Rangers at Roadsend

by Jane Fletcher

  “How many of these reputed cats are there?” Lee asked.

  “If the report is from a farmer named Wisniewski, it will be hundreds,” Katryn interjected.

  Chip shook her head. “Only three or four. The sightings are off to the southwest. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too far to do the round-trip in a day, so we’ll be throwing ourselves on the mercy of local farmers for lodgings. And in these parts, the farms will be…?”

  “Sheep.” Katryn provided the information. “Lots of sheep. There’ll be no shortage of mutton stew and blankets.”

  “Could be worse.”

  The briefing continued. Chip gave what further information she had, supplemented by Katryn’s knowledge of the surrounding countryside. When the facts were finished, the debate became more spirited, with jokes and laughter, ending with anecdotes about mountain cats.

  Katryn gave the appearance of joining in, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Since she had joined the Rangers, she had served under two sergeants. It hardly seemed possible, yet being back at Roadsend had made the differences between them even more pronounced. There could not be the slightest doubt about whose patrol she would rather be in, but the situation did present opposite problems. One sergeant she had hated, and the other she liked far, far too much.

  *

  From the doorway of the lockup, there was a clear view straight across the middle of the parade ground. The admin building and A Patrol’s bunkhouse obscured opposing corners, but no one could cross from the stores to the bunkhouses without being seen. Katryn considered the line of sight for a few seconds and then gave her attention to Chip, who was experimenting with standing guard by the door.

  “I guess they might have missed someone if they’d had their eyes closed.” Chip’s tone was ironic.

  “Dolokov thought they might be inside talking to the prisoner.”

  Chip’s eyebrows rose. “She was seriously suggesting that discipline in the 12th is that bad?”

  “I think she was just desperate to show I was the murderer.”

  “And she wasn’t going to let the truth stand in her way.” Chip grinned supportively. “Come on; next stop is the stables.”

  Katryn trailed a half-step behind as they crossed the parade ground. She knew why Chip wanted a full tour of the scene of the murder. She had even heard a few rumors in the squadron that Chip was in some way responsible for the 23rd’s being loaned to Eastern Division in the first place. Katryn had mixed feelings. To say that being proved innocent would be a relief was an absurd understatement. But what hope was there that they would find proof? Katryn wondered whether the only thing they would get was more doubts, and she did not know whether she could take that.

  At the stables, Chip stood in the doorway, craning her neck one way and another, evaluating the angles.

  “I was mainly sitting with my back to the doors.” Katryn volunteered the information.

  Chip wrinkled her nose in thought. “Wouldn’t matter which way you sat; you’ve only got a very oblique view of the door to the stores. You couldn’t even tell if it was open or closed.” Her eyes lifted to the sky. “What was the light like?”

  Katryn stood by her shoulder. “It was full daylight when I started and a bit darker than now when the body was discovered. It was a couple of hours later than this, but it was near midsummer.”

  Chip nodded and led the way up the passageway behind the mess hall. At the door to the stores, she pulled a key from her pocket. A shudder ran through Katryn as she entered, but once again, any bloodstains had long since been removed.

  “Are there any significant changes?” Chip asked.

  Katryn paced a slow circuit of the room. The piles of crates had been shifted around, and the general level of stock was noticeably lower, but there were no other changes that she could see as being relevant. Chip followed, stopping once to examine the ventilation gaps at the bottom of the wall facing the mess. The openings were at most fifteen centimeters high. Iron bars fixed into the concrete were starting to rust, but not enough to compromise their effectiveness.

  Katryn stood uncertainly in the center of the room, looking around. The scene felt unreal. “I didn’t expect to be back here so soon.”

  “Yes...well…um...it’s how things worked out.”

  Katryn glanced across. The evasiveness in Chip’s voice was unmistakable. There was something the sergeant was not saying, and she had deliberately turned her back to keep her face hidden.

  Katryn watched her clamber over a stack of crates. Then she felt herself staring, drinking in the details of Chip’s body. Maybe the dreamlike air was due to the company. Chip managed to seem twice as real as anyone else Katryn had ever known. Was it surprising that the surroundings appeared to be insubstantial by comparison? Sometimes, she could swear that Chip’s smile literally made the room brighter.

  Chip moved on to the loading bay at the rear of the storeroom. After examining the door, she took the key from her pocket again and unlocked it. The wharf was empty. The river looked bleak in the sullen light. Directly below, at a drop of at least two meters, a narrow ribbon of ground ran along the bottom of the wall. Immediately beneath the lip of the door, a row of iron spikes was hammered into the wall. Each skewer had two barbs, one pointing out and the other hooked down. Chip took two of the boards that made up the bridge, laid them across the gap to the wharf and walked out.

  While Katryn waited in the doorway, Chip took a few minutes surveying the entire riverbank. Then she came back, shut the door and locked it. They left the stores and continued around the site. Chip spent some time examining the end of the alley beside the kitchen, where it met the outer wall, but still, she said nothing. They stopped once more before leaving the barracks, when Chip went into the officers’ block to return the storeroom key,

  The others from C Patrol had gone into town to find a tavern. Katryn was expecting to join them, but Chip had not quite finished. At the side of the barracks, there was a gap between the walls and the back of a row of shops. From what Katryn could see, it was not so much a path as a place where people dumped rubbish. This did not deter Chip from making her way along it. The ground sloped away steeply at the end to bring them out on the banks of the river. Chip stood with the water lapping a few centimeters from her toes.

  The light was failing rapidly. The far bank was disappearing into the gloom. Chip turned left and walked a few steps until she stood under the rear door of the stores. Katryn looked up at the spikes projecting like claws over Chip’s head—a powerful disincentive to climb up.

  Chip took a few more steps along the bank. Ice fringed the edge of the river. The only sound was the slop of cold water against the frozen mud. The dusting of snow was marked by the footprints of birds and one lone dog, but nothing larger.

  Chip turned back and rejoined Katryn at the end of the alleyway. The building ahead jutted out a good meter into the river. Its walls rose directly from the water. There were deep crevices where the mortar between the stones had been partly washed away. Chip patted her hand against the stones. A trickle of cement dust drifted down onto the snow.

  “Would this be the back of the White Swan Inn?” Chip threw the question over her shoulder.

  “Er…yes, I think so,” Katryn replied.

  Chip took a few steps back, craned her neck to peer around the corner and then walked back to the wall. Her fingers explored the gaps between the stones. There was no shortage of hand and toeholds. Within seconds, she had scrambled out over the water and disappeared around the corner.

  “It’s all right, Katryn; come on up here,” Chip called.

  Katryn removed her gloves and followed. Around the other side, she saw a wooden quay running the entire length of the tavern’s rear wall. Chip was standing there, waiting. Katryn negotiated the last few handholds and clambered up to join her.

  Farther along, a flight of steps led up to street level. A door in the wall near where they stood was the only other way off the quay. Chip pushed experimentally, and the do
or swung back, revealing a large courtyard open to the sky, with mildew-covered cobbles. A row of barrels lined the far wall. In one corner was a small building housing the latrines. A short flight of steps led down to the cellar. Another flight went up to a door that, from the noise coming through it, could only lead to the taproom.

  “The rear exit,” Chip said thoughtfully.

  “This is definitely the back of the White Swan,” Katryn confirmed. “I’ve been here a few times, though I’ve never come in this way before. I can see they’d use the door for delivering barrels, but I don’t know how often it’s left open.”

  “We could ask, but I’d guess it’s open whenever the tavern is. The landlady wants to get drinkers into her taproom. You don’t do that by locking your doors, and barge crews make good customers.”

  The two Rangers walked up the steps and into the inn, where they were enveloped by heat and noise. Even before their eyes adjusted to the light, a loud whoop caught their attention. The rest of C Patrol was already there—not so surprising, since the White Swan was the first tavern encountered on the way into town. Chip and Katryn stripped off their cloaks and wandered over, smiling, to take their places at the table with their comrades.

  Katryn had no opportunity to speak to Chip privately or to get any hint about what she was thinking. As the evening progressed, Katryn’s eyes strayed anxiously in Chip’s direction. Now that they had returned to Roadsend and had the chance to look at the site, it seemed even more impossible to understand how Ellis had been murdered. Katryn prayed that Chip was not reconsidering ideas about her innocence. She needed Chip to believe in her. She wanted Chip physically. Her body ached at the thought of lying with Chip’s arms wrapped tightly around her. But she could live without that. She could not live without Chip’s trust.

  *

  The two patrols rode out the next day and returned to Roadsend four days later. Their hunt had found only one geriatric cat, too sick to hibernate, that had done them the favor of dying a few hours before they caught up with it. It was after midday when the Rangers arrived back at the barracks. Chip announced that C Patrol would stay at Roadsend for the night and set off for Eastford the next morning—a reasonable decision from the point of view of the horses, even without other motives.

  The current opportunity was one that she did not want to waste. It appeared that LeCoup had gotten over her anger. C Patrol had been sent to Roadsend at the first excuse. Chip was sure that it was a dual message—not that LeCoup approved of meddling with the squadron’s deployment, but like her, LeCoup wanted the murderer caught. It was also a demonstration of how much easier it was to get things done if you had LeCoup on your side.

  The members of the two squadrons got on well together. If the Rangers from the 8th had heard stories on the divisional grapevine, they did not connect the murdered sergeant with Katryn, and no one had taken steps to enlighten them. After lunch, the returning Rangers were given some free time, which they took as a good excuse to arrange an intersquadron game of football in the parade ground. Chip was tempted to join in, but she had more important things to do.

  She left the bunkhouse, heading for the gates. At the edge of the parade ground, she paused, watching the two teams. Chip could not help it; the sight of Katryn darting past opponents with the ball was hard to tear herself away from.

  By force of will, she shunted her gaze to the opposite corner of the square. At the door to the kitchen stood a round, middle-aged woman in civilian clothes. If she was not a cook, she was going out of her way to look like one. The woman’s eyes were also following Katryn—but, Chip suspected, for very different reasons from her own. It occurred to Chip that the cook might be worth talking to, if there was time, but she was not at the top of the list.

  Chip headed into town. The streets were busy, and she had no trouble getting directions to the Militia station. When she arrived there, she found that Lieutenant Sanchez was not only on duty, but also available to see her right away. Chip took a seat in the cramped office and considered the woman on the other side of the desk, wondering how best to play it.

  “How may I help you, Sergeant?” Sanchez kicked off the conversation.

  “Er...yes, ma’am. I understand that there was a murder at the barracks here a few months ago.” At Chip’s words, the lieutenant’s eyes narrowed, though she made no attempt to interrupt. “It happens that one of the suspects was transferred to my patrol. Obviously, I’m not too happy at the thought of a subordinate who makes a habit of sticking knives into officers she doesn’t like. Equally, I don’t want false accusations thrown at a blameless member of my patrol.”

  “Private Nagata?” Chip nodded in answer. Sanchez continued, “I sent a report to your captain. Did that not answer your questions?”

  “Officially, yes. But I was wondering what you might be able to tell me—off the record. It would be nice to have some idea who the murderer was, even if I can’t prove anything.”

  Sanchez sat back in her chair. “Personally, I’m certain that it wasn’t Nagata. Unless I’m missing something obvious, the murderer has no shortage of brains and imagination. You can bet she is someone who arranged things so that suspicion didn’t land on her. Her only mistake was not allowing for the age of the knife. If it hadn’t been for that slip, your Private Nagata would’ve been dangling from a noose months ago, and no one would now be any the wiser.”

  “Do you have any idea who the murderer might be?”

  “None at all. You’re welcome to go through the statements I collected to see if you can spot anything I missed. I hate having unsolved murders on my watch, but I’ve more or less given up on this one.”

  Chip subjected Sanchez to a shrewd look. “You don’t strike me as the sort of woman to give up easily.”

  A flush of annoyance darkened the lieutenant’s face. “It’s a question of jurisdiction. The official story is that a gang of thieves obtained a duplicate key to the stores. They got in via the rear door but were disturbed by Sergeant Ellis. They wrested the trail knife off her and killed her before fleeing. The story also has it that Sergeant Ellis swapped knives with Private Nagata before leaving the bunkhouse, for reasons that she is now unable to reveal.”

  “But you don’t believe that?” It was half question, half statement.

  “No. Sergeant Ellis was killed by a Ranger. However, Captain Dolokov of the 12th was not”—Sanchez paused, scowling—“helpful. She did everything she could to block my investigation inside the barracks while trying to pressure me into wasting time chasing after this nonexistent local gang.”

  “Why are you so sure it was a Ranger?”

  Sanchez hesitated and then held out her hand. “Can I see your trail knife?” Chip drew it from her belt and handed it over. She watched as the lieutenant studied the knife pensively, rolling the handle between her fingers. The blade was twenty centimeters long, weighted at the end for both hacking and thrusting, sharpened to a razor edge.

  It was nearly a minute before Sanchez spoke again. “It’s a nasty piece of weaponry, dangerous in anyone’s hands. But to be really effective, it needs a trained user. I’d have stabbed Sergeant Ellis holding it like this.” She indicated with the blade. “But the person who killed Ellis held the knife like this.” She rotated her wrist so that the blade lay horizontal. “Now that I’ve seen how it’s done, I can work out why. The blade slipped between the ribs, with less risk of deflection and minimal blood spilled. And it was a single thrust straight to the heart—no retries or prodding about.” She shook her head. “I don’t have the training to do that, and there aren’t any local thieves who do, either. Plus there was no sign of a fight in the stores. The murderer was someone Ellis knew.”

  “And you really have no ideas who?”

  Sanchez shook her head. “Normally, I’d try to identify motive and opportunity. But opportunity is a nonstarter; everyone has an alibi. And as for motive…” She sighed. “If you dig around, everyone had a reason to want Sergeant Ellis dead. I know Val Bergstrom q
uite well...the lieutenant of the 12th. She’s a local girl. Did her time in the Militia with me here in Roadsend. Whenever the 12th is posted here, we get together for a drink and a chat. From what she’s told me, my main surprise is that Ellis didn’t get murdered years ago. It could’ve been virtually anyone in the entire squadron. Work out how the killer did it, and I’ll tell you her motive. The only thing I—” Her voice cut off abruptly.

  “The only thing…?” Chip prompted.

  Sanchez leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Okay. This is completely off the record. Right?”

  “Sure.”

  “It was just…Dolokov was so keen to stop me from probing into the murder that I sometimes wondered if she knew who it was and didn’t want to lose that person over Ellis. Maybe it was just frustration leading me into paranoia, but my only advice is to start by working out who are the most valuable members of the squadron.” Sanchez pushed back from the table and stood up. “And now…do you want to look at the statements?”

  “Oh, yes, please.”

  “They’re over here.” Sanchez led the way.

  *

  Chip returned to the barracks some time later. The football game was over, and a gentle snow had started to fall. There had been no surprises in the statements. The six women in the tavern all swore independently that none of the others had disappeared for part of the evening. The sentries outside the lockup swore repeatedly that they had not lapsed in their attention. And both Bergstrom and Adebayo swore that they had been in each other’s company all evening.