested in doing a feature article on Charles. So that's fun.

She's also interested in flirting heavily with Jack too. I like a woman who knows what she likes. And I really wish she and Bobbi would get to meet, because I think the femslash levels would go through the roof.

Jack watches her go and thinks maybe Escott going for the political discussion was self-preservation rather than idiocy. Then he goes in so they can confab about the hospital visit.

He leaves out the part about Bobbi and him, though he admits to us that Escott is unabashedly fascinated by the condition. It's okay, Jack. The throuple hasn't developed that far yet. Maybe one day.

Escott, for now, is more interested in the fact that Alex Adrian knows about Jack, but he's willing to accept Jack's judgment there. They discuss Escott's plans to get info from the cops and the possible awkwardness of Jack having to testify, since he was with Alex when he found the body. That COULD be a problem, since very few murder trials are held at night.

Escott proposes another trip to Sandra's flat, so they can have a chance to look around. Jack, still in afterglow land, is a bit less enthused, pointing out that the cops will have cleared it. But Escott wants to see what the cops weren't interested in.

Escott, by the way, doesn't need Jack's help breaking in. He actually wants Jack there for his memory, since Jack had been there an hour or so before the crime. Jack just tells himself that the next time he vampire-bottoms, he's going to make sure there are no plans for the rest of the evening.

So they go to the flat. There's dust and a chalk outline. Jack notes that Evan's painting was moved. They look at Sandra's work, which Jack hadn't really looked at before.

We're reminded that Sandra worked on a WPA grant. She produced art for federal buildings and interior decorators. I rather like this exchange:

“I’ve heard of it, assembly-line oils, pretty pictures for the masses at the cost of artistic integrity.”

“Integrity is hard to afford when you don’t have food in the cupboard,” I pointed out.

“Yes, there are strong arguments in both directions, and who’s to say where one may safely draw the line?”

(Jack doesn't think Escott meant the pun there, but I'm not so sure.)

Escott's the more expert eye, noting that Sandra's painting are all in different styles, and he wonders if he had a chance to develop her own. He points out four landscapes with similar subject matter, painted from the same palette, but could have been painted by four different people.

Interestingly, there's a dry painting on her easel. It's autumn themed, and there are three others in Sandra's store that are winter, spring and summer.

It's worth remembering that Sandra is an oil painter. And oils take a long time to dry.

Escott also notes that the top clamp of the easel is five inches above the painting: meaning that there SHOULD be a wet painting there. The cops didn't take any paintings. Nor did Alex. Likely it was the murderer.

They speculate that it might have incriminated him in some way, and then Jack suddenly has an inspiration:

It blocked my sight for only a moment, but I saw Evan again, standing in the same spot and swaying at the waist; Blair watching in shock, and Brett reaching to help him. That inhuman keening went through me once more and I shivered as though someone had walked over my empty grave.

Oh God.

Sometimes it happens that way, your mind hits on an answer with a sudden bright burst of insight, but won’t tell how it got there, and you’re left fumbling for an explanation. It eventually came tumbling out of my memory: words, looks, gestures… all fell together, linked up, and formed into a solid composition.

“Oh God.” This time it slipped out aloud.

Of course, we don't get to hear what it is. But he tells Escott. Unfortunately, Jack can't come to court to explain it. He CAN however get a written confession. He just needs witnesses.

The penultimate chapter ends here.