Nolan leaned over Edward farther, looking at the pictures. I pushed them closer toward him, but he finally shook his head. “No.”
“We don’t rule out crows, or other birds flying in and grabbing some of the body before we found it, but there’s no bird native to the area that could carry off enough of the body to explain the missing pieces.”
“What do you think happened to the missing body parts?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Nolan said.
“I was actually addressing everyone in the room with the question, not just you, Nolan. You’re as late to this party as I am.”
“We’d like to hear your theories first,” Sheridan said.
“Why?”
“Forrester had his theories, but I requested he not share them with you until you had your own opportunity to view the evidence yourself,” Pearson said.
“Why withhold information from me?”
“Because Ted here has been bragging about you for days, and we wanted to see if you’re as good as he said,” Logan said, his arm flung out from his body and half-pointed and half-flapped toward Edward.
“That is not it,” Pearson said, frowning at Logan.
Sheridan stepped away from the map to say, “Ted had some . . . interesting insights about this particular series of photos. We wanted to see if another vampire hunter would come to the same . . . insights.”
They were all being so careful about their word choices; even Logan had been less obvious and that seemed like something he found difficult. I sighed and gave Edward a look. He gave me a steady look back. “I’d have told you, because I know you’ll see it.”
I gathered the pictures back from Nolan and spread them out in front of me again. “Did you put these pictures in here to trip me up?” I asked.
“What do you mean, trip you up?” Sheridan asked.
“Trick me.”
“No. I mean, no.” She looked puzzled enough that I believed her.
“Are these photos from another case?” I asked.
“Why would you ask that, Marshal?” Pearson said.
“They don’t match. Not just this man, but any of the dismembered bodies.”
“We only have three,” Sheridan said.
I looked at her to see if she was kidding, but she looked totally serious. “Does Dublin get enough dismembered bodies that three new ones are no big deal?”
“No, of course not,” she said.
“It’s as rare a crime here as it is back in your city,” Pearson said.
I looked at Nolan and Edward. The first looked puzzled, and the second inscrutable. No one kept a secret like him, no one alive anyway.
“This doesn’t look like the work of a vampire,” I said.
“We thought they were strong enough to do it,” Pearson said.
“They are, but they don’t usually go in for this kind of display of pure visceral violence.”
“Why not?” Pearson asked, and he was looking at me as if he wanted to see inside my head to exactly what I was thinking.
“It wastes blood and it’s messy. Once you tear into a fresh body like this, you are going to be covered in blood and gore. No way could you walk the streets after that and not have someone call the police.”
“Except for the wasting blood part, what you just said could apply to anyone,” Pearson said.
“A human being couldn’t rip a body apart like that,” Logan said, flailing his arm nearly into Sheridan’s shoulder. He stepped away from her as if she were hot to the touch and went around to the other side of the room near the door.
“It doesn’t look like a blade was used to dismember the bodies; am I wrong? Did you find tool marks?”
“No, no tool marks,” Pearson said.
“Then I don’t think a human being did it.”
“Then what are you talking about, Blake?” Logan said.
“I’m saying you might have a vampire crime spree and something else has moved into the city, too. I agree it’s supernatural, but the one thing vampires can’t do is eat solid food. A human serial killer could take souvenirs to eat later but isn’t strong enough to tear the bodies apart. A vampire could tear the bodies up but would have no reason to take meat away from the scene.”
“Did you just call the victims’ body parts meat?” Logan demanded, striding into the room and trying to fill more space than he could. Pearson and Nolan were taller, and almost everyone in the room lifted more weights than showed on their frame, and that included Sheridan now that I’d seen her arms in the short sleeves of her white blouse. She was built like a taller version of Mort, all sinew and muscle except with more curves. She might work at being thin, but she worked out, too. I liked that I wasn’t the only woman in the room with perceivable biceps.
“That’s what I think our killer thinks.”
“What do you mean, Blake?” Pearson asked.
I fought a sudden urge to look at Nolan. “A shapeshifter could dismember the body without tools and could have just eaten part of the body.”
“But wouldn’t a shapeshifter be covered in blood and unable to hide from the police just like a vampire or a human?” Nolan asked; if he felt weird taking part in the conversation, it didn’t show. If I hadn’t known his secret, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it.
“Yes, but a shapeshifter can literally change not just their clothes but their skin, so that the beast form could be covered in blood, but once they shift to human form again they’re blood free and clean.”