I was actually done disarming myself, but I didn’t bother to explain that to Leduc. Let him wonder what else I might be carrying.
“We can find the house on our own, Duke. I told you that,” Newman said.
“And I told you that I’d take you out there,” Leduc said, sounding defensive, or angry, or just cranky.
Anthony asked, “Can I put some of your stuff on the floor, Marshal Blake?”
I looked at her and realized the pile was a little unwieldy to carry in your arms. “Sure. Just don’t scuff anything.”
“Oh, I’ll be careful,” she said, and she sounded way too earnest about it. I shaved a few years off her age. You just don’t stay that eager much over the age of twenty-five.
The sheriff unlocked the cell, and Newman and I walked in voluntarily. I’m never a fan of disarming myself and walking into a cage. It just seems bad on principle. The big metal door cha-chunking behind us didn’t make me like it any more, but over the years, I’d learned not to startle when it happened.
We’d already explained to Bobby that we wanted to take pictures of him for evidence later. He was fine with that. His reaction had been so flat, it made me want to ask him something outrageous to see if he’d react more.
Newman helped Bobby hold the blanket and put his arms out to his sides at the same time. Apparently, they hadn’t given him anything to wear but the blanket, and either Newman was modest, or he knew that Bobby was, because they worked hard at making sure that he didn’t flash me or the deputy. What glimpses I did get showed that Bobby Marchand worked out and kept himself in good shape. Some people believe that becoming a wereanimal or a vampire automatically gives them washboard abs and a lean, muscled body, but it doesn’t. Yes, supernaturals are stronger than human normal, but they don’t automatically come with bigger muscles. Those you still have to go to the gym and create yourself even if you’re a shapeshifter. If you’re a vampire, you can’t even do that. If you want a good-looking corpse, you have to do the work before you cross over, because once you become one, you’re stuck with what you look like on the day of your death for all eternity. Some vampires, my fiancé Jean-Claude being one of them, are powerful enough that exercise can cause the same changes to their bodies that humans experience, but it’s an enormous use of energy. And even if you’re willing to use the power, most master vampires still can’t do it. Jean-Claude is the exception to a lot of vampy rules.
Something about the blanket moving let me see Bobby’s feet and one leg, which made me say, “I need to see anywhere there’s blood, Mr. Marchand.”
“Call me Bobby. Everyone does,” he said automatically without even making eye contact.
I didn’t really want to call him Bobby, just in case I had to pull the trigger on him later, but I’d already looked into his eyes from inches away. He was becoming real to me and not just a job, so why not?
“Okay, Bobby, I need to see anywhere there’s blood evidence. I got your feet, but I saw some higher on your legs on one side. I need a picture of it, okay?”
“Okay,” he said in that same emotionless voice he’d had the whole time. He gathered the blanket close to his body and lifted it up almost like an overly long dress. There was blood smeared on his right lower leg. I got an image of it.
“Is this all the evidence?”
He nodded without looking at me. He had avoided eye contact the whole time. He didn’t remind me of a criminal; he was reacting more like a victim. If he’d been a woman, or even a man under other circumstances, I’d have wondered if he’d killed in self-defense after an attack. That was the sort of vibe I was getting off of him and his reactions. I couldn’t figure out how to ask if his uncle, the man who’d raised him from a toddler, had molested him. Had he fought back finally? No, that didn’t feel right, and that wouldn’t explain the blood evidence on him being so wrong. A shapeshifter would know that his human form wouldn’t have blood on it from the kill. Only someone who didn’t know much about wereanimals would do it this way.
“Are you sure these are all the pictures I need?”
He nodded again but stared at the floor.
“Bobby,” I said, “what aren’t you telling me?”
He shook his head this time, still staring at the floor.
“Bobby, is there blood evidence somewhere else on your body?”
He went very still in the way that trauma victims can go deep inside themselves as if they believe that if they’re still enough, quiet enough, they won’t have to answer any more questions. If they go away in plain si
ght, then the worst thing won’t happen or won’t have to be shared. Everything about him screamed victim, not perpetrator. What the hell was going on here? What had happened to Bobby Marchand to make him react like this? I’d ask Newman later in private if Bobby was usually this quiet and withdrawn; if he was, then that usually indicated long-term abuse. If it wasn’t normal for him, then something bad had happened to him very recently, like yesterday recently. Maybe waking up covered in blood and being accused of murdering the only father you’ve ever known would be enough? Yeah, that sounded like enough. I was just used to looking for horrors, as if tragedy alone wasn’t enough.
“Bobby, we’re trying to help prove that you didn’t kill your uncle. Don’t you want us to prove that?” I asked softly, gently, the way you do with victims when you don’t want to spook them.
He answered, still staring at the floor, “If I killed Uncle Ray, I don’t want you to save me.”
“But if you didn’t kill your uncle Ray, then someone else did, Bobby. Don’t you want to catch them?”
He looked at me then, eyes startled, but trying to see me, really see me. He looked into my eyes—trying to see if I meant it, I think.
Sheriff Leduc said, “Don’t you go lying to him, Marshal. He did it, and he’s going to have to die for it. Giving him false hope is just . . . cruel.”
Bobby looked at Leduc. “You know I did it, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Bobby. I’m truly sorry, but I know what I know. I know what I saw at your house.”