“His clothes?”
So she had to explain how he’d gotten away after all. Fetlock said he would see what he could do about getting some female officers down to the convent and Caxton hung up. Then she went to send home the cops who had made up her ambush. She thanked them profusely and was glad to see them leave unscathed—but then one turned back. He was an earnest-?looking young cop from the local borough’s PD. His uniform was spotless and his eyes were bright, even though the hour was growing late. He waited patiently for her to wave at the departing cars, then stepped closer, coughed discreetly into his hand, and then stood at attention until she met his eye.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said.
“At ease,” she replied. “You have something to say?”
He nodded and relaxed a little. “I hit him,” he said.
Caxton shrugged. “So did I. Several times.”
The cop frowned. “Ma’am, begging your pardon—you didn’t so much as slow him down. We were all talking before, wondering if maybe he was bulletproof. Maybe through some magical means. But I’ve been hunting since I was a boy, and I know when I’ve hit an animal or a paper target. I saw his blood. I just wanted you to know that. He isn’t impervious to bullets, at least not totally.”
She stared at him with wide eyes. “You saw his blood?”
“I saw him turn to his left, and his arm went up, like so,” he demonstrated. “Then blood came out of the wound. Not much. But I know when I hit somebody.”
“Thank you very much, Officer. That’s actually good to hear.” And it was. She sent him home. He’d given her a lot to think about. So far she’d been unable to scratch his skin with her best shots. If the young officer had actually drawn blood—then maybe there was hope.
She secured the scene in the foyer as best she could, then went to sit in her own car and wait for Fetlock’s fiber unit to arrive. The sun was just starting to color the tops of the trees when the unit showed up—or rather, when the forensics expert arrived, since it was just one woman. She was about fifty, with frosted blond hair and bags under her eyes. She was not happy about being dragged out of bed to look at some cast-?off clothes. “There’s a body inside?” she asked, pulling on some latex gloves. “Can I have that as well?”
“No word yet from the local coroner, so we can’t remove her yet. I’m waiting on word from her family so I can cremate her.”
The forensics expert grunted. “Tough to get anything useful from ashes. Though cremation’s not as complete as some people think. Your typical flame job leaves small material, some of it recognizable. You can get teeth out of ashes, and sometimes the fillings don’t melt, so you can match dental records. Titanium surgical pins, Teflon knee replacements, those survive.”
“We already have a positive ID on the body.”
The older woman shrugged.
“You want to take a look?” Caxton asked. She led the woman inside the foyer to where Violet still lay as she’d fallen.
“Vampire attack,” the expert said, after studying the body for a while. “More violent than the previous ones we’ve seen. This wasn’t premeditated.”
“No,” Caxton said. “Listen, I was here. I know all this already. Do you think you could tell me something I could use?”
The expert grunted again. “Maybe. This is not an exact science, Trooper.”
“Special Deputy. Let’s go look at the clothes.” She led the expert back out to the lawn and the shirt and pair of pants Arkeley had left behind. “Nobody has touched them. I made sure of it.”
“Good. Honestly, fiber’s my specialty,” the expert said.
Caxton sighed in relief. Fetlock had sent the right person for the job, then. There would be no fingerprints on the scene, or any DNA evidence. Vampires didn’t leave those behind, ever. Fibers were another matter. Anybody who wore clothes left fibers behind, somewhere.
The expert took one quick look at the clothes, then examined a few loose threads with a jeweler’s loupe.
“I think I can confirm this is a match with what we saw at the hotel. Three kinds of fibers. We left a report for your liaison.”
“I got it,” Caxton agreed.
“Yeah. She wasn’t there at your HQ when we arrived. We had to leave the report with a desk sergeant. She never even followed up to let me know she got it. That’s just not professional. You want some free advice? Fire this twit. You’ve got real forensic pathologists in Harrisburg. Any of them would do a better job.”
The woman was talking about Clara. Caxton held her tongue.