I glanced up at Murphy. I didn't have far to look. Karrin Murphy wasn't much more than five feet tall. She'd gotten her golden hair cut, from shoulder length to something far shorter, and a little longer in front than in back. It was a punky sort of look, and very appealing with her blue eyes and upturned nose. She was dressed for the weather in what must have been her at-home clothes: dark jeans, a flannel shirt, hiking boots, and a heavy woodsman's jacket. She was wearing her badge on her belt.
Murphy was extremely cute, for a grown adult who also held a black belt in aikido, and had several marksmanship awards from Chicago PD. She was a real professional, one who had fought and clawed her way up the ranks to become full lieutenant. She'd made enemies along the way, and one of them had seen to it that she was put in charge of Special Investigations soon after.
"Hello there, Murphy," I told her. I took a swig of ale and said, "Long time, no see." I tried to keep my voice even, but I'm pretty sure she heard the anger in it.
"Look Harry - "
"Did you read the editorial in the Tribune? The one criticizing you for wasting the city's money hiring a 'charlatan psychic named Harry Dresden'? I guess you must have, since I haven't heard from you since it came out."
She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "I don't have time for this."
I ignored her. "Not that I blame you. I mean, not many of the good taxpayers of Chicago believe in magic, or wizards. Of course, not many of them have seen what you and I have. You know. When we worked together. Or when I was saving your life."
Her eyes tightened at the edges. "I need you. We've got a situation."
"You need me? We haven't talked for more than a month, and you need me all of a sudden? I've got an office and a telephone and everything, Lieutenant. You don't need to track me down here while I'm having dinner."
"I'll tell the killer to be sure to operate during business hours next time," Murphy said. "But I need you to help me find him."
I straightened in my chair, frowning. "There's been a murder? Something in my field?"
Murphy flashed a hard smile at me. "I hope you didn't have anything more important to do."
I felt my jaw grow tense. "No. I'm ready." I stood up.
"Well then," she said, turning and walking away. "Shall we go?"
Chapter 2
Murphy declined to ride in the Blue Beetle, my old Volkswagen bug.
The Beetle wasn't really blue, not anymore. One of the doors had been replaced with a green duplicate, the other one with white, when something with claws had shredded the originals. The hood had been slagged by fire, and my mechanic, Mike, had replaced it with the hood from a red vehicle. The important thing is that the Beetle runs, even if it doesn't do it very fast, and I'm comfortable with the car. Mike has declared that the VW bug is the easiest car in the world to repair, and so that's what I drive. He keeps it running eight or nine days in ten. That's phenomenal.
Technology tends to foul up around wizards - flip on a light switch, and it'll be the time the bulb burns out. Drive past a streetlight, and it'll pick just then to flicker and die. Whatever can go wrong will, automobiles included.
I didn't think it made much sense for Murphy to risk her vehicle when she could have taken mine, but she said she'd take her chances.
She didn't speak as she drove her Saturn down the JFK, out toward Rosemont. I watched her, uncomfortable, as we went. She was in a hurry, taking a few too many chances cutting in and out of traffic, and I put on my seat belt. At least we weren't on her motorcycle.
"Murph," I asked her, "where's the fire?"
She glanced aside at me. "I want you out there before some other people show up."
"Press?" I couldn't quite keep a nasty slur out of the word.
She shrugged. "Whoever."
I frowned at her, but she didn't say anything else - which seemed typical. Murphy didn't speak much to me anymore. We rode the rest of the way in silence, exited the JFK, and pulled into the parking lot of a half-completed little strip mall. We got out of the car.
A jet came in, low, heading for O'Hare International Airport, only a few miles to the west. I squinted at it for a moment, and then frowned at Murphy as a uniformed officer led us toward a building surrounded by police tape. There was an abundance of light, the moon overhead bright silver and almost a completely round circle. I cast an enormous, gangly shadow as I walked, my duster flapping around my legs. It towered beside Murphy's far smaller shadow ahead of me.
"Murphy?" I said, "Aren't we outside Chicago city limits?"
"Yeah," Murphy said shortly.
"Uh. Then aren't we out of your jurisdiction, technically?"
"People need help wherever they can get it, Dresden. And the last several killings happened in Chicago, so we want to look at this firsthand. I already worked things out with the local force. It's not really an issue."
"Several killings?" I said. "Several? As in more than one? Murphy, slow down."
But she didn't. Instead, she led me into a roomy building that proved to be under construction, though all the exterior work was finished. Some of the windows were still covered with board. I didn't see the sign on the building's front doors until I got close.
"The Varsity?" I said, reading it. "I thought Marcone burned it down last spring."
"Mmm-hmm," Murphy said, glancing at me over her shoulder. "Relocated and rebuilding."
Chicago's resident crime lord, Gentleman Johnny Marcone, was the robber baron of the mean streets. He kept all the rough business inside the city proper, leaving his legitimate interests out in the suburbs, like here in Rosemont. Last spring, when I had confronted him in his club, a previous incarnation of the Varsity, about a deadly new drug on the streets, the place had wound up burning to the ground.
After the whole mess was over, word got out that the drug dealer I'd taken out had been Marcone's enemy, and that I had nuked him at the crime lord's request. I hadn't refuted the rumor. It was easier to let people talk than to force Marcone to make an issue of things.
Inside the building, the floors were rough, unfinished. Someone had turned on a couple of halogen work lights, and they cast the interior into brilliant, clear white light. There was drywall dust everywhere. There were a few card tables set up, with workmen's tools left out on them in places. Plastic buckets of paint, tarps, and a sack of new paintbrushes waited for use off to one side. I didn't notice the blood until Murphy put her arm out in front of me to keep me from walking into it.