Another head-shake. “No. I had him go through it—he was here.”
“And didn’t hear anything?” I was surprised. Shifter hearing should have been good enough for him to hearthat. Because the blood spatter on the garage door told me that whoever had done it had skinned the poor animal here.
“I was downstairs working. I had a lot of cutting to do on the circ, and I had on ear protectors.”
Elliot looked like shit. Pale under the copper tone of his skin. Eyes haunted. Desperate.
I had no idea what to do. I wanted to wrap him in my arms, hold him, tell him it would be okay. That I would keep him safe.
I wasn’t a fighter, though. Sure, I’d fight for him if it came down to that, but if I were being honest with myself, I’d almost certainly lose if any skill was required. I had size and brute strength, assuming whoever I was fighting wasn’t a shifter, orc, or vampire, and that went a long way to making people not want to pick fights with me, but faced with someone who was more skilled, I was probably going to lose.
So I didn’t know if I could keep Elliot safe. But I was willing to try. I just didn’t know if he wanted that from me.
I met his eyes, trying to read his thoughts in the chips of green and brown and gold. But I’d never been very good at that.It seemed pretty clear to me that he wantedsomethingfrom me, but I really wasn’t sure what that was.
I was afraid of failing him.
But I also had a job to do.
I thought about asking if he was okay, but I could see that he wasn’t. I wanted to touch him—a hug, a hand on his shoulder or arm, something. But I didn’t know if it would be welcome. Or if it would be welcome in front of other people.
So instead I turned to Smith. “Am I clear to work?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” came the response. “Go ahead.”
I nodded, then turned to go reclaim my shoes.
“And Mays?”
I turned back.
“Get me something I can use.”
I nodded again.
This one was personal.
My fingers werenumb by the time I finished with the dead badger and was ready to come back inside.
I’d started with photographs of the scene, the tire tracks on the side of the driveway that Elliot never used, his truck parked where it always was, and the footprints that led into the woods, connecting to ATV tracks. Then I took the internal temperature of the animal, took some hair samples from both the hide and the skinned carcass, and measured the injuries to the body. I bagged it, making a mental note to ask Smith if we could get Borde to do a necropsy. I didn’t particularly care how the poor creature had died, but if the ME could figure out what kind of weapon had been used, thatmightbe useful. Not that I thoughtBorde was going to agree willingly, but maybe Smith had some powers of persuasion I didn’t.
Animal cruelty wasn’t the worst charge that could be levied against someone, but in this case it was compounded by also being an explicit threat against Elliot—and if the local prosecutor was feeling particularly just, they’d file it as a death threat. I didn’t know enough about the local DA to know if they’d be more sympathetic to Elliot or to the badger’s killer, though.
Once I felt as though I’d done everything I could with the body and hide, I’d moved on to the foot prints and tire tracks, making plaster casts of the clearest portions of each, my hands rapidly chilling as I worked. This was why I’d started with the badger—once the nearly-freezing cold plaster made my fingers this cold, I lost fine motor skills, and trying to remove hair and fiber samples with a tweezers would have been virtually impossible.
It had become dark by the time I’d finished blocking out and pouring the last plaster cast, each marked with a flag and cordoned off by crime scene tape. I’d be able to pry out the plaster in the morning.
Most of the uniforms had left once I packed up the gradually-freezing badger and its hide, although I did manage to convince one of the last ones to take the animal back to the morgue for storage, although he made a face when he agreed to it. Once he’d left, I put a note in my phone to stop by the precinct and give him cookies or something as a thank you.
It was never a bad idea to stay on people’s good sides if you had the option.
Smith was still inside, so I trudged back to the house, pulling off my mask and stripping off the bunny suit outside the front door. I left them in a pile, planning to take care of them later—Elliot didn’t need to see the blood- and mud-stained gear.
I could hear Elliot and Smith talking from the back of the house when I came in, toeing off my shoes and setting down the gear bag and the tote containing the evidence bags by the door before stripping off my coat and putting it on the coat tree.
Smith was doing most of the talking, I could tell, mostly to fill the silence and keep Elliot’s mind off whatever horrible things he was probably thinking about. His dad’s murder. The implied threat against his own life. The attempt that had actually been made on his life last winter.
I padded into the kitchen in my socks, and both of them looked up at me, Elliot from his stool at the island, Smith from where he was leaning against the counter. They both had mugs of hot chocolate, and I was deeply envious, my nose runny and probably red from the cold.
