I scoffed. “I’ve gotten a dead body from one side of New Orleans to the other in the trunk of a Lyft driver’s car. Without the driver knowing. Mostly. If these mages have their own car, and we should assume they do, getting someone in one of these things—and skinning them in there—would be easy. There wouldn’t be blood seeping out of the container. The spell would have collected it all. Within the container, sure, you’d see blood spatter, but not as much as you’re probably envisioning.”
His flashlight came up and beamed me in the face. “You transported a dead body in a cab?”
“I would remove that light from her face if I were you,” Darius warned softly.
The vampire was right. I did not like being blasted with light. It made me more aggressive than I already was, and that was saying something.
Thankfully, the cone of light swung away. “What did you say your job title was?” Oscar asked.
“I get things done, Oscar,” I said. “That’s all you need to know.”
“You’d have to bring an empty container into the port,” Darius said. “Or empty one already here. It sounds like neither is a possibility without being detected.”
“There’s that,” I said, chewing on my lip.
“The security would also have to be deaf,” Darius said, closing up the container. “Because an empty metal box wouldn’t do much to muffle the sounds of agonized screaming.”
“Now who’s being dim?” I asked Darius. “Do you not have spells to deaden sound within your satchel right there?”
Darius tsked, probably at himself for asking that question.
“Let’s check out the dump site,” I said, motioning Oscar onward. “I assume you checked the cameras and cross-referenced the vehicles that came through?”
“We’re in the process of doing that,” Oscar said. “A lot of vehicles came and went that day. The dumpster where the body was found wasn’t covered by a camera at the time. It had been pushed out of range and no one noticed.”
“Convenient. Obviously you’re checking for suspicious characters employed here?” I asked.
“Obviously,” the detective said with a touch of humor. “All the security checks out, as well as any night-shift employees. Everyone has a rock-solid alibi, and no one has any priors. We’re still going through the daytime shifts and any ship personnel that might’ve been around.”
“Who discovered it?” I asked as the space opened up. A small building sat off to the side with a ramp leading up to the door. Light from a pole spotlit the closest entrance and the camera poised above it. The dumpster lurked a hundred or so feet away, a strip of police tape still hanging off the side.
“The smell was the first clue, but mostly people ignored it. It’s a dumpster, after all.” Oscar looked at the ground and walked off to the side. “One of the women in the office was suspicious, but instead of wading through trash, she waited for the garbage pick-up and watched it dump. The body was in a cream-colored sheet. You can imagine what the sheet looked like after being draped around a skinless person. The skin was in a trash bag. We found that after we checked it out.”
“And this was a week ago, you said?” I took a tour around the trash canister. I didn’t feel anything, as expected.
“Yes,” he said. “If not for the suspicious worker finding this body, we would’ve missed it. Which makes me wonder if there have been more than two crimes and we haven’t seen the evidence.”
That was certainly possible.
“Where was the first body dumped? It was in an office, right?” I asked, trying to recall the details from the file Sean had shown me before I’d left New Orleans.
“A loft-style office, yes. One of six in the building. Twenty employees work there, but they’d all gone home for the day. A few people from the office across the floor tend to work late, but they didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary.”
I remembered seeing the pictures from that one. The circle was the same as the one found at the crime scenes in New Orleans, only with a few minor embellishments, indicating the mages were getting better at their craft.
“Well, super. I’ve got bupkis.” I braced my hands on my hips. I hated dead ends.
“Did you want to speak to the local MLE office?” Oscar asked. “Maybe they’ll have more for you.”
“No, thank you. I might meet another Garret.” I waved a wisp of hair out of my face. “I hope you didn’t tell them I was coming. They won’t love that.”
“I didn’t, no. We know all about hostility across jurisdictions.” He checked his watch. Someone was probably holding dinner for him.
“Okay, well, let’s head back.” I started forward.
“Did you want to check in with the security people?” Darius asked, still near the trash.
I shrugged as Oscar hesitated and turned to me. “Did the local MLE office meet with them?”
“Yes,” Oscar said. “They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
“No one was magical?”
Oscar frowned. “They said no one would be capable of this crime as it pertains to a circle.” He shifted. “The MLE office out here never comes out and says magical.”
“You wouldn’t think all this is so weird if they did.” I turned to Darius. “If they aren’t magical, there’s no point. I can only figure out magical stuff, not normal people stuff.”
“What are your thoughts?” Oscar asked as he drove us back to his station.
I shook my head and stared out the window. “I guess I’ll do what I always do: track down magical people within the local community and ask questions. The mage is powerful, and he’s skinning people. That’s crazy days, even for eccentric mages. Someone must have heard something.”
“In the criminal world, someone has always heard something. The problem is, no one wants to talk to cops.” Oscar chuckled. “Good luck getting anything relevant.”
“I think you and I have very different ways of collecting information.”
Chapter Fifteen
“So. Where do magical people hang out in this town?” I asked Darius after Oscar had dropped us off. He’d offered to talk to us again back at his office, but I’d politely declined. I had all I needed from him. Which was basically nothing. That wasn’t his fault, of course. This was real detective work. I was in over my head.
“They are spread out everywhere, hidden within the folds of Seattle.” Darius put his hands into the pockets of his stylish jeans as we slowly walked down the street to his borrowed Mercedes. It had been waiting for him in front of the hotel, and he’d led me to it earlier like he’d expected it to be there. I’d learned not to question those types of things.
I narrowed my eyes at his non-answer. “If you want to hang out with me, you have to help me. Otherwise, get gone.”
“Which type of magical people are you looking for?”
“Ideally, I need a hub where there’s a variety of supernatural people, not just mages. I want to size up what I’m dealing with, see who’s knowledgeable, and, of those people, pick out a few who can be leaned on for information. Any guy that skins people can’t be well liked. He’s probably ruthless. Or at least really grumpy.”
“Sociopaths are often liked by everyone.”
“Good tip. Liked by no one, or liked by everyone. Both are suspect.”
“Are you hungry?” he asked as he opened my car door for me.
“I can always eat.”
He nodded, like he knew that about me, and zipped over to his side of the car. My door was clicking shut as he was opening his.
A half-hour later, we parked on a street that looked similar to many of the streets I’d seen in Seattle: green, with leafy trees and clean sidewalks. I got out into the brisk night air and half missed the warm, sticky goodness of a New Orleans night. Then again, I did not miss the suffocating heat of a New Orleans summer.
“This place is so wholesome,” I said as I waited on the sidewalk for him. The car issued a soft beep as the alarm was turned on. He put the keys into his pocket. “It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so…sweet somehow, don’t you think? Like…heartfelt.”