Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [501]
I just looked at him. He should have taken me to the man in charge. No way would a cop who didn’t know me let me walk a crime scene unaccompanied. Vampire executioners aren’t civilians, but most of us aren’t detectives, either. I’m one of the very few who deals so intimately with the police. In Saint Louis where most of the cops knew me by reputation or on sight, I could see it. But here, where no one knew me, no way.
I read the trooper’s nameplate. “Michaels, is it?”
He nodded, and again his eyes weren’t looking at me. He wasn’t acting like a cop. He was acting scared. Cops don’t spook easily. Give them a few years on the job, and they perfect jaded indifference: been there, done that, wasn’t impressed, didn’t bother to get a T-shirt. Michaels had sergeant bars on his uniform. You didn’t get sergeant stripes in the state troopers by getting shook at every crime scene.
“Sergeant Michaels,” he said. “Is there something I can do for you, Ms. Blake?” He seemed to be rebuilding himself before my eyes. It reminded me of the way Dr. Carrie Onslow had recovered. His eyes lost that vague, glassy look. He looked at me straight on, but there was still a tightness around his eyes, almost like something hurt. What the hell was down at the bottom of this hill? What could make a seasoned cop look like this?
“Nothing, Sergeant, nothing. Thanks.” I kept my license out because I was almost sure to be stopped again without a police escort. A woman was throwing up by a small pine tree. She and the man holding her forehead wore Emergency Medical Services uniforms. It’s a bad sign when the EMS techs are throwing up. A very bad sign.
It was Maiden who stopped me. We stood there for a second or two just looking at each other. I was standing uphill, looking down at him.
“Ms. Blake,” he said.
“Maiden,” I said. I left off the officer on purpose, because as far as I was concerned, he wasn’t an officer. He’d stopped being a cop when he became a bad guy.
He gave a small, odd, smile. “I’ll take you through to Captain Henderson. He’s in charge.”
“Fine.”
“You might want to prepare yourself, Blake. It’s . . . bad.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said.
He shook his head, looked at the ground. When he looked back up, his eyes were empty, cold cop eyes. “Maybe you will, Blake, maybe you will. But I won’t be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Who the hell is she?” It was Captain Henderson. He’d spotted us. He came up the hillside in his dress shoes, sliding just a bit. But he was determined and knew how to walk in the leaves even in the wrong shoes. He was about five-eight, with short, blond hair. He had odd eyes that changed color as he moved through the dappled sunlight. One moment pale green, the next grey. He came up to stand between the two of us. He looked at Maiden. “Who is this, and why is she inside my perimeter?”
“Anita Blake, Captain Henderson,” Maiden said.
He looked straight at me, and his eyes were cool and grey with swirling flecks of green. He was handsome in a clean-cut, ordinary sort of way. He might have been more than that, but there was a harshness to his face, a sourness, that robbed him of something likeable and pleasant.
No matter how funky the eye color when he looked at me, the eyes were distant, judging, cop eyes. “So you’re Anita Blake?” His voice was almost angry.
I nodded. “Yes.” I didn’t let the anger get to me. He wasn’t angry at me. Something was wrong. Something beyond the crime itself. I wondered what.
He looked me up and down, not sexual, but as if he were taking my measure. I was used to that, though it was usually a little less blatant. “How strong’s your stomach, Blake?”
I raised eyebrows at that, then smiled.
“What in the hell is funny?” Henderson said.
“Look, I know it’s bad. I just left your sergeant at the top of the hill so spooked he wouldn’t come near it a second time. Maiden here’s already