Solitary
Page 4
CHAPTER 4
Celen entered the questioning room with his usual cocky countenance. From the way he walked he gave the impression that he felt to be above any other living being, which by the way, with a few exceptions, was true.
Grace was sitting stiffly at the table, with a gaze in her eyes which forebode a thug struggle between the two of them to conquer the first place in the ranks of self-confidence.
She wore a tight dark-blue skirt, a matching racket and a plain white shirt, mostly unbuttoned. She had untied her hair, which she usually tied in a flowing ponytail, and looked like someone who is about to explode. Actually she almost always looked like that, even without a sound reason. In this case, however, the reason was obvious; she had been taken from her clinic by two agents in uniform who had forced her to go to the police headquarters. Granted, they had made it clear that she was only to be questioned, still this was no proper justification for such a behavior, from her point of view. It wasn't the first time that the police had to ask her something – as if just being a necromancer meant she had to be suspected of any crime which was even marginally related to her arts – but usually they had the good taste of visiting her in her office instead of dragging her there and waste her precious time. The fact that, at the moment, her time was everything but precious – since she had nothing better to do than sitting in her room whirling her thumbs and hoping for a patient to show up – didn't change the situation. Furthermore, the police couldn't know this.
«I am detective Delmenar», the elf introduced himself. «I am sorry for having you brought here, I have some questions for you». The tone he used to state that he was sorry mostly conveyed the fact that he couldn't have cared less. If Grace had made him notice, that would have been much less annoying for him than what she actually said.
«I was expecting the dwarf.»
«Which dwarf?» he asked, as if he really could have any doubt about the subject of the conversation.
«Your colleague, Stonehand. Usually he's the one to bother me when you decide I might have broken some law.»
«Detective Stonehand is not involved in this case. You will have to answer to me. I hope you're not disappointed». Also this time the meaning of the sentence was completely negated by the tone he had used.
«I still don't know», she replied.
Celen decided to get to the point. «Do you know a miss Lyana?»
«I know a fairy with that name, she works for me. I don't know if she is the same Lyana you are talking about.»
«You have a fairy working for you?»
«I have many people working for me.»
«Doing what exactly?»
«If you really need me to tell you, you must be the only one in the whole city not to know my clinic.»
«I didn't want to know what you do. I was speaking about your employee, Lyana.»
«Adding subjects to sentences helps sometimes, didn't you know?» she said in a sharp tone. «Lyana is a witch, one of the best in her field, like anyone working for me actually. She is specialized in breast modeling.»
The elf seemed a little embarrassed by that. It wasn't the mention of breasts to irk him, rather he was one of those people who cannot accept the idea of someone wanting to modify the shape they were given at birth and trying to change it with the help of supernatural means. Of course he could understand why some inferior races felt the need to improve themselves, but he also knew how hopeless that was.
He let the subject drop.
«When did you see her last time?»
«This morning.»
«Where?»
«At the clinic», she answered impatiently. «I see her there every day, we work in the same place, I thought I had been clear.»
«So this morning she was at work.»
«Should I say it again?»
«It's odd because, see, we found her dead recently.»
«Dead?» unlike the elf, Grace didn't even try not to show the surprise she had felt at that statement. After all, there was nothing she should be ashamed of in not knowing already what she had just been said. The contrary would have been more worrisome.
«So?»
«So what?»
«How do you explain that you said you saw her at the clinic?»
Grace reserved him the same look a frog must reserve to a bug.
«I have nothing to explain. I saw her this morning at the clinic. I never said she was there all morning. She left a few hours earlier because she had something to do.»
«Why didn't you say so before?»
«Because you only asked me when I had seen her last time», she hissed.
«I suppose you don't know what it was that she had to do.»
«I'm not used to mess with the private life of my employees as long as it doesn't come in the way of their work.»
«What if I told you it did?»
«I'd tell you that obviously you know more than me and that I would really appreciate if you got to the point and let me go, I have things to do too». The last thing wasn't true, but even the idea of staying in her office doing nothing was more pleasant than that of dragging on that conversation any longer.
«Fine, then I will tell you what happened. You found out that your employee was about to sign a contract with another clinic...»
«Ah, really?» she interrupted him sarcastically.
He went on, ignoring her. «You had her come to your house, you argued, then...»
«My house?» This time hers was a simple question, with no particular aftertaste.
«The body was found in your garden.»
«In my garden? You found a body in my garden?» she seemed deeply upset rather than surprised.
«Exactly. Are you still sure that you saw her for the last...» Grace didn't leave him the time to complete the question.
«So you're telling me that I found that Lyana wanted to cross over to the competition, although I don't understand which competition we are talking about, and for this I invited her to my house with some mysterious excuse, then argued with her without even inviting her in, killed her and finally went back to work as if nothing had happened?»
«That's what...»
«Leaving the body in my garden!» she had slightly raised her voice, still not enough to be screaming. «So that anyone who found it would think I had killed her! I hope you don't really think I am that stupid!»
«I think you might have panicked...»
«Panicked?»
«... and ran away to find yourself an alibi, not thinking about the consequences.»
Grace stood up, deliberately slowly, ending up towering over the elf and looking him from up above with a killer light in her eyes.
«I», she said stressing the word, «do not panic in front of a corpse. And if I had killed Lyana in my garden I would have commanded her to stand up and go die for good somewhere else; I wouldn't have left them there waiting for some idiot to find her and try to charge me with homicide.»
«Are you saying I am an idiot?» Celen shrieked, almost hysterically.
«There is no need to», she replied. «Now send me the dwarf. I just decided I prefer him».
The face of the elf changed color, first becoming red, then livid. He was about to say something, then he stopped, mouth half open, and left the room, banging the door.