Tempting Danger (2 page)

He shook his head. The toothpick seemed glued to his bottom lip. “This wasn’t a drug killing, or pimp punishing a john who didn’t pay. Not even murder, really.”

Three years ago a case like this would have been handled by the X-Squad. Now it went to Homicide. “The courts say otherwise.”

“And we know how smart those bleeding heart judges are. According to them, we’re supposed to treat the beasts like they’re human now. That mess at your feet proves what a great idea that is.”

“I’ve seen uglier things done by men to other men. And to women. And the scene still has to be kept clear.”

“Sure thing, Detective.” Phillips gave her a mocking grin, turned, then paused and took the toothpick out of his mouth. When he met her eyes, the mockery and anger had faded from his. “A word of advice from someone who put in fifteen years on the X-Squad. Call them whatever you like, but don’t mistake the lupi for human. They’re hard to hurt, they’re faster than us, they’re stronger, and they like the way we taste.”

“This one doesn’t seem to have done much tasting.”

He shrugged. “Something interrupted him. Don’t forget that they’re only legally human when they’re on two legs. You run into one when it’s four-footed, don’t arrest it. Shoot it.” He flicked the toothpick to the ground. “And aim for the brain.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Pick up your toothpick.”

“What?’

“The toothpick. It’s not part of the crime scene. Pick it up.”

He scowled, bent, snatched it from the ground, and went away muttering about brass-balled bitches.

“Don’t think you made a friend there,” O’Brien said cheerfully.

“I’m all torn up about it, too.” She paused. The car pulling up behind the ambulance was from the coroner’s office.

Better get it done. “Looks like our victim will be declared legally dead soon. You finished with the pictures?”

“You need to get a closer look?”

The words were innocuous, the tone of voice casual, but she knew what he meant. O’Brien had worked with her enough to know it wasn’t a closer look she was after. He wouldn’t say anything, though. It wasn’t illegal to be a sensitive, but it could be complicated. The department’s official policy about such things was, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

This wasn’t pure prejudice. Irreproducible data was not admissible in court, and a good defense attorney could rip an officer’s testimony to shreds if there was a whiff of the paranormal about the investigation.

But cops tend to be pragmatic. The unofficial policy was to use whatever it took to catch the bad guys, even if you had to do it under the table. Which was why Lily was in a slum studying a corpse instead of fending off Henry Chen at her sister’s engagement party.

Which just proved there was a bright side to everything. Lily met O’Brien’s eyes and nodded.

“Go ahead,” he said and shifted to stand between her and the crowd by the fence, fussing with his camera.

He wasn’t big enough to completely block anyone’s view, but he’d made it hard for them to see exactly what she did. Lily appreciated it. She set her backpack on the ground and moved closer to the corpse, then knelt, careful of the way her skirt rode up. And reached for the dead man’s hand.

It was limp. No rigor mortis yet. Skin waxy. His hand looked blue, and his face had a purplish cast. Lividity minimal. None of it was conclusive, but it did suggest he hadn’t been dead long when dispatch received the anonymous tip at 11:04.

He’d kept his nails short and clean. They were square, the fingers short for the size of the palm, which was broad and flat. Partially healed scrapes across the knuckles . . . he’d been in a fight a few days ago. Pale nail beds. No rings on the fingers.

And no response in her own flesh.

Blood had run into his palm to dry in a blackish brown patch that cracked slightly when she tilted the hand to catch the light better. That blood had trapped a tuft of mottled hair. Lily touched it.

It was like touching the concrete after the sun had set and finding the lingering heat. Or like the moment after releasing a drill, when the flesh still held the memory of vibration.

Though it wasn’t really heat or vibration she felt. Lily had never found a word to describe the sensation of touching something that had been touched by magic, but it was unmistakable. She’d tried to explain that to her sister once—the younger one, Beth, not her perfect older sister. If everything you touched all day, every day, was smooth, the second you touched roughness you would
know
. Even if it was only a tiny bit rough, as was the case tonight.

No, Lily thought, setting the hand down gently. The lab crew wouldn’t learn much about this killer. No more than she’d learned from touching the hairs he’d left behind in his victim’s blood. She stood.

“So, was the beast chaser right?” O’Brien asked. “Am I wasting my time collecting samples?”

She gave him a sharp look. “You’ll do things by the book.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I need you to tell me how to do my job.”

“Sorry.” She exhaled, pushing her emotions away with the breath. “Yes, Phillips was right. The victim was human, but the killer’s a werewolf.”

“Lupus, you mean.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “We got a memo about that. Lupi is plural, lupus is singular.”

“A killer by any other name . . .” She shrugged, impatient with PC-speak, and glanced at the onlookers by the fence. “Looks like I’ll be paying a visit to Club Hell tonight.”

FIFTEEN
minutes later, the coroner’s assistant had declared the victim dead, and Lily had an ID: Carlos Fuentes, age twenty-five. The address on the driver’s license was 4419 West Thomason, Apartment 33C. Phillips was running the license. Lily went to talk to the helpful citizens.

There were six of them, four women and two men. Leather and body piercings seemed to be the dominant fashion theme for both sexes. And skin.

The one currently looking at the driver’s license she held in a plastic baggie wore leather pants dyed lime green and inch-wide leather straps crisscrossing her chest:
X
marks the spots. Her hair was blonde where it wasn’t purple. She had seven earrings in her left ear, three in her right, a ruby stud in one nostril, and a tiny hoop in her navel.

Her name was Stacy Farquhar. Her voice was as soft and high as a little girl’s. “I know I’ve seen him before, but driver’s licenses, you know, they never look like the person.”

A skeletally thin man in a black leather body suit was looking over her shoulder. His dark brown hair, glossy and well kept, hung past his shoulders. He wore a single earring in his left ear, either a diamond or a good imitation. “Looks like Carlos Fuentes.”

“Carlos?” That came from the other woman, a chubby Caucasian with dyed black hair twisted into dozens of braids. She crowded closer and peered at the license in Lily’s hand. “Oh, God. It’s him. Poor Carlos.”

“You know Carlos Fuentes, ma’am?” Lily asked.

“We all do. That is . . . he hangs out at the club sometimes.” She exchanged an uneasy look with the other woman.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” the thin man said. “It’s not like it’s a secret. They’re going to find out anyway.”

“You know what you are, Theo?” the chubby woman said. “Jealous. You’re just jealous as hell.”

“Me, jealous? You’re the one who—”

“I can’t believe you’d rat him out!” Stacy cried. “You know what kind of deal he’ll get from the cops!”

The chubby woman nodded. “They’ve always persecuted the lupi. Centuries of—”

“. . . in a lather . . . everything but dope Rachel’s drink to give you a shot at him.”

“Police brutality isn’t a myth, you know. Just last year in New Hampshire—”

“. . . rubbing all over him last Tuesday. Too, too obvious . . .”

“Used to shoot them on sight, so if you think any lupi would get a fair hearing—”

“But he didn’t want any part of what you were offering, did he?”

“You just wish he swung your way!”

“Who’s
he?
” Lily asked mildly.

They fell silent, exchanging guilty glances.

One of the men—Franklin Booth, medium build, shaved head, leather vest the color of his skin worn over a black shirt and jeans with silvery studs up the seams—tossed aside the cigarette he’d been smoking. “Poor Rachel.”

Lily turned to him. “Rachel?”

“Carlos’s wife.” He sighed. “She’s at the club now with—”

“Franklin!” the chubby one exclaimed.

“Sugar, it’s no good,” he said gently. “Theo is right. They’re going to find out. And maybe he’s alibied. I mean, we all saw him there, didn’t we?”

There was a relieved murmur, with Stacy asserting loudly that “he” had been there for hours. Lily spoke to Booth again. “Rachel Fuentes is at Club Hell now?”

“She was when we left.”

“Who was she with?”

The thin man laughed. “Why, who else would put the ladies in such a flutter? Some of us gentlemen, too, I’ll admit,” he added with a little bow to the chubby woman, conceding her point. “For all the good it does us. Lupi are religiously hetero.”

“I could use a name.”

“Rule Turner, of course. The prince graces the club with his presence now and then.” He smirked. “Recently he’s been gracing Rachel with a good deal more.”

LILY
had orders to call Captain Randall once she’d finished the preliminaries. She did this on her way to Club Hell.

The click-click from her heels on the sidewalk made her feel isolated, though she could hear the bustle at the crime scene behind her. She blamed the feeling on the odd mist, so unlike San Diego. It hung in the air like a cold sweat. She was glad she didn’t wear glasses. She just wished she wasn’t wearing heels. They’d be hell to run in.

Of course, she was supposed to have been off duty tonight. She punched in the captain’s number.

She couldn’t remember the last confirmed case of a human killed by a lupus. Certainly there hadn’t been one in San Diego since the Supreme Court’s ruling rendered the lupi subject to the penalties and protections of the law instead of a bullet. It didn’t take a precog to picture tomorrow’s headlines. This one was going to generate a lot of heat.

Lily’s years in Vice and Homicide prior to making detective had rubbed the green off, but her shield was still shiny. She figured she could be philosophical about handing this one off to one of the senior detectives . . .
after
she conducted the initial interviews at Club Hell.

Randall was waiting for her call. It didn’t take long to summarize her progress. “After speaking with the bystanders, I followed the tracks left by the perp. Visible traces petered out near the west end of the playground, but I was able to continue beyond that.” She’d taken off her shoes and stockings, actually, letting her bare feet find traces where magic had passed. Her feet were filthy now, but it had worked. “The trail ended in an alley between Humstead Avenue and North Lee.”

“You couldn’t track him beyond that?”

“No, sir. I believe he Changed there, between two Dumpsters.” The magic imprinted on the dirty concrete had been strong—unfamiliar but distinctive. “In human form, he wouldn’t leave the kind of traces he does in wolf form.”

“Hmm. You’ve secured the alley?”

“Yes, sir. The S.O.C. crew will get to it when they can. I left O’Brien in charge at the scene.”

“What the hell do you mean, you left him in charge? Where are you?”

“Outside Club Hell,” she said, exaggerating a trifle, since it was still half a block away. “The victim’s wife should be there. I need to notify her. I also need to talk to Rule Turner.”

The raspy sound in her ear was only recognizable as a chuckle because she’d heard it before. “Think you’re stealing a march on me, Yu? Relax. I didn’t have you yanked out of your sister’s fancy party because I wanted someone else in charge.”

“Then it’s still my case?”

“You’re lead. Unless you think you can’t handle it.”

“No, sir, I do not think that. But I don’t have as much experience as some of the others.”

“Your, uh, particular skills may be useful. And the last thing I need is some prejudiced asshole making like a tough guy with the Nokolai prince. He’s good at playing the press, and they’re going to be breathing down our necks on this one. So it’s yours. But unless you get a confession right off the bat, you’re going to need help.”

Still swimming in surprise, Lily agreed automatically.

“I can let you have Meckle or Brady.”

“Mech. Sergeant Meckle, I mean.” Both were good cops, but Brady didn’t play well with others—especially young, female others. “Tell him to pick up an evidence vac and some paper from O’Brien. If the lupi at the club cooperate, I’ll get their shoes for the lab. Mech can vacuum their clothes.”

“The killer wasn’t wearing clothes when he ripped out Fuentes’s throat.”

“No, sir. We won’t be able to tie him to the scene, but we might be able to connect him to the alley where he Changed. He’ll have had a lot of Fuentes’s blood on him. Even if the Change removed all traces from his body, it wouldn’t clean up any drops that fell. Might be some of that blood got on his shoes after he dressed, or something else from the alley that connects him. Or maybe a few of his own hairs got in his clothes—wolf hairs, I mean.”