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“Why would someone kill her?” Auggie asked.
“Good question,” Jem said. “What’s that?”
“What? Oh. He—she?” He looked at Tean.
Tean shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“They were wearing that,” Auggie said and shrugged. “I grabbed it when they were trying to get away.” A smile slipped across his face. “As soon as they heard Tean screaming like a lunatic, they tried to run. They got away, but they left this behind.”
Jem motioned for the bag, and Theo handed it over—but only after a look at Auggie, waiting for Auggie’s confirming nod. That was interesting, Tean decided, although he couldn’t be sure why.
When Jem opened the bag, light gleamed on several hypodermic needles and syringes. Two small vials were nestled with the syringes. Somehow—improbably—he’d kept hold of the plastic bags he’d been using as improvised gloves, and he donned them again now. He extracted one of the vials, glanced at it, and held it out for Tean’s inspection. He repeated the process with the second vial.
“Well?” Auggie asked.
Theo was still rubbing his knee. “What are they?”
“Detomidine hydrochloride,” Tean said. “And ketamine hydrochloride.” Jem returned the vials to the fanny pack as Tean crouched next to Una. When he touched her, she was still warm. It took him a moment to find the injection site on her arm. It was a ragged puncture wound with some tearing. She’d been surprised. Maybe she hadn’t even seen the needle coming. She’d pulled away. Only by then, it had been too late.
“Tean?” Jem said. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a large animal sedative.” The roar of the industrial fans filled his ears. It seemed to be getting louder and louder, and he had a hard time hearing himself talking over it. “Detomidine. They use it for horses. Ketamine is often administered with it, to speed the onset.”
For a moment, the rushing emptiness of the fan was everything.
“Shit,” Jem said under his breath.
“So…” Auggie said.
“So,” Tean said, dusting his knees as he stood, “whoever killed her has veterinary training.”
11
“We can’t just leave her,” Tean said as Jem urged him into the passenger seat. On the other side of the Jetta, Theo and Auggie watched, their faces set like sympathetic mirrors. “Not in there with the chickens.”
Jem traded a look with the other two men. All he said, though, was, “Let’s get away from here. Then we can figure out what we want to do.”
“No,” Tean said. “We need to tell the police what we saw.”
“You saw how well that went last time,” Jem said. “If we call up the local yokels, we’re going to spend the night in a cell. The four of us.” In a lower voice, he added, “Tean, what do we know? Someone—maybe a man, maybe a woman—killed Una and ran away. We can tell them that when we make the call anonymously. We left the fanny pack. We left the drugs. The police will find them. That’s it, that’s everything. Now can we please go?”
“You’re ok with this?” Tean asked across the hood of the car. “Both of you?”
To Tean’s surprise, Theo looked again to Auggie for the decision.
“We should call Emery,” Auggie said.
“I don’t think you understand the concept of get the hell out of here,” Jem said.
“He’s not wrong,” Theo said. “We should call Emery and John-Henry. They’re police. Well, Emery used to be. But John-Henry is the chief of police.”
Something flickered in Jem’s face, something too fast for Tean to catch.
“They’ll know what to do,” Theo continued.
“And if we need them to, they can tell Chief Cassidy anything we need him to know,” Auggie said. “Emery’s a private investigator. And John-Henry has done law enforcement around here for a long time. They both have contacts; they can tell the chief that’s how they learned anything we want them to pass on.”
Jem looked at Tean.
