Текст книги "Irregulars "

Автор книги: Astrid Amara

Соавторы: Nicole Kimberling,Ginn Hale,Josh lanyon
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

Finally, during coffee and dessert, Keith got the courage to ask the one question he wanted answered.

“So why exactly did you call off our previous arrangement?”

“You made a few offhanded comments about goblins that I didn’t care for,” Gunther said simply. “At the time, I was offended. I couldn’t say I was offended because I hadn’t told you about myself, so I just called it off.”

“Why invite me to lunch today then?”

“I guess I just remembered how sexy you are. And I felt like I’d been unfair.”

Keith drained the last of his coffee. He tried to remember what he might have said that could have been offensive. With no small degree of horror, he realized that he’d said plenty. Shame verging on mortification churned through his chest.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses for myself, but I wasn’t all that stable at the time. I was still in the humans versus monsters mindset.”

“Yes, I remember.” Gunther’s expression remained neutral, even somewhat blank.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry if what I said hurt you. I’m not all that smart and it takes me a while to adjust sometimes,” Keith said. “But I do know it’s not all cut and dried. I do now anyway.”

“That’s good to hear.” Gunther glanced at his phone. “We should probably be getting back to the market if we want to use the portal.”

***

Back in Portland, the market was just wrapping up. Their rental had a parking ticket tucked lovingly under the windshield wiper. Keith stuffed it into his pocket to commune with the other three already crammed in there.

“Anything else on the agenda for this evening?” Gunther asked.

“On demand and a shower for me. Unless you feel up to interrogating vampires after nightfall. In which case you’re free to take the rental.” Keith wiggled the key fob at Gunther.

“Actually, I was hoping to borrow the car to pick up a box of legendary Bauer & Bullock feijoa jam alfajores. Apparently, they’re the most addictive cookie ever made. I need to bring back a farewell gift for another agent.”

“Someone retiring?” Keith had often wondered where old agents went to retire once their crime-fighting days were over.

“No, just moving. Promoted to directing the Vancouver field office. You might remember him from last year’s Cookie Jamboree? His name was Rake? Great big fellow?”

Keith had a sharp recollection of an enormous hulk of a man hanging around near the cookie decorations eating sprinkles and silver dragees when he thought no one was looking.

“The mountain with the sweet tooth.”

Gunther chuckled. “Right. He was my first partner when I was a rookie. He loves these cookies with a profane passion.”

“I’ve never heard of them, but I’m not really a big bakery guy.”

“They’re actually sold at a steakhouse. It’s supposed to have an excellent bar as well. If you’d like to come along, I’ll buy you a drink for keeping me company.”

Keith hesitated. Although he’d have never admitted it to anyone, Gunther scared him. And not just because he had turned out to be a goblin. Keith wanted Gunther and that desire had led him to break two cardinal rules he’d long held sacred—never date anybody twice and never stay friends with a guy who dumps you. Keith didn’t want to be a chump all over again.

Apparently sensing his reluctance, Gunther said, “Or I could drop you off at the hotel if you’d like.”

“Hotel sounds good. I’m beat.” Keith tossed him the keys and headed to the passenger side.

As he pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel Gunther said, “I’ll be having a drink there anyway. You could come by if you change your mind.”

Keith gave a noncommittal nod and left.

Once he’d made it back to his hotel room and gotten through a dicey, but necessary, cold shower, he had time to regret his decision. He decided that, on closer reflection, he did want a drink.

Maybe, he thought, he could still catch Gunther at the steakhouse if he took a cab there.

Finding Bauer & Bullock’s webpage was easy. It was splashy with a lot of photo carousels showing beef searing on different apparatuses. The one hundred and forty-three seat restaurant was apparently the choice for the Portland business diner looking to impress a client. Keith had always hated joints like these, even before he’d become a vegetarian. White guys in business suits eating slabs of meat and steak frites while talking about money always curtailed his appetite.

But Gunther had gone there, so now Keith wanted to be there too. He decided to check out the bar menu.

Pleasantly, though somewhat predictably, the website informed him that the bar stocked over five hundred different whiskies. He picked up his phone and was just about to dial Gunther when the image on the carousel changed from a sizzling grill to a photograph of the owner.

The face was familiar but her name even more so: Cindy Bullock, wife of Trent Bullock, whom Keith had arrested for cannibalism less than a year before.

He decided to pass on the whisky after all.

Chapter Four

Gunther arrived at Keith’s hotel room early the next day. The coffee maker had just started to gurgle and fill the hotel room with the scent of morning. Keith had neither dressed nor shaved and still wore the ragged old Misfits T-shirt and shorts he’d slept in.

“I just got an email from the lab.” Gunther set his laptop down on the small hotel desk. “The blood sample taken from the mop head at Lulu’s Flapjack Shack contained a mixture of human and bovine blood,” he said.

“So the killer is stretching one with the other?” Keith set about making coffee.

“Or there might have been two separate sources of blood,” Gunther said. “In addition to that, traces of methotrexate were present throughout the fibers, which would indicate that it has been combined with the blood mixture,” Gunther went on.

“Is that some sort of exotic new food additive?”

“It’s a prescription drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.”

“Weird.” Keith hunted through the cupboards for coffee cups. “I don’t know what to make of that at all.”

“Nor do I.”

“Did you get your cookies?”

“Last box of the night,” Gunther said.

“How did the restaurant seem?” Keith poured two cups of coffee and pulled the room’s remaining chair up alongside his partner.

“Busy. Crowded bar.” Gunther glanced up. “I sat down and had a superb whisky sour. When you failed to appear to keep me company I decided to while away the time google-stalking you on my phone.”

“Why?”

“Idle curiosity.” Gunther’s response came with such flirtatious ease that Keith initially mistook it for sarcasm.

“Did you stumble across anything good?”

“Your freshman yearbook photo. And a fine mullet you had then too. I particularly like the vaguely stoned look on your face and the ripped Whitesnake concert tee.” Gunther looked pointedly at Keith’s Misfits shirt. “Good to know you haven’t changed too much.”

Keith momentarily choked, embarrassed by the accuracy of the statement, but he recovered. “I was also wearing red parachute pants, but you can’t see those.”

“Nice.” Gunther smiled. “Do you still listen to metal?”

“Sometimes.” Keith took a sip of his coffee. Too harsh. He returned to the counter to swirl more sugar in.

“I always wanted to make some kind of rebellious adolescent statement on school photo day but never had the nerve,” Gunther said. “I was always afraid that if I was anything but absolutely harmless and normal I’d be found out, charged with breaking the Secrecy Act, and sent away.”

Keith was ashamed to realize that he’d never thought of what it must be like to grow up with that kind of isolation. Sure, he’d had the experience of hiding the fact that he was gay from people, but that was different. At any point he’d had the freedom to tell anyone which gender he preferred to sleep with. The Secrecy Act mandated silence on pain of deportation.

Lamely, Keith said, “That must have been rough.”

“It’s a unique way to experience childhood.” Gunther’s tone told him nothing.

“Don’t feel bad. My wearing a Whitesnake T-shirt was more an act of laziness than rebellion.”

“For you, maybe, but my mother dressed me in slacks and a tie every day of my freshman year,” Gunther said. “My classmates all thought I was a Mormon.”

“I imagine you learned to fight pretty early, dressed like that.”

“Some, but I also became adept at hiding other clothes in my backpack and changing in gas station bathrooms.” Gunther punched a couple of keys and entered the NIAD database. “I never really had to learn to fight so much as how not to kill people. Humans are fragile.”

Keith’s discomfort rose to an intolerable level. He wondered what offhanded remarks he had made about goblins. Had he called them butchers? Animals? Sick fucks? Any or all of those pejoratives was possible. He hadn’t been in a good way when he’d met Gunther before—angry and full of rancor.

He sat down on the bed and said, “I did look up the address of the bar you were at.”

“You did?” Gunther’s expression brightened briefly before dimming again. “But you didn’t come.”

“It’s not because of you,” Keith said quickly. “It’s because of the restaurant’s owner. Bring up Trent Bullock’s file in the NIAD base and you’ll see what I mean.”

Gunther complied and took a few minutes to read through the details of Keith’s recent bust.

“So although the meat that these people had been eating was goblin sourced, the diners were all human?” Gunther finally asked.

“It surprised us too, but then after we reviewed supper club, we realized that these same sort of people whose demand fueled the mermaid flesh trade were branching out into this chic cannibalism. They were foodies gone very wrong.”

“This is the case you were mentioning at the Flapjack Shack, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. Bauer & Bullock is owned lock, stock, and barrel by Cindy Bullock, now Trent’s ex-wife, since he went into Beaumont,” Keith said.

“According to the file, Beaumont was just a stopover on his trip to the goblin high king’s summer solstice table.”

“As the main course, yeah,” Keith said. “The wife was in Argentina researching sources for her new restaurant venture for the entire duration of my investigation. We had our South American counterparts monitor her movements while she was in their country, but her exploits were purely beef or beefcake related. We couldn’t nail her on anything.”

“Okay, so Bullock’s widow is here slinging steaks. And?” Gunther asked.

“And it occurred to me that there are a few things we don’t know about this case.”

“Such as everything?” Gunther gave a derisive snort.

“Such as: where does the butchering take place?”

Gunther shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure anybody would risk the sentence for cannibalism if they actually knew the law and I’m fairly certain that Cindy Bullock is familiar with it.”

“I’d like to say that I agree with you, but when it comes to carnal pleasures like food, people will risk anything. Trust me on this. I want to question Cindy and take a look around the restaurant kitchen if I can. Even if she isn’t involved in these murders, I guarantee that she is still in contact with at least a few of her old cronies.” Keith drained his coffee and stood to get himself another cup.

“All right, but apart from the Dallas connection, do we have any reason to question the Bullock woman?”

“At least three ex-employees have called her a bloodsucker and a harpy,” Keith offered.

“Do we have any hard evidence of either of those?”

“No, and it’s pretty common for an ex-employee to call their boss a bloodsucker.”

 “That is a very tenuous connection. I don’t think any judge, even one who was in the Irregular loop, would issue a search warrant based on accusations of harpydom,” Gunther remarked.

“I realize that, but I don’t see any reason not to see if we can shake something out of her,” Keith said. “We’ll hit her place on the way back from the vampires. Did the lab happen to know anything about what methotrexate is used for aside from arthritis?”

“It’s a very strong antimetabolite with potentially fatal side effects taken only by people in the advanced stages of rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis. It’s a human drug with no known magicial applications.” Gunther paused, musing before he continued, “Maybe the victim was taking it. We could have a look at missing persons to see if any of them had a prescription for methotrexate. At least that way we might be able to identify one of the three unknown deceased, if nothing else.”

“Can you do that in the car on the way to visit the vampires or would you like to stay back here?”

“My phone is mighty,” Gunther said. “And I wouldn’t want to send you off to visit vampires on your own.”

“I’m twice as likely to be eaten by a shark as a vampire.”

“While that is true, I’ll just tag along anyway. After all, it only takes running across the right hungry individual and suddenly you find yourself contemplating lunch from the perspective of a hamburger.”

“How do you know the vampire wouldn’t just gobble you up as well?”

“I have it on the highest authority that vampires hate the taste of trans-goblin body fluids.”

“Whose authority would that be?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Gunther said simply.

Keith gaped, unable to mask his sense of revulsion. Like most teenagers, Keith had once found vampires sexy. And why not? Films portrayed them, generally, as hot young people in leather. The true form of the vampire was more Nosferatu, less model-turned-actor. To Keith they resembled humanoid hagfish. Because of the necessity of hiding their extra-human nature from the population, all registered vampires wore glamours to disguise their pale, pointy faces and hide their bulbous eyes and round, jawless mouths.

The idea that Gunther had managed to have sex with one both fascinated and revolted him. Finally, he said, “I’m not sure I’m liberal enough to have a romance like that.”

“You mean because of his true physical appearance?” Gunther asked.

“Right.” That, Keith thought, and the fact that you qualify as a main course to him. Aloud he said, “Did you ever see it?”

“Yes, of course. But not often. He was self-conscious about his appearance, but it would have been shallow of me to insist he always disguise himself.”

Shallow? Keith supposed so, but it might also be considered crucial by anyone who was made nervous by the prospect of sticking his dick into the mouth of a creature with more than a hundred and fifty razor-sharp teeth.

Gunther must have seen the skepticism on his face because he said, “I enjoy dating challenging men.”

“Why did you break up?”

“He insisted on polyamory,” Gunther answered. “That and he kept wanting me to call him ‘master’. Ultimately, I was not that interested in pursuing a vampire-style relationship. Too hierarchical for me.”

Chapter Five

The three registered vampires living in the Willamette Valley ran a business called Azalea Point Creamery. They produced goat-milk artisan cheeses sourced from their own, humanely pastured herd. As Keith’s rented sedan moved up the long, tree-lined drive, Keith’s proximity alert buzzed. Blinking green nine.

Keith shut it off. Gunther glanced up from his phone.

“These individuals have no priors,” he stated.

“I know. Procedure says I have to interview them, though, so here we are.”

“What’s your feeling?”

“My gut says they don’t have anything to do with it, but rules is rules and I’ve got to interview them anyway since evidence of exsanguination has been found.” Keith pulled up alongside a long, corrugated tin goat shed. Three farm hands were at work there, forking hay and soiled wood chips out of the shed. The goats seemed to be out back in an enclosure. He wondered if the farmhands knew about their employers’ true nature. Most likely not.

Keith put the car in park. “Do you ever wonder why these guys come here?”

“The vampires?” Gunther kept his voice low. “Probably the same reason as everybody else. They want the chance for a better life.”

“I suppose so. It just seems like a lot to have to put up with—concealing your physical form, having agents routinely hassle you.”

Gunther shrugged. “It depends on what they had to put up with in their own realm, I guess.”

Keith casually unsnapped the holster of his mage pistol and said, “Well, I guess we should go wake them up.”

The farm hands watched but did not intervene as the two of them walked to the front door and rang the bell. There came the slight whirring noise of the camera mounted above the door focusing and a groggy male voice on the intercom said, “Can I help you?”

“Joe Sounder?”

“Yes?”

“NIAD. We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Keith held up his ID and the door popped open. They entered a small porch thickly hung with blackout curtains. Overhead lights switched on automatically. Gunther closed the door behind them. From a speaker somewhere above, Joe said, “Please make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be right up.”

Keith walked into the living room, which, apart from the blackout curtains, looked perfectly normal. He took a seat on the overstuffed beige couch. Gunther remained standing, apparently performing a survey of the numerous photographs of goats hung on the walls.

Joe appeared shortly thereafter. For his glamour he’d chosen the form of a fit, if slightly weathered, middle-aged man. His soft brown hair was rumpled, but attractively so. He wore a blue bathrobe over a set of striped flannel pajamas.

Keith introduced himself and Gunther.

Joe nodded, stretched, and scratched his head. “I was wondering when you fellows would be coming around. You want to ask me if I know anything about the Cannibal Killings, right?”

“Just a routine inquiry,” Keith assured him. He glanced down at his black book. Joe was listed as having two concubines. “Are Julie and Janice also still residing at this address?”

“Janice is visiting one of her friends in Boise. Julie is still asleep downstairs, but I can wake her if you’d like.” Joe started back toward the hallway.

“I don’t think that will be necessary at the moment,” Keith said. “Have you heard anything about the killings?”

“Just what’s been on the news. We don’t get into town much.” As Joe sat down the cuff of his pajamas rose up to expose Joe’s ankle and reveal the plastic tracking device all registered vampires wore. Keith noted it. “I guess I just assumed it was goblins. They’ve been coming around here looking for meat for the summer solstice. I told them I don’t raise meat goats.”

“Do you know anything about this?” Keith displayed the Theater of Blood Carnival Circus flyer.

Joe shook his head and shrugged. “Looks like some kids playing monster to me.”

“Tell me a little more about the goblins who came looking for meat,” Gunther said. He stood with his hands in his coat pockets, looking genial and harmless. Clearly his interrogation technique was based on gaining trust rather than inspiring fear—just the opposite of Keith’s.

“Every year we get inquiries. Mostly over the phone, but sometimes guys will come out here to the dairy right before solstice hoping to make a last-minute deal,” Sounder said, chuckling. “They’re the same kind of guys who shop for all their gifts on Christmas Eve, you know?”

Gunther nodded. “Some things are universal constants.”

Keith scowled slightly. He was himself one of those eleventh-hour shoppers.

Sounder cocked his head to one side, thinking. “There were three of them who came around just recently though. Young guys. I thought it was strange, them being so young.”

Gunther nodded, then pulled out his phone and, after a few moments, turned the screen toward Sounder. “Is this one of the guys who came by?”

Keith didn’t know why he was surprised to see Lancelot’s face smiling out of Gunther’s phone. He had been just about to show Sounder a photo of Lancelot himself. He shouldn’t have supposed that Gunther would be a less thorough investigator than himself, but somehow he had.

He supposed he did still have some issues with goblins after all, if his unconscious assumption was that because of his race, Gunther wouldn’t pursue all avenues of inquiry impartially.

The thought sobered Keith. He hadn’t considered himself to contain the capacity for bigotry.

Sounder peered at Lancelot’s picture carefully, squinting slightly against the backlit screen.

“Yeah, he was one of them,” Sounder replied. “Seemed like a little bit of a kook.”

“Can you remember exactly what he said when he came?” Keith leaned slightly forward, keen to catch the inferences of Sounder’s delivery. Glamours made reading body language difficult, but the sound of a person’s voice often communicated information the glamour erased.

“Well, let’s see…They asked how much it would cost for two whole goats. I told them that we didn’t sell meat goats, like I told you. And then the kooky one wanted to know if I ever heard of any vampires who drank blood on stage.”

“On stage?” Gunther gave Keith a sidelong look.

Sounder nodded. “It was a really strange question. That’s why I remember it.”

“It does seem somewhat random,” Keith remarked. “Why do you think he wanted to know?”

“I have no idea,” Sounder said.

“What did you tell him?” Gunther asked.

“I told him that only an idiot would risk a run-in with NIAD over something like that, and I don’t associate with idiots.” Sounder shifted on the sofa and stifled a yawn. “Not if I can help it, anyway.”

“And then?” Keith prompted.

“Then they left,” Sounder said. He flashed a faint smile. “I think they might have been offended.”

***

During the drive back to Portland, neither he nor Gunther spoke too much. Keith was sunk in his own thoughts. Interviewing the vampires, which had seemed to him to be borderline harassment at first, had yielded a piece of information after all. Goblins had been there looking for meat. The arrows were all lining up and all confirming Keith’s original suspicions.

He supposed Gunther’s silence could also be attributed to this information.

They made good time and got into the city and to the Bauer & Bullock Steakhouse right in the thick of the dinner service.

Stepping into the dining room, Keith was struck by both the smell—searing flesh—and the décor—the predictable, yet still imposing combination of dark wooden paneling, leather, and massive proportions. The whole place looked like a supersized fantasy of an old-time gentlemen’s club. Even the silverware was slightly too large.

Keith made his way to the host station, where he very discretely flashed his badge at a fragile-looking young host and asked to see the manager. It would do no good to antagonize the staff, especially if this turned out to be a dead end.

The busboy disappeared upstairs, only to return a few seconds later, Cindy Bullock in tow.

Bullock was a skinny, stylish woman with kinky blond hair and long, bony arms on which she wore a multitude of designer bangles. She took one look at Keith, crossed her arms, and said, “Agent Curry,” by way of greeting.

“Hello, Ms. Bullock,” Keith went on, undeterred. “This is my associate, Gunther Heartman. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“About?”

“About your meat supplier,” Keith said. “Who might that be?”

Cindy’s expression darkened. “We serve grass-fed organic beef sourced from USDA certified local ranchers. You can read all about them on our menu. Additional information can be found on the website.”

Keith jotted down the address of the website in his black book, though he already had it. He wrote slowly and precisely. He wanted Cindy to squirm a little. She clenched her hands. The large rings on her fingers glittered.

“You have a really impressive selection of whiskies,” Gunther commented.

Cindy’s initial bright response at being complimented dimmed with suspicion. “Yes, we have a discerning clientele.”

“Do you do much catering?” Keith swept in with another question.

“A fair amount,” Cindy replied.

“So you’ve got, what? Three jobs a week?” Keith asked.

“I’d have to look at my calendar. It’s upstairs in the office if you’d like to follow me.”

“Actually, what I’d really like to take a look at is your kitchen.” Keith started for the kitchen door. Cindy rushed ahead of him.

“I’d really rather you didn’t go back right now, Agent Curry. You know we’re right in the middle of dinner service. If you could just wait—”

“Oh, I won’t be in the way,” Keith said. “I’ve been a chef. I know how to keep out of the way.”

Cindy placed herself between him and the kitchen door. She flung her arms out, bracelets jangling, ringed fingers flashing. “I must insist, Agent Curry. You have no right to go back there. This is my place. You have no right!”

A dishwasher who had been rounding the corner carrying a rack of clean plates stopped, reflexively backtracking at the sight of Cindy in what looked like full rage.

Keith’s lip curled in disgust. Why was it that the completely insane gravitated so heavily into the hospitality industry? “Listen, ma’am, I can go get a warrant if you want, but I assure you that you don’t want me coming in here during dinner service with a bunch of uniformed officers, right?”

“Are you threatening me?” Cindy lunged forward, skinny body flexing like a viper preparing to strike. “I know why you are harassing me.”

“Neither Agent Heartman nor myself is attempting to harass you. All we’d like to do is have a look at where you do your butchering. That’s all.” Keith kept his tone calm, businesslike. “We can go get a warrant if you like, but all I need to do is look at your product.”

“Well, you can’t.” Cindy crossed her arms, raising her chin triumphantly. “I won’t let you because I don’t have to and you know it.”

Keith shrugged. “If that’s the way you want to play it, ma’am, then we will. I’ll be back with a warrant, a health inspector, and a representative from the state liquor board. I might bring an auditor just to get it all over with at once.” He turned and started toward the door. He needed to get out of this joint anyway. The smell of char-grilled meat was beginning to seriously nauseate him. He saw a slight motion out of the corner of his eye.

“Son of a bitch!” With a jangle of expensive bangles Bullock smashed her fist directly into his jaw. He staggered back a step, pain exploding through the side of his face. In a moment, Gunther had caught her right arm, but she still lashed out with her left, raking her nails across his neck.

“That is really uncalled for, ma’am,” Gunther said, tightly twisting her arm around her back and slapping one handcuff on. He caught hold of her left hand and managed to get it in the cuff, but Bullock bolted. Keith stuck out a foot and hooked her ankle. She went down, screaming and cursing, on the damp tiled floor. Gunther wasted no time; he cuffed her ankles, then brought them up and hogtied her.

The kitchen had gone silent as the whole kitchen crew gaped at the scene. The dishwasher seemed to be working hard to suppress a smile.

Gunther leaned down and said very loudly and very close to her ear, “You are under arrest for assaulting a federal officer.” Then, to Keith, he said, “You want to go have that look around now or wait till the police get here?”

“Yeah, sure.” His jaw throbbed. He glanced at the dishwasher. “Show me to the meat locker, kid.”

The dishwasher led the way back into the kitchen. They passed a busy line of grills. Flames and smoke leaped and billowed around the cooks as they tended the orders. Then they entered the back kitchen—a small, clean space whose walls were lined with steel prep tables and banks of shelves holding dry goods.

“The big one’s right there.” Tentatively the dishwasher pointed back toward a heavy door. “But there’s another smaller one for the really expensive steaks that’s padlocked.”

“Who’s got the key?”

“It’s a combo lock.” This came from a burly Black guy who had followed them from the line. Keith thought he might be the head grill man. “Ms. Bullock is the only one who knows it.”

“Of course it is.”

After a wait of approximately ten minutes, Portland Police Bureau arrived with a car to transport Ms. Bullock and a pair of bolt cutters for the padlock. Being a member of the strike force, Gunther could have probably performed a spell to open it, but there were far too many bystanders and it was just easy to use a human tool. By the time PPB carried Bullock away, the deep bruise on Keith’s jaw had begun to darken, but he refused to show any pain in front of the restaurant’s staff. There was still no way to tell where any of their allegiances lay.

Keith entered the meat locker. He already felt ill. Very quickly he found himself fighting to avoid retching. Two naked bodies hung suspended upside down from chains, throats cut, blood collecting in buckets on the floor.

To the left, on a stainless steel rack, were more remains. This one had been skinned, cut apart at the joints, and separated into several metal hotel pans, but Keith recognized the anatomy immediately.

Gunther’s cookie search had led them straight to the abattoir. Plainly, the butchering had taken place here. For all his commentary about humans not abandoning their carnal pleasures easily, Keith would have never seriously thought that Bullock’s wife would have the sheer stupidity to continue her Thyestean feasting after her husband had been caught. Yet, here she was.

Keith stepped back outside for some air. Gunther waited outside.

“From your face I gather that you’ve found something?”

“Have a look for yourself,” Keith suggested.

Gunther held up a demurring hand. “I trust you. What do you want to do now?”

Keith scanned the faces of the kitchen staff and of the servers who were looking anxiously on. It would be impossible for all of members of staff to be innocent. Cindy Bullock’s manicure made it clear that she never picked up a kitchen knife.

“Put a uniform on this door, clear the dining room, and call for a paddy wagon. We’re detaining and questioning all staff. We’ll also need to find the names of any not on shift tonight and have PPB bring them down to the station. Particularly the butchers. Someone with skills skinned those carcasses. I’m thinking we’re looking for one front of the house person and one or two members of kitchen staff who were in on it with Ms. Bullock.”

Gunther gave a slight salute and departed the back kitchen. Keith walked up to the line but didn’t walk through. Each and every one of those five guys had at least one knife. Plus, they’d be more cooperative if he respected both their territory and hierarchy. He held up his badge. “My name is Keith Curry. I’m a federal agent. Who is the person in charge here?”