Secrets in the Moon (Crescent City Werewolves #1)

Chapter Three

Police Captain Dempsey rubbed at his eyes while slouching over his desk, shoulders twitching reflexively each time Cora's crying took on a particularly loud pitch. Without looking up, he said, "And you're sure it's him?"

"I'm positive." Cora mopped at her tear-stained cheeks with the handkerchief that had been given to her. The sodden fabric muffled the rest of her words. "As soon as I saw his face, I knew it. Even through all the b-blood and filth and those awful bite marks..."

Then her expression crumpled into another sob.

The police captain had interviewed enough upset women to recognize one on the verge of hysteria, and said nothing else while pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. As he lit it, his attention flickered to the third figure in the room.

Detective Hayes hovered behind Cora's chair, his attention unwavering. The brim of his hat cast his eyes in shadow, but the grim set to his mouth and his utter silence revealed his tension. One hand rested against her upper arm as if to steady her, squeezing gently whenever her breath hitched. At the sound of the police captain's disgusted sigh, he glared over.

Dempsey remained unabashed. "Don't give me that look. She can get plenty of cuddles from you. I need answers."

Cora blotted her eyes and said in a thick voice, "How many more times do you need to hear it? That was Tierney."

"Miss Marshall, the body is almost hamburger. I just want to be sure we're upending two cases based on irrefutable facts. It's going to take a few hours to get Dominic Tierney's dental records and make a comparison, and in the meantime I'm not about to make any hasty—"

"Is there a tattoo of an eagle on his back? A big one with the wings on each shoulder?"

In the short silence that followed, she lowered the handkerchief from her raw face and looked up at the police captain, too miserable to even enjoy his expression. "It's in red and black ink and there's writing beneath the talons. The words say—"

"You convinced me." His voice had also changed, now deathly serious. "There's no way you could've seen the back of the body from where you were standing."

Then the man grabbed at a pile of coffee-stained papers on his desk and pulled one free. The scratch of pen strokes sounded overloud in the office as he quickly scrawled a few lines, and Cora found herself shifting uneasily. Hayes watched him feed the note into the glass pneumatic tubing system but remained silent as the paper shot out of sight.

When the police captain only resumed puffing at his cigarette, thumb rubbing at one eyebrow as if he was lost in thought, Cora fidgeted with the handkerchief in an effort to keep quiet. It didn't work. "What's going to happen now? Will your men have to interview me again?"

The question drew a hard smile to Dempsey's face, and his eyes seemed to clear again. "Feel free to celebrate, Miss Marshall. We've got nothing more to do with you. The fact that you identified the thing that killed members of the Saxby Pack, a case that was officially handed over to Hayes while you were busy having hysterics in the morgue, means the Isaac Marshall case is now connected to it. You and your father are now entirely Hayes' responsibility."

"You mean, you're..."

"Throwing you to the wolves."

"That is a horrible attempt at humor, Captain."

"It's not supposed to be funny. It's just the bald truth."

She drew in a breath to ask how he could be so cold about things, but Hayes spoke up first. "How are your boys handling the loss of a big case? Will they fight against giving me the case file and any collected evidence?"