by Alex P. Berg
“And you’re the only ones with a key?” he asked.
“Well, not the only ones,” said another masculine voice. “Big Earl—he’s in charge of the stage show—he’s got one. The foreman, too. Maybe even JT Vernon himself, though I kind of doubt it.”
We skirted the edge of the stacked crates and came to the gate at the front of the fencing. Justice stood inside alongside a pair of brown-skinned guys who must’ve been brothers. Both had long, black hair that hung down their backs in tight braids, as well as matching tribal tattoos that crept along their arms and onto their necks, though it was their nearly identical rounded noses and wide foreheads that confirmed they were related. All of them stood outside another enclosure, this one made of steel mesh and with a solid roof, inside of which were a mixture of tall and short compressed gas cylinders. Next to the men was a cabinet with a steel mesh door that was packed with chemicals, each of the bottles affixed with an assortment of warning and hazard signs.
Dean patted the chain links as we entered, producing a metallic clatter that drew Justice’s attention. “Ogden. You get anything?”
Justice gave us a nod. “Hey, guys. This is Langdon Hakka, and that’s his brother Lindell. They’re the circus’s pyrotechnicians.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Langdon, or maybe Lindell. “We’re fire breathers, first and foremost.”
“Don’t sell us short,” said the other brother. “We manage all the fire effects. That makes us pyrotechnicians.”
“But we don’t have any formal training,” said Langdon.
“Probably want to stop there,” said Justice. “If I don’t know about any violations, I don’t have to report them to the safety board.” The big guy turned to us. “The Hakkas have been showing me the stockpiles of flammable liquids.”
“And the gasses,” said Lindell, or maybe Langdon. “Don’t forget the flammable gasses.”
Justice rolled his eyes, suggesting he’d been dealing with this the whole time. “As I was saying, they’ve been showing me all the flammables. Doesn’t seem like anything’s missing, plus everything was locked up tight when we arrived.”
Moss pointed at the mesh enclosure. “You guys need all this for fire breathing?”
Justice gave his head a small shake, but he was too slow. Langdon was already nodding and chuckling. “No. We only use refined paraffin for that. These are for heating the trailers and filling balloons.”
Lindell pushed forward. “The propane is for the heating and the helium for the balloons. Not the other way around.”
Dean gave the two guys a thumbs up. “Got it.”
Lindell kept going. “The stuff in the cabinet, on the other hand, is for the pyrotechnics. Mostly metal powders and nitrates. They can make some really pretty colors when you mix them together. I’d tell you more, but the mixtures are what you’d call a trade secret.”
“Well, more of a Hakka family secret,” said Langdon. “We’re self-taught.”
“And yet you still have all your thumbs,” said Dean. “Congratulations.”
I had to clamp my jaw tight to keep from busting out laughing, but the Hakka brothers didn’t seem to get it. They smiled and replied with a gleeful, “Thanks!”
Moss elbowed me in the ribs and gave me a bug eyed look. Dean, meanwhile, continued to show off his incredible composure. “We have everything we need here, right, Justice?”
“And then some,” he said.
Dean gave a polite nod to the two performers. “Thanks for your help, gentlemen.”
Moss’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Right. Dean, we should ask them about the diamond before we go.”
Justice lifted a thick eyebrow. “Diamond?”
“Cortez found a hefty gemstone among the remains.” Dean accepted the handkerchief from Moss and unfolded the corners before holding it toward the fire breathers. “I’m assuming Detective Justice more or less explained the situation in the aviary. We’re trying to find out who the remains belong to. Any chance either of you recognize this diamond?”
The guy who I assumed was Lindell whistled. “Hot damn. Now that’s a rock! Hey, if you don’t want it after this whole business blows over, maybe you can give it to Langdon. He could put it to good use.”
His brother shoved him. “Shut up, Lindell.”
I wanted to explain to the guy that evidence from murders wasn’t first come, first served, but Dean beat me to the punch. “I hesitate to ask, Langdon, but why would you need a diamond?”
Langdon sighed, and for the first time he didn’t look effusively jovial. “It’s my girlfriend. She keeps dropping not so subtle hints she wants to get married. Getting a diamond like that for free would save me, oh, I don’t know, about two hundred years of my salary.”
Lindell snorted. “She’s constantly badgering him. When are we going to get married, Langdon? Telling him about rings she saw other women wearing.” He blinked, and a lightbulb burst to life over his head. “Hey… Speaking of, you should ask her about that gem. She really does notice every married woman’s ring.”
Moss gave me another sideways glance. “That’s actually a reasonable suggestion. Who is she?”
“Her name is Elevell,” said Langdon. “You can probably find her in the tent limbering up. She’s one the contortionists.”
Lindell elbowed his brother. “Yeah, she is!”
Langdon shoved him back. “Dude, shut up.”
Justice mimed for us to leave, and despite his enormous size, his whisper barely carried. “Quick. Before they start arguing again.”
With Justice joining us, we skedaddled and headed to the tent, entering from one of the flaps in the back. As the strip of white fabric fell into place behind us, I had to stop and revisit my assumptions. For one thing, like a fairy home infused with forest magic, the tent seemed bigger within than from the outside. Now that I stood in its midst, I could see my childhood memories of the place weren’t total fabrications, what with its multiple circular stages, all surrounded by enough bleachers to sit a couple thousand guests. It did surprise me the structure was so permanent, though. The tentpoles and bleachers were bolted into concrete, not dirt, and based on the various hatches in the concrete itself, I had to assume there was a basement underneath, some network of tunnels where performers could sneak about and perform tricks on the audience, perhaps. The infrastructure seemed at odds with the tent above, but perhaps the structure underneath had been built in the years after the circus became a permanent attraction. Either that or Vernon decided the tent was nostalgic and attracted fathers with bright eyed youngsters like me in tow where a big cube of bricks and steel wouldn’t.
There were several groups on the various stages—laborers on the far left, climbing tall ladders to fiddle with the trapeze, acrobats practicing their tumbling on the right—but it wasn’t hard to spot the contortionists. A group of three were on the edge of the stage in front of us, taking part in what to them probably constituted light stretching, though the lazy splits would’ve had me waddling for a week.
Dean led the way as we approached them. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Elevell?”
The contortionist in the middle of the trio, a cute elven woman who had the wide eyes of one of the forest fae folk, twisted her torso to look up at us, leaving her legs stretched across the floor. “That’s me. You are?”
“Detective Alton Dean, NWPD. I understand you’re an expert on diamonds.”
One of the elf’s slender eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”
Moss smiled. “Don’t worry. You’re not in any trouble. We’re trying to find the owner of a diamond that was found on the property. Your boyfriend, Mr. Hakka, said you have a keen eye for other women’s rings.”
Elevell’s other eyebrow rose to meet the first, and her voice frosted. “Did he now?”
“Technically, his brother said it,” I offered. “So go easy on him.”
The woman gave a sort of piqued hmm, but she didn’t push the issue. Instead, she pressed her ribcage against the flo
or and stretched her arms overhead. “What ring are we talking about?”
“Not a ring,” said Moss. “Just a diamond. Though we think it came from a ring initially.” Ginger pulled the handkerchief from her pocket, unfolded it, and held it close for Elevell to see.
The elf’s eyes stretched wide. “Oh, my. That is quite a gem.”
The two other contortionists, a dark elf and a human, popped up from their splits and danced over, eager to see.
“Oooh!”
“Wow, it’s huge! It must be worth a fortune!”
“Probably six or seven thousand crowns, I’d wager,” rumbled Justice.
We all turned to look at him.
He shrugged. “What? We’re detectives. You’re telling me you don’t know the market value of commonly stolen precious metals and gemstones?”
Moss’s lips puckered. “We work homicide, Ogden, not burglary. What do you do in your free time, honestly?”
“Let’s keep this on track,” said Dean. “Miss Elevell? The diamond?”
To her credit, she hadn’t been distracted by Moss and Justice’s flap. The diamond’s glittering core drew her eyes like a moth to a flame. “I, ah… Well, I’m not sure. I feel like I might’ve seen it before, but I don’t know.”
“Must’ve belonged to someone wealthy,” said the dark elf contortionist. “Someone glamorous, I bet.”
“Maybe the boss’s wife,” said the second one.
“The foreman’s?” said Justice.
Elevell’s eyes widened. “No, not his wife. Mr. Vernon’s. His wife Stella is here often. Maybe it’s hers.”
All of us shared a look, and I could tell from Dean’s eyes that he didn’t like the implications of what he’d heard.
“Thank you very much, Miss,” he said to Elevell. “You’ve given us a lot to think about. For the rest of us, it’s time we track down JT Vernon.”
Chapter Six
As it turned out, JT Vernon lived in Brentford, which didn’t surprise me in the least. The swanky neighborhood was home to New Welwic’s elite, its lawyers, businessmen, actors, politicians, and all their sundry heirs and heiresses. The neighborhood sat square in the middle of the city, or at least the portion west of the Earl River, and had been there for centuries if the ancient trees that grew from every street corner were any indication. Most of the homes were three or even four stories tall, surrounded by fences of mortared blue-flecked stone or wrought iron topped with intricate fleurs-de-lis. Private security patrolled the streets, rumbling along at twenty miles an hour in their brown and cream cruisers, giving sideways looks to anyone who walked the sidewalks in anything less than a tuxedo and spats.
Barrett’s plot looked similar enough to the rest as our car clattered onto his cobblestone drive, but as we passed the six foot-tall hedge that fenced his property and cleared the pines behind them, a few irregularities reared their bizarre heads. For one, the home didn’t feature the mortared brick or stone facades so many of the others did, instead exhibiting rounded corners and long horizontal lines. Though the building had different wings, the roofs over each were flat, not sloped, and the white granite blocks of which the home had been built were elegantly carved to achieve a smooth, windswept look. Of course, the house looked plain in comparison to the grounds around it which were populated by a menagerie of topiary animals. Lions, tigers, giraffes, and even a two-story tall elephant posed beside the drive, vibrant green and neatly trimmed. I half expected the leafy cats to bellow out a convincing roar, but it was the mellow tinkle of hidden wind chimes that undulated our way instead.
Dean parked his Viper alongside a burbling fountain containing a half-dozen cherubs spitting water at each other, just outside the reach of a portico that stretched over the home’s front entrance. Moss and Justice had stayed at the circus to interface with the coroner and forensics teams, though not by luck of the draw. Dean had specifically told me to accompany him to Vernon’s, citing his role as my new training officer and my need for practical work experience. He’d made occasional efforts at small talk on the ride over, but I’d been too flustered by the idea of taking a more prominent role in his investigations to give him more than five second responses.
I found my voice as I stared at a lush green lion at the edge of the front steps, rearing on his hind legs with maw stretched wide. “I’d ask if we have the right place, but the gardening speaks for itself. The world’s greatest spectacle, indeed.”
“If this garden were a feature at his circus, I imagine it would attract big crowds,” said Dean, “but then he’d have to come up an even more ostentatious attraction to set up outside his home. That’s the problem with billing yourself as the world’s greatest showman.”
Together, we got out of the car, headed to the broad front doors, and rang the bell. A melodic chime rang from inside the home, a sing-songy tune that went on indefinitely. Eventually, as the melody died off, the door creaked and opened, revealing… no one at all.
“Can I help you?” said a squeaky voice.
I glanced down to find that, rather than being operated by pulleys and strings, the door had been opened by hand, that of a gnome whose nose reached to the middle of my thighs. His salt and pepper hair curled slightly, framing a too-circular face, but he was dressed to impress, with a prim white shirt, charcoal slacks, a matching vest, and a wide black tie.
Dean pulled a leather wallet from the inside of his jacket and flipped it open, revealing the badge within. “Good morning. I’m Detective Dean with the NWPD. This is my partner, Officer Phair. We’re looking for JT Vernon.”
I gave Dean a quick glance, but he was focused on the gnome before us. He’d said partner, right?
“I believe Mr. Vernon is in his study,” said the gnome, who I assumed was the butler. “Can I ask what this is about?”
“We have some questions for him about his wife,” said Dean. “I assume she’s not around, is she Mr…?”
“Mossbottom,” supplied the gnome. “And no, I don’t believe so. Please, come in. I’ll show you to the parlor while I fetch the master of the house.”
We stepped inside, and Mossbottom closed the door behind us. If any part of me thought the inside of the home would be less ostentatious than the exterior, I’d been sorely mistaken. Among the decorations in the foyer alone were a taxidermied grizzly, an antique fortune telling machine of the kind you might find in a traveling carnival, and a massive oil painting of a man riding a majestic white steed into battle, surrounded by hordes of armor clad minions holding pikes and maces and spiked flails. I didn’t know who the man was, but if it was supposed to be Vernon, the fact that he’d commissioned the painting much less hung in his foyer said a certain something about his ego.
Mossbottom ushered us to a sitting room off the entryway, one filled with imported rugs, couches upholstered in purple velvet, and a marble statue of a nude woman whose breasts had apparently never been subjected to gravity. Mossbottom excused himself and hurried off, leaving Dean and me alone.
Dean paused in front of the statue, hands clasped before him. “Vernon seems to have varied and interesting tastes in art.”
I glanced at the woman’s preternaturally perky breasts. “Although he doesn’t care much for realism.”
Dean turned my way. “You’re talking about that portrait in the foyer?”
“Among other things.” I cleared my throat and summoned what inner courage I could find. “Could I ask you about that whole, uh… partner thing?”
Dean looked at me blankly. “What partner thing?”
“At the door. You said I was your partner.”
Dean nodded. “Yes.”
I blinked. How was I the only one confused by this? “When did that happen? Was there a memo I missed?”
Dean smiled, an easygoing grin that transformed his face from a cool, analytical visage to one that was warmer, more human, and dare I say, far more attractive. “I think you’re reading too much into this, Phair. You, Justice, Moss. We’re all on the same team. We
all work toward common goals. You came with me on this call. That makes us partners.”
A puff of air escaped my lips, and a bit of tension I hadn’t even noticed was there left my shoulders. “Oh. Good. I was concerned there was… more to it.”
“Well, of course there is.”
I suffered another pang. “There is?”
“Sure,” said Dean. “Phair, you may not be a detective, but I didn’t bring you on board because I needed someone to file paperwork and make phone calls. You’ve showcased skills that make me think you’d be a good fit alongside me. Your insight. Your intuition. That’s what I want to see more of. You don’t have to constantly defer all the time.”
“Have I been doing that?” I asked.
“You didn’t assert yourself much this morning, as far as I could tell,” said Dean. “And I get it. You’ve been thrust into a position where everyone around you has more experience than you, has been at their posts longer than you. It can be intimidating. Only time will make it less so. But you need to fight the urge to blend into the scenery. Your instincts so far have been on point, so if there’s a question you want to ask or a clue that’s nagging at you, speak up. That’s why you’re here.”
A little voice inside me piped up, telling me I was out of my league, but that was precisely the voice Dean was trying to silence. I may not have felt like I deserved the faith he was putting in me, but I nodded anyway. “Okay. I’ll do my best to exhibit the same irrational confidence as the woman depicted in this statue.”
Dean chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know. It seems her confidence is deserved given her impressive, ah… lift.”