Ten minutes later, the door closed behind the chief and his detectives—who hadn’t been precisely thrilled to learn that Brown would be handling the coordination of city, county, and federal officers.
Deacon paused on his way out. “You think that’s a good idea, putting him in charge?” A jerk of his chin indicated Brown, still seated at the conference table.
“Agent Brown assures me he’s good at working with the locals. Though I’ll admit,” she said with a glance his way, “at the time I made the decision I hadn’t realized he was referring to the use of blackmail.”
Brown actually had a real smile. His lips curved up and his eyes lit with amusement. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Marianne Potter?” Deacon cocked an inquisitive eyebrow.
Brown waggled a hand. “Friend of a friend.”
“Your friend is a friend of the owner of a, ah, real well-known escort service?”
At this interesting point Lily’s phone buzzed. That meant a call forwarded from her official number. She grabbed it. “Yu here.”
“I sure am,” a cheery male voice said. “How’d you guess?” A chuckle. “I suppose you’ve heard that before. My sense of humor is, alas, very basic. Oh, this is Dr. Alderson. I conducted the autopsy on your dogs.”
“Right. Thanks for calling, Doctor.” She glanced at her watch. “You’ve learned something? Given the way magic screws up lab results, I wasn’t sure how much you’d be able to find out.”
“Your dogs weren’t intrinsically magic, so the magic still present doesn’t seem to be interfering with tests. And of course the visual exam is unaffected.”
“But you did treat the bodies as biohazards?”
“Oh, yes. Quite a nuisance, but I don’t want to catch whatever those poor beasts had. I’ll skip the gross physical findings for now, save to confirm that they had indeed ingested human remains prior to death. Oh, and there was a chip in one animal—the Doberman—so we were able to get a name and address for the owner, or at least the person who owned him at one time. Do you want that now?”
Hot damn. “Absolutely.” Lily grabbed a pad and pen. “Shoot.”
He gave her the name and address—a Halo address—then said, “The part I thought you might find interesting concerns the brain damage.”
“Brain damage.”
“Oh, yes. There’s significant generalized damage superficially similar to that caused by encephalitis, most extensive in key structures—the hippocampus, the prefrontal lobe, the frontal and temporal cortexes, with lesser damage to the amygdala. Specimens from those regions exhibit intrusions strikingly similar to Negri bodies, though the dFA was negative, precluding rabies.”
She understood the last two words. “So it wasn’t rabies.”
“That’s what I said. We’ve just begun the lab work, but there seems to be significant alteration in rostral linear nuclei and in periaqueductal gray neurons. Also, there is a notable loss of Purkinje cells—a condition that, in humans, is associated with ocular motor apraxia.”
“You do realize I have no idea what you’re saying, right? Except the ocular part. That means eyes.”
“Oh, dear.” He chuckled. “The layman’s version, then. I found extensive inflammation of the brain which was particularly severe in the regions associated with memory and emotional control. I understand the dogs attacked you? Poor things had no choice. They would have been flooded with rage.”
“And the part about the eyes?”
“There’s damage in the area of the brain that controls movement of the eyes.”
“Blinking?” she said, suddenly urgent. “Could it cause someone to blink a lot, or not at all?”
“Hmm.” He was silent a moment. “Possibly. One study suggested that synaptic plasticity occurring in Purkinje cells might be involved in—oh, dear, I’m descending into technobabble again. Suffice it to say that we don’t know enough about the brain and blinking to be sure, so my answer must be ‘possibly.’ I’m sorry I can’t be more definite,” he said, his relentless good humor momentarily eclipsed by apology. “I was reluctant to call with such a preliminary report, but your Mr. Brooks assured me you’d want to know.”
“My Mr. Brooks was right.” Ruben usually was. “You’ve already told him about this?”
“Yes, and faxed a copy of—oh, that’s right. He wanted me to tell you he’d see that Georgetown University Hospital received a copy of my preliminary report. He assumed you would know what that meant.”
“Yeah, the obvious is finally biting me in the ass. Give me a minute to think this through.” She tapped her fingers on her thigh, scowling, as she did just that. “Okay. One more thing I need you to do,” she said. And told him.
He agreed, asked a couple of questions, and refined her original suggestion. Lily disconnected.
“That’s just gross.”
The agent who’d spoken was almost as short as Lily and ten years older, with fluffy blond hair and twenty extra pounds. She was also named Brown—Mirabelle Brown—and the others called her Brown Two.
“It is,” Lily agreed. “But it’s the surest way to find out if my initial assumption about those dogs was wrong.”
Brown Two’s nose wrinkled. “And feeding bits of them to some other poor animal will tell you what, exactly?”
“Whether the death magic can be ingested along with the flesh.” She glanced at Deacon, who still hovered near the door, determined to hear whatever she’d learned. Looked like she owed him one. “I assumed that’s what happened to the dogs.”
“I recall that,” he said levelly.
“Unfortunately, we all know what ‘assume’ makes of ‘u’ and ‘me.’ The vet who autopsied them is going to—”
At that moment the fax machine began chattering.
“The vet is quick,” she said wryly. “Very briefly, Dr. Alderson found a pathology in the dogs’ brains that relates to symptoms exhibited by Roy Don Meacham. I want to know where those dogs came from.”
“Oh, sure,” Brown Two said dryly. “Two of them had collars, but no tags. Be a cinch to find out who owned dogs that lack tags.”
Lily mentally gave the woman points for attention to detail—and verbally gave her another assignment. “No tags when we found them doesn’t mean their owners didn’t register them. That’s why you’re going to talk to Animal Control. Get a list of all the registered dogs in the area and start tracking owners of those particular breeds. But first, talk with these people.”
She handed Brown Two the name and address Dr. Alderson had given her. “They owned the Doberman at one time. Had a microchip in him. The rest of you . . .” She gave them a quick scan. “Even untagged pets can be loved and missed, so I want all of you to ask about animals matching the descriptions of these dogs when you ask about missing pets. You’re also going to share Dr. Alderson’s report with the other vets and ask about animal attacks on humans or on other animals, particularly where one animal killed another.”
No one said anything for a moment. Then Deacon did, softly. “Shit.”
The obvious had just taken a chunk out of his ass, too. Lily gave him a level look. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“I’m not following you,” said the youngest agent—a man who, thank God, was not named Brown.
“If you’ve read my report about finding the first bodies, you know Rule Turner was attacked, but not killed, near the bodies.”
“Yeah,” Brown One said, the usual grumpy expression on his plump face. “Doesn’t fit. Why was the perp even there?”
“Exactly. My consultant suggested some kind of spell-trap near the bodies, but that’s not a very satisfying explanation. Why didn’t the dogs spring it? Why even have a trap? But if we toss out some assumptions, it starts making sense. Maybe the perp was there because that’s where he hangs when he’s between murders. Maybe he made Turner for lupus after initiating the attack and decided to go after something easier to kill, like me and Deacon.”