It had made sense, from a werewolf perspective, to take the head back to the police because they had jurisdiction over the crime the goblin had committed. Werewolves were all about order and authority. Moreover, the goblin king, who was de facto responsible for the miscreant goblin because they were the same species, had told me to do it. He had the right and the authority to determine that since the goblin had sinned against the humans, the humans should have the evidence that justice had been served, to wit, the head.
Larry meant to use the dead goblin as a political gambit, a statement of power combined with a declaration that he was on the side of justice, if not the law. That he considered the murder of humans to be wrong. And all of that was well and good.
But now I was standing near the heart of human justice—the courthouse. And from that human perspective . . . I frowned at the bloody tarp. Nothing of what I’d done made sense from a human perspective. Killing someone was a crime, even if the one you killed deserved it.
I may not have killed the goblin—but . . . I wasn’t sure I could prove it. I’d bet a million bucks that Larry the goblin king would not be recognizable on the video feed from the barn. In fact, as I considered it, I was pretty sure that the cameras would have quit working the moment he was aware of them. It had been pretty dark about then—it was still pretty dark. If he had shown up at all, then he would have been little more than a shadowy figure.
Only the four of us—Larry, Ben, Mary Jo, and I—knew that it hadn’t been I who’d killed the goblin. No one could prove it was, either . . . but oddly I didn’t trust human justice as much as I trusted the werewolves. Justice is easier when the judge, jury, and executioner can tell if the accused tells a lie.
“Are you making friends with him?” growled Mary Jo from the sidewalk. “He’s probably not going to be a good conversationalist.”
“I’m trying to figure out how I end up at work this morning,” I told her. “Instead of in jail.”
Because I had done everything wrong. I should have called the sheriff’s office from the barn. I’d have liked to believe that the goblin king had magicked me into following orders. But I had just been caught up in what was right and proper on the magical side and forgotten that human law enforcement wasn’t going to think highly of this.
She grunted. Then she squinted at the head a moment herself.
“Well, damn,” she said in the voice of someone who has suddenly realized something. “Look what a stupid thing you did.”
I looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
She lifted her hands, palms up. “You’re the boss here, Mercy. I assumed you knew what you were doing.”
I gave her a look and she broke down and laughed.
“I know,” she said. “Me, too. He’s just got that kingly thing going. And maybe I was distracted trying to figure out if he is actually going to go cannibal or if he’s going to take the body back for some sort of ritual funeral or something. And . . . well, I guess I just don’t get fussed about dead people . . . dead anything, anymore. I forgot that our human counterparts aren’t going to feel the same way.”
She looked around and sighed. She pulled out her phone and pressed some numbers on it.
“What?” a groggy and grumpy voice said. Then, irritably, “I’m off today, Carter, not late again. Go screw yourself.”
“This is Mary Jo,” she told him. “I need your official help.”
There was a three-beat pause.
“Mary Jo,” he said, sounding much more awake—but his voice was raw. “We’re done, you said. No more. Well, done is done.” And he disconnected.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Mary Jo told me. “Renny’s a good guy, but he started to get too serious. I don’t do serious with the humans. Doesn’t seem fair.” She tried to sound hard and did a fair to middling job of it, so I guessed it had hurt her, too.
She pressed the numbers again.
“Go away,” he said.
“Official, Renny. I’m standing outside your place of work with Mercy Hauptman. We have a dead goblin’s head in the backseat of her car. We’d like to donate it to the coroner’s office through official channels. Since the head was made bodiless in Mesa, I kind of figured that might be up your alley.”
He disconnected.
Mary Jo gave her phone a look, started to press numbers again, but then her phone rang.
“Goblin head?” Renny said. “Did you say a goblin head?”
“I did,” she responded.
There was a long pause.
When he spoke again, his voice was all business. “If you are in the front parking lot, drive around the block to the back gate of the employee parking lot and wait for me. It’ll take me five to dress and another five to get there. I’m calling this in—so if you are screwing with me, I’ll see your supervisor.” And he clicked off without giving Mary Jo a chance to say anything.
“Give him a severed goblin head, and he forgets all about how mad and hurt he is.” There was a little tightness around her eyes that I tried not to see, because Mary Jo didn’t want me to see her pain. So instead I paid attention to the sarcasm in her voice when she said, “Obviously, it was true love on his part.”
* * *
• • •
Mary Jo’s ex, Deputy Alexander “Renny” Renton, turned out to be a fit man somewhere near my own age (midthirties) and a few inches over six feet tall. He had a good blank face, which he used as he gave the contents of the back section of my Jetta a thorough visual examination.
Then he turned to study Mary Jo. His blank face intensified until it became broody.
“A werewolf, huh?” he said finally.
She tilted her head at him in mild inquiry. The expression on her face caused him to laugh ruefully.
“Of course I know,” he told her. “Why else would you be escorting the Alpha’s wife around at too-early o’clock in the morning? Besides, your people talked to my people because we share information between the sheriff’s office and the fire department like that.”
She smiled at his wry tone. “You mean someone started bragging that the fire department has a werewolf and the sheriff’s office doesn’t?”
“Maybe,” he said, nodding. “Do I have anything to worry about?”
“Oh,” she said, her face suddenly concerned. “Oh, whoops. Um, have you been getting a little hairier than usual? Have to shave a little more often? I’ve heard that it starts that way for the guys.”
“Cut it out, Mary Jo,” I growled. “Be nice to the helpful deputy.” I looked at Renny. “It’s not easy to get Changed to a werewolf. I guarantee you that you’ll be in no doubt about it if ever it happens to you.”
“Good to know,” he said. He looked at Mary Jo and shook his head.
“Do we have the right to remain silent?” Mary Jo asked.
“You aren’t under arrest,” he said with a quelling look. “Not yet, anyway. As long as you didn’t kill him, you probably won’t be. But Captain Allen is coming in and asked me not to start anything until he gets here. This would have been a lot easier for you if you had called us in the first place. Before there was a dead goblin whose head is in the back of the car. You know better, Mary Jo; why didn’t you call us in?”
She looked pointedly at me.
“The farmer didn’t want to be responsible for getting people killed,” I explained. “I agreed with him. Goblins are outside your ability to deal with.”
Renny’s eyes got cold, and he studied me for a moment. “All due respect, ma’am, you don’t know what we are capable of dealing with.”
“All due respect, Renny,” said Mary Jo, “I have a pretty freaking good idea of your capabilities. And I think Mr. Traegar’s decision to bring us in first was the correct one. We don’t really know what we’re dealing with when it comes to the fae—there is no way that the sheriff’s office would. We had two werewolves, Mercy, and the goblin king out there—and if it weren’t for the goblin king, we’d have failed to bring him in ourselves.”
He gave her a look. “I am going to ignore—just for a minute—how much my geek side is loving that apparently there is a goblin king in the world. And that he is—again apparently—here in the Tri-Cities. Even knowing that David Bowie is gone, I am giddy about this.” He said all that in a very dry, professional tone.
I was starting to really like this guy.
“What I am not ignoring is the name of your farmer,” he continued. “Mary Jo, did Keith Traegar really call in the werewolves to keep his son from fighting goblins? Traegar, who has anti-fae, anti-werewolf, and Bright Future signs all over his property?”
I had noticed the signs, actually.
Mary Jo laughed. “I thought you might enjoy that.”
Deputy Renton paused, then looked up at the sky, brightening now with true dawn. When he looked back at Mary Jo, he was grinning with pure, unadulterated joy. “I am so going to rub Jack Traegar’s nose in this for a very, very long time. His daddy called in the werewolves before he called his own son.”
He took in a deep breath, regrouped, and rubbed his hands together. “Where were we?” It seemed to be a rhetorical question because he answered it before anyone else said anything. “Ah, yes. The bloody head.”
He ducked down to take a look into the back of the Jetta again. “What we need, ladies, is a garbage sack. I will leave the body part in question with an official representative of the fire department and go find one. Wait here.”
And he trotted off to the dark building, whistling lightly under his breath.
“I like him,” I said at the same time Mary Jo said—in affectionate tones—“Weirdo.”
We looked at each other—and she broke first. “Okay,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see if he’s willing to give us another try. Anyone who is excited about the prospect of a goblin head might be able to deal with a girlfriend who is a werewolf.”