Page 27 of Deadly Lineage
“No idea?” My irritation was beginning to weave dangerously close to anger. “Why don’t we play a game and speculate, then?”
He scoffed. “I’m not in the business of speculating, Detective O’Hare. I list the facts. Whether you’re satisfied with them or not makes little difference. Rebecca Mosely’s cause of death was heart failure, causing cardiac arrest. I have no idea what preceded that deadly outcome. There were no signs of a chronic condition. Her heart had several infarcts into the muscle that were acute, not chronic. The muscle could no longer function properly and simply stopped working. There is little else I can say. No other organ damage could be found. For all intents and purposes, Rebecca Mosely was a healthy twenty-five-year-old witch.”
I bristled but attempted to maintain a cool and composed demeanor. Getting pissed with the coroner didn’t make for good future relations. “Is that a common cause of heart failure?” I asked.
McCallister’s lips twisted before he finally shook his head. “It is not. At least, not on that wide of a scale. Clots can block blood to certain areas, but this was throughout her heart. I don’t know how to describe it other than that and I have no idea what could have been the initiating cause. That is why I did not include such haphazard speculations in my report. Now, if that’s all, I really do have a lot of work to finish.”
My fingers tightened on the manila folder clasped between my fingers. It would be bent and mangled by the time I got back to my desk.
As McCallister turned, I asked, “Any initial report on Noland?”
Hand on the door, McCallister twisted ever so slightly. “I would be much further along if I weren’t constantly interrupted. I can inform you that the body is in good condition, given where it was found. It is fortunate the necromancer found the victim when he did. A few more days in that watery grave and the body’s condition would have deteriorated significantly.”
“Very fortunate,” I agreed easily.
“Curious how he’s found the last two.”
Every muscle stiffened and my voice turned into a low growl. “Curious? How so? As you are so fond of stating, Erasmus Boone is a necromancer.” I wasn’t certain what the good doctor was insinuating. Maybe it was nothing and I was just being overly sensitive.
The smirk McCallister threw over his shoulder told me that’s exactly how he saw it. “Easy, Detective. I was simply making an observation, nothing more. Detective work is your business.The dead are mine. Perhaps Erasmus Boone and I have more in common than I previously considered.”
Without another word, McCallister pushed back through the swinging door leading deeper into the morgue. Once again, I knew when I was dismissed.
Phineas Noland’s family connections were woefully thin. So thin that they were nonexistent. His human mother died over eight years ago, and his warlock father passed less than six months after that. Phineas had been a child born late in his father’s life. His human mother was in her late thirties when Phineas arrived, and she’d given him over to his warlock father to raise. Captain Cicely informed me that this was common practice, although human mothers often stayed in contact with their warlock offspring.
I didn’t know how much Noland’s mother had influenced his life. The woman had no living relatives. Phineas had no warlock relatives I could find either. For all intents and purposes, Phineas had no one that would miss him. No one who would report him missing. No one who would care that he’d died, let alone how he’d died.
I stared at the computer screen, a deep frown pulling my lips. My temples throbbed. No amount of hunting produced a single soul in need of notification.
“Christ, this is sad.” The room was busy with the background noise associated with all that activity. No one heard me. No one but me seemed to care how alone Phineas Noland was.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, my fingers scratched along the five-o’clock shadow that was heading into its seventh hour.
My phone pinged, the sound different from earlier. Snatching it, I woke my phone and stared at Boone’s message.Do you have a minute to talk? It’s about Phineas Noland.
I didn’t hesitate. I pulled up Boone’s contact and hit the call button. He answered on the second ring.
“That was fast,” Boone said. He sounded a hell of a lot better than he had when I’d dropped him off at his house yesterday.
“Just sitting here, staring at my computer, wishing it would tell me something more than it is. What have you got?”
Boone sighed. “Not much. I told Pops about Phineas. I thought he might know him.”
“Did he?” I sat up a little straighter.
“No.”
I deflated instantly.
“But he did find some information. I’m afraid it’s not much and might already be what you know, although I doubt it. Pops went through the warlock network. They aren’t a very close-knit group, but when it comes to murder, warlocks tend to get a bit more sentimental.”
“I’ll take your word for that,” I said. My few warlock dealings hadn’t given me a lot of reason to consider them asentimentalspecies.
“Yeah, trust me, I know what you’re thinking. Anyway, Pops just called me and said Phineas’s family is almost all gone.”
I nodded before that precious word—almost—clicked. “Who’s left?” I scrambled for my pen and a random sheet of paper.
“Well, that’s the tricky part.”
