"I'll meet you at the hotel around four this afternoon and drive you to Wetherton's. We can talk on the way."
She nodded and glanced into the room, as if to reassure herself Mary was okay, and walked away. He watched her for a few seconds, then got out his phone and started making arrangements to secure the old girl.
* * * "How's the examination coming along, Finley?" Gabriel asked, as he strode into the lab.
Finley cleared his throat and slid his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose with a gloved finger. "Well, this is certainly an interesting situation. Two identical bodies, both chopped into pieces, one a younger version of the other."
Gabriel stopped at the end of one of the tables and examined the two sets of remains. The two women would definitely have been physically identical if not for the deeper age lines around the face of one of them. "The cuts on the younger version appear to be made from a sharp instrument."
"It was. It appears she was strangled before she was sliced apart."
"You've done DNA testing?"
"Prelims reveal no relationship between the two. The younger Douglass was human. The older one was a shifter."
"Then why did she hold shape when she died?"
"I'm not sure." He frowned, his sharp gaze moving back to the bodies. "But there has been conjecture over the years that a very strong telepath might be able to force a shifter or changer to hold their alternate shape during death. But, of course, those sorts of tests just can't be done."
"But there have been other trials?"
He nodded. "It's certainly proven possible for a strong telepath to prevent shifting from one shape to the other. Shifting or changing may be an inherited skill, but it is still a skill that must be learned. And like any skill, control comes from the brain. Therefore, a strong telepath can feasibly stop shifting or changing even in death."
"Is there any way we can get an ID on the shifter?"
Finley shrugged. "Her DNA might give us a clue, but only if she was from one of the shifter groups involved in the DNA mapping program the government initiated a few years back.
Her teeth might also provide a clue, as she's had fillings, so there must be dental records somewhere."
"I take it you've instigated searches in both areas?"
"Yep. As soon as I know anything, I'll send it to you."
Gabriel studied the table containing the torn apart remnants of humanity, and said, "There aren't many shifters who would have the strength to tear apart someone like that."
Finley sniffed. "Most cats could, but what we're dealing with here is a bear shifter. And it's one big bear, I can tell you."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow, amused by the comment. "Most bear shifters are big."
"Think brown bear, and add half the size again."
That was one big mother of a bear. "How can you be sure?"
"Measured the distance between the claw slashes left on the woman's back." He hesitated, then added, "Looks like he shifted while they were…um…making love. Nasty stuff."
Especially for Kathryn Douglass, he imagined. The differences between the anatomy of a human male and that of a bear would in itself have caused a lot of pain and damage.
Probably even have torn her up fairly badly. "Anything else?"
Finley shook his head. "We've collected se**n samples, of course. I'll do a search of both our database and the government's to see if there's match."
Gabriel nodded. Most crims these days had DNA samples taken as a matter of course, but it had taken a lot of years to implement the procedure thanks to the civil rights activists.
Which meant, of course, that the database was not only constantly being updated, but also only reliable when it came to criminals caught in the last ten years.
And he very much doubted that the person behind these murders could be tracked down so easily.
"Let me know if you find anything."