Page 80

Story: The Elf Beside Himself

“You were a cop in Milwaukee?”

“Before I got Arcana, yes.” I took a long sip of my coffee, since it was cool enough—although still warm—that I could take a mouthful without burning the taste buds off my tongue.

“Huh. That’s why you left?”

“Richmond was doing a diversity hire targeting Arcanids.” I shrugged, breaking off another bite of my danish. “It seemed like about the only way I was going to stay a cop.”

Smith shook his head. “It’s just stupid.”

“What is?”

He waved vaguely with his hand. “It isn’t like your brain changes when you… transform or whatever. You don’t become a worse cop.”

I suppressed the wry smile that threatened to creep across my lips. “I mean, there are neurological changes that happen with an Arcana transformation.” Although why I was defending bigotry, I had no idea. “But not the kind that would impact basic logic.” I took another sip of my latte. “How do you know my parents?”

His cheeks flushed—not blotchy this time, though. “Oh. Um. I, uh, used to date… someone who would drag me over to help out at Habitat.”

My dad was a big Habitat for Humanity volunteer. Mom went with him sometimes to help with interior painting or staining.

My dad had been a construction guy before he retired—decks, piers, framing, that sort of thing. Elliot had gotten started in carpentry working with my dad when we were kids. Dad liked to ‘give back to his community,’ as he called it, and it made him happy to still flex his old construction muscles.

“You still work with them?” I asked him. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask my parents if they knew either of the detectives on the case. It probably should have, but I’m used to a city about twenty-five times the size of Shawano.

Smith shrugged, not looking at me. “Sometimes.”

My guess was that he went when he knew he probably wouldn’t run into his ex. I got that. Exes could be awkward. It also probably meant that he didn’t volunteer very often—not like cops had a ton of free time to do that sort of thing anyway. Good ones, anyway.

I decided I could probably trust him.

So I told him what Cammie Redsky had told Elliot and I. And then I told him about the list I’d put together for Raj that he still hadn’t gotten back to me about. And I watched as those blotchy spots of color came right back into Smith’s cheeks.

“You have got to be freakin’ kidding me,” he muttered under his breath.

“You think I’m wrong?”

“No, I don’t think you’re freakin’ wrong,” came the retort, and I almost snorted at the midwestern cleanliness of his invectives. I had not developed that same tendency—obviously. “I’m pissed that nobody freakin’ noticed.”

Implied in that was that he was mad thathehadn’t noticed. I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

“Was Reynolds listed on those deaths, as well?”

I shrugged, popping another bite of danish into my mouth, which I spoke around when I answered. “No idea. I’m hoping that’s something Agent Parikh will be able to tell me.”

“Us,” he corrected.

I arched an eyebrow again, eating another bite of pastry.

“And now I have to figure out how to get you bloody deputized.” He ran a hand through his hair again. “Because clearly I’m missing stuff left and right.”

“Did you work the scene at Elliot’s house?”

“The Crane residence?”

I nodded.

“No. That was Van Buren. You just called the first time on his day off.” He sighed heavily. “What a freakin’ mess.”

I sympathized. I wasn’t about to drop it, but it sounded like Smith wasn’t, either. And it sounded like—assuming he could follow through on that whole ‘deputized’ thing—I was going to be kept in the loop, as well.