Oh.
Suddenly I felt about six inches tall. I opened my mouth, then closed it. I cleared my throat a few times, scrambling to find a shred of grace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Was she . . . What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”
Cody shook his head. “Not here.” Polishing off his ribs, he wiped his fingers on his napkin. “Sam at the Shoals said Brent Timmons was on duty last night. If that’s the first place they hit, there’s a good chance he’d remember them. It doesn’t get that busy until later.”
I reached for my phone, glad to have something constructive to do. “I’ll look up his address.”
“Don’t bother.” Cody took out his wallet. “I know where he lives.”
Six
We drove a way out of town into the countryside, a few miles southeast, but still well within the circle of Hel’s influence. It’s strongest in Pemkowet, where it’s centered, but it actually extends in a ten-mile radius.
Halfway there, Cody spoke without preamble. “She was killed. Shot by a hunter.” The muscle in his jaw jumped. “He claimed it was self-defense. The game warden didn’t find him at fault.”
“Game warden . . .” I inhaled sharply. Wow. Okay, I guess it was out in the open now. “She was a werewolf?”
“Why does that surprise you?” His voice was dry. “Ultimately, we have a duty to our clan to mate with our own kind. It’s the only way our species can survive.”
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Caroline. Caroline Lambert.” Although Cody’s voice remained calm, his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel when he said her name. “We met at a gathering of the clans in Montreal the summer I was twenty-one.”
“Montreal?”
“It has an underground city and a functioning underworld.” That muscle in his jaw twitched again. “And a narrow but deep streak of conservative Catholicism that would like to see, like Mr. Huizenga, that very underworld razed and destroyed. The hunter happened to be of that persuasion.”
“You think he did it on purpose.”
“I’m sure of it,” he said grimly. “The Montreal clan weren’t discreet, and they had human enemies.”
“Did the police investigate?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Caroline was killed during the full moon. Nothing to investigate about a wolf carcass.”
“Yeah, but . . .” A sense of indignation swamped me. “Cody, she was a person, too! Couldn’t her clan have done something?”
“They tried,” he said briefly. “The police weren’t interested.”
I put two and two together. “That’s why you became a cop.” Mistress of the obvious, me.
Cody gave a curt nod. “We’ve always existed on the fringes, Daisy, walking the line between human and animal, between civilization and wilderness. It makes us vulnerable in ways that don’t affect others in the community. Hunters have always killed wolves. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t take a silver bullet, just a bullet. As a police officer, I’m in a position to help protect my clan.”
I had a feeling there were some serious flaws in his logic, and it occurred to me that if he was serious about the whole mating-within-his-species thing, there was no way he was interested in a real relationship with Jen, but I also had a feeling this would be a good time to keep my mouth shut, so I went ahead and did that.
We drove along the bluff above the river, passing the road down to the mobile home community where my mom still lived. I saw Cody glance briefly in that direction before making a left turn, and I was glad he remembered.
Brent Timmons lived in a ramshackle old farmhouse in the country. He came shambling up to the door when we rang the doorbell, scratching his bulging belly beneath an impressive overhang of bushy black beard.
“Cody, man!” His eyes lit up, and he stuck out one big, hairy mitt of a hand. “Whassup? How’s life on the straight and narrow?”
Belatedly, I recognized his name and remembered that Cody and Brent had been in the same graduating class at Pemkowet High.
“Could be better, could be worse.” Cody clasped the proffered hand. “Hey, Big B. You mind looking at a few photos for us?”
“Sure, man.” Brent nodded amiably. “C’mon in. You want to smoke a bowl?” He glanced at Cody’s uniform. “Um . . . just kidding. Maybe crack open a cold one?” He noticed me. “Oh, hey! Hi, there, Pixy Stix.” He gave his belly another scratch, peering down at me. “You want to party?”
Oh, blech. My tail lashed.
For the first time since I’d inadvertently evoked the memory of his murdered girlfriend, Cody’s lips curved with amusement. “Sorry, Big B. Maybe another time. Pixy Stix and I are on duty. You were working happy hour at the Shoals last night?”
“Yeah.” Big B looked bewildered. “So?”
Cody slid the three photos out of the folder. “These guys come in?”
He studied them. “Nah.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is about the drowned kid, isn’t it?” Brent’s gaze sharpened. “No, man. I heard about it this morning.” He stabbed the uppermost photo with one thick forefinger. “I always keep an eye on those frat-boy types. More often than not, they’re mouthy shits who end up starting trouble they can’t even begin to finish. None of them in the bar last night, not at happy hour.”
“You’re sure?” Cody pressed him.
The beard wagged up and down. “Uh-huh. Abso-fucking-lutely, bro.”
Another handclasp ensued. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to doubt you.”
Brent Timmons enfolded Cody in a major bear hug. “No worries, amigo. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
We got back into the patrol car. Cody reported in to the dispatcher on duty, then checked his watch. “We’ve got time to kill before hitting the bars on the list again.”
“You don’t believe Brent?” I asked.
“I do, but I’d like to get as much confirmation as possible.” He rubbed his chin. “And I’d like to show those photos around at the Wheelhouse. There’s got to be a reason the kid had that matchbook in his pocket.”
I shivered a little. “You know it’s a major ghoul hangout?”
Cody shot me an amused look. “Some big, bad hell-spawn you are. Got anything else on your agenda?”
“Maybe,” I said. “My mom offered to read the cards for me. We’re going right past her place.”
His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “Tarot cards?”
“Ah . . . not exactly,” I admitted. “But she’s got this knack. Mrs. Browne says it’s not uncommon for humans with an affinity for the arcane to come from a long line of psychics and seers.”
In most places, this would not be a logical course of investigation, but this was Pemkowet. Cody shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”
Retracing our path, we drove down to Sedgewick Estate. Yeah, it’s kind of a fancy name for a mobile home community, but the truth is, the place has its own charm. The tidy row of units faces a marshy expanse of river dense with tall, waving grass and dotted with willow trees. Most have decks or screened porches added onto them where one can sit and watch the gleaming currents wind their way through the grass.
Mom greeted me at the door with an effusive hug. “Daisy, baby! I’m so glad to see you.” Catching sight of Cody, she widened her eyes. “Officer Fairfax! Is everything all right . . . ? No, of course it’s not. I mean . . .”
I smiled. “It’s okay. We’re working together.”
“Hmm.” Mom’s face took on a crafty look, or at least as crafty as it ever got, which wasn’t very. Unlike Jen, she knew all about my long-standing crush. As far as I was concerned, moms were exempted from the eldritch code of honor, especially when they were pretty much honorary members of the community. “I see.”
“We were passing by, Ms. Johanssen,” Cody said politely. “Your daughter said you offered to read the cards for her.”
She waved one hand. “Marja, please. Call me Marja. Come in, come in.”
As always, Mom’s place was something of an organized mess. Jars of canned fruit were stacked on the tiny kitchen counter. Novelty Christmas lights in the shape of starfish were wrapped around the top of the walls. She was in the middle of a project, and there was a half-draped dress form in one corner, lengths and swatches of fabric strewn over every available surface.
“I’m doing the dresses for Terri Sweddon’s wedding,” she said in response to my inquiring glance. “That’s what her mother was originally calling about this morning. You know she’s marrying the youngest Dalton boy?”
“I heard.”
Mom busied herself clearing a mass of tulle and pins from the old Formica dinette. “I began teaching myself to sew when Daisy was born,” she said brightly to Cody. “I had such a hard time finding onesies with enough room for her tail. Over the years, I’ve managed to turn it into a full-time job. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
He choked out a cough. “Ah, no. No, thank you.”
She dusted off a chair and went to fetch her cards from a drawer in the hutch. “Have a seat.”
I winced a little at Cody’s expression when he saw the well-worn deck of cards, brightly colored and smaller than regulation size. “Aren’t those—”
“Lotería cards,” I confirmed. “She’s had them since taking Spanish class in high school.”
Cody blinked.
Mom gave him a stern look, although her stern looks weren’t very stern, either. We look a lot alike, fair-skinned Scandinavian blondes, but unlike mine, Mom’s eyes are as blue as a cloudless sky, and they reflect her innately sunny disposition. “Symbolism is symbolism, and these cards have a rich historic tradition.”