Keeper of the Shadows

chapter 2



Barrie wasn’t exactly dressed for the morgue, so she changed in the car in the parking lot. She never knew where the job would take her, so she always carried several changes of clothes in her trunk. She chose old jeans and a tank top and hoodie, washable and discardable in case she got into an autopsy room. You never could quite get out the smell of the morgue.

Then she drove east, toward the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, just minutes from downtown in Boyle Heights.

Her purpose was layered. She had to make sure the right medical examiner got assigned Tiger’s autopsy; it wouldn’t do to have a mortal cutting into a shifter. Too many questions could come up that were better avoided. Then she needed to see if there was anything unusual about the death, and whether there might be some danger for other shifters: a bad batch of meth, for example. Also with the recent scare of a blood disease affecting one species, she had to make sure there was nothing just plain bizarre going on. But mostly, she wanted to make arrangements for Tiger’s funeral.

The coroner’s office was in a gorgeous Baroque building, red with cream trim, dramatic steep front steps lit by streetlamps that cast eerie shadows as Barrie climbed the stairs toward the House of Death.

She signed in with the attendant on duty, telling him she had an appointment with Dr. Antony Brandt, and proceeded down the chilly hallways, trying not to look in through the doors where dozens of bodies in various stages of investigation and storage were laid out.

She reached an office with a plate on the door reading Dr. Antony Brandt, Senior Pathologist. Almost as soon as she’d knocked, Brandt was opening it. Tony Brandt looked every bit the werewolf, even if you didn’t know he actually was one. He had a head full of thick, bushy hair, a powerful barrel torso, shaggy eyebrows over watchful eyes and an ever-present five-o’clock shadow.

He acknowledged Barrie with an ambiguous smile. “I knew you’d be here. Everyone else is lining up for a look-see at the Prince of Darkness.”

Exactly what Mick Townsend had called him, Barrie thought. And, of course, it made sense that the coroner’s office would be expediting Mayo’s autopsy. In death, as in life, celebrities got the spotlight in Hollywood.

“Just as well,” Brandt continued. “No one will bother with this kid.”

So, already a main part of her mission was taken care of. Brandt was taking Tiger’s autopsy, and he was not about to reveal that Tiger had been a shifter. Any Others who worked in criminal justice were experts at hiding the existence of their fellows.

“Can I see him?” she asked.

Brandt led the way down the hall to one of the autopsy suites. In the observation room he handed her a white gown, mask and gloves, which she slipped on before they entered the cutting room.

It was a large space; several procedures could take place at one time. Now, however, the room was quiet and dim, and a single body lay on a single gurney on the far left.

Barrie was startled to see that Tiger was already laid out, not to mention that he had the room to himself. L.A.’s crime rate being what it was, it was about as hard to get a table at the morgue as it was to get one at the town’s latest, hippest restaurant. But Brandt had his own priorities, and they were much like hers, namely to keep the existence of the Otherworld community a secret from the mortal one.

Brandt spoke, as if in answer to her silent thoughts. “Moved him to the head of the list. No one’s going to notice while Mayo is lying in state.”

Barrie thought that a revealingly cynical remark. Even for a studio head, Mayo had a lot of ill will swirling around him.

She approached the table and looked down at the young shifter, so pale on the slab. They always looked so much smaller in death. She felt tears prickling her eyes again. Such a smart, cheeky kid. Such a waste. Such a crime.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to him, and touched his hand. It was cold, and she shivered. If she’d only tried harder, followed up sooner...

Brandt was watching her. “You knew him, then.”

She set her jaw, trying to compose herself. She wasn’t going to do Tiger any good by falling apart now.

“Who caught the call?” she asked Brandt.

He named a couple of homicide detectives in the Hollywood Division. “They didn’t think it was important enough to involve Robbery Homicide,” he added.

Robbery Homicide was a special division in the LAPD, the most coveted assignment. It handled the highest-profile murders. Certainly Mayo would have been moved there instantly. The haves and have-nots again.

“Is there any chance it was suicide?” Barrie didn’t think so, but she had to ask.

“Oh, this was no suicide.”

She tensed up in every muscle. “Why?”

“He didn’t die in that alley. The body was moved. That’s clear from the patterns of livor mortis.”

Barrie knew that livor mortis meant the settling of the blood after death due to gravity. It appeared as bluish, blotchy discoloration of the skin where the blood had pooled. She listened closely as Brandt continued, indicating regions of Tiger’s body with a short metal pointer as he spoke.

“Lividity does not appear anywhere that the body has been in direct contact with the ground. He was found sitting up, slumped against a wall, but if you look at the pattern here, you’ll see there is no lividity in the relevant parts of his legs. He died lying down on his back. He was positioned sitting up at some later time.”

Brandt loved to expound, and she was grateful for it; she picked up all kinds of useful information from his mini-lectures.

“Now ask me what else is interesting about this,” he said.

Barrie tensed up. “What else is interesting about this?” she asked softly.

He held her eyes with his piercing ones. “I’m not entirely sure, but it looks to me like the unfortunate young man may have had some help.”

“Some help dying?” Barrie stammered. “So, he was murdered?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, fair Rosalind.” There weren’t many people Barrie allowed to call her by her real name, but Brandt was one. It was his Shakespearean quality; everything he said sounded vaguely Elizabethan. “But these bother me.” He aimed the pointer at some faint purple circles at the top of Tiger’s arm. They looked almost like—

“Fingerprints?” she asked, feeling a prickling at the back of her neck. “You think he was held? Forced?”

“Could be. On the other hand, it’s common for addicts to help each other shoot up. And an addict bruises easily, so it may mean nothing. I am merely pointing it out as an anomaly, and in fact...I never said it. But it’s something to keep in mind.”

“Now, moving a body is a crime, but it’s not necessarily murder. If he was shooting up in a gallery and someone didn’t want the cops around, they may just have dumped him. But I don’t think so. I think someone wanted this kid dead. He definitely didn’t stick that needle in his own arm.”

“Murder...” Barrie said, her thoughts far away. And she knew exactly where to go to find out what she needed to know. “I have to go,” she mumbled.

Brandt raised his impressive eyebrows. “I’m cutting him in a half hour. You don’t want to stay?”

Barrie shuddered. True, she regularly worked with the undead, but the actual dead were a different story. And she had no desire at all to see Brandt slice into Tiger.

“I need to get out to Hollywood to see someone. Can I check back with you about the tox screen and whatever else you find?”

“Of course. And I’ll make sure your soon-to-be-cousin knows.”

Barrie had to blink to understand that Brandt was referring to Brodie McKay.

“Thanks. And, Tony...” She had to swallow to get the words out. “I’ll claim the body if no one else does. I’ll make sure the Council gives him a proper burial.”

He smiled at her sadly. “You’re a good kid, kid.”

* * *

Barrie was both buzzed and depressed as she left the coroner’s building. She could feel the adrenaline rush of a mystery, the thrill of the hunt; at the same time she was grieving Tiger’s death and the possibility of evil intent behind it, which kicked her protective Keeper instincts into high gear.

If a shifter had been murdered on her turf, there was going to be hell to pay.