I’d been around death enough that I didn’t panic. I decided to call in the Cavalry. I tightened my grip on Smooshie’s leash, intending to return to the house, but a silvery glint next to the body caught my eye. I squatted for a better look.
Mostly buried in the snow, the edge of the object gleamed. I put on my glove and picked up the item. It was an alligator clip. I’d found several in my brother’s room after he died, along with a few mostly smoked marijuana cigarettes, aka roaches, and a one-hitter, its sides thick with pot resin. I’d been aware of his drug use, but he’d been an adult, and he was allowed to make his own choices.
I sniffed the clip. No dank earthy smell. Huh. I expected to get at least a vague marijuana scent, but there was nothing.
Was this important to Katherine’s death? Or had some kid dropped it back here? I couldn’t be sure, so I dropped it back where I’d found it.
“Hey!” Parker stood at the edge of his porch holding his bat. “Who’s back there?”
“It’s me,” I yelled. “Lily.”
He jogged out to Smooshie and me, his boots loosely laced and his jacket unbuttoned. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t freak out.”
His expression turned wary. “When people say don’t freak out, it’s because there’s something to freak out about.”
“I can’t argue with your logic.” I stepped back and turned, pointing to the corpse.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse, his breath quickening to a pant. Elvis nudged his big head under Parker’s hand, and I heard Parker’s breathing almost immediately slow down. The dog had an unbelievable calming effect on his friend. “Please don’t tell me she was mauled by dogs.”
“I really don’t think a pit bull can wield a blunt object. Her head looks like a burst melon.”
He paled. Elvis nudged him again.
“Sorry,” I said. “That was too graphic.”
“No. It’s okay. I’ve seen worse.” He glanced at Katherine’s corpse. “I thought I’d gotten away from death after I left Afghanistan. But here it is in my own backyard.”
“I’m sorry.” I waited a beat. “I don’t have my cell phone. Do you?”
Parker shook his head. “I’ll call nine-one-one from the house.”
“Okay.” I handed him Smooshie’s leash. “You take the dogs inside, and I’ll wait with the body.”
Parker’s relief was almost palpable. I couldn’t begin to imagine the horrors he’d witnessed as a soldier, or how those memories continued to haunt and hurt him.
Fifteen minutes later, three police cars and one volunteer firefighter truck parked along the sidewalk in front of Parker’s place. They had come in sirens blaring, and I could see house lights going on down the street.
The first person on the scene introduced himself as Sheriff Mike Avery, a burly man with super short salt-and-pepper hair. He had deep squint lines around his eyes, full-on crevices in his forehead, and lips that dropped into a frown. He smelled like French fries, strawberry ice cream, malt, and…kale chips. He wore a green ball cap with Sheriff embroidered across the front and law enforcement emblems decorating the bill. It matched his green uniform pants. He pulled a pen and small notebook from the pocket of his black winter coat.
“Miss Masters…”
“Mason,” I corrected him. “Mason.”
“Yes,” he said, his mouth puckering as if he’d eaten something sour. “What were you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
I resisted the urge to say, “I was really hoping to find a dead body. And look, I found a doozy.” Instead, I said, “I’d come out with Smooshie—”
“Who is Smooshie?” he interrupted, his voice suspicious.
“She’s my dog,” I said, surprising myself with how easy it was to stake my claim. I’d barely known her a day, but I already felt like she’d always been mine.
He made a tight-lipped “uh-huh” noise. “So you brought the dog out here for what purpose?”
I stared at him, but his serious gaze never wavered. Once again, I found myself biting my tongue to prevent a sarcastic comment. I sighed. “She needed to pee. Maybe poop. I don’t know which.”
“Uh-huh.” Avery’s heavy brows furrowed, two hairy commas highlighting deep-set eyes. I think his default expression must be set on “disapproval.” He scribbled in his notebook. What clue could he possibly derive from a dog’s bathroom habits? Did he plan to question my dog about doing Number One or Number Two?
I looked across the yard at Parker, who was being interviewed by another police officer. Parker had his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed with anger, his body bristling with annoyance. I wanted to go to him, to reassure him, but that was stupid. Just like the dog and this town, I barely knew the man. One meal didn’t make us close. Hell, it didn’t even make us friends.
“Miss Mason.” I heard my name and a strident tapping. Sheriff Avery was tapping his pen against his notepad. When I refocused my attention on him, he looked at me then looked at Parker then back to me. “What is your relationship with Parker Knowles?”
“So far, he’s given me temporary shelter and made me the best spaghetti I’ve ever had.”
“Uh-huh.” He flipped a page and then I watched the pen scratch across the paper.
“Do you know how to spell spaghetti?” I asked. I rose up on my tiptoes and tried to get a look at his notes.
He moved back, clucking his tongue. “You don’t want to be charged with obstruction of justice, do you?”
My shoulders slumped. “What else do you need to know?”
“Are you sure Parker was in the house when you discovered Mrs. Kapersky?”
“Well, he wasn’t in the backyard. It was just Smooshie and me.” I jabbed a thumb at the body behind me. “And her.”
The sheriff stared a hole right through me. “And you saw Parker with the bat?”
Suddenly wary, I nodded. Confirming that I’d seen him with the bat felt somehow like a betrayal.
“Are we almost done?” I asked. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore.”
“You seem in an awful hurry to get rid of me, Miss Mason.”
Hell, yeah, I do. “If I stay out here much longer, you’ll have a second body on your hands. It’s twenty-five degrees outside, and I’m freezing.”
“Uh-huh.”
He put away the pen and notebook. “If you decide to move elsewhere in town, update my office with your new address. And Miss Mason…” He wrinkled his nose at me and sniffed. “Don’t leave town.”
“Wait. What? You think I’m a suspect?” I gaped at him. “Seriously?”
“Yep.” Turning on the heel of his shiny, black boot, Sheriff Avery joined his deputy and Parker on the back porch. A man wearing a windbreaker over his winter coat that said “Coroner,” approached me. I’d seen him poking around the body when the sheriff had pulled me aside. I guessed him to be in his mid-thirties. He had blond hair, light-brown eyes, and his frame was tall and thin. His black-rimmed glasses didn’t fit well, and he kept adjusting them on his nose.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Pretty good, especially since I’m not the one who’s dead.”
He flashed a tepid smile. “It’s unsettling to see a corpse.”
I didn’t tell him this wasn’t my first crime scene. “Yeah, it’s awful.” I noticed then that he looked a little green. “You all right?”
He swallowed. Hard. “Don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing dead bodies.” He offered me a gloved hand. We shook. “I’m Tom Jones.”
“Lily Mason,” I said. “Tom Jones. Like the guy from Henry Fielding’s novel.”
“I usually get people naming the singer.” He smiled, and it made me reassess his age. Maybe late twenties. “I like that you went for the classic.”
“Thanks,” I said. Tom the Coroner seemed like a decent guy. I couldn’t detect any deceit in his scent, so I took a chance. “Did you notice the bruising on her face? It was weird.”
“Bruising?”
“Three circular contusions, about an inch in diameter each on her right cheek, and they were blue.” He had a blank expression, so I added, “The blue bruises means they happened a couple of hours before she died. Newer bruises are red.”
He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “It was hard to get past all the blood on the back of her head.”
Were all human doctors squeamish, or was it just him? It seemed an odd occupation to have if the sight of blood made you puke. “What is your medical background, Tom?”
“I’m an orthodontist,” he answered.
A doctor for teeth? Really? I doubted Katherine died of explosive gingivitis. “So you’re a dentist?”
“Orthodontist,” he corrected.
“What’s the difference?” I asked with genuine curiosity. Shifters didn’t need dentists, usually, since we didn’t get cavities. The occasional fight might cost us a tooth, but we had the ability to grow them back. If we didn’t want to wait on nature, a witch healer could hurry things along.
“It’s like the difference between a doctor who is a general practitioner and an endocrinologist. It’s just a matter of specialty. Lots of braces and some cosmetic dentistry, though I do see regular patients as well.”
Sooo, a dentist. “You’re an orthodontist, and you’re the coroner?”
“It’s an elected position.”
That explained it. Sorta. Not really. Humans were strange. Why would someone without an M.D. want to become a coroner? And why did humans vote on who got to do it? I didn’t know how Haze or Uncle Buzz managed to assimilate in this upside-down, inside-out world.
“Don’t worry. I’m sending Mrs. Kaspersky to a state-certified medical examiner.” He chewed the left side of his lower lip. “Are you a doctor?”
“Gosh, no.”
“A nurse?”
“I like to read a lot.” I’d read anatomy and physiology books, the Physician’s Desk Reference about pharmacology, and every differential diagnostic book I could get my hands on. My senior year, I’d been accepted to Iowa University, where I’d planned to get my premed degree. My parents’ deaths had put an abrupt stop to my plans.
“I think she might have gotten into a physical fight. Maybe someone grabbed her face.” I thought about how far back on the jaw the bruises were and looked at my own hands. “Someone strong enough to leave marks.”
“Like Parker?”
I gave Tom a hard stare. “Parker had nothing to do with this.”
He seemed a little taken aback by my assertion. “He’s got military training. And everyone knows that he and Katherine had an ongoing dispute. No offense, but you haven’t been in town long enough to make a judgment call.”
I bristled. I was a Shifter and a witch, and my instincts were far better than his. “Are you investigating Parker?”
“Not me. My job is to decide if an investigation is warranted. And it is. My opinion is that this is a suspicious death.” Tom eyed me. “And I think Parker had every reason in the world to beat Katherine to death.”