Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
As we left Avis’s shop, I glanced over my shoulder.
Erica and Veris were on their way out as well, and I hoped that one of Avis’s friends would show up to help her.
She was crying now—the shock had worn off.
My heart went out to her, but there was nothing we could do except try to find out who had killed Linus.
Once we were far enough away so that she couldn’t hear us, Wager frowned. “Can a selkie do that? And would someone actually kill over a fishing pole?”
“Not that I know of, and I wouldn’t,” I said.
“But we don’t know. Maybe Ian’s a sorcerer or…
he could be Ante-Fae, like me. Our powers don’t operate the same way as the powers of the Light and Dark Fae.
Each one of us is unique.” I had inherited my birthmarks from my parents, and some of my inclinations, but I was neither a Black Dog nor one of the Bean Sidhe.
“That’s a possibility,” Kipa said. “We haven’t had a run-in with one of the Ante-Fae in a while. And let’s face it, your kind are chaotic.”
“At best,” I said. I didn’t have any illusions about my own kind. And I was chaotic as well. I knew it and owned it.
“Can you find Ian McMasterson’s phone number or address?” I asked.
“I think we should do a little research on him before we drop in at his house,” Wager said. “If he’s the killer, we should find out what we’re dealing with before paying a surprise visit. And if he’s not, we don’t want to instigate a lawsuit.”
We were nearing the car when Wager’s phone rang. He answered, then quickly barked out, “Where? Send me your location.”
“What?” Kipa asked.
“Another one! Erica and Varis are heading there now. Let’s go.” He turned and sprinted toward the car. “It’s not that far, but we’ll get there quicker by driving,” he called over his shoulder.
We followed him, piling into the car.
“Whoever is behind this has an appetite for murder. Were all the victims human? I can’t remember.” I asked.
Wager squinted against the sunlight shining through the windshield. He slid on his sunglasses as we wheeled out of the parking lot. “Yes, they’ve all been human. And all men.”
The drive down to the docks didn’t take long—it wasn’t rush hour yet. The August heat felt stifling to me after living in Kalevala. It wasn’t really that hot, not compared to some places, but eighty-two degrees felt like it was baking the land.
Kipa, who was sitting in the back seat, leaned forward to look over my shoulder. “And nobody’s seen anything?”
“Not that the cops can find. Nobody’s reported anything strange until they found the dissolving bodies.
From what they can tell, it takes at least a couple of hours for the bodies to melt into slime.
” He grimaced. “I keep imagining some giant sea slug after somebody threw a bucket of salt at it. Not to make light of these deaths, but they’re so freaking weird. ”
“There—the cop car,” I said, pointing to one of the lots near the slips.
The pier was one that wasn’t used by the ferries or barges, but instead, by boaters who were looking for a place to pull in with their ships.
The company who leased the pier rented out the slips by the hour, and on the dock, there were restrooms with rentable showers, a few food courts, and a couple of security guards on duty at all times, though they didn’t always show up or pay much attention.
We parked in one of the open spots and headed down the pier.
The medical examiner hadn’t shown up yet, but Erica had commandeered the security guard to keep people out of the way, given that a small crowd of people had formed near the men’s restroom.
Erica saw us and motioned us over. She and Varis were guarding the open door.
Weaving through the crowd, we slid past the security guard, who was doing his best to look like he was on the ball. As we approached, Erica glanced behind us.
“Any signs of the medical examiner yet?” she asked.
I shook my head. “We didn’t see any official cars in the parking lot except yours.” I lowered my voice. “So, another body?”
Erica nodded. “Yeah, and we’d better figure this out soon, or it’s going to blow wide open in the media and we’ll have a shitshow on our hands. The mayor’s managing to keep it quiet, but we’re barely a week in since the first one.” She motioned for us to follow her into the bathroom.
The bathroom was oddly clean, for a public restroom, including the urinals. But what I saw near the sinks stopped me cold. A body, or rather, part of a body. It was another man, but his legs from the thighs down were gone, and—again—a giant pool of clear slime puddled around his lower torso.
“Cripes, that’s bad,” I said. A briny scent filled the air, like saltwater and seaweed. “Do your notes say that it smelled like this near all the bodies you found?”
Erica frowned. “I don’t know. I wasn’t on the scene for most of them. I thought it was just because we’re on the waterfront.” She pulled out her phone and began filming the body.
Wager approached, staying back just far enough so that he wouldn’t disturb the remains. “No, that smell is coming from…I think this slime. Has the medical examiner been able to analyze it yet?”
Once again, Erica shook her head. “I don’t know, to be honest.”
“Do you notice something?” Kipa asked. “There’s no blood. No sign of what killed him. He looks as if he’s sleeping. And where his legs should be—there isn’t any blood. It’s all just clear.”
“You’re right,” I said. “What about the other cases? Any blood?”
“I don’t think so There wasn’t much left by the time the medical examiner got to them,” Varis said.
“Anything unusual on the pier here?” I asked.
Varis shook his head. “I scouted the perimeter, but there doesn’t seem to be anything outside the ordinary. We have to talk to everybody out there, to see who—if anyone—saw anything.”
“Who reported the body?” I asked.
“Security guard. He was making his rounds, and that includes checking inside the restrooms every hour.” Varis shifted uncomfortably.
“So, if he’s telling the truth, then this has to have happened in full daylight, within the past…
” He glanced at his watch. “The guard said he checked the restroom at two PM. It’s three-thirty now, and we got here about ten minutes ago.
We were just getting back to our patrol car when the call came in.
Since we were already down here, dispatch sent us. ”
I turned back to the corpse, trying to observe the process without losing my lunch.
It was difficult to watch the man as he, for lack of a better word, melted.
The process seemed to have started from the feet and was working its way upward.
The man’s shoes were in the middle of the slime, and the legs of his pants were slack, with no more flesh to hold them up.
As we watched, the material around his pelvis seemed to just deflate.
“I know some creatures—some goblins and a few others—do this when they die, but so far, I don’t think any humans do.
There—his wallet just fell out of his pants pocket.
” I pointed toward the black leather trifold.
“Any chance we can grab it without causing a problem? I’d like to find out who it is. ”
“The medical examiner would throw a fit. He’s not the most congenial of people,” Erica said.
“Here comes Alec now,” Varis said. “He’s the new medical examiner. He’ll answer your questions, but don’t be surprised if he acts like you’re an inconvenience. I think he prefers hanging out with the dead—and I’m not talking undead—more than the living.”
We waited as a man, looking to be in his mid-forties, joined us. The expression on his face was unreadable, but he gave us all a look as though we were walking obstacles. He was followed by two technicians, who silently stood to the side.
Erica continued to video the body as it dissolved, and Alec scowled at her, but said nothing.
“Excuse me,” I said. “You’re the medical examiner? Dr. …?”
“Dr. Leache,” he said. “Excuse me, I need to examine the victim.” He started to brush by, but I reached out and lightly touched him on the arm.
“We’re from the Wild Hunt Agency, and we’ve been asked by the mayor to look into this string of killings. If you could answer some questions for us, it would be helpful.”
I kept my voice steady. I figured that he’d probably brush me off, given I didn’t look the part of an investigator, but it was worth a try.
On the other hand, I might not seem as imposing as Kipa and Wager.
Men like Alec too often had more brains than social awareness, and a number of them seemed to make up for their awkwardness with a blustery attitude toward other men.
Alec stared at me for a moment, then—an irritated look in his eyes—asked, “What do you need to know?”
“For one thing, have you had the chance to analyze whatever that slime is?”
Alec slowly nodded. “Yes, actually. It seems to be all that makes up a human body, in gel form. I have no idea how it happens or why it happens. But if you were to turn a human into a jellyfish, keeping all the elements that make up the human body, that’s what you’d be left with.”
I grimaced. “Okay, so it’s basically just human gelatin that hasn’t hardened?”
“You could say that. All the minerals are there, the cells that make up the blood…though none of the water. As I said, we’ve never come across this before, so we have no idea how the transformation happens.”
“None of the water?” Wager said.
“That’s one of the oddities. Humans range from about forty-five to seventy percent water.
Men around this age? Around sixty percent.
The weight of the slime that we could gather from the other victims proves this.
It doesn’t include water and so…where did the water go?
You’ll notice there aren’t any puddles around.
” Alec seemed to swing into lecture mode, and the arrogance vanished as the teacher emerged.
“Then,” he added, “there are the traces of seaweed that I’ve found around all the bodies.
I’m not certain where that came from, but that’s another mystery.
And the third—there one element lacking from the remains, is sodium. The bodies have been drained of salt.”
“If you were to speculate, what would your theory be?”
He let out a soft sigh. “Honestly? I can’t give you one. I don’t know. I haven’t located any virus that could account for this, or any material that could have done this. It’s beyond my scope of experience. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get to work here.”
“Can we have his wallet?” I asked.
Alec frowned, but nodded. “No, but I’ll open it so you can take his name and address from his license. Wait here.” He snapped on some gloves and, after motioning for the techs to lay out crime scene tape, began outlining what was left of the body.
Alec retrieved the wallet, wiping the gel off, then opened it and held it out.
The license was behind a plastic protector, and I took a picture of it.
He then slid it into a baggie and handed it to one of the techs, who placed it in a separate bag.
Cops usually used paper bags to hold evidence, but I doubted they’d want what was essentially remains to leak through the paper.
“If you’ll let me do my work now.”
“I’ll finish filming this,” Erica said. “I guess that’s all for now,” she added. “Call me if you have any further questions. Are you going to contact his family?”
“Do you want us to?” Wager asked.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d had to deliver bad news.
“No, we’ll do it. But you’ll probably want to talk to them.
Meanwhile, I’ve sent over a dossier on all the other victims’ families.
We already interviewed them, but you’re pretty good at finding out information we might not be able to gather,” Erica said.
“Anyway, thank you for coming down. With five victims in as many days, we desperately need a lead. Stay in touch.”
As we left, I thought that the police were just as effective as usual. And with the corruption and lack of enthusiasm that infected the force, the body count only threatened to pile up.