Tainted Blood: A Generation V Novel (19 page)

I grumbled a few choice phrases at her, but finally made it over. The yard was that dull brown that just about everything in New England turns in late October, with a bright yellow children’s swing set and a few of those big plastic toys that people with little kids seem contractually obligated to litter around their property. At the edge of the yard were the tall trees of Lincoln Woods State Park.

From the other side of the fence, Suze tossed me the magical jelly jar, which I caught. Then I heard some scuffing sounds as she backed up, took a running leap, and got enough of her upper body over the fence to hook a leg and pop over.

“Nice,” I complimented her as she brushed off her jacket.

“Eh. On four feet I could’ve just hopped it. How’s the compass?”

I looked down. It had sloshed a bit during the toss, but as I waited, the fluid settled, and the toothpick began turning again. But instead of pointing at the woods, it was aimed directly at the house.

“Interesting,” Suze said. We walked up the back patio to a sliding glass door, which she knocked loudly on. I looked at her and lifted my eyebrows—apparently the “stealth” part of our plan was being ditched. She ignored my expression and waited, then knocked again—this time really pounding hard. Another pause, then she smiled at me. “No one home.”

“And if someone had been home?” I asked. “With their setup, I bet most people knock on the
front
door.”

Suze was already kneeling, and she slid her lockpick kit out of one pocket. As she started picking through her small tools, she answered, “So we would’ve said that we’d gotten lost in the woods, and could we please use their phone.” A few twists of her slender picks, and there was
a small click. She smiled. “Everyone always cheaps out on the sliding-door lock.”

“Probably because if someone really wants to get in, it’s not exactly hard to just break the glass,” I noted, following the kitsune as she slid the door open and walked in. We found ourselves in a combination kitchen and dining room. There were at least a day’s worth of dishes piled haphazardly into the sink, and a woman’s business jacket was slung over the back of a chair. Children’s drawings papered the front of the refrigerator, and I had to step carefully to avoid the toys scattered around the floor.

Suze nudged a pile of bright purple DVDs decorated with animated characters with her foot. “Dora sign,” she noted. “The kid in this house is little. Two to five, probably.”

I checked the compass again. The toothpick was moving, now pointing us to the left. We walked to the side of the room, where there was an outside door. I flipped the locks and opened it. There was a pair of steps, which led down into a small laundry room, with a cement floor and a screen door on the opposite side that clearly led into the garage. This spot had probably started its life in the house as a possum-trot or a screened-in porch, and had been converted into a full laundry room.

The washer and dryer were shoved against the woods-side wall, and a folding table was across from it. Three overflowing laundry baskets were on the floor, with one filled with nothing but a very rancid collection of weird white fabric.

“Oh crap,” Suze said as we eased into the room, slapping a hand across her nose. “Fucking cloth diapers.” She made a low sound of disgust. “And someone’s at least three days behind on the laundry.” She pulled up the turtleneck of her shirt so that the fabric covered her face up to the eyeballs and gagged.

I lacked a kitsune nose, so my full experience of the
rank odor of baby poop was probably a bit less Technicolor than what Suze was currently suffering through, but there was something else in the room. I sniffed again, harder, and there it was, teasing me below the poop. It reminded me of being in a crowded room and catching the hint of an old girlfriend’s favorite perfume. The compass was spinning now, not pointing, and I handed it over to Suze, who was still bitching loudly.

I followed my nose straight to the basket of dirty diapers.

“Fort?” Suze asked behind me, confused.

“Something’s here,” I said. “And . . . I think . . . no, it’s definitely blood.”

She appeared at my shoulder, red fabric still stretched over her nose, but now her dark eyebrows arched in surprise. I reached down and started tugging the diapers out of the basket and onto the floor, careful only to pull them by clean edges. I was two-thirds of the way down the basket and pulled away a particularly vile diaper (diarrhea had apparently been an issue that day) to reveal a long kitchen knife, with dried blood covering it from tip to handle. “There you are,” I muttered.

Real surprise, and just a hint of concern, covered Suze’s face. “You smelled that when I couldn’t.”

“Apparently my nose is more specialized than yours,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I reached up onto one of the shelves and found a clean, folded washcloth. Grabbing it, I used the washcloth to pick up the knife and extract it from its diapery nest. It was a solid knife, with a good heft to it—just like Caroline Celik had suggested, I could easily imagine using this to chop up an onion. Apparently someone had pictured something very different, though. I paused, and considered the knife and the room around me again. “Why would the killer leave this here? It hasn’t even been cleaned.”

Beside me, Suze shrugged. “Maybe they had to stash it fast.” Then she tilted her head to the side and thought
it through more carefully. “This house is messy, but it’s not long-term messy. This is probably only a few days of clutter.”

“Like the kind that would accumulate if the usual cleaners were distracted? Say, by the death of a close family member, and having to set up a funeral?”

“Or distracted by covering up that family member’s murder?” She reached past the diaper basket and slid over a basket filled with dirty clothing. “Let’s see who lives here.” She picked the first item off the top, a small child’s shirt decorated with another appearance of Dora the Explorer. Tugging the neck of her shirt down and away from her nose, Suze buried her face deeply into the shirt, inhaling heavily. After a moment she looked up. “One little girl,
metsän kunigas
.” She dropped the shirt and pulled out the next item—a little girl’s nightgown, decorated in teddy bears. (“For fuck’s sake,” Suze muttered. “Can they give the theme a rest?”) She sniffed again. “A different girl, also bear, a little older than the first.” Next was an adult woman’s blouse. “Female bear. Don’t know her. Too old to be the parent.” She sniffed her way through another few pieces of clothing, some children’s, some adult’s, then snagged a cream camisole. She sniffed, and this time when she raised her head, she had a wide smile. “Ah. Now this one I’ve smelled in person. Dahlia.”

“The
karhu
’s niece.” It took a second for it to sink in, but the dots came together and formed an interesting picture. “The one Matias wanted as his heir.”

“Maybe she decided she didn’t want to wait around,” Suze said.

I thought about it, but there was still a snag there. “Why stash the knife in her own house? She’s had two days now to dump it.”

Suze dropped down to her hands and knees, brought her face close to the floor, and started sniffing carefully around the room. She was usually in fox form when she
did this, and I couldn’t help but notice that the view was a little different when she was doing it as a woman. I forced myself to look at the ceiling. Unaware of my internal conflict, Suze began talking as she followed her usual grid pattern around the room. “Maybe Dahlia couldn’t get a chance when she was alone? Or maybe she wanted a trophy?” There was a pause. Then I heard her getting to her feet. I looked back down to see her dusting off the knees of her jeans. “Apart from the clothing, the only one I smell in this room is the older woman. So she’s the one who is here often enough to lay a scent that could stand up to that reek. I think she probably does the laundry.”

I considered that. “You stash a murder weapon where you don’t think anyone else would find it, or in a spot where only you go,” I said, thinking out loud. I tried to remember what Chivalry had said about Matias Kivela’s family when I’d seen him the other night. “Dahlia’s mother is the
karhu
’s sister. Chivalry mentioned her—her name is Ilona.” A useful snippet reemerged, and I got excited. “Apparently her grandfather wanted her to inherit, but Chivalry wanted her brother, because he thought Matias would be less trouble.”

Suze nodded, immediately following where I was going with this. “So Ilona got passed over for the top job. Maybe she bided some time, and then took her chance to get her daughter in the captain’s chair.”

“Maybe they’re working together on this,” I suggested.

“Maybe,” she echoed, and looked around, her forehead creased thoughtfully. “Or one did the murder, and the other learned about it after the fact. Or just one did it, and is keeping it secret from the other.” Having worked through that big list of possibilities, Suze looked over at me and raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like something a nice joint interrogation would clear up.”

I considered, then shook my head. “I’m not sure. Right now this is just circumstantial. They could go back
to the old Ad-hene theory—say that an elf planted the knife where it could do the most damage.” I paused, remembering Suze’s earlier comment about the other Ad-hene, and my brain suddenly started running through that possibility. “Maybe that happened.”

“I don’t think so, Fort. Seems a little roundabout for the elves or the Neighbors, and I’m not sure what causing a ruckus with the
metsän kunigas
actually buys them, especially since the bears were quick to finger them. I think it’s Occam’s razor on this one. The knife is here because the killer lives in the house and decided to stash it rather than dump it.”

There was definitely some reasonableness there, and I conceded with a nod. “Okay.” A sudden thought occurred to me. “Suze, your nose is sharper than a bear’s, right?”

“Absa-fucking-lutely.” Suze was no fan of false, or even real, modesty.

“Would you be able to know that we were here?”

She shook her head immediately, setting the bobble on her hat jiggling. “I can’t even tell that Dahlia and the kids were here other than their direct clothing, and they probably go through this room every day. Between the diapers, the dirty clothes, and the puddles of dripped Tide, plus it smells like she uses that utility sink for some regular bleaching, there’s just too much going on.”

I nodded. “Okay. So we take the knife with us. When the killer comes back for it, they won’t know who has it, and who knows their secret. That’ll put them on edge. We start by sitting tight and seeing if someone breaks—if we get a call that Dahlia has suddenly made a run out of the territory, we know she’s the killer. Person identified, no need to kill a scapegoat, and we can send Prudence after her.” I had to admit, that plan was particularly appealing to me because no one innocent got killed, and the killing of the guilty party would be handled by my sister rather than me.

“And if the killer sits tight?”

“The funeral is in two days—whoever stashed the knife will definitely come to check on it or move it before then. If she doesn’t panic or identify herself, then you and I go to the funeral and see if either Dahlia or Ilona is looking suspicious and twitchy.”

“Okay. But Dahlia’s one cool customer, and her mom might be as well. What if they aren’t doing us a favor and guilt-sweating?”

I shrugged. “Well, then we haul both of them into a room, put the knife down, and see if we can question it out of them.” After all, according to television, that worked all the time with real crimes. And I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone lawyering up either.

Suze considered, then grinned. “All right, I can get with that plan.” She eyed the knife that I was still holding in the washcloth. “Let’s get a plastic bag or something to carry that with.”

We went back into the kitchen, both of us gratefully breathing in the scent of air that was free from the reek of baby diapers. Suze checked in a few of the cabinets and located a gallon-size Ziploc bag. She held it open for me so that I could dump the knife and its washcloth wrapping into it.

“Suze, not that I wasn’t impressed by you sniffing clothing, but we could’ve just checked their mail.” I pointed to the pile on the counter that I’d just noticed.

I received a very irritated look. “Well, now I’ve got their scents,” she said with a confident and thoroughly superior air.

“Oh, of course.” I paused, then indicated the pile. “So, should I . . . ?”

Suze glared. “Fine, check the damn mail.” I shuffled through it—it was the usual mix of bills, junk circulars, catalogues, and offers from credit card companies, but it was enough to verify that there was mail addressed to both Dahlia and Ilona at this house.

“So Dahlia’s mom lives here,” I confirmed.

We did one quick check around the house. There were three bedrooms—one with purple walls, a child’s bed, and a crib, which the girls apparently shared. Framed prints of Winnie the Pooh, Corduroy the bear, and Paddington Bear decorated the walls, prompting more irritated comments from Suze.

“Oh, just let it go,” I told her. “It’s kind of cute. I bet you wouldn’t be complaining if there were fox pictures hanging.”

“Of course I wouldn’t. Foxes are fantastic. Roald Dahl based a whole book on that fact.”

“And the problem with bears being . . . ?”

“They’re stupid.”

I sighed heavily. “Let’s set the species-centrism aside and get on with this. Also, don’t turn around—I just spotted a picture of Baloo the bear.”

Suze was able to sniff and identify the next bedroom as Ilona’s—it was another small room, with just enough space for an adult-size twin bed, a bureau, and a nightstand. The bureau was covered with framed photos. Most were of a Nordic-looking woman (clearly Ilona) posed with Dahlia and Gil at various ages. Another picture was more recent, judging by the heavy streaks of gray in her formerly blond hair and the iPhone sitting on a table, posed with two little girls who had inherited Dahlia’s dark hair and skin. One large photo that was framed and hung on the wall looked like a wedding photo—I recognized Ilona, Matias, Dahlia, Carmen (looking about thirteen, and definitely in the awkward stage of puberty), plus a guy I didn’t recognize with pale skin and light-brown hair—all lined up and flanking Gil, who was standing beside the mystery guy. He and Gil were in matching tuxes, with shiny new wedding rings glinting from their left hands. There were also several photos of Ilona and Matias at various ages, sporting some pretty impressive early
1970s hairstyles and generally looking like a tourism ad for Switzerland. I frowned at the pictures.