After Keegan finished with Cassidy and the parents she went to visit Bryton Anderson, the alpha of the local leopard prowl at the coffee house he owned, The Jumping Bean. The coffee house was small and broken off from the nearly identical shop faces in the shopping center. It didn’t matter that it was almost three in the afternoon, the parking lot and the drive-thru were crammed full of cars.
“You think he’s actually going to talk to us?” Leeroy asked as they got out of the car and headed towards the entrance. “I mean, two members of his prowl were just murdered. He might be a little busy trying to calm the natives and making sure that they don’t do anything crazy.”
Keegan shrugged, “If he wants to find their killers he’ll talk.”
Leeroy held the door open for her and the entire coffee house went silent as they walked in. Keegan looked at the angered faces and knew that there weren’t any humans inside the building. The entire prowl was here.
Bryton Anderson emerged from the back of the building. Carmel colored skin had turned pallid and his eyes were bright amber yellow as he stalked forwards out of the crowd. “May I help you?”
Both Keegan and Leeroy automatically grabbed their badges for identification as Keegan introduced them, “I’m Detective Keegan Morne and this is Leeroy from the SIU. We’re hoping to have a moment of your time Mr. Anderson?”
Bryton grabbed their badges and inspected them for a long moment before he fixated on Keegan. “You I will speak to. Leeroy may wait for you up here and anything he would like to drink is on the house.”
Keegan looked over at Leeroy to see if he was okay with the arrangement. He looked miffed about it but if it was the only way they could speak to him then it would have to do.
“I’ll be waiting then.” Leeroy sent a good natured smile towards Bryton before heading towards a window seat and settling down from the duration.
Keegan followed Bryton through the maze of tables and they finally reached the furthest table in the shop. Bryton motioned for the members of the prowl that were sitting to leave. Keegan waited silently as they scooted from the booth and headed towards the front of the shop.
Bryton gestured for her to sit. “I apologize if we seem a little on edge today detective but when a family of my prowl gets murdered it does make the rest of us upset. What would you like to speak with me about?”
Keegan set her notepad on the table and grabbed the pen out of her shirt pocket before beginning. “Did you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm the Barr family?”
“Inside the prowl?” Bryton asked. His eyes grew wide and furious that the investigators could think that someone in his prowl could do something so vile.
“Not necessarily inside the prowl,” Keegan amended. “It could be someone that they had been having trouble with, meaning human or other supernatural beings.”
Bryton tangled his fingers together before humming underneath his breath. “I haven’t heard of any troubles with anyone inside of the prowl. If there had been, I would have taken care of the issue, or issues, before it have gotten this far. As for any troubles going on outside of the prowl, I’m not going to be much of a help to your investigation detective. Both Cody and Alice have been less than present at any meetings that we have held. It’s understandable with a new child but I haven’t had much one on one time with either of them since they found out that Alice was pregnant.”
“Are there any members that are closer to the Barrs that might have any idea of something going on that could have prompted something like this?”
Bryton narrowed his eyes before he shook his head, “Like I said, they haven’t been all that present in prowl activities since they found out Alice was pregnant and even less so since Connor was born.”
Keegan was a little taken aback by what Bryton was telling her. She might not know much about shifters and specific group behaviors but she knew enough that something didn’t seem right. She knew that werewolves spent copious amount of time together. They thrived on it. Even from what she had learned about dragons from Gary, she knew that he needed to be able to spend time with other dragons. It calmed him. To have an alpha just be okay with two members of his prowl to drift away didn’t seem right to her.
“I see the wheels spinning detective,” Bryton smirked, “a prowl is nothing like other shifting communities. Leopards by nature, as you should know, are solitary creatures. Just because we are partly human that doesn’t make us all that different. There are some of us who thrive on community but some, like the Barrs, did better on their own. I am not going to take that from them. Especially when they are building their own family. Did I check in with them? Yes, that’s my job. Did they have friends within the prowl? Yes but they weren’t close enough to actually want to share their lives with anyone. Did they have enemies? What supernatural doesn’t? But whatever answers you are looking for, I am not much of a help because like I said, the Barrs were more solitary than the rest of us.”
Keegan rolled her lips together and nodded. She knew when she was being told to leave and she wasn’t going to push it in a coffee house full of shifters who were more upset than calm. She passed Bryton her card before she stood. “Well thank you for time. If there is anything else you can think of just give me a call. Any little detail can be of use in an investigation.”
Bryton stood and reached out to shake her hand. “I’ll call if I can think of anything.”
“Have a good day,” Keegan nodded before she turned to leave. Leeroy was already standing by the time she made it to the door. They didn’t speak to each other until Keegan was clear from the parking lot and had passed the next few blocks.
Leeroy was the first to speak. “I take it Bryton wasn’t helpful?”
Keegan shook her head. “I think I have more questions than I had before going in there.”
“Like what?” Leeroy prompted.
“According to Bryton, the Barrs weren’t as involved with the prowl as other members were. He claimed that it was because they were starting their own family but I get the feeling that something isn’t quite right with that. None of it seemed right.”
“And that didn’t look like a prowl in mourning. They just looked angry that someone would draw attention to them.” Leeroy added.
“We’ll have to do some research and see what we come up with. For now we have to keep interviewing and seeing if we can get any kind of information about who would want to do this to them.”
There were too many questions rolling around in Keegan’s mind to continue avoiding Detective Hollis. She needed to talk to him about the interview she had with Bryton Anderson and she needed to get any notes on what his mean might have gotten.
She might not be happy with him or his department but that didn’t mean she could keep avoiding him. They needed to get things figured out and they needed to do it before something else happed.
Putting on her big girl panties Keegan maneuvered her way through the bull pen in homicide. She ignored the stares she got as she made her way to the furthest back corner to where Matt’s desk was.
He was busy speaking on the phone, his pen moving furiously across the lined paper. Keegan pulled a vacant chair from the neighboring desk and set it in front of Matt’s desk. He glanced up and he froze. “Yeah, I got to go. I’ll call you back in a few?”
As soon as he hung up he closed his folders that had been lying open on his desk. “What can I help you with Detective Morne?
Keegan could feel the ice rolling off of him in waves. It felt just like she was dealing with the rest of the jerks who thought they were better than the members of the SIU. She didn’t know what had happened to make him so standoffish other than the fact that he must have looked into her personnel files. And honestly, at this point? She couldn’t find it in herself to give a rat’s ass about how he felt about her being a necromancer. They were professionals and should damn well act that way.
Manners were always the key to any working relationship, Keegan reminded herself. No matter how many times she had to remind her self to filter the thoughts trickling down from her brain, being polite almost always got her the answers she was looking for. “I talked to the alpha of the prowl and wanted to see what you thought about what I got from the interview?
He checked his watch before he answered her. “I’ve got about five minutes. You think that’s enough time?”
Keegan shook her head in disbelief. He didn’t even look her in the eye when he answered and just a moment ago when she sat down he looked like he was in for the long haul at his desk but now he didn’t have any time for her? This was supposed to be a collaborative effort between the two departments and it was starting to look more and more like a poorly thought out competition.
“You want to act like the rest of the jerks that you call your team go ahead. But while you are the one who is shutting out a major source of information for your investigation I have got one question for you Hollis.” Keegan slammed her hand down against his desk. “I want you to tell me who Cody and Alice Barr trusted enough to let them get so close to their son in a shifted form? Perhaps why the alpha of the prowl seems to be a little off? Think on that while you try and pull your head out of your ass and solve this case by yourself.”
Keegan ignored the shocked faces as she marched from homicide and down the stairs into SIU. She didn’t pay any attention to the concerned glances she got from Leeroy. She scooped up her keys and growled out, “I’ll be back.”
“Okay.” Leeroy whistled at the fury that was radiating off of her before he went back to work. Leeroy looked over to Gary who was just as shocked as he was. “Do I even want to know where she might be going?”
“Uh,” Gary scratched his forehead. “If she was me she’d probably be burning villages to smithereens but I figure she’s heading to her Mom’s place.”
“Damn.” Leeroy rubbed his stomach. “If I were Keegan I would never leave that place. The food she makes is heavenly.”
“So should we find out what made her so angry upstairs or should we leave it?” Gary asked after a few moments of fantasizing about food.
Leeroy let out a sigh. “I’m betting it has to do with a certain detective who’s been acting like a jerk since he visited the SD.”
Gary scoffed. “Humans. You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.”