by Dan Stout
The apprentice squirmed, and Guyer gave her a concerned glance. I couldn’t imagine that they would keep going for much longer. This time I did jam the intercom button.
“Ask if there was a cop there.”
Guyer’s forehead creased, but she asked the question as requested. Carla-Jean’s whole body was twitching and tears soaked her cheeks.
I reached for the button again.
Ajax murmured, “Carter . . .”
The apprentice was shaking even more, almost spasming.
Angus’s oversized partner broke. “Oh Hells below, let the girl stop, would ya?”
Bryyh moved to the intercom. “That’s enough,” she said.
Guyer took a long step back, then placed the spindle on one of the metal rods that stood upright. She stepped back toward the girl and lifted a pair of scissors. For a dreadful moment I was afraid of what she was going to do, but she only snipped the ribbon off, and the last of the silk snaked through Carla-Jean’s tongue.
Cord cut, the girl collapsed. Guyer carefully lifted her assistant’s head and looked in her eyes. She whispered something into the younger girl’s ear, and Carla-Jean nodded. The DO handed her a small vial of balm, and patted the girl on the shoulder.
Guyer looked toward our group. I wonder what she saw in the mirror. Did she only see her reflection, a white-haired woman with bloodstained hands? Or did she see something more? Because I know that when she stared at that mirror, it was our shock and discomfort that stared back at her.
She straightened her back and smiled.
“You can come in now.”
11
WE LEFT THE OBSERVATION AREA and entered room 5D. Despite Guyer’s assurances, the smell of cinnamon was in the air, along with the distinctive tang of fresh blood.
By the time our solemn little procession moved into the larger room, the bucket of viscera had been covered and the apprentice had moved off to the side. The girl sat slumped over, her shoulders draped by a blanket. A long string of crimson-tinged spittle trailed down her chest.
Guyer had tied the end of the ribbon to another spindle, this one empty, and was pulling the silk from the one onto the other. She spun them both, and the ribbon reeled rapidly, but there was a pattern visible, dancing along the silken surface. The spindles slowed, and it became clear that the pattern was a kind of writing. When all the ribbon transferred there was a click from the reel-to-reel, and I realized that it had been rewinding as well.
Guyer said, “I’ll need someone to work the recorder.” She turned her head. “Carla-Jean—”
“Leave her be,” Captain Bryyh said. “I’ll work it.” She stepped away from our little group, and I realized that we’d been huddled together as tightly as we had been in the small observation booth. I looked at the shivering form of Guyer’s apprentice, and I was very grateful to not be a sorcerer.
Bryyh stuck her head out into the hall and barked at the patrolman there. “Get a fan to air this room out.” She paused. “Check that. Get as many fans as you can find.” She walked back into the room and Guyer nodded at her.
“Ready when you are, Captain.”
Bryyh hit play, and the DO’s voice came over the speaker. I didn’t check to see if the others winced at the words “Oracular Tongue” this time, but I know I did. As the recording of Guyer’s chanting played, the DO found the spots in the blood-ribbon that matched the recording. At the first question, “Are you there, Garson Haberdine?” Bryyh paused the tape, and Guyer read the writing from the ribbon.
“I am here.” She spoke in a monotone. “Though I should be gone. I ache to depart. Please. Please, let me go.”
I was growing to hate every aspect of divination.
Bryyh kept the pause button down. “Did he actually talk like this, ‘I ache to depart’ and stuff like that?”
Guyer shook her head. “No, it’s a . . . kind of a translation.”
Bryyh played the tape and we got to the real questions.
There was a disconnect between DO Guyer’s matter-of-fact reading and the agonized pleading that filled Haberdine’s responses that somehow made the whole experience worse.
“A discarded candy, wrap on the floor. Intimate oceans of nothing. Now I am alone and cold.” She scanned ahead. “And then it’s just screaming for a while.”
She went on like that, relating the words of Haberdine’s echo. Some of what the victim had to say was useful. He didn’t know his attackers, for example. And the response to the question about a cop in the room was “One yes, one no, one big, one small. Both deadly.”
In between each question and answer came the same pleas, directed at Guyer: “Why won’t you let me go, why can’t I go?”
I put my hands against the wall and let my weight sink into it.
“What are we doing to this guy?” I surprised myself by saying it aloud.
Guyer’s head snapped around. “You want Mister Haberdine to walk the Path eternal? Catch the killer. Till then, I’ll keep him where we need him.”
Angus rolled his eyes. “We need a description of who was there, some kind of identification more than vague contradictions.”
Guyer tucked a white curl behind one ear. “I can pull his echo in closer to us. Creating a link is easier than breaking it,” she said. “If we’re going to do it, we should do it now, while the Haberdine and my apprentice are still bound.”
Beneath her blanket, young Carla-Jean shuddered. Manna bound items like glue—whether it was pre-Shortage factories of wheat threshers and butter churns or the echo of a murder victim and an oracle, it took a sorcerer’s skill to sever a magical connection. She would be linked with Haberdine until the DO broke it.
“But if you want clearer communication I’m going to need a lot more blood,” Guyer said. “And even with that I can’t guarantee the information will be usable. Sometimes the dead don’t give straight answers no matter what we do.”
Bryyh held up her hand. “No.” She stepped into the center of the room. “No one’s shedding more blood right now. We’re going to review what we learned today.” She raised her brows and peered at Guyer. “You look after that girl.” Her gaze lingered on the DO long enough to make it clear there would be no more sorcery that day.
Bryyh turned to face us, one hand on her hip, the other pressed against her forehead.
“Haberdine had a candy in his room, or at least wanted one there.”
Angus ran a finger along his collar, pulling it away from his speaking mouth. When he spoke it was slow, thoughtful.
“The candy killing Bengles and I got assigned this afternoon,” he said. My stomach tightened. “It felt off. The girl had her throat slit. And someone tried to make it look like a robbery. Purse was gone, but her money belt was left behind.” His mandibles spread and closed. “A pimp would have wanted everyone to know it was business-related. A real mugger would’ve searched the body.”
Even with those details, Angus hadn’t wanted the case. It wasn’t political enough for him.
Ajax poured a sip of coffee down his throat and asked, “What was this candy’s name?”
Angus grunted and looked at Bengles, who said, “Stacie something.”
Kravitz’s brow creased and Ajax looked at me expectantly. I couldn’t avoid it, so I pulled Stacie’s photo from my jacket.
“Was this her?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Angus. “Where’d you get that photo?”
“The Eagle Crest security camera,” said Bryyh.
Kravitz put the pieces together. “That’s the girl your candy told you about.”
With no other option, I brought the others up to speed with what Talena had told me about Stacie, and how that had led to the interview with Gellica. At least I got to see Angus’s face when he heard we’d interviewed a high-ranking AFS diplomat.
But he was quick to pivot, claiming the mor
e important case.
“The candies could be the key to the whole thing.” Angus raked a hand over his plated head like he was mugging for a camera. I could almost see him calculating the potential media coverage if his new case tied into the Haberdine killing. “I’m hearing rumors of a candy blackmail ring from my CIs.”
I forced my fist to unclench. Hells. I had to get in front of this before Talena’s name was dragged into the spotlight. Before mine was.
“Same here,” I said. “But I’ve heard about kids forcing johns to give up the candy habit. Nothing like the kind of thing we saw at the Eagle Crest.”
Angus snorted. “Blackmail’s blackmail.”
“But it isn’t murder,” I said.
“No, but blackmail creates pressure, which makes people desperate,” said Kravitz. “Desperate people do desperate things.” I hated him for being right.
Bryyh dropped the hand from her forehead and squinted at me. “What was with the question about a cop in the room? What do you know, Carter?”
I squared my shoulders. “Nothing for sure. Haberdine’s killer was out of control, but that scene was picked clean, like a pro had covered it up. Someone who knew how cops operate. An ex-cop who just got out of lockup would be willing to do desperate things to get reestablished.”
Bryyh rocked back on her heels. “Flanagan.” Her eyes darted back and forth, her mind whirling through the probabilities while also juggling political and press angles that I couldn’t imagine.
Angus spoke up. “Everyone knows that Carter’s got a hard-on for Flanagan. That doesn’t mean he’s the one who tore up the Squib.”
Bryyh nodded slowly, apparently taking that into account. She said, “He’s still a good lead. We know he’s violent and we know he could pull off presenting himself as a cop. He’s also probably hurting for money.” She looked at me. “Do you know where he’s at?”
“Gone to ground,” I said.
“Hiding from something in particular, or just hiding?”
“Can’t say. But it’s a strange coincidence that he’s disappeared right now.”
Bryyh made a low noise. “We need to end this.” Eyelids drooping from exhaustion or concentration. “Work every lead you’ve got.”
Kravitz nodded. “That works for me. Carter and Ajax, you take Detectives Myris and Hemingway and a patrol team. Find Flanagan and bring him in for questioning.”
I raised a hand. “How fast can we get a warrant?”
Kravitz shrugged me off. “The way city hall’s in a panic? For the Haberdine case any judge will issue a warrant on demand.” He pointed at Angus and Bengles. “You two, pull Abrams and Bierce off whatever they’re wasting their time on, and requisition a patrol squad if you need one. Find these blackmailers. If it’s a candy, turn the streets upside down. If it’s a Therreau, handle it with the community liaison. Be quiet, but do what you need to. No kid gloves—if the farmers don’t like us around they can file a complaint. The whole political thing is already blowing up in our face. Any questions?” He looked at the four of us. “Then get out of here and let’s end this thing.”
We filtered into the hall and left the DO to tend to her apprentice. Jax and I walked down the hall while the others talked. My stomach ached. Like everyone, I’d grown up on tales of pre-Shortage magicians and mechanical marvels. But the sorcery we’d just witnessed hurt the living and tortured the dead. More innocent lives shredded in the pursuit of justice. Among police there’s an age-old technique to cover your own anxiety: making fun of it in others. I decided to carry on that tradition.
I asked Ajax, “You still hoping to see a little magic? Maybe some disappearing bloody footprints?”
“No,” he said, not playing along. “I’ll be fine if I don’t have to see anything like that again.” He glanced at the others down the hall, then motioned for me to duck my head closer to his talking mouth so I could hear him whisper.
“You’re completely crazy,” he said. “We’ve got nothing on this Flanagan guy but your hunch.”
I spoke into his small nub of an ear. “It’s not a hunch. It’s logic.” I dropped my ear to his shoulder level once again. It’s much less complicated to whisper strategy with another human.
“We’re going to be wasting time.”
I stepped back. “You said I’ve got a reputation.” He started to answer but I cut him off. “Is that reputation that I fail to close cases? Or is it that I piss off too many people along the way?”
He gave me a long stare. “There’s also the reputation for drinking,” he said.
I put on my best pained grin. “Okay, fine—”
“And the one about generally being an asshole.”
I swallowed my response when Angus and Bengles came around the corner.
They caught up to us as the elevator doors opened. We climbed in and Ajax hit the button for the third floor. Angus punched the ground floor button and adjusted his tie. I figured he was giving his speaking hole more room to flap. He didn’t disappoint.
“You know,” he said, “Flanagan’s a waste of time.”
I shrugged and bobbed my head to the rhythm of the elevator’s muzak. “He’s a better bet than some street candy barely old enough to hold a gun, let alone tear a Squib to pieces.”
“I don’t know. Squib stink turns you humans pretty bestial. Judging from your face at the Eagle Crest, I’d have thought you learned that firsthand.” Angus glanced at his human partner. “No offense, Bengles.” She grunted, though out of consent or disinterest, I couldn’t tell. I ignored her and kept my eyes on Angus.
“Only thing I learned there was that you know how to get in front of cameras and you can’t secure a crime scene for shit.”
Angus’s mandibles twitched and his biting jaw clicked. “You know, you’re more pathetic than I ever—”
Jax cut him off with a flow of words in the musical Mollenkampi language. A baritone arpeggio of notes from his biting mouth matched by a delicate bird song of melody from his speaking mouth. Angus clenched his fists and leaned forward. Jax didn’t back down.
The elevator slowed its descent, and announced our arrival with a ding that provided a way to make our exit without coming to blows. I patted Jax on the shoulder and we left the cab. Angus and Bengles continued their ride down to the garage. When the doors closed I gave Ajax a sidelong look.
“Thanks, partner,” I said.
I turned around and faced the pool of detectives. They were working phones, shaking trees, hitting countless dead ends but always crawling forward. For the first time in a long time, it felt like I was where I belonged. I had a partner, I had the resources of a team at my disposal, and I was determined to find my man and prove my case. And if things might end badly? Well, that’d never stopped me from seeing it through to the end before.
12
THE NEXT MORNING DETECTIVES MYRIS and Hemingway sat at desks pulled adjacent to ours. It was a makeshift place for our team to strategize. I wasn’t sure what was more bizarre: the nature of the crime we were investigating, or the idea that I had a team.
Myris was a Mollenkampi whose foot kept constant cadence to a beat only she could hear. Hemingway was a human with blond hair in a tight ponytail, showing off earrings that were a touch too long for regulations. They were both flipping through the files I’d given them on Flanagan. Their job was to track him down.
“Check with his parole officer,” I said. “Be sure to ask where Flanagan would be staying if not at his registered address.”
Hemingway popped her gum. “I know how to find a target.”
“Yeah. I’m just telling you—”
“How to do my job.”
I pointed to my partner. “Jax, can you do something for me?”
Jax nodded his plated head.
“Call Gellica. I want the two envoys she gave us. What’re their names—” I snapped my finge
rs.
“Lowell and Cordray,” he said.
“That’s them. Get them down here in separate cars. Unmarked. Let’s try not to rattle any PR cages today.”
Jax hesitated.
“You’re thinking Angus has the candy angle,” I said. “I don’t care about how the envoys are connected to the candies. If Flanagan’s the button man on the Squib, then our job is to find out how he’s connected to these diplomats.”
“On it,” he said, and reached for a phone.
I turned to Hemingway and opened my mouth, then looked back to Jax. “While you’ve got her on the line, find out if we can meet with her again, too. She claims to be eager to help; let’s see if we can put her to work.”
Ajax punched up an external extension and I pointed at Hemingway.
Myris leaned forward. She had the thinner head plates typical of female Mollenkampi. “We’ve got the file,” she said. “Is there anything you’re gonna tell us that isn’t already in it?”
I considered her question and dropped my hand.
“No.”
“Then let us find your guy. You go prove that he did the crime, and we’ll have him on a platter waiting for you.”
* * *
With the rest of Team Carter occupied, I reached for a phone and dialed Talena’s apartment. It was probably my twentieth call since the day before, when I’d heard the news about Stacie.
The phone rang, and I muttered to myself like a gambler urging on a horse from the stands: Pick up, pick up, pick up.
People die. Sometimes they kill themselves, sometimes they kill each other. Maybe they overdose or walk in front of a bus. Stacie’s death could mean anything, or nothing.
There was a click as the line engaged, followed by the hiss of audio tape. Answering machine.
“Hi. If you’re calling me, then you know who I am. Let me know who you are and I’ll consider calling you back.”
I counted the gap between the end of her message and the beep. Each message left on the tape added to the length of the gap. This one was short, which means she’d checked her messages and chosen not to call me back.