Catching a Man

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  “In the event that Mr. Best declines an investigation, you, as an immediate family member, are authorized to commission one.” Dahran handed Quind a card. “Please keep in mind that evidence that has not been verified by a certified investigation team is not admissible in Valeriel Courts. We have a variety of payment plans for those without insurance, though for a homicide we require a $5,000 deposit.”

  Tears began to stream from Pinky’s eyes once again. “We never should have invested in that new club on the other side of the Triangle. We could afford the investigation if we…”

  Quind glanced toward Skella’s body. “We couldn’t know this would happen.”

  “She was my sister! I should have paid more attention! I should have known…” Pinky looked up as the door to the club opened and a man in his mid-thirties sauntered in. “You!” Pinky’s face contorted with rage, and he sprang toward the new arrival. “You killed my sister, you Deity-misbegotten son of a—” Quind grabbed Pinky’s arms to restrain him.

  Kadin inspected the newcomer. He was attractive enough, with dark hair and strong shoulders, but the coldness in his eyes lowered the temperature of the dance hall by a few degrees.

  “My apologies for my brother-in-law.” The newcomer stepped forward to shake Dahran’s hand, and Kadin couldn’t help but notice similarities in the studied neutrality of the men’s expressions. “He is understandably distraught over the death of his sister. My name is Bryne Best, and as I’m sure these two gentlemen have informed you, I don’t think that a full investigation is warranted in this case.”

  “Of course you don’t!” Pinky lunged toward Bryne but couldn’t break free of Quind’s tight grip. “You did it! I know you did! She came here to hide from you! You’ve been beating her for years!”

  “Hm. That would explain all these bruises.” Everyone turned to look at Corkscrew, kneeling behind the body and holding up one of the victim’s wrists. Kadin and, she suspected, everyone else expected Corkscrew to continue, but he let Skella’s arm fall to the ground and returned to his examination without another word.

  Pinky reached a hand out to Dahran. “Please, you have to help me.”

  The detective didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hart, Mr. Boxer, but in the absence of a deposit or insurance authorization, I am not authorized to conduct an investigation. You have my card, in case you change your mind at a later date, though I caution you to make your decision quickly, as evidence tends to degrade over time.”

  Kadin pretended she didn’t see the slight curl to Dahran’s lip as he turned away. We should do something. Someone should do something.

  A hand slipped into Kadin’s and give it a gentle pat. She started, then noticed Corkscrew had appeared by her side.

  He had a faraway look in his eyes. “You’ll get used to it.” He blinked, and his eyes focused again. “Or maybe you won’t. Not everyone does. They don’t let Jace come when they expect a case seventh. He tends to yell.” Corkscrew shrugged. “That’s the only reason I’m on a case at all. He’s better with people than me.”

  And that’s saying something, Kadin thought, recollecting what she had seen of Combs’s interactions with others.

  Corkscrew ambled over to where Quind and Pinky were standing. He took the film out of his camera and handed it to them. “This has some pictures of the bruising. Sometimes you can get a few clicks in front of a jury before the defense declares the evidence inadmissible.” He looked back over at the body and twisted his lips. “And CrimeSolve has a department that takes on charity cases. You probably won’t qualify, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.” Corkscrew floated toward the door, leaving the couple to stare after him.

  Kadin looked over to Dahran to see whether she should follow Corkscrew out the door, but the detective stood with his eyes closed and two fingers against his temple.

  Kadin smiled to herself. I guess Corkscrew’s intercession wasn’t his first. I wonder what Combs does that’s so much worse.

  “Hey, Quind?” A man appeared in a doorway near the entrance. “There’s someone on the phone for a Detective White. They want to know if he’s still here.”

  Dahran raised his hand. “Yes, I’m here. Where can I take the call?”

  After Dahran disappeared into the office, Kadin made an effort to smile at the people around her, but she soon realized that no pleasant expression would make the situation any less awkward. She murmured something polite and went to wait on the street with Corkscrew.

  A few minutes later Dahran emerged from the club, his expression grim.

  Kadin hurried over to him. “What’s wrong? Who was on the phone?”

  “Fellows.” He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “They found the queen’s guard.”

  “Corporal Strand?” Kadin kept pace with Dahran as he strode over to the autotaxi. “He was missing?”

  Dahran gave his head a short shake. “No, her original guard. The one Strand replaced. They finally found him. He’s dead.”

  Chapter 13

  Second time to the palace this week. The red and orange leaves crunched under Kadin’s feet, filling the air with their crisp scent, as a guard led Dahran and her through the thick woods on the back of the estate. They had dropped Corkscrew off back at the office, since, as the forensic examiner himself said, he wasn’t fit for Imperial company. Trinithy will freak.

  They crested a tree-lined hill and found Fellows, Combs, Inspector Warring, Captain Carver, and half a dozen uniformed guards standing around Kadin’s second dead body of the day. The depressed area next to him remained clear of leaves, and as she got closer, Kadin realized the hole had served as the dead man’s stereotypical shallow grave.

  “…same thing that killed the queen, as far as I can tell,” Combs was saying as the she and Dahran approached. “Of course, since I have no idea what killed the queen, I don’t have much to go on.”

  Bile rose in Kadin’s throat as a sickly sweet smell overwhelmed her senses. She stared down at the purpling corpse and realized that, unlike the two fresh bodies she had seen this week, this one had started to rot.

  “Curses!” Warring glared at Fellows. “You said this morning that the evidence indicated the guards may have overreacted when we assumed homicide. Does this look like natural causes to you?”

  Fellows sniffed and scratched his nose. “I said that I thought we might have made an error suspecting foul play, given the absence of any evidence of injury or poison. Obviously I had not ruled out murder.”

  “Hello, everyone.” Dahran flashed his handsome smile at the team. To defuse the situation, Kadin reminded herself, not to show off his unnecessarily white teeth. “Fill me in on what I’ve missed?”

  Warring’s lip curled, revealing a definitely-not-white bicuspid. “White. It’s about time you got here. These two guards were out on some training mission in the forest.” He thrust his arm at two of the uniformed men, who stood apart from the rest.

  “We weren’t supposed to go in so deep.” The guard fidgeted with the hat in his hands. “But we got a bit lost. We were figuring out how to get back when Saunter here tripped over this weird mound. It looked as if someone had made a great big dirt pile, but no one’s supposed to come back here. We thought we should investigate, so Saunter waited here, while I went back to find some help.”

  Saunter nodded. “A bunch more guards came back with shovels and dug up poor Tailor there.”

  “Carver called us. We rushed over. Combs examined him.” Warring glared at Combs. “He thinks that whatever killed the guard is the same thing that killed the queen. Fellows was explaining to us how that means the queen was not murdered.”

  Harsh, but… Kadin had to wonder if Warring wasn’t right to be annoyed. Since the interview with Lady Beatrin, she hadn’t seen much dedication to the case from anyone but Combs.

  “Maybe they were both killed by som
e new disease strain.” Saunter took a step forward. “I mean, they were always together, it makes sense that they both would have gotten it.”

  As one, the entire party swiveled their heads and gaped at him. Fellows spoke first. “You think he died of a disease and then buried himself in the middle of the forest?”

  Saunter’s face flushed. “Well, maybe the queen did it after he died so no one would find out about the disease. Or maybe a third person with the disease hid the body—”

  Warring whipped a hand up to stop the babble. “Combs, when was this man killed, and how long ago was he buried?”

  “Well, I can’t say for certain.” Combs frowned at the body. “I would say, given the weather and apparent rate of decay, sometime on Sunday or early on Monday. Though it could have been later, because of the cold. I would feel confident timing his death before the queen’s.”

  Fellows lifted his bowler, rubbed his brow, then dropped the hat back on his head. “He showed up for work Sunday but not Monday, so we can assume he was killed sometime between the shifts.” Fellows made a note. “White, when we’re done here, talk to some of the other guards in his barracks, maybe palace staff who would have seen him when he went off duty. See if you can narrow down when he disappeared.”

  Kadin watched as Fellows harassed Combs to get more information. If the guard—Tailor—disappeared on Sunday night, it couldn’t have been Duke Baurus who killed him. The king, his sister, the servants—they all think he killed her in a rage. But he didn’t become angry with her until Monday. Though I suppose Tailor could have died Monday afternoon…

  “Kadin.”

  Kadin broke out of her reverie and remembered to put on a smile for Dahran. “Yes?”

  Dahran grinned at her in return. “I’ve got to run to do some interviews now. Are we still on for tomorrow morning?”

  If I can get Octavira to lend me her yellow dress. “Absolutely! I’m looking forward to it!” Okay, so that was laying it on a bit thick. She tried not to feel as though she should be looking forward to it.

  “Great! See you then.” With a little wave, Dahran turned and followed Fellows and some guards out of the forest.

  Kadin, not wanting to be left behind again, clutched her coat around herself and started forward, but a voice stopped her.

  “You’re dating Dahran White? That was fast.” She turned to see Combs looking at her as if she smelled worse than the body did.

  Kadin stood up straighter and tried not to feel as though Combs had a point. “Yes. What of it?” As if he has any right to judge anyone else’s romantic partners.

  “Nothing.” He snorted and returned his attention to the body. “Your decision.”

  Kadin turned on her heel and struggled to remain upright when the stiletto dug into the dirt. Which made it all the more embarrassing when she decided to turn back around. “Hey, Dr. Combs, wait!”

  He arched his eyebrows at her.

  Kadin eyed the two men left to stand guard over Combs as he handled the body. She moved closer to the doctor and lowered her voice. “You can take this body to the lab, right? So you can do the tests that you didn’t get to do on the queen’s, since they probably had the same cause of death?”

  “Yes, the other guards went to call the transport vehicle.” Combs squinted at her. “Though I’m not at all sure that the causes of death are the same, and this body isn’t in the most pristine condition.”

  “Right.” Kadin took a deep breath. “I was looking into the possibility of magic as a murder weapon—”

  “You were doing what?” Combs raised his voice enough that one of the guards took a step forward, but Combs waved the guard back. “I told you to drop that!”

  Is he surprised at the direction of my work, or that I did work at all? “No, you told me you would not consider it as a cause of death and you did not think further investigation in the area to be wise. And I was going to drop it. But I found myself near a magic shop in Smoke Row, and I thought I might as well make a couple of inquiries. Anyway, I think there might be a way for you to test for magic.”

  “You couldn’t test for magic, even if it did exist.” He lowered his voice even further on the M-word.

  “No, but you can test for some of the marks it leaves.” She explained briefly about the three kinds of magic. “If the killer is a blue mage, we’re out of luck, but a green or red mage would have to leave some trace on the lungs or windpipe that would account for the changes.”

  Combs blinked. “Miss Stone, do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? Magic comes in colors? I think somebody’s having one over on you.”

  Kadin shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Gates seemed to know what he was talking about. Could you at least look? What do you have to lose?”

  “What do I have to lose?” He looked as though he wanted to reach out and shake her. “Our lives, if the Society of Mages exists. And our careers if it doesn’t. Oh, but then I forgot, you don’t care about your career, do you?”

  I’m getting tired of everyone assuming that because I want to get married, I don’t want to do my job. “Maybe not, but as long as I’m here, I’m going to solve the cases I’m assigned to, even if that means going down an atypical alley.”

  “I’m not saying that you’re right, because that would be lunacy, but what if you are?” Combs ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re saying that the person who did this can strangle someone from across the room, and clearly they had no compunction about murdering the queen. You wouldn’t even be a bump in the road for someone like that. You’re better off making the java and staying out of it.”

  Kadin looked at the ground. “Maybe you’re right.” Maybe I am a useless girl, no matter what Tobin thinks. But someone killed Tailor, and that same person probably killed the queen, and whoever that is doesn’t deserve to be walking around free just because he has a power that nobody understands.

  Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face, because Combs’s expression softened. “I do understand. But, the consequences here aren’t making the company look bad or taking a few dollars away from the investors’ bottom line. If the Society is real, and you go against one of their own, you could be risking your life.”

  I don’t want to take on the entire Society! Just the one man who committed the crime! But maybe Combs was right and those things were one and the same. Maybe no good could come of finding a magical killer, even if he had killed one of the most prominent members of Valeriel society. Maybe it’s a good thing no one listens to me.

  But somehow Combs’s threat didn’t scare her as much as the idea that Callista’s killer might get away with murder.

  Chapter 14

  I look like a bumblebee. Kadin watched her reflection cringe. She had convinced Octavira to lend the dress, on the condition that Kadin baby-sit for the next three weekends, but Kadin wondered whether she wouldn’t have been better off confessing she didn’t have a favorite racer. Such an admission couldn’t do her would-be relationship more harm than three unavailable Saturdays.

  She ran her fingers over the black-and-yellow-striped skirt and hoped the polka-dotted bust and halter neck didn’t show too much cleavage. The getup wouldn’t have flattered someone with dainty shoulders and a thin frame, and on Kadin it looked ridiculous. What even possessed Octavira to buy it?

  She took a deep breath. It’s the only yellow dress I have. I’ll wear it this one time, then switch my allegiance to whoever wins this drag. She glanced at the clock. Okay, I should have enough time to get the mud off my shoes before Dahran arrives.

  She rummaged through her bureau drawer, searching for shoe polish, and barely noticed the ringer chiming until Octavira called up the stairs.

  “Kadin! Call for you!”

  Kadin grabbed her shoes and hurried down the stairs, her stockinged feet sliding ag
ainst the wood floors.

  Octavira put her hands on her hips as Kadin passed. “Don’t be long. I’m expecting a call.”

  Kadin dashed into the kitchen and picked up the headset from where Octavira had left it next to the phone. “Hello?”

  “K, it’s me.” Olivan’s voice was mixed with static.

  Kadin wound the phone cord around her finger. “Hi, Ollie. It’s not a great time. I have a date in—” she looked at the clock above the sink. “—fifteen minutes, and I still need to clean up my shoes.”

  “Clean up your shoes?” Kadin could picture Olivan’s raised eyebrows. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  “Is this about Landis Imbolc’s file? I can get that back to you on Monday.” She had read through all the articles again the night before. All sources indicated Lord Landis had ended his affair with the queen approximately a year ago, and the most recent pieces claimed he had left town the day after her murder. He had taken a firm place at the top of her suspect list.

  “What? No.” Olivan let out a breath. “There’s a party tonight at Slides that you can’t miss.”

  Kadin stretched the phone cord across the kitchen and dropped her shoes in the sink. “Isn’t it kind of last minute?”

  “It’s an emergency party,” Olivan said. “Pinky Boxer’s sister got killed yesterday—”

  “Oh, yeah, I was there.” She switched the ringer receiver to the other ear and turned on the faucet.

  “You were there?” Olivan screeched. “Okay, I definitely have to rethink this working in homicide thing. This week alone you got to meet Pinky Boxer and the king.”