by E. A. Copen
“No,” Mara said after popping some gum into her mouth. Good. At least she wasn’t smoking anymore. “It just keeps going to voicemail.”
“Voicemail?”
“Yeah. Happens sometimes. Means the other person can’t respond. They’re either incapacitated or dead. I could track a body if I had something better like hair or blood instead of ceramic toys and shit.”
I frowned and concentrated on the road. The owners of said objects were Robbie’s missing fae. If Mara wasn’t getting anything, they weren’t missing person cases anymore. They were murder cases.
“So, about this case…I heard it was messy. What are you thinking? Werewolf? Vampire?” Mara said as we pulled out onto the open highway between Eden and Paint Rock.
The sun poked up over the horizon, prompting the low bush and cacti to cast long shadows. A few semi-trucks sped by us. I wanted to roll down my window to let in the cool morning air and let the stuffy air out. But if I cranked the window down, Mara and I would be choking on highway fumes, so I left it up.
“You know I’m not supposed to comment on open investigations,” I answered.
Mara gave me a doubtful look. “Bullshit. Lay it on me. I can give some perspective.”
I gave her a wary glance. Mara wasn’t my sidekick. She was my…well, what’s the opposite of mentor? Mentee? Ward? Anything but student or sidekick. Anyway, all the will I had to keep the case to myself went out the door when I looked over at her and saw her curious, patient face light up. I remembered what it was like to be new to the world of supernatural investigations. In some ways, I was jealous of her innocence.
“Riddle me this.” I turned back to the road. “What can drop the temperature of a room thirty degrees, explode a vampire, and bore a two-inch hole all the way through another victim? Oh, and the second victim is in the middle of freezing solid. You don’t even want to know what happened to the third guy.”
Her eyes widened. “One thing killed three people?”
“On a closed set behind locked doors.”
“Damn. That’s badass.”
I glared at her.
“I mean…yeah, I guess it is messy. So, what are you thinking?”
“I haven’t got any leads yet.”
“But with all the evidence—”
“Welcome to the adult world of crime-solving, where there are no smoking guns and the paperwork doesn’t matter, but you’ve got to do it anyway.”
Mara rolled her eyes. “Red tape is such bullshit. Man, fuck the man.”
A smile crept up onto my face. Mara was a pain in the neck, but sometimes I thought being her mentor was the best damn thing. I offered her a fist. “Damn right.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Nobody does that anymore.”
“I do. Come on, kid. Don’t leave me hanging.”
She sighed and lightly rapped her knuckles against mine. “Fine. Happy? Now what?”
“Now,” I said, “I take you home to study.”
“Oh, come on!” Mara insisted. “You and I both know if you take me home now, I’m going to pass out asleep, not study.”
“And that’s why you’re failing anatomy, Mara.”
Mara lived in a triplex on Willow Road, just down the street from the laundromat. Her unit was the one on the end, an efficiency I could only describe in a good way as cozy. Since she was living off of her student loan overage checks, the utilities and other associated living costs were still more than she could afford. I helped her keep all the utilities on and she covered the rest, doing odd jobs here and there. For months, I’d been urging her to find a roommate to reduce costs but I guess there was a certain appeal to being out on her own. Mara was nothing if not proud of her independence. Her place was a short walk from mine, less than a half-mile, but still far enough from the station that I didn’t want to hang out too long. I wasn’t ready to just drop her off and run either, though.
I pulled into the parking space designated for her unit and put the car in park. Mara didn’t move from her seat. All the lights in her apartment were off.
“You want me to come in?” I asked her. “I have a few minutes to help you with the dishes or something.”
“No!”
Her quick response and the unmasked panic in her voice set off an alarm bell. “Is everything okay, Mara? Something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s just…the place is kind of a mess.” I raised an eyebrow. She added, “And there may or may not be someone else in the apartment.”
“As in a boy, someone else?”
Mara chewed on her bottom lip. “Maybe.”
I shook my head. “No wonder you’re not doing so hot on those tests.”
“If anything, you’d think it would be helping my grade. I mean, it’s hands-on study. Very hands-on.”
“Somehow, I don’t think your sexual exploits count as studying.”
Mara’s proud grin faded to a sneer, and she rolled her eyes. “How would you know? When was the last time you had anyone warming your bed, huh?”
“That’s a low blow.”
Mara threw open her door. “I don’t need a lecture, okay?” she said and then got out, slamming the door closed behind her.
I hurried to roll the window down before she walked away. “Mara, I’m not trying to lecture you! Please.” She bent down and gazed through the window. I rubbed the back of my head, trying to relieve some of the pressure. “I just want to see you succeed, Mara. It’s great you’re making friends but…but these one-night stands have got to stop.”
“I’m being safe.”
“When I said to go out and form relationships, this isn’t what I meant. Guy of the day isn’t going to give you what you need. You need a support system, Mara. You need people in your life who value you and who are going to build you up instead of bringing you down.”
Mara pushed away from the door. “You have no idea what I need,” she said. Then she stomped across the lot, up the sidewalk and into her apartment, heels of her boots clicking the whole way.
Chapter Four
The Paint Rock police station was on the corner of Main and West streets near the center of Paint Rock. One of the few multi-story buildings in town, it loomed over the courthouse next door. While the courthouse was a building constructed of sandstone and pretty red paint, the police station was a block of cement with a few added windows. There was a big flag pole out front, but it stood empty except for the big black POW-MIA flag. There used to be an American flag up there but, after some protest, the Paint Rock PD decided to take it down.
The reservation was its own sovereign land, gifted to the supernaturals by the United States government. But the government also gifted them high walls, border patrol, and highly trained police officers. There were more guns in the hands of US employees in Paint Rock than in all the rest of the town. Tindall said there were two guns in the town for every man, woman, and child. According to him, more than two-thirds of them didn’t belong to residents. I believed him, considering gun crime wasn’t so much of a problem on the reservation.
I parked in the desolate lot, only to have Tindall’s black Cadillac pull in right beside me. He must’ve stopped at home, I thought, getting out to greet him. He got out of his car in a huff, looking a lot like an angry rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike.
“Hey,” I said in the form of a greeting. “Something the matter?”
“Just Maude,” he growled and stuck a cigarette in his mouth, lighting it up. “The more time I spend with the guy, the more I just want to wring his fat little neck. I mean, who the fuck does he think he is, ordering me around?”
“Technically, he’s still the sheriff,” I pointed out. “At least for another few weeks.”
Tindall removed the cigarette from between his lips and cast a wary glance upward. Gray storm clouds had rolled in, but they were staying high enough in the sky that the chance of rain was still pretty low. More likely, the system would move east and dump all the rain on Dallas.
“What
if I win the election?” he asked. “Then what? What’s Paint Rock going to do without me?” He lowered his head. “What are you going to do without me?”
He had a point. For all the good I’d done in Paint Rock, the local cops still didn’t like me much. Tindall was often the only friend I had on the force. They wouldn’t go out of their way to block my investigations or anything, but they didn’t work hard at being nice, either. If Tindall moved up the chain of command and took over as sheriff, Paint Rock would lose one of the best and brightest members of the force. But Tindall could do a lot of good at the county level. Concho County needed a sheriff with some morals, someone who had experience in dealing with the supernatural community. I had to think about the big picture, even if it did make my life harder in the short run.
“We’ll all manage just fine,” I said with a smile. “Besides, it’s not like you’d be leaving. You’d still be around. You just get more responsibility and more work. What’s not to love?”
“And more blame,” Tindall pointed out. He dropped his half-smoked cigarette and stomped on it. “Maude’s press conference should be airing here pretty soon. What do you say we go in and see if we can catch it?”
The portly duty sergeant looked up from her desk when we came in. Ignoring me, she greeted Tindall with a stack of notes in messy handwriting. “Tell your supporters to stop calling the station to donate to your sheriff bid,” she grunted. “And tell ‘em we don’t keep those ugly yard signs here, either.”
“Thanks, Cathy,” he grumbled and stuffed the stack of notes into his pocket.
“You win this, you get yourself a secretary, Tindall. I’m done answering phones for you,” Cathy said with a sour face and sat back down.
Instead of heading for my office, we ambled down a narrow pathway between cubicles and slid into the tiny, twelve by thirteen breakroom. Three other cops were in there, and with the five of us plus the TV, chairs, and coffee pots, it made for a tight fit. Still, when the other guys realized it was Tindall trying to press his way into the room, they stepped aside and let him and I go to the front.
The scene on the screen was a familiar one. Someone had set a wooden podium up on a portable stage in front of the Eden Police Department building. A series of flags ranging from Old Glory to the EPD banner hung limply in the background. Ten or so foam-topped microphones waited, strapped to the podium. A gaggle of anxious-looking reporters stood behind the police line, waiting for the sheriff to appear and address the people of Concho County.
The other half of the screen was similar, depicting another standard press conference setup, except it was at another location. The backdrop of this half was a sprawling, Spanish-style hacienda mansion. A middle-aged ginger-haired man with unnaturally fair skin and a strong jaw stood under the cover of an easy up, speaking into the microphone. I didn’t need to read the captions scrolling across the bottom of the screen to know who he was. There was Marcus Kelley, the wealthiest vampire in the American south, CEO of Fitz Pharmaceuticals, media-proclaimed philanthropist and easily the most well-respected and powerful supernatural voice in all of Texas, if not the entire United States. He was also Kim Kelly’s father. Aisling wasn’t the only shady enterprise I’d heard he was connected to, and I was certain Marcus was up to no good. You don’t get as rich as Marcus—or as infamous—without getting a little dirty.
Marcus leaned into the microphone and spoke in a pleasant, southern drawl. “…We have all been the victims of over-zealous police in one way or another. Our mothers, brothers, sisters, children, cousins…Each of us knows someone affected by police violence, by loss, or institutionalized racism. While I applaud those who are pleading their cases in the court systems of this great county and in the nation abroad, I must also lament the corruption of the system. These battles will wage on for years. We need a leader now who is willing to stand up for the rights of the forgotten, the downtrodden, and the broken, whose families have been ripped apart by outdated policies and misguided political agendas. The law exists to serve and protect the people, not the other way around.”
He paused amidst cheers. The studio cut to another camera, panning across the faces of a crowd of over a thousand gathered at the gates of the Kelley estate. Some of them I recognized. I’d seen them around Aisling or knew them from Paint Rock. Private security moved among the crowd in black cargo pants and black t-shirts. The outline of bulletproof vests showed underneath their shirts, whose only splash of color was a red fleur-de-lis over the left breast.
Marcus continued. “Sheriff Butch Maude has made it abundantly clear in his support of anti-fae immigration reform and his strong opposition to the privately funded construction of a temporary housing project for those refugees. He and his supporters have repeatedly blocked investigations into allegations of corruption and their unspoken humans-only hiring policy. Over the last three years, the Eden Police Department has stalled or settled twenty cases where excessive force was alleged by werewolf detainees. And that is to say nothing of the harsh methods of UV interrogation against vampires Sheriff Maude has openly stated he would support.”
“My friends, this cannot stand. And that is why, as of this moment, I am endorsing Paint Rock Detective Brian Tindall for Concho County sheriff.” The crowd cheered. Marcus raised his voice to speak above them. “I urge each and every one of you to turn out to vote and show your support as well. Do not let them turn you away. If you are a legal United States citizen with proper documentation, you are entitled to—and, dare I say it, obligated to—vote, no matter if you’re fae, vampire, werewolf, black, white, or red. It is time we took this county back from the good old boy system and put someone in charge who actually gives a damn about you! I believe Detective Tindall is that man. Thank you.”
The camera cut away to two commentators in a newsroom who began a lively chatter back and forth. It was barely audible over the clapping echoing through the Paint Rock precinct. One of the cops next to Tindall clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s one hell of an endorsement, Tindall. With him behind you, there’s no way you’re going to lose!”
Tindall sneered. “Damn.”
“What’s wrong?” one of the other guys asked.
Tindall gave me a long look. Both of us knew this was an endorsement he didn’t want. Yes, it would throw the rest of the supernaturals behind him and drive them in large numbers to the polls to fill in the bubble next to his name. Yes, it would mean hundreds, if not thousands, of extra dollars flowing into his campaign in the last few critical weeks. But it also meant he’d have to look friendly with Marcus Kelley, someone I was digging into. Being connected with someone who was so shady was uncomfortable, to say the least.
Such a strong verbal attack on Maude surely wouldn’t go unnoticed, either. Marcus’ words had sounded unifying on the surface, like an attempt to bring all supernaturals together for a single agenda, but, in truth, they were divisive. This could be the nail in the coffin that drove the supernatural and non-supernatural communities apart. Things were already tense. All it would take would be for one person to light a match. Then, everything would explode.
Tindall didn’t have time to answer the other cop before the newscast zoomed in on the other side of the screen. A red-faced and sweating Maude approached the podium in front of the Eden precinct. He adjusted the microphones down a little and they squealed against painful silence.
“Good morning,” he said in a grave tone. “As you may have heard, my deputies responded late last night to reports of a disturbance at the night club known as Aisling. Upon arrival, deputies entered the scene and found two victims, a male and a female. Both were deceased. The county medical examiner’s office has ruled the deaths a homicide. This morning, EPD opened an investigation and began questioning witnesses and collecting evidence. The crime scene does, however, present sufficient evidence that the murders were supernatural in nature and, therefore, our office has turned the investigation over to BSI. Our office has worked tirelessly alongside BSI since its inception and w
ill continue to do so. Given the violent nature of these crimes, however, and the number of other open BSI investigations, this may turn out to be an extended investigation.”
“That sneaky weasel,” I growled. “He’s insinuating I’m not doing my job!”
“Shhh!” the crowd hissed behind me.
“The department has opened a tip line,” continued Maude. “If you have any information regarding the events that occurred at Aisling anytime within the last twenty-four hours, I ask you to call the number now scrolling across the bottom of your screen. No detail is too small. We will pursue any and all leads. In the meantime, I urge each and every citizen to lock their doors. Limit time spent outside at night. If you must go outside, move in pairs. The perpetrator is still out there, and we are doing everything we can to bring him to justice. I will now open the floor to questions.”
The reporters went apeshit. One lady, a pretty, dark-haired woman with a mole on her upper lip, pushed to the front of the line and shouted, “Sheriff Maude! How do you respond to Mr. Kelley’s endorsement of your opponent for county sheriff? Will this have any bearing on your investigation?”
Maude shook his head. “I don’t have a response other than to say the club is co-owned by Mr. Kelley’s daughter, and so he has a very good reason to want to shift some blame around before some of it comes his way. My deputies were told security at the club was lax due to Ms. Kelley’s absence last night.”
Another reporter, this one a white-haired male, jumped on the line of questioning. “Are you saying she had something to do with the crime?”
“I can’t comment on an open investigation,” Maude said. A man in a suit came onto the stage and whispered something in Maude’s ear. He put his hand over the microphones. When the suit leaned away, Maude nodded and said, “I’m sorry, but I have pressing police business. Please direct any and all media inquiries to my office and I’ll draft a response as early as possible.” Maude hurried away from the stage.