Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) (3 page)

Focusing back on task, Keegan shook her head clear of cobwebs before answering Leeroy.
“There was so much panic and pain. Most of what I caught was an overwhelming, jumbled mess. Scenes that violent make it hard to decipher the echoes.”

“What did you hear?” Leeroy prompted again.
One of the things being a necromancer allowed Keegan was the ability to
hear
and sometimes catch glimpses of the course of a death, if the death left a strong enough imprint on the scene.

Leeroy
had a yellow notepad sitting on his desk and pen poised to write. “What was one of the last things you heard? There was more than just feeling and hearing their emotions. There is something there that you can work off of. There always is.”

“Glass,” Keegan looked up at the ceiling
trying to remember everything, “Breaking and crunching glass. It almost sounded like someone had been walking over it in a pair of heavy boots.

“So it wasn’t someone who entered the h
ouse as a shifter. They broke in as a human.” Keegan thought out loud.

“Did you see the broken glass?” Leeroy
questioned her. “Anywhere in the house or were you hearing old things?”

“
It was the eastern most window located in the downstairs entertainment area,” Keegan supplied as she walked the crime scene again in her mind. “There was a mess of glass trickling towards the stairway and then everything became chaotic. There were gouges on the stairway carpet. Kind of like what you would see after a cat goes at the carpet on stairs but only a lot bigger.”

“So they shifted.
” Leeroy went back to his note taking. “They entered as a human and then they shifted. So what does that suggest to you?”

“
Either they knew they were in trouble or they knew the only way to gain the upper hand was to shift before Alice did.” Keegan offered.

“So we know there was a reason behind this. The entrance and
the path of the killer would suggest that they knew what or who they were going for.” Leeroy scratched at his forehead. “And no one is thinking robbery gone wrong? Hollis and Cassidy are just going with straight up murder?”

“T
he crime scene doesn’t indicate that robbery was a motive. Nothing seemed out of place, valuables wise. Everything was tucked away tight and neat until you got to where the shifter changed form.” Keegan hummed under her breath in thought. “Not to mention that both Alice and Cody were found in the nursery. They were fighting together to protect their son, Connor.”

Keegan rubbed the heels
of her hands against her eyes. “It just, why bother with killing Connor? He is barely out of his crib. What harm could he have done?”

Leeroy rolled his pen across the desk from one hand to another. “
Maybe they were after Connor? But I’m not seeing what they thought was so special about him. He’s a half-breed supernatural, if that. The supernatural genes might not have even been dominate, there’s not telling for sure until puberty right?”

“Unless both parents were the same supernatural, most children don’t exhibit supernatural abilities until they hit puberty.
” Keegan answered and then gestured for Leeroy to finish his line of thought.

“So t
here isn’t anything obvious about Connor. So what’s so special about the Barr family that someone wanted to kill them for?”

“
There in lies our main problem, Leeroy. We don’t have a clue as to why they were killed,” Keegan shrugged. “Maybe Doc Biggerson will find something in her examinations or maybe there’s something going on in the community that we don’t know about yet? Until we figure it out we are grasping at straws here. It’s looking more and more like we’re going to have to double up on the canvassing the area to see if we get anything from the neighbors or from family friends.”

“No
thing’s going on in the shifter community, believe me. With Melinda we’d know if there was something crazy happening. They might not like having a wolf on the Spook Squad but she wouldn’t fail to warn us something was about to go down. Even if they aren’t wolves, there is always some subconscious way that every shifter just knows that something big is about to happen.”

“Well I
guess that answers my question.” Detective Hollis was standing against the last step of the stairs with his arms crossed loosely over his chest.

Keegan spun in her chair
to get a better look at him. He had changed his clothes and shoes also. Khakis and a polo tee shirt suited him far better than the suit did. Maybe it was the amount of skin left exposed and the messy hair that appealed to her. Keegan shook her head clear of the stray thoughts. “What question?”

“If you knew if anything was going on in your part of the world that could
possibly give my guys any kind of lead or clue on where to begin.” Matt sat down at an empty desk and rested his elbows on his knees as he looked at Keegan and Leeroy.

Leeroy and Keegan shared a look, one that said it wouldn’t take either of them long to
dig up what was happening in their world. There were only a few places that were branded specifically to supernatural beings and they both had an all access card.

“We’ll get Melinda and Gary in on it
. So hopefully we will have something for you by the morning.” Keegan offered.

“The morning isn’t good enough Morne!” Detective Hollis sprung up and out of his chair
in frustration. “There is a kid who was killed because his mom and dad couldn’t do enough to protect him. We don’t have time to make good with the locals or wait until the morning to find out what is going on here. I need info. I need some place to start and I need it now!”

Leeroy stood slowly from his chair. His eyes had turned a darker shade of green, the color of his eyes rimmed red.
His skin had grown a darker blue. Keegan could see the way his muscles tensed from the threat of Detective Hollis’ outburst. Keegan pushed out of her own chair and placed a hand on Leeroy’s arm before facing Matt. “You might want to slow your roll there detective. You forget the people you’re dealing with aren’t exactly human. We don’t take kindly to people coming into our house and acting like you just did.”

Matt turned towards Keegan wondering what he had just done. Keegan shook her head and let out a deprecating
laugh. “You just threatened a Djinn Hollis.”

“Not only that,” Gary breezed in as he readjusted his thick black framed glasses and almost tripped over t
he untied laces of his converse. “You basically said, ‘I want to be alpha and I’ll fight you for it’. Don’t you read any of the material we give you guys on how to interact with Supes?”

“No, why should they?
We only come out on full moons.” Melinda snorted. “And if you want any information then you’ll have to wait until the morning, Detective Hollis. We each have our informants and if you want us to use them then you have to allow us to question them in the right time frame. Which for most supernaturals, would be the night time. And you might want to apologize to Leeroy before he rips your throat out or turns your brain to mush with only his fingertips.”

Matt ran a hand through his hair, messing the short black spik
es even further. “I’m sorry man. It’s just this case, it is that bad. Whenever a kid gets involved, I just,” He shook his head. “I don’t do well with cases like this.”

“Whatever.
” Leeroy shrugged his shoulders the red ring slowly disappearing from view and his skin fading from the darker blue to the light blue. “Just know we aren’t your lap dogs. For every case you turn to us for help and we solve it. You should realize the importance of us being here to aide you rather than be yelled at.”

“Look,” Keegan rolled her eyes at the thought of what s
he was about to offer to Hollis. “You want an inside look into the world of Supernaturals and why something like this might have happened? And why we have to wait until later tonight to start our end of the canvassing? I’ll let you ride along with me tonight when I hit up a few contacts and see what I can figure out for you guys.”

“Uh,” Gary pushed his glasses up the bridge of hi
s nose. “You really think that is the greatest idea Keegs? I mean, no offense dude, but he’s human. Like one hundred percent smelly human.”

“I don’t smell.
” Matt instinctively brushed his nose against the shoulder of his shirt and sniffed.

“You do.
” Melinda grinned, her canines extended and her eyes turned a bright blue to tease. “But that’s okay. You smell delicious.”

“Oh god.
” Keegan smacked her hand to her forehead. “Matt, you want in on tonight? Then you will meet me here at eleven. The rest of you, I’ve made copies of notes of the crime scene and the impression I got from it. You know where to go from there.”

“You got it boss
.” Gary mock saluted her before disappearing behind his desk and calling up the document.

“Suck up.
” Melinda muttered under her breath but followed suit.

Leeroy s
pun around in his chair with a grin trying to lighten the mood. “So Keegs? How’d dinner with your Mom last night go?”

Keegan let out a loud groan
, thankful for the subject change but not the subject it was changed to. “My mother threatened to withhold food unless I spoke to my brother and sisters again.”

Gary pee
red over the top of his monitor at her and scratched absently at the stubble on his chin. “So let me guess, you won’t be eating home cooked meals for a while?”

“The relationship with your family
is that bad Morne?” Matt interjected and Melinda snorted.

“It’s not bad,
per se.” Keegan shrugged, “It’s just virtually nonexistent.”

“And you’re the person we get to help us with public relations in
the SIU?” Matt rolled his eyes. “Brilliant.”

“Shut it Hollis.” Keegan tossed out playfully.
“Be here tonight at ten or I am leaving with out you.”

“
My watch is synced up and ready to go.” Matt grinned at the smirk he got out of Keegan.

Keegan was sitting outside the front of Misery PD. The entire building was fitting to the town’s name. The lamp posts were almost gothic looking with the curls and spikes while the main building was a dark gray stone. Plaques of former officers who had passed in the line of duty were etched into the walls.

“
I figured you would just ditch me.” Matt said in greeting as he jogged up the steps towards Keegan. She eyed his outfit. It was appropriate enough for where they were going. Dark jeans, a black button down rolled up at the sleeves. She could spot some kind of ink curling out from under the collar of his shirt.

She
wasn’t dressed much differently. She had donned a pair of jeans, a black tank top. Her usual hidden, St. Benedict pendant was left exposed. The cold air wasn’t a factor in what she was wearing. It was the fact the more skin you showed, the more powerful your scent was. As a supernatural that was the most important thing in identifying a potential ally or an enemy while you exuded your own power. 

“I said you could come along.
” Keegan kicked off of the wall she was leaning against and led him towards her car.

“You’re not cold?” Matt asked as he settled into the passenger side and clicked his seatbelt in place.

“Freezing but once we get to where we are going,” Keegan looked over her shoulder to make sure she was clear to pull on the street, “how cold or hot I get won’t matter. What I need is for other Supernaturals to know I’m one of them and if they mess with me they aren’t going to be the one walking out of Diyo’s.”

“Okay…” Matt let the statement stand as he watched the scenery change from bright city lights into the occasional blip of light and the dank forms of run down and abandoned buildings.
He could tell when they moved from the human side of Misery and into the Supernatural District. There were more people walking along the sidewalks despite the lack of street lights. Every once in a while, if he glanced out the corner of his eye, he’d catch the unnaturally bright flare of supernatural eyes.

“What you did earlier,” Keegan started, “With Leeroy? You really have to be careful about that.
If he hadn’t been so in control we might not have been able to stop him from doing anything to you.”

“I didn’t mean to do anything, you know that right?” Matt offered.

Keegan nodded. “I know that. Leeroy? All he saw was a threat. As a Djinn, which is related to a demon, you threatened his alpha when you stood up and threw your arms like you did. Do you know what Djinn can do to you Matt?”

Keegan eyed the detective out the corner of her eye and saw him shake his head no. “Like Melinda said, he could literally turn your head into mush with his fingertips. As a Djinn Leeroy has the ability to control your mind. He can make you think that you’re living your life but really you’re not. You would be stuck in a catatonic state and he would leave you like that until you died. That’s only a little of what he can do.”

“What else do I need to know?” Matt asked.

“Gary is a dragon.” Keegan ignored the amused snort from Matt’s side of the car.
She understood the reaction. Gary dressed in flannel and almost always tripping over his shoe laces wasn’t someone you’d believe to be something as powerful as a dragon. “I mean he can turn into a fire breathing, town burning dragon. He’s an old fashioned kind of guy. You mess up once with him, you’re on his shit list for a very long time.”