Streamfield Shifters: Red Rover

Chapter Six

"I'm too fucking tired," Detective DeWitt growled a half an hour later, thudding heavily into a plastic chair and removing his wide-brimmed hat. "Repeat all of that back to me again."

We sat in the parking lot beneath one of the tents as the sun steadily climbed, flooding the area with bright sunshine and heat. Someone kindly provided us with cold bottles of water and a portable fan.

I glanced at my brother and grandfather. "It's an elf ... but also, not."

Detective Merrickson frowned, lowering himself into a chair next to the statie. "What does that mean?"

Grandpa shifted position. "Think of it this way, John," my grandfather explained. "Picture a human in a smelly coat."

Detective Merrickson sighed. "Either I'm tired or you're not making sense, Alan."

"There are two scents," Grandpa continued, holding up two fingers. "One is more powerful than the other, it dominates the scene. But beneath it, faintly, is another. That's what we're trying to say."

Detective DeWitt raised a grizzled eyebrow. "So, you mean to tell me that our murderer is a shapeshifting elf?" He cracked his knuckles and shook his head in disbelief.

"Maybe?" I replied with a shrug, earning a dual cop-stare from the lawmen. "They've been traveling back and forth for centuries. Maybe some had kids with shapeshifters?"

"Who's to say that these so-called Gates haven't messed with the evidence?" Detective DeWitt countered, leaning back and folding his arms. "You said that his trail disappeared. Are you certain you guys aren't affected?"

Grandpa, Richard and I exchanged looks. After alerting the detectives to our findings, we continued to search the area for the murderer's trail. While we were certain the shapeshifter was a wolf, all evidence of his trail vanished a couple of yards from where the victim died. It wasn't a question of him shifting and leaving as a human—we would have picked up on that; no, it was as if he teleported away. We even fanned out and searched a few hundred more yards beyond the initial crime scene, just in case he jumped far out enough to throw us off the trail.

I frowned thoughtfully. What if the Gates were affecting us? A trickle of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. Reaching up beneath my ponytail, I wiped at it and dried my hands on the thin fabric of my track shorts. Admittedly, none of us had any prior experience with tracking, so maybe we were mistaken? But ... could it be possible that an elf had passed through the crime scene prior to the victim's and perpetrator's final meeting?

"If we were, there's no way we could tell," Richard told the statie, breaking my line of thought. "This is new for all of us."

"Great," Detective DeWitt rumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "We've gone soft with the witches' help. It's going to take time to analyze the fur samples and then run it through the database." He gazed off into the distance, tapping the fingers of his left hand on the plastic tabletop.

A small bell rang in my head. Fur samples? I leaned forward. "Detective DeWitt?"

The older man rolled pale eyes in my direction. "What?"

Grandpa cocked his head questioningly.

"What color is the fur?"

"Damned if I know." The statie gestured to one of the CSI technicians who walked over quickly. "What color is the fur sample?"

The woman was young, around my age. She glanced nervously between Detective DeWitt, Merrickson and us. "Well ..." She licked her lips, hesitating.

"You have my permission to disclose the information to our special retainers."