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“You don’t have to see Wagner to talk to him,” I said.
“Right,” Bobby said, but his pulse had sped up against the side of his neck. He’d been playing it as cool and calm as Livingston had looked until that moment.
“Duke, go calm your deputy down,” Livingston said, still in that low bass growl.
“Troy, stop being an ass.”
“Is his bedside manner always this awesome?” I asked quietly enough that it was mostly for the people in the cell with me.
“He’s usually pretty nice,” Kaitlin said as she drew a small piece of thread or fiber from the palm of Bobby’s left hand. She’d already filled other plastic bags and containers with tiny crystals, or maybe they were rocks. I was a little fuzzy on the difference, just like thread and fiber. I mean, were all threads fiber the way that all poodles were dogs, but not all dogs were poodles, or were thread and fiber totally interchangeable?
“You’re not catching Duke at his best,” Livingston growled, and his voice had an edge to it that made me glance up at him. His eyes stayed focused on where the shotgun was pointed, which I appreciated, but if I hadn’t been afraid that I’d set Bobby’s beast off, I might have reached some energy into the big state cop. Was his voice going lower because of the tenseness of the moment, or was it something more?
I couldn’t sense any animal energy off him, or off Bobby, for that matter. If your control was good enough, you could pass for pure human even to someone who had their own beast. That level of control was rare, but I’d met a few people who could do it. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how Livingston could have passed the blood work that was mandatory after you survived an attack on the job. Blood work didn’t care how good your control was, or maybe I was just looking for monsters where there weren’t any . . .
Bobby had dropped the blanket so that Kaitlin could get whole-body pictures. It meant that he had to stand up, which made us all have to readjust our positions. Livingston had the shotgun barrel pressed against the bottom of Bobby’s skull, but at an upward angle so that he’d miss me. If he had to pull the trigger now, he’d paint Bobby’s brains on the ceiling instead of on the wall. I stepped back while Kaitlin took her own pictures of the visual evidence on Bobby, but Livingston stayed put so that he was probably in at least some of the images. It would have been interesting if they’d had to be presented in court. I hoped they did get used in court, because that would mean Newman hadn’t had to execute Bobby and that we’d found someone else to put on trial for the murder.
Bobby had been a good sport about Kaitlin looking for trace evidence in the dried blood on most of his body. He even managed not to get overly embarrassed when she knelt in front of him so that her head was placed in front of the bloody mess of his groin. Then she found something in the blood there that she wanted to pluck and put into a plastic Baggie. I don’t know if it was the tweezers coming toward his junk, or if he still didn’t know why there was so much gore caked on him there, but whatever the reason, he tried to back up, which made Livingston dig the gun into his head. Bobby pressed back against Livingston and his gun barrel as if he didn’t feel it.
“Stop moving,” Livingston said in that low, gravelly voice.
Bobby kept trying to back away from Kaitlin and her tweezers. I felt his energy spike with the fear that I could see on his face. It wasn’t his beast yet—his eyes were still human—but the energy prickled along my skin, raising goose bumps.
“I will shoot you!” Livingston growled, and he had to change angles again to keep me out of harm’s way.
I appreciated his attempt, but Bobby was a
cting as if the threat was the woman in front of him, not the man behind him with the shotgun. This was going to get out of hand, and Newman was right there outside the bars, so it would even be a legal kill.
“Bobby,” I said. “Bobby, look at me.”
I watched yellow pour through his irises like golden water drowning the human blue. His leopard eyes stayed wide and focused on Kaitlin.
“His eyes are gold,” Kaitlin said, voice low.
“Do something, Blake, or I will have to shoot him,” Livingston said.
He was talking through gritted teeth as he tried to hold his ground with the gun changing its aimpoint as Bobby pushed backward. The hair on Livingston’s arms was standing to attention. He was reacting to the energy rush; most people didn’t. Bobby’s hands were in the cuffs Newman had supplied, but I wasn’t honestly sure what would happen if he started to shift. Would the cuffs stay on, or would the sliding bones and ligaments help him slip the only restraint he had? I’d never actually seen those cuffs used on anyone during the change. I promised myself that when I got home I’d remedy that. Nathaniel would probably enjoy helping me test the equipment.
I waved Kaitlin back, and she scooted back behind me slowly, like she didn’t want any sudden movements to spook him. I gave her brownie points for not just scrambling away or running for the door and yelling for them to open it and let her out.
I yelled, “Bobby!” He finally looked at me, golden eyes so wide, you could see white all the way around them, like the eyes of a horse that was about to bolt. The irises had changed color, but the structure was still human, though you had to be this close to realize that. To everyone else, his eyes were leopard eyes. They’d sign statements to that effect, and they’d all believe it.
“How could I do that to Uncle Ray?” Bobby whispered so low that I think only Livingston and I could hear him.
“We aren’t sure you did anything to your uncle,” I said, “but to prove that, we need to collect evidence. We need you to let us do our jobs, okay?”
“It’s a hair—a hair caught in all that blood. It’s not my hair.”
I didn’t try to argue with him. I hadn’t realized it was a hair. I just said, “It doesn’t mean it was your uncle’s hair. Hell, if you share a washer and dryer with someone, you can get trace evidence on your sheets and then it transfers to you. Not all fiber and hair mean anything.” I was babbling at him, trying to get his energy to calm down without me having to add to it, because if Livingston could feel just Bobby, I wasn’t sure what he’d think if he felt me, too. I wasn’t afraid that I’d out myself to him. I was afraid that he’d think my extra energy was Bobby changing, and shoot him because of that. Could I explain the metaphysics to Livingston in time?
Newman said, “I had Dale, our coroner, look, and there were no signs of abuse on your uncle’s body.”
Bobby tried to turn and look at him, but the shotgun barrel dug in so hard that he’d have had to push the barrel partially into his skull to see Newman and the sheriff on the other side of the bars.
“I don’t believe you,” Bobby said, and he kept turning toward Newman as if a gun weren’t pressed to his head.
Livingston tried to stand his ground. I saw the metal imprint on Bobby’s temple. If he’d been plain human, he’d have been bleeding, but the metal of the gun barrel wouldn’t cut into him that easily. He kept pushing until a trickle of blood trailed down his skin. It would heal almost immediately, but that he was cutting himself at all meant he was really trying to hurt himself.
