Skin Trade(54)
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“It’s just that I signed the petition that they took to Washington to try to get the Domestic Preternatural Endangerment Act repealed. I believe that the warrants for your job are too broad and violate human rights.”
“You’re not alone.”
“Now, all I want is for you to get the bastards that did this; I don’t care that the warrant is based on bad law. So that makes me a hypocrite, Marshal Blake, and I’m not used to thinking of myself that way.”
“You’ve seen vampire and shapeshifter victims before,” I said.
He nodded. “Not here, though. Vegas has one of the lowest rates of murder by preternatural means of any city in the United States.”
I widened my eyes. “I didn’t know that.” In my head I thought, Max and Bibiana run a very tight ship. Out loud I said, “Is this the first person you knew who died like this?”
“No, first friend, though. I guess if I really believed my convictions, that wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Emotion always makes a difference,” I said.
“Even for you?” He looked at me when he asked it.
I nodded.
“I’ve heard the screams when the executioner has to stake the vampire during the day. They beg for their lives.”
“Everyone on death row is innocent, doctor; you know that.”
“It doesn’t bother you then?”
I had to look away from that searching gaze. The moment I had to look down, I forced myself to meet his eyes and said the truth. “Sometimes it does.”
“Then why do it?”
Was it mean to say the next? I couldn’t tell anymore; maybe it was just true. “I’m sorry for your loss, doctor, I truly am, but this moment is a perfect example of why I do my job. Look at what they did to your friend. Do you want that to happen to someone else’s friend, husband, brother?”
His face hardened, and it was back to the original hostile look. “No.”
“Then you need me to do my job, doctor, because once a shapeshifter crosses the line this badly, they almost never go back. They get a taste for letting the beast out. It feels good to them, and they will do it again unless someone stops them.”
“You mean kills them,” he said.
“Yes, kills them. I want to kill the shapeshifter that killed your friend, before it kills someone else.”
It was his turn to look away. “You’ve made your point, Marshal. If you need it, I’ll sign off that a shapeshifter did this, because it’s true.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
He nodded. “But the way DPEA is written, you don’t need me to sign anything, do you? You just need to call Washington, and they’ll fax you the warrant.”
“Contrary to popular media, we do have to assure them it’s preternatural in origin.”
“Assure them, but not prove beyond the shadow of a doubt.”
“Shadows of doubt are for courts, doctor.”
“This shapeshifter is never going to see the inside of a courtroom, is it?”
“Probably not.”
He shook his head. “They offered to let someone else work on Randy, but it’s the last thing I can do for him.”
“No, it’s not, Dr. Memphis. You can help me gather enough evidence to get a warrant and hunt his killer down.”
“And see, there you go, Marshal, right back at my moral dilemma.”
I didn’t know what to say to that; I had my own moral dilemma to work on, and I didn’t know Memphis well enough to tell him I was beginning to have doubts about my job, too. I did the only thing I could think of; I went back to work.
“I am sorry for your loss, but can you let me see the personal effects I missed?” In my head, I added, when I let Olaf run me out of the room, but I kept that part to myself. It was humiliating enough without sharing. I was thinking better without him in the room. I hadn’t realized just how much he was throwing me off my game until he was gone. Division of labor would not leave me alone with him again, I promised myself that.
In a plastic baggie was a silver pentagram. “Was he Wiccan?”
“Yes,” Memphis said, “does that matter?”
“It may be why the shifter ate his face off first.”
“Explain,” Memphis said.
“If I’m right, then Sherman was saying a spell, and the shifter stopped him.”
“There’s no spell against lycanthropes, is there?” Rose asked.
“No,” I said, “but there are spells that impact other preternatural entities. Spells are almost exclusively for noncorporeal beings.”
“Like ghosts,” Patricia asked. She’d been so quiet in her corner of the autopsy suite that I’d almost forgotten her.