Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels) (3 page)

I cleared my throat, eager to redirect him to my purpose so I could get out of there. “Eugene? Doctor Ramis?”

“Doctor Ramis was my father,” he said with a snort. “And I hate my first name. Doc will do just fine.” I started to introduce myself but he cut me off. “You're Judah Black with BSI. Tindall told me to expect you.”

“You do a lot of autopsies out here, Doc?”

“Not really. I mean, I did a few in medical school. You have to in order to get your license. Here, I do maybe one or two a year, mostly exsanguination. You know, vampire kills? They get a little overzealous sometimes.”

I wasn't sure I would call drinking a person's blood to the point of death overzealousness. The casual attitude with which Doc approached death was more than a little unsettling and it made me wonder just how many crimes had slipped by without ever making it to the state authorities.

He pulled and tugged at the body bag until it was free of the body and then tossed it to the floor. “This is going to be a fun one. The change makes their organs go all screwy until they balance out on the other side. Going to have to do some digging.” He started poking at the body. My stomach twisted. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied and tried to ignore the cold sweat I'd broken into. “Do you recognize him?”

Doc took the corpse's chin in his hand and turned his head stiffly from one side to the other. “Nope. Of course, being half changed, making a positive ID is going to be hard. He won't even have the same prints.” He went to a filing cabinet on the other side of the room and pulled out a digital camera, a small produce scale, a tool belt full of sharp things and a zippered pouch that was labeled: phlebotomy kit. He tossed the last item to me and then retrieved a pen and paper that he also passed to me. “I'll do the fun part. You take the notes. That is, unless you want to help?”

I swallowed the bile that had decided to creep up my throat. “No. I'm good with just notes.”

Doc shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said before he walked over to press the button on his CD player and flipped through a few songs before he found one he liked. I don't know what was more unnerving, standing by while he cut open a dead werewolf or the fact that he was doing it while listening to Olivia Newton John.

“All rightie, then,” he said, cracking his knuckles. He walked around the body, snapping a few pictures. Every once in a while, he would stop to measure something with a tape measure or to turn over the appropriate body part as he spoke. “Subject is an uncircumcised male, approximately five feet eight inches in height and one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty pounds. Body temperature taken rectally upon arrival places death sometime between four and five this morning. Presence of secondary molars and physical development suggest the age of the subject somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five, probably on the younger side of that scale. Looks to be of Hispanic origin, definitely a werewolf. No obvious identification with the body. We'll skip the prints due to the presence of phalangeal deformity.”

I was really fighting to keep up with the pace at which he was talking, especially since he was using jargon. “What was that?”

He picked up the half formed left hand and waved it stiffly at me. “Phalangeal deformity. Let's see. Where was I? Um...Distinguishing marks. Subject has a black tribal tattoo band on the upper bicep of the left arm. Evidence of piercings in both ears, likely silver and removed to allow for the change, since werewolves can't change while wearing silver.” He looked over at me with one eyebrow raised. “Can they?”

“Some,” I confirmed, reaching back in my memory for the early days of my training with BSI. “But not easily.”

“Right. Well, he's not wearing any silver. You'll probably find it at the scene somewhere if you look hard enough. There are some markings here in the bend of the left arm. They look like track marks. None of them look fresh but it's hard to tell with the way they heal.” He took several pictures of the track marks. When he seemed satisfied, he dropped the camera and then held his hand out to me expectantly. When I didn't give it to him right away he looked up and demanded in an irritated tone, “Phlebotomy kit.”

I handed it to him and watched as he tried to poke at the inside of the werewolf's femoral artery without success. Doc muttered a mild curse to himself and then wandered off to search through a drawer before coming back with another needle. “Silver needles. Should've thought of that the first time, Doc.” He tried it again with the new needle and finally managed to get what he wanted. Doc collected five vials of blood and placed them on a little plate before labeling them and passing the plate to me. “Put this in the fridge, will you?”

I looked around. The only fridge I saw was next to the curtain he'd drawn over his zombies. They probably weren't any threat, sleeping as they were, but that didn't change the fact that I was uneasy about going over there.
Come on, Judah,
I thought.
Woman up. They're just zombies
. I walked over to the fridge. One of his zombies was leaning against the side of it, snoring. Carefully, I opened the door and sat the plate on the middle shelf next to a brown paper sack before hurrying back to start jotting down more notes.

“No obvious defensive wounds, though the rate of accelerated healing and deformities due to shifting makes a visual inspection inconclusive. I'll swab under the fingernails momentarily. Several large pieces of glass are protruding from the superior regions of the skull, though I doubt any of them are large enough to have penetrated the skull itself. The absence of a petechial rash suggests rapid healing accounts for the lack of bruising so if any injury to the cranium contributed to the cause of death I won't know that until I open up the cranial cavity. However, the location of the wound on the right side of his neck and lack of quick healing combined with advanced tissue necrosis suggests that the severing of the right internal jugular vein may be the cause of death.”

I lowered the paper, knowing it was hopeless to try and keep up with him. “In layman's terms, Doc. What does all that mean?”

“There was a fight. I can't tell if he resisted or not. Your killer acted with near medical precision using a sharp instrument. Your victim bled out in two minutes or less but likely lost consciousness after about thirty seconds. It was fast and relatively painless.” Doc watched my face for a reaction.

I swallowed and nodded. “Silver lining, I guess.”

“A poor choice of words, Black, considering the attacker's weapon of choice was likely a silver knife given the level of decay at the wound site.” He sorted through his tool belt, coming up with a nice, sharp looking knife. “I'm going to open him up.” Doc lowered a face mask over his nose and mouth as if he were about to do some welding instead of making an incision and pressed the blade against the werewolf's shoulder.

The door behind us swung open and an inhuman growl echoed through the room. Doc shrieked for the second time in an hour as a big Latino guy wearing a cowboy hat stepped into the room with Tindall on his heels. The Latino guy growled at us again and then pointed at Doc and said, “Get the hell away from my brother.”

At six feet tall and roughly two hundred and fifty pounds of supernaturally dense muscle, our new visitor wasn't the kind of guy that I wanted to cross. A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the room when Doc didn't drop his knife right away. Somehow, I didn't think talking this guy down was going to work. He had a look in his eyes, somewhere between murderous rage and righteous contempt.

“I said get away from him!” He took another step forward and had barely gotten his heel back to the ground before Tindall pressed the barrel of a gun against the back of his head.

“Go ahead and take another step, Valentino. Give me the excuse I need.”

“You got three seconds to get that piece of shit gun away from my head,
gringo
, before I rip your face off,” the big Latino guy presumably named Valentino said.

“Now, wait just a second.” I put down the pen and paper as gently as I could. “Let's all just calm down.”

“One...”

“Not in here,” Doc pleaded. “Please, God, not in here...”

“Two.”

“Tindall, put the gun down!” I came forward, drawing protesting growls from Valentino but I didn't care. I figured it was better to anger him by moving than to let Tindall pull that trigger. If I didn't diffuse the situation, and fast, Tindall was going to be on a slab right next to our John Doe. “That's an order, Tindall.”

Technically, I outranked Tindall as a federal officer. He was just a local detective and, in a perfect world, he was obligated to follow any order I gave him. That didn't mean he had to like it. By the scowl on his face, I could tell he was thinking the same thing as me. Shoving my weight around was likely going to shorten my life expectancy here. It worked, though. Tindall lowered his gun but kept his finger on the trigger. “Today's your lucky day, Mr. Garcia.”

“Now, wait outside, “I said in my and pointed toward the door. “Both of you.”

“I ain't going nowhere,” Valentino insisted and crossed his arms. “Not without Elias.”

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to ward off the headache that was already starting to crawl into my face. “Dr. Ramis, do you have an office or something? Somewhere Detective Tindall would be more comfortable?”

Doc looked from me to the body and then to Valentino. “You want me to leave you two alone with the body?”

“That's the idea, Doc.”

“Oh,” he said quietly but didn't move for a moment. “Just make sure it's still in one piece when I get back, along with everything else in here.” He leaned over the dead body on the table to whisper to me. “And, whatever you do, don't disturb my assistants while they're sleeping. They don't wake gracefully.” He and Tindall made a hasty exit.

As soon as they were gone, Valentino's posture changed. He hooked his thumbs into his belt, lifted his chin and began to
pace along the wall with his eyes locked on me. Maybe pace wasn't the right word. It was more of a stalking movement, like a hungry tiger circling its prey. The way he moved with fluid, purposeful grace and silence shook what little confidence I had in dealing with werewolves. Until proven otherwise, I had to assume that Valentino, like his brother, was exactly that and react accordingly.

Werewolf body language is complicated, too complicated for a non-expert like myself to have more than a rudimentary grasp on. I remembered from my training that it worked as a form of non-verbal communication, quicker, subtler and more efficient among their own kind most of the time than actual words. To me, it just looked like he was trying to scare me. It was working but I tried not to let it show.

“You said he's your brother?”

Valentino changed directions in his stalking but remained always just out of arms' reach as his eyes shifted to the corpse. “Yeah.”

“You called him Elias. That's his name? Elias Garcia?” Valentino drew a hand over his chin but kept silent. “Look, Mr. Garcia. When I found him, he was like this, lying naked in the middle of the laundromat. No ID. Nothing. If you could just give me some information-”

He planted his feet and directed a hard scowl at me. “I ain't telling BSI shit.”

Aha. Well, at least I knew why he was being so combative. I'd expected some level of animosity to exist between the residents of Paint Rock and a government agent. It kind of comes natural when the government forces any group of people from their homes and relocates them to a crappy patch of desert in the middle of nowhere. I'd been relocated against my will, too, but I knew better than to expect any sympathy from these people. So far as they were concerned, I was the enemy. The only thing that was ever going to change that was time and trust.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the BSI badge I always carried. I showed it to him and then casually tossed it off to the side of the room. “Me neither. As far as I'm concerned, you were never here and this conversation never happened. All I want is a name to go with the face.”

“You're going to pull his file.”

“One way or another,” I admitted. “But I'd rather hear your version first.”

Valentino's forehead wrinkled. “Names have power,
puta
. A lot of power in places like this. You give me yours and I'll give you his. But I won't sell nobody out. I ain't a rat.”

“Judah Black.”

Valentino looked surprised when I extended a hand toward him. He stared at it as if it were a bear trap. Then, he grunted and rolled his shoulders back. “My name's Valentino. That's my brother, Elias. Elias Garcia. He wasn't an official resident here, see, so don't bother checking the roster. Elias was sort of...Well, a drifter.”

“A drifter?”

For the first time, Valentino ventured close to the body, though he wrinkled his nose at it. I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary but, then again, maybe his nose was more sensitive than mine. “He had a problem.”

“With drugs?” Valentino turned to scowl at me. “We saw the track marks on his arm. Tindall's going theory is that this whole thing can be chalked up to a drug deal gone bad.”

“No way. Elias was clean. He had to be to sleep in my house. I know. I made him piss in a cup once a week at random. One positive and he was out on his head. Those marks are old news. Scars.”

“I thought werewolves didn't get scars?”

Valentino snorted. “Things like that usually heal up, yeah. Jab yourself enough times with silver, pump toxins into your body and then refuse to embrace your wolf and you don't heal so well. Nah. Elias' problem was more with people and authority figures than anything else. He didn't adjust well to life on the rez. Sometimes, he stayed with me. Other times, he'd go wherever he could find a roof. I kicked him out when I caught him doing barbs in the house. He was sleeping under an overpass in Ballinger for most of last year before he got arrested again. He got clean in prison and, one day, showed up on my door. Stupid
pendejo
.”

I frowned. If what Valentino was saying was true and Tindall was wrong, then we didn't know anything useful at all about why Elias had died. We wouldn't find anything useful out, either, if Doc didn't get the chance to sort through his insides. Valentino's testimony aside, we needed to rule out drugs. “Other than the drugs, did Elias have a history of any mental health problems?”