Page 24 of Spirit Dances

“Because he’s nobody, Detective. He’s just like me. I’m sure that other detective will make some effort. But we’re just a bunch of vagrants. Someone with money or family will get killed soon and nobody will care very much that Lynn’s case goes cold. Except maybe you. You cared enough to save me.”

This was not the right time to protest saving her had been a complete accident. It wasn’t the right time to protest much of everything, except a gentle, “This isn’t my jurisdiction, Rita. I’m not supposed to work cases downtown.”

“Will that stop you?”

The woman had my number. A sigh, resoundingly heartfelt, escaped me. “Probably not. Look, I’ll ask Detective Monroe to keep me in the loop on the case, okay? Because you’re right. If this doesn’t get cleared up really fast, it probably won’t at all. That’s how murders are anyway, but the circumstances here aren’t favorable. If it slips off Monroe’s radar, I promise I’ll pick it up. Okay?”

She smiled and the soft place in my heart took an arrow through it. It was easy to look through people, especially streetpeople, to pretend they didn’t exist at all. But confronted with Rita Wagner’s youthful smile, I couldn’t do that. I didn’t even want to. Somebody had granted me a phenomenal cosmic power set. In my good moments I thought I could save Seattle, maybe even the world. In the more realistic ones, what mattered, what reallymattered, was that I could just maybe save one person. Nobody could save every one, but I could help individuals, and that, when I got right down to it, was a hell of a thing. “I can find you at the soup kitchen if I need you?”

“If I’m not there someone can find me.”

“All right.” I stood up again, collecting Billy’s coffee as Monroe escorted the sketch artist in. “Take care of yourself, Rita.”

“You too, Detective.”

I left the coffee shop feeling like I’d made the world a slightly better place.

Chapter 12

The feeling lasted all the way back to the crime scene. Billy accepted his coffee with a grimace instead of a thanks, which didn’t bode well. I barely got a look at the body before he herded me across the street, where we had a semblance of privacy. “Not much to tell,” he informed me grimly. “The victim’s name is Lynn Schumacher, but that’s just about all he remembers. I don’t think the medical examiner has pinpointed a time of death yet, but it was more than two hours ago and its violence isn’t triggering enough need for retribution that his ghost is hanging on with any strength.”

“That probably means his own perception is that it wasn’t murder, right?” Mostly the dead passed over to The Other Side, whatever other side you chose to believe in, without much fuss. Violent deaths tended to leave ghosts behind, sometimes because the spirits were simply so shocked they didn’t know they were dead. Other times they knew very well they were dead and were in search of some kind of vengeance. Experience indicated those were not nice ghosts to deal with. More often, though—from what Billy said— ghosts lay between those two extremes: they had some idea what had happened, and were hoping toimpart a little information or be satisfied that someone sought justice on their behalf.

Billy nodded and I sighed into my coffee cup, blowing amaretto-scented steam into the street. It was good for Lynn that he wasn’t traumatized by having his throat ripped out, but not terribly useful for us. “Does he have any information at all?”

“Not much more than we can glean ourselves. Dog attack of some kind. He thought it had yellow eyes.”

I crossed my eyes as if to see them, much like Morrison had done the night before and with about as much success. I wasn’t calling on the Sight right now anyway, so they wouldn’t be gold, but I wondered what color they’d been when I shapeshifted. Coyote’s were always gold in his coyote form, but then, coyote eyesweregold. I dug my cell phone out of my coat pocket and tapped in Billy’s home number. “Dogs, domesticated dogs, don’t have gold eyes very often, do they?”

“Not the ones I see. Of course, the ones I see don’t rip people’s throats out very often, either.” We exchanged dirty looks, and Billy added, “Seattle’s got coyotes, though. I never heard of anybody seeing any downtown, but it was a rough winter.”

“I don’t think coyotes rip people’s throats out very often, either, for that matter. I don’t think they usually att—hey, Melinda? This is Joanne. Don’t worry, everything’s fine, I just have a weird question. What color were my eyes when I shifted?”

Melinda Holliday could take anything in stride. She barely missed a beat before saying, “Yellow, which I didn’t even think about until you asked. Snake eyes are black. Why?”

“Just a data point. Maybe a totally useless one, but I wanted to know. Thanks.”

She said, “Sure,” and hung up, leaving me to bump my phone against my lips until I remembered I had a much tastier coffeeto sip. “I was saying, coyotes usually won’t attack adult humans, either, unless they’re cornered.”

“Well,” Billy said dryly, and gestured to where Lynn Schumacher’s body had been found. “Technically that’s a corner.”

I whacked his shoulder and he grinned. “Why’d you ask Mel about your eyes?”

“Because I’m paranoid that everything I come in contact with anymore is supernatural.” I was only half kidding, and Billy gave me a sympathetic smirk. A little more seriously, I said, “Because Rita said there are no paw prints around the body, even though there’s blood everywhere. A dog could have gotten really lucky, maybe, but since I just shapeshifted for the first time last night I’m wondering if other people at the dance concert could’ve been similarly affected. Maybe it’s ‘I have a hammer so everything is a nail’ syndrome, but I did have Morrison there to pull me back. What if somebody else went through a metamorphosis and just panicked?”

“Youaregetting paranoid,” Billy said, but somehow it sounded like a compliment. “You think that’s a possibility?”

“I think it’s as likely as a coyote or mad dog attacking somebody off Pioneer Square.” I had to be quiet for a minute after that, just to stand there and appreciate how topsy-turvy my world had gone in the past fifteen months. Then my phrasing caught up with me. “It’s an animal attack, so the M.E. will check for rabies, right? Maybe I really am paranoid and it’s just a mad dog.”

“Maybe. Are you going to proceed as if it is?”

“You mean am I going to proceed on this case which isn’t in my jurisdiction and may have nothing to do with the paranormal and so can’t possibly be justified to my ill-tempered boss who has already, and with good reason, suspended me from duty, much less some other precinct’s captain?” I finished my coffee,threw the cup away and shrugged. “Yes, I am, and no, I’m not going to assume it’s rabies, not until the M.E. says as much. I wonder if I can get Reynolds to nab a copy of the autopsy report.”

“Paranoid and devious,” Billy said with admiration. “We’ll make a detective of you yet.”

“Not if I get busted for treading in other peoples’ territory when I’m not supposed to be working at all.” I finally triggered the Sight as I spoke, looking for…

Well, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. Signs of magic having been done, or some helpful flash in a pan that suggested some other poor sap had gotten hit with the same theater whammy I had. Coyote’d said changing without intent was dangerous. I’d gotten lucky, but if someone else hadn’t, I might be able to help them get back to normal.

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