12. Seeking Answers
Chapter 12
Seeking Answers
Sierra Escondida Police Department—Later that night
T ig felt bad for Jayden. The bags under his eyes spoke volumes. After they finished processing Petar’s room and returned to the Hill, she wanted to get the autopsy completed and as much evidence processed as possible by sunrise. But it was past three in the morning, and Jayden looked like he was dragging. A few cups of coffee later, he suited up in scrubs, a hair cap, and gloves to examine the body.
She did likewise. Usually, she left the autopsy and forensics work to him, but the amount of evidence to process far outstripped what one person could accomplish quickly. Between the body, luggage, and magic equipment, he needed help, and she made the spontaneous decision to pitch in.
Besides, she wanted answers pronto.
She asked Zeke to stay to upload the photos and catalog them, and assigned Liza to draft a report of the investigation, giving her access to the interview recording of Janey and the cauldron to refresh her memory.
Once her team had their assignments, she closed the door to the forensics lab. The first step: analyze the note. Jayden placed the four-by-eight inch paper on the scanner’s glass surface and started a software program to compare the handwriting against samples they had for each Hill vampire. While he worked, she unzipped the body bag and lifted the sheet-wrapped remains of Petar Petrov onto the cold stainless-steel exam table, then carefully unrolled the sheet.
The computer hummed in the background, and Jayden photographed every step of the examination. With the mummy’s arms stretched stiffly over its head, and legs spread wide, the corpse hung over the table’s edge. They hadn’t folded the arms because the dry appendages would have snapped off into pieces. Instead, they’d wrapped each one in plastic to protect the evidence.
Fifteen minutes later, the computer dinged . He set aside the camera to review the results. “No handwriting match.”
Tig puffed out a breath. Nothing was ever easy. “I want to get Petar’s phone to Ari tonight.”
Jayden grabbed the evidence bag off the shelf. “Let me check the surface for fingerprints first.”
He placed the phone on a stand in the fuming chamber and exposed it to cyanoacrylate. Quite a few prints rose.
Good enough. He only needed another twenty minutes to capture and preserve the prints. She checked her watch. Time to call Ari. Yeah, it was almost four in the morning. But hey, if he didn’t want to be awakened, he could set his phone to sleep mode.
“What’s up?”
He sounded bright and alert.
She leaned against the counter behind her while she stared at the corpse. “Do you have time to swing by the police station tonight?”
“Why?”
“Confidentially? You know the magician who performed at Cerissa’s wedding? Someone murdered him at his hotel in Mordida.”
“No shit.”
A typical Ari reply. “We have Petar’s phone, and we need access to determine if he called the killer, or if there was something on the device the killer wanted. Based on the crime scene, he was tortured.”
“Henry’s going to be heartbroken. He and Petar were close friends.”
“I’m aware. I’ll deal with it when I tell him. For now, can you hack the password? It was set for face recognition. With Petar dead, a mummified corpse won’t work.”
“I’ll try. Some phones are harder to hack, even for me. What make and model?”
“Morpheus 22. I checked, and they’re manufactured in Australia.”
“Dammit. Those are some of the most secure. I bet he was a security freak. Only security freaks buy from Morpheus Limited.”
“What about morphing to look like Petar?”
“Never mapped him. No reason to. So I can’t. You should ask Cerissa. Maybe she did.”
“I’m holding off contacting her for the moment, given they’re on their honeymoon. Come by the station before dawn to get the phone—Jayden’s already printed it. We’re in the autopsy room, so knock loudly. We’ve been working nonstop since we found out around midnight, and Jayden will probably sleep most of the day to catch up.”
“Don’t worry. Gaea has turned me into a night owl. I’ll be there in an hour. Bye for now.”
While Jayden worked to lift prints from the other evidence, Tig examined the body, photographing everything in place. The stake was next. She pulled on leather gloves to protect herself from the silver weapon, adding extra-large nitrile gloves over those so she wouldn’t contaminate the stake, and carefully eased the weapon out of Petar’s ribcage. Even though double-gloved, she felt buzzing—a sensation akin to coming near a live electric wire. Not quite a full shock, but just on the edge of it. The feeling sent a shudder through her and every hair stood on her arms. She set the stake on a nearby tray, then took more photos, focusing the lens for close-up and detailed views.
She removed the pinkie ring and added it to the tray. Pajama bottoms covered the legs and pelvis. She bagged them for later examination. As she’d surmised at the scene, Petar must have gotten ready for bed or was asleep when the attack came. The latter meant a mortal had captured him in his sleep. But if a mortal subdued and bound him in silver chain during the day, who wrote the note?
Jayden joined her at the table. “I lifted the prints from the phone and I’m running a comparison against what we have in V-Trak. Other stuff is cooking in the fuming chamber. How can I help?”
She ran her gloved fingers over areas of the mummy that didn’t appear burned—no buzzing sensation from silver chain left behind. “Please test the burn marks.”
Jayden scooped a small sample of ash into a test tube from Petar’s right ankle. After adding a reagent, he flicked the tube, and a telltale precipitate formed at the bottom and turned a bright red. Positive for silver.
When a victim was bound by silver, some of the metal always stuck to the necrotic flesh, which was one reason silver could be so deadly. Like a poison, it continued working long after it touched the skin.
Jayden then tested Petar’s other burn marks. When each of them turned red with the added reagent, he typed a note into the laptop, logging the results.
Tig growled. Guessing Petar had been tortured, and having the answer confirmed, evoked different emotions, and pissed off was an understatement of how she felt now.
While Jayden ran the lab tests, she returned to processing the body, brushing the mummy with a soft-bristled brush. Ashes flaked off, and to prevent interference with the evidence stuck to the sheet, she caught the debris using a plastic dustpan, then dumped it into a clear evidence bag.
Everyone called vampire remains ashes—but they weren’t the result of high heat or fire. The debris resulted from rapid decomposition—once the heart ceased pumping, the vampire blood no longer held back necrosis. Decomposition was almost instantaneous and, with an older vampire, caused a mummy-like appearance. The ones over a thousand years old went straight to a pile of dust.
The stake was still covered in ash. She removed most of the residue by using a clean paintbrush to sweep the stake’s surface, holding it over the dustpan to catch the debris. When the stake was almost clean, she transferred it to a glass tray and placed the tray under a hands-free magnifier. A light layer of ash still coated the silver. Tapping more of the ash off, she rotated the stake, watching as the tiny particles floated down to the tray below, checking for other evidence, like cloth fibers or hair or anything else the perp might have left behind. She inspected the surface—no fingerprints visible, but she’d give it to Jayden to try a fuming technique to raise them.
Just like the other stakes, it had a leather yoke so a vampire could grip it without burning their hand. Tooled into the leather were small shapes. She worked the brush into the fine lines, dislodging the ash, revealing the same wedge-shaped impressions. Under the magnifier, the lines started or ended with thick triangular heads reminding her of stylized versions of old-fashioned, handmade carpentry nails. “When you have a free moment, would you please take a close-up photo of this?”
Jayden came over carrying the camera. “What do you have?”
“More of that strange script, like the others, but I think it’s different. We may need a linguist to translate and compare the inscription to the ones Evelina and Henry received.” She held out the stake, and he snapped the photos as she rotated the ends to get every view. “Thanks.”
She bagged the stake. Lifting the ring, she used a magnifier to look inside the gold band. Skin was still attached there, preserved by the gold. Until Cerissa could compare its V-DNA to a comb or toothbrush sample containing Petar’s V-DNA, the presence of skin was presumptive evidence Petar was dead. That, or someone had gone to a lot of trouble to put his ring on another vampire and kill the impostor. Not that people hadn’t tried the ruse before, but for the moment, she would assume the remains were Petar’s.
Tig focused on the autopsy table. “What else do we need to collect from the body?”
Jayden shook his head. “I’ll perform a full sift of his ashes later for anything the killer might have dropped—accidentally or on purpose.”
“Agreed. Let’s re-bag Petar.”
They moved his corpse back into its bag, sans bottom sheet, then zipped it closed. Working together, they raised the corners of the sheet until most of the ash collected in the middle, then they poured the pile into a large plastic bin for later sifting.
Ash still coated the sheet. Tig gestured at the evidence. “Visual exam?”
“Yeah.” He handed her a magnifying glass. “You start at that end, I’ll work at this end, we’ll meet in the middle.”
“Deal.” She didn’t need the magnifier, but the narrow field of view would keep her focus sharp.
“Hey, what’s this?” He grabbed the camera with the macro lens and took a couple of photos, then found a pair of tweezers and pinched something. He held it in the air and showed her a short blond hair that was almost white, wrapped in a large, loose curl. “It was near where Petar’s foot was—you can see the ash shadow on the sheets.”
Tig furrowed her brow. “Petar had shaggy brown hair—wavy, not curly, and definitely not white.”
“Could be the maid.”
“Or could be the killer.” Her pulse hammered in her ears. This could be the break they needed. “Bag it and look for more.”
Jayden released the hair into a small, clear bag.
Tig remained silent until he labeled the evidence. Now was not the time to distract him and cause a screw-up. When he dropped the bag into their evidence bin, she cleared her throat. “Can Cerissa test hair for vampire DNA?”
“I know she was trying to. I don’t know if she ever had any success. And she’s on her honeymoon, even if she did.”
“That’s not insurmountable, given what we know about her now. Let’s finish collecting any stray DNA sources. That way, we only have to disturb her honeymoon once.”