"Unless they had company, it has to be the man. They didn't have a visitor, did they?"
Dolph shook his head. "Not as far as we know."
"Then it has to be the man. Because she still has all her ribs, and both arms." I tried to swallow the anger in my voice. It wasn't Dolph's fault. "I'm not one of your cops. I wish you'd stop asking me questions that you already have the answers to."
He nodded. "Fair enough. Sometimes I forget you're not one of the boys."
"Thank you for that."
"You know what I mean."
"I do, and I even know you mean it as a compliment, but can we finish discussing this outside, please?"
"Sure." He slipped off his bloody gloves and put them in a garbage sack that was sitting open in the kitchen. I did the same.
The heat fastened round me like melting plastic, but it felt good, clean somehow. I breathed in great lungfuls of hot, sweating air. Ah, summer.
"I was right though, it wasn't human?" he asked.
There were two uniformed police officers keeping the crowd off the lawn and in the street. Children, parents, kids on bikes. It looked like a freaking circus.
"No, it wasn't human. There was no blood on the glass that it came through."
"I noticed. What's the significance?"
"Most dead don't bleed, except for vampires."
"Most?"
"Freshly dead zombies can bleed, but vampires bleed almost like a person."
"You don't think it was a vampire then?"
"If it was, then it ate human flesh. Vampires can't digest solid food."
"Ghoul?"
"Too far from a cemetery, and there'd be more destruction of the house. Ghouls would tear up furniture like wild animals."
"Zombie?"
I shook my head. "I honestly don't know. There are such things as flesh-eating zombies. They're rare, but it happens."
"You told me that there have been three reported cases. Each time the zombies stay human longer and don't rot."
I smiled. "Good memory. That's right. Flesh-eating zombies don't rot, as long as you feed them. Or at least don't rot as quickly."
"Are they violent?"
"Not so far," I said.
"Are zombies violent?" Dolph asked.
"Only if told to be."
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"You can order a zombie to kill people if you're powerful enough."