ARC: The Buried Life

by Carrie Patel

  “Over an hour ago. Someone had to keep an eye on things while you were running around.” He pushed a lantern into her hands.

  Malone caught a whiff of whiskey sourness on his breath. “Smells like you had company.” Stepping over the debris, she lit the lantern and called the elevator to the main residence. Carlyle followed close behind. They squeezed into the elevator cage together, and his breath filled the space for the eleven seconds of their descent.

  The elevator settled into the bottom of the shaft, presenting them with a wooden door still hanging ajar. Malone took a grateful breath of fresh air. Her pulse slowed ever so slightly as she stepped into the darkened entryway. Dust motes swirled in front of her lantern, and a faint illumination flickered further down the hall.

  “You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d flip the gaslights on,” Carlyle said.

  Malone kept her gaze trained down the hall. “Were they on when you showed up?”

  He grumbled something indistinct.

  Malone followed the winking light and a wine-colored carpet to a study, a musty affair of bookshelves and worn leather.

  It was almost a relief to see the crime confined to one small room. Four books were massed near the door of the study in an assortment of positions, fanned pages folded beneath the weight of their covers. A lone candle resting on a desk in the far corner lit a crumpled corpse slumped next to one shelf and the pile of fallen books at its feet.

  Carlyle stood in the doorway while Malone crossed the study.

  The shivering light animated the broken body as if it were still struggling to live, and the man’s hand, still warm and limp, also suggested a tenuous grasp on life. Bending over the dead man, Malone could just make out the shadow of a bruise at the base of his skull.

  “Messy old bastard,” Carlyle said. “I thought these fancy folk were supposed to be well-kept.”

  “Does he look like a whitenail to you?”

  “Not much I can see without the damn lights.”

  The deceased was fully dressed in stained and rumpled clothes that he must have worn for several days, unusual for a member of high society, though not for an eccentric workaholic.

  The study yielded further evidence that the victim had been less of the former and more of the latter. The patterned wool rugs, though obviously expensive, were threadbare in places and compounded with dirt and spills that had never been cleaned. Some of the volumes lining the walls appeared to be falling apart, and a coating of dust blanketed everything but the books.

  Carlyle sneezed. “This guy ever heard of a broom?”

  “Looks like he was busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  Malone hovered over the lit candle. By the substantial pool of warm wax at the base, she guessed it had burned all night. The lid had been removed from the inkpot, and the wet and balding quill lay discarded on the desk, which was otherwise clear. There was every appearance of serious business having taken place throughout the night, but no evidence of the finished product.

  She pushed past Carlyle, ignoring his sigh when she finally flipped on the gaslights, and poked around the rest of the house. She might as well have searched in the dark for all the good it did her. A thorough survey of the rest of the house uncovered no other clues: no upturned furniture, no ransacked closets, and there were money and a few valuables left in in plain sight.

  Malone returned to the study and knelt by the victim. She pulled from his pocket a wallet that, like everything else he owned, appeared well-used and ill-cared for.

  The doorjamb creaked as Carlyle leaned against it. “Any money left in there, Inspector?”

  She found his credentials on coffee-stained cardstock that felt soft with age. Werner Thomas Cahill, seventy years old, Doctorate of History. As rare as they were, Malone had never met a historian, but with his disheveled attire and unkempt gray hair, Cahill looked much as she would have expected.

  “Any connections?”

  “Directorate of Preservation,” Malone said, reading from Cahill’s papers.

  “Obviously. Who else can hire historians?”

  “The Quadrivium.” Malone held up an ID card from Recoletta’s premier university.

  Carlyle threw his hands up and turned halfway into the hall as if demonstrating his exasperation to an imaginary audience. “This guy was a couple of blocks from the richest quarter in the city, he worked at two of the top institutions, and yet he lived like a tradesman.”

  Malone’s eyes flicked up to the shelves. “Not everyone likes pretty manners and parties.”

  Carlyle shivered and tried to cover it by shoving his hands violently into his pockets. “Rich weirdoes. You tell me what a history-reading geezer does like. More importantly, tell me when you’re done.” He marched back into the hall, and moments later couch springs sighed in the parlor.

  For all of the luxuries Cahill lacked, he’d owned more than a few things that even the Vineyard dwellers would never have, and they all sat on his bookshelf. As she skimmed the spines of the books lining the room, her heart jumped. She raised her lantern and squinted at the shelves. Nestled among the ancient and modern fiction classics were a handful of titles concerned with history, or at least theories about it. Most historical records had been lost or destroyed in the period immediately following the Catastrophe. The Council restricted the serious study of antebellum history, and any archives and accounts were guarded within the vaults of the Directorate of Preservation.

  Seeing history books on display sent Malone’s gut roiling. Cahill must have been important to have permission to keep history books at his home. Surely he had permission? Even as she wanted to hide the volumes, to push them deeper into the shelf, she caught her hand creeping toward them, her fingers itching. Perhaps, she thought, they might reveal something about Dr Cahill’s mysterious work. She considered this even as she listened for Carlyle’s return.

  Malone stopped herself. Had these books been relevant to the crime, the assassin would have taken them, too. And if they weren’t relevant, then there was no professional reason for her to open them. Fingers tingling in midair, she dropped her hand and stepped back from the shelf. Even a scholar such as Dr Cahill would not keep history books of real danger in his home, and if he did, well, such matters were not among the concerns of the Municipal Police.

  She let her gaze wander to the other books on the shelves. Beside and beneath their titles were familiar, reassuring words: Novel. The Collected Poetry of… Essays and Anecdotes. Short Stories. These were the kinds of books that appeared in schoolhouses, public libraries, and the salons of the cultured. Censorship didn’t feel as bad when you kept the sweetness and light. History and the darker vignettes, on the other hand, remained under the lock and key of trusted authority, like some virulent epidemic. Above all, such powers feared releasing into the air whatever secrets had nearly destroyed the world so many centuries ago.

  Malone turned her back to the bookshelves. For all her searching, Cahill’s desk was still empty, and she had no way yet of knowing what had filled it a few hours before. Carlyle snored in the next room. It was nearly seven when she blew out the candle and returned to the parlor.

  She coughed, and Carlyle jerked awake.

  “What now?” he said.

  “I go back to the station.”

  “And me?”

  “You wait here for the morgue cart.” Malone headed back to the elevator.

  Sunlight barely reached the elevator shaft from the veranda’s tall windows above. As Malone stepped into the cage, she noticed a faint glimmer between her feet. She reached between the bars of the bottom grating and dug into a crumbling line of mortar in the stone flooring, retrieving a layer of grime and a small key just before the elevator began its ascent. As Malone turned the key between her fingers, her mind spun in quick, concentric circles.

  Upon reaching the surface, she tested the key on the gate and found a match. Malone no
ticed for the second time that the inside of the building was clean, with all of the broken glass on the steps and the avenue just outside. She tucked the key into her pocket, reached her conclusion, and made her way to the station downtown.

  #

  Halfway across the city, in more modest quarters, warm, astringent water licked at Jane Lin’s elbows as she searched the washbasin. One black pearl button the size of her thumbnail; that was all she needed to save her job. Work with the whitenails would dry up if word got out that she was a butterfingers; or, worse, a thief.

  A wool frock coat hung against the opposite wall, its empty buttonhole glaring back at her. She had steamed it to crisp perfection and spot-cleaned it with a toothbrush, yet this somehow made the button’s absence even more conspicuous. Now, as she picked through the linen garments in the basin with exaggerated delicacy, trying to find a small, dark button amidst the soapsuds, felt like trying to find a thimble on a crowded railcar. Assuming it was there at all.

  A knock at the door brought her to her feet with a swift, startled jump. Wiping her hands on the front of her skirt like a kitchen thief, she unlatched the door for a dour, balding man whose expression suggested that he had just caught a whiff of something awful.

  “Mr Fredrick Anders?” he said, his eyes fixed on some point over her head.

  “Jane Lin, actually,” she said, suddenly conscious of her damp, wrinkled skirt and the drooping bun into which she had tied her dark hair. She straightened, shifting to block his view of the coat hanging against the far wall. “Mr Anders lives one over. Number 2C.”

  The impeccably dressed man twitched, appearing unaccustomed to anything like a rebuff. “Thank you,” he managed. Jane shut the door and turned back to the washbasin in the middle of the floor, where it sat ringed by puddles and suds. She began twirling the clothes inside with a pronged wooden dolly, finally accepting that the priceless button, wherever it might be, wasn’t in the basin.

  About ninety seconds later came another knock, this one rapid and irregular. Before she could start toward the door, a tall, wiry man bounded in without preamble.

  “Jane, what on earth are you doing? Haven’t you heard?” he said, breathless. “There’s been a murder!”

  The way he said it, as if announcing a grotesque exhibit at a street fair, surprised her more than what he said. “A what?” The dolly’s wooden handle slipped from her fingers. “When, Freddie? And where?”

  “Only last night,” he said, a little calmer, “just outside of the Vineyard.” His eyes twinkled as he waited for her reaction.

  “That’s impossible. How…”

  “No one knows yet, but trust me, you’ll be the first to know when I get word.”

  Jane mopped a few stray locks away from her forehead. Leaning against the washbasin, the dolly suddenly looked sharp and sinister. “Do you know who died?”

  “The Municipals aren’t saying much, but it looks like some shriveled government scholar was choked with his own mothballs.”

  “That’s terrible, Freddie.” She frowned, pausing for decency before the necessary follow-up. “Did you get the assignment?”

  His buoyant expression fell, and he ruffled his sandy-brown hair with one hand. “Blocked again by Chiang, the editor with a vengeance.” He balled a wad of paper from his pocket and flicked it through an imaginary target and into the fireplace behind Jane. “Or maybe just out-bribed by Burgevich. But I will be covering the grand society ball next week! Take a look at this pair of shoe-shiners.” His green eyes sparkled again as he brandished two sheets of vellum adorned with flowing calligraphy.

  “Sounds like one of your editors likes you.” Jane rubbed the smooth material between thumb and forefinger. “Hardly seems fair that those go to you, though. I’m in that part of town every day of the week.” Though short of a miracle, that would soon change.

  Fredrick beamed again as Jane grabbed the dolly and returned to her wash. “One of the many perks of career journalism. That’s actually what I came by to tell you.” He rolled the sheets and tucked them back into his coat. “That, and to invite you along, of course.”

  Jane stopped mid-press, her fingers tight around the handle. “That’s very kind,” she said.

  Fredrick laughed. “You know me, I’m not doing it to be kind. I can’t suffer through all those speeches on my own.” He watched her slow, methodical strokes in the basin. “Don’t tell me you already have plans.”

  She stared into the filmy water. “Of course not.”

  “Then I’m sure you’ll clean up fine in whatever you put together.”

  Jane straightened her back and rested a hand on her hip. “Freddie, I fix clothes for a living. That’s the least of my worries.”

  “Then whatever the hell is it?” Freddie had circled around her and now stood just a few feet from the damaged frock coat.

  Jane’s eyes flicked from the coat to Freddie. “No offense, but you. My clients will be there. And I’ll be there with you, a reporter. I don’t want to give any of them the wrong idea.” It was true, and it was easier to explain than the missing pearl. The last thing she wanted right now was to add Fredrick’s hysteria to her own worries.

  Fredrick rocked forward and threw his head back. “Oh, Jane, you and your precious reputation.”

  “And my precious commissions.”

  Fredrick held up his hands, but his voice carried the tone of an argument already won. “Look, no snooping at the party. Just straight reporting. Besides, most of your clients don’t even know what you look like. Unless all the Vineyard housemaids are there, your good name and your good jobs will be fine.”

  Jane looked down at the linens, unwilling to refute him. “It would be nice to visit to the Vineyard without my laundry cart.”

  “Not to mention without looking like a servant.”

  “I’m not a servant,” she said in a quick monotone. Not yet, anyway. “But I’d like to see whitenails at one of their fancy parties, with all their coattails and ball gowns and gentility.” Washing fine clothes for Recoletta’s upper crust engendered the desire to see people actually wear them.

  “They’re not half so endearing as you seem to think,” he said, “and they’re twice as dangerous.”

  “I’m sure they’re dangerous to someone who makes a living off their secrets.” Her eyebrows flicked upward as she gave him a skeptical grin. “But I’m a little more discreet. Not to mention charming. What’s the occasion, anyway?”

  “A delegation from South Haven is coming by train next week, no doubt to arm-wrestle over farming communes. Naturally, no expenses will be spared.” He spread his hands in the air, framing an imaginary canvas. “Brummell Hall, in the heart of the Vineyard, with a sumptuous spread of prime rib, shrimp the length of my finger, pastries light as clouds, and velvet-smooth wines.” His eyes took on a wistful glaze.

  “This is a celebration in their honor?”

  “On the surface, yes. Making an impression, that’s what these affairs are really about. The Vineyard is known for its sour grapes.”

  A kettle filled with a starch mixture whistled from the stove, and Jane went to remove it. “Well, you haven’t handed back your invitation. I’m sure it’ll be fun, even for a jaded old grouch like you.” Though Fredrick was barely in his mid-thirties, he was still a full decade older than Jane and ripe for teasing.

  “Let’s get one stiff cocktail in you and we’ll see who’s laughing. But not to worry, I couldn’t ruin this for you if I tried.” Jane winced inwardly, reflecting that Freddie wouldn’t have to try at all if the missing pearl button led to a falling-out with her clients.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. “I really should get to the office. The paper has to pay me for some kind of work, after all. Ta, Jane.” With an exaggerated bow, he backed out of the door.

  Alone again, Jane surveyed her den, lined with piles of clothes. With the quiet years she had worked to build a hopeful life here, it left a sluggish ball of dread in her stomach to imagine that it could all disapp
ear after one day’s mistake. She was in the habit of glancing through her commissions upon receipt, but she’d been in a hurry when Director Fitzhugh’s housekeeper had shoved the bundle into her arms. Now it was impossible to say, and impossible to prove, whether the button had disappeared in her care or before. And it was equally pointless to wonder whether this was an unfortunate accident, an act of sabotage by a housekeeper who’d always stared at Jane’s scuffed shoes a little too pointedly, or a convenient mishap arranged by an employer looking for an excuse to hire someone else. One heard of such incidents from time to time.

  As plain as it was, Jane’s apartment was a private haven. She had a bedroom to herself, a small workroom for her tailoring, and space enough to entertain her friends. She knew every nook and cranny and had swept every corner thrice, and the button wasn’t here. The question was, should she confess the problem to Mr. Fitzhugh and hope for mercy or try to find a replacement at the market? Not real pearl, certainly, but a near enough approximation?

  The question dissolved when Jane recalled a childhood in halls of peeling paint and mildew and nights in crowded, flu-ridden bunks, when she remembered that she lived not half a mile away from the swarming slums and noxious air of the factory districts. She set off for the market. She would save sympathy for a last resort.

  Chapter 2

  The Subtle Art of Eavesdropping

  As the sun burned off the early morning chill, Inspector Malone approached the grey marble pavilion of Callum Station, the headquarters of the Municipal Police. Officially named for a famous and respected police chief over three centuries ago, the station was more colloquially known as Calumny Station to anyone who didn’t work in it. With their head-to-toe black garb and their reputation for prying, the Municipals caused weeks of gossip for anyone unfortunate enough to receive a visit. Sniffing out smuggling operations and quelling factory district unrest was a thankless job, indeed.