I pressed her for any further details or a description of the woman, but Auri apparently had caught only a fleeting glimpse of the woman as she went upstairs. Light hair, slender figure, dressed in what looked like expensive clothes. And that describes half the female population of this subdivision, I thought in mild annoyance. I finally got as much contact information as I could from her and let her leave.
So, was Sharp getting some action on the side? If so, how long had it been going on? And was that why his wife left? And had this other woman come back later?
I returned to the bathroom, drawn back to the body despite the wrongness of it. I had to clench my hands to keep them from shaking. Could it just be me? Is it my judgment that’s out of whack?
I let out an unsteady breath as I took a mental step back, looking around the bathroom and the adjoining bedroom for any similarity at all to Brian Roth’s death. But nothing leaped out at me. Different neighborhoods, different class of victim.
Maybe a similar cause of death? Brian’s was an apparent suicide, but there were still a lot of questions, and until we found Carol we wouldn’t know anything for certain. And, on the surface, the Davis Sharp case looked as if it was going to be a garden-variety accident or possibly a heart attack, but the fact that his wife had apparently left him certainly added a twist. I had to keep in mind the possibility that this was a murder staged to look like an accident. I’d check with Jill later to see if Crime Scene found anything suspicious, and I’d also check the maid out as much as I could.
I heard Crawford come up behind me, making a noise in the back of his throat at the sight of Sharp’s still-damp rear end.
“Nice view. Got anything yet, Kara?” he asked as he took in the scene.
“Just some basics so far.” I gave him a quick rundown, then closed my notebook, my gaze inexorably drawn back to the body. The emptiness seemed to mock me, and now I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe I was seeing wrongness in something that wasn’t wrong. Maybe something had changed in the way essence was released after death? Changed in the universe in general? Maybe this was happening to all bodies, not just the ones I’d seen yesterday and today. I hadn’t been on any death calls—natural or homicide—since my own “death.” Maybe crossing through the spheres had changed something in my perception?
No, that didn’t make any sense. The essence had obviously been ripped away as soon as death had loosened its grip. I could see the trailing threads, and I couldn’t imagine any possible way for that to occur naturally.
“Kara?” Crawford’s voice jerked me out of my thoughts. “Are you with me?” he said, a mixture of annoyance and worry in his voice.
I flushed and gave a sharp nod. “Yeah, Sarge. Sorry. Well, this looks like an accident, but his wife left him, and he might have been getting some action on the side, so it’s possible that there was something hinky going on. I’ll check the wife’s alibi and see if I can find out who this other woman was.”
“Sounds good.” He snorted. “Well, this is a prominent local businessman and parish councilman, so we jump through all of the damn hoops to figure out exactly how this guy ended ass end up in the fucking shower.”
I gave him the amused smile he expected, but I didn’t feel amused. I felt shaken. Shit, I needed to figure out if this essence loss was happening all over or just to a few people. And, once again, just like in the Symbol Man case, I couldn’t tell my supervisors what was really going on. Yeah, Sarge, I’m looking for a link between these two utterly unrelated cases because someone has eaten their souls. Yeesh.
Crawford sighed gustily. “All right, Kara. I know you already have Brian’s case to work, but that should be only paperwork. And with luck you’ll be able to wash your hands of this one pretty soon.” Then he snickered. “No pun intended.” He looked at me with a crooked grin. “Get it? Shower … wash …”
I lowered my head and gave him a look. “Go. Away.”
He grinned. “Okay. This one is hopefully a dumb accident with a rich fuck who slipped on some soap.” His eyes slid to Sharp’s naked ass. “And I’ll be behind you the entire way.”
I groaned. “Somebody shoot me, please.”
IT WAS WELL past mid-morning by the time the scene was completely processed and the body carted away by the coroner’s office. The heat had risen to the point where I was damp with sweat from the short walk from the house to my car. I climbed in, deeply grateful that, by pure happenstance, I’d parked under a tree. Still, I cranked the AC to arctic levels and allowed the vents to blast me with air that was nowhere near arctic but was a damn sight cooler than the air outside.
I was just about to put the car into drive when I saw Crawford jogging up, a grim look on his face. I rolled the window down as he approached.
He stooped to look in at me. “Brian’s wife has been found.”
I could tell by his expression that she hadn’t been found alive. “Where?”
“City Hotel.” An expression of distaste crossed his face.
“What the fuck was she doing there?”
He exhaled. “That’s what you’re going to find out. I have to finish up a couple of things here, and then I’ll meet you over there.”
“You got it, Sarge.”
Chapter 7
SOMEHOW THE TEMPERATURE MANAGED TO RISE AT least twenty degrees during the ten-minute drive to the Beaulac City Hotel. At least it felt like it. It didn’t help that the cheap asphalt of the parking lot soaked up the heat and radiated it back in concentrated waves, designed to wring as much sweat as possible from anyone silly enough to be outside.
The Beaulac City Hotel—where rooms could be rented by the hour or the week—hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in decades. Several windows had been replaced by plywood, piles of old trash lurked in corners, and an ashtray by the door to the office had reached its capacity a few hundred cigarette butts ago. A sour smell of sweat and piss mixed unpleasantly with the heat rising from the asphalt, enveloping me as I approached. Crime-scene tape had been strung around the rusted metal poles that supported the second-story balcony, and I could see the officer manning the sign-in log standing in the meager shade offered by the second floor. After a hard look at the battered poles, I wasn’t so sure it was a better option to be in the shade.
I signed the log, then ducked under the tape. Another uniformed officer leaned against the outside wall by an open hotel-room door, his usually bald head covered with about a millimeter’s length of hair. I’d known Scott Glassman for years and had worked on the same team with him when I was on the road. He was a solid cop with no desire to ever go into Investigations—a “good ole boy” who was perfectly happy being perpetually assigned to patrol. He had a troubled expression on his face that shifted to a sad smile when he saw me, and I abruptly remembered that Scott and Brian Roth had been good friends and hunting buddies outside work. This whole situation had to be pretty hard on him.
“Hey, Scott,” I said. “Are we sure that it’s Brian’s wife? Who made the ID?”
His expression was grim. “I did. I thought I recognized her, but I verified it with the driver’s license in her purse. And the blue Prius in the parking lot is hers.”
“Damn,” I said. “I was really hoping that Brian had just been using a figure of speech.” I swept my gaze around the nasty hotel. “Any clue yet on why she was here?”
“Well, I spoke to the manager. He says she checked in night before last, alone—under the name ‘Jane Smythe’—but apparently she was something of a regular.”
“At a dump like this?” I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that.
He scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his head. “I guess it was a game they played more than once. I dunno. But the manager says he doesn’t know shit about anyone else coming to the room.” He scowled. “Manager doesn’t know shit about a lot, but I’m about to run his ass to see if he has any warrants, because he’s being a pain in my ass.”
“If you could lean on him, that would be a big help. Why’d it
take so long for her to be found?” My gaze swept the exterior of the building. “Place like this probably turns the rooms over pretty quickly, I would think.”
He scowled. “Manager said that she would always be out in a few hours, so he didn’t bother checking in the morning.” I made a face, and he sighed and nodded in agreement. “And the chick who cleans the rooms called in sick yesterday, and obviously he’s too much of a lazy fuck to do it himself.”
“At least she was finally found.” I grimaced and swiped at the sweat that snaked down my forehead. “Maybe now we can figure out what the hell happened. I guess there’s no such thing as surveillance cameras around here?”
He shook his head. “Not that work. I already checked.”
I gave his arm a companionable squeeze. “I appreciate the effort.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I just wish the whole situation wasn’t so fucked up.”
I merely nodded in response, suddenly very glad that no one knew the other horrific detail about Brian’s death. It was hard enough on everyone to lose a member of the force, especially under these circumstances, and it wouldn’t help to know that, on top of all that, his essence had been eaten.
A shiver walked down my back, and I turned to step into the gloomy hotel room, steeling myself against the knowledge that this body might be like the others, with nothing but tattered remains of essence fluttering in an ethereal wind.
Jill was inside, taking measurements. She looked up and gave me a small nod of greeting as I entered. “Hell of a way to spend a day, huh?” she said with a shake of her head. “Anyway, I’m finished here. She’s all yours.” She gestured to the floor on the other side of the bed.
I stepped around and was rewarded by the sight of a woman’s body, nude except for a red silk scarf that hung loosely around her throat like an accessory. She lay on her side as if sleeping, eyes half closed with the flat, dull look of death in them. Her hair, auburn and artfully highlighted, snaked across her face, plastered in spots with dried sweat and saliva. She was young—late twenties perhaps—and she had the kind of slender figure I could never hope to attain, no matter how much I exercised. The portion of her body nearest the floor was mottled in red, and a naïve observer might first believe that she was heavily bruised, but I’d seen lividity—or livor mortis—on enough corpses to know that the redness was due to the settling of the blood in the body once the heart ceased pumping.
I crouched by the body, placing my feet cautiously even though the scene had already been photographed and processed. I was still learning the ropes when it came to homicide investigations, but I’d been a cop long enough to know that you had to watch where you stepped on a scene.
I couldn’t tell how long she’d been dead—that determination would have to come from the coroner’s office—but even my limited experience told me that she obviously hadn’t died in the last few hours. But that was a minor concern for me right at the moment.
I was far more focused on her essence, or what might remain of it. I shifted into othersight, nearly swaying in relief when I saw nothing more than a faint shimmering glow. Yes, this was what it was supposed to look like. No tattered threads, no torn edges. Just a soft residue from an essence that departed its shell the normal and natural way instead of being ripped free. This residual glow would linger for a day or two more, then naturally dissipate.
I pulled myself out of othersight and let my gaze travel over her, taking in the whole scene. There were articles of clothing scattered on the floor, but I didn’t see any suitcases or bags.
I glanced back at Jill. “She had a purse?”
“It’s on the table.”
I glanced over. It was a small clutch-size thing—not one of those career-woman monstrosities that could have held a week’s worth of clothes and toiletries. It didn’t look as if she’d planned an extended stay. Or even an overnight one. “Any trace evidence? Fingerprints?”
Jill grimaced. “Sure. Tons. Which is the problem.”
I echoed her grimace. “A few hundred people have been through here, and it all becomes one noisy mess.”
“You nailed it, chick. I’ll do my best, but I think you’re gonna get your best evidence off the body.”
I nodded in understanding, and she stepped away to write dates and times on her evidence bags. I looked again at the strewn garments. I murmured under my breath, “We just liked to play.…” That’s what Brian’s suicide note had said. Damn.
“You find something, Kara?”
I looked up to see that Crawford had come in behind me. “It’s more what I’m not finding, unfortunately.”
He crouched beside me. “What do you mean?” His gaze swept over the body, taking in the details. I could see his eyes flick quickly from the clothing to the rumpled bed to the scarf, tallying it up, no doubt coming to the same conclusion that I’d come to.
“I’m not finding signs of struggle, defensive wounds, anything like that,” I said.
An expression of regret passed over his face. “Keep going.”
I sighed. “I think that our first theory was right, Sarge—this is sex play gone bad.” I gave a nod toward the silk scarf. “It wasn’t a robbery, because she’s still wearing her earrings and her wedding ring.” I pointed to the diamond studs in her earlobes and then to the fair-size diamond cluster on her left hand. “I can’t see anyone leaving those behind. I’m willing to bet she and Brian were engaging in some autoerotic asphyxia play, and it went a touch too far. I think he was slowly choking her and releasing, giving her that hypoxia rush—” I broke off with a curse. “What a fucking waste. Brian should have known better than to play with dangerous shit like that.”
“Yeah,” he said, voice quiet and hoarse. “I would never have figured him for something like this. Guess you never know people.”
I took a deep breath and made myself continue. “I think he was playing this game with her, and then one time when he let it go she didn’t start breathing again. He tried CPR—there’s even bruising in the middle of her chest—and when she still didn’t come back, I guess he panicked and bailed out.” I shook my head. “I dunno. It doesn’t make sense. He’s not the sort to panic. I can’t believe he wouldn’t have called 911 and at least tried to get help.”
“This whole situation is fucked from top to bottom,” Crawford said, and when I looked at him sharply, he winced and shook his head. “No pun intended there. I swear.” But even unintended, the horrific pun had broken some of the dark mood, which was a relief to both of us.
He inclined his head at me, a thin smile playing on his face. “How do you know about asphyxia play?”
“Back when I was a property detective, I worked a fraud case at the adult video shop downtown. It was a pretty complicated case, and I ended up learning more than I ever wanted to know simply by being around the place so much.”
Crawford nodded, eyes dancing. “I remember that.” He stood and walked to the door, and I followed suit. “What’s your plan now?”
I made a face at the wall of heat that enveloped us as we stepped outside. “Wait for Doc to do the autopsies. Anything else will depend on what he says.”
He peered into my face. “You look fried. As soon as you’re finished here, you should go home and get some sleep.”
I snorted but couldn’t help but smile. “I intend to. You just make sure no one else decides to die today.”
Chapter 8
UNFORTUNATELY, MY DEEP DESIRE FOR A NAP WAS foiled by the coroner’s office, though I had to grudgingly admit that it wasn’t their fault. A nasty—and fatal—traffic accident on one of the highways at the north end of the parish meant that we had to wait for them to collect those victims before coming to get Carol Roth.
I took refuge in my car as the heat rose—keeping the AC cranked up as I pecked out my initial reports on my laptop. But by two p.m. there was still no sign of the coroner’s office, and I was uncomfortably aware that I’d promised Kehlirik to check on him during the day. And one did no
t blithely break promises to the demonkind.
Then again, I never promised to check on him in person. I grinned at the realization, pulled out my cell phone, and hit the speed dial for my aunt’s house.
By the fourth ring I was coming to the reluctant conclusion that Kehlirik had either forgotten how to answer the phone or was too busy with the wards to break away. But on the fifth ring I heard it pick up with a rumble on the other end that could only be from a reyza.
“Kehlirik, this is Kara Gillian.”
“Greetings to you, summoner.” The powerful bass of his voice seemed to vibrate the phone against my ear.
“And to you. Is everything going all right? Do you need anything?”
“All is well,” he replied. “The wards on the summoning chamber are cleared. The library will take more time, but a mere faas cannot create a ward that can defeat me.” I could hear him snort in derision at the thought.
“I have the utmost faith in you, honored one,” I said, keeping my voice grave, though I wanted to laugh. “It’s probably going to be a few more hours before I can get back over there.”
“That is acceptable. I will use this device to contact you should I require anything else.” I could hear the eager edge to his voice, and I grinned. How long would it take for him to find a reason to use the phone again?
I hung up after assuring him that it was quite all right to call me if he needed anything, relieved that I’d taken care of that responsibility. I leaned my head back against the headrest and watched the shimmer of heat come off the pavement. Everyone else had taken refuge in their own cars, except for one officer who stood in the doorway of the hotel room. He’d cranked the AC in the room up to get some relief from the heat and had spent the last hour on his cell phone.
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