"No he wasn't." Karmane's shoulder slumped. She held a single piece of parchment in her hand, and Fallon held her fingers out. The older woman put the schedule in my wingmate's hand without protest.
"Just because someone is a suspect, it doesn't mean they are guilty," I reassured the woman.
"This is the order in which he is supposed to visit them?" Fallon asked.
"Yes."
"What does Calter look like?" I asked.
"He is tall, skinny, has a mop of blond hair. He'll be with one of our covered donkey carts."
"Thank you for your help. We will return if we need more from you."
"You are welcome," the woman said, but her eyes flashed angrily for a second.
I followed Fallon out of the office and back through the warehouse. As soon as we exited the building, my wingmate's Alula transformed into feathers, and I followed her flight into the sky. She didn't go far, just to the top of Restina's building, where she perched on the roof.
"Let's start from the end and work our way up the list. Look for a cart similar to the ones we saw down below," Fallon pointed at the tavern at the bottom of the list. It was named Malt Pour, and while I never had the money to patronize the expensive restaurant, I knew exactly where it was.
"Got it," I said as I leapt into the air after Fallon. We swooped across the city levels with a gust of wind and passed our nest building on the way to the Malt Pour. I didn't see any donkey carts that looked like they belonged to Restina on the street below, and we were soon hovering above our destination.
"I'll go in and ask. Keep a look out," Fallon yelled over the wind. I nodded at her order, and the blonde woman plummeted toward the building like a stone.
I scanned the crowds below. It was well past dinner time now, and the streets were thick with citizens heading home to rest or to begin their night shift. I didn't see any larger donkey carts on the road, and Fallon exited the restaurant half a minute later. She shook her head at me, launched into the air, and pointed down the road.
We flew for another half a minute, and then my wingmate pointed to the street. There was a donkey cart there, and it had the Restina brand symbol painted on the bamboo side.
Fallon and I fell to the street in a controlled swoop. The broad-featured woman's face split into a grin, and she gestured toward the door.
"Let's go, pigeon." Fallon winked at me, and it almost sounded like she said my title endearingly, instead of as an insult. Then I realized that the woman was pointing to the sign on the door.
"The Spotted Pigeon," I read the name of the tavern with a sigh.
"Yep, perhaps this is your good fortune. Maybe we'll crack the case in here. Get your feathers ready." Fallon pushed open the twin-hinged doors of the restaurant, and I followed her inside.
This tavern sat on the thirty-third level, and the difference in status showed when compared to the interior of the Blue Swill. The furniture was a mixture of wood and bamboo, some of the walls were made of stone brick, and actual paintings hung on the walls. A harpsichord stood in the corner of the room, and a pair of beautiful women performers danced to a three-beat piece being played upon the instrument.
The dining room was about twice the size of Juliana's, but half of the tables were empty. I wasn't surprised, since the suns hung past dinner time. At the far side of the room, I saw four barrels with the Restina brand painted upon their wood, and there were half a dozen stone jugs of rice wine sitting on top of them.
At the corner of the bar stood a tall, lanky man with a mop of shaggy blond hair.
The crowd hushed slightly when Fallon and I entered, but it wasn't as dramatic a silence as when I had walked into the Blue Swill. My wingmate and I walked toward the bar, and I noticed Fallon rest her hand on the pommel of her rapier.
Calter's back was to us, but the barkeep noticed our approach, and his eyes opened with obvious surprise. The blonde man jerked his head around, and his mouth hung open. The expression on his face was a strange mix of terror, hatred, and feral rage.
"Shit. He's going to run," Fallon sighed.
Calter jumped over the bar with an athletic hand spring and dashed through the rear door into the back of the restaurant.
The crowd in the restaurant gasped when Fallon and I sprinted after Ceel. I leapt over the bar first, and my Alula gave me a slight wing-push to sling-shot me through the swinging door. The room back here was a kitchen, and four chefs toiled over various wood stoves, metal fryers, and cutting tables.
The lanky blond man had already pushed passed the workers, and he was just a few steps away from another swinging door.
"Halt!" I commanded, but the shout was more to follow procedure. I knew the man wasn't going to stop, and he didn't.
Calter darted through the next door, and I saw him knock over a large shelf on the other side. I was only thirty feet behind him, and I jumped over the fallen shelf and scattered food ingredients without pause. There was another door at the end of the storage room, and the blond man ran into the orange light of the evening suns.
Before the door closed, he turned and threw something at me.
"Look out!" I shouted as the flaming glass bottle spun through the air. I heard Fallon gasp behind me, but neither one of us had a chance to stop our sprint, and there wasn't enough room in the narrow storage hallway to dodge to the side. Time seemed to slow down, and my muscles felt as if they were filled with adobe brick.
I jumped toward the spinning glass bottle.
It was incredibly risky, but so was trying to sprint past the twirling glass. If it broke against the shelves, Fallon and I would be covered in flames. Our Alulas might protect us from some of the burning, but I wouldn't know for sure, and I didn't want to trust the magic. My hands reached out toward the twisting fire, and my fingers closed around the sides of the bottle. I'd spent most of my childhood tossing rocks with my friends, and I thanked the Priestesses as soon as the moonshine cradled against my leather-armored stomach.
I felt the heat on my chest, and for a fraction of a second I thought that the bottle was going to explode against me despite my catch, but the bottle didn't break. I landed from my leap, stumbled slightly toward the door, felt my cloak transform to hold me steady, and then I burst out the rear of the restaurant with Fallon right at my heels.
"Good catch, pigeon!" my wingmate gasped as soon as the evening suns touched our heads.
Calter seemed to have gained another twenty feet on us, and I could see him turn into an alley behind a distant building.
"I'm going to set this down. I'll catch up!" I said as I put the flaming bottle on the stone road besides the building. My partner grunted, and I heard her boots scrape against the cobblestones of the road as she darted away.
I used the magic blue cape to pat down the flames at the top of the moonshine bottle. The fabric burned as soon as I patted it on the flame, but the black marks healed almost as soon as I pulled the magical cloth away. I had the flame extinguished in a handful of seconds, and I turned around to catch the tail end of Fallon's cloak disappear around the corner.
I figured that I could flank Calter from the air if the man was busy trying to evade Fallon on the ground. My wings formed around my back, and they beat a trio of strong pulls that carried me into the sky. Even just a few feet above the rooflines, the air smelled pure, and I opened the magical feathers to let the wind carry me forward toward the far building.
The blond man was running surprisingly fast, and he'd gained almost a hundred yards on me. Fallon didn't seem to be catching up to him, and as I watched, he leapt on top of a covered donkey wagon, bounded to the nearest building, and somehow seemed to sprint with even more speed across the terracotta rooftop.
I climbed higher in the air and made an estimation of where the lanky runner would end up if I dove toward him. My wings arched behind me, and I fell toward the top of the rooftop. Calter glanced behind him as he ran, but he only seemed to look at Fallon, who had just sprung onto the roof and was gliding toward him. I a
pproached at a higher angle, and I guessed I would be able to take him unnoticed, just as I had done with Ash.
"Stop running!" Fallon yelled after the man, a second before I reached him.
My attack was clumsier than my strike on Ash, but my foot caught him in the side of the stomach, and the strike knocked Calter over sideways like a tumbling horseshoe. He bounced off the terracotta tiles, rolled toward the edge of the roof, and managed to catch the edge of the rain gutter with his right hand.
"That is quite a drop down to the street. Probably thirty feet," Fallon remarked as she stepped toward the edge of the roof.
"Ugh! Help me!" Calter pleaded. He reached his left hand up to grasp the rain gutter, but Fallon's booted toe slid to the edge of the roof and pushed his fingers away.
"I'm feeling a little angry that you tried to burn my wingmate and me alive."
"Shit! I'm sorry. Please, my fingers are slipping." He tried to grab again with his free hand, but Fallon's kick was more aggressive this time.
My heart spun in my chest, and I bit my lip. This wasn't our usual procedure when arresting a criminal, and I was worried that Calter might fall to his death. Then we would have no suspect and an angry captain, and I would feel responsible for not stopping my partner.
"Fallon..." I whispered, but the blonde woman raised her palm toward me to cut off my next words.
"You are under arrest for the murder of Rafa Manus and for assaulting two Potentia. Do you understand the charges?" Fallon sighed.
"Rafa Manus? What? Noooo!" Calter's fingers slipped free of the gutter, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Fallon was already diving over the edge of the roof. I jumped after her and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the woman had caught Calter and was slowly floating to the ground. The man's face was whiter than the clouds floating around the city, and he fell to the ground with a sob when Fallon set him down.
"Stop blubbering, idiot. Did you think you'd actually get away?" Fallon sighed while she bent his arms behind his back and put her handcuffs around his wrists.
I landed next to her and helped her haul Calter to his feet. Tears were streaming down his face, and my wingmate rolled her ice blue eyes at me.
"This guy is something else. First he kills Rafa, then he tries to kill us. Now he's weeping like his favorite leg-ball team lost their district championships. Hey, ass," Fallon grabbed the man's neck and pushed him toward the nest. "If you didn't want to feel the Priestess' justice, then you shouldn't have killed all these people."
"I didn't kill anyone. I didn't even know Rafa was dead," the blond man choked out the words.
"If you didn't know Rafa was dead, then why did you run? Liar." Fallon groaned and then twisted the man's arm to make him walk in-front of us faster. A squad of city guards ran toward us, and my wingmate raised her free hand to get their attention.
"I ran because I had been distributing all of his moonshine under the table. I thought you found out about it."
"Moonshine? What are you babbling about?" Fallon snarled her question.
"Rafa had a serious moonshine operation behind a hidden wall of his cellar. His widow told me about it when I spoke with her last."
"I thought you knew. We probably owe hundreds of gold pieces in taxes. I didn't kill the man, he was like a father to me. Please, when did he die? I've been at work or selling his--"
"Shut up," Fallon held her hand up to his face. "We'll talk to you when we get to the nest. Guards, put him in a cell."
"Yes Potentia," one of the guards replied, and the group pulled Calter away from us.
"I didn't kill him! I didn't!" Calter shouted back over his shoulder while the armored men dragged him away.
Fallon turned to me, and our eyes met. I thought she was going to yell at me, or tell me I was a worthless pigeon that had given her a terrible lead. Instead, her shoulders slumped and she let out a long sigh.
"We will need to question him, but I've got the feeling he is telling the truth."
"Yeah," I sighed and shook my head.
"So, do you have any other leads?" She raised her right eyebrow, and her wide mouth turned into a smirk.
"I actually do," I said as I returned her smile.
"Good, let's make it quick with him and then hit the streets."
Chapter 15
A few hours later, Fallon and I had finished the report about Calter's arrest and his partnership in Rafa's moonshine operation. Fallon had turned the case over to one of the guard lieutenants, and they would do the rest of the legwork with the city tax collectors.
"We aren't any closer to solving the murders, but I haven't seen a tax evasion case this big in ten years. We will at least get a pat on the back from the captain, and maybe even a nod from the Priestesses." Fallon leaned back in the chair, put her boots on her desk, and put her hand over her mouth to hide her yawn.
"I have two more names to investigate, but I'm feeling as if these might be dead ends as well. I also have the names from Garon's ledger."
"There are still a few hours left until the morning briefing. Let's do what we can. She'll be happy with us for catching Montigar and exposing the moonshine operation. There is also a possibility that someone involved in that operation killed Rafa. Perhaps his murder isn't even related to these others."
"Could be," I answered. My shoulders were aching from lack of sleep, but I didn't feel any weight on my eyelids. "Do you know Fontyane Veer?" I asked the short-haired blonde woman.
"Sounds familiar. Should I know him?"
"He is a guard in this nest and apparently saw Rafa. I asked the night shift sergeant, but he said that Veer worked the morning shift."
"I doubt that one of ours would have anything to do with this, pigeon. Who else is on your list?"
"Marcel Jocar. He is a tax collector."
"I know of that man. He's disgusting, but he is one of the Priestess' favorites." Fallon sighed and then ran her hands through her short hair. "Might as well talk to Veer first."
"Should we ask the guards where he lives?"
"If the sergeant doesn't know where he lives, none of the other guards on duty are going to know. We should have his address on file," Fallon said as she stood up from her desk. "It will be in the locked equipment room. This way."
I followed the woman down the hall and tried to keep a smile off my face. It seemed as if Fallon was starting to accept me as a peer, or at least the hatred she seemed to have for me was not as apparent.
"Hey, Lotanna. We need access to the equipment room." Fallon greeted the guard sitting at the metal door at the end of the long corridor.
"Evening, Fallon. Evening, Anelia," the guard woman nodded to both of us. "Sign in please. Captain just got the box of pistols last night. Our orders are not to touch them until we can catalogue the numbers and then issue them. So please leave the crates alone."
"I understand," Fallon said.
"Pistols?" I asked the two women.
"Ahh, you haven't heard. Priestesses are issuing us flintlocks, finally. I'm rusty with my shooting though, and I never wanted to buy one for myself," Fallon said as she stepped into the room.
"Payroll records are over here. I'll take this cabinet, you take that one," my wingmate said after the door had closed behind us, and we both went to work digging through the drawers of sorted papers.
"Is this it?" I asked after we had both searched in silence for a few minutes and I had found what looked to be Fontyane's payroll information
"Yes," she took the paper from my hand and held it up to the evening light streaming through the window.
"He has a house on the thirtieth level," she said and handed the paper back to me.
"That is strange," I said as I looked at the document.
"What is?"
"This was updated last year, when he first joined. His previous job was as an apothecary's apprentice on the fifteenth level."
"And?" Fallon crossed her arms, and her voice carried a rough edge.
"How
does an apothecary's apprentice who worked on the fifteenth level afford a home on the thirtieth? It says here his pay from the nest is ten silver a month. A home on that level would cost at least fifteen a month." I looked to my wingmate after I spoke, and she slowly nodded her head.
"Good eye. Let's go ask him. "
I nodded, glanced back at the paper again to memorize the address, and then followed my wingmate out of the room.
We walked across the bullpen area, and I inhaled the smell of paper, ink, and weapon oil. I didn't see any of my sisters at their desks, but there were plenty of guards filling out reports, processing suspects, and taking statements.
"We'll check the time sheets before we leave," Fallon said, and I nodded. I wouldn't have thought to do that, but that was one of the many reasons that I was paired with a senior partner.
"Sergeant, I need the time sheets for the morning shifts for the last few days. Looking to see when Fontyane Veer signed in for duty."
"Here is the ledger, Fallon." The night shift sergeant was a muscular man named Brok Tearte. He hefted a five-inch thick, leather-bound book onto his desk and then flipped to the last few pages.
"Hmmm. I don't know the lad, but I've heard good things about him. Only been with us a year. Can I help with anything?" Sergeant Tearte asked while he flipped through the ledger. He stopped at a page in the middle and then ran his finger down the list of guard names. "Strange. He didn't sign in yesterday."
"How about the day before?" I asked as the uniformed man flipped to the previous page.
"No, and he missed the day before also. He's missed the last two weeks. I've got a note here; first day he missed was approved by the captain. Sick leave."
"Ocellina approved his absence?" I tried to keep the surprise out of my question, but I knew I did a poor job.
"It isn't uncommon. She's not a hardass. She just approved it. Could have been that Sergeant Beuford didn't tell her it'd go on for this long. He might be on his last warning and could show up today." Brok shrugged his shoulders.
"Thanks, sergeant. We'll see you later," Fallon said to the man. She looked at me, and I got her hint.
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) Page 14