Eileen Wilks - Human Nature

Caucasian, brown and blond, weight maybe one-eighty carried on a five-foot ten-inch frame. Steve Hilliard had been built like a fullback, with streaky blond hair and the sort of face that gets called all-American…if you think of Americans in terms of an all-white, Andy Griffith Show cast.

He was clean-shaven, which was typical for a lupus; Rule’s father was the only one she could think of offhand who wore a full beard. No visible scars. Also typical, since lupi heal without producing scar tissue…unless the injury comes from a demon’s poisoned claws. But demons were—thank God—rare, especially the ones with poison. Rule was the only lupus with a scar.

A quick visual told Lily that Steve Hilliard had no obvious physical flaws. Aside from the large one in his throat, that is. And as long as you didn’t consider tattoos a flaw.

He didn’t have a lot of dried blood on him, either. And that was odd.

“Look just like us, don’t they?” the morgue attendant said.

Lily glanced at him. Morton Wright was over forty, reed-thin, with geek glasses and acne scars—not exactly Steve Hilliard’s twin. But she liked the sentiment. “Lupi, you mean? Yes, they do. Some people have a problem with that.”

He shrugged. “In this job, you get philosophical. Used to be, some folks got churned up about skin color. Now they worry about people turning furry or whatever. But they’re all dead by the time I get to know them. Way I see it, black or white, part-time furry or not, dead is dead.”

Lily didn’t think everyone had gotten over the skin color thing, but she let that pass. “They do call it the great equalizer. Was Hilliard cleaned up before you got him?”

“Hell, no.” Wright was offended. “We may be a Podunk little town, but we’ve got professionals here. We don’t clean up a body before the autopsy.”

“Sorry. I needed to ask. Not much blood on him, is there?”

Wright switched back to agreeable. “Not what you’d expect, huh? Not from a wound like that. You open up a guy’s jugular that way, you’d expect blood to go everywhere.”

“Yeah, I would.” She hadn’t seen the police reports yet, didn’t know anything about the site where the body was found except the general location—higher up in the mountains, according to the newspaper.

It should have been a county case, dammit. Lily knew some of the county law enforcement people. But Del Cielo had drawn its city boundaries with great optimism, and they included the neglected hiking trail where Hilliard’s body had been found.

A body that would be taken to the county morgue tomorrow to await autopsy. Del Cielo didn’t have the facilities for that; this morgue was in the basement of their small hospital. “I’m going to get a few pictures of that tattoo.”

She’d fastened her phone to her jacket pocket earlier, so unclipped it now and bent to study the tattoos ringing Hilliard’s neck. The design went all the way around, like a wide, lacy choker interrupted by the gaping wound across the front of his throat. The tattoo was intricate and nonpictorial—no images of flowers or daggers or whatever. No words or recognizable symbols.

Recognizable to her, anyway. Briefly, fiercely, she wished for Cynna, whose body was covered in tattoos rather like this one. Tattoos that were actually spells.

But Cynna was in another realm…alive, Lily reminded herself. Alive and doing okay, according to the optimism she’d promised herself for another three months. She raised her phone and took pictures of the tattoo from various angles, then had the attendant roll the body on its side so she could get the rest of the pattern, which went all the way around.

Finally she put her phone away. “I’ll need to scrub before I do the rest.”

Wright nodded amiably. “Sure. You explained about that. Sink’s to your left.”

Lily scrubbed thoroughly. The body hadn’t been autopsied yet, and though it was unlikely the lab results would be useful—body fluids from those of the Blood tended to screw up lab results, even after death—she’d do this by the book. “Did you know Jason Chance?” she asked casually.

“Sure. The chief’s wrong there,” Wright said. “So were the jefes. Jason’s a good guy. Shouldn’t’ve fired him.”

Jason Chance was the lupus the police had locked up pending formal charges. He was also a nurse. It was not the profession where Lily expected to find a part-time wolf, and it made her curious about him in a nonprofessional way.

She returned to the body. “Did Jason come see you when he visited Hilliard?”

“Naw. Not this time, anyway. Last time he was in town he did.”

Lily nodded. Then she laid her bare fingertips on the edges of the wound.

Cold, flaccid skin. A few flakes of dried blood. Nothing else. She probed gently inside the wound. Still nothing.

One more place to check. She touched an intact part of the tattoo on the side of Hilliard’s neck. The tingle of magic was faint—too faint for her to identify the type. But it was, by God, present. “Mr. Wright—”

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded a tenor voice that did not belong to the morgue attendant.

Lily straightened and turned. The man who’d just entered was fat and freckled with thick, gingery red hair. Very Auld Sod. He wore a khaki uniform and badge, a hip holster, and a scowl.

The voice went with the scowl. “Morton, you’d better have a good explanation for letting this—”

Lily interrupted coolly. “He does. Would you be Chief Daly?”

“I am. Who the hell are you?”

“Special Agent Lily Yu, FBI. I left several messages for you.”

“And just what are you doing here, messing with evidence?”

Lily raised her eyebrows. “Obviously you don’t respond to your messages. Do you not listen to them, either?”

He waved that away. “I got your goddamned message. You want to stick your nose into my murder case. That doesn’t give you the right to go messing with the victim’s body, messing up evidence. You don’t even have goddamned gloves on.”

“Which is why I scrubbed first. I’m a touch sensitive. I can’t gather information with gloves on.”

“You’re what?”

“A sensitive,” Wright said helpfully. “You know, one of those folks who can feel magic when they touch it. Like on that old show, Touching Fire—you remember it? With Michelle Pfeiffer and that guy—I can’t remember his name, but he played in—”

“Jesus Christ, Morton, spare me. I know what a sensitive is. I don’t know what Agent Yu here hopes to prove by feeling up a dead werewolf.”

Oh, yeah. Working with this red-headed ape was going to be fun. “Since you’ve torn yourself away from your other duties to speak with me, Chief Daly, perhaps we could take this discussion somewhere less chilly.”

“Not much to discuss. You’re butting out.”

“No. I’m not. I need to wash up.” She didn’t wait for a response, heading back to the sink she’d used before. “I understand the body was found by a hiker.”

“That’s right. He was found within city limits, which makes this my case. Nothing to do with you.”

She turned, drying her hands. “No? Where’s the blood?”

“You think I don’t know your type?” One thick finger jabbed in her general direction. “Publicity hound. Gets you plenty of attention, doesn’t it, swooping in here and stirring things up, calling the press to feed them whatever crap you think will get you a headline.”

“You don’t know me, Chief. I have not and will not contact the press, and I sincerely hope no one else does, either. I need to see the reports you have on this case.”

“Yeah, well, I need a vacation. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

“I have the authority to require your cooperation.” She returned to her purse, extracted the little folder with her badge, and showed it to him.