Dead Spots (Scarlett Bernard #1)(7)
When the first-response team joined Jesse at the scene, they attributed his stunned, wide-eyed look to shock and the gruesome arrangement of the bodies. If they could even be called “bodies” at this point. It was a perfectly reasonable response, and nobody even hassled him much over it, to his surprise. Jesse figured that even the most hardened veterans hadn’t seen anything like this before; everyone looked subdued and shocky. A couple of the rookies had run into the woods to vomit, though Jesse had managed to keep his coffee down. He was glad he hadn’t gotten the chance to eat any donuts.
When asked to describe his arrival at the scene, Jesse heard his own voice telling the story without any mention of the girl with the green eyes or the naked...man. Lying about witnesses and withholding information were pretty much fireable offenses for a cop, but it was over and done with before he’d stopped to really weigh the consequences. He couldn’t describe the woman without describing the man—Jesse still wasn’t using the word werewolf, even in his own head—and he couldn’t describe the man without explaining how everyone had gotten away from him. So Jesse kept his mouth shut, stuck to the sidelines, and watched the bustle and activity all around him.
He didn’t realize he was waiting for his moment until it came: a few seconds when the photographer was setting out equipment and the medical examiner arrived, when everyone else was occupied with paperwork and conversations and tasks. Jesse saw his chance and swooped down to pick up the black plastic garbage bag, tucking it smoothly into his jacket pocket. He immediately felt awful. He’d already lied to his fellow officers and concealed two possible witnesses, and now he was hiding evidence. This was not what he would call being a real cop. For a moment, Jesse considered walking over to the detective in charge and confessing everything. But he didn’t want to get locked away with an army of shrinks.
Besides, Jesse knew that the girl he’d seen wasn’t the actual killer—the forensics people on-site had already speculated that it must have been a really big, seriously muscled guy, and she was maybe five foot seven on a good day, not much over a hundred pounds. And whoever had killed those people would have been drenched in blood. Still, she had to be important to the case somehow, and if he couldn’t make her part of the official investigation, he decided that it was his responsibility to follow up with her on his own.
When the detective in charge finally dismissed him, Jesse headed back to the precinct, and straight to the lab.
Jesse had first met Gloria “Glory” Sherman, the lead forensic pathology technician, at an event for the public high schools in the county. Glory had given a speech on career opportunities in forensic science, and Jesse was there as Officer Friendly. They’d struck up a friendship, and once, he’d even brought Glory and her two kids to see the film set where his mother, a makeup artist, was working. Jesse liked Glory’s no-nonsense kindness, so he made a point to say hello and deliver the occasional Starbucks. There are some people you just want on your side.
“Hey, Glory, you here?” he called, scanning the cluttered tables and shelves. Suddenly, she popped up into view, stretching to her full five feet one inch. Her face looked stressed and thin, and she’d jammed her glasses on top of her head so she could rub her eyes. “Were you, like, taking a nap on the floor?”
“Funny. Just cleaning up a spilled beaker.”
“Blood?”
She smiled. “Apple juice. What’s up?”
Jesse entered the lab and pulled the garbage bag out of his jacket pocket, handing it over. “How long would it take you to lift a print off this?”
She pulled on new surgical gloves and took the bag over to the three hundred–watt bulb on her desk lamp, sliding the glasses back down onto her nose. “Well, they’re latent, obviously, but pretty strong. Even with your elimination prints, it shouldn’t take long. But I’m backed up with this park thing.” She raked her fingers through silvery-blonde hair, looking tired.
“Has that evidence come in already?”
“No, it’s still being processed—”
“Then could you maybe just do this quick first? Please?” He gave her his best pleading look, and she sighed.
“What is it, exactly?”
“It’s a...personal project.”
She looked skeptical. “What, like your neighbor is a litterbug, something like that?”
“Something like that, but, Glory, I swear I wouldn’t bring this to you if it wasn’t important. Really.”
Glory checked her watch, and Jesse could see her relenting. “I’ll give you an hour, while they finish compiling all the evidence from the park. If I haven’t gotten a match by then, you’re going to have to wait.”
“Thank you!” He bent at the waist to kiss her cheek, which just caused her to grumble.
“You owe me. You’re going to take Rob and Natalie to the batting cages next Saturday.”
“It’s a deal,” he promised, leaning against a lab table. Everything in the room was solid and purposeful, and being there helped ground him again, made the memory of the werewolf seem like some kind of hallucinogenic side effect of the shock. But it wasn’t, his brain insisted. Jesse ignored it.
Thirty-seven minutes later, Glory called his extension. Jesse rushed down to the basement lab, where Glory was already checking in new evidence from the park, a pleased grin on her face. “I’ve got your girl,” she said smugly. She handed over a printout with a mug shot at the top. The girl was a few years younger, but it was her. Her green eyes and pretty face glared out from under that pile of dark hair, daring the photographer to do something.