“Um, no. I just declared my major,” I said lamely. Undercover is not exactly my thing. I had explained to Cruz that my only understanding of cameras was how to push the big green—sometimes red—button, but he’d just shrugged and told me to fake it. Thanks, Jesse. Very helpful.
“Okay, well, we’ll just go over the basics, then. Police photography is straightforward, not much for artistry or technique.” He frowned disapprovingly at the justice system’s obvious artistic ignorance, but continued. “The cops drop a numbered marker near anything they think is important, and you take three shots of each marker—close-up, mid-shot, and wide shot.” He flashed an ID at the cop guarding the scene and briefly introduced me as his new assistant. The cop nodded, and we ducked under the tape, just like that. Dale kept on talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was too busy looking at the dead werewolf.
Ronnie had been tied up with glittery silver chains, bound at the hands and feet. He was tipped over on his side, shoulders against the dumpster, and his mouth and eyes were wide open in a scream. Little white things were scattered across his torn clothing. I resisted the urge to walk over, squat down, and look closer. This was supposed to be my first scene, so I tried to look squeamish.
“Scarlett? Are you hearing me? Oh,” Dale said, looking from me to the body. “Yeah, sorry, I probably should have warned you. You have to have a strong stomach for this sort of thing.” He patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Just give it a second. I’ll grab a few shots.”
I followed Dale blindly around to different markers, never taking my eyes off the body. I noticed two things: first, that there were welts under those chains, and second, that all the teeth had been taken out of his mouth. I took one step toward the body. The little white things were teeth, but not human teeth. They were way too long.
I’d cleaned up werewolf teeth after fights, and I knew what I was looking at. It didn’t make any sense, though. Why had Ronnie made the change? Why let his teeth get ripped out and then change back?
There was, of course, only one possible answer.
When there was nothing more for me to learn, I made a weak excuse to Dale—“Oh, I’m so nauseous. I’m really not cut out for this at all. I better go,”—and left for the van. As quickly as I could, I pulled away from the crowd of cops and turned the car back toward home, feeling as if I’d just gotten away with something naughty. One hand on the wheel, I pulled out my phone and speed-dialed Will. I told him what I’d found at the comic book shop.
“Ronnie? Why would anyone kill Ronnie?” He sounded dazed.
“I have no idea. I know this sounds stupid, but did Ronnie have any enemies?”
“No. Well, I don’t know. He just joined the pack; I barely knew him.”
“Okay, well...um...Give it some thought. I might come around later today with that cop to ask you more about him.”
“Yeah. I gotta find his family...” He wasn’t really listening anymore, so I said a polite good-bye and hung up.
The sky was getting light by the time I pulled into my parking garage, and Molly would be dead to the world. Pun intended. I decided not to wake her. Maybe I could grab a couple hours of sleep while I waited for Cruz. But when I finally peeled off my clothes and climbed into bed, my mind was spinning too fast for sleep. I was thinking about the clearing in the woods and the dumpster. It had to be the same killer. Aside from the obvious connection—Ronnie had been at the first crime scene and was the victim at the second—both murders had the same feeling of cruelty and anger, and a null had been present at both scenes. I could understand wanting to kill Abraham to hurt Dashiell, and I could even understand killing the other two vamps to throw off the scent. But why kill Ronnie? It served no real purpose. Ronnie wasn’t powerful or useful or a good tool to hurt someone. He was just a werewolf, low on the totem pole. Then I realized how Ronnie could be connected to the killings.
Through me.
Chapter 18
As soon as the thought struck me, I was doubtful, figuring it was either paranoia or just self-involvement. But the idea nagged at me. Finally, I put on my bathrobe and went downstairs to make a pot of coffee, sitting down at the table to think. I had been summoned to do the cleanup at both scenes. But in both cases, the police had arrived at the scene very quickly, way too soon for me to do anything except maybe get caught holding the bag. It isn’t unheard-of for the cops to simply get to a crime scene before I do—once in a while a crime scene doesn’t get reported to my employers, so they can’t call me in. At that point, a whole different set of strings has to be pulled by Dashiell, and I’m out of that side of it.
But they’d been too fast. Ronnie’s blood had still been all fresh and drippy. Cruz had told me that he happened to be close to La Brea Park when that call came in; otherwise the cops would have been a few minutes later, right when I was up to my elbows in blood. I picked up the phone and dug Cruz’s card out of my wallet.
“Cruz.”
“Hey, it’s Scarlett.”
“I’m going to be a while still. We’re talking to neighbors—”
“It’s fine. Listen, can you find out how the police found the body? I mean, how did you guys know there was a body?”
“Oh, easy. There’s an all-night Starbucks a few blocks away. A couple reported hearing screams as they were walking in the door. Then an anonymous caller also phoned it in fifteen minutes later, must have heard the same thing.”