Bloodless (Aloysius Pendergast #20)(17)

She reminded herself not to make assumptions, to keep an open mind. She’d handle the FBI intrusion by simply going forward with her investigation in the usual manner. Detective Sheldrake was the nominal head, and she’d given orders for him to liaise with Carracci and the rest of the feds on a twice-weekly basis. But she intended to lead the investigation herself. Not that she didn’t have trust in Sheldrake, but this was going to be a high-profile case, and when the shit hit the fan—which she knew it would—at least she would be the one with the finger on the switch.

Delaplane turned to Sheldrake. “I’m going to look around a bit. Maybe you could circulate, make sure everyone’s doing what they should be.”

“Will do.”

He went off and, moments later, she heard him issuing a short string of quiet orders.

She circled the perimeter and found the M.E., George McDuffie, carrying a Yeti evidence cooler to his vehicle. It was hard to believe he actually had a medical degree—he looked more like a college freshman, thin as a rail, nervous and awkward. She hadn’t worked with him much and didn’t know yet if he was any good.

“Hey, George,” she said. “Got a minute?”

“Certainly, Commander,” He placed the cooler in the back of his vehicle and turned to her.

She nodded. “Have a look?”

“Um, sure.” He unhooked the Yeti and opened the lid. Delaplane peered in. In a large test tube nestled in ice was the finger. Next to it, in another tube, was a long, thin strip of bloody scalp, with the hair attached. She recognized right away that the finger must be from the first victim, found washed up on the riverbank, who was missing one. That body also had a scalp wound that was probably going to match this bloody strip. Several other test tubes contained swabs of blood, flesh, and bloody bits of clothing.

“Looks like Ellerby,” she said.

“Yes, I believe so. As soon as I get this finger and piece of scalp back to the lab I’ll match them to the cadaver.”

“You think this is where he was killed?”

“Possibly. There was quite a lot of blood in the bushes.”

“And the finger? Cut off or what?”

“Bitten, I think.”

Delaplane grunted. She turned and saw Sheldrake coming over.

He peered in. “The guy from the Chandler House?”

“Yup.”

Sheldrake straightened and looked around at the buildings facing the square. “Christ almighty, you’d think someone would have heard something.”

“Right,” said Delaplane. “Ellerby was alive at eleven, because folks at the hotel said that’s when he went out and didn’t come back. Pretty sure he went out for a smoke. Let’s get some DNA off those cigarette butts, see if this hedge was Ellerby’s habitual smoking spot.” She grinned. “Sheldrake, I’ve got a pain-in-the-ass assignment for your team. You need to interview everyone in those buildings within earshot—say, three hundred yards on either side—about what they heard between eleven and midnight that night.”

“Right. But I wonder: how the hell did Ellerby’s body get from here to the river?”

“Good question. Probably dragged to the street and loaded in a car. We need dogs here, and we need ’em along the riverbank, to see where he was dumped in.”

She heard a commotion at the other end of the crime scene and saw a film crew trying to push their way past the police barriers. She came striding over. It was a big crew, with two cameras—one of them a Steadicam—a sound man, and a couple of others, surrounding a little fat man holding a mic, with a tall, gloomy guy next to him carrying what looked like a big old-fashioned box camera. The videographers were obviously shooting. The tall man was taking weird gadgets out of a suitcase with foam cutouts and laying them on a piece of velvet.

“What’s going on?” Delaplane boomed out.

“I’ve told them, Commander, that this is a crime scene,” said a uniformed officer.

“Hello, I’m Barclay Betts,” said the short round man with the mic, as if she should know who he was. The cameras were still rolling. The name and face were sort of familiar, but Delaplane didn’t give a shit enough to try to remember.

“Well, Mr. Barclay Betts, we’ve got a police barricade here, in case you didn’t notice.”

“We just need to get a little closer,” the round man said. “We’re taking some photographs with this Percipience Camera here. It’s quite remarkable, Officer. You see, it can capture paranormal activity. It could be a great help to the police.”

Delaplane put her fists on her hips and grinned. “Paranormal activity? Like ghosts?”

“In this case, possibly a vampire.”

At this she exploded into laughter. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll tell you what. You take one step over that barrier, and I’ll confiscate your vampire camera. Could be a bomb, for all we know. We’ll have to take it apart to find out, and our technicians might, you know, oops!, kind of break it in the process. Or you can just stay where you are and tune in to your vampire vibes from afar.”

The tall man, frowning deeply, put the cover back on the camera and latched it up, while Betts yelled “Cut!” Delaplane could see a young lady behind a camera trying to stifle a laugh.

She walked off, shaking her head. “Vampires!”