“Hold on.” Morales stiffened beside me. He raised a finger to point toward the body. “Look at the hands.”
The body had one arm extended up over the place where his head used to be, but the other lay palm down about a foot away from the hip. I squinted toward it, wishing I could get closer to see better, but also glad I couldn’t because being that close to a body wasn’t my favorite thing on earth. But sure enough, if you ignored all the blood, it was possible to see darker colors on the skin. “Is that a tattoo?” I glanced up at Morales.
His face was grim and he kept his eyes on the body as he shook his head. “It’s paint, Kate.”
I looked again. This time, yeah, I could kind of see splotches of green and black across the knuckles. “I don’t—” I began and stopped because my eyes had strayed toward the torso. The blood-soaked shirt had initially concealed the logo on the front.
“Fuck.” I grabbed Morales’s arm. “Fuck!”
He nodded back. “Triple fuck.”
“Does someone want to fill me in?” Mez asked in a dry tone.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. Luckily, Morales informed the wizard, “That’s the guy we interviewed yesterday outside the Green Faerie. Melvin.”
“Marvin,” I croaked. “His name was Marvin.” And he was dead because of us. I knew that as sure as I knew my own name.
Mez didn’t look convinced. “You positive?”
I nodded. “He was wearing that shirt yesterday.”
The wizard squinted at the logo. “Spirit of Vitriol, huh? Their last album was bullshit. It’s a cool shirt, though.”
“Or was before someone got blood all over it,” Morales quipped. I shot him a glare. How could he be so flippant about this? On my look, he sighed. “Relax, Prospero. This isn’t our fault.”
I snorted. “How can you believe that?”
He shrugged. “Because I choose to. Fact is, Marvin made his own choices. Members of street covens don’t have long life expectancies.”
“Right, because covens tend to take things like snitching to the cops pretty fucking seriously. I told you we should have taken him somewhere less conspicuous.”
“Hey,” Mez said, “how about we get busy doing our jobs so we can find out what really happened instead of bickering in front of everyone?”
I snapped my mouth shut and walked away. Someone needed to tell Val about Marvin’s identity and doing so was the perfect excuse for getting away from Morales for a few minutes.
“Kate!” she exclaimed when she saw me. Val was a petite brunette who looked as if she belonged on the sidelines of a peewee soccer game cheering on a kid named Conner or Scotty. Instead, she spent most of her time up to her elbows in dead people’s DNA, and to hear her tell it, she couldn’t be happier about hanging out with stiffs instead of rug rats. She snapped off a bloodstained glove and shook my left hand. “Heard you got a big promotion.”
“It’s only temporary.” Considering the politics and personnel issues, I didn’t think getting too hopeful was healthy at that point. Better to expect the worst and then be pleasantly surprised if things did actually work out. “Anyway, I think I know this guy.”
Her brows rose. “Do tell.”
I spent the next five minutes telling her everything I knew about Marvin, which, admittedly, wasn’t that much. “I know his prints are in the system because he’s been collared for tagging a few times,” I finished.
“He won’t be doing much of that anymore,” Val said in a dry tone. “Thanks, Kate. I’ll get the print techs on this immediately.”
“No problem.” I paused. “Listen, do you mind if our lab wiz takes some samples?” I pointed toward Mez on the other side of the tent. He winked at Val as though I were setting up a blind date instead of securing permission for him to take body fluids from a crime scene.
Luckily, Val didn’t see the wink since she was too busy looking in her gear bag. “As long as he doesn’t contaminate my scene, he’s welcome to.”
“Awesome.” I waved Mez over and made a quick introduction. With a final warning glare at him not to sexually harass my friend, I went to join the others.
By the time I headed back, Gardner and Shadi were with Morales.
This time, I kept my eyes averted from the body. Just yesterday, it was a walking, shit-talking, breathing human. Now he was just another casualty in a war that no one was winning. Morales was right: Marvin had made his own choices. But whether we liked it or not, some of the blood coating the pavement outside Volos Towers belonged on our hands. The only way to remove the stain was to arrest the responsible party, which, like it or not, was looking more and more like John Volos.
I joined the rest of the team in time to hear Gardner say, “Eldritch is allowing us to conduct interviews, but that’s it. I didn’t mention that we’d want to speak to Volos directly, but he’s not here yet anyway.”
“He’s on his way?” I said, trying not to sound as worried as I felt.
Gardner nodded. “We’re going to have to be smart and move fast to secure an interview. Eldritch has already warned me that the mayor’s expecting hourly reports on this situation. If we step out of line, we’ll risk this entire case. Got it?”
“Sir, I need to speak to you,” I said. If John was on his way, now was definitely time to come clean with Gardner about my connection to him.
She raised a brow. “What is it?”
“Alone?”
Everyone froze. Gardner looked curious, but Morales and Shadi looked like bloodhounds who smelled fresh drama in the air.
Finally, Gardner jerked her head toward a spot a few feet away. “Make it quick, Prospero.”
I turned my back toward the others, so I could ignore the fact they were not even trying to hide their eavesdropping. “Listen, there’s something you need to know—about me and Volos.”
She raised a brow. “You mean the fact you two used to be an item?”
The unexpected question struck me dumb for a minute. At my shocked expression, she sighed. “Prospero, do you really think I would have brought you on the team without doing some digging?”
“But—but—” I shook myself. “But Eldritch doesn’t know about that. He couldn’t have told you.”
She smiled like a sphinx. “I have other resources.”
I wanted to ask her what other skeletons she’d unearthed from my closet, but I didn’t have time for that. “Does this mean you’re not worried about my objectivity?”