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Pellini gave a low bark of laughter. “He tried. I was in my garage the other day and he comes walking up the driveway, stopped right before the door and starts going on about how the Saints didn’t deserve to win the Super Bowl, and that Green Bay was going to take it all the way this year.”
Boudreaux gave a snort. “Did you bust his ass?”
Pellini shrugged. “Nah. I kinda wondered if maybe he was trying to bait me and get me to take a swing at him—figured he probably had a buddy of his ready with a camera.”>But this time I took the syringe from his hand. He cocked an eyebrow at me in mild astonishment, then smiled and gestured to the body. “You know how to do it?”
I gave him a stiff nod. I’d seen it done a few dozen times. Time to stop being a weenie. The needle slid in with barely any resistance. A shiver raced down my spine at the sight of the needle tip going through the pupil, but it came with an absurd sense of satisfaction. I’d finally won a round of “make Kara do something nasty.” I carefully drew out the fluid, pulled the needle back out, and then carefully handed it to Carl.
“Don’t ever ask me to do that again,” I said.
He burst out laughing, then quickly squirted the fluid into a tube. “I won’t. I promise.” He put the tube away, then turned back to me. “Do you want to try cutting the head open?”
“No!”
He grinned. “Your loss,” he said.
“And on that, I will gladly accept defeat,” I told him.
We suspended our banter as Doc returned to the cutting room. He remained largely quiet during the autopsy of Evelyn Stark. I had the feeling that his mind was already running through possibilities on why Barry Landrieu’s brain had exploded, so to speak.
I watched his face as he began to cut through Evelyn Stark’s brain, could see the instant he saw it from the way his face went still and pale. He gave his head a slight shake of disbelief, then yanked his gaze up to me. “What’s the connection?” he asked. “There has to be some sort of connection. This isn’t possible.”
I could completely understand how he felt. “I don’t know, Doc,” I said, the lie bitter in my mouth. “But I gotta say, I’m glad to know my hunch was right.”
His gaze grew hard for an instant, then he shook his head again. “That was one hell of a hunch, Kara.” He gave me a smile, but it had a guarded, curious edge to it.
I spread my hands and tried to look baffled.
“Hunh.” He turned his attention back to the body. “Maybe it’s some sort of designer drug. Something that’s not showing on the quick test. Or a virus.” He grimaced. “Of course, if it is a virus, we’re all fucked.”
“I was on both scenes and gave CPR to her,” I jerked my chin toward the body. “And my brain hasn’t exploded yet. So we’re probably all right.”
Doc gave a humorless chuckle. “It’s also only been one day. Hardly enough time for anything to take hold.” He blew out his breath. “I have a feeling I’ll be spending the rest of the day looking through a microscope.”
“Barry Landrieu was a known drug user,” I said. “And Evelyn Stark was an alcoholic.”
He gave a nod. “My investigator told me that Landrieu went to jail a few years ago, and when he got out he supposedly cleaned up and was doing the whole straight-and-narrow thing.”
“You don’t see that very often,” I said.
“Well, apparently his little sister died of an overdose while he was in prison. Guess that was his wakeup call.”
Shock and regret coiled through me. I made it out of that life and never looked back. But what could I have done for her? Given her pep talks? Pressure her to get into rehab? No way to know if anything would have helped, but once I had my own act together surely I could have tried.
Doc was still talking, thankfully oblivious to my reaction. I yanked my attention back to him and did my best to shove down the guilt.
“Anyway, I’ll put a rush on the tox screen. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that’s what it is.”
I gave him a dutiful nod in response. He had his avenues of investigation, and I had mine. Now I knew for certain that the two deaths were related and not simply by coincidence. My next hunch was that the presence of the graa was connected. Now I simply had to hunt down a summoner.
Easy.
Chapter 9
I left the morgue, still wondering how the hell I was going to accomplish my grand goal of finding this other summoner. We were private people out of self-preservation, and there wasn’t exactly a local directory. I fully intended to check and see if my aunt had any leads, but other than that I didn’t know what else I could do except wait for the summoner to tip his or her hand again.
By the time I made it to the station the sky had cleared to the kind of brilliant blue that only happened in southern winters when it was stupid-cold outside. No snow anymore, which was a relief, but the chill wind that swept around the building was anything but brisk and refreshing. Stabbing-icy-knives-of-death wind was probably a better description.
I made sure the cuff was concealed under my coat sleeve as I hurried up to the building. The last thing I wanted was to deal with questions about it. Actually the last thing I wanted was to have to keep wearing the damn thing. This whole mild nausea thing was a real downer.
