“Yeah, but we don’t actually know that I didn’t hurt that girl.” His voice was raw and he looked up, his gaze locking with mine. In his eyes I could see the whirl of guilt and fear and concern roiling up one hell of a storm.
“We’re going to try to find out for sure. If you didn’t, then you deserve to be free. If you did…”
“Then it’s better all the way around for everybody to know.”
“Ralph, we’re worried that you might be in danger. Don’t ask me why or who, but I’m going to move you to premises that are more secure.” Delia pulled out a large hoop filled with keys. She glanced through, finding the right key. “Stand back from the door, please.”
Ralph obliged, moving to the back of the cell. As I watched him, I knew I had been right. Ralph was no killer. This wasn’t someone who could easily cast aside someone’s life. He might be lascivious, but he wasn’t vicious.
Delia opened the cell and motioned for him to move forward. He held his hands behind his back, turning around so she could cuff him. Wincing at the iron in the cuffs—satyrs could handle silver, but iron roughed them up—he followed her as she led him out of the cell.
We quickly walked the other way, to the opposite side of the juncture. There, we came to a heavy steel door painted red. Delia glanced back at us. “This is a safer area.”
“What’s going on?” Ralph asked.
“We’re just trying to protect you in case the vampire who enthralled you comes back to—” Delia paused, glancing up at the satyr, who stood head and shoulders above her.
“To kill me?” Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and he began to fidget. “You really think I’m in danger?”
“We aren’t certain, but we’d rather be safe than sorry,” Sandy broke in.
“Sandy’s right. And behind this door, you’ll be in a vampire-free zone. They can’t get beyond the magical wards we have set up. And neither can anybody else.” Delia wasn’t quite being truthful. I could sense a discrepancy, but Ralph couldn’t.
He calmed down as she opened the door and led him through, motioning for us to wait. A moment later she returned and once again locked the heavy door. “He’ll be okay for now. Truth is one of the Aunties could get through, or someone like them. But I doubt that’s going to happen. Come on, let’s go talk to forensics and see what they’ve found.”
We returned to the main office, where she led us through another door. We stopped at a small cubicle toward the back of a narrow hall. With a quick knock, she opened the door.
We followed her through into a room that was larger than I had expected. On one side of a room was a row of lockers labeled “Evidence.” To the left were long workbenches, with magnifying glasses, microscopes, and all sorts of equipment. Straight ahead was some sort of a testing ring, where large white boards were covered with splatters mimicking blood. Several mannequins had taken a bad turn and were lying on the floor, ragged blood bags strapped to their chests and backs. We followed Delia over to one of the desks, where an officer was poring through a sheath of papers.
“Darren? What have you got for me on the Rose Williams case? Anything?” Delia leaned over his desk.
Darren—who I could tell at first glance was a werewolf, he had that lupine look to his eyes—glanced up at her. “I think we do, actually. We tried out several scenarios as to how she was stabbed. Sheriff, the person who killed—” He paused, glancing behind her as we all crowded around.
“Go ahead. They’re all right.”
“Okay, then. Williams was killed by somebody who had to be under five-eight. The angles of the wound are all wrong for anybody taller than that. I’d actually place the assailant at between five-five to five-eight. So that’s a fairly narrow range.”
Delia glanced at me. “Ralph’s six-three.”
“That occurred to me,” I said.
Darren held up another paper. “However, the killer was incredibly strong. The coroner just sent his report over and the wound to her stomach was so forceful that it chipped her spine. So the knife had to be strong and the assailant had to possess a massive amount of strength. Given there’s only one stab wound and no signs of struggle, I would say that she either knew the killer, or was taken by surprise.”
“Anything else?” Delia asked, glancing over the forms he handed her.
“Yes, actually. We found two partial prints on the panpipes. The pipes were wiped clean, otherwise. Neither print matches the satyr’s. Even though he verified they belong to him it looks like they were planted at the scene. Whoever left them there wiped them clean, but wasn’t quite thorough enough.”
“This is all good news for Ralph. Anything else that we can use to exonerate him?” Delia blew a thin stream of breath through her teeth.
“Actually, yes. Greyhoof is left handed. If you look at this picture, you’ll notice the angle of the injury. When we recreated it, the killing blow came in on a right-handed angle. Also, and perhaps most important, when satyrs are highly excited—be it arousal or adrenaline—they give off a strong odor.”
“We knew that already.”
“Perhaps what you didn’t know is that their scent markers contain particles that cling to anybody near them. We can test to see if someone’s been within arm’s reach of a satyr within the past few hours and be reasonably sure of our answer.”
This was news to me and it made me wonder what any number of suspicious husbands—and a few wives—would do if a home satyr-scent test was invented.
Aegis spoke up. “You mean, because we were close to Ralph just a few minutes ago, we’d show positive for satyr dust?”
“Particulates, not dust. But yes. If he’s in any way aroused or excited or frightened, you’ll test positive. And the tests on Williams’s body were negative. Not a speck.” The deputy shrugged. “I’m going to say that we have no circumstantial evidence to place him there.”
Delia took one last look through all the forms and handed them back to him. “Then that clears him. We’re looking for a shorter killer who’s incredibly strong, and who definitely isn’t a satyr.”
“There’s nothing that can mask those particulates?” Sandy said.
Darren shook his head. “Not really. Oh, there are some magical charms that might be able to do it, but given everything else, no.”
I stared at the papers in Delia’s hand. “If Rachel was behind it, Ralph would probably have been the triggerman. But why wouldn’t Essie do the same if she’s the one responsible? Why get blood on her own hands?”
“You say Ralph isn’t capable of killing, right?” Aegis was frowning.
I nodded. “Right.”
“I’ll tell you something not many people know. Thrall won’t turn the victim into an automaton. If Ralph really doesn’t have a killer’s nature, he’d resist and it would be a mess of trouble. Whoever tried to set him up didn’t count on Ralph being more blowhard than bite. If you resist an order while under thrall, and you resist hard enough, it can break the connection.”
“So the vampire—be it Rachel or Essie—had to do the actual dirty work. Ralph couldn’t, so she did,” I said.
“There’s one other possibility,” Sandy said. “Essie likes control. Maybe she didn’t believe Ralph would actually manage it without fucking it up. So she set everything to look like he did it, but made certain that Rose—whom she thought was you—actually ended up dead.”
Delia frowned. “I’m not sure where to go from here. First, there’s Essie. And then, Rachel. Because of her obsession with Aegis, she’s likely to be more off kilter than Essie and therefore, more dangerous.”
I frowned. “Do you think that Rachel knows Essie set her up as the one behind Rose’s murder?”
“That’s a good question. I suggest we use that to our advantage.” Aegis cocked his eyebrows. “I have an idea, but it’s going to take a little while for me to implement. Until then, we sit tight. Let’s talk in a private place, shall we?”
And with that, Delia led us back to her office.