“What he did to her. . It’s. .” She broke off, swallowing and shaking her head. “I didn’t used to think about this kind of stuff, but I don’t like to be out after dark anymore.”
“I understand,” Kona said.
She turned and left the lab, and I followed her. The receiving cooler, where they kept bodies that had not yet been examined, was beside the autopsy room. We paused outside the door so that Kona could sign the access sheet, and then we stepped inside. It was a cold, stark, depressing place. Stainless steel walls and doors, hard fluorescent lighting, and a series of steel shelves on every wall for the bodies. Most of the shelves were empty, as usual, but there were white body bags on a few of them, including the middle shelf under the number fourteen.
A jar of mentholated Vaseline sat on a gurney near the door. Before opening the body bag we rubbed a small amount under our noses to guard against the smell. Then Kona unzipped the bag and spread it open.
My first thought was that the police had gotten the ID wrong. Sure she was a mess-there were burned out craters in her face where her eyes should have been. But this girl bore almost no resemblance to the Claudia Deegan I’d seen on the news and in countless newspaper photos. That girl had been blonde, athletic, tan: the all-American kid. This girl’s hair was black, though peering more closely I could see that the roots were blonde. Her face was gaunt and she wore dark lipstick that gave her mouth a severe look.
“You’re sure this is the Deegan kid?” I asked Kona, staring down at the girl.
“Yeah, we’re sure. Why?”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
Kona had brought me there to tell her if there was any magical residue on the body, and it was all over Claudia’s face, neck and chest. Magic was similar to any other forensic evidence. Just as a gunshot at close range left powder burns on a victim, or strangulation caused bruising, magic left its mark as well. And just as fingerprints were unique, so was the color left by a weremyste’s conjuring. Only another weremyste could see it, but to those of us with magic in our veins it was as obvious as a bloodstain or an open wound. Often, magical residue reminded me of fluorescent paint that had spilled wherever a runecrafter’s spells had touched. It glowed and shimmered, the colors as vivid as summer wildflowers. At least at first.
The glow on Claudia’s body had grown faint, and with the overhead lighting so harsh it was difficult to see. As I’d told Kona earlier, the more powerful the weremyste, the faster any remnant of his magic would fade. This probably seems backwards, but if you think of magic as having a half-life, like uranium, it starts to make more sense. Carbon 14 is a weak radiant with a slow half-life-well over five thousand years. Strontium 90, on the other hand, is powerfully radioactive and has a half-life of less than thirty years. In the same way, the stronger a spell, the faster its residue decays. At least, that’s how I think of it. Then again, I’m not exactly a nuclear physicist.
Of course, there was a flip side to the fast decay thing: the more powerful the sorcerer, the more brilliant the color of his magic would be to begin with. I had seen the Blind Angel Killer’s magic before; I would have recognized that shade of crimson anywhere. Still, even knowing how powerful he was, I couldn’t help but be surprised-and scared-at how dim it had grown in a mere two days. I might not have noticed it as much working the case month to month, but in the time since I’d last seen one of his victims, the Blind Angel Killer had made himself stronger. Much stronger.
“Is it our guy?” Kona asked, watching me.
I nodded. “I think he’s getting more powerful.”
“Well, that’s just what I want to hear.”
“The color is nearly gone. Even at the eyes, where it should be most intense.” I faced Kona. “I think whatever he gets from these kids is building him up. There’s more to this than random killing.”
“You’ve told me that before. But do you know what he’s getting?”
“No.” I turned back to Claudia’s corpse. “If I knew that maybe we could find him.” I stood for a moment, staring at the girl’s ravaged face. “Let me try something,” I said.
Three elements again: my magic, the red magic glowing on Claudia, and the purpose of the killer’s spell. This last I didn’t know, of course; I was hoping the spell would fill in that bit of information with some physical manifestation of the killer’s magic. I had tried this before a couple of years ago, but I was a more accomplished runecrafter now, and I thought maybe I’d get a different result.
I didn’t. I might have been better with magic now than I was when I worked for the PPD, but I wasn’t yet a match for the Blind Angel Killer.
“Did anything happen?” Kona asked, looking back and forth between Claudia’s corpse and me.
“No. We’re going to have to find him the old-fashioned way.”
“Not we, partner,” Kona said in the same gentle tone she’d used with the girl in the lab. “That’s not your job. I appreciate you coming down here with me, but we’ll do the rest.”
I said nothing, and I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze. She was right, of course, but it wasn’t like I needed to be reminded that I was no longer on the job. And Kona should have known that.
“I’m sorry, Justis. It’s just-”
“I know,” I said, my voice echoing sharply in the cold room. I turned away from the body and started for the door.
“Justis-”
“I should talk to that girl. Caroline. I should ask her about the whole drug thing. That’s what the Deegans are worried about.”
I left the room before Kona could stop me and went back to the anthrodental lab. Caroline glanced over as I walked in and gave a weak smile, but she was still pale.
I sat on an empty stool near her. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
She pulled her lab coat tighter around her shoulders. “I don’t know much. I’m not working on. . Until Doctor Forsythe does his initial autopsy, there’s not much for the rest of us to do.”
“I understand that. But I need some information; or I will when you start the lab work.”
“I’m not sure-”
“It’s nothing that the M.E. won’t eventually give the press. I just need to know what kind of drugs she’d been taking, and anything you can tell me about their potency.”
Caroline frowned. “Aren’t you with the force? Kona said you’re an investigator. Can’t you get this from her?”
I forced a smile. “I’m asking you for it.” I pulled out my wallet and gave her one of my business cards. “If you can, call me at that number. .”
She was looking more frightened by the moment. “Um. .”
“It’s all right. I’ve known Pete Forsyth since you were in high school. He won’t mind. And you can call me from your home, if you think that would be better.”
“Stop it, Justis.”
Kona didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
Caroline glanced past me, the relief on her face making me ashamed of myself. I turned, feeling my color rise.
Kona crossed to where I sat, wearing an expression that would have wrung an apology from a gangbanger.
“We’re leaving,” she told me. Turning, she said, “Sorry to have bothered you, Caroline. Tell Pete we’re done here. He can go ahead with the autopsy.”
Caroline nodded, seeming unsure of what had happened. Her gaze flicked from me to Kona.
I should have said something to her, but I was too embarrassed. I followed Kona out of the lab, through the hallways back to the main entrance. Once we were out on the street again, Kona turned to me, her hands on her hips.
“What the hell were you thinking, trying to play that poor girl like that?”
I didn’t meet her gaze. “Wriker asked me to find out-”
“Don’t give me that shit. He didn’t tell you to go and bully some kid into getting herself fired.”
I wasn’t sure that Wriker or the Deegans would give a crap about Caroline Packer. But I knew that I didn’t want to be measuring myself against their morals.
“I pissed you off,” Kona said. “And you didn’t want to have to get that information from me. So you went after her.”