I kept forgetting that. My whole face wrinkled up, not at the reminder, but because it meant my only viable excuses to be here were either magic-related, or because I was Morrison’s girlfriend. Neither was going to go over spectacularly well with the top brass.
I put that on a mental shelf to worry about later. “So I did, which means any weirdness can be laid squarely at my feet and the emphasis can be on me no longer being a cop.”
“The reasons for which are now murky, since half of Seattle just saw us kissing.”
“Dammit, Morrison, I was trying to reassure you in a way I thought you’d believe. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences.” I clearly should have been, but as was usual with me and thinking, I was applying it too little and too late. “The good news is there’s so much magic whirling around here right now that everything’s going to be a fog for most of these people, so let’s not worry about it. I’m going to go talk to Heather. You go...do your thing.” As he strode off, I realized his thing, at the moment, was taking the lead on this investigation. Police captains weren’t generally supposed to do that, but he was certainly the ranking officer on the scene, and he had a vested interest in getting my mess cleaned up.
Forget whether I was going to want him when this was over. He’d be crazy to still want me. I sighed—I seemed to be doing that a lot—and worked my way around the bloody circle to approach Heather Fagan.
She stopped me with an upraised palm as I made to step over the police line. “You’ve already been in here, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. Over there, next to Garth. I’ll give the guys my shoe information.” I lifted a foot and wiggled it a little.
“Garth. You know these people?” Heather put her hands on her thighs and pushed out of her crouch. “Is this going to turn out like the Ravenna Park death?”
“Yes.”
“So I’m not going to get any answers I like. And maybe not any at all.”
“Right.”
Heather gave me a flat look. “What is it with you?”
“...I’m a shaman, and this sort of crap has been following me around for about a year. It’s almost over now.”
She stared at me a couple of seconds, and I wondered if lying would have been the better tactic after all. Not that she would have believed a lie, either. But she didn’t call me on it, only snorted. “Over. Malarkey. Fine. I’ll make sure Sandra is the M.E. on this. She’ll find whatever is necessary to make this story bearable to the general public. Who’s your lead detective?”
I looked over my shoulder toward Morrison, but I knew the answer. “Billy Holliday. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Holliday. Of course. The one guy weirder than you are. And the one guy you can trust to help cover this up.”
“Just like you’re about to do.” I wanted to be very clear on that. Heather thrust her jaw out, but nodded. I couldn’t help asking, “Why?”
“Because I can’t do my job if I have tabloid reporters breathing down my neck demanding to know the real story when I can’t provide a rational and logical explanation for something like this.”
“What if there isn’t one?”
Heather pressed her lips together so hard they disappeared into a thin white line before she spoke. “My niece works in a morgue. Last Halloween she dismembered an animated dead body with a scalpel.”
“Holy crap! About yay tall,” I said, waving my hand at about shoulder height, “wears her hair in a braid? I met her! She’s your niece?”
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