LEDUC MOVED SO fast through the house that I got only glimpses of it, but what I saw looked like antiques, with real crystal dangling from every light fixture and candleholder, and there seemed to be a lot of those everywhere. The paintings looked like originals, and the statues, from life-size people to tabletop designs, were marble and metal. It was like rushing through a mini museum. Leduc was like a tour guide who had forgotten his job, but he certainly knew his way around the place, because he opened doors only to certain rooms, checked they were empty, and then rushed to another one.
There seemed to be no order to the rooms he was looking at downstairs, and finally he headed for the upstairs, but he didn’t go back to the front of the house and up the grand staircase that was near the front door. He went through a small hallway tucked under an archway. I got a glimpse of a kitchen sitting dim and empty, and then he led us round a sharp turn to a much smaller set of stairs that was so narrow, I wasn’t sure Leduc’s waistline would fit, like Santa trying to squeeze through a chimney. Maybe I’ve always been so small that I just don’t understand how to navigate the world if you’re big. Leduc had no issues; he just had to duck a little on the tight turns of the stairs. Newman, who was nearly a foot taller than me and a few inches taller than Duke, had to take off his hat and bend over a little so he didn’t hit his head. I caught movement around the edges of him and realized that Deputy Vargas was behind us rather than staying at his post. He was as tall as Newman, with broader shoulders, but he seemed to be squeezing through just fine, which meant he was a lot more agile than he’d looked while the sheriff was chewing him out. Meanwhile I was keeping one hand touching each wall so that I could feel how rough the plaster was, because it was narrow enough that my claustrophobia wasn’t happy. I knew from experience that my eyes might tell me the walls were collapsing in on me, but my hands would stay the same width apart. So as long as my hands didn’t move, I could talk my brain out of believing the optical panic. Maybe the stairs weren’t as narrow as they felt, but I could keep my fingertips on either side as I followed Leduc up them, and with my smaller shoulders—the stairs were narrow enough.
Leduc opened a door at last, and he was through it before I had time to take a deep breath and let my body know it was in a broad, richly carpeted hallway instead of on the torturously narrow stairs. A heavyset man was carrying a small suitcase out of an open door. He saw us, or maybe just the sheriff, and froze like a deer in headlights. He blinked, and his round head with only a fringe of dark hair left made him look owlish, all big eyes and round face. He drew the suitcase into the curve of his arms protectively.
“Hey, Todd,” Leduc said all friendly, as if they were in town just bumping into each other.
“Hello, Duke. What brings you here so late?” Todd’s voice wasn’t as matter-of-fact as Duke’s, but he tried.
“Work.”
“Oh.” Todd glanced back at the open door. I kept expecting him to call out and warn the mysterious Muriel, Ray Marchand’s sister.
I was fighting not to push past Leduc and see what was in the case and what Todd’s other half was doing in the room behind him. Newman moved up beside me enough for me to look at him. He gave a small shake of his head. This was his town and his warrant. I could chill—for a while.
Duke took the few steps he needed to be within reach of Todd. He held his hand out wordlessly. Todd hugged the case to himself a little tighter. Duke turned his hand upside down and moved his fingers in a give-it-to-me motion.
Todd glanced back at the open door and called out, “Muriel, we have guests.”
It was so not on my list of things I expected him to say. It was the politest thing I’d ever heard anyone say when confronted by the police in the middle of committing a crime.
“Guests,” a woman’s voice said from inside the room. “What do you mean, we have guests? Rico would have asked our permission before letting anyone else into our house.”
I felt Deputy Rico shift uneasily behind us without having to see around Newman. The sheriff moved so he could keep an eye on Todd and still give Rico a dirty look. Leduc got some of his brownie points back because he kept Todd in his sights as he moved. The man in front of us looked harmless, but a lot of “harmless” people end up killing cops every year. Just because Todd was clutching the case to his chest like a baby didn’t mean there wasn’t a gun tucked into his belt.
A woman—Muriel, I assumed—walked through the doorway. An angry scowl crossed her face before she got it under control and smiled pleasantly at us, but she couldn’t quite get her eyes under control, while the rest of her nearly perfect face was all gracious hostess. She was tall, with blond hair that was almost the same shade of yellow as Bobby Marchand’s. The family resemblance was strong enough that I’d have thought they were mother and son, not just aunt and nephew, if I hadn’t known better. She was a handsome woman, like a blond Jane Russell, but slenderer, fewer curves. But some things even good cosmetic surgery can’t change, so the thin arm she held out to Leduc had more loose skin in places than the rest of her seemed to promise. She kept herself thin but didn’t worry about muscle tone, and without that, you can nip and tuck anything you want, but age will catch up. Maybe it always catches up—I didn’t know yet—but Muriel Babington had done her best to stay ahead of time.
Thanks to Jean-Claude’s love of jewelry, I knew that the gold chain with its simple diamond and the pair of understated antique earrings in gold and more diamonds cost more than most people’s yearly salaries. The watch on her left wrist was a vintage Rolex. It complemented the cream pants and vest buttoned over a blue silk blouse that made her gray-blue eyes look closer to Bobby’s brighter blue. I didn’t know the designer of the clothes, but I was betting that everything she was wearing was designed by a name I should have known. Jean-Claude would have known, even Nathaniel might have known, but I didn’t. The best I could do was recognize expensive when I saw it.
As Muriel glided down the hallway toward us, her pants gave glimpses of pale leather boots with stiletto heels, though once heels go that high, I think they’re just high heels with boot fronts. Boots imply practical, and these shoes were not, but they did give her slender frame more feminine swish, which was the goal of heels like that. I had a few pairs that did the same thing, but after a few date nights when I danced in them, I was beginning to rethink the sexy-heels-to-comfort ratio. The closer the wedding got, and the more Jean-Claude insisted on dressing me up, the more I wanted to rebel against the whole impractical idea of women’s fashion.
“What brings you by so late, Duke?” Muriel asked.
“Like I told Todd, work.”
“You have the murderer locked up. Case solved,” she said.
If I hadn’t known that it was her brother who had been brutally murdered and her nephew locked up for the crime, I’d have thought she was an uninterested bystander, maybe a distant family acquaintance.
“Muriel, you know you can’t be in here right now.”
“I know no such thing. My brother is dead, and that’s awful, but I warned him about Bobby.”
“What did you warn him about?” Leduc asked.
She gave him a pitying look, as if he were being too stupid for words. Disdain dripped off her well-manicured hand as she put it on her hip. “You know what Bobby is, Duke. Don’t play games after you saw what he did to Ray.”
I fought to keep my face and body very still and not give away the spurt of adrenaline I’d felt because of the wording. If they knew details about Ray Marchand’s body, then they had been here before the cops were called.
“What did he do to Ray, Muriel?” Leduc asked.
Her look went from disdainful to scathing. “Come on, Duke. I didn’t see Ray’s body, but seeing the study where he was killed was enough. It looks like a damn butcher shop.”
Duke looked at the husband still clutching the small case to his chest. “What did you think of Ray’s body when you saw it, Todd?”
Muriel touched her husband’s shoulder. “We didn’t see the body, Duke. Todd wouldn’t even come into the study with me.” Her voice held scorn and disappointment, as if she was often scornful of and disappointed in her husband.
“I saw the bloody footprints in the front hallway up here,” Todd said. “That was enough for me.”
“It would be for you,” she said, and her tone was humiliating. I couldn’t imagine being married to someone who would talk to me like that in front of strangers or at all.
Todd didn’t say anything in return, just huddled more tightly around the small case in his arms.
Duke said, “What’s in the case, Todd?”
Todd glanced at his wife and then at the floor but didn’t meet anyone else’s eyes. He didn’t answer the question either.
Duke held out his hand. “Give me the case, Todd.”
Muriel pushed in front of her husband so that Leduc either had to back up or let her invade his personal space. He didn’t move back. Underneath the panic and pain of earlier was a good cop. I hoped to see more of that side of him and let the bad cop be an unfortunate moment we could all forget.
In the heels, she was a few inches taller than Leduc. “We don’t have to let you see inside the case, Duke. It’s our case. We brought it into the house. Rico there will tell you he saw us bring it in. Didn’t you, Rico?”
The sheriff was already standing so he could keep Muriel and Todd in his peripheral vision and see the deputy, but Newman and I had to move to the other side of the hallway opposite Duke so we could help keep an eye on everyone.
Rico gave her a less-than-friendly look, and something about the darker emotion made him look better or more real. I realized he was handsome in that generic Hollywood way, if you were going for a mix of old-fashioned Latin lover and Midwestern college athlete. The hair I could see around his Smokey Bear hat was as black as mine and had curl left even though it had been cut short. He looked like he’d tan darker than I did, but I was betting that his heritage was mixed like mine. The last name Vargas should have been a clue. Sometimes I’m slow, but mostly if you do your job, I just don’t care.
“Yes, they had it with them when they drove up,” Rico said.
“Where did they park, now that you bring it up? It’s only your cruiser out front,” Duke said.
“Your deputy was kind enough to let us use the garage,” Muriel said.
Duke’s eyes narrowed at the deputy. “So, you have no idea what they may have taken from the house and put into their car?”
“I was made to understand that it was their house and their stuff,” Rico said. His face showed that he didn’t like giving the answer, because he knew he was wrong now. He took off his hat and started running his hands around the brim like a comfort gesture. He looked better without the hat, showing that he had more curls left than the short sides had promised.
“Well, you were made to understand wrong,” Duke said.
“I know the will hasn’t been read yet, but our father always meant the house and contents to stay in the family,” Muriel said.
“Not waiting for the will to be read is one thing, but your brother’s body isn’t even cold yet. That’s jumping the gun more than I can overlook, Muriel.”
“I’m about to become the wealthiest person in this county, Duke, and sheriff is an elected position.”
“Are you threatening me, Murry?”
“Don’t call me that awful nickname.”
“How about El? You didn’t mind that nickname once.”
Her face became even more superior, but there might have been a slight blush underneath the perfect foundation. It was hard to tell, but she didn’t like him calling her either nickname. That was for sure.
“It’s not a threat, Sheriff Leduc. It’s just a reminder of the politics around here.”
“Well, now, Mrs. Babington, your brother, Ray, was the richest person in the county. That’s for certain. But you and Todd are usually broke.”
She put one delicate hand to her necklace. “It’s Mrs. Marchand-Babington, and do I look like someone who’s broke?”
“You’re wearing and driving your money, Muriel. I know that. You know that. Now everyone in the hallway knows it. If you don’t want the whole town to know it, I suggest Todd hand me the case so I can see what’s in it, and then we’ll mosey down to your car and see if anything else got packed away.”
“You will regret this, Duke.”
“I regret a lot of things, Muriel, but this isn’t going to be one of them. Now, hand over the case, or I’ll have to take it from Todd. You know I can.”
“You could have twenty years ago,” she said, and tried for the same disdain that she’d aimed at her husband.
Leduc laughed at her, and if it had a bitter tone to it, it still surprised her. She’d meant to hurt him. “Even with a few extra pounds, he’s no match for me, Muriel. You know that. Don’t make me prove it.”
“Because you know you’ll lose,” she said, and tried to sound triumphant but failed.
It wasn’t all about weight and waist sizes. Just because Todd was smaller didn’t change the fact that he was soft and doughy. There was no muscle tone underneath his weight, and there was underneath Leduc’s. But more than that, one man was huddled in on himself, and the other man was standing up straight and tall, confident in the moment. You didn’t have to know either of them to know which side would win a physical encounter or even an argument.
“Todd, just hand me the case.” Duke’s voice was almost gentle as he spoke.
Todd started to offer the case to Duke, but Muriel snapped at him, “Don’t you dare! He has no rights here.”
Todd held the case tighter again and sighed.
“Are the contents of the case breakable?” Duke asked.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Well, now, if Todd and I start playing tug-of-war with it and it falls, I just wanted to be sure there wasn’t anything fragile before we start this.”
Todd looked up at his wife. “Muriel, honey, we don’t want to risk damaging it.”
She made a disgusted sound. “Fine. Fine, give him the case. Fail me like you always fail me.”
Wow, I thought, that was harsh and cruel and out loud. Why would anyone stay with a spouse who talked to them like that?
“It’s okay, Todd,” Duke said, and this time his voice was kind, a hell of a lot kinder than Muriel’s had been.
I realized that Duke felt sorry for the man. I think we all did, but it felt more personal with Duke. Just the few remarks between him and Muriel had implied they’d dated semiseriously twenty years ago. Did he look at Todd Babington and think, There but for the grace of God go I? I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be married to the bitter beauty of Muriel Marchand-Babington.
Duke took the case from Todd Babington’s hands gently but firmly. There was no weakness to his kindness, just a different kind of strength. Whatever was happening between the three of them had a long history, and I felt like something between a voyeur and unneeded backup, the police equivalent of a third wheel.
Leduc started to kneel in the middle of the hallway, but then seemed to think better of it. “Come here, Rico. You might as well be useful for something.” He laid the case on the younger man’s arms and made sure he had a good grip on it before hitting the locks.
When the case opened without needing to be unlocked, Muriel said, “How could you forget to lock the case, Todd?”
“I’m sorry, Muriel,” he muttered, staring at the floor like a dog that had been hit once too often. His reaction to her wasn’t love—at least not to me.
Duke opened the case carefully and then sighed heavily. Newman was tall enough to see what was in the case, but I wasn’t. All I could do was guess as Duke said, “These are worth more than I’ll make in the next ten years, maybe more to the right buyer. I’m assuming you have a buyer lined up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Muriel said. “I just thought that it would be wise to remove some of the most valuable pieces from the house, with all the police and other strangers having access to it.”
“So, you’re only removing the small valuables that could be pocketed by the riffraff?” Duke said, voice tired and a little angry as he looked up at her.
I whispered to Newman, “What is it?”
He whispered back, “Porcelain figurines.”
“Sorry, Marshal Blake. I guess you can’t see,” Leduc said.
“Maybe on tiptoes, but I’d hate to overbalance and knock the case.”
“That would be a shame,” Leduc said, and lifted the case out of Rico’s arms so I could see two figurines nestled in gray foam that had been cut to hold them.
They were a male figure and a female figure, and there was just enough of the clothing to make me say, “They’re Harlequin.”
He looked surprised. “You know your porcelain,” he said.
“No,” I said, “but I recognize the costumes and colors enough to guess that they’re supposed to be some sort of harlequin based on the old Italian commedia dell’arte.”
Newman asked, “How do you know any of that?”
“I have friends old enough to have seen the actors live onstage.”
I didn’t add that the Harlequin was also a code name for the vampire equivalent of secret police and for the bodyguards of the queen or king of the vampire council. They’d once been the vampire equivalent of the bogeyman, and now what remained of them belonged to Jean-Claude and I guess technically me as his soon-to-be queen. I had managed not to share any of this with fellow police officers, and I didn’t intend to start now. I don’t know what made me say it out loud to begin with. Had I been showing off? Did Muriel’s treatment of all of us as thieving riffraff bother me? Maybe. I wondered if later she’d planned on trying to blame some of the emergency responders for the disappearance of the figurines.
“They are based on actual actors that played the parts,” Todd said, and he looked at me, really met my eyes and looked at me as if I’d done something interesting enough to get through the fog of emotional abuse.
“You know people old enough to have known the actors these are based on? That’s impossible. Oh, you mean vampires,” Muriel said, and managed to imply by tone alone that she thought even less of me now.
“Yeah, I mean vampires,” I said.
Todd’s eyes glazed over, and he looked at the floor again. His eyes were brown, which I hadn’t been sure of until that moment. Jesus, he really was an abuse victim, so hurt that he didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. Could just verbal abuse destroy a person like that, or did Muriel add physical abuse behind closed doors? Spousal abuse is illegal, no matter what gender everyone is. It made me wonder if Todd might need a little rescuing. I filed it away for later. Once I’d helped save Bobby Marchand and found the real killer, I’d see about rescuing abused husbands, if Todd wasn’t guilty of anything worse than attempted grand larceny. If he’d helped Muriel kill Ray Marchand and frame Bobby, then I couldn’t save him. No one could.
“I thought marshals killed the monsters,” Muriel said.
“That’s part of the job description,” I said.
“Then they can’t be your friends.”
“It does tend to complicate things,” I said.
Muriel looked at me as if trying to decide if I was kidding her. I wasn’t, or not much. “I am surprised that anyone with your job would recognize Nymphenburg porcelain.”
“Figurines like this, some drawings, paintings are all that’s left of people my friends knew centuries ago. It’s a way of them showing me snapshots of some of the people they talk about.” I didn’t add that Jean-Claude had a figurine of an actress he’d been in love with once. It was in a glass case in a room of treasures that I hadn’t even known he had until recently. The closer we got to the wedding, the more he tried to make sure he had told me everything that I might want to know before we said I do. But since he was over six hundred years old, his backstory was a little longer than mine. It wasn’t that he was keeping things from me; it was literally that there was so much to remember, he forgot things. Scientists were starting to study vampires to try to figure out how they could remember so many centuries as well as they did. They were hoping it might lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s and other brain-deterioration issues.
Duke had Newman take a picture of the statuettes nestled in their case, before shutting it carefully and taking it from Rico. “Let’s go see what’s in your car that you felt needed to be saved from us poor policemen. Sorry, Blake. Police persons.”
“That’s really not necessary, Duke,” Muriel said. Apparently they were back on a first-name basis again.
“Oh, it feels necessary to me, Muriel. I mean, what would the insurance company say if some of these valuable antiques went missing? They might blame the wrong people, like some of the hardworking emergency personnel, and we wouldn’t want them to blame the wrong people, would we, Todd?”
“Um, no, of course not,” Todd stuttered.
“Shut up, Todd!” Muriel snapped.
“Let’s all go down to the garage and take a peek,” Duke said.
Muriel actually touched his arm, her body language changing to something softer. “We don’t need all these other officers, Duke.”
“Oh, I think we do.”
She sidled closer to him so that a lot more of her body touched his than seemed appropriate for the circumstances. “We’re old friends, Duke. We don’t need a crowd.”
He stared at her as if even he couldn’t believe she was trying to seduce her way out of the situation.
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. It was just so damn ballsy.
Muriel managed to stay snaked up against Duke and still give me a hard look. “This is none of your business. You’ve got your monster locked up in the jail. This is regular police business, just Duke and me.”
“I don’t think so, Muriel. I think I like the marshals tagging along while we’re securing the scene.”
She traced a perfect fingernail around the edge of his ear underneath his Smokey Bear hat. He jerked back then and stepped away from her, putting a hand on her arm to keep her from cuddling up again. “We don’t need them, Duke.”
“Two United States Marshals make fine witnesses.”
“Witnesses to what, Duke?” Even her voice had gone lower—sultry, like she really thought she had a chance in hell of convincing him. Either this kind of shit had worked on him once upon a time, or she had a very high opinion of herself. Maybe a little of column A and a lot of column B.
“Marshal Blake, I hate to ask, but can you keep an eye on Muriel? She’s less likely to try her womanly wiles with you.”
“Glad to help a fellow officer out.” I stepped up beside the woman. In her heels, she towered over me, but I managed not to be too intimidated.
“Duke, I don’t want to go with her. I want to go with you.”
“Did that vampy baby-girl voice ever really work on me?” he asked.
“It’s just the side of me you bring out,” she nearly purred.
Leduc sighed and called Todd up with him. “Let’s go to the garage.”
Muriel reached out toward both men, though I was pretty sure she was aiming at Duke. I gently blocked her arm and said, “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I’ll cuff you—and while we’re at it, we should search them.”
“There’s no need for that,” Rico said, but it was like his heart wasn’t in it, as if he was saying it because he felt he had to say something.
Duke turned on him. “You let them into a house they don’t own. You let them change the security code and not share it with you. You’d have let them drive out with this.” He raised the case in his hand.
“They can’t steal something that already belongs to them,” Rico said.
I wondered if Rico was really that stupid or just . . . Nope, I was going to have to go with stupid, because I couldn’t come up with another explanation.
“It doesn’t belong to them, Rico. Nothing in this house belongs to them. This house doesn’t belong to them. Ray and Muriel were estranged. That means they didn’t like each other. We have no way of knowing what is in the last will and testament of Ray Marchand until the will gets read. Until that time, we treat this as his house, his things. Jocelyn and Bobby were the only family that lived in this house with Ray, and even they can’t take things out of it except for personal items. Am I being clear?”
Rico glared at him, his lower lip going under a little as if he was literally biting down to keep from saying things he’d regret later. It looked like there was a lot of ego inside the tall man, and he’d already been humiliated once tonight by his boss. His voice was low and careful and the words tight as he said, “Yes, Duke, you’re being clear.”
I didn’t know Vargas, but even I could hear the subtext of Go fuck yourself. I guess it doesn’t count as insubordination unless they say it out loud.
“Rico knows that it’s just a matter of paperwork and everything in here is mine.”
“Maybe, Muriel, but until that paperwork happens, assume the position.”
“What?”
“He means put your hands flat against the wall and lean,” I said.
“What?” she asked again, and sounded suitably outraged. So I helped her lean against the wall, though kicking her feet farther apart in the stilettos almost brought her to her knees. Once she realized we were actually going to search them both, she tried to lure Duke over to do her, but he stayed with the husband and left me to the femme fatale. Newman stayed close by in case I needed backup, or maybe he just wondered if Muriel would offer to let him pat her down, or he thought I’d be too rough with her. She kept telling me how important she was, or her family was, and how I’d regret this someday. She also kept pushing off the wall and trying to turn until I pinned her against the wall with an elbow in a pressure point on her back and threatened again to put on the cuffs. She cried for help about the pressure point, and Newman helped hold her while I got my cuffs off my belt. I could have held her without the help, but I’d have had to take her to the floor, and it would have been a lot rougher ride for Ms. Marchand-Babington. The cuffs made that nice little metallic sliding sound as I found the right size for her wrists. She had slender wrists for such a tall person. She was actually screaming as Newman and I brought her off the wall with a hand on either of her arms. She tried to stomp my foot with the stiletto. I avoided it. Newman didn’t, but no lasting damage. She fought like, well, an untrained girl. Besides, the cuffs were rated for supernatural suspects; she wasn’t getting away.