“The last time I watched TV, it did not look like this,” Etienne said, staring at the picture.
“What did it look like?” Reg laughed.
“Well, it was smaller. This is very large, like a movie theater. And it was not colored like these. Sometimes a movie was in color at the theater, but it wasn’t like that on a person’s TV. It was just grays.”
“You haven’t seen color TV?”
“I have seen TV. And I have seen color,” Etienne clarified. “And I have seen colorized movies at the theater.” He drew his chin up when he said that, obviously proud of the fact.
“But you haven’t seen color TV.”
He hesitated for a minute before shaking his head. “No.”
“Wow. I’ve seen some of those old movies. I was watching some old thrillers just a couple of days ago. You know, The Blob and stuff like that. Really old, cheesy special effects. It was amazing, cutting edge when it came out, but now we look at it and just shake our heads.” Reg looked at the image on the screen of an army descending on a contingent of aliens. Little did they know that there was a whole other army of aliens in the next valley. They thought they were powerful enough to beat the aliens, but it wasn’t even going to be close.
Etienne turned his eyes back to the screen as well. He put one furry hand over his eyes to shut out the images, but still didn’t want to take his eyes off of it and peeked out through the cracks.
“Do you want me to find something that isn’t so scary?” Reg asked.
“No, no. It’s your house. You watch what you would like to.”
“You’re my guest. That means we watch what you want to watch. And I have a feeling this is a bit much for you.”
Etienne peeked through his fingers and winced, squinting at the screen for one more look. “Well…”
“I have the nature channel, you know. You can watch animals.”
“The nature channel?”
“Sure. Shall we try that?” Without waiting, Reg switched away from the movie. There was a picture of a bear walking in the woods with a calm, peaceful narrator describing the scene for anyone who couldn’t figure it out for themselves.
“Oh.” Etienne stared at the screen intently, sitting forward. “This is very nice.”
Reg broke out the ice cream and they both ate while watching the action slowly unfold.
They both fell asleep in their seats, which is where they were when Sarah came strolling in the next day. Reg had fully intended to sleep in her bed, but it didn’t happen. So much for her sleeping on the bed and Etienne sleeping on the floor. She didn’t have to worry about that inequality.
“Well, this is cozy!” Sarah observed, waking them both.
Reg straightened up, looking around and trying to get her bearings. “Oh… I guess we fell asleep. We were just watching movies. Sarah, this is Etienne, he is here—”
“Yes, we met last night,” Sarah agreed. “Though you might have told me who was staying with you before I had one of the forest people show up on my doorstep.”
“Uh… yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t really think… I wasn’t planning to go out, but when I had to, I told Etienne he could ask you for anything he needed…”
“And of course I’m delighted to help out. But it is nice to have a bit of a warning. Especially since… they are so very large.”
“But he couldn’t have gotten through the wards if he had intended to do either of us harm.”
Sarah studied Reg for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “Not unless his magic was much stronger than mine.”
“Good morning, Sarah Bishop,” Etienne greeted formally.
Sarah gave a nod in his direction. “Good morrow, Etienne.”
“I am sorry,” Reg said with a shrug. “Things ended up going… a little off the rails yesterday.”
“Not to worry. As it turns out, Etienne and I have met before. When he was just a cub.”
“Really?” Reg looked at Etienne, remembering how he had referred to ninety years being a short time. She supposed it proved Sarah Bishop was centuries old, as she had claimed. “That’s cool. You remembered each other?”
“Etienne has always had a fondness for chocolate,” Sarah said with a mischievous smile. “I’m afraid I might have had something to do with that.”
Etienne gave his soft, snuffling laugh. “It was good to meet you again.”
Sarah nodded her agreement. She looked at Reg. “Maybe you and I could walk in the garden for a few minutes. I have something to show you.”
“Etienne could—”
Sarah shook her head. “He’ll stay here and see what he can whip up for breakfast. He always was good with a skillet. Come with me.”
Reg followed her outside and into the garden. “You have something to show me?”
“Well, if I had brought it out with me, I would show you the newspaper. What were you doing out last night? What is all this nonsense about you being somehow involved in an investigation regarding a dead body found in the cemetery? An unauthorized dead body, of course,” she said quickly, “I do note that there are many other dead bodies that you didn’t have anything at all to do with.”
“That’s in the paper today?”
“Yes.”
“With my name?”
“With your picture as you are escorted out of the cemetery in handcuffs. No mention of your name, and the police have not yet given an official statement or acknowledged your involvement in the case, but I can read between the lines. What happened? What were you doing there?”
“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. I don’t know why I went there, and I can’t tell you anything about the dead guy, other than the fact that he was dead. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You don’t know how he died?”
Reg had a strange tremor run through her body.
She looked for a way to deny it. Of course she didn’t know anything about how the man had died. She’d only caught a very quick glimpse of the body in the dark, under the glow of her phone and then Jessup’s flashlight. She didn’t know anything about it.
But her body wouldn’t let it go. When she tried to explain how she didn’t know anything, her body reacted like a lie detector, throwing a huge wrench into the works. How was Reg supposed to lie convincingly when her body told the tale to anyone looking at her?
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said instead, shaking her head. “Why don’t you call Jessup or wait for the official statement from the police force? This isn’t anything to do with me.”
“You just happened to be where there was a dead body.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I don’t imagine that’s what Marta had to say about it.”
“Jessup wasn’t happy,” Reg agreed. “Especially when I wouldn’t tell her anything. She said she could have kept it a secret, but you know that’s just a ploy to get me talking.”
“Are you going to tell me anything about it?”
“How can I? I don’t know anything.”
“Why did you go to the cemetery?”
“I don’t know. I had… another blackout. A memory blank. I went into the cemetery looking for something… and I found that man. I don’t know his name or anything about him. The police were right behind me. That’s it, that’s the whole story.”
“Another memory hole.”
“Yes.”
“From when to when?”
“From… I guess the time that I left the house, until Jessup put me in the police car.”
Reg wondered what the photo of her had looked like. What was her expression? Stunned? Confused? Tired? Or just blank like a zombie?
“And you don’t know why you went to the cemetery? You said it was to look for something.”
“Etienne said that I was talking about a snake. Looking for a snake. But I don’t want to see a snake. I hate them. I think that I must just have been thinking about snakes because of the one we saw in the yard. That’s all.”
<
br /> “Why would you be looking in a cemetery for a snake?”
“I don’t know,” Reg repeated, for what seemed like the millionth time. “I’m sure there are probably some around there, but I wouldn’t expect it to be… snake Mecca. Just a few random snakes living in the trees or some mausoleum.”
Reg turned around to go back into the cottage. She should be helping Etienne to make breakfast. Or at least pretending that she could do something to help. Or feeding Starlight.
Coming the other way down the path was a familiar figure. Reg groaned.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Jessup? Don’t you sleep?”
“Not last night,” Detective Jessup acknowledged, smothering a yawn. “When you discover a body, there is a lot that needs to be done. Interviewing witnesses, logging evidence… it’s the homicide detectives’ job, of course, but I want to keep my hand in this. I don’t want someone else screwing it up, and then me getting into trouble as if it were my fault.”
“I already told you everything I could yesterday. Which is nothing. Because I didn’t know anything.”
“I have a few details that might help us to sort it out.”
Reg didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to continue to be oppositional and challenge everything Jessup said, but it didn’t work if Jessup was going to be nice and to come bearing gifts.
“Maybe we should go sit down,” Sarah said. “Do you want to sit in the garden, or go back into the house?” She gestured toward her house, not Reg’s.
Jessup looked at her, frowning. “This is a police matter. I really can’t involve you in it. Reg, why don’t we go into the cottage, and we can discuss it privately there.”
“Uh… no. Let’s just stay out here.”
Jessup looked at Sarah to leave.
Sarah stayed where she was. “I’m already discussing this with Reg. We’re trying to figure it all out. So you can either include me in the conversation or be on your way.” When Jessup opened her mouth to argue, Sarah beat her to the punch line. “And it is my property, so I have every right to tell you that you cannot be here.”
Jessup thought about that for a minute. She looked at Reg. “You want me to share this with both of you?”
Reg nodded. Sarah was already involved, like it or not.
Jessup sighed. “Do you know how he was killed?”
Sarah was expecting Reg to shake her head and say no. Reg was expecting herself to shake her head and say no. But that wasn’t what came out.
“He had a mark on his neck,” she told Jessup. “Did you see that?”
“I didn’t. Not at the scene. There was too much else; I guess I missed it.”
Sarah cocked her head. “Bruises?” She suggested. “Strangled?”
“No.” Reg looked up into one of the trees. There could be a snake up there now. Snakes climbed trees, didn’t they? “It wasn’t left by fingers or a rope. It was a bite.”
Sarah blinked rapidly, looking from one to the other. “A bite? What kind of a bite? A vampire? A wild animal?”
Reg looked at Jessup for her answer. Reg had wondered that too. What had bitten him? She didn’t know anything about real-life vampires, though some of the things she knew about vampires made her wonder about Corvin… But would a vampire have just left the body there like that? It would have been drained of blood, wouldn’t it? Reg had a pretty good idea that the man had not been completely drained.
But Reg didn’t know anything about real vampires and how they worked in the real world. Many of the magical species Reg had met were different from the way they were described in fairy tales and movies. So she couldn’t assume anything.
Jessup looked steadily back at Reg as if expecting her to answer the question. She had just claimed to have seen the bite. So how clearly had she seen it?
Reg broke the eye contact. “I think… maybe a snake.”
Jessup nodded. Reg looked at Sarah, who raised her eyes thoughtfully. They had just been talking about snakes. Reg had said that she had gone to the cemetery looking for a snake. Then she had found the body of a man who had been bitten by a snake. Not just bitten, but bitten and killed. How did Reg explain that coincidence?
But she didn’t. She couldn’t remember looking for a snake. Etienne had told her that part. It was another mystery shrouded by her memory blackouts.
“You think this man was killed by a snake?” Sarah asked Jessup. “Then it was natural causes. It isn’t as if he was murdered in the cemetery. With all the stuff in the paper this morning, one would swear that the police thought this was a suspicious death. You said that you’re investigating. But investigating what? A snake bite?”
“We’re investigating a suspicious death. Until the medical examiner declares cause and manner of death.”
“And then you’ll let it go. If she says it was accidental or natural death.”
Jessup nodded. “Of course. We’re not going to investigate it any further if the ME declares that it was natural causes.”
“Then you don’t have to keep treating me as a suspect,” Reg said.
“I’m not. Would I be here talking to you now if you were a suspect?”
“Cops can be tricky.”
“And so can cons.”
“So you don’t suspect me.”
Reg waited to see if Jessup would actually agree and put it in so many words.
“Someone could still have planted the snake,” Jessup said slowly.
“What? Planted the snake?”
“The man who was killed… he was very big in the snake-handling community.”
“Snake handling—?” Reg pressed her lips together, determined not to be an echo chamber. Jessup would have to take the time to explain it to her instead of just dropping tantalizing little clues and expecting Reg to understand the whole picture. Snake handling community?
“Some people believe that handling venomous snakes shows that they are faithful,” Jessup informed her.
“You mean, like, a religious thing?”
“Yes. I don’t know all the details, but they believe that if they can safely handle snakes, it shows that they are true believers. God is protecting them.”
“And this guy who was killed, he was one of them?”
“He was part of that group… but I’m not sure whether he did it because of religious beliefs or if he just liked snakes. Some people get off on taking risks. I think that’s a big part of why religious folks do it. It gives them an adrenaline boost. A euphoria when they manage to do it without getting bitten.”
“But what if they do get bitten?”
“Most snakebites won’t kill you immediately. With most types of snakes, it would take more than one bite before your life was in danger. And most snakes don’t bite multiple times, if what I’ve been told is correct. They use up their venom on the first bite, and all the bites after that, if there are any, are dry bites. So it would take multiple bites from multiple snakes.”
“But that guy, he only had one bite that I saw. Were there more?”
“Just the one that I know of. Unless the ME uncovered more. We didn’t strip the guy. And apparently those hands—you saw how his hands were misshapen?”
Reg had seen it in the pictures Jessup had shown her. She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Apparently, that’s from being bitten before. It kills tissue, causes deep damage like you saw on his hands. So he’s been bitten before and should have some immunity to the venom. If he handles venomous snakes regularly, then he might have been injecting himself with venom to build up his resistance.”
“But you still think that he died from a poisonous snake bite.”
“Until I’m told differently, that’s the working hypothesis.”
“Then it must have been… a really poisonous snake. Super poisonous.”
“There are a few in Florida that can kill you with one bite.”
“What about a diamondback?” Reg asked, remembering the one she had seen in the garden. The one that Forst t
old her she had seen.
“Yes,” Jessup frowned. “Why specifically a diamondback?”
“I don’t know. It was just on my mind.” Reg shrugged. “Maybe a psychic insight. Maybe it’s something that you needed to know.” She was still good at bluffing about paranormal phenomena in the cases she didn’t actually experience a psychic connection.
Jessup considered for a moment, then wrote it down. She studied Reg and Sarah, eyes moving back and forth between them to discern whether they were telling the truth or whether there was something they were trying to hide from her.
“So you think he was killed by the bite of a diamondback rattler.”
“It’s as good a guess as any. I guess you’ll know for sure when your medical examiner calls you.”
“And you say you don’t know the man who was killed.”
“No. Never seen him before, as far as I can remember.” She left the remembering part in there just in case it came up that she had seen him in another time and place that was lost in the memory blanks.
“We have an ID on him now.”
Reg waited. If Jessup were going to tell her about him, she would.
“His name was Nagendra.”
Reg waited for more, but that appeared to be all Jessup was going to say. “Well… that’s a new one. I don’t remember ever hearing that before.”
“It’s not a common name.”
“Is that his first name or his last name?”
“His only name, apparently.”
“But you have to have a first and last name.”
“Humans do,” Jessup agreed.
“Oh. So what was he?”
“Troll.”
“He was a troll?” Reg thought back to Tybalt. “Wait, are goblins and trolls the same thing?”
Sarah giggled.
“No,” Jessup answered. She smiled in Sarah’s direction. “They are both humanoid in form, but they are very different creatures.”
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