Page 3 of Immortal by Morning (Argeneau #37)

“Get in, Crispin. We have to go!” Alexander Roberts barked when Crispin opened the passenger door of their assigned vehicle.

Eyebrows rising at his partner’s impatient greeting, Crispinus Delacort slid into the car and pulled the door closed. They’d

only separated moments earlier when Roberts had left him to finish a conversation he’d been having with another detective

and gone to get the car. His partner had been fine and much more relaxed then. Now he was practically vibrating with excitement.

“What’s the rush?”

“We have a case,” Roberts announced as he hit the gas sending the car shooting forward.

Guessing his partner had got the call on the car radio as he’d driven around to pick him up, Crispin quickly did up his seatbelt

and asked, “So, what is it this time? A cat up a tree, a kid playing truant, or someone caught shoplifting?”

“None of those,” Roberts answered him. “Murder.”

“Really?” Crispin asked with surprise. As a homicide detective he supposed he shouldn’t really be surprised they’d got called

to a murder. But they’d only had eight of them in London over the last year. Half of those had needed little to no detective

work done since the perpetrators had called in the deaths and confessed at the same time. That had left four murders that

had actually needed solving. It hadn’t made for a lot of work for him and Roberts. Unfortunately, that meant they’d spent

the better part of their time helping out with piddling cases like chasing down truant teens. “Are we sure it’s murder?”

“Must be,” Roberts said as he headed out of the parking lot, tires squealing. “A body in a garden.”

“What?” Crispin gaped as Roberts turned on both the lights and siren.

“You heard right,” Roberts assured him, his expression a combination of grim tension and a strange almost glee. “A body buried

in a garden. Most people choose a cemetery for the last resting place... if it isn’t murder.”

Crispin understood the glee thoroughly. While it might appear unseemly to most people to have that reaction to a body being

found, it was what he and Roberts had been trained for and were paid to take care of. It was nice to actually use their training

and earn their pay for a change.

“Where is the garden in question?” Crispin asked.

“Out of the city, just past Byron,” Roberts said.

The news made Crispin stiffen. His voice was careful when he asked, “How far past Byron?”

“Still in our jurisdiction,” Roberts reassured him.

Crispin nodded, relaxing a bit in his seat. It would have been just their luck to get a case like this only to arrive and find themselves muscled out by the Ontario Provincial Police because the case was out of the city’s environs. It appeared that would not be the case, however.

Despite speeding with lights and siren blaring, it took more than twenty minutes to reach their destination. Crispin knew

they were getting close when Roberts killed both the siren and lights. Sitting up in his seat then, he glanced around with

curiosity. They were passing farms and fields, and then they turned onto another road, a crescent, Crispin saw as he read

the street name.

“Wow,” Roberts breathed suddenly, drawing his attention away from the street sign.

Crispin glanced to his partner, and then followed his gaze to the road ahead. It was a truly breathtaking view; dark green

grass and large old trees, mostly cedar, spruce, and white pines on both sides of the street. It was like they were driving

through a park. He didn’t even notice the houses at first, not until he turned his head to look for them. They were all set

back on what appeared to be two or three acres of parkland each, and every one was a different design of large majestic home.

Not one was unattractive. It was a vast difference from the cookie-cutter houses on tiny postage-stamp bits of land that had

been being built for the last twenty years or so. Which meant these homes were probably twenty-five or thirty years old, he

supposed, but not one looked like it was. They were all well maintained.

The house they wanted turned out to be the largest on the road, with the largest property, and sat smack dab in the middle

of the curved crescent.

“Wow,” Roberts repeated, as he steered them slowly up the driveway. “So, this is how the other half lives.”

Crispin peered at him with disbelief. “Your house is twice the size of this one, and sits on forty acres.”

“Yeah, but I’m 373 years old,” Roberts pointed out.

“So?” he asked with amusement. Roberts said it as if his nearly four centuries was long-lived. But he was just a babe to Crispin

who had been on the earth for nearly three millennia.

“So, I’ve had a lot more time to make the money to buy the land and build my house,” Roberts pointed out.

Crispin nodded. Being immortal, or a vampire as most mortals would call them, had its advantages. Having the time to build

up personal wealth was just one of them.

“The owner of this house is a mortal,” Roberts went on. “How the hell were they able to afford this? For that matter, how

the hell have all the mortals on this street been able to afford these homes?”

Crispin shrugged and peered toward the house again. “Hard work maybe. Or inheritance and hard work,” he added as his gaze

landed on the man, woman, and dog standing in front of the house. The man was a patrolman in uniform, one he knew, Officer

Tim Peters. He was a smart guy with aspirations of becoming a detective himself someday. He’d been on hand at more than a

few of the murders they’d investigated over the last several years.

His gaze moved on to the woman and dog; a pretty, petite blonde who couldn’t be more than thirty years old, and a yellow Labrador retriever on a leash. The woman was young to have the kind of success that would land her in the largest house on the largest property on this crescent.

Roberts seemed to agree and as he parked next to the patrol car, he commented, “I’m thinking inheritance or a lottery win,

most like.”

Once out of the vehicle and moving toward the pair, Crispin noted that the pretty blonde was presently looking somewhat stressed.

Not surprising, he supposed. Finding a body in your garden had to be something of a shock, but that wasn’t all that was stressing

her, he realized when she greeted them.

“Thank God, you didn’t come in a police car. It’s bad enough having one police car here. As it is, Gina will have fits about

that and the gossip it will no doubt cause in the neighborhood. But a second one would definitely be an issue.”

Crispin exchanged a glance with Roberts at her words. It was true they had an unmarked car. However, the neighborhood would

soon be crawling with cops and technicians, all of them arriving in police vehicles bearing the London Police logo.

Fortunately, Peters saved them from having to admit as much when he said, “Ma’am, these are detectives Roberts and Delacort.

Sirs, this is Miss Abril Newman. She’s house-sitting for the homeowner, a Ms. Gina”—he flipped back a few pages in the small

notepad he held and finished—“Ms. Gina Spaldine. She’s presently vacationing in Italy.”

Crispin nodded at the woman, “Miss Newman.”

After Roberts also greeted her, Crispin glanced to Peters and raised his eyebrows. “So, what do we have here? The report was

a body in the garden?”

“Ah, yes. Actually, it’s not a garden anymore.

It apparently was at one time, and part of it still was prior to this, but they were digging it up for the foundation of a planned addition,” Peters explained, leading them to stand in front of a large hole along the right side of the house.

It was about twenty feet wide, nine or ten feet long, and about five feet deep.

“Apparently the excavator broke down, the men left and Lilith”—he paused to explain—“the Labrador retriever. She dug up the skull. It’s really a skeleton, not a body. ”

Crispin and Roberts followed his pointing finger to the disturbed area five feet below the sliding doors where a human skull

was half uncovered.

“I’m just going to take Lilith for a bit of a walk around the yard while you catch them up. If that’s okay, Officer Peters?”

Abril Newman asked and Crispin glanced around to see that she was standing back and struggling to hold onto the Lab as it

fought to follow them to the hole.

“Of course. Go ahead,” Peters said, and then glanced quickly to Crispin and Roberts in question as he realized that he was

no longer in charge of the scene now that the two detectives had arrived.

“That’s fine,” Crispin assured him.

Relaxing, Peters told the woman, “We’ll shout when the detectives are ready to talk to you.”

Offering a quick smile and nod, Abril Newman headed for the open yard beyond the excavator, having to use a lot of strength

and effort to drag the Lab with her. The animal seemed desperate to return to the bones she’d uncovered.

“The dog dug up the skull?” Roberts asked. “Not the construction crew?”

“Yes, sir,” Peters affirmed. “Not just the skull either. She got loose while Miss Newman was talking to me and started to dig up what I think are parts of a second body in the opposite corner over there. A pair of hands.”

Eyebrows rising, Crispin managed to pull his attention from Abril Newman’s curvy behind to peer at the officer with sharp

interest, but it was Roberts who asked, “There’s more than one set of remains?”

Peters hesitated, and then said, “Well, it’s either a second skeleton or it belongs to the skull and the body was chopped

up and spread around the area.”

Crispin immediately jumped lightly down into the hole to get a better look at the revealed skull, fully expecting Roberts

to follow. Instead, the man said, “I’ll be right back.”

Surprised, Crispin watched his partner rush back to their car. It wasn’t until he opened the trunk and reached in to grab

the hand broom and dustpan kept there that Crispin understood what he was doing. Roberts had bought the hand broom to clean

up any messes in the vehicle after another detective had apparently eaten donuts in the car and left a dusting of white powder

everywhere. After a brief look through the trunk for anything else of use, Roberts closed it.

Knowing his partner would join him momentarily, Crispin squatted next to the skull to get a closer look. The forehead down

to the jaw was on view, the eye sockets and nose hole were filled with the dark, almost black earth surrounding it, but everything

else was pretty dirt free, almost like the skull had been washed.

“Miss Newman suspects the Lab was licking the skull before she found her and saw what she was up to,” Peters said suddenly from where he still stood at the edge of the hole, looking down at him. “Apparently, the Lab likes to eat dirt for some reason.”

Crispin grunted and then glanced to Roberts as he dropped into the hole and squatted beside him.

“Let us see if it is just the skull or not,” Roberts muttered. Given that the earth was so damp, he bypassed the hand broom

for the dustpan and began to cautiously sweep away the top layer of dirt, starting just below the jaw. He was careful only

to scrape a light layer away, then another and another. After that, he switched to using his hand to brush the dirt aside

until he uncovered bone. The cervical vertebrae of the neck, Crispin recognized, and picked up the broom to brush away the

now light dusting of dirt left on the neck bones as Roberts continued his own efforts farther down and in a much wider sweep.

“I think this is the clavicle,” Roberts said suddenly.

Crispin stopped what he was doing to examine the results of his partner’s efforts. Roberts had cleared away enough dirt to

reveal the rotting remains of part of a shirt and what appeared to be a clavicle showing where the collar was open.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Obviously the head was not removed from the body. Although I suppose they still could have cut off the

hands.”

Roberts frowned. “I would like to keep going to find out, but we are going to catch hell for disturbing the scene as it is.”

“We could claim the dog did this,” Crispin said with amusement. “Or put the dirt back.”

Knowing he was joking, Roberts didn’t comment as he straightened.

Crispin stood then as well and asked Peters, “You said the dog uncovered more bones?”

“Over there.” Peters pointed to the corner ten feet away along the wall.

Nodding, Crispin crossed to that area with Roberts. They both paused to peer at the bones in the dirt. Hands. One was on show

from the distal phalanges at the tips of the fingers, past the wrist bones to the ends of the ulna and radius of the forearm.

The other only had the finger bones and some of the metacarpals on display. One of the distal phalanges had been moved a little

away from the others, but that had probably happened from the dog digging.

“So, if the hands were cut off there are still at least two bodies, but more likely it is three at this point,” Roberts commented

finally.

“Three?” Peters asked with confusion. “I mean, if those hands don’t belong to the skull, that’s only two bodies.”

“I am guessing you did not get a good look at the hands?” Crispin asked.

“I... well, no. The dog was determined to go back to her digging, and Miss Newman was having trouble controlling her. It

took both of us to get her away from the bones,” he explained. “Then we waited in front of the house for you to arrive.”

Crispin wasn’t at all surprised at that news. He’d suspected it had been something along those lines, because anyone who had

gotten a good look at the bones on display would have realized—

“They are both right hands,” his partner told Peters. “Two right hands here belonging to two different bodies, and if the first skeleton still has its hands attached, that means three bodies.”

“Damn,” Peters breathed with wonder. “That means this was a multiple murder. These may even be the victims of a serial killer.”