“Would one of those be the leg discovered in the hotel excavation on Occidental near Royal Brougham?” I asked.

“That’s the one. Very similar…” He was intrigued, squinting and staring to the side as he thought. I dangled some bait to see if he was the curious type he seemed.

“Do you think there might be older cases like this?”

His fingers slid to the keyboard without his looking at them. “Maybe…” He began to type, becoming absorbed in his search.

While he was a little distracted, I said, “That’s odd. What does your badge say?”

“Um… yeah. Just call me Fish—technically it’s Reuben Arthur Fishkiller, but… uh… Even for an Indian it’s kind of an embarrassment. Means, you know, ‘crappy fisherman.’ You’re not supposed to kill ‘em, just catch ‘em.”

“You could change it.”

“My mother would skin me. She hates what I do; she hates where I live and where I work. She says I’m a bad Indian for working with the dead—contaminated, you know. The dead and the living aren’t supposed to mingle.”

“I can understand the sentiment.”

He bobbed his head while continuing to type in fits. “Yeah, but its fascinating. I love forensic pathology. I’m pretty far down the food chain, but I feel like—now, this is hokey, I know—I feel like I’m helping the dead find peace, or justice or something. We just throw people away and then we cry over the hollowness of our own lives. Kind of a messed-up society.”

“You mean American society.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “See, I am a bad Indian. I get frustrated with my own people sometimes. I think some of them hold on too hard, too long. They get pushed around, but they take it because they don’t want to have to change. The rez system, the welfare—it’s messed up. But when we want to take care of ourselves we get told we can’t by the government, or that we’re destroying tradition by the tribal elders. Always in the middle. It’s hard to be in touch with nature, in balance and thoughtful of tradition, while making a living in the bigger world. But that’s what we all want—somehow. My family was so proud when I went to college. Then they were disgusted by what I chose to study—Ha! Yeah!” He sat back and grinned in triumph.

“What?” I asked, smiling back at him—he had that kind of grin.

“Got ‘em! We did have some similar cases after the 1949 earthquake. Also Pioneer Square area—which was pretty badly hit, just like in 2001. Those old buildings are on fill over the mudflats, and they heave and crack and all kinds of freaky stuff shows up. Maybe it’s my ancestors having a little revenge on you guys,” he added with a wink. “You know, Doc Maynard paid Sealth to let them name the city after him—even though that kind of thing is bad luck and binds the spirit to the thing that has its name—and then when he died, none of the whites even came to old Sealth’s funeral. Lousy deal.”

“Didn’t the chief say something about ghosts of the natives haunting the city?”

I asked. I thought I’d seen some quote about it somewhere.

Fish leaned back in his chair. “Well… there’s a pretty speech attributed to him, but I doubt he actually said it. I don’t think he was that flowery a talker in real life. But the quote—they teach this in tribal school—is ‘These shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children shall think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods, they will not be alone. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning host that once filled and still love this beautiful land.’ Almost sounds like a threat, doesn’t it?”

I blinked at him and thought the old man knew a lot more than he got credit for. Certainly the ghosts of his people did throng parts of Seattle—I’d seen them. “Sounds a little sad to me, for a people who don’t want the dead and living to mingle.”

“Oh, that’s just the bodies. Ancestors and other spirits are around all the time—according to my mother and my old grandma anyway. Not sure how I feel about it, though. Not sure I’d want to hang around myself with nothing to do.”

“Wouldn’t know until you tried it, I guess,” I said.

“Yeah. I think I’ll put that off a little longer, thanks.”

The noise of the day shift arriving distracted him and I made a quick exit before anyone asked me to sign any forms.

I was intrigued and disturbed that there was a matching pattern of deaths from almost sixty years earlier. The indications pointed increasingly toward a long-term paranormal element and the most obvious was the vampires. I wasn’t at all pleased at the prospect of a private conversation with Edward Kammerling, but it appeared I had no other option. Asking the other vampires without consulting Edward first would rouse his annoyance. Our current relationship was one of deliberate distance on my part and occasional attempts to gain control over me on his. I suspected that I had a very small surprise to spring on him that would force him to keep his distance for our chat, but it would only be good the one time. I hoped I wouldn’t regret giving it up in the future, but you can’t horde all your assets forever.

With the information from Fish and a strong feeling that Jenny Nin would not be shambling out of the morgue, I left Harborview with a fair balance of good and evil before me: no immediate monsters and an emerging—if upsetting—pattern of bodies that might point to the cause of the recent deaths; but to learn more, I’d have to walk into my least favorite lion’s den and have a talk with the head lion—who was distinctly a man-eater with designs on me for a side dish.

I drove back to my office past Occidental Park and saw that the police were already cleaning up and closing the crime scene down. Solis was nowhere in sight. I imagined he wasn’t pleased with these deaths, but there might be very little he could do to keep the files active. Without the knowledge I had, the logical conclusion—even if the facts were a bit reluctant to fit perfectly—was simple death by exposure to the intense cold, followed by depredation by feral dogs. Ugly and unpleasant, but adequate for most purposes, and I’d come to know that an adequate explanation was often more desirable than a perfect truth.

From my office I called Edward’s secretary. It was Saturday and I got an answering service staffed by an actual person. She assured me Mr. Kammerling would be in touch.

My mind wandered toward thoughts of Will and, as if summoned, my cell phone rang, displaying his number. I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer, but I poked the button anyhow.

“Hi, Will.” I was still irritable from lack of sleep and the ragged edge of pity for Jenny Nin. Not sure what he wanted, I wasn’t too inclined to fill the empty air between us with words.

“Hi, Harper. I wanted to apologize,” he started, “for being hasty—for freaking out the other night. I know things couldn’t have been what they looked like.”

Since they weren’t so far from what they had looked like, I didn’t say anything.

“This is pretty hard.” I knew he wanted me to make it easier, but I wasn’t going to. My misery and shock at the way our last date had ended were turning into anger, and I had no intention of letting him off the hook with a few halting apologies. “I was hoping,” he continued, “that you might have breakfast with me. I’m down at Endolyne Joes.”

“It was snowing on the hill earlier,” I said, “and I’m at the office now. Driving back across the bridge and down to Fauntleroy isn’t high on my priority list.”

“The snows not so bad here and its keeping the morning crowd away. We’d have some privacy.”

I growled. Will was wheedling, which I’d never heard from him before and didn’t like, but our business was unfinished and I supposed I should take the opportunity he was offering to either save our relationship or bury it for good.