ARC: The Buried Life

by Carrie Patel

  However, this had the side effect of making Malone’s final approach agreeably solitary. If they could help it, most pedestrians would walk an extra block rather than pass next to the station. Set in the outer ring of downtown and its respectably cheerful verandas distinguishing high-end shops, offices, and town houses, Callum Station loomed like a pallbearer at a card party. The entire structure radiated gloomy impassivity, from the smooth columns to the broad steps and the steady arches of the roof. The building’s one unique feature perched above the drab, gray structure: a beacon inside a narrow tower, lit at all times to symbolize the perpetual vigilance of the Municipal Police.

  With one sleepless night behind her and a full day ahead, Malone reflected that this was more apt than ever.

  She descended a broad stairway to a spacious underground rotunda lit by the clean, white light of radiance stones that seemed unnecessarily bright this morning. The chemically treated crystals glowed like white-hot fireflies and could, after a few hours exposed to the sun, light a room for days or weeks on end. They preserved some of the natural wavelengths of sunlight, allowing for the lush gardens in the wealthier areas of town. Here, however, they threatened to give Malone a headache.

  Several wide corridors sprouted from the rotunda. Malone marched through the largest of these, marked by a pair of grim lion statues and two equally stone-faced guards gripping bayonets.

  She followed a pair of burning trenches set high in the passage’s walls. Chemists had invented various powders, pastes, and oils to enhance the luminosity of flame, extend its life, and even alter its color, and these compounds roiled in almost every fire in the city. With sophisticated mirrors and lenses crafted from mineral and glass composites, no corner of the underground had to remain dark.

  Deputy chiefs’ offices, conference rooms, and smaller corridors leading deeper into the station lined the hall. Next to one of these stood a young man wearing Municipal black. He was handsome, in an eager, boyish way, with jet hair, a caramel-brown complexion, and a disarming smile. Malone knew the other hundred-odd inspectors by name, and she was acquainted with most of the support staff, but not with this man. Nevertheless, his eyebrows rose in recognition as she approached.

  “Inspector Malone! Good morning. You must’ve just come from Cahill’s domicile.”

  She nodded.

  “Excellent. The sweeps who reported the incident are already here. Didn’t want to talk to them until you arrived, naturally. I’m sure we’ll want to compare notes.” The young man tapped his forehead. “Of course. You must be wondering what I’m on about. Chief’s assigned me to work with you on the contract.”

  Malone’s muscles tightened as he fumbled in his coat pockets, producing a shiny, newly minted inspector’s seal and handwritten orders marked with Chief Johanssen’s stamp. “Richards told us he’d sent you, said you should be back within an hour. Or two.” For what seemed to be the first time since his rapid introduction, the young man stopped talking long enough to breathe, his eyes wide with expectation.

  Malone looked at the orders, half-expecting to see him assigned to morgue duty for the day. The two things Malone knew about trainees and junior inspectors were that they rendezvoused on the bottom level of the station and that they never worked with her. Yet it was her name, scratched in blotted black ink, staring back at her. “And you are?”

  “Me? I– oh! How careless. Inspector Rafe Sundar, ma’am.” He gave a short chuckle of embarrassment, his graceful features momentarily absurd.

  Malone studied him. Extending an arm, she squeezed her lips into a smile. “Pleasure.”

  A broad grin warmed his face, and he pumped her hand rapidly. His left hand gently pressed her arm into the handshake. Malone preferred the crisp efficiency of a brief, dry squeeze, but Sundar had her in an extended vice grip of friendliness. “The honor is entirely mine, Inspector,” he said. “I have to say, I’m thrilled to be working with you. You have quite the reputation around here.”

  “Yet I know nothing about you. Tell me about your background, Inspector.” She eyed him as she pronounced the last word, sounding it out. He blushed.

  “I completed my training the week before last with a batch of five other recruits. Top marks in procedure and investigation.” He hesitated, shifting on his feet.

  “And?”

  “Studies in murder and assault cases. Naturally.”

  “Before that.”

  Sundar massaged a spot on the floor with his toe. “My background is, you could say, a bit unorthodox. I’m not sure it’s particularly interesting, Inspector.”

  “I’m not asking for conversation’s sake.”

  “Ah. Well, in that case, I came from a four-year career in theatre.”

  Malone’s eyebrows shot up and her lips tightened. “Why the career change?”

  Sundar stopped fidgeting. “Too much memorization. I’d gotten into it for the improv.”

  “I see.” She paused, considering him. “Our first order of business is to question the sweeps. Richards will have detained them in the east wing.” She trailed off, tapping a black-gloved finger to her chin as she began to turn.

  “Yes, the holding lobby on level four. Follow me, please.” He nodded and led the way down the narrow hall. She scowled at his back but, with a sigh, allowed him to lead her through the station she knew so well.

  The smaller corridor’s plain, gray walls tightened around them. The hall curved steadily, concentric with the rotunda, a line of eye-level gas lamps visible for a dozen yards at a time. Passing offices and branching hallways, Sundar began briefing Malone.

  “I monitored them until I came to meet you, and I don’t think they’re involved. They were working on the same schedule as usual – their supervisor came by, and I checked that with him, of course.” The inspectors took a left and descended a short flight of stairs. “They’ve been pretty quiet, but not too quiet, if you know what I mean. Anybody left to their own thoughts in one of those holding rooms would be.” He glanced at her, hoping for agreement. “They’ve done a number on the tea and biscuits we left them, and I haven’t caught any fidgeting or whispering. Really, I think they just happened to be at the right place at the right time. For us, I mean.” The inspectors entered a small, cluttered room with a downward-facing window built into the far wall. “They didn’t show the usual signs of trying to hide something, Inspector.”

  Malone gave Sundar an appraising glance and glided over to the window. It was common for sweeps and other groundskeepers to stumble upon crime scenes. Wandering all corners of Recoletta at any given hour, day, and especially night, the groundskeepers formed a veritable army of maintenance men and women who emerged from their homes in the poorer districts in shifts, cleaning public spaces, relighting torches, and charging and replacing radiance stones as needed.

  Unfortunately, with the exception of whitenails, groundskeepers were the most difficult to interview. That they reported such a high percentage of crimes often cast them in suspicion. That they received the lowest wages in the city only deepened public distrust. The groundskeepers heartily returned these sentiments, but criminal penalties against failing to report a crime, not to mention the knowledge that such an omission would only worsen their precarious reputation, compelled them to grudgingly come forward.

  Two grimy men with circles under their eyes and haggard expressions sat twitching their beards in a bare, colorless chamber. The combination of artful lighting and a one-way mirror concealed the observing window, and Malone watched as the sweeps sipped from mugs of lukewarm tea and chatted in monosyllables, their eyes hooded by the lights and their exhaustion.

  She folded her arms and looked at Sundar’s reflection in the glass. “Show me your top marks in investigation.”

  “Of course.” He ducked out of the observation room and reappeared in the door of the holding room a few moments later. Malone started; though she had seen that same uniform, the same neat slick of hair, and the same rounded eyes, less than a minute earlier in the o
bservation room, the man beneath them seemed taller, older, and quietly assertive.

  The groundskeepers looked up at Sundar, pulling the mugs between their propped elbows. He strode to the table where they sat, shook their hands, and addressed them with polite warmth. He seemed transformed from the nervous and excitable young man in the hall, a confident smile underlining his every word.

  “Gentlemen, thank you for your time,” Sundar said. The groundskeepers watched him silently. “You must know that we appreciate your assistance. Your reports contribute greatly to the peace and stability of Recoletta.”

  One of the groundskeepers sniffed.

  “Of course, I also know that you don’t have any choice but to be here. If you weren’t, some goon with a bad attitude and a blackjack would be at your door, giving you hell and halitosis. You’d end up here anyway, and probably with an extended stay at the Barracks,” Sundar said, referring to the headquarters of the City Guard and its infamous prison on the western end of town.

  One of the sweeps plunked his mug onto the table, crossing his arms. “You got questions or what?”

  Sundar nodded at the mug. “Yeah. How’s the tea?”

  “Horse scat,” said the same man, and the other laughed. Sundar smiled.

  “You’re not kidding. They gag us with that stuff every morning. Part of the daily briefing.” The sweeps didn’t laugh, but concessionary grins slid across their faces, and Malone saw their postures relax as they slumped more comfortably in the stiff chairs. “Between you and me, though,” Sundar said, settling into a seat across from them, “I know you’ve got nothing to do with this. Someone was going to stumble across the veranda sooner or later, and it just happened to be you two. So, why don’t you just tell me what you saw?” Slipping into the interrogation, Sundar asked them about their routine and their findings that morning, and they answered amiably, gulping their tea and thumping the table as they talked.

  After half an hour, Sundar shook their hands again and walked them to the door. “That addresses all of our questions, but we’ll contact you if anything else comes up. I’ll have someone see you out.”

  Sundar and the two sweeps disappeared from the holding lobby and, two minutes later, he returned to the observation room. For all of the acting talent he’d shown in the chamber below, he hid his triumph poorly.

  “Passing grade,” Malone said, her eyes still lingering on the room below. “Barely. You forgot something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You interrogated them together.”

  Sundar nodded once. “I know we usually separate witnesses upon arrival, but, respectfully, I thought I could get more information from them this way.” Malone tilted her head, and Sundar continued. “If they wanted to make up a story, they had plenty of time to rehearse it on their way to the station. A little goodwill can go a long way, and I’d rather have them lie freely to me together than clamp shut in separate lobbies.”

  Malone felt her own jaw clamp tight. “As long as you can tell the difference.”

  “Respectfully, ma’am, I think I can.”

  She pulled a silver pocket watch from her coat. “Meet me in Chief Johanssen’s office in five minutes. I’ll cover what I found at the scene.”

  She reviewed Sundar’s notes from his initial observation. To her disappointment, they were neat and thorough. If she was going to get a reprieve from babysitting, she’d have to talk to Chief Johanssen directly.

  Malone returned to the main hallway and followed the fiery trenches to its end. A shallow alcove framed a wide, solid door. Malone pushed it open to reveal a familiar scene: Farrah, the chief’s buxom assistant, drowsily scanning several pages and twirling a pen in her free hand. She looked up with a characteristic half-smile.

  “Go on in,” the redhead drawled, leaning back in her chair. “Chief’s waiting for you.”

  Malone crossed the threshold into a second, grander office, paneled with oak and furnished with green leather chairs. Chief Johanssen, a thickset man in his late fifties, sat at a handsome desk opposite the double doors, a roaring fire warming his back. Brass lamps lined the walls.

  “Malone.” He nodded in her direction. “Come in. Sundar.” Malone followed his gaze to a point just behind her right shoulder where the younger man had materialized. Sundar smiled in greeting as they both moved toward the desk. Johanssen rose and shook their hands, his warm, coarse paws enveloping theirs.

  “Glad to see you both.” He settled once again into his armchair. He gestured to the two seats in front of his desk, and the inspectors lowered themselves into the squeaking leather. “Malone, Sundar tells me the sweeps were clean,” he said with a wry grin, “but tell me what you found at the address.”

  “Broken gate, sir, just like the sweeps said. Cahill was dead, his study showed signs of the struggle, but nothing else was disturbed.”

  The first stray worry lines cracked across Johanssen’s forehead. “Your analysis?”

  “Murder with intent, sir.”

  Johanssen folded his hands, and Malone waited for the inevitable opposition. “No question about a break-in,” he said. “But this sounds like a struggle and an accident. At Cahill’s age, it’s all too easy.”

  Malone understood the chief’s hesitation. Violent crime outside the factory districts, populated with the more desperate types, was uncommon. Except for the occasional poisoning or duels between rivals, they grew exceedingly rare as one approached the Vineyard and the neighborhoods that rippled out from it.

  “Doubtful, sir,” she said. “There was bruising at the base of his skull.”

  Sundar rubbed the curve at the back of his own head. “Below the bump? That would be hard to hit accidentally unless he fell backward into a desk or shelf or something.”

  “Right,” Malone said, cutting Sundar off and continuing before Johanssen could protest further. “And Cahill was slumped against the wall when I found him. No blood, skin, or hair on the furniture. That suggests a blunt instrument, something that the murderer took with him. No bruising around the wrists or forearms. No attempt to restrain him.”

  Johanssen’s lower lip pushed into a momentary pout as he sucked his teeth, thinking. “The motive?”

  “Theft, sir.”

  “Of what? Cahill’s street is filled with merchants and bankers. All more tempting targets.”

  “The murderer wanted information, not valuables. Dr Cahill was a historian, and he was working on something before he was killed.” Malone described the scene in Cahill’s study, and the corner of the Johanssen’s mouth twitched when she mentioned the history books and the empty desk.

  “If I may,” Sundar said, clearing his throat, “the sweeps mentioned the broken gates, but according to them, the gates were bent outwards, and they said they saw shattered glass on the steps outside. Isn’t this the opposite of what would happen if someone broke in?”

  “If someone broke in,” Malone said. “No one had to.” At that, she produced the key she had found near the elevator.

  Johanssen squinted at it. “Go on.”

  Malone crossed one leg as she continued, putting the key on Johanssen’s desk. “How the murderer got this is the real question, but it tells us that he planned. It also tells us that he’s not a professional. Whether he panicked or stumbled, he dropped his key on the way up the elevator, and he couldn’t take the time to return for it. Or couldn’t see it in the dark. The gate was rusted enough for him to break it open with a few good kicks or a couple blows from his weapon. He only had to break out.”

  “Why not leave through the subterranean door?” Sundar asked. Every business and residence had one, whether or not it had its own veranda. Recoletta, after all, was built around its subterranean thoroughfares and warrens. “He wouldn’t have had to break that one to open it from the inside, would he?”

  “Have you ever been to East Eton? The subterranean avenue is one of the main roads into the Vineyard, and Cahill’s domicile is twenty yards from a railcar stop. The assassin would
be in plain view for three or four blocks with nowhere to hide.”

  “Easier to slip among the buildings on the surface,” Sundar said.

  “Obviously.”

  Exhaling, Johanssen furrowed his brow. “And all this for a stack of papers?”

  Malone laced her fingers, waiting.

  “What concerns me is where the murderer got a key. Assuming you’re right,” Johanssen added. “You know how people are about security, especially on that side of the city. There’s hardly a locksmith in Recoletta who would’ve made that.”

  He scratched a cheek with his knuckles. “Farrah should have the contract by the end of the day, Malone. In the meantime, Sundar will assist you.”

  The moment she’d been waiting for. “Respectfully, sir, getting the bureaucrats to talk will be hard enough without a rookie in tow.” She sighed. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” And he looked like he meant it.

  The chief stared down at his desk for a long moment. “Sundar, wait outside.”

  The younger inspector disappeared behind the double doors. Chief Johanssen turned his gaze to Malone.

  “I know this isn’t how you’d have it, but make an exception for this contract. He needs your experience, and I need to know where that key came from.” Johanssen leaned forward, shadows pooling under his heavy brows. “Besides, Inspector Sundar has a few talents you don’t. People skills are chief among them.”

  She gritted her teeth. “I’ve noticed, sir.”

  He nodded. “You also know that we don’t see murders in Dr Cahill’s district. Expect that charm to come in handy.”

  Malone rose and bowed. “Yes, sir.” She left and followed Sundar into the hall, noticing Farrah’s hopeful gaze in his direction.

  “The coroner’s report won’t be ready until tomorrow,” Malone told her new partner as they paced toward the rotunda. “In the meantime, we should try to locate some of Cahill’s old acquaintances.”

  “Don’t we need to wait for the Council to approve the contract?” The Municipal Police received contracts from the Council to investigate crimes, petty theft and serial murder alike. They provided the formal authorization to proceed.