The Nefarious Necklace, page 8
But when it did, like the gorgeously sparkling amethyst Star held, then it was a beautiful sight. The stone glowed brighter as Star moved it along Tabitha’s body. The stone glinted and sparkled so brightly that I wanted to reach out and touch it.
Alex clasped my hand. “You’re like a kid in a candy store today.”
I shrugged and gave him a sheepish look. I hadn’t noticed I’d reached for the gem until he’d stopped me.
Star had wrapped a thin chain around the stone, so that it was cradled and could hang like a pendant. She held the chain, letting the stone swing freely several inches above Tabitha’s body, and traced the length and breadth of Tabitha’s body. Each time she neared the torso, the stone glowed brighter.
Star set the gem and chain on a small tray and then rolled a cart with instruments closer to the body. She flipped the sheet back, then, looking at me, she said, “You might not want to watch this.”
As I was about to say, “No, I’ll be fine,” she sliced into Tabitha with a scalpel. I did a one-eighty and headed for the door. A short walk was looking good to me. “Be right back.”
Since I wasn’t sure what she was doing or how long it would take, a bathroom break seemed like a good choice. Just because a girl didn’t need the facilities didn’t mean she couldn’t use the facilities.
It took a few false starts to find the bathroom. Once I did, I checked my eyes for signs of redness—not the glowing variety, the bloodshot kind. All clear. I’d escaped Star’s heat gaze without any signs of tearing up. I washed my hands—because why not?—and then walked out of the bathroom, right into Alex.
He steadied me and then backed up. “Star found another stone.”
“Whoa. I guess that answers the question about whether your amethyst case is related.”
A thoughtful look crossed his face. “And possibly why Tabitha’s body was removed and returned: a failed attempt to retrieve the stone.”
As Alex and I entered the room, Star said, “Since the stone was in her stomach and not her intestines, I can guess that she’d swallowed it less than five hours before her death—but it’s definitely a guess.”
Wembley pulled up the sheet. “I don’t see her eating an amethyst. Not for any reason, but especially not if she knew the effects this particular stone would have on her. You were at the hotel to interview her for the case, Alex, so what was her connection to the stones? And did she know what they could do?”
Star shooed us away. “Let me close her up.”
Wembley, Alex, and I stepped away from the table, and Alex said, “So far as I know, she didn’t have any knowledge of them. I’d made the appointment with her while I was still trying to follow Bethia’s family tree to the present, and that’s exactly what I told her: I had a few genealogy questions for her. Like djinn, succubi aren’t that common in the States. I wanted to know if she might have a direct connection to Bethia or know who her descendants—more importantly, her heirs—might be.”
Wembley nodded. “It’s only recently, Mallory, within the last fifty years or so, that we’ve started to track on a broader scale the different identities that members of the enhanced communities assume. If you wanted to fade into anonymity, you could get lost with relative ease up until the last turn of the century. After that, it required a little work. But nowadays, it’s much more difficult. There are institutions and organizations, like the Society, that track families and identity changes.”
That sounded suspiciously like the source material for an app that Bradley had been commissioned to build. An app that had gotten him in some hot water with the Society not all that long ago.
“There must be individuals tracking us, too,” I said. Wembley and Alex looked stumped by the change of direction. “You remember, there was that book Bradley told us about? The one that he used to make his app that calls Wembley Einarr, the Berserker, and has everyone rated by levels?”
“Of course. I could hardly forget,” Wembley said. “I suppose there have always been the curious or the suspicious who collect information. I’m talking about more comprehensive databases put together by local enhanced governments. But about that app—”
“Hey, people,” Star called out. “You’re missing the good stuff.”
All three of us turned as one and then crowded around the table. It looked like I wasn’t the only one with a fear of missing out.
Tabitha was neatly stitched up, and Star had a small, goo-covered stone in the grips of a pair of forceps. I was a vamp; I could theoretically hold my breath forever, right? Because whatever was coating that gem reeked.
Holding the stone over a metal pan, she squirted it with a small bottle of clear fluid. I took a shallow breath and detected an antiseptic odor. Maybe alcohol.
Star removed her gloves and then picked up the stone with her bare hands.
“Should you do that?” I asked. Given the fact Alex had created a special bag to tote around its companion stone, her behavior seemed risky.
“Probably not, but it’s much smaller than the other stone and doesn’t have nearly the power.” Star dropped it on a cloth-covered tray.
“But was it powerful enough to harm her?” Alex asked. “And what do you think of our theory? Well, your theory combined with our theory.”
“If you’re asking once consumed, if this stone in conjunction with a vampire bite is the cause of death, I’m eighty-five percent sure it was.” Some of my disappointment must have shown, because Star added in a chiding tone, “I’m not done yet.”
“Then it’s Blaine.” But even as I said it, I felt something was wrong. “The man fessed up to sleeping with her as late as last night. He practically admitted to biting her. He has to be our prime suspect.”
“The timeline is a problem for Mr. Waldrup.” Star smiled. “Time of death is midnight, give or take an hour.”
Alex and I shared a glance. He looked about as convinced as me, yet there was the evidence. The timeline absolutely fit.
“What? What’s that look?” Wembley asked.
Weighing the evidence against my gut wasn’t fun, and I was particularly uncomfortable with the outcome this time. “Blaine told us himself that he was with Tabitha last night until eleven or twelve, but… I mean, don’t get me wrong. I don’t like him. He’s oily, and self-important, and has some very disagreeable opinions about vampires and other enhanced groups.”
Alex sighed. “But you don’t think he’d be stupid enough to kill her and then fess up to both meeting and biting her during the time of death window.”
“Or leave such obvious signs of feeding on her corpse. He didn’t just bite her, he also failed to remove trace evidence. And he practically gloated over the great sex. He mentioned she was falling asleep when he left.” A sick feeling made me stop and think about that. “You don’t think she was…” I couldn’t say it. Commingling death and sex in the same space in my head was making me feel icky.
“She might have been dying. Blaine strikes me as just self-absorbed enough not to notice.” Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “But anyone beyond the youngest of vampires knows how hard to bite, how long to drink to avoid causing damage or transforming a victim.”
I felt the sudden urge to cover my mouth—more specifically, my undescended fangs. “Am I the only one who finds the idea of mixing biting—possibly death—with sex completely disturbing?”
“It’s very unvamp-like of you,” Star said. “Vamps usually get that part of their brain melted away in the transformation.” She tipped her head. It was almost impossible to see the angry-eyed woman from before in the heart-shaped face, sleek blond bob, and pink lip gloss. “I’d say most vamps are sociopaths, present company excluded.”
“I belong to a group of psychos. Awesome.”
“No, not psychos. Sociopaths. They’re a completely different animal.” She smiled at me. “But you’ve eluded that fate for now.”
“For now.” Like that was supposed to be comforting.
“Back to our case,” Alex said, shooting me a sympathetic glance. “Since you’re on a tight timeline, Star.”
“Right.” She clapped her hands together, and her no-nonsense demeanor slid back into place. “My question for you: how did this young lady consume the stone? It sounds like she had no knowledge of the Bethia necklace or the stones recent history in Austin.”
Alex nodded.
“But whether she did or not, she wouldn’t eat an amethyst.” Star nudged the stone with the tip of her finger. “Even a small one would be noticeable in food. So who tricked her into consuming it? The man who bit her?”
Something sparked in my brain, but I wasn’t sure what. Something to do with trickery. If I pushed, it wouldn’t come to me any faster, so I moved on to another question. “Can you identify who bit her, from the saliva? I might have my reservations about Blaine, but the evidence is pointing to him and we have to build a case.”
“No luck there. I mean, maybe if I had a larger sample size. Then I could experiment with some different options…try a few… Hm.” She spun around to face Wembley. “How about you donate some spit?”
Wembley scratched his jaw. “As disgusting as that sounds, I suppose I could make the sacrifice.”
“It’ll give me something to experiment on until I get the process right. But it could take a few days.”
A few days in a magical murder investigation was a long time. We had to have a faster way to test the saliva.
And we did. If only all my brain cells were firing, I’d have thought of it sooner. I was a grade-A idiot, since the best option available to us also liked to drool on my pillow every night.
“Can’t Boone match the saliva to the donor?”
Star turned a critical eye on me. “The djinn’s hound. That might work.” She pulled on another pair of gloves. “Maybe.”
After searching through a few drawers, she returned with two small glass sample jars, a quart-sized Ziploc freezer bag, and gauze. She tore open the sterile gauze pads and swiped Tabitha’s wound. She nodded at me. “Open those.”
I unscrewed the sample jars, and she placed a gauze pad in each. I held out the baggie last.
“Nope. That one’s for me. I don’t know exactly how your hound works, but since he hasn’t met me, I’m giving you a sample of me.” She pulled out a hair from her head, grabbed a gauze pad and wiped it across the pulse point at her neck, and then chucked both in the Ziploc. She narrowed her eyes and gave me the Wicked Witch of the West glare. “Burn it when you’re done.”
Wide-eyed, I nodded. “I’ll burn it. Not the plastic?”
“All of it.”
“Right. Sure thing.” I bit my lip. “And thank you.” I tucked the folded plastic bag in my front pocket, then tucked the glass sample jars into my purse.
Wembley looked relieved, probably because he got to keep his spit.
Alex looked at the dead woman and shook his head. “Blaine just doesn’t feel right.” He pointed a finger at Wembley. “Don’t start with the precognition theories. Investigator’s intuition is not precognition. The bare facts might fit, but we’re missing something.”
The door leading to the front of the mortuary flew open with a thud, and my heart lodged itself in my throat. I caught a blur of movement in my peripheral vision just a hair later.
Gabe walked in followed by a tall, middle-aged, and apparently human woman. She had to be the assistant, since she was also dressed in a gray suit, though several shades darker than Star’s, and carried a tablet.
“I tried to explain that you were with clients, Mrs. Kowalski.” The woman looked appalled that she’d failed in her duty to protect her employer and clients from an unseemly intrusion.
Not that we were regular clients, which made me wonder if other sorts of odd happenings took place at Kowalski Funeral Home of Buda.
“Color me surprised,” Gabe said, looking anything but. “If it isn’t the amateur detective squad, making my life more difficult by the moment.”
His words weren’t particularly harsh, but he looked pissed. Seriously pissed.
Uh-oh. Maybe I didn’t have to worry about what I was wearing on that date after all.
13
And Then the Lies Begin
Gabe’s face was tense, and he zeroed in immediately on Alex. “Maybe you’d like to explain what you’re doing with my victim’s body?” He gestured to the dummy Tabitha.
Oh, no. The two Tabithas. How were we going to explain that? Gabe knew about the Society, but he’d only dipped a toe. This was five levels beyond toe-dipping. I shot a panicked look in the direction of the real body—the one Gabe hadn’t yet noticed—and saw a covered corpse. I exhaled.
Gabe glanced in my direction but didn’t get a chance to speak, because Star approached him, stepping neatly between him and the real Tabitha’s corpse.
She extended her hand. “Stephanie Kowalski, the owner of Kowalski Funeral Home. And you are?”
I blinked. Stephanie? Although…the blond hair, the petite frame, the pixie face. I supposed that fit. The name Star conjured tats, black lipstick, and heavy eyeliner in my mind’s eye. Or it had before I’d met the real Star. But Stephanie did suit her soccer mom persona.
“Detective Gabe Ruiz.” And that was all he said. My guess was that he suddenly realized it was possible not everyone in the room was in on the paranormals-in-Austin secret.
Star addressed her assistant. “I’ll be glad to help Detective Ruiz clear up this error, Mrs. Parish. Thank you.”
The poor, flustered woman fled. A detective showing up and demanding entry could hardly be expected as normal fare for a funeral home, but I’d think someone working with the bereaved would have a little more equilibrium in times of crisis. I could see why Star wasn’t thrilled to let Mrs. Parish deal with the clients regularly.
“Now,” Star said, “as for this error, we stopped processing the body as soon as we discovered the problem.” She waved at the corpse dummy. “We left her exactly as she was, didn’t even place her back in a body bag. We await your instruction.”
A muscle twitched in Gabe’s jaw. It had to be killing him not knowing whether Star was one of us. Clearly he suspected, but had his special sort of ability given him a clue? He’d said it didn’t work all the time. Finally, he said, “The coroner has an assistant on the way. He’ll supervise the removal of her body.”
Star nodded. “Then we’ll plan to make further arrangements for Ms. Waters when she’s returned to us.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, but the family hasn’t been notified yet. I’m not certain who will be handing the arrangements for them, but that will be their decision once the body is released.”
Star didn’t pause. Without skipping a beat, she said, “All of the local enhanced corpses are handled by Kowalski Funeral Home.”
Gabe blew out a breath. “I knew it.”
“But not entirely,” Star murmured. She managed to be polite and not antagonize him, while still completely controlling the conversation. It was unnerving.
Gabe turned to me and said, “Couldn’t have given me a hint, could you?”
Alex saved me from responding. “No, actually. Whether to expose her identity to a human—one who’s also a cop—is Stephanie’s sole prerogative. It’s bad manners to out one’s friends, acquaintances, and business associates.”
I shrugged. “I’m new, so I defer.” The less I said, the better. And I did my darnedest not to look at the pink elephant in the room. That was proving difficult. Telling myself not to look wasn’t really helpful, so I alternated between that and telling myself what to look at. Don’t look at the real dead body. Only look at the fake dead body. Not the real one, only the fake one.
“Are you all right?” Gabe asked. “You look a bit funny.”
I shook my head slowly and tried to clear my face of any telltale signs of stress. “Fine.” Then I remembered the circumstances of Tabitha’s death and frowned. “I mean, it’s upsetting, what happened to that woman.”
Gabe laughed. “Don’t tell me you guys aren’t on the case. Why would you be here, otherwise?”
“We didn’t touch the body,” Alex said. He was oriented to the corpse dummy, and the implication was that this corpse, the one in front of him, hadn’t been touched.
In fact, all of us had oriented our bodies to face the corpse dummy, as if by pretending the real corpse wasn’t in the room, we could make it disappear. Too bad Star didn’t have some sneaky way to make that body disappear…or did she? I was tempted to look and see if it was still there. The back of my neck itched with the urge.
“You guys aren’t going to tell me what’s going on, are you?”
I just gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look, because it was the best I could manage. But Alex said, “Not a chance,” and Star said, “No.”
Gabe closed his eyes for a second then sighed. “You guys manufactured the glitch so that you could get a look at her. I get that you want to see if there’s a paranormal connection, but you can’t interfere like this. Not when there’s an active investigation, and not when what you’re doing could tank any chance of us finding and then prosecuting the offender. An offender who might be human.”
“Not a human.” I winced after the words had escaped. Man, was I bad at this whole keeping-secrets thing. Yet another reason to put off seeing my mother. I could just imagine it. Hi, Mother. No, not a diet. I’m a vampire, and I might turn into a psycho any day now, so be sure to lock your doors at night.
Gabe leveled me with an intent stare. “What did you find?”
Alex took a step closer to me. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Detective Ruiz?”
The not-so-subtle reminder of Gabe’s precarious situation—trapped between being the good, honest cop he was and keeping the secret he knew was in everyone’s best interest to be kept—was a little low, but probably necessary.
While I’d been watching that conflict play out on Gabe’s face, Alex had inched closer. He put a hand on my back, gently, but still a reminder that I needed to keep silent.
Mrs. Parish appeared with a young man who had to be the coroner’s assistant.
