Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,57

you thinking?”

Duke said, “You didn’t find Raymond Marchand. Troy did. You didn’t find the boy in bed sleeping nude and covered in his uncle’s blood. We did.”

“I came as soon as you called me, Duke,” Newman said.

“I know that. You always come when we call. It’s been good having another lawman to call when we needed backup.”

“You knew I was on the job, Troy. You should have let me handle it.”

“But you weren’t handling it, Win. You called in Blake to help you save the monster, not kill it,” Troy Wagner said.

“If I did that to Uncle Raymond, then I am a monster, and I deserve to die.” Bobby sat up on the bunk, huddling the blanket around him as if he was cold. Sometimes getting shot at makes you cold with shock. If we weren’t going to kill him, then we needed to find him more to wear.

Leduc pointed at him. “Even the monster agrees with me.”

“I said if I did it, Duke. I haven’t had a complete blackout in over ten years. I remember what I do when I’m in animal form. I remember what I did before I changed back that night, and none of it includes hurting Uncle Raymond.”

“We found you covered in his blood, Bobby,” Wagner said, and his voice sounded like he was crying now.

“I can’t explain that, but I wouldn’t hurt my uncle. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I was with Jocelyn most of the evening. Ask her. She’ll tell you that she left me in the bedroom as I started to pass out from shapeshifting.”

“Joshie hasn’t stopped crying since she found her stepdaddy’s body in a pool of blood. She was so hysterical, they had to sedate her,” Leduc said.

“I would remember if I had done what you’re accusing me of, Duke.”

Wagner said, “I can’t stop seeing Jocelyn kneeling on the floor, cradling her daddy, blood everywhere, her screaming, blood all over her, all over everything.”

“Are you saying that Jocelyn was the one who found Uncle Raymond?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah,” Wagner said, looking over his shoulder at the other man.

Bobby Marchand looked stricken. That was the only word I had for it. “God, that’s awful.”

“Shoulda thought of that before you left him in one of the main rooms in the house for someone to find. Didn’t you think it would be her? Only people that live at the house are the three of you and servants,” Leduc said.

“There were no servants last night,” Bobby said.

“What did you say?” I asked.

The sheriff said, “Last night was the regular night off for most of the staff.”

“Did everyone in town know that?” I asked.

“Probably. Why?” the sheriff asked.

“Don’t you find it suspicious that the one night all the servants are gone is the night someone murders Raymond Marchand?”

“We’re just lucky that no one else was home when it happened. Otherwise we’d have had a massacre on our hands.”

“Even Carmichael was gone,” Bobby said.

“Who’s Carmichael?” I asked.

“The live-in handyman. You know, a dogsbody,” Newman said.

“Dogsbody. I haven’t heard that term outside of an old British mystery novel.”

“I like old British mystery novels,” Newman said.

“You’re just full of surprises, Newman. How unusual was it for Carmichael to be gone?”

“Unusual,” Bobby said, “or it used to be before he started dating his new girlfriend. It was still part of his job to be there most nights.”

I turned to the sheriff. “Did other people know Carmichael was going to be out of pocket?”

Newman answered, “Carmichael is dating Hazel Phillips. She’s a waitress at the Sugar Creek.”

“What does Carmichael’s personal life have to do with my question?” I asked.

“Carmichael spent the night with Hazel. Sugar Creek’s the most popular restaurant in town for breakfast and lunch. If he talked to her about his plans to spend the night at her place while she was at work, then half the county could have overheard it.”

The sheriff shook his head hard enough for his jowls to shake. He reminded me of a tall bulldog. “If Ray had been shot, I might agree with you, but he was cut to pieces with claws. We don’t have any other shapeshifters in this area.”

“Come on, Sheriff. If it wasn’t death by wereleopard, what would you think about it being on the one night when everyone else was gone?”

He scowled at me. “I know what I saw, Blake. No human being could have done that to a man.”

“You might be surprised what human beings do to one another,” I said.

“You think I’m just some hick cop that hasn’t