"Don't you think, detective, that questioning him about a serial killer that's already butchered three, maybe four people, takes precedent over questioning him about following a federal marshal?"
"I am questioning him about the serial killer." A small frown formed between her eyes. "What do you mean three, maybe four?"
"We haven't finished counting the pieces at the last crime scene. There may be two victims."
"You can't tell?" she asked.
He let out his breath in a loud humph of air. "You don't know anything about these crimes. You don't know enough to be questioning him without us," His voice shook with the effort not to start screaming at her.
"Maybe you can sit in, sergeant, but not her." She jerked a thumb in my direction.
"Actually, detective, technically, you can't exclude me from the interrogation now that Heinrick is a suspect in preternatural crimes."
O'Brien looked at me, a blank, unfriendly stare. "I excluded you just fine before, Blake."
"Ah," I said, and felt myself smiling, I couldn't help it. "But that was when Heinrick was a suspected terrorist, and guilty of nothing more than illegal weapons violations, very mundane stuff. And nothing that my federal marshal status puts under my jurisdiction. As you pointed out earlier I'm not a regular federal marshal. My jurisdiction is very narrow. I have no legal status on nonpreternatural crimes, but on preternatural crimes I have jurisdiction all across this country. I don't have to wait to be invited in." I know I looked smug when I finished, but I just couldn't seem to help myself. O'Brien was being pissy, and pissiness should be punished.
O'Brien looked like she'd bitten into something bitter. "This is my case."
"Actually, O'Brien, it's everybody's case now. Mine, because federal law gives me the jurisdiction. Zerbrowski, because it's a preternatural case, and that means it belongs to the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. Truthfully, you have no jurisdiction on the murders. They didn't happen on your turf, and you wouldn't even have known that Heinrick was involved if we hadn't shared information so freely with you."
"We played fair with you," Zerbrowski said, "play fair with us, and we all win." His voice was almost normal. He'd lost that frightening bass.
She pointed a finger at me, rather dramatically, I thought. "But it'll be her name in the paper."
I shook my head. "Jesus, O'Brien, is that all this is about? You want your name in the headlines?"
"I know that cracking a serial murder could make me a sergeant."
"If you want your name on this case, fine," I said, "but let's worry more about solving the case than who's going to get credit for it."
"Easy enough for you to say, Blake. Like you said, you don't have a career in law enforcement. Getting credit for this won't help you, but you'll still get the credit."
Zerbrowski pushed away from the wall where he'd been leaning. He touched the files on the edge of the table. He opened one just enough to pull out a photo. He half-slid, half-threw the picture across the table at O'Brien.
It was a splash of shape and color. Most of the color was red. I didn't look too hard at it. I'd seen the real deal, I didn't need a reminder.
O'Brien glanced down at the picture, then looked again. She frowned, and almost reached out for the photo, then stared harder. She concentrated on the image. I watched her try to make sense of what she was seeing, watched her mind rebel at making sense of it. I saw the moment she saw it, on her face, in the sudden paleness of her skin. She sat down slowly in the chair on her side of the table.
She seemed to have trouble looking away from the picture. "Are they all like this?" she asked in a voice gone thin.
"Yes," Zerbrowski said. His voice was soft, too, as if he had made his point and wouldn't rub it in.
She looked up at me, and it looked like a physical effort to pull her gaze away from that photo. "You'll be the darling of the media again," but her voice was soft, like it didn't matter.
"Probably," I said, "but it's not because I want to be."
"You're just so damned photogenic," her voice had held a hint of her earlier scorn, then she frowned and glanced down at the photo again. She seemed to hear what she'd just said, and with that awful, hideous photo sitting in front of her, it seemed the wrong thing to say.
"I didn't mean..." She rallied, and put back on her angry face, but it seemed more like a mask to hide behind now.
"Don't worry, O'Brien," Zerbrowski said, and he had his teasing voice back. I knew enough to dread what would come out of his mouth next, but she didn't. "We know what you meant. Anita is just so damned cute."