Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(13)

“Back to our previous conversation,” I said, “we get to keep Darryl and Auriele.”

I was sorry when the slight smile slid away from his face and his expression regained its grim neutrality.

He said, “Or at least we put that off for another day. Auriele understands what she nearly caused to happen, though I don’t think she is apologetic about anything except for hurting Jesse. And that she still believes is your fault.”

I blew out a breath. “Figures.”

“You haven’t asked me about Aiden and Underhill,” he said.

“Do I want to know?” I asked.

Before he could answer me, Detective Willis approached. Willis was moderately tall, and graying, and carried himself like someone who’d been in a few fights. He was closer to retirement age than to his rookie years, but not by much. He was one of those men who used his size and his anger to intimidate people he thought needed intimidation, but he was capable of toning his presence down to gentleness when caring for trauma victims. He was smart, dedicated—and we got along all right for the most part.

“Generally speaking,” he said, “when either of you show up at a scene, it’s because something is afoot.” He stopped in front of us, his hands on his hips—but he knew better than to stare into Adam’s eyes. Instead he stared at me.

“My people tell me this looks like a classic murder-suicide,” he said.

“No,” I said. “Magic.”

He grimaced. “God damn it. I knew it had been too quiet around here.”

“I might believe it if Anna had stabbed her husband and then shot herself,” I told him. “But Dennis was possibly the least violent person I know.”

“And that’s why you think there was magic involved?” asked Willis, sounding hopeful.

“It is all over Dennis’s body,” I told him. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He is lit up with magic—I wouldn’t be surprised if someone could see him glowing from space.” A thought occurred to me. “You might want to be careful with his body.”

“Are you thinking witches and zombies?” asked Adam.

I shook my head. “Not witches, I don’t think. But there is a lot of magic in Dennis’s body—he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone else.”

“I’ll speak to the coroner’s office,” said Willis. “Do you have any idea what got him?”

I shook my head.

“Of course you don’t,” he said. “And you wouldn’t tell me if you did.”

“I don’t,” I told him. “But you might be right about the last. Your guys aren’t exactly the stand-back-and-let-the-werewolves-take-care-of-it kind of guys. Some things a gun works just fine on—and some things you need grenade launchers for.”

“And werewolves are the grenade launchers?” He sounded a little amused. He didn’t argue about my assessment of his people.

“That’s about right,” said Adam mildly.

Willis glanced back at the house. “Murder-suicide would be a lot easier than unknown magical cause.”

“It wasn’t a murder-suicide,” I told Willis. “Don’t let their kids think that it was.”

He nodded, his mouth softening. “We’ll call it an ‘under investigation’ situation. When you figure out just what happened, we’ll let the family know.” He started to leave, but paused. “It looked to me like he was heading out that door when he killed himself.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” I said.

“You think he stopped himself from killing anyone else?” Willis didn’t sound like an experienced detective. He sounded like someone who needed to believe in good guys.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But he picked up the gun after he killed Anna—and if whatever had him had just intended for him to kill himself, that knife could have done the job. Dennis was the kind of person who would have killed himself to prevent anyone else getting hurt.”

Willis nodded, as if I’d answered a question for him, then continued back to his car.

Adam and I left the Cathers’ house. I started off at an angle, heading home, but Adam veered toward my manufactured house. I gave him a puzzled look, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I see that Underhill decided to redecorate the backyard,” I told him.

He growled low in his throat. “That gate has to stay for a year and a day,” he said. “Then she can remove it, if we still wish her to.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help myself—I think I was mostly just punchy. But there was something funny about the disgruntled way he repeated Underhill’s words.

“Holy doorways, Batman,” I said. “We have an entrance to Underhill in our backyard.”

He looked at me then, though he didn’t quit walking. “Are you sure that it wasn’t fae magic that caused Dennis to kill his wife?”

I quit laughing and looked at the border wall between Adam’s house . . . Adam’s and my house and my old place. The stone wall, even incomplete, looked better than the old barbed-wire fence had.

“I’ve never felt magic exactly like this,” I told Adam. “It didn’t feel fae.”

“Coincidences happen,” Adam said. But he didn’t say it like he believed it.