fact that I'd had an order of execution for most of my kills make them better, less brutal? There were serial killers who had used only poison, which caused almost no pain; they'd been less brutal than me. Lately, I'd begun to wonder exactly what set me apart from people like Vittorio. I'd begun to question if to my oh-so-legal victims it mattered what my motives were.
A woman answered the phone in Las Vegas, and I began the process of getting passed up the line to the person who might be able to tell me whose head I had in the box.
Chapter 2
UNDERSHERIFF RUPERT SHAW had a rough voice; either he'd been yelling a lot, or he'd smoked way too much, for way too many years. "Who did you say this was?" he asked.
I sighed, and repeated for the umpteenth time, "I am U.S. Marshal Anita Blake. I need to talk to someone in charge, and I guess that would be you, Sheriff Shaw."
"I will kick the ass of whoever gave your name to the media."
"What are you talking about, Sheriff?"
"You didn't hear about the message from the media?"
"If you mean television or radio, I haven't had either on. Is there something I should know?"
"How did you know to call us, Marshal?"
I sat back in my chair, totally puzzled. "I get the feeling that if I hadn't called you, you'd be calling me, Sheriff Shaw."
"How did you know to call us?" he said again, each word a little more defined, an edge of stress, maybe even anger in his voice.
"I called you because I've got a package sitting on my desk that was mailed from Las Vegas."
"What kind of package?" he asked.
Was it time to tell the whole story? I hadn't earlier because once you tell someone certain things-say, you got mailed a human head in a box-they tend to think you're crazy. I was in the media enough for someone to pretend to be me, so I'd wanted them to take me seriously before they discounted me as some crackpot psychotic.
"Someone mailed me a human head. The return address is your city."
He was quiet for almost a minute. I could hear his raspy breathing. I was betting on the smoking. About the time I was going to prompt him, he said, "Can you describe the head?"
He could have said a lot of things, but that wasn't on my list. Too calm, even for a cop, and too practical. The moment he asked me to describe it, I knew he had someone in mind, someone who was missing a head. Shit.
"The head is in plastic, packed in ice. The hair looks dark, but that could be partially from the way it was packed. The hair looks straight, but again, I can't be sure that it's not some leakage making the hair appear straight. Caucasian, I'm sure of, and the eyes look pale. Gray, maybe pale blue, though death can steal color from the eyes. I have no way of telling time of death, so I don't know how much discoloration could have taken place."
"Have you searched the box for anything else?"
"Is your man missing more than just a head?" I asked.
"A badge, and a finger. The finger should have a wedding band on it."
"I'm sorry to hear that last part."
"Why?"
"Telling the wife, I don't envy you that."
"You have to do that yourself much?"
"I've seen the grieving families of the vampire vics often enough. It always sucks."
"Yeah, it always sucks," he said.
"I'm waiting for forensics to look at it before I touch anything. If there are any clues, I don't want to fuck them up because I got impatient."
"Let me know what they find."
"Will do." I waited for him to add something, but he didn't. All I had was his breathing, too rough, too labored. I wondered when was the last time he'd had a physical.
I finally said, "What happened in Vegas, Sheriff Shaw? Why do I have a piece of one of your officers on my desk?"
"We aren't sure that's who it is."
"No, but it would be an awfully big coincidence if you've got an officer who's missing a head, and I've got a head in a box sent from your town that superficially matches your downed officer. I just don't buy a coincidence that big, Sheriff."
He sighed, then coughed; it was a thick cough. Maybe he was just getting over something. "Me either, Blake, me either. I'll go you one better. We're holding back the fact that we've got