“A combination of various slovenly habits,” Torin said.
“Not surprising,” Boneen said as he entered. “Efrak makes the gutter rats in the Docklands look positively pristine by comparison.”
“You know him?” Danthres asked.
Boneen nodded. “A tiresome little old man who dabbles in useless magic for the most part. He’s not actually a member of the Brotherhood.”
Torin blinked in surprise. “I didn’t think that sort of thing was permitted.”
“With new wizards, it isn’t.” Boneen reached into the bag he always carried over his shoulder. “But Efrak’s a couple centuries old. He predates the Brotherhood, and they let him be as long as he registered with them and stayed out of mischief.” He pulled the components for his spell out, chuckling bitterly. “That certainly won’t be an issue anymore.”
Torin led Garis toward the back doorway, which presumably led to the kitchen. “Come on, let’s give him some room.”
The primary duty of the magical examine at a crime scene was to cast a “peel-back” spell. It read the psychic resonances on inanimate objects and showed him what happened in the recent past. This generally meant he was able to see what happened, how it happened, and, most important, who did it.
Danthres followed him into the kitchen, which smelled worse than the living room. The place was an even bigger mess, with several part-full mugs of various liquids (or congealed messes that were liquid cone), plates of unfinished food, and still more papers and books freely distributed about the table, chairs, countertop, and cupboard. The cupboard itself was the source of the worst stench. Torin recognized the sigil on the cupboard door as that of a freezing spell, but he also knew that it had to be renewed every few days—something Efrak was no longer in a position to do.
“Why would anyone want to have animate furniture?” Danthres asked.
Torin shrugged. “It gave him someone to talk to? If he lived alone,shunned even by other wizards, he probably didn’t have much by way of social interaction.”
“We should talk to his neighbors, starting,” she said with a look at Garis, “with the one who called you. Take us to her.”
The peel-back generally took half an hour or so, which left the lieutenants with the task of questioning potential witnesses. That pool was fairly shallow. The neighbor who summoned the guard refereed to Efrak as a “stupid old man who talks to himself.” His other neighbor said that he had very few visitors, usually people seeking out potions or other small magicks that they didn’t want the Brotherhood to know about. “Y’know how these young folk are—they think if they don’t tell no one, no one’ll find out,” he said with a wink. That neighbor hadn’t seen anyone go in recently though.
The house was across the street from a park Lord Albin and Lady Meerka had had built a year before as a children’s playground. No one there was particularly helpful: the parents were too busy watching their children, the children were too busy playing, and, since they’d only all been there a few hours at most, it was unlikely that they saw anything useful to the investigation of a day-old murder.
Garis, meanwhile, tracked down two of the Youth Squad and told them to fetch a cadre of guards, since in addition to removing the body they’d need to take the furniture in for questioning.
Boneen came out of the house after a half hour, looking even more sour than usual. “Bad news, I’m afraid. The peel-back was inconclusive.”
Danthres’s eyes flared. An inconclusive peel-back was a rare thing indeed. “Why?” she asked sharply.
“That damned furniture, that’s why!”
Torin closed his eyes and exhaled. “Let me guess. They don’t count as inanimate objects?”
“No,” Boneen said. The peel-back spell only worked on unliving items. The living interfered with the spell’s ability to work—a term that didn’t apply to Efrak’s corpse, of course, nor would it to, say, a zombie or vampire, but apparently did to magically animated furniture.
“We have to remove the furniture, anyhow,” Danthres said. “Maybe after that—”
Boneen shook his head. “Won’t work. Something about the way that old ass performed the spell interferes with the peel-back. I can tell you two things, though. One is that it’s just the lantern, the one chair, and the couch. All the other objects in that house are properly inanimate.”
“And the other?” Torin asked.
“Efrak died about a day ago, and there was someone else in the house yesterday. But I can’t tell you if it was before, during, or after the murder.” Boneen smiled—a most unpleasant expression that didn’t remotely suit him. “Actually, it’s good news for you two, isn’t it? It means you have an actual mystery on your hands.”
“Wonderful,” Danthres muttered.
“Oh, I thought you detective types loved a good mystery.” Boneen was still smiling.
“Actually, we hate them,” Torin said, “with great passion and vehemence. They’re irritating, they involve a good deal of effort, and they tend to be exceedingly messy.”
Danthres nodded in agreement. “I prefer my crimes simple and my criminals stupid and easily found.”
Three guards, each wearing armor with the Unicorn Precinct crest, walked up to the house. One of them said, “Afternoon, Lieutenants. Hear tell we’re, wahddayacall, movers now.”
Nodding, Torin said, “Yes, we’ve got a body, two large pieces of furniture, and a lantern to bring to main headquarters. They’re witnesses.”
“The, whaddayacall, body’s a witness?”
“No,” Torin said with a grin, “just the other three.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t see anything!”
Danthres growled. “How could you not have seen anything? You’re a lantern.”
“I can only see things when I’m lit. Efrak was in one of his—his moods. He was only using candles.”
Danthres sat at the table in one of the interrogation rooms of Castle Guard headquarters. The headquarters were housed in the east wing of Lord Albin and Lady Meerka’s castle, which in turn was located right at the end point of the Forest of Nimvale, the architectural centerpiece of Cliff’s End. Four of the wing’s interior rooms were lit only by a single lantern and used primarily for questioning people. Torin and Dan-thres had found that suspects and witnesses tended to get nervous—and therefore chatty—in rooms that had little light and many shadows.
She had to admit, however, that having two such lanterns—the one hanging from the wall and the one sitting on the room’s only table—diluted the effect considerably.
“Moods?” Danthres prompted after the lantern remained silent for several seconds.
“Oh, he’d just get into one of these things where he’d be experimenting with some magic thing or other. It was always just a phase—he didn’t have any discipline, really. He’d always start something, throw himself completely into it for a while, then abandon it unfinished. But every time he did, all of a sudden it was just candles, candles, candles. I’d sit for days without being lit—weeks, even. It was just awful. I mean, can you imagine having to sit blind all the time?”
Danthres didn’t answer—her first rule of interrogation was that she asked all the questions. “What happened the night he died?”
“I told you, I didn’t—”
“See anything, yes. But I assume you can still hear when you’re not lit, right?”
“Well, strictly speaking, yes, but—”
“So what did you hear?”
A pause. “Well, you see, I wasn’t really paying close attention.”
“You were sulking because he was ignoring you,” Danthres said.
“I don’t sulk!”
She pressed on. “You didn’t like the way he was treating you, so you decided to ignore him. He was treating you like a child, so you were going to act like one.”
“I’d hardly go that far, but—well, it isn’t fair. I mean, if he was going to make my sight dependent on being lit, the absolute least he could do was light
me regularly. But no, he couldn’t be bothered. He just had to study by candlelight. ‘It keeps me pure,’ he used to say. Honestly, such pretentious garbage.”
Danthres got up from her chair and paced around the table, her brown cloak billowing a bit behind her as she did so. “So what happened the day he was killed? You must have heard something, you were right there.”
“Just another one of those idiots that always come in. Even if I had been lit, I probably would’ve ignored him. They just want to use Efrak, you know, try to get around the Brotherhood, like that ever works. Honestly, it’s just so—”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“Not really, but you people all sound alike to me.”
“People—or humans?”
Another pause. “You’re right, it wasn’t a dwarf or an elf—and he spoke Common, so it wasn’t a goblin or anything like that. Besides, I’d’ve been able to tell by the smell, even if that pigsty. No, definitely a human.”
“I saw the whole thing, Officer.”
Torin smiled as he entered the interrogation room. The guards had placed the couch up against the wall and removed the papers and books, though it was still thoroughly stained and dirt-encrusted. At least Torin assumed that whatever encrusted it was dirt. He decided not to inspect it too closely, instead turning the seat at the table toward the couch and addressing it.
“I’m a lieutenant, actually.”
“Look, I saw everything, Sergeant. It was a human, male, young, black hair, blue eyes. Or maybe it was brown hair, but either way it was tied back in a ponytail, and it was definitely dark red hair. And greenish blue eyes. Anyhow, he came in and started bothering poor Efrak. He wanted a charm for this girl he was attracted to. Efrak said he wasn’t licensed for that kind of thing, and the boy went insane. He punched Efrak right in the face, then broke his neck. He seemed a little surprised after that, actually. Got all angry and started yelling at Efrak. At least that’s what it sounded like.”
Torin frowned. “Sounded like?”
“Well, it was hard to get a good look. Efrak tended to leaves lying around, and it makes it hard to see exactly—”
“Good sir, if you could tell me what color my beard is, I’d be grateful.”
“It’s red, of course. But I can see fine now. It’s just—Efrak had all that stuff all over me.”
“You don’t have any idea what the murderer’s hair color is, do you? Or what length it is?”
“Well, not as such, no, but I did hear everything that happened. I can tell you this, too, Captain: he didn’t leave right away. I don’t think he took anything, just threw some papers around.”
“Did you try to stop him?”
“No. I think the chair might have, though. I heard them talking, but I couldn’t make anything out. My hearing isn’t always great with all that stuff, either, to be honest, but I definitely heard that blond-haired boy break Efrak’s neck. Probably.”
“It was just an accident.”
“Really?” Danthres said, gazing upon the chair with annoyance.
“Total accident. Efrak tripped right after that boy who wanted the love potion left. Poor kid, he just wanted to impress a girl, y’know? Why do boys do that, anyhow? Try to impress girls?”
“Describe the boy.”
“He was average height, straight brown hair, blue eyes. No beard, but he was obviously trying to grow one.”
“And what happened when he was there?”
“Not much. He came in, asked Efrak for a love potion. Efrak explained about how those things have to go through the Brotherhood and he wasn’t licensed. The boy whined the way boys do, and then he left, talking about how unfair life is and how he’d never get the girl of his dreams. Kind of tragic, really. Poor boy.”
After several seconds, Danthres prompted. “Then what?”
“Oh, Efrak just tripped on the table and broke his fool neck. At least I assume that’s what broke. His head hit the table, and then he didn’t get up. Silly old man, he was always tripping over things.”
“I hate magic, I really, really hate magic.”
Torin smiled at Danthres’s words as he entered Captain Osric’s office. His partner was already seated in one of the captain’s guest chairs and had made that comment to the head of the Castle Guard. Osric sat behind his desk, his perpetually half-shaven face in its permanent scowl, made all the more doleful by a silk eye patch over his left eye. He, too, had a cloak and leather armor, both emblazoned with an eaglecrest; however, his cloak was red, and presently hanging on a hook on the wall.
Danthres continued ranting as Torin took the other guest chair. “It’s ridiculous. How am I supposed to interrogate someone who doesn’t blink, doesn’t shrug, doesn’t slouch, doesn’t smile, doesn’t—?”
“I get the idea, Tresyllione,” Osric said. He turned his right eye onto Torin. “What did Boneen say, ban Wyvald?”
“To stop bothering him when he’s trying to have a nap.” Torin grinned. “However, I got him to admit that there’s no way to tell if Efrak died by accident. The neck break and the bruising on the side of Efrak’s head are both consistent with Efrak falling into the table, but how he fell is impossible to say.”
“From the sounds of it,” Osric said, “the only reliable witness is the chair.”
“It’s the only one who saw everything,” Danthres said, “but I’m sure it’s lying.”
Osric’s right eye bored into Danthres. “Why would a chair lie?”
“I don’t know, but it’s lying. Efrak was murdered.”
“I agree with Danthres.”
Osric snorted. “As if that’s going to convince me. You two always agree with each other when you’re sitting in this office because you don’t want me to think that you ever argue.”
“That’s absurd,” Danthres said archly. “Torin and I never argue.”
“Yes, we do, actually,” Torin admitted.
“No, we don’t.”
“In any case, she’s still right. Efrak was murdered. Bodies don’t, as a rule, fall down with arms on the side perpendicular to the other furnishings. Someone set him down.”
“Probably our lovesick boy. I want to put his description out to the guard.”
“What description?” Torin asked. “The chair’s the only one who described him.”
“True,” Danthres said, “but it’s the only one of the three who got a good look.”
Leaning back in his chair, Osric said, “This still doesn’t answer the question of why a chair would lie. What’s the motive?”
Danthres shrugged, causing her blond hair to bounce. “Either way,the chair’s description is the only one we’ve got. It’s what we have to start with.”
“It could take days to find him.”
Again Danthres shrugged. “So it takes days.”
The captain pulled out his dagger, grabbed the battered sharpening stone on his desk, and started running the blade up and down it.
Torin scowled under his beard. Osric only started sharpening his dagger when he had bad news to impart.
“The Brotherhood’s letting us handle this—assuming we handle it ‘quickly and properly.’ Translated into Common, that means that we need this case closed by sunup, or they’ll step in.”
“Fine by me,” Danthres said. “Let them have it.”
“No.” Osric leaned forward again and pointed at Danthres with the tip of the dagger. “It’s bad enough that they crawl all over our damn cases from the start when their registered mages are involved, but I’m damned if I’ll let them step on us because we’re not solving the case fast enough to suit ‘em. I want this case closed by sunup, is that clear, Tresyllione?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about you, ban Wyvald?”
“Quite clear, sir,” Torin said quickly.
“See if you can get a better description out of one of the other two, if you’re so sure the chair’s not being truthful.”
Danthres shook her head. “They couldn’t see any
thing. They were all covered in clutter. The chair’s the only one who got any kind of good loo—”
“That’s it!” Torin said.
“What’s it?”
Grinning, Torin said, “The chair’s motive for lying.”
“Did you find that poor boy yet?”
“We’re still looking,” Torin said as he and Danthres reentered the interrogation room where the chair sat. “We were wondering if you could answer a few more questions.”
“Of course. I’m happy to do whatever I can to aid you good people.”
“That’s very considerate,” Danthres said.
“Indeed.” Torin nodded. “You’ve been much more helpful than your compatriots, in fact.”
“Well, that’s hardly surprising,” the chair said. “They’re just a couple of tiresome, filthy little worms.”
“I’m glad you said that,” Danthres said. “That they’re filthy, I mean. We noticed that you were less stained than the other furnishings.”
“Anyof them,” Torin added, “ability to talk notwithstanding.”
“Oh, well, that’s hardly surprising,” the chair said quickly. “After all, I was Efrak’s favorite chair. He always treated me better than the others.”
“Funny, the others never mentioned that.”
“Well, they’re jealous is all.”
Danthres looked at Torin. “I can certainly understand that.”
“Of course,” Torin said with a nod. “After all, if I were a piece of furniture in that house, and some other piece of furniture was singled out for such treatment, I’d be jealous also. But if the chair was his favorite…”
“Yet the other two gave no indication of this exalted status. In fact, they were also surprised when we told them how clean you were.” On those last two words, Danthres turned to the chair. “In fact, the couch opined that that was why your poor, lovesick boy stuck around after Efrak’s death. And why you two were talking.”
Murder by magic: twenty tales of crime and the supernatural Page 30