And maybe now he wished he hadn’t, but pride would not let him admit this. Lily looked from one young face to the other, then up at their dad. She gave him a small, reassuring smile and a nod to let him know his sons were okay. His face sagged a little in relief. “Mr. Springer, boys, I think we’ll be able to let you go home pretty soon. I’ll need to talk to you first, but before I can do that, I have to have a word with the man who was singing.”
“‘The Old Rugged Cross,’” Ryan said.
“Pardon?”
“That’s what he was singing, which was pretty gross. Considering.”
He was right. It was pretty gross, considering. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. You need anything?”
“They said they didn’t have any Coke,” Pat said hopefully. “The police officers, I mean. Just water. Do you . . .”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any Coke, either.”
“Stupid,” Ryan informed his brother as Lily turned away. “As if FBI agents carry Cokes around with them everywhere.”
His brother said hotly, “You know who’s really stupid? People who don’t even bother to ask!” Their father was shushing them as Lily reached Erskine.
“They’re clean,” she said. “Where’s Hardy?”
“You’re sure?”
“Ninety-five percent. To be one hundred percent, I’d have to touch them everywhere, which would be scary and intrusive. But magic tends to—to spread or leak or something like that when it’s in a living organism. Even if only one part of the body is affected, there’s almost always some trace of it on the skin.”
“Almost always,” he repeated. He glanced over at Springer and the boys.
“Best I can do.” They needed Cullen. Seeing magic was better than feeling it for some things, but Cullen wouldn’t be available for hours, maybe days, depending on how hard covering Sam’s security arrangements hit him. And that made her think about what Cullen was doing right now, and what Sam was doing, and how much longer it might be before they knew if it had worked. Her stomach knotted up in a sick lump. She forced those thoughts back down. Buried them nice and tight. “Hardy?”
“In Delacroix’s squad car.” He nodded at the black-and-white at the end of the row. “We put him in there so we could take the cuffs off. He behaved himself once we got him away from the scene. Didn’t want to leave it, though. Got pretty agitated, according to Crown. That ‘person of interest’ notice you people issued said this guy can’t talk.”
“Brain damage, I’m told. Something that affected the speech center. Music is stored differently than speech, so he can sing, but he can’t put together a sentence.”
“Well, we tried getting him to write something out for us, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t do that, either. Seems to understand us when we talk to him, though.”
“Hey!” shouted one of the uniforms.
The thin woman had slipped between two of the patrol cars while the uniform wasn’t watching. She trotted up to Lily. “Special Agent, why is the FBI involved? Was this a ritual murder? Is there a connection with the amnesia victims you’ve been visiting?”
Well, damn. Looked like the story had broken after all. Lily recognized the reporter now. Milly Rodriguez was young, ambitious, and pushy as hell. That was her job, but she hadn’t figured out how to push without crossing the wrong lines. “Ms. Rodriguez, if you’ll wait where you were told to, I’ll speak with you as soon as possible. If you won’t, you go on my list. The list of reporters I do not take questions from. Ever.”
The woman considered briefly, then nodded. “Fifteen minutes.”
“No guarantees. As soon as I can.”
“I won’t wait forever,” she warned, but she retreated.
Lily and Erskine reached the patrol unit where Hardy was locked up. Erskine nodded at the patrolman sitting in the driver’s seat. “Open up.”
The moment Lily opened the door Hardy turned to look at her. He didn’t try to get out, but he turned in the seat and stretched out both hands urgently.
Automatically she bent and took his hands.
No icky magic. She exhaled in relief. No blood, either. At least none she could see.
He kept hold of one of her hands, patting it as if reassuring her. Lily gently tugged it free. “Hello, Hardy. Please step out of the car so we can talk without me bending over.”
He climbed out. He wore the same blue flannel shirt and worn gray pants she’d seen him in the night before. He stood there looking down at her sadly.
“You understand that it looks bad, don’t you? You were found with that body. You didn’t want to leave it.”
He started humming.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know that song.”
“‘Washed in the blood,’” he sang soft and slow, “‘washed in the blood of Jesus.’”
Lily didn’t react, but it wasn’t easy. “You wanted to wash in the blood?”
He shook his head and frowned at her as if she’d disappointed him. Then he tried again. This time he sang an old commercial ditty.
“Mr. Clean? You, uh . . . you were trying to clean something?”
He nodded quickly, then sang, “‘Move, Satan, move on out of my way.’”
“You were casting out the devil?”
He cocked his head as if considering her word choice, then nodded slowly.
Weird. The body really did need cleansing or the casting out of devils, or something along those lines. Hardy’s singing hadn’t done the trick, but he’d tried. Or claimed he had, she reminded herself. It was harder to think of him as a possible bad guy when she stood in front of him. “Was that man alive when you first saw him, Hardy?”
He shook his head, his eyes dark with sorrow.
“Did you see anyone near the body?” Another head shake. “Do you have any idea who did it?” Another. “Do you know who the murdered man was? No? Ever seen him before? Okay. I can’t think how to make this next one a yes or no question. How did you find the body?”
He hummed a few snatches of tunes, as if he were hunting for the right lyrics, then started singing about coming into a garden alone where a voice that “‘the Son of God discloses . . . bids me go.’” He stopped, switched tempo and key, and added, “‘Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains.’”
“Jesus told you about it? Or an angel?”
He nodded.
“Which one was it?”
He spread his hands. Shrugged.
“You don’t know?” He nodded and she looked at Erskine, raising her brows to see if he wanted any more questions right now. He shrugged. When she looked back at Hardy she saw Karonski wending his way to them through the cars and officers. She told Hardy she’d talk to him some more later. “Do you need anything? Some water?”
He nodded and smiled.
“I’ll see that you get some. Oh. One more thing. Is Hardy your first name? No? It’s your last name?” He nodded. “All right, Mr. Hardy, I’ll—” He was shaking his head again. “Okay. Just Hardy, no ‘mister.’”
Karonski arrived and gave a little jerk of his head. Erskine told one of his men to get Hardy some water and get him back in the patrol car, then walked with her to where Karonski waited.
“I called the coven,” Karonski said. “We need a strong circle set around that body while we figure out what we’re dealing with. You learn anything?”
“No contagion on the boys or Hardy.” As she summarized what she’d learned from Hardy, she felt the subtle easing that meant Rule was here. She glanced at the entrance to the parking lot and saw his Mercedes pulling in. “Does that conform with what Hardy told you, Detective?” she asked Erskine.
“You got more from him than I did.” He snorted. “Jesus told him to do it.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. There’s no blood on him.”
Erskine gave her a scathing glance. “So he stood back while his partner did the slicing. He’s a brain-damaged man who hears voices, for God’s sake.”