“Yes.”
I wouldn’t have expected another answer. She was, after all, a creature who pulled fallen warriors off the battlefield and escorted them to the party pub in the sky. It made sense she would be in the know about the newly departed.
“Do you know anything about his death that might help me find his killer?”
She paused with the graceful curve of the cup poised right at her mouth. Her eyes went hawk-sharp at that question. “Are you accusing me of something, Delaney?”
“No.” I rubbed at my forehead, stared at the floor a second, then back at her. “I’m not accusing you. I’ve just never dealt with something this...big before. Vampires don’t just show up murdered in this town. I’m not sure that it’s ever happened before.”
“It hasn’t.”
“The whole thing has me on edge. I’m new to this position.” I pointed at my chest, just over my heart. “Bridging power for the gods is one thing. Police chief is another. And this death is going to bring too much attention to our little town.”
“No one has to know about it. He was a vampire, dear. He didn’t have family outside Ordinary.”
“Apocalypse Pablo already knows about the body.”
“One mortal can be easily convinced not to remember what he saw. Old Rossi should have already taken care of that by now, actually.”
Vampires and their mind-suggestion power. It should be against the law.
“Ryder knows too.”
She raised one eyebrow and sipped tea. Apparently, her previous suggestion stood for Ryder too.
Yes, I understood that Ryder was just as mortal as Apocalypse Pablo or me...well, maybe a little more than me, but I hated the thought of stealing away his memories just because we could.
“That won’t really solve the problem.”
“The problem of the outside world finding out about Sven?”
“The problem of who killed him.”
“You are sure it was murder?”
“Yes.”
“None of the Wolfes have been brought in to question?”
The Wolfes were a big extended family of werewolves that owned the rock quarry in town, among other things. Granny Wolfe had made a truce with the Rossis years ago. The terms of the truce were that they’d both keep the murdering of respective family members to a minimum.
“I haven’t checked in with them yet. But I will. Have you heard anything concrete that would make you think they took out Sven?”
“No. Nothing at all.” She frowned a little. “How was he killed and where was he found?”
I figured she already knew this information. “Bullet through the head. The shed outside Joe Boy’s gas station.”
She sipped, her eyes focused somewhere else as she thought that over.
“What kind of bullet?”
“Silver.”
She blinked, then shook her head slightly. “I was asking about the caliber, but silver is also interesting. Several of the Wolfes carry guns.”
“Several of everyone in town carries guns.”
“What did Rossi say?”
