I was silent for several heartbeats. “I knew them both. Barry here was the one who gave me heroin.” Carl knew about that incident already. “And the other one, Evelyn Stark, was the drunk driver who killed my dad.”
“Ah,” he said, and in that one syllable was a paragraph’s worth of meaning.
“Plus, Eilahn and I encountered a graa early yesterday morning,” I added. Carl knew a great deal about the arcane and demons, but I didn’t know if that was because of his relationship with my aunt or if he had prior knowledge. I knew that wards didn’t seem to have any effect on him, and he’d once been attacked by an assailant with the ability to suck out a person’s essence, yet he’d been completely unaffected. But despite not knowing a damn thing about him, I trusted him.
But should I? I was suddenly suspicious of any sort of blind trust. Yet, Tessa cared deeply for him and clearly, she trusted him. And I’d never seen the barest whisper or hint that Carl had anything but fond adoration for my aunt in return. Maybe there were times when blind trust was necessary. I sure as hell needed to be better about trusting people.
His hazel brown eyes flicked to me. “Should I assume it was not a pleasant encounter?”
“You could say that,” I replied with a dry laugh, “though Eilahn’s convinced it wasn’t trying to kill me.” I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “Obviously, I need even more weird shit in my life.”
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “And yet you weather it well.”
“I’d hate to see what my life would be like if I weathered it badly!”
“And you don’t think your aunt summoned this demon?”
That hadn’t even occurred to me. Why the hell hadn’t it? She was a strong summoner. She was the one who had trained me. “I’m pretty confident that she wouldn’t send a demon to attack me,” I told him. Still, I should have asked her. What if the attack had been some sort of misunderstanding? “Did she summon it?”
His eyes held mine briefly before he looked back down at the instruments. “No.”
Carl was a hard man to read, but I could have sworn I’d seen relief, or something awfully close to it, in that brief look. I let out a breath and resisted the urge to ask him why the hell he’d implied that she had. Carl usually had good stuff to say, but he didn’t always come right out and say it—usually preferring for me to come around to it on my own. “I don’t know if it had anything to do with the deaths of these two people,” I said, “but it sure as hell got my attention.”
“Interesting,” he murmured, then turned back to the body and began a meticulous search for scars, tattoos, or injuries. “If the graa wasn’t there in connection with the two victims, why would it be there? Do you think your aunt can give you advice or counsel about that?” He didn’t look up at me, but I still felt pinned down by his attention. I resisted the urge to squirm.
“I don’t want to worry her,” I finally said. “She’s been through a lot of shit lately…most of it my fault.”
“It is the role of parents—and guardians—to worry about their loved ones,” he pointed out.
My throat felt tight. Was I keeping things from my aunt to protect her or to protect me from her ire? My relationship with her had been a tempestuous one for most of our time together. She was acerbic, and odd, and generally didn’t care what people thought of her. And while I could appreciate that mentality more now that I was older, back when I was young it was yet another hurdle to overcome. It was bad enough that both my parents had died, but now I had to live with my crazy aunt who did weird shit and didn’t seem to care that the other kids at school laughed at her—and me. Tessa hadn’t cared about fads—in fact she tended to hold anything that was fashionable in complete disdain, and had subtly, and not-so-subtly, pushed me to be “unique” and to “forge my own path.”
But as a thirteen-year-old, I wasn’t ready to be unique. What I’d needed was to fit in, to be a little invisible until I could find my comfort zone. That was impossible with Tessa. Was it any wonder that I’d rebelled and found a different way to hide and feel comfortable? Or at least, what felt like comfort.
Carl remained silent, but it didn’t feel judgmental. It simply seemed as if he was waiting for me to digest his comment on my own, and he’d be there to pick up the conversation when I did. I felt an odd surge of gratitude toward him. I had a few friends who knew that I summoned demons, but somehow talking it out with Carl was different, and it felt oddly freeing to be able to discuss bizarre shit like this.
“She’s different,” I said at last.
“That she is,” Carl agreed.
I shook my head. “No, I mean…since she woke up.” My aunt’s essence had been stripped from her body by a serial killer, and it had taken me several weeks to find a way to call her back to herself.
His eyes met mine. “I know.”
“I don’t think she wants to summon anymore.”
“I think you’re right.”
I tilted my head. “Do you know why? I mean…has she said anything?”
“Not to me.”
Our conversation was cut off by the entrance of Dr. Lanza. A slender man about my height with distinct Italian coloring and features, he had an easygoing manner that had done much to put me at ease when I was still learning the ropes of investigating homicides. And now I’m an old hand at this whole find-the-murderer thing, I thought with mild amusement.
Dr. Lanza shot me a warm smile as he pulled protective clothing over his jeans and New Orleans Hornets T-shirt. “You must have some dark suspicions, Kara,” he said, his smile teasing.
“C’mon, Doc, I always have dark suspicions,” I replied with an easy grin, automatically slipping away from the confiding and open mood of the conversation with Carl and into the tone that I maintained with everyone else—the ones who had no clue that there was more to our world than what was apparent to the usual five senses. I was used to it. Humor, and lots of caution about what I said and asked. But I was damn grateful that there were people with whom I could discuss the more bizarre details.
“Luckily, that’s part of your job description,” Doc said as he lifted a scalpel and started in on the Y incision. “So, yes, your two victims both had nosebleeds, but those can be caused by a lot of things,” Doc said as he filleted the skin and flesh away from the ribs. I retreated even farther as Carl stepped up to cut through the ribs with the pruning shears. “I’d be willing to bet that the second victim’s was caused by the air bag.”
I simply gave a nod and a slight shrug. I had no intention of sharing the other, more personal connection. At least not until I knew more.
I waited patiently while Doc went through the procedures, and I did my usual escape from the room when Carl used the bone saw to cut through the skull. He wore a breathing mask for this part, since the saw kicked up all sorts of bone dust—which, of course, had blood and other yuck in it. Not only did I have no desire to breathe it in, I didn’t want it in my hair or anywhere else. Nasty.
As soon as the brain was revealed, though, I ducked back in, not hiding my eagerness very well as I waited for Doc to do his examination.
He took the brain from the scale and began to slice it into neat sections. I watched as he narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Well, this one definitely stroked out.” He let out a low whistle. “Fucking hell. Looks like he had several at once. I’ve never seen anything like this. This guy never had a chance.” He motioned me over with the bloody scalpel. “Come see, Kara.”
I really didn’t want to see it, but I knew I had to look, for my pride as much as for my own personal education. I moved to his side and peered at the pink and grey convolutions. He didn’t even have to point anything out. I had no trouble seeing the damage and clots of blood. “What could have caused that?”
He blew out his breath. “Not sure. Perhaps a cancer… .” He trailed off, mumbling under his breath about occult large cell carcinoma and some other stuff I couldn’t make out. His brow drew together in a frown as he continued his examination. “No obvious sign of cancer, though. I’ll have to take a look under the microscope later.”
I wasn’t surprised when he asked Carl to preserve the brain, and the sections he’d cut, in formalin. Doc seemed perplexed but also a little excited, as if he couldn’t wait to dig into the mystery of why this man had died this way. Heck, it was probably a welcome change from the usual boring parade of drug overdoses and heart attacks. Doc continued the autopsy, peering carefully at the quick test that showed if any of the most commonly abused drugs were in the victim’s system.
“Clean,” he muttered. “But I’ll order a comprehensive toxicological screening.”
He retreated to write up his notes while Carl put the body of Barry Landrieu back into the cooler and got Evelyn Stark prepped and ready to go.
Carl laid the woman’s body out on the table and snapped pictures, then removed her clothing and took more pictures, expression emotionless and clinical. He wiped away the blood on her face, but I could still see it clotted up in her nostrils. Evelyn had been an attractive woman, but it was clear she’d been awfully close to that point in life when even the best of genetics weren’t enough. She had a slim, leggy build, but the skin of her belly sagged and her thighs were flabby and had no muscle tone.
He glanced up at me after he set the camera aside. “Can you give me a hand?”
“With what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him in distrust. He had a habit of asking me to do gross and nasty things during autopsies.
He silently held out a syringe. His face was expressionless, but humor danced in his eyes.
He was asking me to get the vitreous—the fluid in the eyeball. The process for this involved sticking a needle into the side of the eye. Needless to say, it squicked me out big time. I usually shied away from this. Emphatically.