Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) (8 page)

             
“And that didn’t look like a prowl in mourning. They just looked angry that someone would draw attention to them.” Leeroy added.

             
“We’ll have to do some research and see what we come up with. For now we have to keep interviewing and seeing if we can get any kind of information about who would want to do this to them.”

She might not be happy with him or his department but that didn’t mean she could keep avoiding him. They needed to get things figured out and they needed to do it before something else happed.

Putting on her big girl panties Keegan maneuvered her way through the bull pen in homicide. She ignored the stares she got as she made her way to the furthest back corner to where Matt’s desk was.

He was busy speaking on the phone, his pen moving furiously across th
e lined paper. Keegan pulled a vacant chair from the neighboring desk and set it in front of Matt’s desk. He glanced up and he froze. “Yeah, I got to go. I’ll call you back in a few?”

As soon as he hung up he closed his folders that
had been lying open on his desk. “What can I help you with Detective Morne? 

Keegan could feel the ice rolling off of him in waves. It felt just like she was dealing with the rest of the jerks who thought they were better than the
members of the SIU. She didn’t know what had happened to make him so standoffish other than the fact that he must have looked into her personnel files. And honestly, at this point? She couldn’t find it in herself to give a rat’s ass about how he felt about her being a necromancer. They were professionals and should damn well act that way.

Manners were always
the key to any working relationship, Keegan reminded herself. No matter how many times she had to remind her self to filter the thoughts trickling down from her brain, being polite almost always got her the answers she was looking for. “I talked to the alpha of the prowl and wanted to see what you thought about what I got from the interview?

He
checked his watch before he answered her. “I’ve got about five minutes. You think that’s enough time?”

Keegan shook
her head in disbelief. He didn’t even look her in the eye when he answered and just a moment ago when she sat down he looked like he was in for the long haul at his desk but now he didn’t have any time for her? This was supposed to be a collaborative effort between the two departments and it was starting to look more and more like a poorly thought out competition.

“You want to act like the rest of the jerks
that you call your team go ahead. But while you are the one who is shutting out a major source of information for your investigation I have got one question for you Hollis.” Keegan slammed her hand down against his desk. “I want you to tell me who Cody and Alice Barr trusted enough to let them get so close to their son in a shifted form? Perhaps why the alpha of the prowl seems to be a little off? Think on that while you try and pull your head out of your ass and solve this case by yourself.”

Keegan ignored the shocked faces as she marched from homicide and down the stairs into SIU. She didn’t pay any attention to the concerned glances she got from Leeroy. She scooped up her keys and growled out, “
I’ll be back.”

“Okay.
” Leeroy whistled at the fury that was radiating off of her before he went back to work. Leeroy looked over to Gary who was just as shocked as he was. “Do I even want to know where she might be going?”

“U
h,” Gary scratched his forehead. “If she was me she’d probably be burning villages to smithereens but I figure she’s heading to her Mom’s place.”

“Damn.
” Leeroy rubbed his stomach. “If I were Keegan I would never leave that place. The food she makes is heavenly.”

“So should we find out what made her so angry upstairs or should we leave it?” Gary asked after a few moments of fantasizing about food.

Leeroy let out a sigh. “I’m betting it has to do with a certain detective who’s been acting like a jerk since he visited the SD.”

Gary scoffed. “Humans. You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.”

Despite the bright cheery Christmas lights her mom had hang
ing around the house, along with the blow-up snow man she had sitting in the yard, Keegan didn’t have the same holiday cheer everyone else did. She let out an audible growl as soon as she pulled into the driveway of her mother’s house. By the looks of the banged up and rusted four by four Gordon was already visiting. Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel debating whether she should risk it or not Keegan unbuckled her seatbelt and headed towards the front door. She wasn’t letting Gordon and his girlfriend get the better of her. She wanted to have ten minutes where it didn’t feel like someone was breathing down her neck in disapproval because of what she is or need to get things done faster than possible. If that place was at her mom’s, then that is where she was going. Sibling rivalry be damned.

She smacked her palm against the screen door a few times before trying the door and finding it unlocked.
She hadn’t even made it out of the foyer when Gordon rounded the corner leading from the kitchen. Keegan focused on the garland that was wrapped around the stair rail dotted with little ornaments all the way up. She was not feeling holly or jolly with facing her brother, even if it was Christmas time.

“Keegan?” He stood dumbstruck. His dark curly hair sat askew and his eyes a bright hazel. He shoved his hands in his pockets
and then his eyes locked on to the sight of her gun at her hip and the badge clipped next to it. “You have a gun.”

“
It is part of my job to have one Gordon.” Keegan brushed passed him and plopped down at the kitchen counter. She eyed Jaime distastefully before she focused on her mom who was blinking rapidly trying to clear her vision. Perhaps she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, Keegan willingly being in the same room as her brother and his girlfriend. “Can you just tell me that it’s not wrong to be who I am and that it is perfectly okay to be different? Because I don’t feel like it right now mom.”

“You know that you are
perfect the way you are and if anyone and I mean anyone disagrees,” Maria slid an evil eye towards Jaime. “Then they don’t know what they are missing out on.”

“Do you really have to wear your gun in here?” Jaime’s eyes were glued to the weapon just like Gordon’s
had been in the hallway. “It isn’t as if there is going to be someone jumping out to commit a crime in your mother’s kitchen.”

“Do you really have to be here?” Keegan shot back and looked straight at her mom
. “Can I just pick up that gumbo that you promised me and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“What’s wrong honey?” Maria asked softly as she moved to the freezer t
o pull out the food she had prepared a few days earlier.

“One of the guys at work found out
what I am. Nothing big, you know. It just divided the SIU and homicide even further than the two were originally.” Keegan rubbed at her eyes.

“Well you’re not really a detective Keegan. You just consult.” Jaime interjected and Keegan saw red. She pulled her badge off her belt and set it on the counter.

“Do you see what it says on there?” Keegan pointed at the blue banner across the shield proclaiming her a detective. “It says detective because that is what I am. I went through the same training and the same tests that every other detective went through. So don’t you dare assume that I am not a detective just because I’m not like you.”

Keegan snatched the badge back up and ignored the
sting of tears behind her eyes. “I shouldn’t have even bothered coming. I had a feeling this wasn’t my best idea. I’ll talk to you later Ma.”

She didn’t even remember to grab the plastic bowl filled with frozen gumbo. She left it sitting on the counter along with twin stunned looks from Gordon and Jaime.

The Barrs were a wonderful couple. They never disturbed any
one. They kept their lawn clean and they waved to any neighbor passing by. Other than that? The Barrs kept to themselves. For good reason too. Subdivisions didn’t typically allow supernaturals to move in unless they agreed to disclose the nature of their abilities. Sometimes you just got lucky and there wasn’t a requirement to do so but the home owner’s association was a bitch about the tiniest of details.

Her first stop after checking in on the neighbors
and getting nowhere was to head over to talk to Mason Mills. The sub shop that he frequented, Tanked, was nearly empty. The staff puttered around trying to find something to occupy their time with and Mason sat with a beer in hand staring up at the television mounted above the counter replaying last night’s football game.

“What can I get you Miss?”

Keegan sat down and eyed the waiter’s name tag, “I could use a cold glass of water and a roast beef hoagie, Tommy.”

“Coming right up,” Tommy squirreled away to the kitchen and Keegan used the fact that it was just Mason and her self sitting a seat away from each other
to her advantage. If you sit close enough to a person they’re bound to take notice of you and that’s exactly what she wanted to happen.

It wasn’t long before Mason shifted in his seat uncomfortably after he scented her. He turned to look at Keegan before he gave up with trying not to look to obvious and turned completely towards her. “What’s a necromancer doing around these parts?”

Keegan pulled her badge off her belt and slid it over the counter to where he could see it. Mason started to stand but Keegan laid a hand on his wrist. “I’m Detective Keegan Morne. We can sit here and talk or you can deal with the boys from homicide. Believe me when I tell you it’s better to deal with SIU than it is to deal with them.”

“Damn it.
” Mason growled out before he sat back down.

“I take it you know what this is
going to be about?” Keegan murmured her thanks as Tommy slid a glass of water towards her. “So where were you three nights ago?”

Mason licked his lips before he started tearing a p
aper napkin up into tiny pieces. “I spent the night with Tiegs Holderman.”

“You didn’t go out anywhere with her? Stayed in?”

Mason pieced up his beer and took a gulp. “We spent the night at her studio.

“I didn’t do anything to them. You’ve got to know that
. Cody and Alice are dead, Conner…” Mason rubbed a hand across his forehead. His shoulders tensed up and his hand shook as he reached out to take a sip of his beer. When Keegan finally looked up to meet his eye, she saw tears shimmering against the deep amber eyes. “I can’t even think about what happened to Connor without feeling sick.”

“I don’t get it.
” Keegan narrowed her eyes at the wolf before her.

Mason cleared his throat and looked up t
o meet Keegan’s suspicious eyes. “You don’t get what?”

“Almost e
veryone that my squad has spoken with said you and the Barrs didn’t get along. It has even been mentioned that you think people of mixed heritage shouldn’t be part of the world. So why are you sitting here about to cry about their passing?” Ignoring the more positive stance Mason Mills had taken on recently Keegan went for the uncomfortable topics. If he got riled up maybe she would get some kind of information out of him he wouldn’t have otherwise parted with.

“E
veryone makes mistakes at some point in their lives, Detective. I was young and stupid when I got that reputation. After awhile, I learned that it was the best way for me to keep going was to keep up with the pretense. People will leave you alone if they think you’re nuts. I let them believe whatever the hell they wanted to believe because I didn’t need people snooping around in my business. I let them think whatever they would like to think about me and look where that’s gotten me. As for Cody and Alice? It took one run in with that man, a few years ago, to set me straight. He might be a human but he grew up in a mixed family and knew how to get the upper hand on a wolf. After a while of really understanding how stupid I was, he and Alice, they taught me what it meant to see others for who they truly were not just to see their bloodlines. You’re blood doesn’t determine who you are. You do and it took a long time for someone to actually teach me that.”

Keegan tilted her head in thought before summoning up the c
ourage to ask the next question. “So him breaking your nose and arm, that was because of what? That’s not rough housing while you’re drunk. It takes a lot of force to actually break a shifter’s bones. Especially, if the person doing said damage is a human. He would have been hurt also.”