Free Elvendude by Mark Shepherd Page A

addition to the official crime scene photos, to show officers like herself who came in late. She stared, morbidly fascinated by the looks of terror on their faces, as if they had all seen the same dreadful apparition.

    That's not a typical phenomenon of drug OD's , she thought, flipping through the photos. Each bad trip is a little different, and they've never included "mass hallucinations." These kids died with their eyes open, looking in the same direction, in the same way. Very strange and disturbing, indeed.

    "Where is the young man who called this in?" she asked. "Where's Daryl Bendis?"

    "Over there, in the dining room," the cop said, and shuffled off, leaving the photos with Sammi, who tucked them away in her purse.

    Daryl didn't look up when she entered the dining room, an opulent setting with lots of crystal and silver, a traditional buffet, a lead crystal chandelier: all of the trappings of wealth.

    The boy sat at the head of the table, shirtless with a blotchy sunburn, looking like he'd just wakened. He was also pasty pale, but this was a pallor he'd been working on for some time and not unique to this afternoon. Sammi suspected the boy's increased party schedule had something to do with it.

    "So what goes, Daryl?" Sammi said sternly. "You're the one who called this in?"

    Daryl looked up, sneering. "You already know, or you wouldn't be here," he said.

    This human's insolence will soon kill him, she thought. This human child. Who happens to be one of Adam's best "friends." She shook her head.

    Her voice lowered. "What the hell happened, Daryl?"

    He looked down, visibly fighting annoyance. "Look, it happened like this. Steve threw this party for me, see, and I got a little drunk, went out to the backyard, and passed out." He pointed at his hairless chest, at the bars of pink flesh. "In the gazebo. The sun coming through gave me this burn. When I woke up, I came into the house and found everyone, well, dead."

    Sammi nodded, figuring part of what he'd said was true. Over the years they'd had similar conversations over less serious issues; Daryl was an expert at telling the truth, and even better at leaving out important details.

    "How did they die, Daryl?" She was trying not to sound confrontational.

    "I don't know, ask them," he said, pointing toward the cops in the kitchen. "I'm already on their bad guy list because my dad's a lawyer," he added.

    "Was it cocaine? Crack?" she asked, knowing this was probably the case. When Daryl didn't reply, she said, "Did you sell it to them, Daryl?"

    "Nope," he said, looking out the bay window. "And that's all you're gonna get out of me, Mrs. McDaris. You're a cop, and your buddies have been giving me a pretty hard time. Leave me alone."

    Samantha seethed, but held her temper. I need to know. "You don't know what a hard time is, Daryl. You will when you go to prison."

    Daryl looked up. " Huh? "

    "If they find so much as a trace of drugs around here, and we suspect you're not cooperating, you're going down. You're not a juvenile anymore. As of today, you're legally an adult. Am I right?"

    Reluctantly, Daryl nodded.

    "And if you take big boy chances, you can pay big boy prices."

    The boy squirmed, and a bead of perspiration dripped off his forehead. "Well . . ." he said.

    "Tell me what happened last night and I might be able to cut you some slack," she lied. This had nothing to do with homicide yet, and she doubted she could be very persuasive. There was a great deal of territory and turf-fighting within the department, even among the different municipalities. One of the detectives working this particular scene, Roach, was not one she got along with too well, and therefore couldn't influence, except maybe with reverse psychology . . . and a little elven magic, if it were worth the trouble. She hadn't seen Roach yet, but heard him, shooting the breeze with someone else in the kitchen. She had the feeling he was intentionally ignoring her, which was just as