WE GOT GOOD news when we pulled into the hospital parking lot. The judge had agreed to add another eight hours to the warrant of execution, thanks to Kaitlin’s footprint evidence, but unless we had another name to put on the warrant by then, when the time limit was up, Bobby Marchand had to die. There would be no more extensions, so we had to find a clue and bust some crime. Newman had also given Bobby the name of the lawyer Micah had recommended. If all else failed, maybe the other branch of the law could come up with a delaying tactic.
Jocelyn Marchand lay against her snow-white hospital bed like the princess from a racially diverse cast of Sleeping Beauty. The pictures at the house had shown her as having grown up into a beautiful young woman, but they hadn’t done her justice. She looked like her mother had cloned herself. I mean, I’d known she looked like her mother from the pictures, but when I saw her up close, the resemblance was almost eerie, or maybe it was her own beauty that was disturbing. Her skin was perfect without a drop of base makeup to hide flaws, though as far as I could see, there were no flaws to cover. Her hair lay in near perfect ringlets around her face. I’d never been able to get my curls to be that well-behaved. The only way to come close was for someone else to use a very narrow curling iron over and over until every curl was tamed and hung like bouncy spiral magic. Her hair wasn’t black like the pictures had shown, but a nearly reddish brown. It looked natural, but you don’t go from black to that without an expert dye job. I couldn’t imagine what they’d done to take all that dark out of her hair to make it nearly auburn. Her eyelashes lay on her cheeks like thick black lace, as dark as the perfect curve of her eyebrows.
Olaf leaned in to whisper between Newman and me so that we could both hear. “She is awake.”
Newman whispered back, “How do you know?”
I looked away from her face to her body and realized that she was feigning the deep, even breathing of sleep. The pulse in the side of her neck beat against her skin like it was racing. She was nervous, maybe even scared. Why?
“Pulse rate and breathing are wrong,” I said.
Newman nodded and then said, “Jocelyn, I’m sorry but we have to talk to you.”
She tried to keep pretending to be asleep, but the pulse in the side of her neck was beating so hard, it looked like a butterfly trapped under her skin and beating its wings to escape. Her chest stopped trying to rise and fall but went to something shallower.
“Jocelyn, you can’t just pretend we’re not here. I’m really sorry, but we have to talk to you,” Newman said.
There was movement at the door behind us, and both Olaf and I turned toward it as a tall nurse stepped through the door. It hadn’t been movement inside the room that had alerted me. I’d have sworn I sensed movement, but maybe it had been Olaf reacting to hearing her in the hallway that had made me turn. Whatever. He and I looked at the nurse as she came through the door.
She was well over six feet tall. I personally knew only one woman taller, and that was Claudia back home in St. Louis. Claudia was also a serious weight lifter, so she was the most physically intimidating woman I knew. The nurse looked to be in good shape, but she was as slender as most people her height. Words like willowy came to mind. Her pale brown hair was cut very short around a face devoid of makeup. She had high sculpted cheekbones and a wide mouth that made her brown eyes look smaller than they actually were. She wore a pink smock with little kittens on it as if it would disguise her size and make her more approachable, or maybe she just liked kittens.
“I’m sorry, but she’s still sedated,” the nurse said.
“She’s feigning sleep,” Olaf said.
“What he said,” I said.
“We really do need to speak with Jocelyn. I’m sorry that it can’t wait,” Newman said.
“I’ll get the doctor,” the nurse said like someone who was going to tattle to your parents, as if the doctor would be able to convince us that Jocelyn was asleep when a mere nurse could not. She left in search of a doctor.
“Hi, Jocelyn. I’m Marshal Anita Blake. This is Marshal Otto Jeffries. We really need to speak with you.”
Newman leaned over the bed and said, “Jocelyn, I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot, but I need to talk to you.”
She kept her eyes closed as she said, “Leave me alone.”
“I would if I could, but it’s a matter of life and death,” Newman said.
That made Jocelyn open her eyes. She looked so much like her mother that her eyes being brown instead of extraordinary green was almost jarring. Until I saw her eyes, I hadn’t realized just how well I knew her mother’s face. I’d grown up seeing her mother in tabloids at the grocery store and on the celebrity gossip shows that my stepmother, Judith, had loved. It was almost like having a friend show up with the wrong eyes.
“What do you mean, Win? No one else could have died. It was just . . . Dad.” The flicker of pain in her eyes when she said that last word was hard to watch, and I’d just met her. It had to be even harder on Newman.
“No, no one else is dead, and I’d like to keep it that way,” Newman said.
“What do you mean?” Jocelyn asked.
Her voice was breathy and sounded far younger than I knew she was, or had I been expecting to hear the deep contralto of her mother out of that so-similar face? I hated to think that was it, but after my reaction to Jocelyn’s eye color being different, I couldn’t rule it out. I hated that I might be trying to put her mother over the top of her like a mask that she was supposed to wear, but if I kept the idea in mind that I might be doing it, maybe I could avoid actually doing it. I wasn’t even sure that made sense really, but I’d lived as the ghost of my own dead mother for most of my life. Except for having my father’s pale complexion, I looked like my mother’s clone, too.
“We need to ask you about what happened, Jocelyn,” Newman said.
“I told the police already.”
“I know, but I wasn’t there for the initial interview, so I need you to tell me . . . to tell us,” he said, glancing behind himself at Olaf and me.
“I don’t want to have to talk about it again, ever. It’s done, over with. Dad . . . is dead and Bobby’s dead. Everyone but me is dead,” she said. Tears sparkled in her eyes; her fingers dug into the sheets like she was trying to find something to hold on to.
“That’s just it, Jocelyn. Bobby isn’t dead.”
She stared up at him, eyes going wide, which made the tears slide down her cheeks. “He killed our father. You were supposed to kill him for what he did to Dad.”
“And if he did kill Ray, then I’ll do exactly that. But before I do something that I can’t undo, I want to be absolutely certain that Bobby is guilty.”
“What are you talking about? He did it. I found the body. I saw what his”—she made a gesture in the air like she was tearing at it—“claws did to my father . . . our father! How could he do that to Dad? How could anyone do that to their own father?” Her breathing was erratic, eyes too wide, pulse rising. She looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack.
I thought Newman would back off, but he didn’t. He asked one of the questions we’d come here to ask. “Bobby said he was with you that night, that you left him in his bedroom about to pass out after shapeshifting. Is that true, Jocelyn?”
“I was not with him. What an awful thing to say! He’s my brother.”
Newman backed up both physically and verbally. “Of course not. All I meant was, did you see him start to pass out in his bedroom?”
“No, of course not! I saw his bloody footprints in the hall, and I saw what he did to Dad! That’s what I saw!” She sat up and started flailing her arms, which put her in danger of pulling out her IV.
A shorter, dark-haired nurse came through the door, speaking soothingly to Jocelyn and telling us that we had to leave. She used one arm to keep Jocelyn’s arm lower so she didn’t pull out the IV, and then tried to get her to lie back down.
A dark-haired man wearing a white coat over business slacks and shoes came through the door with the first nurse behind him. Apparently, she’d found the doctor. “You cannot browbeat my patient like this,” he said as he pushed us back from the bed so he could help the nurse soothe Jocelyn.
Newman said, “We did not browbeat her.” His voice was firm and sounded convincing, but since Jocelyn was screaming, the doctor and the nurses probably didn’t hear him.
The tall nurse who had met us first made shooing motions with her arms as if we were wayward children. We could have forced the issue, but it might literally have taken force, and they’d just put another needle of something into the IV tube. Jocelyn was going quiet and passive as we let the tall, brown-haired nurse usher us out. Her name tag read PATRICIA. She didn’t look like a Patricia, far too athletic and forceful. Maybe a Pat or a Patty?
We walked far enough down the hallway to be out of earshot, and then we huddled together like a football team. We needed to figure out what had just happened and what we should do next.
“I didn’t mean to imply that she and Bobby were an item,” Newman said.
“Her reaction was a little over the top, don’t you think? Or is she always this high-strung?” I asked.
“No, I wouldn’t describe Jocelyn as high-strung or even the nervous type. She’s usually very calm, cool, and collected.”
“I guess finding your parent’s murdered body would unhinge anyone,” I said.
“By unhinged, do you mean, make hysterical?” Olaf asked.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding as if he needed that to go with the word.
“She was not hysterical.”
Newman and I looked at each other. “We just saw her act hysterical,” he said.
“Saw her, yes, but her emotions did not match what you saw.”
“Okay, explain,” I said.
“When Newman asked his question, she was afraid.”
“How do you know that?” Newman asked.
“I could smell it.”
Newman sort of blinked at him and then went with it. Good for him. “She’s been through a terrible event. Wouldn’t she be afraid to remember it?”
Olaf shook his head. “The spike of fear happened when you asked her the first part of the question.”
“You mean, ‘Bobby said he was with you last night’?” I asked.
Olaf nodded.
“She sounded outraged,” Newman said.
“She acted outraged, but her true emotion was fear.”
“I could see disgust, outrage, anger, but why fear?” I asked.
“Maybe any memory tied to the murder is fear inducing?” Newman suggested.
“I might believe that, except that her emotions after that did not match the show of grief and emotional pain,” Olaf said.
“How so or how not?” I asked.
“I smelled the fear, and there was panic to that, but then that went away. She smelled calm while she was screaming at us.”
“Are you saying it was an act?” I asked.
“I am saying that she smelled different from her actions. I’ve learned that people can control most of their bodies, but not the change in scent.”
“Do all emotions have a scent?” Newman asked.
“No, or if they do, I have not learned them yet. I am still relatively new at being a shapeshifter. Anita might ask one of her fiancés. They have lived like this far longer than I.”
I appreciated Olaf conceding that Micah and Nathaniel might know more about something than he did. The Olaf I’d met years ago was too insecure, or too angry, to admit any weakness. Or maybe he just hadn’t admitted them to a woman. Either way, this was an improvement.
“I’ll ask them when we talk next.”
Newman stepped into Olaf, which made me step into both of them. “Are you saying that Jocelyn was pretending to be more upset than she really felt?”
“She was.”
Newman looked at me. “Do you think she was lying about something other than her emotions?”
“You got one question out, Newman, just one. Then she went hysterical, and the interview was over. The doctor won’t want us near her again,” I said.
“I might have to get a court order just to question her again.”
“That takes time,” I said.
“We have an extra eight hours, that’s all. I don’t want to waste that getting more judges involved. Besides, court order or not, if Jocelyn does another hysterical scene, we still won’t be able to question her.”
“Agreed,” I said.
The doctor came around the corner, and you didn’t have to be a shapeshifter to know he was pissed. It showed on his face and in his posture. “How dare you come into my hospital and threaten my patient?”
“We did not threaten her,” Newman said.
The doctor held up a hand as if we should just stop talking now. “Nurse Brimley heard you. That’s why she came to get me.”
“Is Nurse Brimley the tall one, Patricia?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did she actually say we threatened her?”
“She said you were browbeating my patient into hysterics. I don’t know what gestapo tactics you people from the preternatural branch are used to doing in other places, but you will not intimidate anyone in this hospital. We had to sedate her again.”
“I swear to you we asked one question,” Newman said.
“I want all your names. I’m reporting you.” The doctor got out his phone—to make notes, I think.
“For what?” I asked.
“For threatening my patient. She’s been through enough.”
“I swear to you that we did not threaten her,” Newman said.
“The three of you looming over her bed would be threat enough,” the doctor said. He had his phone out, and he was ready to type with his thumbs. “Give me your names.”
“We didn’t loom over her bed,” I said.
The doctor motioned at Olaf with his phone still grasped in his hands. “How could he not loom? You should never have been in there alone with her!”
“Are you saying that someone over a certain height is scary just by being that tall?” I asked.
“No, but he is.” The doctor had a point, but he’d pissed me off, so . . .
“Are you saying that someone’s physical appearance, something they can’t change or do anything about, like the color of their skin, is enough to cause you to be afraid of them?” I asked.
The doctor frowned at me, thinking through what I’d said. “I did not say anything about the color of his skin. He’s white.”
“Are you saying you have a problem because he’s white?”
“No, of course not.”
“Are you saying that you would have a problem if he wasn’t white?”
“No, of course not!” The doctor was starting to be indignant.
“Blake,” Newman said softly. I think he was warning me to stop poking at the doctor.
The doctor typed something on his phone. “Marshal Blake, what’s your first name?”
“Anita,” I said.
He shook his head. “No, he said his name was Blake.”
“No, I was talking to Marshal Blake. I’m Marshal Win Newman.”
“Can you spell your first name, please?”
Newman did. Then the doctor turned to me. “You’re Marshal Anita what?”
“Blake, Marshal Anita Blake, and you are Doctor what?” I asked.
He typed my name before he said, “Dr. Jameson.”
“Dr. Jameson, what?” I asked.
“Corbin Jameson. Why does it matter what my name is?”
“I just want to make sure your name goes on the wrongful-death suit along with ours. The more the merrier, you know.”
That stopped him enough that he looked at me, really looked at me, maybe for the first time. “What are you talking about?”
“Tell him why we’re here, Newman,” I said.
Newman explained in the briefest terms that we were fighting a time limit, and when it was over, he would be forced to execute Bobby Marchand, but that we weren’t convinced he was guilty of the crime. “That’s why we’re here, Dr. Jameson: to try to gather enough information to either clear the accused of the crime so we don’t kill the wrong man or gather evidence that absolutely proves his guilt. Jocelyn Marchand is the only living witness to what happened that night, except for the accused. We can’t trust that his information isn’t self-serving, so that’s why we’re here.”
“You are all just murderers with badges,” Dr. Jameson said.
“Sometimes that’s what it feels like, but this time I’m trying to save a life. Won’t you help me save a life, Dr. Jameson?” Newman said.
The doctor looked at all of us, thinking for longer than I thought it should take, but we were ahead right now. I didn’t need to do anything but keep my mouth shut. I think we all tried to look harmless and sincere. Some of us were better at it than others, but Olaf did his best.
“I want your name, too,” Dr. Jameson said, looking at Olaf.
“I am Otto Jeffries, Marshal Otto Jeffries.”
Dr. Jameson typed the name into his phone and then put it back in his coat pocket. He looked at us one at a time, studying us individually for a long time. It was like he was trying to weigh and measure our worth, or maybe he just thought if he looked at us long enough, we’d crack under his steely gaze. At least two of us looked at him calmly. Newman was having trouble with his blank cop face today.
“Very well. If you give me a number to reach you at, I’ll let you know when the sedative wears off enough for Ms. Marchand to be able to speak with you, but only with myself and at least one nurse present. Is that clear?” He gave us his hard look again. It must have played hell on the nerves of his interns, but the three of us managed to remain calm.
Newman gave him his cell phone number and mine as a backup. We got the doctor’s assurance that he would let us question Jocelyn when she woke up. It was the best offer we were going to get, so we took it and left.