Schiller arrived at the Police Department. The officer receiving him was the male cop he had met a few times before, possibly Ma'lfak or Ron.
He held a stack of photographs showing Yodun's corpse.
"The blood samples have already been sent for analysis," Schiller heard an officer outside the door say. "We probably won't have results until this afternoon. If necessary, we'll have to borrow a coroner from the city."
Schiller knew that a remote little town like this had virtually no technical resources. Determining Yodun's cause of death would take time. They might even have to bring in criminal investigation technicians from the city.
For some reason, Schiller no longer felt as though someone was watching him. That proved no one was reading his mind.
But that was understandable. Ron wanted to live like a human, while Ma'lfak feared exposing himself before his powerful brother, so neither would use psychic abilities lightly. For the time being, they were both investigating the case through human means.
The officer across from him asked Schiller for details: when Yodun had left home, which way he had gone, what he had been doing that night, and so on.
Schiller answered each question. Just as the conversation was getting somewhere, the female officer from earlier burst in and said, "They found Betty!"
"What?!" The male officer sprang to his feet. "Where? Where is she?"
"In Yodun's cellar. We found a lot of blood there too, possibly her mother's. There was also some decomposition fluid. It looked like it had been there for two or three days..."
The officers in the station rushed out in a swarm. The officer in front of Schiller hesitated, then chose to stay behind.
The partner who had previously gone out with the female officer knocked on the door and