I took a deep breath. “Yes. Of course.”
Cody spoke for the first time. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, sir?”
Oh, crap.
Rising to his feet, the chief fixed Cody with an implacable stare. “It’s pretty damn clear that I need someone with ties to the eldritch community on this one, son. Someone else in the department you’d care to nominate?”
After a brief hesitation, Cody shook his head. “No.”
“Good.” The chief tucked the watch back in his pocket. “Since you caught the call, you can take the lead on the inquiry. But I want you to work with Daisy. The medical examiner’s on his way and I’ve asked him to make this a priority.” He jerked his chin toward the EMS vehicle and the victim’s friends. “You can start by taking those two down to the station and taking their statements. Maybe you can get the truth out of them.”
“Do you want me to notify the victim’s parents?” Cody asked. He hoisted an evidence bag containing a wallet. “They’re just over in Appeldoorn.”
“No.” Chief Bryant squared his shoulders. “I’ll handle it myself.”
It was a tense ride to the station. The victim’s friends were in shock, white faced and shivering, still wrapped in the blankets the EMTs had given them. Although he’d donned his belt and boots, Cody was still soaked. All of them smelled like river water, and in a closed squad car, there was nothing at all pleasant about the odor.
“Who got to him first?” I asked softly. “You or the fire department?”
He shot me a look. “I did.”
“I’m sorry.”
A muscle in his chiseled jaw twitched. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
Pemkowet’s police station is small. We parked the victim’s friends in the front office under the supervision of the night clerk, while Cody ducked into the rear office to change into a spare uniform, summoning me to join him.
“Listen.” Unbuttoning his shirt, he stripped it off to reveal a lean, muscular torso. A flicker of inappropriate lust stirred in me at the sight of those washboard abs. Apparently even death couldn’t deter the Seven Deadlies in a hell-spawn. And Cody Fairfax had a treasure trail leading from his belly button to parts south. Great, now I’d have that image stuck in my brain. He shook himself all over like a dog, water spraying. “This is serious business, okay? So for now, just keep your mouth shut and take notes.”
“Okay,” I said mildly. “I’m not an idiot.”
Cody ran his hands over his damp hair, smoothing it. There was a hot, feral gleam in his topaz eyes. “This could be really, really bad for the community, you understand?” he said in a low voice. “All it takes is one incident to set off a lynch-mob mentality. It’s happened before in other places.”
“Is that why you’re so . . . private?” I asked.
He grimaced. “I come from a long line of people who like their privacy.”
Right, along with hunting illegally in the county woods and game preserves during the full moon. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do whatever you say. Just don’t mess around with Jen Cassopolis.” I paused. “Unless you really do like her, enough to be honest with her. I mean totally honest. Then it’s none of my business.”
He shrugged into a dry uniform shirt. “Deal. Now get out of here while I change my pants.”
We interviewed the victim’s friends separately, hoping to catch them up in any discrepancies; which is to say that Cody interviewed them while I recorded their statements on the department’s only working laptop.
Mike Huizenga was the first interviewee, a hulking defensive tackle at nearby Van Buren College. He had a broad, doughy face and a shell-shocked look.
“Just walk me through your evening,” Cody said gently to him. “You said you were barhopping. Where did you start?”
He rubbed his nose with one fisted hand. “Um . . . well, we did some front-loading, you know? Pounded a couple of six-packs.”
“Was that at the victim’s parents’ house?” Cody checked himself. “I’m sorry. At Thad Vanderhei’s house?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The frat house.”
“Triton House?”
“Yeah.”
I knew it by reputation as the base of a hard-partying local fraternity with notoriously dangerous hazing rituals. Even in the summer, Triton House was party central. All three were members, and the kind of guys who were one of the reasons I never went to college.
According to Mike Huizenga, the three amigos got loaded on cheap beer, then drove down to Pemkowet to pick up drunken tourist chicks. They hit happy hour at the Shoals, where they downed a few more beers, then worked their way around town in a circuit, doing tequila shots at every establishment. No fights among them, no quarrels, just a night that ended in a bad idea and a tragic outcome.
The second interviewee, Kyle Middleton, told the same story, only the bars were in a different order. He was a skinny, jumpy little guy, someone used to being comic relief, now in over his head. I felt a bit sorry for him, but only a bit. Something was definitely wrong with their stories.
Cody borrowed the laptop and consulted my notes. “So you ended up at Bazooka Joe’s?”
“Yeah, I think. That’s what it’s called, right?”
“And you struck out.”
“Yeah.” Kyle shrugged. “We struck out.”
“Too bad.”
“Not,” I muttered.
Cody shot me another look, and I shut my mouth. “See, here’s the thing that confuses me, Kyle. Last call’s at two a.m. It was three twenty-four a.m. when you called nine-one-one. What were you guys doing for over an hour?”
“Oh . . .” Kyle squirmed. “Just screwing around, you know? Thad had a bottle of scotch he took from his parents’ bar. Like a ten-year-old single-malt. Really good stuff. It was his idea to go drink in the gazebo until sunrise. He heard sometimes you can see those, whaddya call ’em, river nymphos at dawn. We got bored waiting. That stupid bet was his idea!” His voice rose and tightened. “It was his idea, okay? I never wanted anyone to get hurt!”
My tail twitched.
“Who got hurt, Kyle?” I asked.
He shut down.
“Kyle?” Cody asked in a soft voice. “Were you talking about Thad? Or someone else?”
He looked away. “Can I go home?”
Cody and I exchanged a glance. “One last question,” he said. “Did you and Mike and Thad go to the Wheelhouse tonight?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?” He held up a plastic evidence bag with a sodden matchbook with the Wheelhouse’s logo on it. “Thad had this in his pocket.”
Kyle’s eyelids flickered rapidly. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Huh.” Cody contemplated the evidence bag. “There’s a phone number written on it. Was there someone in particular Thad was trying to hook up with tonight?”
“No. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “He must have gotten some girl’s digits in one of the bars.”
“Why wasn’t he carrying his phone?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was taut again. “It must have fallen out of his pocket in the river.”
“He jumped into the river with his phone?” Cody sounded skeptical.
“I guess. I don’t know! We were drunk, okay?”
“Can I see your phone?”
Kyle handed it over. I watched his expression while Cody examined the phone, just as I’d watched Mike Huizenga’s when Cody had gone over the same line of questioning with him. Whatever they were hiding, it wasn’t on their phones.
“Okay.” Cody returned the phone. “Look, I’m sorry to put you through this, but we have to treat any death very seriously, you understand?”
There were tears in the kid’s eyes. “It was an accident!”
“It certainly seems that way.” Cody tapped the evidence bag. “But things aren’t always what they seem in Pemkowet. Isn’t that right, Daisy?”
A twenty-one-year-old kid had died tonight, and his friends were covering up the truth. It wasn’t hard to access a well of simmering anger. I held Kyle’s gaze, feeling the air pressure in the room change. “It certainly is.”
“Don’t worry.” Cody rose. “Whatever happened, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Four
Since Kyle’s parents lived out of state, Mike Huizenga’s parents drove down from Appeldoorn to retrieve both witnesses. They were stalwart descendants of Dutch settlers, rightfully horrified at the death of their son’s friend, wrongfully furious that Mike and Kyle had been detained for questioning.
“It’s standard procedure, Mr. Huizenga,” Cody said patiently. “We’re very sorry for the Vanderheis’ loss. I’m sure they’d want us to do everything by the book.”
“Do you think Jim and Sue Vanderhei will take comfort in knowing their son died in this ungodly den of iniquity?” Mrs. Huizenga shouted at him, her chin quivering. “And your response was to harass his grieving friends? I want to file a complaint!”
“They ought to raze this place to the ground,” her husband muttered.
Did I mention that Appeldoorn is a highly conservative community that enjoys an extremely uneasy relationship with Pemkowet? Well, it is.
Unseen by the good Dutch folk, a hint of phosphorescent green flashed in Cody’s eyes. It gave me a private thrill to see him struggle with his temper, and, strangely, I found it calming. Perverse, but true.
“I’m so very sorry, Mrs. Huizenga,” I said in my most soothing voice. “If you’d like to file a complaint, I’d be happy to help you. I’m sure Chief Bryant would be glad to call you and discuss your concerns in person. But it’s late, and your son and his friend have had a terrible night. I can’t imagine how they’re feeling right now.” I gave them a sympathetic smile. “Maybe it would be best for everyone if you just went home and prayed on it.”