“You ready to go up?” he asked, nodding to the hotel.
I blinked. “You mean, to the murder scene? You’re not bringing the bodies down here?”
“What’s wrong, Craft? Can’t handle getting your hands dirty?” Jenson’s voice was all sneer, ugly and mean. I frowned at him. His eyes were pinched tight and there was a little something at the corner of his mouth. Jenson didn’t handle crime scenes well, and I was guessing he’d puked, which explained why he was being extra nasty today. He got like that sometimes. It also meant this was going to be bad, very bad.
“So what’s the story?” I asked as John led us toward the building. Falin fell in at my side, but Jenson trailed behind. I guessed he didn’t want to go back to the scene. Roy and Icelynne brought up the rear, mostly because the ghost-fae dragged behind. Otherwise, Roy likely would have been the first in the building.
“It’s a proper mystery. Two local high school students checked in after a fall dance,” John said, and then paused as I signed in with the officer maintaining the perimeter. Once the officer had recorded my name and verified my ID, John continued. “The doors are operated with a swipe card, so we have a record of every time the door opened. The kids swiped in at eleven twenty-three last night. Door wasn’t opened again until housekeeping came by at nine seventeen this morning. What she found . . . Well, you’ll see. The important thing is that she saw no one else in the room when she walked in. Video of the hall confirms that no one entered or exited the room between the kids entering and the maid’s arrival.” He stopped in front of a door and pulled out a swipe key. “I should warn you—it’s bad.”
I nodded but put up a hand before John could use the key card on the door. “Who exactly is hiring me here?” I asked, looking from first John and then to Falin.
The two men looked at each other. Falin cocked an eyebrow, it was a jaunty expression, and more than a little challenging. John scowled.
“Currently, NCPD is picking up the tab.” He pulled a folded stack of papers from his jacket pocket and passed them to me. Then his gaze cut to Falin again, his next words directed at him instead of me. “We will, of course, bill half of the ritual to the FIB if we hand over the case.”
Falin shrugged. A slightly pink tinge crept over John’s expanding bald spot, and he turned back to the door. He shoved the key card into the lock a little too hard, jerking it back fast. The light flashed red. It didn’t unlock. He cursed under his breath and tried twice more before the door beeped, flashed green, and unlocked.
As he fought with the lock, I gave the paperwork a cursory scan. I’d been on retainer for the police for years, so most of the paperwork was the boilerplate form we’d established when we’d initially worked out the terms of my retainership. The finer details had been hastily added with a ballpoint pen, but considering the circumstance, that didn’t surprise me. Everything looked to be in order, so I signed both copies and handed one back to John.
He took it without comment, waiting in the open doorway.
Falin leaned down, his words a whisper meant only for me. “You up for this?”
I wasn’t sure if he meant the scene or if I was strong enough for the ritual. Maybe both. I nodded again and hoped I was right.
I started forward but John held up a hand before digging out gloves and covers for my boots. I accepted them and pulled them on, the three men doing the same. Yeah, this was going to be a bad.
“You know I’m going to have to disturb the scene to draw a circle, right?”
“It’s already been photographed,” Falin said, sliding on a bootie over his dress shoes. “That doesn’t mean we should track in unnecessary trace.”
Okay, he had a point.
“So why aren’t we doing this back at the morgue?”
“Because we’re in a disagreement over who has jurisdiction and it was agreed you would be the fastest way to settle it. Besides, in all likelihood you’d end up on the case anyway. This expedites things.” John didn’t sound happy about it. Nice to be wanted. But I guess I couldn’t really blame him. The FIB and NCPD didn’t have a great track record of working well together.
Roy and Icelynne floated ahead of us into the room. I still couldn’t see what was beyond the door, but Icelynne made a sound somewhere between a scream and a gasp. I couldn’t quite make out what Roy said in response, but the rhythmic sound of his murmuring made me think he was comforting her. Apparently they’d become fast friends.
John motioned me forward, but I hesitated, thinking about what he’d said about the scene being up for debate on who had jurisdiction. If the victims were fae, it would be clear-cut, so it must have been the killer the police were uncertain about. Okay, maybe I was stalling stepping into the room, but from what I already knew by Jenson describing the scene as a locked room mystery and John’s explanation, it appeared we had a murder with no apparent means of unmonitored egress. Unless, of course, the killer slipped out when the maid entered or while the police were there.