“Big hands,” he said softly. “Both Franklin Cartwright and Detective Baker had been killed by something strong enough to pick up grown men and twist them.”

“Yes.” Sheridan sat forward and folded her hands on her desk. “Concerning Detective Baker. Detective Swinn was particularly angry about a missing tie clip when he came by yesterday evening. He insisted that Baker had been wearing one that morning and wanted me to admit that Dr. Wallace or I had taken it. I gather he went back to the boardinghouse and searched Baker’s room for the missing item and didn’t find it, because he was back here this morning, demanding to look at the items that had been with the bodies. Of course, Dr. Wallace had made the arrangements and the bodies had been driven to Bristol at first light, along with everything that had been found with them. I asked him for a description of the tie clip; I know Ineke Xavier asked as well since he was so obsessed with finding it. But he wouldn’t tell us what it looked like beyond being a tie clip.”

“What about Chesnik? Did he have a tie clip?”

“He did. Swinn wasn’t interested in that one.”

Grimshaw thanked her and left the funeral home. But after returning to his car, he sat in the parking lot, thinking.

All the men on Swinn’s team had worn ties and had used tie clips. What was significant about Baker’s? A man wouldn’t wear something expensive on the job, not when he was out investigating. There was always the possibility of losing it somewhere. But maybe it was expensive and Swinn wanted to return it to Baker’s family. Or maybe it had some other significance. Was that why Swinn didn’t want to describe it? Because he didn’t want a description of a particular tie clip going into an official report?

If it had been logged in with the other personal effects, would it have disappeared after Swinn visited the funeral home? And would Swinn, despite being warned off, return to The Jumble to search for the missing item?

Grimshaw started the cruiser and returned to the station.

The black luxury sedan was gone from its parking spot. So were Ilya Sanguinati and Vicki DeVine. Officer Osgood looked desperate to find something official to do.

“Problem?” Grimshaw asked.

“Detective Swinn is upset that I’ve been transferred to this station and am under your command.”

“You have any idea why Swinn pulled you into this assignment in the first place?”

“No, sir.”

Grimshaw sighed. “Well, I’ll talk to a couple of people and see if I can find you a place to stay while you’re working here.”

“I—I’m staying at the boardinghouse.” Osgood’s brown eyes looked huge. “Ms. Xavier threw Detectives Swinn and Reynolds out of her place. Somebody told them she was pitching their stuff onto the front lawn and when they got to the boardinghouse, she told them if they so much as set a toe inside her house again, she would report them.”

To whom? Grimshaw wondered. “Did something happen to upset her?”

Osgood winced. “They fed their prunes to the dog this morning. I guess he got sick enough that the vet from Crystalton came to the house.”

So Swinn would have to find accommodations at a nearby town or withdraw from the investigation. Swinn wasn’t going to withdraw; he shouldn’t have been there in the first place, so he’d be back for the same reason he got involved.

Osgood held out a pink message slip. “Ms. Xavier said to tell you that she’s boxing up the other detectives’ belongings and if you don’t pick them up by tomorrow morning, she’ll donate everything to the volunteer fire department to sell.”

“Did you tell her she couldn’t do that?”

“I’ve heard Ms. Xavier has a smoking gun tattoo on one thigh as a kind of warning.”

Crap. Well, there was one good thing: Osgood seemed to be a gossip magnet, which was bound to be helpful as long as he just listened to gossip and didn’t spread any information.

“I have an assignment for you,” Grimshaw said. “Find out if anyplace around here is having a block sale, yard sale, moving sale, swap and shop. I need trinkets, shiny things that a teenage girl”—or a Crow—“would be drawn to. I need them as soon as you can get them.” He pulled out his wallet and handed Osgood fifty dollars. “That’s your budget. Nothing has to be expensive; it just has to shine.”

“Yes, sir.” One beat of silence. “Why?”

Grimshaw sighed. “Because I need to bribe someone to return a piece of evidence.”

CHAPTER 19

Ilya

Windsday, Juin 14

As soon as he delivered Victoria DeVine back to The Jumble, Ilya asked Boris, his driver, to return to Sproing. He could have reached his quarry faster if he’d shifted to his smoke form and traveled cross-country, but the days of the Sanguinati being subtle about their control of the village were over.

“I won’t be long,” he said when Boris pulled into a parking space in front of the bookstore.

Going inside Lettuce Reed, Ilya walked up to the island counter, his dark eyes locked on Julian Farrow’s gray ones. He set a piece of paper on the counter. “I’d like any of these books that you have in stock. New copies are preferable, but I’ll take used copies.”

Julian looked at the titles, froze for a moment, then met Ilya’s eyes.

“You haven’t lived up to your side of the bargain, Mr. Farrow,” Ilya said softly.

“From what I can tell, Vicki’s anxiety has its roots in damaged self-confidence and intimacy issues.” Julian almost growled the words. “Those issues are personal, but she’s dealing with them and they haven’t interfered with the restoration of The Jumble or posed any threat to this village. Therefore, they were none of your business.”

“Now they are.” At least Farrow wasn’t pretending he didn’t understand the significance of Ilya wanting these particular books about human anxiety attacks and different forms of abuse. “You should have informed me that Victoria DeVine had a weakness.”

“It’s not a weakness,” Farrow snapped.

“A wound, then. A vulnerability that leaves her open to attack.”

“Show me a human living on this continent who isn’t wounded in some way!”

Defensive. Cornered. A human dangerous enough not to be taken lightly. But that was the reason the Sanguinati had made a bargain with Julian Farrow in the first place.

As he noted how white the scar on Farrow’s cheek looked on a face made harsh by anger, it occurred to Ilya that Julian hadn’t pointed out that the other informant in the village also had failed to mention these anxiety attacks, hadn’t tried to lessen his own failing. And Ilya suddenly understood, and appreciated, that the anger and defensiveness were . . . protective. Not Victoria’s mate. Not yet. Maybe never. But the desire to protect was there nonetheless. Understanding that, he used the tone of voice that he used when discussing a problem with one of his own kind. With an equal.

“Detective Swinn used words to open that wound yesterday when he and his man drove Victoria to the village,” Ilya said. “And this morning at the bank, what he said to her was not only wounding but very personal.”

Farrow stared at Ilya, then looked past him, as if he was piecing together something that wasn’t visible to anyone else. “Then he knows someone who knew her before she came to Sproing.”

“Agreed.”

Farrow continued to look toward the street. “The first body stirred up people and had them talking, worrying that the trouble might come into Sproing itself. But it didn’t change the core feel of the village. Grimshaw being assigned here . . . A blanket feeling of relief—and budding hope in the villagers that they could take up the business of living without being afraid all the time.”

“And the arrival of Swinn and his men?” Ilya asked.

All the color drained out of Farrow’s face as he whispered, “The stench of overripe garbage spreading beyond the alley into the streets, into the shops, into the homes.”

Interesting. Julian Farrow always said that he felt places, not people, but this was the first time the Intuit had revealed anything that descriptive about what he sensed. It sounded more like a memory than an observation about the here and now.