Chapter 33
33
Elliot Crane
Ma and Pop say hi.
Seth Mays
Hi back.
How long will you be there?
No idea.
I have some paperwork that I need to get done.
And then however long Smith needs me.
Okay.
I’ll be here.
I love you.
I love you.
Elliot was at the Harts’, ostensibly supervising some project of Marsh’s that Judy claimed she was worried about. I was pretty sure she just wanted to have some time with her honey-badger , as she called Elliot when she was in a particularly maternal mood. Elliot had warned me not to correct her, as apparently both he and Hart had tried to do many times over the years.
They seemed to think that she didn’t get it.
I was pretty sure she understood them just fine and liked to rile both of them up about it. But maybe the gleam in her brown eyes wasn’t at all like the mischievous spark that sometimes lit up in Hart’s lavender ones. And maybe I’m a toy poodle.
I had just gotten to the office—Roger and Lacy were both out, as it was early on a Saturday—and picked up the stack of paperwork that had been accumulating for me over the past several days. Lacy had been extremely understanding about me needing to take care of Elliot, and even Ronda had sent me a text saying she hoped he recovered soon.
Smith was meeting me in the early afternoon, but I’d dropped a sleepy Elliot off around eight so that I could try to power through the mountain of paperwork—on the Aniwa murder-suicide-arson as well as the barn fire with its multiple victims—before he got here.
I’d almost managed it, still inputting information from the chemical tests that had come back on samples taken from the cabin, when Smith walked through the door, carrying a little paper tray of coffee from his favorite place, Glas.
I wasn’t as big into fancy coffee as he was—I wasn’t sure if anyone was as big into fancy coffee as Gale Smith—but they did have a dedicated dairy-free steamer, so I was more than happy to accept a soy latte with some random flavoring. Today it smelled like gingerbread, which was just fine with me.
“Seth, how are you?” The tall, thin detective walked into the room, snagging one of the empty chairs so that he could pull it up near me. He spent a lot of time in our offices, getting reports, checking in on cases, and he knew all three of us pretty well by this point.
“Doing okay,” I replied.
“How’s Elliot?”
“Improving,” I answered honestly. “Not as fast as he’d like, but he’s on track to make a full recovery. We go back to see the surgeon next week.” Elliot was not happy with the situation, although all of the research I’d looked up suggested he was doing really well.
“That’s good.” Smith shook his head. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he said grimly. “We should’ve figured this out before now.”
“You’re doing your best,” I replied. I knew he hadn’t been neglecting the case—the evidence wasn’t there to point to anyone specific, and even if we had suspicions, he couldn’t just knock down doors based on what little there was. And I was sure it didn’t help that they were still shorthanded. And we were still dealing with Borde, the world’s most apathetic ME.
Smith grimaced. “Why do I feel like that’s not even remotely good enough?” he asked, although I knew the question was largely rhetorical.
“Until you get the bad guys, it never is,” I replied. “What can I do to help?”
He sighed, then took a pull on the straw stuck in his frozen coffee extravaganza. I did not understand how he could drink anything cold when it was like twenty degrees outside, and this wasn’t just cold, it was frozen . “Not much,” came the response. “But I wanted to share what little I’ve been able to dig up with you.”
I set down my pen. I’d finish up the paperwork later. “Okay,” I said, not wanting to rush him, but also deeply curious.
“That the cabin up in Aniwa, or the barn where we found that shifter?” He nodded toward the papers I was working on.
“The cabin,” I replied, leaning over to grab the finished file on the barn and pass it to him. “Here’s the barn.”
He flipped through it, eyes skimming through a report he must have read at least a hundred times for something new, something that reframed the way it worked. That might help him to figure out a missing link.
“I think,” he said slowly, bright blue eyes still scanning the pages, “that this might actually be connected to what’s happening with Elliot.”
“Seriously? But some of those bodies are more than a decade old!”
Smith nodded. “There’s a group that call themselves the Northmen,” he replied, still speaking slowly and deliberately. “Been around for ages, pre-Arcana, even. I think back then they were likely your run of the mill white supremacists. Anti-immigrant, anti-Indigenous. Your usual old-time, traditional bigotry.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I waited, sensing he wasn’t done yet.
“Arcana seems to have changed things, though. Gave them a new target for their hatred. A new set of people to blame for their problems.” He sighed heavily. “It’s not like they have a membership registry, of course. That would be too easy—and pretty stupid on their part.”
“The Northmen?” I repeated.
Smith nodded. “I asked the Feds in Green Bay, and they haven’t heard of them, and my research online hasn’t revealed anything specific, either.” Another sigh. “Lots of people calling themselves that, of course. Drawing on Norse and Viking traditions, that sort of thing.”
“How are they connected to Elliot?” I asked.
Smith sighed heavily. “That’s the part I don’t know about for certain. We have evidence linking the Northmen to some of the anti-Arcanid vandalism and protests around Shawano and Bonduel.”
“And Elliot?” I asked.
“Nothing definitive, annoyingly,” Smith replied. “Friends of friends—people with links to Buettner, others we know with social links to Lance Hasenfuss—” He broke off, an uncertain expression on his face. “Hasenfuss?—”
“Was one of the assholes who killed Elliot’s father,” I finished for him.
He nodded. “Hart filled you in on that, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got connections between them,” he said. “But nothing that will get me a warrant, because there are dozens of people, possibly more, who are friends-of-friends.”
“What do you need?” I asked him.
He kept flipping through the report. “A miracle,” he replied darkly.
I went back over every tiny little thing in the case. Every particulate. Every chemical signature. Every hair and grain of pollen and unknown smudge or print. Looking for a miracle.
I didn’t find one.
Not quite.
But I did find something that I’d missed—something that shouldn’t have been on a skinned dead dog.
Or a skinned dead badger.
Or a skinned dead possum.
I called Lacy.
“Tell me you’re not at work, Seth,” was how she answered the phone.
“Tell me whether or not you found styrene-butadiene-styrene on the possum.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t looking for that ,” she replied.
“Can I?”
“No. But I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, and I’ll let you watch.”
Lacy was the one who called Smith, but she put it on speaker.
“Lacy, what’s going on?”
“I hear you’re looking for a miracle,” she drawled, milking it.
He was quiet for a few breaths. “Is Seth there?”
“Merry early Christmas, detective,” I said.
“Talk to me,” he ordered, his voice low and urgent.
“Buettner works at Belmark, yeah?” I asked. I’d confirmed it on his social media, but I needed Smith to make it official.
“Yes?” he replied, drawing out the word into a question.
“Belmark makes packaging. Including labels.”
“Yes?”
“Well,” Lacy said, jumping in. “There’s a chemical used to make label adhesive called styrene-butadiene-styrene, or SBS.”
“Okay…?”
“Not something that naturally occurs in animals,” I said. “And yet, we seem to have found SBS on both the skinned badger and the dog.”
“And,” Lacy put in, “the possum.”
“And it couldn’t be anything else? And we didn’t catch it before?”
“So here’s the thing,” I put in. “We knew there was some chemical residue, but we didn’t specifically test it because we assumed it was probably duct tape adhesive, since we also found duct-tape fibers. But I went back to it tonight, and it’s the wrong adhesive.”
“And SBS isn’t used in tape?”
“Only specialty labels,” Lacy confirmed.
“Well, hot damn ,” Smith breathed, and Lacy and I grinned at each other, because that was certainly the rudest thing I’d ever heard the man say, and Lacy looked just as entertained.
“To be absolutely certain,” I said. “Lacy went and got a label from Belmark.”
“And it matches,” she said cheerfully.
“I adore you both and will bring you cookies on Monday.”
Elliot and I were settled on the couch back at the house—I’d tried to convince him that a couch and reclining armchair would be much better places to convalesce than pillows on a floor or my mattress, and finally succeeded.
I brought home Chinese takeout, both my favorites and Elliot’s, to celebrate the breakthrough in the case and to apologize for being late. I’d bought extra for Henry, who I knew was obsessed with shrimp fried rice and scallion pancakes.
I pushed through the front door, setting down the bulging bag of food so that I could take off my boots, then shuck my coat, mittens, and scarf.
“Do I smell Chinese?” I heard Elliot call from the living room.
I smiled as I picked up the bag and carried it into the kitchen. “Either that, or you’re having a stroke,” I called back.
I was unpacking the big white bag when Henry shuffled in. “I’ll get out of your hair,” he said.
“I brought fried rice and scallion pancakes just for you, though,” I told him, offering a smile along with the two containers.
Henry’s wrinkled face split into a grin. “Well, now, that’s nice.” He went to the cupboard and got out plates, handing me two before taking the last and dishing himself up some food.
I opened the other containers, making up a plate for myself and another for Elliot while Henry carried his dinner back into the living room and settled in the armchair. I followed, handing Elliot his plate. He set it on his lap, then immediately took his fork and started eating, making happy sounds.
I hid my smile behind my own food.
I’d meant to tell Elliot—and Henry, if he was there—immediately that Smith now had evidence linking Buettner to the dead animals, but he seemed quite happy just to be eating Chinese food.
“Henry?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“How many of the little seafoam green pills did he take?” The surgeon had given Elliot a prescription for oxycodone.
“One this morning, and then another tonight,” Henry replied. “But only about forty minutes ago.” Which meant that the initial rush of being pain- and care-free had just hit him. Shifter metabolism meant that we needed higher doses—or more frequent doses—of medications to get the same effect.
“Ah,” I replied. Now was probably not the time to try to talk to Elliot about anything serious.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “He just seems happier than normal to have Chinese food.”
“I like Chinese food,” Elliot objected.
Henry let out a little huff of a laugh.
“I know,” I told Elliot. “That’s why I got some.”
He nodded happily. “Especially sweet and sour chicken. And the crab rangoon. You got me crab rangoon.”
Given that the little friend wontons were stuffed with cream cheese, we didn’t often get them, since Elliot usually wanted us to be able to share everything.
“I did,” I replied, amused.
“Because you love me.”
I couldn’t help laughing, both at Elliot’s drugged earnestness and Henry’s clearly entertained expression. “Yes,” I confirmed. “Because I love you.”
Call me?
It was Noah.
Henry had left—sent off with the leftover shrimp fried rice and scallion pancakes, as well as some of the dozens of fortune cookies they threw in the bag—and I’d gotten Elliot settled in bed. He’d fallen asleep pretty much instantly as soon as I’d given him his night-time meds, although these were basic anti-inflammatories, aspirin, and steroids, not narcotics.
I closed the bedroom door on Elliot’s sleeping form, then went into the living room to call Noah.
He answered after the second ring.
“Sethy, what have you been doing? I haven’t heard from you in a week!”
I sighed. “It’s… been a lot, Nono.”
“Did you and Elliot have a fight?” Of course I’d told my brother about Elliot and the fact that we were in fact now in a relationship. I may have skipped over the disastrous date we went on back in September. That had just been too humiliating, even to share with Noah.
“No.” I sighed. “He just had surgery.”
“Oh, shit,” Noah breathed. “What for?”
“He was hit in badger form by an ATV.”
“He was what?! ”
I sighed heavily. I hadn’t wanted to get into the literally gory details about what had been happening. I’d told him that Elliot was being harassed—I hadn’t mentioned that harassed meant has had skinned dead animals left on his doorstep . But that now seemed more necessary to explain the escalation to opportunistic attempted homicide.
I’d expected pouting and horror, but Noah was furious.
“Seth Ezekiel Mays, what the fuck were you thinking?!”
“What do you mean, what was I thinking? I’m not the one doing it!”
“You’re staying with a man who is being threatened with dead animals ?”
“Yes, Noah. Because I don’t want him to die .” Now I was getting annoyed.
“Seth, if they try to kill him, they could kill you .”
I involuntarily let out a low growl. “So you think I should just let them do it?”
“No, of course not. But why does it have to be you? A cop should be the one staying with him!”
“Except a cop was one of the men who killed his father last year!”
Noah sucked in a sharp breath, but said nothing.
“So, no, he doesn’t want cops anywhere near his property, and I’m not leaving him alone.”
“I…” He sighed. “I don’t want to worry about you, Sethy.”
It was my turn to sigh. “Yeah, well, I’d really rather not have to worry about me, either, but here we are.”
Noah was quiet again. “Does this mean you’re not coming back for Christmas?” His voice was plaintive.
The question hit me right in the gut. I’d barely even thought about Christmas, and, given that it was a week away, there was essentially no chance I was going to do so now. So now in addition to being a little annoyed about Noah being mad at me, I now felt guilty for not thinking about the fact that he’d want to spend Christmas together. And now that he’d reminded me, I also felt bad about the fact that I wanted to spend Christmas with my twin, who was halfway across the country.
“I—I can’t leave him, Noah,” I half-whispered. “Not now.” It was probably only partially true—I probably could . If I told Judy and Marsh that I was worried, they would absolutely bully Elliot into staying with them, he would have his almost-family for the holidays, and I could go back to see Noah.
I tried to do the math on how many days I could take off work on top of what I’d already requested to take care of Elliot. It would take me two to drive back to Richmond, another two to get back to Shawano… because I couldn’t afford what it would cost to get a ticket back this close to the actual holiday.
“I want to spend the holiday with you, Nono,” I said, needing to convince him. “But I don’t know if I can . It’s at least five or six days off, and I don’t know if I can take that much—I can ask—but?—”
“You don’t want to come back,” he accused, hurt.
“I do ,” I insisted. “I just—” Then something occurred to me. “You could come here ,” I countered. “You and Lulu.”
I heard Noah suck in a breath. “Come there?” he repeated.
“You want a traditional Christmas? Snow? Cold? We have that here.” In fact, it was supposed to snow again tomorrow. Now that I’d brought up the idea, I really wanted it to happen.
“You want me and Lulu to come out to Wisconsin?”
“Yeah, I do,” I replied. It was the first time I think I’d ever wanted Lulu to do anything. I’d become resigned to Lulu being a part of our family, such as it was, but now I actually found myself hoping that Noah would agree to come out here. And that he’d bring Lulu with him. Because Lulu was part of our weird, sad little family. “Please, Nono?”
I hoped Elliot wouldn’t mind. I hadn’t asked him, and even if I did wake him up and ask him now, he wasn’t really in any condition to actually agree to anything.
I could tell Noah was thinking. Then, “I… have to talk to Lulu. But… I want to.”
“It’d be a real white Christmas,” I told him.
“There’d better be snow. A snowman. Snowball fights.”
“And hot cocoa with a candy cane in it that will warm you up at the end of it,” I promised. “And cookies.”
“Would we get a real tree?” Noah asked, suddenly. “We’ve never had a real tree.”