Chapter 11
The pleasant weather was almost enough to compensate for Sheriff McMartin’s odious presence. Almost.
“Get that stupid cat away from my crime scene,” McMartin snapped, shooing Rumble away from the bloodstain.
She scurried behind Salvatore’s legs, her face peeking out from behind his powder-blue oxfords with an expression of disgust. Even Arthur ruffled at the sheriff’s words.
There was no need to be rude to her. She was only a cat.
He’d not forgotten their tenuous position, however, so he bit back a retort and let the sheriff work.
His work, as it turned out, was barking orders at his deputies as they did what he called setting up a perimeter, which involved a lot of yellow police tape and foul language.
Lore arrived not long after, and Arthur’s shoulders relaxed at the sight of a friendly face, even though she feigned neutrality whenever McMartin was watching.
“Someone lost a lot of blood here, all right.” Lore crouched to examine the grass and pulled out her dayglow dolphin notebook to jot something down.
“I’ll send these samples to the lab, but unless someone decided the park was a good place to slaughter a pig, I’m guessing it’ll be a match for Mayor Roth. ”
McMartin crossed his arms. “I bet it will. Just what the vamps want.” He turned to scowl at Arthur and Salvatore.
“Sorry,” Salvatore said, holding up a hand in protest. “Do you mean to imply we…what, murdered the mayor, saved a bunch of his blood, and then dumped it here? That would be awfully clever of us.”
Arthur covered his sunglasses with the hand not holding his umbrella.
McMartin’s brightness began and ended with his highlighter-yellow frosted tips, so Arthur very much doubted the sheriff would have come up with an explanation half so compelling as the one Salvatore had delivered on a silver platter.
“Real convenient, you two finding this alleged crime scene.”
“There’s nothing alleged about it,” Arthur said stiffly. “And we found it because we smelled the blood. It’s hard for someone like us to miss.”
“No way,” McMartin said. “You did this. I know you did. He practically confessed!” He pointed a finger at Salvatore and looked around with eager eyes. Alas, most of his deputies were actually doing their jobs, so he had no captive audience for his theatrics.
Recoiling in mock offense, Salvatore pressed a hand to his chest. “Who, me?”
“It wasn’t us,” Arthur said with a sigh.
“Yeah? Prove it.”
Arthur was about to point out that proving it was exactly what he was attempting to do, but Salvatore spoke first.
“Well, for starters, how were we supposed to transport a bunch of blood through a crowded park?”
McMartin cast his gaze around, as if looking for a growler or thermos hidden in the bushes. “You’re vampires—maybe you don’t need a container.” His eyes dropped to Salvatore’s throat and he grimaced.
Salvatore burst into laughter. “We’re not mama birds, you know. We don’t regurgitate blood to feed our young.”
McMartin straightened. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“Please,” Salvatore said dismissively. “Vomiting up blood is possibly the worst experience I’ve ever had—food poisoning.”
“I didn’t realize vampires could get food poisoning,” Lore said as she prodded the bloodstained soil with gloved hands.
“They can if their meal is wearing toxic perfume. White oleander is an awful plant, let me tell you—”
“Please, don’t tell us.” McMartin shot Salvatore a glare.
“Well, the point is, I would rather go to jail for a murder I didn’t commit than go through that again. Nearly ruined blood for me altogether.”
“Not sure I believe that,” McMartin muttered.
“Doesn’t really matter what you believe.” Lore stood and removed her gloves. “Based on the absorption, I’d say the blood’s been here more than a few hours, however it got here.”
“Still doesn’t mean it wasn’t them,” McMartin said sharply.
Lore shrugged. “I guess, but they’d have to be pretty stupid to move the body from a neutral location like this to their own flower beds.”
Arthur didn’t love that their best defense was based on something so tenuous as the sheriff’s opinion of their intelligence, especially as Sal chose that moment to step directly into the blood spot on the ground before them.
The squelching sound of oxfords on wet soil was cringeworthy enough without Sal’s subsequent groan of disgust as he leaped back and frantically began wiping his shoe on clean blades of grass.
“More likely,” Arthur interjected, if only to distract the sheriff from Sal’s antics, “someone else moved him to our property in order to point the finger of blame at us.”
“Maybe you moved the body to your place to make it seem like you were being framed.” McMartin hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and struck a pose as if he were on camera. “You’re the only two vampires in town, so to deflect blame, you—”
“What, we framed ourselves?” Salvatore laughed, though his tone was devoid of humor. “I have to admit, Sheriff McMartin, I’ve always had a distaste for the establishment, and your incompetence is doing nothing to change my opinion. You’re a lousy, rotten—”
Arthur cleared his throat. “I think it might be more productive to pursue different avenues of the investigation.” He couldn’t make McMartin do his job well, but he could at least gently suggest he do it at all.
“Gotta be cameras around here somewhere.” McMartin looked around, searching the tree line. “Yeah, that’ll prove it. Bet you chucked the blood jars into the woods before you called us in.”
A few deputies shared significant glances with one another. Finally, one of them stepped forward.
“Uh, Sheriff, there aren’t any cameras in this part of the park. But there are some by the entrance, the parking lot, and the storage sheds.”
“Great!” McMartin clapped his hands together once. “I’ll pull the footage and prove it.”
Arthur might have told McMartin they’d arrived via tandem bike, in full view of dozens of other people who would’ve noticed a jug full of human blood, but he let the sheriff have his fun.
It would keep him busy for a while, leaving Arthur and Sal to do the real investigative work.
From what he’d gleaned thus far, Rumble would do a better job of it than McMartin.
When the sheriff, Lore, and all but one deputy—left to guard the crime scene—were gone, Arthur pulled Salvatore away.
“We should look into the cameras, too,” Arthur whispered. Though McMartin’s bluster was a pain, Arthur wasn’t above admitting that the sheriff had managed to have a single good idea.
“Oh, I love seeing myself from new angles. I bet these pants make my butt look amazing.”
“More important than how you look—”
“As if there could be anything more important.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and plowed on, pretending Salvatore hadn’t spoken. “We might see if anyone suspicious was here the night of the murder.”
Salvatore raised his eyebrows. “Very clever, dear. But won’t the sheriff beat us to it?”
“Perhaps, but we have an advantage.” Arthur smiled. “Friends in high places.”
Salvatore adjusted the straps on the backpack holding Rumble. “If only you had a way to contact the acting mayor—like a carrier pigeon or telepathy or a phone.”
“Oh, just text her for me, will you?”
“Not until you admit my butt looks amazing.”
Arthur sighed but acquiesced, extolling the virtues of Salvatore’s physique all the way back to the bike rack in the parking lot.
City hall was nearly deserted, typical for a Saturday, though a few people hurried down hallways as they made their way to the mayor’s office, on the third floor.
The interior of the building was old but well maintained, and the scents of wax and wood polish filled the air.
The mayor’s office was the liveliest spot in the place, with a dark oak door and furniture to match.
The walls were painted a respectable eggshell, and floor lamps with bell-shaped shades stood stalwart in all corners of the room like sentries.
An actual guardian stood watch at a desk just outside in a small vestibule.
The mayor’s receptionist, a young white woman with mouse-brown hair and a furrowed brow, sat in a wheelchair behind a small desk.
Her hands moved with lightning speed across Post-its and loose papers that littered the space, covering a sensible corded phone and a brick of a computer.
She barely looked up at them as she waved them inside, too busy fending off reporters on both her landline and cell.
“No, I can’t comment on the situation. No, I can’t confirm that. Call back on Monday, I’m begging you.”
By Monday, the whole town would know the mayor had been murdered, if they didn’t already.
Arthur glanced meaningfully at Sal, but he was too busy balancing the takeout containers they’d procured from Down to Pho, the local Vietnamese restaurant.
Arthur hoped their offering would serve as a sufficient bribe for the monumental favor they were about to ask of Nora.
Arthur hadn’t forgotten his suspicions about Nora and Quinn.
It was entirely possible they were both guilty, each committing half the crime.
Quinn could’ve killed the mayor before the event at the inn while Nora did the work to move and stage the body.
He rather liked the theory, if only because it felt twisty and exciting, like something out of a novel, but Arthur had to admit the pieces didn’t quite fit.
If they’d managed to pull off something as elaborate as the mayor’s murder, why couldn’t they work together for more than thirty seconds?
He needed more information. Then, hopefully, he could dismiss them as suspects for good.