I WOULD HAVE checked the room as we entered to make sure nothing was hiding behind a desk or something, but Newman ran straight toward the far door and the cells. I stayed at his six because I was his backup, but it was careless, and careless could get us both killed. We had seconds to see that the office area was empty, and then we both went for the door to the cells. Newman didn’t even check if it was locked; he just reared back and kicked the door right next to the doorknob and lock. The door burst inward, because not only hadn’t it been locked, it hadn’t been securely shut, so the door smacked into the wall and came back at us with way too much force. Newman caught it with one arm, and with the other kept his gun pointed into the room. I was at his back with my gun out, pointed at the floor, but the safety was off, finger on the trigger. Shots fired meant “gun safety” was hitting what was shooting at you.
There was a man in the now familiar uniform of the local cops aiming between the bars of a cell. I had a second to notice he was tall, thin, but I was mostly trying to aim around Newman’s body without crossing him with the barrel of my gun. I didn’t even bother to look inside the cage. Whatever had been done was done in that second. There was nothing at the end of the short hallway but the man, shoulders rounded, gun still in hand. It wasn’t pointed at us, but Newman and I were both yelling.
He yelled, “Put the gun down!”
I yelled, “Drop the gun!”
The deputy turned and looked at us. I had a moment to see he was pale, with huge eyes in a face that looked shocked, but his hands with the gun still in them turned with him, and I yelled, “Drop it!”
Newman yelled, “Don’t make us shoot you, Troy. Don’t make us do it!”
I finally went to one knee against the wall opposite the cell, so I had a clear shot at the deputy without endangering Newman or accidentally shooting into the cell. It’d be a bitch to accidentally shoot the person we were trying to save.
If the shooter hadn’t been another cop, I’d have shot him moments before, but then he dropped his gun. The only thing that had saved him was the uniform. Newman kicked the gun toward me. I changed my grip on my gun from two-handed to one- and picked up the dropped gun. Loose guns were bad guns. I clicked the safety on, got to my feet, and moved around so I could keep an eye on the deputy as Newman put him on the ground and secured his hands behind his back.
I heard something behind us, and I had the second gun up and pointed before I could think anything. I just reacted. I even thumbed the safety off, and my finger was on the trigger. I didn’t have time to wonder if Wagner had messed with his trigger pull and lightened it from out-of-the-box standard. If he’d made it a hair trigger, then potentially someone else was about to get shot. I was okay with it, because a cop should have known better than to walk up on people when the guns came out.
Sheriff Leduc put his hands up without me asking; he also stopped moving closer. Good, it would be a shame to have to shoot him in his own jail.
My peripheral vision is above average. I could keep half an eye on Newman kneeling on the deputy and still watch the sheriff. Newman pulled the cuffed man to his feet.
I spoke very carefully, each word as cautious as the touch of my finger on the unfamiliar trigger. “You got that one?”
“I got him,” Newman said.
I turned toward the sheriff, bringing my gun up to bear on him as I lowered Wagner’s gun toward the floor. I took my finger off that trigger but left the safety off. One of his deputies had just shot one of his prisoners in his own jail. It might mean that Duke would be okay with it. Besides, he’d already pointed a gun at me once. I wasn’t going to let him get the drop on me twice.
“Ease down there, Anita,” the sheriff said.
“Fuck you, and it’s Marshal Blake to you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
He stood very still, hands up. He was doing his best to not piss us off further. That was great, because we needed to look in the cell and know if we were calling an ambulance or the coroner. How had I not looked in the cell before? The armed person always takes my attention first. Enough people shoot at you and it’s like you acquire this tunnel vision that cuts out all the unnecessary shit. The exception to that rule is if someone you love is involved. Then you’re fucked because you notice too much. You’re never at your best if you love someone in the room, unless they’re as well armed as you are. Then it’s like gangster date night.
“Ease down, Blake,” Newman said. “It’s over.”
I thought he meant our prisoner was dead, which made me gamble a quick glance into the cell. Bobby wasn’t there. What the fuck? I looked back at the sheriff to make sure he was still holding his hands up like a good boy, and risked a second, longer look into the cell. My eyes had registered the broken chains because when I saw them now, I wasn’t surprised. A corner of blanket underneath the bunk let me know that Bobby had taken the only cover the cell offered. He was hiding under the bed like a little kid who’s afraid of the closet monster, but this monster had a badge and a gun, and there was nowhere to hide. I had to look back at Leduc, but there’d been no visible fresh blood in the cell. That didn’t mean much, but it was the only hope I had for Bobby’s survival, so I took it. He could be dead later, but until I saw him that way, I’d keep believing that he was alive and that we could save him.
“I am not a danger to you, Marshal Blake, I swear,” Sheriff Leduc said.
“I know, because I’m pointing a gun at you.”
He sighed hard enough for the bulk around his middle to go up and down. “May I put my hands down?”
“No. If you want a different position, lace them over your head.”
Deputy Wagner was babbling as Newman got him on his feet. “I couldn’t do it. We were teammates. Got all the way to states our junior year. I know he’s a monster, but he’s still Bobby, too.”
And there in the babbling of a soon-to-be ex-deputy was the real problem with shapeshifters: They turned into big, dangerous beasts at least once a month, but the rest of the time, they were still themselves. It made it so much harder to put them down in human form, but only a fool with a death wish waited for them to turn furry before trying to kill them.
Leduc had put his hands on his head, but it looked like it was an effort for him to keep them there, or at least his uniform strained when he lifted his arms that much. He needed new uniforms or to start exercising so he actually fit into the ones he had. Either way, the tight sleeves would cost him a second or two if he had to draw his gun, which was still sitting on his duty belt.
Newman was calling out, “Bobby, Bobby, are you hurt?”
I risked another glance and saw an arm wave from under the bunk. I hoped that was an I’m-okay wave, but we’d need to see more of him before we’d be certain. He started crawling out from under the bunk, and what showed around the blanket still looked okay. I went from being happy that the deputy had missed to wondering how he could have missed from that close.
“Bobby, are you all right?” Newman asked again.
“What?” Bobby asked, frowning.
I said to Newman, “The shot in this small a space probably rocked his hearing.”
Newman yelled his question louder, and I heard Bobby Marchand say, “I . . . think so. I’m okay.”
“May I put my arms down now, Marshal Blake?” Leduc asked.
“No,” I said.
“I think the danger is over, Blake,” Newman said.
I glanced back and found Newman standing with the handcuffed Deputy Wagner in front of him. I double-checked the safety on Wagner’s gun and tucked it into my belt. It wasn’t perfect, but it would hold. I moved forward with my own gun still aimed at the sheriff.
“Did you know that your deputy was in here trying to kill Bobby Marchand?” I asked. It was a stupid question to ask him, because all he had to do was say no, and I had no way to prove otherwise.
“No. I was very clear with all my deputies that unless he started to change into animal form, they were to leave him for Newman.”
“Blake, it’s okay,” Newman said.
“You can put your arms down now,” I said, and holstered my weapon.
Leduc did it slowly, as if he didn’t want to spook me even without a gun pointing at him. It meant he believed I might actually shoot him. It’s always nice when other cops take you seriously.
“What the fuck, Troy?” Newman said. He sort of shook Wagner. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Duke said, “You didn’t find Raymond Marchand. Troy did. You didn’t find the boy in bed sleeping nude and covered in his uncle’s blood. We did.”
“I came as soon as you called me, Duke,” Newman said.
“I know that. You always come when we call. It’s been good having another lawman to call when we needed backup.”
“You knew I was on the job, Troy. You should have let me handle it.”
“But you weren’t handling it, Win. You called in Blake to help you save the monster, not kill it,” Troy Wagner said.
“If I did that to Uncle Raymond, then I am a monster, and I deserve to die.” Bobby sat up on the bunk, huddling the blanket around him as if he was cold. Sometimes getting shot at makes you cold with shock. If we weren’t going to kill him, then we needed to find him more to wear.
Leduc pointed at him. “Even the monster agrees with me.”
“I said if I did it, Duke. I haven’t had a complete blackout in over ten years. I remember what I do when I’m in animal form. I remember what I did before I changed back that night, and none of it includes hurting Uncle Raymond.”
“We found you covered in his blood, Bobby,” Wagner said, and his voice sounded like he was crying now.
“I can’t explain that, but I wouldn’t hurt my uncle. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I was with Jocelyn most of the evening. Ask her. She’ll tell you that she left me in the bedroom as I started to pass out from shapeshifting.”
“Joshie hasn’t stopped crying since she found her stepdaddy’s body in a pool of blood. She was so hysterical, they had to sedate her,” Leduc said.
“I would remember if I had done what you’re accusing me of, Duke.”
Wagner said, “I can’t stop seeing Jocelyn kneeling on the floor, cradling her daddy, blood everywhere, her screaming, blood all over her, all over everything.”
“Are you saying that Jocelyn was the one who found Uncle Raymond?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah,” Wagner said, looking over his shoulder at the other man.
Bobby Marchand looked stricken. That was the only word I had for it. “God, that’s awful.”
“Shoulda thought of that before you left him in one of the main rooms in the house for someone to find. Didn’t you think it would be her? Only people that live at the house are the three of you and servants,” Leduc said.
“There were no servants last night,” Bobby said.
“What did you say?” I asked.
The sheriff said, “Last night was the regular night off for most of the staff.”
“Did everyone in town know that?” I asked.
“Probably. Why?” the sheriff asked.
“Don’t you find it suspicious that the one night all the servants are gone is the night someone murders Raymond Marchand?”
“We’re just lucky that no one else was home when it happened. Otherwise we’d have had a massacre on our hands.”
“Even Carmichael was gone,” Bobby said.
“Who’s Carmichael?” I asked.
“The live-in handyman. You know, a dogsbody,” Newman said.
“Dogsbody. I haven’t heard that term outside of an old British mystery novel.”
“I like old British mystery novels,” Newman said.
“You’re just full of surprises, Newman. How unusual was it for Carmichael to be gone?”
“Unusual,” Bobby said, “or it used to be before he started dating his new girlfriend. It was still part of his job to be there most nights.”
I turned to the sheriff. “Did other people know Carmichael was going to be out of pocket?”
Newman answered, “Carmichael is dating Hazel Phillips. She’s a waitress at the Sugar Creek.”
“What does Carmichael’s personal life have to do with my question?” I asked.
“Carmichael spent the night with Hazel. Sugar Creek’s the most popular restaurant in town for breakfast and lunch. If he talked to her about his plans to spend the night at her place while she was at work, then half the county could have overheard it.”
The sheriff shook his head hard enough for his jowls to shake. He reminded me of a tall bulldog. “If Ray had been shot, I might agree with you, but he was cut to pieces with claws. We don’t have any other shapeshifters in this area.”
“Come on, Sheriff. If it wasn’t death by wereleopard, what would you think about it being on the one night when everyone else was gone?”
He scowled at me. “I know what I saw, Blake. No human being could have done that to a man.”
“You might be surprised what human beings do to one another,” I said.
“You think I’m just some hick cop that hasn’t seen anything.”
“That’s not what she means,” Newman said.
“I just meant that I’ve seen some shit normal people do to one another that made me wish it had been monsters.”
Leduc took in a lot of air and let it out slow. “All right, I aimed a gun at you once, and you’ve aimed one back at me. Let’s call it even and start aiming at the real monster.”
“I thought if I did it, then it would all be over,” Troy said, face still wet with tears, though the actual crying had stopped.
“Bobby would be dead, but you’d be up on murder charges, Troy. It wouldn’t be over for you,” Newman said.
“I have the warrant in my pocket,” Troy said.
Everyone in the hallway with a badge looked at the deputy. Leduc spoke slowly like you would for a very young child who had done a bad thing. “Troy, what difference does it make if you have the warrant in your pocket?”
“You called it a get-out-of-jail-free card,” he said, and his eyes were guileless, like he didn’t realize his mistake.
“For the marshal whose name is on the warrant, yes, but not for you or anyone else.”
Troy blinked at Leduc. I was beginning to wonder how bright Troy was or wasn’t. He certainly wasn’t catching on fast.
Newman tried. “Troy, the warrant has my name on it. If I’m part of the hunt, then and only then is it a legal execution. Anything else is murder.”
“Now, Newman, if Bobby goes changing into his beast in the cell, then we will shoot him to make sure he doesn’t get out and hurt anyone else,” Leduc said.
“Deputy Wagner, was the prisoner changing shape when you fired at him?” I asked.
Troy looked at me, shaking his head. “No, but he killed Ray, and I had the warrant in my pocket.”
“Troy, damn it. I know you’re not a deep thinker, but ya gotta think better than this,” Leduc yelled.
“Troy Wagner, we’re holding you on suspicion of attempting to murder Bobby Marchand,” Newman said. Newman said all the words that normal cops say to suspects all the time. I’d actually never read anyone their rights. You only did that when you took suspects into custody. I didn’t do that. The vampires had nicknamed me the Executioner. I didn’t take prisoners.