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She made a disgusted sound. “Fine. Fine, give him the case. Fail me like you always fail me.”
Wow, I thought, that was harsh and cruel and out loud. Why would anyone stay with a spouse who talked to them like that?
“It’s okay, Todd,” Duke said, and this time his voice was kind, a hell of a lot kinder than Muriel’s had been.
I realized that Duke felt sorry for the man. I think we all did, but it felt more personal with Duke. Just the few remarks between him and Muriel had implied they’d dated semiseriously twenty years ago. Did he look at Todd Babington and think, There but for the grace of God go I? I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be married to the bitter beauty of Muriel Marchand-Babington.
Duke took the case from Todd Babington’s hands gently but firmly. There was no weakness to his kindness, just a different kind of strength. Whatever was happening between the three of them had a long history, and I felt like something between a voyeur and unneeded backup, the police equivalent of a third wheel.
Leduc started to kneel in the middle of the hallway, but then seemed to think better of it. “Come here, Rico. You might as well be useful for something.” He laid the case on the younger man’s arms and made sure he had a good grip on it before hitting the locks.
When the case opened without needing to be unlocked, Muriel said, “How could you forget to lock the case, Todd?”
“I’m sorry, Muriel,” he muttered, staring at the floor like a dog that had been hit once too often. His reaction to her wasn’t love—at least not to me.
Duke opened the case carefully and then sighed heavily. Newman was tall enough to see what was in the case, but I wasn’t. All I could do was guess as Duke said, “These are worth more than I’ll make in the next ten years, maybe more to the right buyer. I’m assuming you have a buyer lined up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Muriel said. “I just thought that it would be wise to remove some of the most valuable pieces from the house, with all the police and other strangers having access to it.”
“So, you’re only removing the small valuables that could be pocketed by the riffraff?” Duke said, voice tired and a little angry as he looked up at her.
I whispered to Newman, “What is it?”
He whispered back, “Porcelain figurines.”
“Sorry, Marshal Blake. I guess you can’t see,” Leduc said.
“Maybe on tiptoes, but I’d hate to overbalance and knock the case.”
“That would be a shame,” Leduc said, and lifted the case out of Rico’s arms so I could see two figurines nestled in gray foam that had been cut to hold them.
They were a male figure and a female figure, and there was just enough of the clothing to make me say, “They’re Harlequin.”
He looked surprised. “You know your porcelain,” he said.
“No,” I said, “but I recognize the costumes and colors enough to guess that they’re supposed to be some sort of harlequin based on the old Italian commedia dell’arte.”
Newman asked, “How do you know any of that?”
“I have friends old enough to have seen the actors live onstage.”
I didn’t add that the Harlequin was also a code name for the vampire equivalent of secret police and for the bodyguards of the queen or king of the vampire council. They’d once been the vampire equivalent of the bogeyman, and now what remained of them belonged to Jean-Claude and I guess technically me as his soon-to-be queen. I had managed not to share any of this with fellow police officers, and I didn’t intend to start now. I don’t know what made me say it out loud to begin with. Had I been showing off? Did Muriel’s treatment of all of us as thieving riffraff bother me? Maybe. I wondered if later she’d planned on trying to blame some of the emergency responders for the disappearance of the figurines.
“They are based on actual actors that played the parts,” Todd said, and he looked at me, really met my eyes and looked at me as if I’d done something interesting enough to get through the fog of emotional abuse.
“You know people old enough to have known the actors these are based on? That’s impossible. Oh, you mean vampires,” Muriel said, and managed to imply by tone alone that she thought even less of me now.
“Yeah, I mean vampires,” I said.
Todd’s eyes glazed over, and he looked at the floor again. His eyes were brown, which I hadn’t been sure of until that moment. Jesus, he really was an abuse victim, so hurt that he didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. Could just verbal abuse destroy a person like that, or did Muriel add physical abuse behind closed doors? Spousal abuse is illegal, no matter what gender everyone is. It made me wonder if Todd might need a little rescuing. I filed it away for later. Once I’d helped save Bobby Marchand and found the real killer, I’d see about rescuing abused husbands, if Todd wasn’t guilty of anything worse than attempted grand larceny. If he’d helped Muriel kill Ray Marchand and frame Bobby, then I couldn’t save him. No one could.
“I thought marshals killed the monsters,” Muriel said.
“That’s part of the job description,” I said.
“Then they can’t be your friends.”
“It does tend to complicate things,” I said.
