NEWMAN AND I, along with some of the state police and Sheriff Leduc, were almost having a fight in the living room of the Marchand mansion, aka the crime scene. The living room was the size of my first three apartments combined, with elegant furniture done in silky-looking brocade in shades of pink, cream, and pale mint green. The carpet was deep burgundy with hints of the same pale colors swirling in shapes that I think were supposed to be flowers. There were real oil paintings on the walls, and I’d have bet that all the knickknacks were real antiques. It looked more like a movie set than any living room I’d ever seen, so maybe it was a drawing room. There were chairs, two couches, and a love seat, but none of us was sitting down. I think we were all afraid to muss the furniture.
“You cannot put one of our people in the cell with a wereanimal that is already suspected of killing someone,” Captain Dave Livingston of the state cops declared loudly. He wasn’t quite yelling yet, but he was getting more forceful every time he said no.
The urge to say Captain Livingston, I presume was very strong. His parents had actually named him David Livingston, like the famous missionary and explorer, even though the last names weren’t spelled the same. The original was Livingstone, but they were pronounced the same, so he’d probably heard the joke a bajillion times. It made it easier for me to resist.
It had seemed like such a simple idea to get prints from Bobby Marchand to compare to the ones at the house, and half of it was simple. The forensic team from the state police was happy to collect evidence at the house, but we needed evidence from Bobby’s body. At minimum we needed his feet to be printed, and that meant either one of the techs went inside the cell with him, or he came out of the cell to us.
“I will not let that monster out of the cell and endanger anyone else,” Sheriff Leduc said, also not quite yelling.
“Well, you’re not endangering one of my people by sending them in with a shapeshifter,” Livingston said.
He was looming over the sheriff, not from height since he was only a couple of inches taller, but where Duke had let himself go after getting out of the military, Livingston had not. The captain was big, lean, and if his short, nearly buzzed hair hadn’t been mostly gray, I’d have thought he was at least ten years younger. Once he took his hat off and I could see the hair, I’d known to notice the extra smile lines near his steel gray eyes and the parentheses around his mouth, which suggested that every sentence he’d spoken had left its mark around his lips. His mouth was wider than it looked, because the angrier he got, the thinner his lips seemed. I was never sure how some people’s mouths did that when they were angry or sad.
I was letting the sheriff and the captain argue with each other, because neither of their viewpoints was going to help us gain more time on Bobby Marchand’s execution warrant. Until I figured out a way to get what we wanted, I was content to let the men yell at each other rather than me, because anyone who interrupted the “discussion” was going to have both of them angry with them. I really didn’t want to fight with both the sheriff and the captain until it would gain us something. Of course, Newman was newer at this than I was in every way. He still thought he could save the world if only the world would let him.
“Marshal Blake and I will be in the cell with drawn weapons,” Newman said. “If Bobby tries to hurt anyone, we will take care of it.”
Livingston turned on him, happy to have another target for his aggression. “Why haven’t you executed your warrant, Marshal Newman? If you had done your job, we wouldn’t need to be having this discussion.”
Leduc moved in beside Livingston. “I’ve already had to save Blake’s ass from that damn wereleopard once.”
“That’s not what happened,” Newman said.
“Duke already told me that he and his deputy got you out of the cell, but the shapeshifter grabbed Blake. She’s lucky to be alive. Hell, she’s lucky she got out of there without getting cut up. Now you want me to let one of my people go into the cell with that thing. No. Just no.”
I wondered if Leduc really believed his heroic version of the incident, or if he’d knowingly lied to make himself look better. If he believed the story, then we were fucked, because that would be how he wrote it up later. If he knew he was lying, then I might be able to get him to back down and use that to get some wiggle room with Livingston.
“You didn’t tell me that the suspect attacked you, Marshals.” This came from Kaitlin, the crime scene tech who had volunteered to help us. She was a few inches taller than me, five-five, maybe five-six, which made her short compared to everyone else in the room but me. Her straight blond hair was tied back in a tight, perky ponytail that bobbed in the air when she spoke. Most of the people I knew who did ponytails had longer hair, so the weight of the hair held it down more. If she hadn’t talked with her hands, maybe the hair would have lain there like normal, but she was so animated when she moved that her hair was, too.
“He didn’t,” Newman said.
“I saw him start to change form,” the sheriff said.
“You saw his eyes change,” I said, finally joining the conversation. I’d try for logic but didn’t hold out much hope that logic was what would win the day.
“You didn’t tell me he started to shift in the cell after the murder,” Kaitlin said.
“Eyes can change from strong emotions,” I said. “Finding out you’re accused of killing your father is pretty emotional.”
“He killed his uncle, not his father,” Livingston said.
“Bobby was raised by his uncle,” I said.
“Bobby’s parents were killed in a car accident when he was a baby. Ray is the only dad he remembers,” Newman added.
“I’m aware of the family history, and you can call him by his first name all you want. It will not humanize him to me, because only half of him is human. The other part is a murdering animal,” Livingston said.
“Legally he’s human, and I don’t want to kill another human being unless he’s guilty,” Newman said.
“You can be a bleeding heart on your own time, Marshal, but that animal has already killed one person and attacked another marshal. How many people have to die before you do your duty?” Livingston asked.
“Bobby Marchand did not attack me,” I said.
“I was there, Blake. I saw it,” Leduc said.
“You pointed a gun at both of us, Sheriff.”
“I was aiming at the monster.”
“Then why did Newman have to point his gun at you to save my life from your bullet?”
“You are both full of shit,” Leduc said.
“Your own deputy told you to calm down and lower your gun,” I said.
“I’m sorry as hell that Bobby did this, but I will not let you and Newman drag my reputation through the mud in some misguided attempt to get a stay of execution for him. Bobby has to pay for what he did.”
I wondered if we got Deputy Anthony in here whether she’d tell the truth or lie for her boss. I’d be leaving town, and she’d have to deal with the fallout. Apparently, Newman had no doubts that she’d do the right thing, because he said, “Call Anthony up here. She’ll tell you that Bobby didn’t attack anyone in the jail.”
I was glad that he didn’t say that the deputy would admit that Leduc had pointed a gun at me until I felt in danger for my life. If she just backed us up on Bobby not attacking me, I’d take it. We just needed Kaitlin of the perky ponytail to do her job on the evidence that was Bobby’s body.
“His eyes had changed to kitty-cat eyes. I wasn’t going to stand there and let him do to Blake what he’d done to Ray,” Leduc said.
“I had the suspect under control when you continued to aim your weapon at me,” I said.
“He was starting to shape-shift, Blake. You didn’t see Ray’s body. I did. If I had to choose between that and being shot, I’d take the bullet.”
“I wasn’t in danger from Bobby Marchand—only from you, Leduc.”
“Well, that’s gratitude for you,” he said, and he was so calm—calmer than he should have been unless he already knew that Anthony would lie for him.
“Let’s get your deputy up here. Once she backs you up, then this discussion is over,” Livingston said.
“Deputy Anthony is with our female suspect,” Duke said.
“I’ll have one of our female officers stay with the woman.”
“We are wasting time here,” Duke said.
“Yeah, it would be a shame to waste time when we could just kill the suspect and find out he’s innocent later,” I said. I should have saved the sarcasm, but sometimes old habits die hard.
“I met Bobby when he was playing peewee football. I’ve known him all his life. I don’t want to see him executed like this, but he’s proved himself too dangerous to be living beside other people. He has forfeited his right to live by killing someone else. It’s as simple as that, Marshals. If I thought he could spend his life locked up, maybe I’d vote for that, but the only thing the law allows for this crime is death. If that’s all we can do to punish the crime and protect the rest of the people, then we need to do it. The two of you need to do your damn job.”
“I didn’t realize you knew Bobby that well,” Newman said in the sudden almost uncomfortable silence.
“My son was the same age as Bobby, so I saw a lot of him and the other boys that were close to my son’s age.”
Leduc spoke of his son in the past tense. He also didn’t mention a name, just my son, as if the name was too painful, too real. If his son had been a friend of Bobby’s when they were boys, and then the son had died young, seeing Bobby all grown-up must have been hard. Having Bobby be the one who had killed the man who was paying for Lila Leduc’s medical bills was just rubbing salt in old wounds. No wonder the sheriff was all over the board emotionally. If he hadn’t been the only sheriff in town, I’d have tried to get him to take himself off the case, but their force wasn’t big enough to take anyone off the roster.
I wasn’t sure what we should have said in that suddenly silent room. I knew I wasn’t about to say a damn word. I did not know Duke well enough to risk saying anything in the face of such possible grief. A purposeful knock at the double doors ended the awkward pause.
“Come in,” Livingston said, voice a little gruff. I didn’t think I was the only one who was happy to have an interruption.
“You texted, sir,” a woman in a state trooper uniform said as she came through the door.
“Yes, I want you to relieve Deputy Frankie Anthony and send her up here.”
“Will do, sir,” she said, and closed the door behind her much more softly than she’d knocked.
“So you don’t believe me,” Leduc said.
“I never said that,” Livingston said.
“You’re about to double-check my story with my own deputy. Fuck that, Dave. You and I have known each other too many years for you to doubt my word.”
“It’s not your word I’m doubting,” Livingston said.
“Then what is it?”
“Some cases are harder on us than others, Duke,” he said. It took me a second to realize the gruff voice was Livingston’s version of kind.
“You think I can’t handle this one? You think I’ve gone soft?”
“No, Duke, I’d never think that.”
“Then, what the hell, Dave? Frankie is going to back me up, and then what? Is your heart bleeding for the poor wereleopard, too?”
“You know me better than that, Duke.”
“I thought I did.”
I realized that Livingston had caught on that maybe, just maybe, Duke was too emotionally involved to oversee this murder investigation. If I hadn’t thought someone would see it, I’d have crossed my fingers that we could get Livingston on our side and that Deputy Frankie wouldn’t throw us under the bus to keep in good with her boss.