It was a relief to escape from the dark confines of the Wheelhouse to the bright sun outdoors in the parking lot. The driver of the Town Car emerged to hover patiently beside it. Ignoring him for the moment, Lurine put her sunglasses back on. “Are you done playing with ghouls for the day, cupcake?”
“For now, yeah. Thanks.” I paused. “Practically your goddaughter, huh?”
“Well.” A mischievous smile curved her lips. “Why not? It worked, didn’t it?” Her smile vanished, and she lowered her sunglasses to give me a serious look. “He’s an old one, that Stefan, and dangerous, and you’re like catnip to these things, Daisy. I wanted to make sure he knows I consider you under my protection. Now he does.”
“Do you know him from . . . before?” I asked.
Lurine shook her head. “No. I’d remember. And believe me, so would he. He was just baiting me.”
“Ah . . .” Detective Wilkes glanced at his notes. “You said he was old. How old are we talking?”
“Aren’t you cute?” Lurine patted him on the cheek, not deigning to answer. “Baby girl, you call me next time, okay?”
“Okay, okay!”
She settled her sunglasses in place. “I know you can take care of yourself under normal circumstances, but it’s just that you don’t have any defenses against this kind of thing.”
My hand went instinctively to my straw satchel, feeling the shape of dauda-dagr nestled inside it. “That’s not entirely true.”
Lurine’s face paled beneath her sunglasses, and she drew in a sharp breath, her voice taking on that bronze-edged tone it had when she summoned the naiads, making the sunlight seem to shiver over the hot pavement of the parking lot. “Daisy Johanssen, tell me you’re not thinking of invoking your birthright!”
“No!” I protested. “God, no! Of course not.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Don’t scare me like that, cupcake.” Behind the dark lenses, her gaze shifted to Cody, softening. “Of course you’re not defenseless,” she said. “With a big, strong, handsome police officer at your side. My apologies, Officer Fairfax. It was rude of me to imply otherwise.”
He blushed. “Please call me Cody.”
“Cody.” Lurine smiled at him. “I like the sound of it.” She pointed at me. “Call me.”
“I will!”
She glided back into the Town Car, and the driver closed the door after her. Cody and Detective Wilkes stared after it as it pulled away.
“All right.” The detective gave himself a shake. “I think . . . I think I need to rethink this case and how we’re going to handle it.” He stared at his nice leather-bound notebook. “I’m at a bit of a loss here. I’m not sure how to even report on this. Mind if we go back to the station and conference?”
“Not at all,” Cody said.
Lifting his head, Detective Wilkes gazed at the highway in the direction the Town Car had gone. “That really was Lurine Hollister, wasn’t it? I’d heard the rumor that she lived in the area, but . . .” He glanced at me. “What the hell is she? For that matter, what are you? And what did she mean about invoking your birthright?”
“Nothing germane to the case,” I said firmly. And yes, I was a bit pleased with myself for remembering the word germane and using it correctly in context. My old teacher Mr. Leary would have been proud. “Shall we go?”
Back at the station, we sent out for sandwiches and conferenced, the chief sitting in on our discussion. Away from Lurine oozing preternatural, predatory charisma all over the place, and the glittering eyes of ghouls, Detective Wilkes regained a measure of confidence.
“You weren’t kidding about this one, Dave,” he said to the chief. “It’s a tricky son of a bitch.”
Chief Bryant nodded. “Told you.”
Detective Wilkes spread one hand over the open pages of his notebook. “Here’s what I’m thinking. For now . . .” He raised one finger for emphasis. “For now, I’d like to leave this eldritch angle under wraps and let your people handle the fieldwork on it.”
“Sounds good.” The chief bit into a ham sandwich on marbled rye.
“Any ordinary human leads, my team will run down,” the detective continued. “We’ll run a background check on that bartender. . . . What was his name?” Lifting his hand, he squinted at his notes. “Jerry Dunham. And there’s the name the vic’s younger brother gave us, too. Matthew Mollenkamp, the Triton alum from Van Buren College. That whole secret-society-within-a-society, Masters-of-the-Universe business. I don’t see any follow-up here. You looked into it yet?”
Cody shook his head. “No time.”
“Make time.”
The chief chewed and swallowed a bite of ham sandwich, taking a swig of water and clearing his throat. “Speaking of time, how much time are we talking about, Tim?”
“Not a lot.” Detective Wilkes gave him a bleak look. “Four, five days. A week at best. I can’t keep it under wraps forever.”
“Gonna get ugly if it blows up.”
“I know.” The detective sounded sympathetic. “At some point, we’re going to have to bring those boys back in for questioning.”
Chief Bryant grimaced. “When?”
“Give it another day or two. Let’s see what more we can dig up.” Detective Wilkes took another peek at his notes. “No leads at all on the whereabouts of this Ray D? Not even a last name to go on?”
“It’s hard enough tracking down a human member of the Outcasts,” Cody said. “Or any biker. Most of them go by nicknames or aliases. It’s ten times harder when it’s a ghoul. The majority of them are at least a hundred years old. Any official ID they had is ancient history. And you know what motorcycle clubs are like.”
The detective nodded. “There’s a pretty fierce code of loyalty at work. Was this Ray D involved in the meth lab we busted back in April?”
“Yeah, but no one would finger him.” Cody turned his hands palms-up. “Never been able to bag a ghoul. Humans won’t flip on them.”
“Maybe they would if they didn’t know what they were doing.” For the first time in hours, the shrewd light was back in the detective’s eyes. He tapped his notebook. “Let me make some inquiries down at county, see what I can shake loose.”
“The ME released the vic’s body today,” the chief observed. “Funeral’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Thought it might be good politics for me to attend it. Be interesting to see who else is there.”
“You think Ray D might show?” Detective Wilkes asked.
Chief Bryant shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing a ghoul would do, especially if he’s the perp.” His heavy gaze slid over to me. “Daisy, I thought you might come with me. See if there’s anything hinky. Any eldritch presence.”
“It’s not likely,” I said. “Not outside Hel’s sphere of influence. The funeral’s in Appeldoorn, right?”
“South side,” he said. “Along Big Pine Bay. Cuypers and Sons. It’s on the outermost limits, but it’s in range.”
I sighed. “I’ll go. But I didn’t, um, exactly make a good impression on the family.” I picked up the copy of the Appeldoorn Guardian still sitting on the table. “And we’re not exactly their favorite people.”
“That makes it more important than ever to keep up appearances,” the chief said. “Pay our respects.”
“And intrude on their grief,” I said morosely.
He wasn’t cutting me any slack on this one. “No one ever said this job was easy.”
“Right.” Tim Wilkes closed his notebook and stood. “All right, I’ve got enough to get started on here. I’ll be in touch. Meanwhile, keep me in the loop.”
“Will do,” Chief Bryant promised.
Once the detective had gone, Cody rose, too. “Chief, if it’s all right with you, I’ve got a couple more possible leads to run down. Known associates of Ray D that I didn’t get to yesterday. Probably no point, but . . .” He shrugged. “No stone left unturned, right? Daisy, I think it’s best if you lie low until we get word from Ludovic that Al’s off the streets. Stay here, maybe catch up on some filing.”
“Wait.” The chief raised one meaty hand. “Back up a minute. Al?”
At his insistence, we filled him in on the attack of Al the ravening ghoul and its aftermath. I left out the part where Cody got a little furry and toothy in the process, and Cody tactfully avoided mentioning Lurine’s presence. It warmed my heart a little to see him honoring the unspoken eldritch code, which in turn made me think of Jen with a guilty pang. I checked my phone surreptitiously.
Nope, no messages.
Chief Bryant agreed with Cody that I should lie low. “No point in taking unnecessary risks,” he said pragmatically, lumbering to his feet and heading for the conference room door. “And Patty could use a hand in the front office. With everything going on, she’s backed up.”
I sighed again.
Daisy Johanssen, part-time file clerk. Last week I wouldn’t have minded a bit. Now it felt like a bit of a letdown.
Cody grinned at me, his gold-flecked topaz eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s for your own good, Pixy Stix. Don’t worry; it’s only temporary.”
“Hang on.” I caught him before he left, remembering Jerry the bartender’s tattoo. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
He listened, looking skeptical. “It doesn’t prove anything, Daise.”
“It fits the reading,” I said. “So did the bottle. That’s the one solid piece of evidence we have that the kids were lying.”
It was Cody’s turn to sigh. “Yeah, it does. But we can’t bring him in for questioning on the basis of your mom’s reading a deck of lotería cards any more than we can a ghoul’s say-so. Understand?”