Catching a Man

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  “No.” Tobin’s tone was serious again. “It doesn’t matter how much money she makes. It’s not safe for a woman living on her own in the city. You know that.”

  A bang sounded, as if Octavira had slammed a shoe on the hard floor. “Well, if you won’t let her live alone, you could at least let her support herself. And stop looking at me as though you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know that she offered to contribute to the household income last week and that you turned her down again. There is no reason that you should feel obliged to pay for everything.”

  “Kadin can have a job or not as she chooses, and I will still feed and clothe her. It is my responsibility to do so,” Tobin said. “And it’s not as if she doesn’t do anything to earn it. She spends most of her free time helping you with the house and the children. And don’t think I don’t notice the new additions to your wardrobe that are funded by her paycheck instead of mine.”

  Kadin could picture Octavira standing up straight and putting her hands on her hips. “And why shouldn’t I let her buy me things, if she offers? Do you want your sister to be better clothed than your wife?”

  Tobin sighed. “Of course not, Vira. In fact, I am glad that you and Kadin get along well enough that you can do these kinds of things for each other. My only point was that you benefit from her being in the household, so I don’t see why you’re so eager to see her gone.”

  Had Kadin been in the room, she might have commented that the purchases didn’t reflect a friendship between herself and Octavira so much as the older woman’s insistence that Kadin pay her dues in some manner. But she probably would have kept quiet, since Tobin liked to believe the two of them enjoyed each other’s company, and both women expended quite a bit of energy to keep Tobin happy.

  “And I don’t see why you’re so eager for her to stay here forever,” Octavira said. “Any other brother would at least introduce her to some of the men he works with. But you don’t seem to want her to get married.”

  Tobin was silent for a minute before he answered. “You don’t understand. Kadin’s special. When she was little, when our parents were still alive, everyone could tell that she could do anything that she wanted. My parents never wanted her to grow up like an ordinary girl, thinking of nothing but catching a husband. But after my parents died, my grandmother spent years convincing Kadin she was ordinary and average, and Kadin started to believe it too. I refuse to contribute to that perspective.”

  Kadin gasped at Tobin’s speech, then clapped her hand over her mouth, hoping they hadn’t heard. Tobin hadn’t gone on about how special she was supposed to be for a long time, and Kadin thought he had given up the notion. Until about a year ago, whenever she dressed up or went out on dates, Tobin would try to stop her. You’re special, K, he would say. Mother and Father never wanted this for you. You could be so much more.

  Then one day, after yet another boyfriend had broken up with her over some offense that she couldn’t remember now, Tobin had insisted it didn’t matter because she didn’t need a husband, and Kadin had snapped. She told him their parents had known a six-year-old child and of course wanted to believe in the superiority of their children. She missed them, too, but she and Tobin had to stop living according to what they thought the dead wanted.

  Tobin had stopped his speeches, and she had hoped that he had given up his misplaced conviction that she was destined for greatness. Apparently not.

  “Of course being a wife and mother isn’t good enough.” Octavira’s voice was so tight, Kadin could imagine the flecks of spit spouting from her lips. “Oh, it’s good enough for some of us, but not for precious Kadin.”

  Kadin heard the floorboards creak and realized that Octavira or Tobin approached the other side of the door. Kadin darted backwards, trying to look as if she had not eavesdropped on their argument.

  Octavira flung the door open, and, from the way she pulled her head back, Kadin suspected her sister-in-law hadn’t known Kadin stood in the hall. “What do you want?”

  “I…” I’m sorry, Kadin wanted to say. I don’t want to be a burden on you and Tobin. I’m trying my best to get out of your way, honestly. “I wanted to know if I could borrow your black pumps.”

  Octavira stomped back into her room and disappeared into the closet. Kadin avoided looking directly at Tobin. He would know that she had not just arrived.

  Octavira emerged a few minutes later and practically threw the shoes at Kadin.

  Kadin went back to her room and looked in the mirror. She hated this, being a burden on her brother’s family that he refused to give up.

  But I have a plan. I’m going to get married. I’m going to leave here, and Tobin will be able to focus on himself and his family.

  Kadin looked her reflection straight in the eye. “I will not keep being a burden on my family. I’m going to marry Dahran White, whether I like him or not.” She held her chin up and refused to acknowledge the slight quiver of her lower lip.

  Kadin made it a point never to cry herself to sleep. The resulting puffy eyes could ruin her complexion for days.

  Chapter 3

  By the time Kadin got to Valeriel Investigations the next morning, she regretted her decision to borrow Octavira’s shoes. She had wedged her feet into the pointed toes well enough, but after a ride on a standing-room only autobus and a block and a half walk to the office, she felt the pinch. She glanced down to remind herself how good her calves looked and renewed her vow to buy a pair of heels in her size that weekend.

  She passed through the revolving door and veered left to head to Employee Medical Services. As a woman beginning a new job, the law mandated that she have her blood drawn before she could report for duty.

  The woman at the reception desk was too busy applying a dark coral lipstick to look up when Kadin approached.

  Plum would suit her better. But she probably doesn’t want unsolicited beauty advice.

  After the receptionist applied the third coat, Kadin cleared her throat. The receptionist added one more swipe, rubbed her lips together, and snapped her compact shut before turning to look at the new arrival.

  “Hi, I’m Kadin Stone.” Kadin put on her best friendly smile. “I start in Homicide this morning.”

  The woman made a check mark next to the first entry on her schedule and said in a bored voice, “Dr. Combs will be with you shortly. Have a seat.” She flipped her compact open and pulled out a mascara wand.

  Kadin had her choice of brown-polyester-padded chairs in the empty waiting room, so she sat down next to a low table covered in glossies. She might have been tempted to scan through Imperial Society to look at the dresses, if Trinithy hadn’t given her the full analysis the day before. Instead, she picked up Professional Woman. She flipped through the pictures of the latest business fashions, paying particular attention to the shoes. She read the advice column of how to gauge the sincerity of the interest of your male coworkers and skimmed an article about opportunities for women in primarily male professions. She smiled when she saw that detective’s aide was one of their top choices for marital possibilities.

  A condescending female voice next to the reception desk interrupted Kadin’s satisfaction. “Marin, I need to speak to my husband immediately.”

  The speaker had teased her dyed tangerine beehive to twice the height of Trinithy’s and wore a layer of foundation so thick Kadin could see the cracks in it. The woman had pulled her tight black skirt well above her knees, and a V-shaped neckline showed off her significant cleavage. Her purple heels had at least an inch on the ones Kadin had borrowed from Octavira, and the matching eye shadow rose almost to her eyebrows. The newcomer resembled nothing so much as a down-and-out Class D on a corner in the worst part of town.

  Kadin realized she was staring, so she closed her mouth and turned her attention back to the glossy.

  The phone clicked as Marin hu
ng it up. “Your husband will be out in a minute, Mrs. Combs.” The receptionist sounded, if anything, even colder toward the new woman than she had toward Kadin.

  The clacks of Mrs. Combs’s heels softened as she stepped from the tile around the reception desk to the carpet of the main waiting room. She managed the movement with more ease than Kadin would have in such shoes, but her motions were still more gawky than graceful. She snapped open her clutch, and, after a moment of rustling paper, the sound of smacking lips accompanied the scent of fruit gum.

  A few moments later, the door to the back room swung open, and the handsomest man Kadin had ever seen—head mirror on his brow notwithstanding—stalked out. His silky blond hair was a shade lighter than his tanned features, and his eyes were such a bright green that they looked like chips of emeralds. Kadin could barely make out his torso beneath his bulky white medical coat, but she could tell that his job at the agency left him plenty of time to work out.

  The only thing marring the perfect visage was the scowl on his face.

  His nostrils flared when he saw the woman in the purple heels. “What are you doing here, Joelle?”

  If I were married to someone who looked like him, I would consider that my ultimate blessing from the Deity and never ask for anything again, Kadin thought.

  Joelle apparently felt differently. “Don’t you get huffy with me, Jace Combs. I told you I was getting my nails done today, and you didn’t leave me the money for it. What did you expect me to do?”

  Combs clamped his fist around the stethoscope dangling from his neck. “What happened to all the money I gave you earlier this week?”

  “I told you I needed that to get clothes for the club opening last night.” Joelle snapped her gum. “Which you missed, by the way. Everyone kept asking where you were, too. It’s so embarrassing to have to make excuses for you all the time.”

  Kadin could practically see the fury radiating from Combs. “I had to work, Joelle. You remember my job? The thing that gives us money so that you can do things like go to club openings and nail salons?”

  Joelle stuck out her lower lip. “None of the other girls’ husbands work as much as you do. It’s not as if they pay you enough to make it worthwhile. Belina had one of the new Cotillion bags. You know, the one you keep saying that we can’t afford.”

  Combs opened his mouth to respond but paused when he glanced to the side and saw Kadin gaping at their conversation. He pulled a wallet out of his pants pocket and counted out a few bills. “Joelle, I need to get back to work. Take this for your nail appointment, and we can discuss the other things later.”

  Joelle grabbed the money with a huff, then turned and sauntered out without a word of thanks. Kadin snapped her head to the glossy in front of her and scrutinized the images of the season’s best outfits until a shadow fell into her light.

  She looked up to find the blond man raising his eyebrows at her. She studied his face, looking for some flaw but finding none. I wonder if Ollie knows about him and, if so, how he’s refrained from recounting his virtues at every occasion.

  “I’m Dr. Jace Combs, forensic examiner and occasional phlebotomist and upholder of social norms.” His tone was hostile, and Kadin hoped it was leftover anger at his wife and not any kind of judgment on her. “You, I assume, are Caison Fellows’s new aide.”

  “Indeed.” Kadin smiled as she stood, so that he would know she wasn’t offended by his attitude. “I’m Kadin Stone.”

  He looked her up and down, and she stood up taller, knowing she had dressed her best today. Except he must have found something wanting in her appearance because his scowl deepened before he spun away from her.

  He took a few steps toward the back door and looked back at her, which was all the indication he gave that she should follow. She tried match his pace but slowed when she felt her shoes digging into the back of her feet.

  The cold white hallway seemed longer than it probably was, and of course Combs led her to almost the last door in the row. He turned the handle on the door and opened it, and when she caught up, she saw a small room with a paper-covered steel examining table and a balance beam height-and-weight scale. Papers and folders covered the small desk set into the wall, and yellow-brown cabinets hung over the serviceable metal sink. Kadin wrinkled her nose as the smell of antiseptic hit her.

  Combs slammed the door as soon as they entered. “For the sake of the Deity, take off those ridiculous shoes! You can’t even walk in them.” His shoes squeaked against the tile floor as he went to fiddle with the syringe and empty test tube next to the sink.

  Oh, yeah? You try to do any better! she thought, but bit her tongue. She didn’t want to antagonize Combs any further, and besides, her feet practically cried out for a few minutes of freedom. So she sat down in the wooden straight-backed chair next to the desk and removed the offending pumps.

  “All right, you’ve been through this rigmarole before.” Combs handed her a clipboard and pen. “Read the front page, fill out the second, sign, and date. I’ll draw your blood after that.”

  Kadin scanned the top page, and as far as she could tell the form hadn’t changed since her last random blood screening. It probably hadn’t changed in the thirty years since women had entered the workplace in sufficient numbers to necessitate the legislation.

  Nearly a decade before Kadin’s birth, the Assembly had decided that a woman’s first priority would always be to care for any children she bore. Since she could not perform the duties of a career and be responsible for her children at the same time, legislators had deemed any woman who had children or had put herself at risk for pregnancy, i.e., had had sexual intercourse at any point in her life, legally unemployable.

  Kadin checked the box indicating her status—Class E, never had sexual intercourse—and signed to indicate she could pass a drug test indicating she was not taking any contraceptive pills, which were illegal in any case. She skimmed through the other class descriptions. A’s were married and supported by their husbands. Their positions were the most secure, which was why most women sought marriage. B’s had been married but lost their husbands through legitimate means, usually death, and consequently qualified for a government stipend. C’s had never been married but had children, for whose care the state would reimburse them. Neither B’s nor C’s made the kind of money most people desired, but they were better off than D’s. Class D’s were not virgins, were unmarried, and had no children. They had no means of acquiring legal income.

  The system had its flaws, which Kadin had heard Tobin and Leslina, among others, detail many times. But in her experience, a woman who followed the rules and lived a satisfactory life didn’t need to worry, so she tried not to get too upset about the bad cases.

  Kadin handed the clipboard back to Dr. Combs. He ripped the paper out with more vigor than she thought necessary and stuffed it into a large manila envelope labeled “Stone, K.” He grabbed her left wrist and pushed her left sleeve up above her elbow. Kadin would have offered to take her cardigan off to make the process easier, but he had already tied a rubber strip around her arm and was checking for accessible veins with rough fingers. He rubbed iodine on the inside of her elbow, then held up the syringe, giving her a suspicious look as if he expected her to flinch or look away. But Kadin didn’t have a problem with needles, so she met his gaze straight on. She didn’t so much as blink when the point pierced her skin and the rich crimson fluid filled the glass tube.

  “Well, that’s all I need from you, Miss Stone.” Combs kept his eyes fixed on the envelope with her name on it as he slid the sample in. “If there is a problem with your blood tests, we should know within the week. Unless you have any questions, you are free to go.”

  Kadin thanked him with her brightest smile, but his sullen expression didn’t change. She took a deep breath and stuck her feet back in her shoes, trying not to cringe as the nail from her
pinky toe dug into the flesh of the toe next to it.

  She had braced herself to rise to her feet when the door to the exam room swung open, and she found herself looking at a handsome man with eager blue eyes wearing a long beige trench coat. She couldn’t place him at first, asa grey fedora covered his hair and shaded his features, but after a moment she harkened back to the photo Olivan had shown her the night before and recognized her would-be future husband, Dahran White. She stopped herself before her jaw had a chance to drop and craned her neck to check her hair as best she could from her distorted reflection in the doctor’s head mirror.

  Combs turned his scowl on the detective. “White, you know that you are not supposed to interrupt me during employee examinations. You can talk to me in the lab in fifteen minutes—”

  “No time for the attitude today, Combs. We need to hurry.” Dahran’s eyes gleamed like Trinithy’s would if someone told her she won a microwave. “Someone murdered the queen.”

  Chapter 4

  The envelope bearing Kadin’s blood dropped out of Combs’s hands and fell to the floor with a swish. Kadin hoped the test tube hadn’t broken. She didn’t want to come down again.

  Wait a minute. Did he say someone murdered the queen? That didn’t make any sense. The palace retained so many guards Tobin often remarked that they lowered the city’s unemployment rate by at least two percent. Who could get close enough to kill her?

  “Someone murdered the queen? Were her bodyguards incompetent?” Combs’s fingers twitched as he picked up the envelope and set it on the desk. “Wait. Better question. Someone murdered the queen, and we were called in to investigate?”

  “That’s right.” Dahran made a circular motion with his arm. “So if you wouldn’t mind stepping up the pace?”

  Combs ripped the stethoscope from around his neck. “That doesn’t make any sense.”