She filled him in, including her announcement about sealing the place. “So,” she finished, “am I in trouble for exceeding my authority? And if not, can I get someone here to confirm manner of death in a way the courts will accept? Karonski would be best, but if not him, another
Wiccan. And I could use some evidence techs. Leung screwed up the scene, no telling how many big, dirty cop feet have already trampled through, but we still need to try. And who handles the door-to-door?“
There followed one painful second of silence, broken by Ruben’s chuckle. “You seem to be dealing well with the loss of Karonski—whom you can’t have back yet, I’m afraid, so we’ll have to call in civilian experts. There’s a coven in Los Angeles whose testimony has held up well. I’ll send them down. Call the district office—no, I’ll do it. They’ll take over working the scene, but you’ll need to solicit the cooperation of local authorities for the door-to-door.”
“Yes, sir. Leung’s an idiot, however.” They would need a whole coven to do what Karonski normally did on his own? She had questions about that but filed them mentally for now. “He’s the type who’d screw up the investigation just to make me look bad. Ah, I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot.”
“So I gathered,” Ruben said dryly. “Cope. You’ll take Weaver in to check out the scene?”
“Yes, sir. She’s getting her feet covered now.”
“Good. I have this feeling… well, keep her involved, just in case. Oh, about the staff. I’ve been asked to instruct you to preserve it for study, if at all possible.”
Lily opened her mouth to protest—and closed it again. He hadn’t actually told her not to destroy the staff, had he? Just that he’d been asked to tell her that. “Yes, sir,” she said carefully.
“Call me this evening to update, unless events dictate otherwise.”
She told him good-bye, disconnected, and put up her phone.
Cynna had been listening in with an interested expression on her face. Rule stood a little ways away, closer to Leung—probably eavesdropping on that conversation instead of hers.
Good. She knew what he’d think about any directive to preserve the staff instead of destroying it. She tended to agree with him, but needed to think it over.
“Come on,” she said to Cynna. “Let’s see what we can learn.”
Lily knew she was locking the barn door after the proverbial horse had scooted. Leung had already botched the scene. But she’d preserve what she could, which meant Rule stayed out for now. He hadn’t given her a hard time about that, proving he could be reasonable when he wanted.
The living room was small, beige, and spotless. She stopped in the middle of it, looking around. Kim Curtis had been a tidy person. The carpet was recently vacuumed, the room itself as tidy as Lily’s apartment, if not as sparsely furnished. The matching armchairs looked new. The couch was slip-covered in ivory matelassé, with two pale green pillows that precisely matched the chairs. A couple of prints hung on the walls—nice frames, conventional landscapes. The entertainment unit held a large television, an old VCR, a new CD/DVD player, and five cloth-covered boxes.
No glasses or plates in sight. If Curtis had offered Harlowe a drink, they hadn’t had it in here.
Lily went to the entertainment unit and opened one of the boxes.
“What are you looking for?” Cynna asked from behind her.
“I don’t know.” The boxes all held CDs and movies— tapes and DVDs. “She liked old musicals. And chick flicks.”
“She was doing okay for herself, wasn’t she? She was just twenty-two, but she had her own place, decent stuff.”
“Yes.” She straightened. “Maybe some of this wasn’t paid for yet, but she was doing okay.” Until she ran into Harlowe. Lily’s jaw tightened. “Let’s check out the bedroom.”
‘’It was a real treat, watching you take that little pissant apart.“ Cynna said as she followed Lily down the hall. ”Quite a lesson for me in respecting local authority.“
Lily winced. “Is it too late for ‘do as I say, not as I do”?“
Cynna chuckled. “Did you make up all that legal stuff you quoted at him?”
Lily stepped into the back bedroom and looked around. “I may have gotten some of the section numbers wrong. The gist was accurate.”
“That’s just scary. You really know all that code?”
“Bits and pieces. I’ve been trying to get up to speed.” Kim hadn’t done as much decorating in here. White walls, hand-me down furniture that didn’t match, but it wasn’t an interesting mismatch, either. “I don’t know if Karonski told you, but I haven’t been with the Unit long. I used to work homicide.”
The unmade bed drooled white sheets and a faded pink-and-yellow comforter onto the floor. No blood, but the body had voided itself in death, so it didn’t smell great in here.
“Gah.” Cynna’s nose wrinkled. “I’m glad I’m not Rule.”
“He doesn’t react to smells the way we do,” Lily said absently. No pictures on the wails, but above the bed were three wooden crosses. Handmade, she thought. Pretty things, really. “Most of the time, scent is information to him. Like if we see a pile of dog shit on the ground, no big deal. We get the message to step around it. Smells are mostly like that for him.”
“If you say so.”
There was a Bible on the bedside table. Lily frowned at it, trying to fit the signs of religious devotion with someone who picked up a stranger in a bar. Some religious types strayed from the straight and narrow on a regular basis, yet that didn’t seem to fit this time. Why?
Because the devotional items were in here, she realized.
In Kim’s personal space, not out in her living area. Her faith hadn’t been for show, yet she’d picked up a stranger in a bar. She turned to Cynna. “From what you told me, you can’t look for traces of Harlowe yet because you don’t have his pattern, but you can look for bits that don’t match with the victim’s.”
“I’ll need to sort some of her things first, pick up her pattern. Then…” She glanced at the bed. “Then I’ll see what 1 can pick out that isn’t hers.”
“Have at it. I’ll check things in my own way.” Lily had only touched death magic once. It hadn’t been pleasant. She tugged off one glove, steeling herself.
Cynna was removing her gloves, too. “I was thinking that we might be able to estimate the strength of the staff.”
“How’s that?”
“What’s your I.M.P.?”
Lily paused. “My what?”
“I.M.P. You know—Innate Magic Potential.” When Lily looked at her blankly, she asked incredulously, “You have been tested, haven’t you?”
“Oh. Right.” She remembered Karonski saying something about it. “The test wouldn’t work on me because it uses a spell to gauge the strength of the subject’s Gift. The spell would slide right off.”
“Shit. I guess that makes sense. Maybe there’s some other way to estimate the strength of your Gift. It was strong enough to keep the staff from affecting you, so—”
“It doesn’t work that way. I don’t…” Lily’s voice drifted off as she placed her palm on the pillow, right where an impression remained from Kim Curtis’s head.
“Hey, you okay?”
“I’m fine.” That came out automatically. It was almost true. “I just hate the feel of this stuff.”
“Death magic, huh? What does it feel like?”
“Ground glass and rotting flesh.” Only worse. She didn’t have words to describe the corruption of it. She’d hoped she could tell if there was some difference, some change in the magic with someone else using the staff, but the sheer foulness overwhelmed everything else.
Lily shook her hand to rid herself of the lingering sensation and pulled her glove back on. “As I was saying, being a sensitive isn’t like other Gifts. I never used to think of it as a Gift at all. actually.”