Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [2]
“Now this is interesting, Detective. Detective?”
As quickly as he’d come, he was gone, fading into a cloud of clove smoke and gravelly laughter.
I crouched next to Kronen, trying not to wince when he poked the dead junkie’s eyeball with a rubber-tipped finger.
“See this here?” He indicated spidery columns of red drifting across the white.
“Little late for drops,” I said. Kronen’s mouth curled in displeasure. I stopped smiling.
“This is petichial hemorrhaging,” he said. “A bursting of miniature blood vessels on the surface of the eye.”
“So?” I said.
Kronen snapped off his light and stood, fixing his tie and expansive waistband. “This is not consistent with a heroin overdose. Petichia usually occur when the brain is deprived of oxygen.”
“He wasn’t strangled,” I said defensively. “He’s just dead.” I was competent, dammit. I didn’t need to be walked through my own crime scene like a first-year patrol officer. I’d know if someone was strangled, thank you.
Kronen went about tucking all of his accoutrements back into their case, and he pulled out a clipboard, initialed a report of a white male, dead on the scene, and handed it to me to sign as the ranking responding officer.
“I have no idea what could have happened to him,” he said. “But once I do the post I’m sure all will be revealed. In the meantime, do you … detect … anything?”
My pen froze mid-signature. “Exactly what’s that supposed to mean, Bart?”
He spread his hands. “Well, after the incident with Alistair Duncan certain … rumors have been flying heavily. If you can put your abilities to good use, it might speed a cause-of-death determination along.”
I flung the pen down and shoved the clipboard back at him. “I don’t know what you think you know, Bart, but you’re barking up the wrong damn tree.” He looked like a perturbed owl, eyes wide, as I snarled, “I’m not a trick dog,” and stormed away up the street.
My hands were shaking and I compensated by stomping my motorcycle boots on the pavement. I’m a werewolf, and thanks to the debacle with Alistair Duncan, anyone who read the Nocturne Inquirer knew it, which included most of the department.
Kronen probably had no idea he was being insensitive, and I was a bitch for snarling at him, but since the Hex Riots, weres and witches don’t enjoy the best reputation. Or any kind, except as the thing under your bed that you pretend doesn’t exist.
And Hex it, I wasn’t a hound dog that could sniff clues on cue. Being were didn’t mean a shiny package of heightened senses that made my job easier. It was that, and uncontrollable rage and strength that could separate someone’s head from their neck if I ever let myself off lockdown.
I’d only met one person who knew what that felt like, and he was somewhere on the other side of the world.
I breathed in, out, and willed myself to turn around and go back to the scene, knowing that everyone currently clustered around the body was talking about me.
Down the street, light spilled out of the condemned row house as a door opened and another scarecrow started up the walk toward me. He saw the patrol car, Martinez, and the CSU techs. He used what was left of his brain and ran.
“Better and better,” I muttered, taking off after the live junkie. I figured if he was sprinting he probably knew something about the dead one. I caught up with him after a block and used my arm like a battering ram to drive him into the iron fences marching up the sidewalk.
“Get off!” he yelled, shoving back and making me stumble off the curb. I windmilled and caught myself on a rusted-out Ford, panting in surprise. Not many plain humans can stand up to were strength.
He was fumbling in his coat for something undoubtedly hazardous to my health when I brought my service weapon to bear between his eyes. Just a Glock nine-millimeter, nothing special, but it does the job. The junkie froze, hollow chest fluttering from the exertion.
“Police officer,”