EMPIRE: Imperial Detective

by Stephanie Osborn

  “Good. And I know what you mean about looking into her eyes; she was that sort of person. So now, if someone tries to get you to suborn yourself, just say no. But more, come tell me. Especially come tell me if they’re in the department, but in or out of it, we need to know so we can tidy things up.”

  “Got it. This is going to be a straight department from now on, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the intent, Mr. Peabody. I think if anyone can do it, Lee Carter can.”

  “No more having to watch my back from the people I work with...”

  “Exactly.”

  “Emily,” Peabody said then, sitting up straight. “Emily’s back on the table.”

  “What? Emily? I… I’m afraid I don’t understand...?”

  “It’s a long story,” Peabody said, rueful.

  “I have time to listen,” Ashton said, with the ghost of a smile. “I scheduled plenty of time to work with you on all this, because I knew you’d be upset, and I couldn’t blame you. In all seriousness, I’m here to help, Mr. Peabody. Let me.”

  “Okay, you asked for it...”

  “Yes, I see now,” Ashton said with a full smile, nearly a full hour of Peabody’s confidences later. “I think I recognize the name; I may have read some of her stuff.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. My mother gave me her love for a good mystery, which is one reason why I’m doing what I’m doing,” Ashton explained. “And I’ve stayed a fan of a good mystery story, ever since.”

  “Does your mother still read them?”

  “Oh. Um, I’m afraid my mother and father died about a year before I graduated the Academy, Mr. Peabody.”

  “Oh. I’m...I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. It’s been some few years back, now. More, I’m about to get married, so I’m not alone any more. You’d be surprised how much that seems to help; I sure was.”

  “I envy you that.”

  “Patience, patience. And yes, Lee Carter and I plan a department that will be far safer for our people than that backstabbing snake pit you used to work in, Peabody. And yes, I understand that it was already like that when you came aboard, and you did your best to do what needed doing within the confines of what you had to work with...and so did I, for that matter. I just managed to piss ‘em off, and you didn’t, I guess. But yes, a new department means that, if your old girlfriend is available and still interested, then very soon, I think you can go to her with your head held high and try again.”

  “That...sounds like a life I could enjoy,” Peabody said with a wistful smile. “You’re a little like Empress Ilithyia. The more I hear you talk, the more I think I like this whole thing.” He paused and sighed. “I still wish I had my old rank back. But I get it. I need to earn Chief Carter’s trust. I need to earn your trust.”

  “Well, for now,” Ashton amended. “I fully expect that, once Lee has someone with the appropriate experience and rank to run the division, most likely brought in from a sector someplace, I’ll be stepping back into the rank of detectives.”

  “I think he’d be foolish to let you do that,” Peabody decided. “You have the skill and understanding already, Detective Ashton. I’m impressed. I couldn’t have handled this meeting, this situation, better myself, and I do have a couple years of experience at the job.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Peabody,” Ashton said, nodding in acceptance of the compliment. “Believe me, I’ve been trying hard.”

  “It shows. And I think, more, you might have natural talent at it. Is there anything else, sir?”

  “No, Peabody, I think that’s all for now.”

  “Thank you, sir. I promise you, I’ll do my damnedest.”

  And Peabody rose from the visitor’s chair, reaching out to shake Ashton’s hand, before he departed the office, headed for the investigators’ bullpen.

  Mergers

  A few months later, in the Empress Adannaya I Memorial Botanical Gardens on the outskirts of Imperial City, under flowering trees that boasted every shade of pink from pale white-pink to deep fuchsia, Dominick Xavier Ashton and Callista Elena Ames were wed.

  The groom was smartly attired in his Imperial Police dress uniform, with navy trousers and stand-collared tunic, the Throne of Sintar encircled with a laurel wreath on his left breast, and two gold pips on each side of the collar. White dress gloves clad his hands.

  The bride – who had had the option of wearing her own Imperial City Police dress uniform – chose to wear a simple white gown in a vaguely Classical Greek style, fastened at the shoulders and belted loosely at the waist with golden cord. The dress fell from the belt to the ground, where pink-tipped toes peeped out, clad in gold sandals. Cherry and pink magnolia blossoms were woven into her hair, and she carried several sprigs of blooming cherry around a large central deep-rose magnolia blossom.

  Alexandre and Laura Ames, together, led their daughter to meet her groom; Lee Carter and Maia Peterson stood with Nick in the place of his parents. Friends and colleagues surrounded them, and Nick’s Aunt Bea and Uncle Joe had traveled from Flanders to be there for the ceremony.

  When once they stood face to face, Cally shifted her bouquet to her right hand and held out her left; Nick took it in his right hand and looked into her eyes.

  “I, Dominick Xavier Ashton, take you, Callista Elena Ames, to be my lawfully wedded wife…” he murmured the ancient words of matrimony.

  It didn’t take long. Soon both had given their vows and the matter was done; family, friends, and colleagues congratulated the couple as they all trooped to the big pavilion – which was nearby, but out of sight behind a huge bank of flowering rhododendrons – where a catering company had spread out a lovely and delicious semi-formal luncheon for the wedding party, interspersing the place settings with flowers of all kinds. On three sides, and running right up to the open structure, wildflowers clad the ground in all the colors of the rainbow. On the fourth side, a narrow lane ran between the pavilion and the guest-hall-slash administrative-building adjacent.

  “Are you two taking a wedding trip after this?” Detective Roger Armbrand of the ICPD asked the newlyweds.

  “Only a short one,” Nick noted. “There’s so much work to do in rebuilding the IPD Headquarters, I didn’t feel like I could afford to be gone very long.”

  “But it’ll be a nice one,” Cally said, her face dimpling with her grin. “We wanted to go to Java, in the Sunda Sector, but it’s too far away and would take too long, never mind being incredibly expensive, so we’re doing the next best thing – we’re headed to the Kawali-Krakatau Resort, over on the coast!”

  “Ooo,” Detective Stefan Gorski hummed. “That’s the posh resort chain that’s headquartered on Java, right? With the tropical-island theme?”

  “That’s the one!” Cally exclaimed in excitement. “We’ve been saving up ever since Nick came back from Catalonia, and with him a detective now, our combined salaries aren’t half bad.”

  “It’s about to get better, young lady,” Maia Peterson told her. “After that robbery you solved last month over near the Imperial University, it’s been decided to shave off the last few weeks of your time-in-grade. When you and Nick get back and you return to duty, you’ll be promoted to full detective, yourself.”

  “YAAY!” Cally yelled in glee, and Nick grinned from ear to ear, even as Laura Ames, Cally’s mother, clapped her hands in delight, and her father Alexandre smiled.

  “Easy does it there, son,” Lee Carter warned Nick. “You’ll pop the gold buttons on your uniform, and we’ll never find ‘em if they get out into the wildflowers. And believe me, you’d think they were real solid gold, as damned expensive as those things are to replace!”

  Everyone laughed.

  The first course of the reception luncheon was a fresh fruit cocktail, with fresh peaches, nectarines, strawberries, and pineapple chunks, topped with clotted cream. This was followed with a shrimp and lobster bisque, then an entrée of chicken cordon bleu with green beans amandine and a wild mushroom risot
to, and plum tarts for dessert. A small but beautifully decorated wedding cake was also served – after the bride and groom cut it, of course. It was an ancient custom that seemed to fit the equally-ancient words of their vows, and Cally and Nick had loved the idea.

  It was over all too soon, and the couple ducked into the nearby hall to change into suitable travel clothing. Cally gave her mother her bouquet and the flowers in her hair to preserve, as well as the wedding dress and sandals. Nick handed off his dress uniform to his boss and surrogate father, Lee Carter.

  “No worries, Nick,” Carter told him. “Not only will I get this cleaned and over to your new place, but this bunch,” he waved at ‘The Team,’ as Nick had come to think of his ICPD colleagues, “will help us get the two of you moved into it, too. I got the key cards you two gave me, and we’ll get it done.”

  “With no bomb blasts in the night, this time,” Maia Peterson decreed.

  “No shit,” Ashton said in a heartfelt, vehement tone. “You guys be careful, just in case, though.”

  “We will be,” Carter averred.

  “And we’re off!” Cally exclaimed. “Here comes the taxi to take us to our flight!”

  “Congratulations!” everyone called, as the pair ran for the taxi that pulled up to the front of the pavilion across the street from the hall.

  Late that night, the two finally curled up to actually sleep – they had come to bed fully two hours prior, but sleep wasn’t in the plans at that point – in the big, comfy bed in the luxurious hotel’s newlywed suite, tired but happy. Cally looked around at the lush, tropical-styled bedroom, dimly lit from the floor-to-ceiling windows, which were open to allow the gentle sea breeze, lending the air a salt tang. Outside the windows was a patio-like balcony overlooking the beach and the ocean beyond.

  “This is so lovely, Nick,” she murmured. “I know it’s kind of expensive, but I’ll never forget this.”

  “Well, that was kinda the point,” he replied. “Given my current assignment to rebuild the Investigative division, and all the work that goes along with it, Lee didn’t have a problem giving me the salary that came with the division lead…”

  “I think he’s gonna make you the division lead, for official keeps,” Cally declared.

  “Nah, he can’t, honey,” Nick said. “You keep saying that, but it won’t wash. The position requires an inspector, with time in grade, so he or she has seniority and authority over everybody else. And I only just got the promotion to detective about six months back. I’ve got years, maybe decades, in front of me before I qualify for this position on a permanent basis.”

  “Aw.”

  “Yeah. So that salary is only temporary,” Nick pointed out. “Yeah, a chunk of it went to this honeymoon, and another chunk went into the new place. But after that, I think if we’re smart, we’ll sink most of the rest into our bank account, and probably some good investments.”

  “I think that’s a good plan,” Cally agreed. “I’m glad we got the accounts worked out before the wedding.”

  “Me too.”

  They were silent for several moments.

  “I still bet you wind up pretty high in the hierarchy when it’s all done,” Cally said then.

  “Eventually, maybe,” Nick said, “when I’ve made Inspector and got some more experience under my belt.”

  “Honey, even if he can’t give you the job formally, ‘cause of how the requirements are written, I’d eat my badge if you don’t wind up running the thing. You’re gonna have a division made up of recruits almost fresh outta the Academy.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Nick said thoughtfully. “Yeah, we’re pretty much retiring anybody who was in the old system and worked their way through it, because there’s really not anybody in Investigations who didn’t have to go along with some corruption here or there – the system was just set up that way. Which means I’m really damn glad Lee transferred me over to you guys. Peabody – who used to run Investigations – is gonna get another chance because, according to what info I was able to get from the Palace, he decided to cooperate, especially after finding out what his old colleagues did to the Empress and her family…”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “Yeah, I did, after talking to Lee about him, and finding out what Lee wanted to know, and what he wanted me to tell Peabody. As well as talking Lee into giving him that chance, to begin with. It took a bit of doing, but I finally got Peabody to open up to me and just talk. I was in my office with him for a solid hour and a half – closing on two hours, I think.”

  “And?”

  “…And when Peabody saw what those bastards did to the Imperial family, Cally?” Nick shook his head. “Even trying to tell me about it, he paled and turned a little green. Then he got angry. I don’t think he wanted any of that to happen, nor expected it to. He met her, you know. Empress Ilithyia. And she made a difference in him. Made him actually think about another way of doing things.”

  “Well, that’s promising, I guess. So he’s coming back as a detective? Will he be the one over you?”

  “No, and no. Per Lee, he’s been busted all the way down. The only people under him, rank-wise, will be the recruits fresh out of the Academy, and the brand-new investigators.” Nick paused, his face adopting a rueful expression. “I got to tell him that. He wasn’t happy about it at all, but he admitted he had it coming, and had some trust to win back. Well, I gave him the option of leaving and finding something else to do, or even retiring. But he’s not really in retirement age, doesn’t have a medical condition that we could leverage, and he wasn’t sure how it would look on his résumé if he went job-hunting now…”

  “Ugh. Good point. ‘Hi there. I’m looking for a new job because I was a crooked cop and they don’t want me working for ‘em any more…’”

  “Exactly. And I think he really wants another chance. Peabody was one of the less-corrupt detectives, as such things go. He only went that way if that’s what it took to save his own hide. That’s what he told me, and I went through his records – fortunately all that shit was backed up offsite – and he actually did go against the party line on quite a few occasions. He just made sure he had his ducks in a row first, so they couldn’t nail him for it.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah. He told me, though, hard as he tried, he couldn’t do it but for more than a quarter to a third of his cases that had ‘predetermined outcomes,’ as we took to calling it. That said, all cases weren’t like that; most of the time, it was a regular old robbery or whatnot, and he could do his job without the solution being dictated to him.” Nick shrugged. “Most of the investigators were like that, though. Because most cases were standard cases.”

  “I get you.”

  “I know. And I’m glad of it.”

  “So does he have a family he has to provide for, or something?”

  “Peabody? No. He’s a bachelor. Had a girl he was courting years ago, but when she found out where he worked, he said she seriously thought about breaking it off. Then, when there was a risk of blackmail on a case, with her the one in danger from it, he broke it off, to keep her safe. He never found anybody else, so he’s hoping, if he can clear his name and reputation under us, maybe he can go find her and try again. He said he’d sorta followed her career and stuff, you know, from a distance… and she never married, either.”

  “Aw. Sounds like it might have been true love for both of ‘em, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So this really is a second chance for him.”

  “Yup. And one he appears to be eager to try for. Lee and I are gonna do everything we know to do to make it a great opportunity for him. Give him a real chance to make good.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Nick said. “I only hope all my decisions are that easy to make.” He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. Cally studied him for a moment.

  “You’re worried about all this.”

  “Hugely.”

  “Why?”


  “I’m not that old, and I’m not that experienced, Cal,” he told her. “Sure, I’m a good detective, but this isn’t detective work, it’s really management of a sort. This is a monumental job, because according to those conversations I’ve had with Lee, we’re not just replacing out positions here, not just reconstructing a building – he wants to restructure the organization. And that restructure may trickle down to the sectors an’ shit, too. Sooner or later. And I have to figure out how to restructure ‘my’ division, then pass that up to him… and make it flow with the other divisions, too.” He shook his head. “This needs somebody like Maia, or Stefan, or Gene. Not me. I don’t know if I have enough insight to do this, let alone do it right.”

  Cally stared at him.

  “Nick, not only are you the smartest man I think I’ve ever known – and don’t you dare tell my father I said that! – but you’re not alone, here.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re married to a detective, honey. Your ‘adoptive’ parents are high-ranking police officers. All your closest friends are investigators at various levels. All you have to do is ask. We’ll be there for you. We’ll help you conduct background checks, or recommend good people to bring on board, or whatever you need. We’re there. All of us.”

  “Well, you are, anyway.”

  “NO! I mean all of us. We already talked last week! Me, an’ Colonel Peterson, an’ Stefan an’ Gene an’ Pete an’ Roger an’ Tim, Darrell, Rich, Johnny, Hugo, an’ Alan! We had a damn division meeting about it! Hell, Maia even pinged Amundsen and Haptman – who are finally almost through with that away case, by the way – and even they said they’d do what they could to help you! And glad of it, every last damn one of us, if for no other reason than we get a new, uncorrupt IPD Headquarters to deal with!” she exclaimed. “Then, when you add in the fact that it’s you doing it? Nick, sweetie, there’s almost nothing The Team wouldn’t do for you. You oughta know that by now. Because there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for them. And we all know it. Every last damn one of us. We. Know.”