“You fight with your lupus dude much?”
She punched the button again. “On what planet would that be any of your business?”
“Friends get to ask that sort of thing.”
“We aren’t friends!”
That came out too hard, too strong. The flicker of hurt in his eyes was real, judging by how quickly he hid it with a grin. “Don’t think I mentioned it at the time, but that’s one of the things I appreciated about you. You didn’t give me that ‘let’s just be friends’ crap.”
“Cody.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “You want to get together and have a heart-to-heart, fine. But later, dammit. Right now, I’ve got an investigation. It’s not about just one guy—one lupus—who got stabbed. It’s a whole, huge, scary lot more than that. That’s where my focus belongs. You are not helping.”
He regarded her out of eyes gone flat and unreadable, then pushed the button she’d tried twice, and held it down. “Magruder’s on vacation. Davis did the autopsy. He’s new, so you may not know him, but he’s got a good eye.”
The door opened. “You don’t have to lean on the goddamn buzzer,” the young man snapped. “I’m coming as fast as I—oh, hey, Cody. What’s up?”
“Jamal, my man.” Cody and the attendant executed an elaborate high five, then Cody intoned, “We’ve come to see dead people.”
Jamal cracked up. Cody could do that—make the corni est line sound fresh and funny. And he knew everyone. There were one and a quarter million people in San Diego, and Cody seemed to know half of them by name. Grinning, Jamal said, “You’re at the right place, then.”
“Then I got one thing right today. Jamal, this is Agent Yu,” Cody said as they came in.
“Sure, I know you,” the attendant said, amiable now. “Lily Yu, right? But I thought you were a detective.”
“Used to be. I’m with the FBI now.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Want to have a seat? Dr. Davis is working on another one right now, but he’ll be out to talk to you when he’s done.”
“I need to see the body with the wound to the heart. I can do that while I’m waiting for Dr. Davis.”
“Guess that ought to be okay. He’s a smelly one,” Jamal warned as he started down the hall. “I’ll get you a mask, but it won’t help.”
“Worse than a floater?”
“Four, five days in this heat—what do you think?”
The door to the second autopsy room opened and a tall, lanky man with silver-rimmed glasses, a Jay Leno chin, and dirty blond hair stepped out. He was unfastening his green surgical gown when he noticed them. He frowned. “Cody. You don’t have a case here, do you?”
“Not today,” Cody said cheerfully. “You called me about that one you did this morning, remember?”
“Right.” His gaze flicked to Lily. “This must be the FBI agent you mentioned.”
“Lily Yu,” she said, moving forward and holding out her hand. “You’re Dr. Davis?”
He reached out to shake automatically. His hand was large, dry, and devoid of magic. “Good to meet you, Agent Yu. You’re interested in Mr. Xing, I understand.”
Lily’s heart kicked up a beat. Maybe she knew this vic. “If he’s the man with the wound to the heart, then yes, I am. You’ve ID’ed him?”
“I did that,” said another voice. “It’s tentative, pending the dental.”
An older man sauntered down the hall from the direction of the offices. His white hair and beard gave him the look of Santa in civvies. The blue eyes twinkling behind gold-rimmed glasses heightened the effect, though Santa wasn’t supposed to have . . . Well, those weren’t just bags beneath his eyes. More like steamer trunks.
“T.J.,” Lily said, grinning with pleasure. “You’ve grown fur.”
He gave a nod to Cody and stopped in front of Lily, fingering his new beard. “Hides the wrinkles.”
T.J. didn’t just have wrinkles. He had deep, droopy crevasses. “It looks good on you, but how in the world do you get away with a beard?”
Cody’s phone chimed just then. He plucked it from his pocket, glanced at it, and moved a few feet away. “Beck here.”
“Doctor’s orders,” T.J. said.
“The doctor ordered you to grow a beard?”
“Got this dermatitis thing that’s irritated by shaving.”
He looked completely serious. T.J. always looked completely serious when he was winding you up, which was pretty often. The man might resemble Santa, but he had a sick and twisted sense of humor. He was also one of the best cops she knew. He’d mentored her when she got transferred to Homicide. “This your case, then?” she asked.
“It was. You going to grab it away from me?”
“I play nice, when I can.”
He shook his head mournfully. “Didn’t learn that from me.”
Actually, she had. “You said the vic’s name is Xing. Anyone I know?”
“Probably. I made him based on what’s left of the tattoo on his right bicep. One of those Chinese thingies they use for writing. You’d recognize it.”
The Xings had an import company. They brought in cheap pottery, souvenirs, and heroin. “Which brother was it?”
“Too short for Zhou, so it must be one of the twins. We’ll need dental to be sure.”
Cody put up his phone. “Lily, that was dispatch. I have to go.”
There were maybe a dozen things she might say, but none seemed right. She kept it business. “I’ll be in touch about what I learn here. Thanks for the tip.”
Cody’s dark eyes flicked between her and T.J. “T.J., good to see you—however briefly. Later.” He lifted a hand in a casual farewell and headed for the door.
She didn’t realize she was watching him go until the door closed behind him and T.J. drawled, “He does have a cute ass.”
“That he does.” Lily felt a twinge of embarrassment at being caught looking, but only a twinge. “I didn’t think you were wired right to appreciate it, though. Camille know about that?”
“Camille,” he said of his wife of thirty-some-odd years, “knows everything. Absodamnlutely everything. Seems like I heard you and Beck were an item a while back.”
“Five years ago. It’s kind of weird, running into him again.” And that was enough of that subject. “I need to see the body.”
“Think you mean you need to touch it.”
She met T.J.’s eyes. They weren’t twinkling now. The whole time she’d worked with him—with everyone in the SDPD—she’d hidden her Gift. Some had guessed, but they’d kept quiet about it. T.J. was one of those who knew and hadn’t spoken. “Yeah,” she said at last. “That’s what I mean.”
“What’s this? You want to touch the body?” Dr. Davis shook his head. “That’s against procedure.”
“It’s part of my procedure, Doctor. I’m a touch sensitive. Your DB’s wounds sound like those inflicted in a near-fatal attack I’m investigating—one which involved the use of magic. If I can pick up traces of magic on the wound, I’ve got a solid connection.”
The frown lingered. “I didn’t know that sort of thing was considered evidence.”
“What I learn from my Gift isn’t admissible in court, but I’m allowed to use inadmissible leads in pursuance of an investigation.” And tired of explaining that, but it came with the territory.
“Hmm. I suppose that makes sense.”
She bit back the urge to tell him the attorney general would be glad to hear that the pathologist agreed with him. “What can you tell me about the wound?”
He was on comfortable ground again. “Entry from the rear, angled up through the fifth and sixth ribs to penetrate the left ventricle. The assailant used a very thin blade, between one quarter and three quarters of an inch in width. I can’t be more precise due to the decomposition of the flesh, I’m afraid.”