by Jordan Reece
“And they dumped him far from Melekei,” Scoth said. “That still doesn’t explain the timepiece.”
“If Tallo Quay gave it to Torrus Kodolli to prove himself, and Kodolli gave it to his granddaughter . . .”
“But it was nothing special. Why would she want it? Unless she gave it to one of her friends, a friend who ended up dumping the body for her or with her, and then it got caught on the nail and dragged off. But then why were none of that man’s memories in the timepiece for you to see?” Scoth looked out the window. “We need to track down that bicycle!”
They rode to Cantercaster. The younger Elveig family lived only two miles from the asylum, in a small but sweet home with a picket fence around the garden. Janos Elveig answered the door, a trim man with a friendly disposition, and welcomed them in for a chat. The daughters spilled down the hallway to see what was going on, and their father said soberly that the detectives had come to talk about the night of the party and the bicycle.
They were adorable girls, each a head taller than the one before, and all with long brown curls and bows of different colors atop their crowns. All three sat down upon the sofa, the oldest straightening her dress and the younger two imitating. Gently, Scoth said, “I understand there was a noisy party when you were visiting your great-aunt and great-uncle. Could you tell us everything you remember?”
“Very noisy,” Molly said, her sisters nodding vigorously. “They were shouting and screaming-”
“And burning things!” the littlest girl interrupted.
“And burning things, yes, but let me finish and you can have your turn,” Molly said. “The burning didn’t come until later.”
“Did you see a man arrive at the party upon a blue bicycle?” Scoth said. Jesco sensed that he was reluctant to show the photograph of the body or even talk about the murder to these girls.
Molly shook her head. “No, sir. A lot of carriages came in the evening, and a bicycle that was green as a shamrock. We were out in the yard playing hide-a-penny when the people showed up. And then they stood about in the front and side garden saying . . .” She looked to her father, suddenly in desperate emotional straits.
Watching from the doorway, the man said, “It’s all right, love. The detectives need to know exactly what happened for good or ill.”
“They were saying very rude things to each other, and laughing as they drank. Cursing, kicking at the plants and picking the flowers, cursing again when they got thorns in their fingers. It wasn’t just whispered curses, like it’s all right when you’re alone and there’s no one to hear. It was loud. They called each other . . . demonic assholes.” Her eyes slid back to her father, who gave her more encouragement to keep going.
Mortified, the girl said, “One man was going about to look at all the women’s breasts and saying what sizes he liked and who had the best, and a woman shoved him in the fountain for it. Everyone laughed as they screamed swear words at each other. She said she’d seen what he had in his trousers and it wasn’t anything to brag about. The whole lot of them got fouler and fouler, even the oldest people, and my great-uncle turned his hose on them. It sprays out far. They went inside, yelling at us for getting them wet, and we went inside, too. It was getting too dark to play out in the yard anyway. Auntie and Uncle and all of us went to the kitchen. Do you want to tell the detectives what we did then, Patty?”
“We made beaded purses,” said the youngest proudly. Cordelia was the middle child, and only nodded now and then to confirm what her sisters were saying.
“We listened to music and made our purses,” Molly said. “Sonora’s was the prettiest, but all of them were quite nice. Sonora is my friend.”
“And mine!” Patty insisted in umbrage.
“Sonora is a good friend to all of us,” Molly amended. “We cleaned off the table and had our dinner, read the comics in the paper and it was bedtime. We didn’t have to sleep if we didn’t want to, but we had to be up in the spare room and quiet since it was night. But they weren’t being quiet. They’d come out of the house, mostly in the backyard. It was dark but they had lanterns. It was still hard to see anything. We watched from our window and there’s a tree blocking a lot of the view. But we saw that orange flame go licking up into the sky. Patty fell asleep, and Cordelia read a book. She couldn’t sleep with that noise. Sonora and I sat by the window and watched what little we could. We made a solemn pledge to never get drunk.”
Jesco held back a smile as she went on. “I’ve never seen adults acting like that. They were . . . without decorum. Kissing and dancing, screaming curses, pretending to summon demons, and the fire would throw sparks into the air when something new was tossed in. Cordelia fell asleep around midnight. Sonora and I did some time after that. The noise still woke us up over and over. In the morning . . . it was awful. Cordelia screamed.”
“Can you tell me about what you saw?” Scoth asked the middle child.
Nervously, Cordelia said, “I woke up first and got dressed, sir. I wanted to see if those people were still there, and the view from the window in our room wasn’t good. So I went downstairs and outside to look over the fence. The carriages were all gone, and so was the green bicycle that had gotten propped up atop the fountain and the horse they’d been letting wander around the garden in the evening. But those people had come in my great-aunt and great-uncle’s yard at some point and torn a part of it up. I helped to decorate that garden with the statues, and they were all messed up. The flowers were stomped to bits and I knew my great-aunt was going to cry. She loves her flowers, sir. Everyone came out and saw it.”
“They were in the other yard, some of the statues,” Patty said, about to burst from being quiet for so long. “We went to get them and the lady gave us a blue bicycle.”
“She wouldn’t let us not take it,” Molly said. “She said, ‘Here, here, a brand-new bicycle! I don’t need it. Take it, take it! Have fun!’ She rolled it at us and I didn’t know what else to do so I took it.”
“Did any of you hear a man shouting sometime in the night?” Scoth asked.
“Sir, they were always shouting.”
“And what did you do with the bicycle?”
“We brought it home. It was much too big for Patty and Cordelia. I could just about ride it, but I already have a bicycle and it’s purple. I like purple better than blue. We let Sonora have it all to herself. She doesn’t have a bicycle, and she’s tall enough to ride it with the seat adjusted. She took it home with her.”
“Do you know if she still has it?”
“Yes. She rides it to school everyday.”
“And where does she live?”
“She lives just around the corner. Turn left at the door, pass three houses down, turn and that’s Sonora in the white house. Are you going to have to take her bicycle away? Is it evidence of a crime?” Anxiously, Molly said, “Sonora needs a bicycle, sir. Her family can’t afford one.” The littler sisters were aghast.
“We may have to take it, since we believe it was stolen,” Scoth said.
“But she will be reimbursed for its cost,” Jesco said. These girls were darling, and he hated to see them so distressed about their friend losing her bicycle. He had plenty of money to cover it.
“Is there anything else you remember, even something that you think might not be important?” Scoth asked.
Molly and Patty had nothing more to say, but Cordelia spoke hesitantly. “She wasn’t happy to see it there, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“The lady. Mrs. Dolgange wasn’t happy to see that blue bicycle when she came out of her house in the morning. It was parked below her porch and had tipped over into the bushes. I saw her face when we were over there picking up the statues. I thought that she was going to yell at us for being on her property, or be upset at how her friends had destroyed her whole garden and broken the fountain, but she just stared at that bicycle like she couldn’t figure out how it had gotten there and then . . . then she didn’t look happy about it. She cover
ed her hands in her shawl to get it out of the bushes. Then she saw us there, and she gave it to us. Molly is telling it right, sir. She wouldn’t let us say no. She said that a friend lost it in cards to her, but what was she going to do with it?”
“And it smelled,” Patty said. “Just a little, like someone had spilled ale on it. We cleaned it off. There was ale spilled on just about everything, even the statues and we had to wash those, too.”
Scoth thanked them, and he and Jesco went outside. It seemed foolish to ride in the carriage such a short distance, so they started for the corner on foot. “He was naked,” Scoth said. “I bet that was some of the clothing that Mrs. Elveig saw getting tossed into the fire. It was Jibb’s. I wonder if his satchel went into it, too. But Grance Dolgange didn’t think about his bicycle, so she pawned it off fast on those girls. She knew they were just visiting her neighbors and would take it away home.”
Sonora Khessmyn was a tall and slim girl, the only child of two aged parents. All of them were polite but intimidated at the badge of Scoth’s, and again he and Jesco listened to a story about the party. Sonora could not even bring herself to repeat the obscenities, and she took them into the backyard to see the bicycle in the shed.
It was a sapphire blue Fleetman, lovingly tended, and with green and lavender ribbons twined around the handlebars. “I added those,” Sonora said. “Those weren’t there when Mrs. Dolgange gave it to us.”
“We’ll have to take it,” Scoth said.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she kicked the stand and pushed it to him. Jesco promised to have the money sent to her so that she could buy another, and that made her brighten a little. Scoth got her address before they left.
The bicycle was too large to fit in the compartment beneath the carriage, so they parked it between the seats. It made a tight fit with the wheelchair. “Didn’t you want me to touch it there?” Jesco asked, overcome with uncertainty. “It might not be his-”
“It is,” Scoth said with intensity. “This is Jibb’s bicycle, I have no doubt. The thrall might land you on the floor, so let’s get you back to the house where you can land on the sofa instead.” He gave the autohorse the destination and they drove away.
They did not speak for most of the drive. There was nothing to say with the bicycle between them. At the house, Tammie gasped to see it come out of the carriage. She cleared space in the living room for it to be parked, and sat in a chair to watch.
Scoth covered the sofa in one of Jesco’s spare blankets, and stood to the side. Removing his glove, Jesco approached the bicycle. Here were the answers that they had been searching for, locked in the cool metal skin and padded seat. They would know, and this could come to an end.
“Go on, Jesco,” Scoth said. “Let’s bring Hasten Jibb some peace.”
It would bring all of them peace. Jesco touched his fingers to the handle.
Chapter Eleven
-he was-
-he was-
He was Ansel and he loved this bicycle but it cost so much so much so much that he was going to have to get an Arkkadian instead but Fleetman was the best and everyone would go wild at school to see it and he just wanted to touch it one more time before he chose a lesser bicycle . . .
-he was-
-he was-
-she was-
She loved her son, her pride, her joy, but if Nini didn’t pick a damn bicycle in this store soon then she was going to have to ask for a chair to sit down while he dilly-dallied, her feet ached and this blue bicycle was so pretty . . .
-she was-
-he was-
-she was-
-he was-
-he was-
He loved this bicycle and he had it, he had the money at last, he had the money! It was perfection, lightweight and fast as a bolt of lightning. Crack! Gone! There was no better bicycle anywhere, nothing and here it was and here he was and here was the money and sold!
He was Hasten Jibb, and he owned a Fleetman. Pride filled him to walk the bicycle out the door and a man asked even before he mounted, “Is that a Fleetman?” And Hasten said yes. Quality, he loved quality, he was no pirate and he had no treasure chest but this was what he had instead and it was no less to him than rubies and emeralds and diamonds. Why did people want those things so much? They didn’t do anything but sparkle. At least clothes covered a body and he had fine duds, the finest duds, and now the bicycle, too. He rode it home, his pirate booty, but he had earned this and not looted it. People craned their necks to see the brilliant blue and he was so proud that he could burst.
His favorite tale had been Snake of the Seas, one installment published every month that he grabbed up with the ink barely dry. Mama called them junk but no! No! Hasten forgot to breathe when he was reading them! How they’d battled over control of the Ribbons, Captain Vannen Chank of the dreaded pirate ship Mormodune and Lord General Viscey du Spelwether of the Ainscote Sea Guard! They fought and fought, winning and losing and betrayals and lost cargo, and then they came to the last battle and found out they were twin brothers separated at birth . . . amazing . . . That story had ended but he was rereading them, one installment a week so he could lose his breath all over again.
His Fleetman was flying, flying over the watery gray ribbons of the roads with stolen cargo in his satchel and the Sea Guard coming up fast behind him to reclaim it and cast him in irons . . . He was the Sea Guard storming the deep blue ocean after pirates . . .
Jesco was both Hasten Jibb, and himself watching this joyous man-child pedal about on his new bicycle. He knew the cities, he knew the streets, only the slimmest part of him had to mind where he was going in his deliveries and the rest of him was lost in thrilling fantasies and pleasant memories. The love of his bicycle was the love of a captain for his ship; he loved to stop at Worthing’s to see their new jackets and trousers all smart upon the racks because he and Dochi had always done that together, they’d pretend to be pirates and loot the store of what they wanted in whispers after Mama went to bed . . .
He’d had the fever and something was missing in him but Dochi said don’t you mind it, Hassie, and Hasten rode past a group of young women and knew that he should feel something but don’t you mind it . . . he didn’t mind it . . . he was on top of the world when he flew down the roads, he was free and he loved to be free with the sea winds in his hair . . . even the sun was laughing with him and he was happy . . .
He had money for stylish clothes, money for stories and his bicycle, a roof over his head and food on the table and he was aware that other people strove for more, but more was a nebulous quality and quantity in his head. Mama wanted more but Hasten was never quite sure what that was. More was what the couriers talked about and he retreated because more was what they pressed on him, what kind of more did he want, a woman, a fellow, children of his own, a mansion, an autohorse and carriage with leather seats . . . he did not understand . . . was more working Golden Circle? He liked the more he got in tips. There was something here he did not grasp, something always far away and hard to see . . . something they were all hungry for, and when they got it they only grew hungry for something else, but he already had everything he wanted . . .
. . . don’t you mind it, Hassie, I like you just fine this way, you’re still my brother and I’ll always talk pirates with you . . .
Jesco nudged. A monotonous stream of deliveries peeled past him, but at its center was always Hasten who found them not monotonous at all. It was summer and winter and spring now, Hasten glad when the snow melted so he could climb back onto his bicycle. Some deliveries needed a horse and carriage or a wagon but on rural stretches he’d let the horse fly and that was almost as good as his Fleetman . . .
Nudge . . . nudge . . .
The appalling hoards within Lord Ennings’ mansion scandalized and delighted the boy within him, but the part of him that was a man pretended to see nothing amiss, moved things here and there as the lord wished, smiled and used his manners and accepted his tip and left. On the way home, he thou
ght about a ship sinking from too much weight, and towering piles of extra furniture getting thrown over the side to be swallowed up in the blue.
He took the jewels to the bank . . . these he would not throw over the side, these he would clutch to his chest as the ship sank . . . he had them admitted and took the receipt to the office where he picked up a Silver job. It was an excuse to ride his bicycle, which had gotten sick of sitting in the corner waiting for winter to end, sick as Hasten had gotten sick of it. He flew to Melekei with the whirly-gigs filling his satchel and did not say no to lemonade since he was also sick of rum and hard tack from traveling the high seas.
She knew he didn’t understand more quite in the right way so she talked to him about bicycles and whirly-gigs and the stories that Hasten and her grandchildren were reading . . . he liked delivering here because she never made him feel badly about what he didn’t grasp . . .
Jesco gave the scene another push, and Hasten was riding away. He swooped from street to street and came up on his favorite house with all the statues. Fairies! Dragons! Even a mouse in a pirate hat! They would chase him back home in his head, shouting and throwing ropes to catch him with Captain Mouse sailing the roads in a ship.
A woman in the next yard waved and shouted, “Ragano? Are you with Ragano & Wemill?”
The statues fell back to wait. Hasten squeezed his brakes and coasted over to the sidewalk. He bumped up the curb and the woman came to the fence. She was somewhat pretty but that was where it ended . . . don’t mind it, Hassie . . . and he said, “Yes, I’m with Ragano & Wemill.” He had been to this house once before. It was the first autohorse he had ever delivered, which was why he remembered it so well. “I brought you your autohorse some time back.”
She smiled. Hasten had not been interested in the particulars of the woman, but Jesco paid them close heed. She was in her twenties, tall and narrow, with small breasts and her shape as straight down as an arrow beneath her housedress. Her wedding ring was large and garish. Four connected bands of strawberry gold went around her finger, all of them bearing streams of tiny diamonds, and the centerpiece was a massive diamond surrounded by a circle of smaller ones. Her earrings were just as eye-catching. From each ring hung thin bars of gold that extended halfway down her neck and clacked when she turned her head.