“Where’s your boot?”
“Up there somewhere. Hopefully still.”
The lobby was a scene, but not the one Corrie was expecting. A dozen-odd Kickers were all on the ground, moaning and wheezing. One of those big bruisers was being held down by Jerinne twisting his arm and pinning her knee on his back. The kid was here, clutching onto Saitle’s leg.
Jace paced around the fallen Kickers. Despite blood gushing from his nose, he still had that stupid grin. “You are all bound by law!” he announced. “You will be ironed and brought to the stationhouse where charges of crimes will be laid upon you, and you will stand trial for those crimes. These charges may include, and not be limited to, assaulting an officer of the law, resisting a lawful writ, and being a menace to the public trust. Does anyone have any questions?”
Only groans came in response.
Benvin came in with his squad, and the rest of the boys from the GIU. “What’s the score?”
“A safe boy, a boss named Musky, and a whole lot of Kickers to send to Quarrygate,” Tricky said. “There’s a handful more upstairs to be mopped up, but I think your squad can handle that.”
Benvin gave a nod, and Wheth and Pollit went up the stairs.
“Bring me my boot if you find it!” Tricky yelled up after them.
“Not rutting fair,” one of the Kickers said from his place on the ground. Looked like at least one arm was broken. “Bringing a Tarian knight in to do your job.”
“Didn’t realize I had to be fair, Reginick,” Benvin said. “Saitle, call for some wagons and Yellowshields. Your arm is bleeding, Inspector.”
“Just a nick,” Tricky said, coming the rest of the way down the stairs. “You all right, Jerinne?”
Jerinne popped up to her feet as Bankly and Ebber ironed up her bruiser. “Quite spirited folks in Aventil. Thank you for letting me assist you all.”
Benvin gave her a grudging nod. “We appreciate all the help we can get down here.”
Yellowshields came in, and a couple went right to Jace, who protested a bit too much given what a mess his face was. Benvin’s people ironed and carted off Kickers, and they started searching through the tenement. Tricky waited patiently while a Yellowshield wrapped up her arm. “Just the bandage,” Tricky said. “I can have the Inemar Stationhouse ward surgeon stitch it up. So how does this do by you, Benvin?”
“Assuming the arrests hold, this will gouge the Kickers. Now we need to keep the other gangs from taking these corners over, or a new one from springing up out of the ashes. But this is a big win.”
“Call if you need help with another,” Tricky said, shaking his hand.
“Will do.” He leaned in with a nod of his head. “If you brought that shield girl with you again, I wouldn’t hate it, either.”
Pollit came back down with a shredded boot. “One of them took out his anger on this.”
Tricky sighed and went over to the Kicker called Reginick, placing her stocking foot next to his boot. She then pulled it off him and put it on, over his annoyed protests.
Jace came over and embraced Corrie. “Stay safe,” he said. “And find out where I can write to Jerinne.”
“She’s too much for you to rutting handle,” Corrie said, smacking him on the head playfully. “Now go do your blasted job, Patrolman.”
“See you at home, Sergeant,” he shot back. “Specs.” He saluted to Tricky and went off with Benvin and the rest of his squad.
“What do you think of that kid brother of mine?” Corrie asked Tricky as they left the tenement, Jerinne and the GIU boys behind them
“I think he’s a Welling,” Tricky said. “Let’s get back to our house. Still plenty of our own mess to clean up today.”
Chapter 16
MINOX HAD RETURNED to his desk, still trying to process what Mister Olivant had said. Miss Morad had, true to her word, ended the hearing for the day, and she claimed she intended to present her report tomorrow morning at the latest, if not sooner. “There’s more than enough information at this time.” That at least meant she wouldn’t be harassing his family or Joshea any more. She went off with her notes to a back office with Mister Olivant.
All the notes and files from the Parliament had been piled up on his desk, as well a delivery from the East Maradaine Stationhouse. He opened that up right away, finding exactly what he had hoped to find.
Charcoal drawings, scores of them. Jillian probably had not slept, drawing through the night. He had suspected she would, that she would be inspired by what she had seen, gripped by it, and produce more from memory. And her memory was remarkable, as was her capacity to render what she had seen as image. In many ways, Jillian was cut from the same mold as Minox and Evoy. Jillian used her art to expel the sinners from her skull. That rendered images that were almost as detailed as being there.
It gave him many faces: victims, marshals, other people on the scene. Minox hadn’t been in a position to pay close attention as people were rescued, being too occupied with holding the machine in place while Dayne and the trapmaster freed the victims. Amongst the packet of work, Jillian had painstakingly crafted images of all the victims, the living and the dead.
That would be a great help, because he wanted to confirm that the victims were who they were supposed to be. Going through the initial reports, he had already found something interesting that stood out in the twenty-two victims. Possibly nothing, but worth looking into. He had already sent a page to get a roster of the Parliamentary functionaries.
“Hey, Jinx.” Inspector Kellman had come over to the desk. “Look, I know this ain’t the best time, but—”
“Is this about a case?”
“The missing kids,” Kellman said. “You had said something about matching witness statements, but I’m not finding anything in the files.”
Minox sighed. Perhaps he had been unclear, but more likely Kellman was not paying close attention. He wondered, if he were to lose his place as an inspector, how many cases would get shoddy care. Cases that he might have solved. “The reports of the giant who grabbed kids from the alleys.”
“That?” Kellman said. “Saints, I thought that was, just, you know, doph- or effitte-dosed punks seeing things.”
“It could be, but it’s a consistent point that was given separately by several different people,” Minox said. He hadn’t bothered to transcribe the more fanciful details that he had been told, like the shiny, scaly skin, black eyes, or oversized teeth. Fanciful, but recurring and consistent. “Not to mention many of these reports were from children, so even someone your size might be called a giant.”
Kellman shrugged. “Yeah, all right. Is that across the city?”
“The matching reports were mostly involved in the ones in Dentonhill, Inemar, and Keller Cove— especially Dentonhill. But there were a few on the north side of the city as well.”
“Hmm,” Kellman said, nodding like that meant something specific to him.
“Do you have a theory? Or a suspect?”
Kellman shook out of his small reverie. “No, nothing like that. It just . . . it feels like it’s too damn big, you know. I can’t get my head around it all.”
This man had been assigned Minox’s case, the case that Minox had put together and proved to Captain Cinellan was larger than anyone else suspected. This man couldn’t get his head around it. Him and Mirrell, a man who usually decided the solution to his cases when he first received them, and fit his investigation to that. A case like this, where there was no obvious suspect, meant Mirrell would have to do actual work to solve it. Minox imagined that meant Mirrell had already signed it off in his mind as unsolvable, ready to send the case files to the archives as soon as it was politically feasible to do so.
Kellman might not have the intellectual capacity to solve this case, but he was showing that he cared about it, which was leaps and bounds beyond Mirrell.
“W
ere this my case,” Minox said carefully, “I would get a map of the city, and track the locations of each known abduction with dates. Find the center, find when things expanded from the center, and what circumstances changed. Use that information to lead you to the next piece of evidence.”
Kellman seemed to take that in. “Yeah, that sounds like something that could be useful.” He nodded and went off.
Minox had, of course, already done the work, but if he had flat out told Kellman what that yielded, the man would likely ignore it. Instead, it was best to let Kellman do it himself, and then come back to Minox when he couldn’t figure out what it meant. Likely two days for that. There was time. If Minox’s own analysis was correct, the next wave of abductions would be in two weeks.
Inspector Rainey came over to their desks, her arm bandaged and several scrapes on her face, including a decent-size bruise on her cheek. Also her boots no longer matched—one of them had a colored kerchief wrapped around it. Despite that, her mood seemed almost jubilant.
“How was your morning?” he asked.
“Rough,” she said. “But I rescued a boy and helped take down a gang, so it was worth it.”
“And you lost a boot?”
She sat down and put the foot with the foreign boot on her desk. “But I got a trophy. From a Kemper Street Kicker captain.”
“I wouldn’t go around wearing that for normal duty.”
“No. It fits, but not well. I’ve asked Nyla to bring me a new pair. And she barely gave me any grief for it.”
“Her mind is probably elsewhere. My morning was . . . harrowing.”
Rainey sat up properly. “That bad?”
He quickly briefed her on Olivant’s dire statements regarding his hand. When he finished, her expression was filled with sympathy, and even a hint of fear. He could hardly blame her for either, but he felt he needed to soften things with her. “It may be that Mister Olivant was merely being hyperbolic. He seems to be prone toward the dramatic.”
“That he does,” she said. Likely sensing that he was not in the mood to discuss it any further, she said, “Have you had any chance to go over these files and notes?”
“I have, to a limited degree. I have a list of the victims. I have Mister Leppin’s reports on the ones who died, and he has confirmed all of them.”
“Good,” Rainey said. “We should first go back to the Parliament, walk through the floor and all the entrances. There’s no way that much equipment was brought without leaving traces. Then question the marshals.”
“Specifically the ones who were on duty the day before yesterday.”
“Chief Quoyell was reluctant to give us those names. I doubt he’s changed his mind.”
“After that, we should visit all the survivors—those who are in a condition to talk to us—and get another statement from each of them,” Minox said. “But about that. I’ve been going over the list of victims, and I’ve found something odd.”
“Odd in what way?”
“The names of the victims are wrong.”
* * *
“I’m going to ask you to define ‘wrong,’” Satrine said.
“Perhaps it is a strong term. I’m not saying that the victims aren’t the victims. But there is an odd quirk as to who the victims are that has a discrepancy. A minor detail which may be nothing, but I think it is notable.”
Satrine had long since learned to trust when Welling thought something minor was notable. “A pattern that’s broken?” she asked.
“Exactly. All the victims are support staff to Parliament members, except the one who was killed as the ‘example’—he was the husband of one of the women. He didn’t work for the Parliament in any capacity.”
“You think that’s why he was the example? He was abducted with her, but not specifically part of the plan?”
“Likely,” Welling said, “but not my main point. You see, the other victims are specific functionaries to specific members. All of them are staff chief, head clerk, or office secretary.”
“All right,” Satrine said. “Except someone isn’t?”
“Not exactly. You see, I’ve learned that there is a formal order to the members of Parliament, based entirely on tenure in the body, rather than party, chair number, or archduchy represented.”
“Right,” Satrine said. As soon as he said it, that bit of civics unlocked in her brain. “So how do these two things connect? What’s the discrepancy?”
“It’s subtle, so much so I’m almost inclined to ignore it. Almost.” Welling handed her the list. “If you list the victims in the formal order to their respective member of Parliament, it goes in rotation: staff chief, head clerk, office secretary, in that pattern. Except for three, and those three are specifically the ones from the boiler room.”
That got Satrine’s attention. “That can’t be coincidence. You’re wondering about who are the three who should have been there instead.”
“Exactly,” Minox said. “Why were they passed over? It’s possible that, for whatever reason, it wasn’t feasible for our ‘Sholiar’ to get to them.”
Satrine bristled at that. “I’m not comfortable with taking this Sholiar thing at face value.”
“You don’t trust Mister Heldrin?”
“It’s less about trust, and more about examining all the possible evidence,” she said. “I mean, it seems Dayne has done the thing you always hate Mirrell doing.”
“Deciding the truth before considering all the evidence.” Welling furrowed his brow. “And I will confess I was eager to absorb a possible solution in lieu of any other leads.”
“I can understand that urge, trust me,” Satrine said. “But still, literally the only evidence we have for Sholiar—even that there is such a person—is the say-so of Dayne Heldrin. We can’t build a case on that.”
“True. And it’s also true that this operation requires a massive amount of support and infrastructure. The kidnapping, the delivery of materials.”
“This isn’t a man, it’s an organization.”
“Dare I even say, a conspiracy.”
Satrine laughed a little. “I don’t like going there, but in this case, it seems apt.” There was no way this could have been pulled off without a lot of people working together, and several inside the Parliament system. “We can call it the Sholiar Conspiracy if you like.”
He frowned. “Are you making one of your dark jokes, Inspector?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. Just, instead of chasing after shadows or Dayne’s own personal nemesis, we need to look at the elements that are concrete. And your three missing functionaries sounds like a good place to start. If there is a conspiracy, I’d wager those three would have answers.”
Welling nodded. “Once the page returns with the roster I requested, we’ll be able to identify them.”
Almost as if on cue, Phillen came charging up the front stairs and burst past Nyla’s desk as if he were on fire. He got to their desks completely out of breath, dropping a file in front of them. He then fell to his knees, gasping and wheezing.
“Mister Hace,” Welling said harshly, “I appreciate your enthusiasm, and while I did ask for this file as quickly as possible, I did not mean to the detriment of your own well-being. There was no need to run with such abandon.”
“I came—” Phillen gasped out, still unable to catch his breath. “I came—”
“Easy, Phil,” Satrine said. “No need to hurt yourself.”
He gasped and gulped air again, grabbing hold of Welling’s chair to steady himself. “I came from the Parliament,” he got out.
“Yes, of course, and you didn’t need—”
“The King’s Marshals,” Phillen said. “They’re coming. I heard them. They’re coming to reclaim the case. And all the evidence.”
Welling grabbed the file Phillen had just brought and sped through it like
it was about to burn up in his hands. Then he closed the folder, grabbed a pile of charcoal sketches and shoved them into an envelope. He stood up and tucked the envelope into his trousers. “We probably don’t have much—”
“Attention, attention!” At the entrance to the inspectors’ floor, Chief Quoyell stood with a dozen King’s Marshals. “Everyone stand up and step away from your desks. I am here with writs from a Grand High Judge and a royal seal.” He pointed across the floor, staring hard at Satrine and Welling. “I am here to claim royal jurisdiction over one of your cases and take all pertinent files, reports, and evidence. Interference will result in arrest and charges of High Crimes against the Crown.”
Satrine stood up and stepped away. She wasn’t sure what would happen next, but she was certain of one thing: any chance that this case would end in justice for the victims had just turned to smoke.
* * *
Minox kept his hands up as he moved away from the desk. Chief Quoyell signaled his men to spread out into the room. Captain Cinellan stormed out of his office.
“The saints and blazes is going on here?”
Quoyell deposited his papers in Cinellan’s hands. “What’s happening is this Parliament case—and by extension the entire Gearbox Killer case—is now under Royal Jurisdiction. King’s Marshals are going to be handling it. I would appreciate that you give us everything you have and don’t give us any difficulty.”
Cinellan frowned as he thumbed through the pages. It was clear from his face that everything looked legitimate, and he was powerless to put any stop to it. “I’ll have you know that Commissioner Enbrain is directly involved in this case and has declared it high priority.”
“You can imagine how little I care about that,” Quoyell said. He turned to his men. “Every file, report, and piece of physical evidence. I presume someone can lead my people to your examinarium and evidence lockroom?”
Cinellan point to Hace. “You, show them the way.”
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