“You can get the eggs and buttermilk out. Lily doesn’t make pancakes?”
“Lily butters a mean slice of toast.”
She chuckled. “Toby told me you do almost all of the cooking. I must say, I was surprised. I’d imagined you with an endless stream of women cooking for you.”
“Mrs. Asteglio, I haven’t—”
“Louise. I should have asked you to call me Louise years ago. And I know you haven’t exposed Toby to that endless stream I imagined flowing through your . . . kitchen.”
Surprised, amused, he acted instinctively, bending to kiss her cheek. “Thank you. Does this mean I’m no longer Mr. Turner?”
Her cheeks pinked. “Of course.”
“Are you all right this morning?” he asked softly. “Yesterday was . . . difficult.”
“It reminded me of why I never worked in the ER. Blood doesn’t bother me, but violence . . .” Trouble overtook her eyes, and bafflement. She shook her head sharply. “Never mind. I deal best by staying busy. You can separate out the whites, if you like, and whip them—soft peaks. The mixer’s in the second drawer by the sink.”
He retrieved the mixer. “You trust me to know about soft peaks?”
“I expect you’ve the sense to ask if you don’t. It’s good for Toby to see that men can be handy in the kitchen.”
“Lily’s learning. It offends her sense of fair play for me to do all the cooking, so she’s—” The doorbell rang. Rule didn’t allow himself to frown, but it wasn’t likely to be good news. Not at seven fifteen in the morning.
Perhaps Cullen had caught an earlier flight? “I’ll get it.”
“No, you won’t.” Mrs. Asteglio set down the bowl and started for the door. “My house, my door. You mean well, but I don’t need to be shielded.”
He considered not following her, which he thought she’d prefer. But not for long, so he was only a few paces behind her when she opened the door—without using the peephole he’d had installed years ago, dammit. She just swung the door open to whoever was there.
And said not a word.
Into the silence came another voice, one Rule hadn’t heard in person in nine years. “Hi, Mom. I’m not sure if I’m the bad penny turning up or the prodigal daughter to be welcomed with . . . Oh, hell, that’s cloying. Never mind. May I come in?”
LILY briefed her four borrowed agents along with the sheriff, the chief of police, and a couple of local detectives with homicide experience. She gave them both outline and details, omitting the source when she said there was “reason to think” the perp was male. “Not necessarily a human male,” she added. “As I said earlier, my consultant thinks it could be some creature accidentally blown here at the Turning.”
“Your consultant.” The chief of police had a good sneer going in his voice, though he kept his face bland. “Would that be someone who turns hairy once a month and howls at the moon?”
She’d already realized the chief was going to be a pain. Idiots usually were. He’d glared at her throughout the briefing, asking the occasional dumb-ass question, implying that anyone who claimed to possess magic was by definition stupid, untrustworthy, and probably evil.
This time she just looked at him a second, then went on as if he hadn’t spoken. He wanted to make her angry. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I’m hoping that the sheriff’s department and the city police will concentrate on learning everything there is to know about Meacham and Hodge. We have to figure out what they have in common. Why those two men instead of two others? This is your town, your people. You’re the best ones to handle that end.”
“Yeah, but is that going to tell us anything about who or what is doing this?” Deacon asked bluntly. “Seems like we need someone who can figure out the magic end of things.”
That would be nice. “My boss has experts looking into the possibilities, but the more information we can give them, the more help they can give us.”
“And what will your people be doing?”
“Visiting veterinarians.” Her people looked surprised by that. At least, three of them did. Nothing dented Brown’s doughy cynicism. “Human practitioners work up to human sacrifice. We need to know if animals have gone missing or been found mutilated or dead of unexplained causes. There’s also the possibility our perp isn’t human and came through at the Turning. If so, what has he been doing the last seven months? Again, there could be a connection with missing or dead animals.”
“Miss Yu.” The chief was one of those people with features too small for his face. He had narrow eyes, a dainty little nose, and a small mouth just made for pursing in disapproval, all crowded into the bottom half of his face and overwhelmed by the expanse of freshly shaved pink skin. “You talked about wanting our input, so here’s mine. You’ve built a whole huge hullabaloo out of nothing. These murders aren’t related. Meacham went nuts and killed his family. Hodge hated weers—”
“You have evidence of that?” she asked sharply.
“Not yet, but I’m betting we can confirm it pretty easy. It’s obvious, isn’t it? He went after your lover and maybe his boy.”
“There are no reports from witnesses at yesterday’s shooting to suggest Hodge aimed at Rule Turner or his son. I’m one of those witnesses. In addition, physical evidence confirms that the victims were not in a line of sight between Hodge and Turner. There is nothing to suggest that he was the intended target.”
“The old man could be senile, could be using, could be just plain nuts. You never know. But the plain fact is, there’s nothing to say these two killers are connected, nothing to say they were under some weird-ass compulsion, and nothing to prove there’s death magic involved.” Such a little mouth made for tight smiles, one of which he offered now. “If death magic even exists. I’m thinking it’s as much hogwash as demonic possession.”
Lily nodded. “I see. We’ll skip the part about demonic possession being hogwash, save to mention that the Catholic Church, several Protestant denominations, the FBI, the Secret Service, Congress, and the President of the United States disagree. Otherwise, you might have a workable theory—if I were willing to stipulate that I’m a liar.”
“Well, now, I didn’t say that. Anyone can make a mistake. All this magic stuff—people make mistakes with that all the time.”
She leaned forward, looking him right in the eye. “I’m telling you that I’ve touched death magic. I know what it feels like, and there is no possibility of a mistake. Those bodies have death magic on them. So does Meacham. So does Hodge. So did the damned dogs that attacked me and Sheriff Deacon. Am I lying?”
Apparently he was unwilling to commit to that. He fell back on glaring.
“Is your department going to cooperate with this investigation?”
“Cooperate! You call this cooperation? You’re just telling us what’s what while you ignore what we say.”
“When you disagree with the evidence of my senses, I do. I hope the police department will participate in the investigation. We could use the manpower. But if not, Sheriff Deacon has good people.”
He was silent, fuming.
Nathan Brown stirred. “Horace—it is Horace, right? I nearly forgot to give you a message. I was talkin’ to Marianne Potter over in Charlotte just last night. She said to tell you hello. Asked after that pretty little wife of yours.”
Half the color drained out of the chief’s face, leaving it blotchy. “You—you—”
Brown had a particularly nasty smile. He used it now. “Now, Horace, I know what you’re thinkin’. Agent Yu isn’t one of us. She’ll head back off to D.C. or the West Coast or somewhere. But I won’t. I’ll still be in Charlotte, less than a hundred miles from here. You might want to think about stayin’ on good terms with your local FBI office.”