[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade (18 page)

My skin ran hot, and I wasn't sure if I was going to be sick or pass out. I shoved him backward hard and stepped away from him and the body. I must have moved faster than I thought, because Dale and Patricia moved out of my way, and I had the end of the table to myself.

Olaf stared at me, and his eyes were not neutral. Was he thinking of the last time when he'd forced me to help him cut up vampires, and he'd ended the night by masturbating with blood on his hands in front of me? I'd thrown up then, too.

“You fucking bastard,” but my voice didn't sound tough. It sounded weak and panicked. Shit!

“There are tools that could crush a man's face like this, Anita.” He talked business, but his face wasn't businesslike. A slight smile curled his lips, and his eyes held the kind of heat that didn't match being in an autopsy room.

I wanted to run out of that room and away from him, but I couldn't let him win. I couldn't fail like that in front of strangers. I couldn't give the big bastard the satisfaction. Could I?

I took a few deep breaths through the little mask and got my body under control.
Concentrate, ease the breathing, ease the pulse, control.
It was the same way I had learned to keep the beasts from rising. You had to have that spurt of adrenaline; if you could calm it or keep it from happening, then the rest could not follow.

I finally gave him calm eyes. “You stay on your side of the table, Otto. Do not invade my personal space again, or I will have you up on sexual harassment charges.”

“I did nothing wrong,” he said.

Memphis cleared his throat, “Marshal Jeffries, if you aren't dating this young lady, then I suggest you do what she says. I've seen men do similar things ‘teaching,' ”—he made little quotation marks with his fingers— “women baseball, golf, shooting even, but I've never seen anyone try it in autopsy.”

“You are a sick motherfucker,” Rose said cheerfully.

Olaf turned a look on him that wiped the smile off his face. In fact, Rose went a little pale behind his faceplate. “You do not know me well enough to say such things.”

“Hey, man, just agreeing with the doc and Marshal Blake.”

“What tool could do this kind of damage?” Memphis asked, trying to get us all back to work.

“There are crushing tools, used in the meat industry. Some to dehorn cattle, others for castration, and some to cut through the neck in a single movement.”

“Why would someone carry that kind of stuff with them?” I asked.

Olaf shrugged. “I do not know, but I am saying that there are alternatives to lycanthropes for the injuries.”

“Point taken,” Memphis said. He looked at me, and his eyes were kinder. “Marshal Blake, are you ready to see the rest of the body, or do you need a minute?”

“If he stays on his side of the table, I'll be fine.”

“Duly noted,” Memphis said, and he gave a less friendly look to Olaf.

I moved around the gurney, putting it between Olaf and myself. It was the best I could do and stay in the room. But after we finished with this body, I was finding Edward and we were trading dance partners. I could not work with Olaf in the morgue. He saw the whole thing as foreplay, and I just couldn't deal. No, not couldn't, wouldn't.

Bernardo would flirt, but he wouldn't flirt around the bodies. He didn't think freshly slaughtered bodies were sexy; it would be downright refreshing after working with serial killer boy, no matter how outrageous the flirting got.

The doctor started to unfasten the bulletproof vest, then stopped. “Take a few close-ups, Rose.” The doc pointed with gloved fingers at places on the vest. Olaf had already leaned in, so if I was to see what had excited the doctor, I had to lean in, too. Shit. Was I so bothered by Olaf that I could not do my job?

I finally leaned closer and saw slash marks in the vest. They could have been from blades or really big claws. It was hard to tell through the cloth. Bare skin would tell me more.

An autopsy for a murder victim is very intimate. It's not just the cutting of the body but the undressing. You don't want to cut or further damage the clothes, in case you mess up clues, so you have to pick the body up, hold it, undress it like some huge doll or sleeping child. At least rigor had come and gone. A body in full rigor is like trying to undress a statue, except it feels unlike any statue you could ever touch.

I've never envied the morgue technicians their job.

Dale and Patricia moved in to raise the body and ease the vest off. I never liked being in the room for this part. I'm not sure why it bothered me to see the corpse undressed, but it did. Maybe it's because it's a part of the process I don't usually get to see. For me, the dead are either fully dressed or naked. Watching them go from one state to the other just seemed like an invasion of their privacy. Did that sound silly? The dead shell on that table didn't give a shit. He was way past embarrassment, but I wasn't. It's always the living that fuck up death; the dead are fine with it.

Olaf was beside me again, but not close enough for me to bitch—yet. “Why does it bother you to see them undress it?”

My shoulders hunched, and I crossed my arms over the green gown, flexing my hands in the gloves. “How do you know I'm bothered?”

“I can see it,” he said.

He could only see half my face, and my body was hidden behind the overgown. I knew I'd been controlling how I stood and moved, so how had he noticed? I finally looked at him and let my eyes show that I'd had a horrible thought.

“What did I do now?” he asked, and it was almost that tone that all men use—no, not all men, all boyfriends. Shit.

“Is he bothering you again, Marshal Blake?” Memphis came to stand near us.

I shook my head.

“You say no, but you've gone pale again.” Memphis gave Olaf a very unfriendly look.

“I just had a thought, that's all. Let it go, doc; just let me know when we can come back in and look at the body.”

He looked from one to the other of us, but finally went back to join the others. They almost had him naked from the waist up. Even from here, I was almost certain the chest had been clawed up, not cut up.

“I have upset you again, Anita.”

“Let it go, Otto,” I said.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked, and again it was the boyfriend question.

“Nothing; you didn't do anything creepy or disgusting. You just acted like a guy for a minute.”

“I am a guy,” he said.

I wanted to say,
But you aren't. You're a serial killer who thinks dead bodies are a turn-on. You're damn near a bad guy, and I'm pretty sure that someday you'll force me to kill you to save my own life. You're male, but you can never be a guy to me.
But I couldn't say any of that out loud.

He was looking at me with those hooded eyes, except there was the faintest glimmer of that look. You know the one. That look that a guy will give you when he likes you and is trying pretty hard to figure out how to please you, and he's not succeeding. That look that says,
What do I do now? How do I win?

What had my scary thought been? That Olaf was sincere. In some crazy, pathological way, he
like
-liked me. As in
boyfriend
-liked me. Not just for fucking or slaughter, but maybe, just maybe, he actually wanted to date me like one human being to another. He seemed to have no clue how to interact with a woman in a way that wasn't terrifying, but he was trying. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he was trying.

 

 

THE BARE CHEST was sliced and diced, but it wasn't like the others. No one would convince me that this had been done by blades. I knew claw work when I saw it.

“This was no blade or tool,” I said. “It's claws.”

Olaf leaned on his side of the body, maybe a little closer to both the body and me than he needed, but nothing too noticeable. Maybe I was just being overly sensitive? Naw.

“I know it is not a blade or a tool that I am familiar with,” Olaf said.

I looked across the body and found that, yeah, he was looking at me, not at the body. I stood up and moved a step back. Fuck it, he unnerved me and he knew it.

“But what killed him?” Memphis asked.

I looked at the doctor, then back at the body. He was right; none of the wounds so far were fatal. “The jaw bite is terrible, but unless he died of shock, then . . .” I looked at the lower part of the body, which was still covered.

“Yes,” Memphis said, “we need to keep looking for the cause of death.”

“I'm not a pathologist,” I said. “I don't need to know the cause of death, doc. I'm just here to see if it's something supernatural or not. That's it, all my job.”

“Then leave, Marshal Blake, but first can you confirm that it was a lycanthrope attack?”

I had to go back to the body and spread my hands above the wounds. I curled my fingers in the closest imitation I could of the marks. I traced the air above the wounds but was careful not to touch the body. “It was claws and a lycanthrope, and they were in half-human, half-animal form when the attack took place.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Memphis asked.

I held my hand up. “Watch my hand trace over the wounds. The marks were made by a hand, not a paw.”

The woman, Patricia, said, “Your hand is too small to make marks like that, even with claws.”

“The hands get bigger when the person shapeshifts.” I sighed and looked across the table. “May I borrow your hands for a moment, Otto?”

“You may,” he said, and held those big hands out.

“Can you place your hands above the wounds like I was doing, and trace the wound track?”

“Show me again,” he said.

I traced my right hand over the wounds, and he put his much larger hand over mine, so that we traced the wounds together. I tried to pull away, and he pressed our hands to the wounds, trapping me against the body, our fingers spread. He pushed his fingers into the wound tracks, and the spread of his fingers was big enough to fit the wounds. He pinned my hand to the body, while his gloved fingers dug into the meat of the wounds.

Rose kept taking pictures.

“Stop it, Otto,” I said through gritted teeth. I had multiple weapons on me, but nothing he had done here made it okay to shoot him in front of witnesses.

“I am doing what you asked,” he said.

I tried to pull my hand out from under, but he pressed harder, pressing our hands into the dead flesh and the fresh wounds. His fingers made wet sounds in the wounds, while he pressed my hand tight under his.

“You're messing up the wound marks, Marshal Jeffries,” Memphis said.

Otto didn't seem to hear him. I had choices. I could faint—no. I could throw up on him, but the body was in the way. I could go for a gun left-handed and shoot him. That was appealing, but not practical. Too many witnesses. I thought of one other choice.

I leaned in and spoke low. “If you ever want to date me for real, let me go.” I'd rather date an untamed cougar, but I was figuring that he was crazy enough not to understand that.

He looked at me, and there was surprise in his eyes. He raised his hand enough for me to pull away. I cradled my hand against the green gown as if it hurt.

“Are you hurt, Marshal Blake?” Memphis asked.

I shook my head. “I need some air, though. I'm sorry, doctor.” I'd never left an autopsy room early. I'd never bailed on anything before, but it wasn't the body that I bailed on. It was Olaf, standing there, looking at me. The look wasn't serial killer sex now, it was puzzlement. It was that guy look again, as if he truly was trying to figure out what would please me. That was the look I had to get away from. That was the image that made me turn for the door and fight not to run.

 

 

I STRIPPED OFF the gloves and the gown and threw them away. I was calm until I hit the outer door and the hallway, then I walked away from that room as fast as I could without running. I would not run, but God, I wanted to.

I was more upset than I knew, because I damn near ran into Edward and Bernardo as they came out of another room. Edward grabbed me, or I might have fallen.

“Anita, are you all right?”

I shook my head.

“The bodies are bad,” Bernardo said.

I shook my head again. “It wasn't the bodies. The bodies are fine.”

Edward's grip on my upper arms tightened. “What did Otto do now?”

I just kept shaking my head and felt the first hard tear begin to trail down my face. Fuck, why was I crying?

“What did he do?” When I didn't answer, he shook me. “Anita! What did he do to you?”

I finally calmed enough to look up at him. I shook my head. “Nothing.”

His fingers tightened, almost hurting on my arms. “This doesn't look like nothing.” But his voice, his eyes, everything, made me afraid of what he might do if he really thought Olaf had hurt me.

“Honest, Edward, he just did his usual creepy stuff.” I calmed enough to be less tense in his arms. When I relaxed, so did he, but his fingers stayed on my arms. He studied my face.

“First, it's Ted, Anita,” but his voice still held that anger, and his eyes were Edward at his most dangerous.

I nodded. “I'm sorry, Ted, sorry. Just . . .” I just shook my head. What was I supposed to say, that Olaf had spooked me so badly that I'd forgotten everything else? That would not help calm Edward, or me.

“Second, you don't spook this easy. What did he do?” That last sentence was low and deliberate, and full of carefully contained rage. I understood in that moment that Edward blamed himself for Olaf's interest in me. I guess he had put us together, but I realized that he would blame himself if the worst happened, and neither God nor the devil himself would be able to keep Olaf safe from him. Of course, that would make me dead, and badly, horribly dead, too. I guess I wouldn't really care. Shit.