Steele of the Night (Daggers & Steele Book 7)

by Alex P. Berg

  “Well, first and foremost has to be Diamond Drummond,” said Shay. “By his own admission, his relationship with Chaz was strained. Chaz hired him as a roadie, but it’s obvious Diamond’s ambitions are higher. When Benson mentioned he should start practicing, his face lit up. If he killed Chaz, he must’ve known replacing him in Yellow Cobra would be a possibility given his looks and skills, all of which makes me think that if he’s our guy, he’s not nearly as dumb as he pretends to be.”

  I nodded. “Sure. And his buddy Dennis could be an accomplice. We’ll have to check with Rodgers and Quinto to see if they found any firm alibis for the pair during their investigation. Also, I think Heather’s an obvious suspect. Being attacked by an abusive estranged husband? That could incite some passions, to put it mildly. Not to mention she inherits his wealth, whatever that happens to be. Perhaps it isn’t much, but if Chaz is the Yellow Cobra songwriter, she’d inherit his intellectual property as well as his material goods.”

  “All of the Yellow Cobra members have to be suspects at this point,” said Shay. “Given our current understanding, they may all have had opportunities to kill Chaz, although we’re not sure if any of them had a motive. Initially, it would seem they had financial incentives not to, but there may have been other mitigating factors. Crystal mentioned bickering between Chaz and B. B., and Billy Charles hinted that he thought B. B. might be better off starting his own band rather than sticking with Chaz in Yellow Cobra.”

  “Possible,” I said. “But we need more firm motives. And since we’re throwing out people who we have strong suspicions about, let’s not forget the Cobra’s manager, Benson Forsythe.”

  Shay lifted an eyebrow. “What motive would he have? Chaz was his primary source of income.”

  I started to write all the names down on slips of paper. “As I think I already mentioned, perhaps he saw Chaz as too combustible and planned to promote Diamond all along. Or he thought Yellow Cobra could survive on B. B.’s personality alone. Or he’s a vampire and couldn’t help himself.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “Right… Let’s get them on the board. And try to match each individual with their location using the string.”

  I glanced at the ball of red yarn. “You sure about that? That’s a lot of potential combinations. I think we might need multiple colors.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Shay. “Were there others in the supply closet?”

  A knock sounded at the door. Shay and I both turned. Cairny stood there.

  “Hey guys,” she said. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure,” said Shay. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been studying Chaz’s corpse all day, and I’m confident about a few more of the details surrounding his death. Want to take a look?”

  More clues? You bet we were interested.

  29

  Shay’s heels clicked on the stone as we took the stairs into the dungeon. Once again I shivered upon hitting the bottom despite the fact that the temperature couldn’t have been more than a few degrees cooler than in the pit. My repeated reaction to the space couldn’t simply have been a response to what it held, could it? Perhaps there was a scientific reason for my shivering. Humidity, maybe? I bet Cairny could provide clues if I pushed her on the subject.

  “So, Shay,” said Cairny as we entered the main examination room. “Can I ask you a question before we get started?”

  “You bet,” she said. “Shoot.”

  “I stopped by to say hi to Quinto,” said Cairny. “Supposedly he and Rodgers had gotten back from doing some legwork with you. I swear I caught a hint of perfume on him. Not his usual musk. Something more flowery.”

  I suppressed a smile. “What’s the matter? Don’t trust him?”

  Cairny shot me an inscrutable glance. “Of course I do. But it wasn’t simply the perfume. There was glitter on his coat. Rodgers sported it too, not to mention the aroma. But neither of you seem to, which is why I’m confused.”

  “Cairny,” said Shay with a broad smile. “I’m impressed. Picking up small details like that? I must be rubbing off on you.”

  Cairny returned the smile. “You’re not the only one who benefits from our chats. But that doesn’t answer my question. What were Quinto and Rodgers up to?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  Cairny shook her head. “He skirted the issue.”

  I snorted. “That goofball. You’d think he’d know honesty is the best policy.”

  Shay waved a hand. “You have nothing to worry about, Cairny. We visited a brothel during the investigation. Quinto and Rodgers got revenge for being relegated to interrogating the bouncers and cooks the last time we made a trip to one of those places. I promise you your beau didn’t misbehave. He stayed in the lobby the whole time.”

  We’d reached the exam table. Chaz’s cold body graced its face, a blanket pulled up to his midsection.

  Cairny took up position on the opposite side of the table from us. “I figured it was something like that. I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell me. Seems silly not to.”

  Shay lifted a brow. “You’re not concerned about him wandering off, are you?”

  Cairny shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really. But I like him. Quite a lot, actually. I don’t want anything to drive a wedge between us.”

  “Cairny, I guarantee you you’re the prettiest, most intelligent woman he’s ever dated,” I said. “Before he mustered up the courage to ask you out, most of his dates involved a bottle of beer, an extra large bag of fried corn chips, and a box of old case files. He’s not going anywhere. Now you mentioned you had more information regarding Chaz’s death?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “You’re right. First things first, I’ve determined Chaz died from blood loss following his neck injury.”

  I glanced at the gaping wound in question. It hadn’t gotten any prettier. “I thought we’d already established that. You said so yourself.”

  “Technically, I don’t think I did,” said Cairny. “I intimated it was his cause of death and gave you grief over not coming to that conclusion yourself. But it’s a moot point. Though I found copious quantities of narcotics and other drugs in his system, it was his neck wound that killed him, of that I’m sure.”

  “I could ask how you determined that exactly, but I have a feeling it would go over my head,” I said. “So that’s good, right? He died the way we thought he died. What else can you tell us? Did you determine how he obtained the wound?”

  “In that, I’m confident in my original diagnosis,” Cairny said. “Teeth. The tearing pattern of the flesh confirms it.”

  “And I don’t suppose you know what sort of teeth inflicted the wound?” I asked. “Were they human? Animal? Perhaps a lion’s?”

  “A lion?”

  “We found one,” I said. “Don’t ask.”

  Our midnight-haired coroner paused and chewed on her lower lip.

  “Well?” I said after a pause.

  “I’m thinking.” Cairny stared at the wound. Eventually, she shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “Good,” said Shay. “That matches our reasoning, but out of curiosity, why would you say so?”

  “Well, I’m no zoologist,” said Cairny, “but to my knowledge, lions are big.”

  “I can attest to that…” I said, recalling the beast at the lockup.

  “Big mouths, big teeth,” continued Cairny. “The size of the wound isn’t right. An adolescent lion, maybe, but not a fully grown one. Although I suspect the type of teeth that caused the wound might be similar in structure.”

  Shay lifted a brow. “What do you mean by that?”

  Cairny pointed to the gashes in Chaz’s neck, specifically to the sides. “See these two tears? They were caused by canines—the teeth, not dogs. Whatever bit Mr. Wilson possessed ferocious fangs.”

  “Fangs?” I said.

  “Don’t start, Daggers,” said Shay.

  Cairny crossed her arms and tilted
her head at me. “Is he still sold on his vampire theory?”

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” I said. “So far, every piece of forensic evidence you’ve cited is screaming cape-clad, nightwalking bloodsucker.”

  “Not everything,” said Cairny. “While the bite marks are roughly the size of a human mouth, they’re a little too narrow, and the evidence indicates the attacker possessed fangs on both the upper and lower dental arch, which—correct me if I’m wrong, Daggers—doesn’t match existing vampire lore. And that’s not all. There’s a more interesting tidbit I brought you down here to share.”

  “Being?” asked Shay.

  Cairny crossed to another table, picked up a glass cell culture dish, and brought it over. “Do you remember this substance?”

  I glanced inside the dish. Translucent flakes dusted the inside of the glass.

  “The gross film that was all over him,” I said. “What about it?”

  Cairny smiled. “I think I figured out what it is. Took a lot of time under a microscope trying different likely combinations, but the flaky translucent nature gave me some clues. The fact that it created a film made me think it had to contain a protein, perhaps enzymes. My first thought after I convinced myself about the neck wound was, what if it’s saliva? Mixed with something, certainly, otherwise it wouldn’t create a film. Something brown, given the color.”

  “Hold on a sec,” I said. “Saliva? And you’re sure a lion wasn’t involved?”

  “I already told you, I think the wound is too small,” said Cairny. “Besides, wouldn’t a lion that savaged a man’s throat do more damage? Eat him, even? A single bite to the neck seems unlikely.”

  “But you have other evidence to support your conclusion, don’t you?” said Shay.

  Cairny nodded. “I tested a number of brown pastes, should we say. Don’t ask. It’s as unglamorous as it sounds. I mixed each with a bit of my own saliva and dried them. Eventually I found a substance that produced a film of roughly the same color and consistency as this one.”

  Cairny eyed us. We waited.

  “Well,” I said. “Go on. The suspense is killing us.”

  Our coroner’s smile spread. “I think this film is a mixture of saliva...and peanut butter.”

  I blinked. If I wore glasses, I would’ve taken them off and rubbed at the spot where they hung on my nose. “Come again?”

  “Or any kind of nut butter, really,” said Cairny. “Almond butter, cashew butter. They all have the requisite protein content, so I imagine they’d behave similarly.”

  “But…this stuff was all over him, correct?” I said.

  “Mostly,” said Cairny. “It wasn’t under his clothes, but I found traces on his face, hands, chest, and arms.”

  “So we’re supposed to believe…what exactly?” I said. “That a pack of stray dogs licked him to death after a freak nut butter accident?”

  Cairny’s brow furrowed. “No. I already told you, it was the neck wound that killed him.”

  Despite the interpersonal strides she’d made, Cairny still struggled with sarcasm.

  I turned to Shay. “Are you making any sense of this?”

  My partner shook her head. “Not yet. We need to think this through. Cairny? Thanks for the update. Let us know if you stumble across anything else.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Though it wasn’t really a stumble. It was heck of a lot of work testing those saliva combinations. I’m still parched.”

  I almost told her that she should’ve forced Quinto to spit into a bucket for her, but that was both gross and I didn’t want to pull her back into a conversation about her significant other. Instead, I thanked her and ushered Shay toward the stairs, her cryptic analysis weighing heavily on my mind.

  30

  “Okay, so how about this,” I said as I paced back and forth across Shay’s new office. “Chaz’s obsession with vampires started long ago, correct? We’re not entirely sure when, but it’s been an ongoing fascination at least since his penning of “Creatures of the Night.” Probably a ways before. According to Vance, Chaz wrote the song following an encounter with a real vampire. What if we assume, at least for the moment, that both Vance and Chaz were telling the truth.”

  Shay sat in her desk chair, leaning back and resting her head against one of her hands. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Alright. Fine. I’m stretching my creative muscles. Let’s assume that. And?”

  ““Creatures of the Night” toes the allegorical line between a romantic encounter and that of a more insidious one,” I said. “So let’s take our assumption one step further. What if Chaz’s encounter with a vampire not only occurred but served as the basis for his ballad? What if he was trying to warn people through song?”

  “About what?” said Shay. “Heather being a vampire?”

  “No,” I said. “She came to the precinct in the middle of the day. Besides, I don’t think they’d met when he wrote the song. I’m talking about the person who sent her our way. Benson Forsythe.”

  Shay didn’t seem to even possess the strength to shake her head. “You keep beating that horse, not noticing it’s dead. And by the way, Chaz’s trips to the brothel and his wife’s apartment seem to indicate he wouldn’t have had any interest in a romantic relationship with Benson.”

  “And I don’t think one existed,” I said. “The romantic nature of the song must’ve been used to hide Benson’s assault. The real encounter between the two was probably far less passionate. Think about it, though. We’ve already talked about the women in Benson’s office, the ones who might’ve been enthralled. We’ve talked about his inexplicable magnetism. What if he used that on Chaz? To get him in the band and keep him there? Perhaps Benson recognized Chaz’s talent and forced him through supernatural means to comply, to front his band and rake in fame and fortune for Benson in return.”

  Shay sighed. “You realize this doesn’t provide Forsythe with a motive for murder, don’t you?”

  “Of course it does,” I said. “We know Chaz was obsessed with the supernatural. Read about it. Talked to others about it. Perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps he was trying to find a way to break Benson’s control over him so he could forge his own fortune. Maybe he did find a way and used it, or threatened to. Benson couldn’t have that, could he? So he killed Chaz to keep Yellow Cobra intact, knowing he could go to Diamond as a fill in, or simply eliminate Chaz entirely and promote B. B. as the face of the band.”

  “And the peanut butter?”

  I stopped pacing. “I’m, ah…still working on that.”

  “Face it,” said Shay, her head resting against her hand. “We suffer from an abundance of suspects and a distinct lack of verifiable motives. Until we start whittling suspects out of our pool with alibis or assign them more concrete motivations, we’re not going to get any closer to solving this thing—and that’s before Cairny’s bizarre revelation.”

  “You think she could be wrong?” I asked. “I mean, I know we trust her, but really?”

  Shay yawned. “Everyone makes mistakes, but Cairny’s track record has earned her the benefit of the doubt.”

  Shay remained in her chair, her eyelids falling and her breathing slow. Some might say she looked peaceful. I knew the truth of it.

  I mentally kicked myself for putting her in such a state. True, I wasn’t the one who’d named her interim captain, a position she was sorely unprepared for in terms of experience if not intellect or leadership potential. But I had stormed out last night after hearing the news—the night, mind you, that had followed our first day as an intimate couple. How stupid could I have been? I was beyond lucky she was so understanding of the reasons leading to my frustration, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind my childish actions had contributed to her sleepless night. And here I was, pushing her to relentlessly pursue the case, filling her ears with my unfounded theories, all while her body screamed for a good night’s rest.

  “Shay,” I said softly.


  No response.

  Louder this time. “Shay?”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Yes? I’m listening.”

  “You can go home, you know. Get some rest. Quinto, Rodgers, and I can handle this. I mean, given the insane circumstances of the murder, it doesn’t look as if the killer is going to strike again any time soon.”

  Shay blinked and shook her head. “No. I’m fine. Really.”

  I approached her and pulled her signature move, sitting on the corner of her desk. “Look, I know you’re trying to set a good example on your first day as captain, but there’s no sense in killing yourself. It’s okay to be vulnerable, to show a little weakness now and then. That’s one of the reasons you surround yourself with people who care for you and who you trust, so they can lift you up and carry you when you fall down.”

  Shay lifted an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I’m going to fall asleep on my feet?”

  “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  My partner gave me a sidelong glance. “That’s a surprisingly enlightened point of view, and not one I’d particularly expected to hear from you.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “If anyone should know about vulnerability and the value of friendship, it’s me. I’ve been down the other road. I know where it takes you. Trust me, you don’t want to travel that path. Not that you’re anywhere close, but still.”

  Shay nodded slowly. “I…appreciate your concern, Daggers. I really do. If I feel like I can’t keep going, I promise I’ll let you know. I won’t fight it, but for now I’m doing okay. I just need to stay focused. Why don’t you snag Rodgers and Quinto? I’ve got a few last ideas to pursue before we call it a day.”

  I hoped she was being sincere with me. Even though I wouldn’t mind carrying her home and tucking her into bed, I’d rather it didn’t come to that. “You got it.”