Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

Her face became even more superior, but there might have been a slight blush underneath the perfect foundation. It was hard to tell, but she didn’t like him calling her either nickname. That was for sure.

  “It’s not a threat, Sheriff Leduc. It’s just a reminder of the politics around here.”

  “Well, now, Mrs. Babington, your brother, Ray, was the richest person in the county. That’s for certain. But you and Todd are usually broke.”

  She put one delicate hand to her necklace. “It’s Mrs. Marchand-Babington, and do I look like someone who’s broke?”

  “You’re wearing and driving your money, Muriel. I know that. You know that. Now everyone in the hallway knows it. If you don’t want the whole town to know it, I suggest Todd hand me the case so I can see what’s in it, and then we’ll mosey down to your car and see if anything else got packed away.”

  “You will regret this, Duke.”

  “I regret a lot of things, Muriel, but this isn’t going to be one of them. Now, hand over the case, or I’ll have to take it from Todd. You know I can.”

  “You could have twenty years ago,” she said, and tried for the same disdain that she’d aimed at her husband.

  Leduc laughed at her, and if it had a bitter tone to it, it still surprised her. She’d meant to hurt him. “Even with a few extra pounds, he’s no match for me, Muriel. You know that. Don’t make me prove it.”

  “Because you know you’ll lose,” she said, and tried to sound triumphant but failed.

  It wasn’t all about weight and waist sizes. Just because Todd was smaller didn’t change the fact that he was soft and doughy. There was no muscle tone underneath his weight, and there was underneath Leduc’s. But more than that, one man was huddled in on himself, and the other man was standing up straight and tall, confident in the moment. You didn’t have to know either of them to know which side would win a physical encounter or even an argument.

  “Todd, just hand me the case.” Duke’s voice was almost gentle as he spoke.

  Todd started to offer the case to Duke, but Muriel snapped at him, “Don’t you dare! He has no rights here.”

  Todd held the case tighter again and sighed.

  “Are the contents of the case breakable?” Duke asked.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Well, now, if Todd and I start playing tug-of-war with it and it falls, I just wanted to be sure there wasn’t anything fragile before we start this.”

  Todd looked up at his wife. “Muriel, honey, we don’t want to risk damaging it.”

  She made a disgusted sound. “Fine. Fine, give him the case. Fail me like you always fail me.”

  Wow, I thought, that was harsh and cruel and out loud. Why would anyone stay with a spouse who talked to them like that?

  “It’s okay, Todd,” Duke said, and this time his voice was kind, a hell of a lot kinder than Muriel’s had been.

  I realized that Duke felt sorry for the man. I think we all did, but it felt more personal with Duke. Just the few remarks between him and Muriel had implied they’d dated semiseriously twenty years ago. Did he look at Todd Babington and think, There but for the grace of God go I? I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be married to the bitter beauty of Muriel Marchand-Babington.

  Duke took the case from Todd Babington’s hands gently but firmly. There was no weakness to his kindness, just a different kind of strength. Whatever was happening between the three of them had a long history, and I felt like something between a voyeur and unneeded backup, the police equivalent of a third wheel.

  Leduc started to kneel in the middle of the hallway, but then seemed to think better of it. “Come here, Rico. You might as well be useful for something.” He laid the case on the younger man’s arms and made sure he had a good grip on it before hitting the locks.

  When the case opened without needing to be unlocked, Muriel said, “How could you forget to lock the case, Todd?”

  “I’m sorry, Muriel,” he muttered, staring at the floor like a dog that had been hit once too often. His reaction to her wasn’t love—at least not to me.

  Duke opened the case carefully and then sighed heavily. Newman was tall enough to see what was in the case, but I wasn’t. All I could do was guess as Duke said, “These are worth more than I’ll make in the next ten years, maybe more to the right buyer. I’m assuming you have a buyer lined up.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Muriel said. “I just thought that it would be wise to remove some of the most valuable pieces from the house, with all the police and other strangers having access to it.”

  “So, you’re only removing the small valuables that could be pocketed by the riffraff?” Duke said, voice tired and a little angry as he looked up at her.

  I whispered to Newman, “What is it?”

  He whispered back, “Porcelain figurines.”

  “Sorry, Marshal Blake. I guess you can’t see,” Leduc said.

  “Maybe on tiptoes, but I’d hate to overbalance and knock the case.”

  “That would be a shame,” Leduc said, and lifted the case out of Rico’s arms so I could see two figurines nestled in gray foam that had been cut to hold them.

  They were a male figure and a female figure, and there was just enough of the clothing to make me say, “They’re Harlequin.”

  He looked surprised. “You know your porcelain,” he said.

  “No,” I said, “but I recognize the costumes and colors enough to guess that they’re supposed to be some sort of harlequin based on the old Italian commedia dell’arte.”

  Newman asked, “How do you know any of that?”

  “I have friends old enough to have seen the actors live onstage.”

  I didn’t add that the Harlequin was also a code name for the vampire equivalent of secret police and for the bodyguards of the queen or king of the vampire council. They’d once been the vampire equivalent of the bogeyman, and now what remained of them belonged to Jean-Claude and I guess technically me as his soon-to-be queen. I had managed not to share any of this with fellow police officers, and I didn’t intend to start now. I don’t know what made me say it out loud to begin with. Had I been showing off? Did Muriel’s treatment of all of us as thieving riffraff bother me? Maybe. I wondered if later she’d planned on trying to blame some of the emergency responders for the disappearance of the figurines.

  “They are based on actual actors that played the parts,” Todd said, and he looked at me, really met my eyes and looked at me as if I’d done something interesting enough to get through the fog of emotional abuse.

  “You know people old enough to have known the actors these are based on? That’s impossible. Oh, you mean vampires,” Muriel said, and managed to imply by tone alone that she thought even less of me now.

  “Yeah, I mean vampires,” I said.

  Todd’s eyes glazed over, and he looked at the floor again. His eyes were brown, which I hadn’t been sure of until that moment. Jesus, he really was an abuse victim, so hurt that he didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. Could just verbal abuse destroy a person like that, or did Muriel add physical abuse behind closed doors? Spousal abuse is illegal, no matter what gender everyone is. It made me wonder if Todd might need a little rescuing. I filed it away for later. Once I’d helped save Bobby Marchand and found the real killer, I’d see about rescuing abused husbands, if Todd wasn’t guilty of anything worse than attempted grand larceny. If he’d helped Muriel kill Ray Marchand and frame Bobby, then I couldn’t save him. No one could.

  “I thought marshals killed the monsters,” Muriel said.

  “That’s part of the job description,” I said.

  “Then they can’t be your friends.”

  “It does tend to complicate things,” I said.

  Muriel looked at me as if trying to decide if I was kidding her. I wasn’t, or not much. “I am surprised th
at anyone with your job would recognize Nymphenburg porcelain.”

  “Figurines like this, some drawings, paintings are all that’s left of people my friends knew centuries ago. It’s a way of them showing me snapshots of some of the people they talk about.” I didn’t add that Jean-Claude had a figurine of an actress he’d been in love with once. It was in a glass case in a room of treasures that I hadn’t even known he had until recently. The closer we got to the wedding, the more he tried to make sure he had told me everything that I might want to know before we said I do. But since he was over six hundred years old, his backstory was a little longer than mine. It wasn’t that he was keeping things from me; it was literally that there was so much to remember, he forgot things. Scientists were starting to study vampires to try to figure out how they could remember so many centuries as well as they did. They were hoping it might lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s and other brain-deterioration issues.

  Duke had Newman take a picture of the statuettes nestled in their case, before shutting it carefully and taking it from Rico. “Let’s go see what’s in your car that you felt needed to be saved from us poor policemen. Sorry, Blake. Police persons.”

  “That’s really not necessary, Duke,” Muriel said. Apparently they were back on a first-name basis again.

  “Oh, it feels necessary to me, Muriel. I mean, what would the insurance company say if some of these valuable antiques went missing? They might blame the wrong people, like some of the hardworking emergency personnel, and we wouldn’t want them to blame the wrong people, would we, Todd?”

  “Um, no, of course not,” Todd stuttered.

  “Shut up, Todd!” Muriel snapped.

  “Let’s all go down to the garage and take a peek,” Duke said.

  Muriel actually touched his arm, her body language changing to something softer. “We don’t need all these other officers, Duke.”

  “Oh, I think we do.”

  She sidled closer to him so that a lot more of her body touched his than seemed appropriate for the circumstances. “We’re old friends, Duke. We don’t need a crowd.”

  He stared at her as if even he couldn’t believe she was trying to seduce her way out of the situation.

  I laughed; I couldn’t help it. It was just so damn ballsy.

  Muriel managed to stay snaked up against Duke and still give me a hard look. “This is none of your business. You’ve got your monster locked up in the jail. This is regular police business, just Duke and me.”

  “I don’t think so, Muriel. I think I like the marshals tagging along while we’re securing the scene.”

  She traced a perfect fingernail around the edge of his ear underneath his Smokey Bear hat. He jerked back then and stepped away from her, putting a hand on her arm to keep her from cuddling up again. “We don’t need them, Duke.”

  “Two United States Marshals make fine witnesses.”

  “Witnesses to what, Duke?” Even her voice had gone lower—sultry, like she really thought she had a chance in hell of convincing him. Either this kind of shit had worked on him once upon a time, or she had a very high opinion of herself. Maybe a little of column A and a lot of column B.

  “Marshal Blake, I hate to ask, but can you keep an eye on Muriel? She’s less likely to try her womanly wiles with you.”

  “Glad to help a fellow officer out.” I stepped up beside the woman. In her heels, she towered over me, but I managed not to be too intimidated.

  “Duke, I don’t want to go with her. I want to go with you.”

  “Did that vampy baby-girl voice ever really work on me?” he asked.

  “It’s just the side of me you bring out,” she nearly purred.

  Leduc sighed and called Todd up with him. “Let’s go to the garage.”

  Muriel reached out toward both men, though I was pretty sure she was aiming at Duke. I gently blocked her arm and said, “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I’ll cuff you—and while we’re at it, we should search them.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Rico said, but it was like his heart wasn’t in it, as if he was saying it because he felt he had to say something.

  Duke turned on him. “You let them into a house they don’t own. You let them change the security code and not share it with you. You’d have let them drive out with this.” He raised the case in his hand.

  “They can’t steal something that already belongs to them,” Rico said.

  I wondered if Rico was really that stupid or just . . . Nope, I was going to have to go with stupid, because I couldn’t come up with another explanation.

  “It doesn’t belong to them, Rico. Nothing in this house belongs to them. This house doesn’t belong to them. Ray and Muriel were estranged. That means they didn’t like each other. We have no way of knowing what is in the last will and testament of Ray Marchand until the will gets read. Until that time, we treat this as his house, his things. Jocelyn and Bobby were the only family that lived in this house with Ray, and even they can’t take things out of it except for personal items. Am I being clear?”

  Rico glared at him, his lower lip going under a little as if he was literally biting down to keep from saying things he’d regret later. It looked like there was a lot of ego inside the tall man, and he’d already been humiliated once tonight by his boss. His voice was low and careful and the words tight as he said, “Yes, Duke, you’re being clear.”

  I didn’t know Vargas, but even I could hear the subtext of Go fuck yourself. I guess it doesn’t count as insubordination unless they say it out loud.

  “Rico knows that it’s just a matter of paperwork and everything in here is mine.”

  “Maybe, Muriel, but until that paperwork happens, assume the position.”

  “What?”

  “He means put your hands flat against the wall and lean,” I said.

  “What?” she asked again, and sounded suitably outraged. So I helped her lean against the wall, though kicking her feet farther apart in the stilettos almost brought her to her knees. Once she realized we were actually going to search them both, she tried to lure Duke over to do her, but he stayed with the husband and left me to the femme fatale. Newman stayed close by in case I needed backup, or maybe he just wondered if Muriel would offer to let him pat her down, or he thought I’d be too rough with her. She kept telling me how important she was, or her family was, and how I’d regret this someday. She also kept pushing off the wall and trying to turn until I pinned her against the wall with an elbow in a pressure point on her back and threatened again to put on the cuffs. She cried for help about the pressure point, and Newman helped hold her while I got my cuffs off my belt. I could have held her without the help, but I’d have had to take her to the floor, and it would have been a lot rougher ride for Ms. Marchand-Babington. The cuffs made that nice little metallic sliding sound as I found the right size for her wrists. She had slender wrists for such a tall person. She was actually screaming as Newman and I brought her off the wall with a hand on either of her arms. She tried to stomp my foot with the stiletto. I avoided it. Newman didn’t, but no lasting damage. She fought like, well, an untrained girl. Besides, the cuffs were rated for supernatural suspects; she wasn’t getting away.

  11

  TODD BABINGTON HAD werewolf spray in his pants pocket. Despite what it was called, it was rated for any shapeshifter, which meant it was pepper spray’s tougher, uglier cousin. It was new on the market, because a couple of people had died after trying to use human-defense spray on shapeshifters. It had just pissed them off and made them more violent, so a new product had emerged to fill the void. Edward had experimented with it and declared it too dangerous indoors unless you put on a gas mask first. This from the man who burned a house down around us once because he used a flamethrower inside on a group of vampires.

  Duke said, “Why do you have this, Todd?”

  He gave a quick eye flick toward
his wife and then said, “I didn’t want to come back here without some protection.”

  “You’re a fool, Todd. You didn’t need anything to protect you,” Muriel said.

  “Ray was killed by a wereanimal.”

  “They have the wereanimal that killed Ray locked up. He can’t hurt anyone anymore,” she said.

  “Bobby loved Ray like a father, Muriel. I just don’t think he could do this.”

  “You were always overly sentimental about the boy.”

  “We should have taken Bobby when your sister and her husband died. He would have had two parents, and he’d have never gone on that safari trip after graduation.”

  “So you’re saying it’s our fault that Bobby got attacked in Africa?”

  “Not our fault,” he said, but his voice held a note of angry strength, and his eyes were less unsure.

  “Good. I thought you were blaming us for Ray endangering the boy on all those adventures.”

  “No, not us,” he said, and just for a second, his hatred for her showed in his eyes. I saw it as I stood there with a hand on her arm. Did she see it?

  “Me? You’re blaming me?”

  “Yes,” he said, very clear and precise.

  “Don’t blame me that we couldn’t have children of our own. It’s your sperm that doesn’t work.”

  Todd flinched as if she’d hit him, crumpling a little forward as if it had been a gutshot, and maybe it had been in a way. It was a low blow—something that should have been on the list of things never to say in a fight. Every couple has a list of things that should never be said in anger, because once said you can’t take them back, and the damage is done. Some words, even true words, are relationship killers.

  Muriel didn’t even look sorry. She looked triumphant, as if she knew she’d gotten the last word, and she had. That little spark of angry defiance evaporated, and Todd was back to being her whipping boy.

  But whipped or not, Todd got handcuffed after Duke found the spray. If he’d used it in the hallway, it would have gassed us all. We took Muriel and Todd down the main staircase, which would have been wide enough for four horses to have gone down abreast, if their hooves wouldn’t have slipped on the marble. I was very happy that I was in my heavy-soled boots and not Muriel’s heels on the slick stone, because she struggled periodically. If Newman and I hadn’t had a hand on both her arms, she might have fallen headfirst on the hard stone with her hands cuffed behind her. She wasn’t even technically under arrest yet, so it would have been a shame for her to die in our custody. Though since they weren’t under arrest and hadn’t been read their rights, it wasn’t the legal definition of custody, but it would have been good enough for the Internet if she hurt herself cuffed like this. After she almost fell on the stairs, she stopped struggling for the most part, but she made up for it verbally. By the time Duke led us to the garage connected to the house, I was very tired of listening to Muriel.