Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  “I can go,” Jesco said. “We need to stop on an errand of mine, though. I have to send the money to Sonora Khessmyn for her lost bicycle.”

  “We can do that on the way to the station to turn the bicycle in as evidence. We can also take your wheelchair along just in case.”

  Jesco turned to him in the darkness. “You sound happy.”

  “We’re getting somewhere at last. I almost want to get a pint to celebrate after all this rigmarole we’ve gone through. Grance Dolgange is going to get hauled in somewhere and then we’ll have quite a lot of questions for her.” He jerked and said, “And her jewelry! I want to confiscate all of the jewelry in that house. It was a party. She had to be wearing plenty.”

  “If she was smart enough to burn his clothes, she was smart enough to destroy her own.”

  Scoth stroked Jesco’s side. “But jewelry? That’s harder to part with than a dress. If she didn’t destroy it, then she probably hid it somewhere. But she must have a lot of jewels. You can’t touch all of them. We’ll need more seers. I can contact the asylums and see who we can get.” His hand drifted lower and cupped Jesco’s buttocks. “Could buy some more sheets if there’s a problem.” Flailing about in the bedclothes, Scoth liberated himself and rolled Jesco onto his stomach. Then he lay down atop Jesco, kissing his shoulders, and straightened to massage his back. It didn’t stop there, the massage going lower and lower and getting more interesting by the inch, and soon it became so interesting that he forgot about the case that was dominating every moment of their lives.

  The next days passed in a blur. Every meter of the Melekei property was inspected. Nothing of suspicion was found within the house, and while nothing appeared amiss in the stables at first glance, chemical treatment revealed traces of blood upon the floor that were not visible to the naked eye. Everything in the gardener’s shed, which was located directly behind the stables, was inspected and dismissed as the instrument of death. Only one could have made the wounds in Jibb’s chest, but there was no blood on it, and Jesco touched the blade to confirm its innocence. His thrall contained nothing more exciting than the grumpy ponderings of the old man who gardened for the Dolganges, and relatively few of them.

  Dircus Dolgange was still in Deleven when the police of that city went to speak with him, and his wife was not there. He had not heard from her in some time and reported that their relationship was distant. Claiming to have no connection to the rucaline trade, he was horrified at the very suggestion. When he offered to have a seer verify the truth of his statement, Jesco mentally dismissed him from involvement in drugs or the murder. There was no chance that the man had attended the party that night. His alibi was watertight. Nurses, doctors, and attendants had seen him at his grandmother’s bedside every hour.

  Sightings came in for Yvod Kodolli. As of a week before, he had been in Radmark. That was forty miles south of Cantercaster. Attending a birthday party for an up-and-coming actress, his photograph was printed in the local paper. The actress was duly located and interviewed. Yvod’s appearance at Celia Swanne’s party had been unexpected. She hadn’t even known who he was. He arrived without invitation, downed flute after flute of champagne before posing for the photograph, and was forced to leave when his flirtations with the seventeen-year-old girl and her friends became lewd. It was apparent that he’d come to get drunk and have a rip-roaring good time, but it hadn’t been that sort of party. Many parents were present, and none of them were remotely amused to see a man in his late twenties hanging on their teenaged daughters. The Radmark police also interviewed the friends, and one remembered that Yvod said he was traveling south. He’d offered to take her for a ride on his purple autohorse. When she declined, he loudly suggested moving the party over to a local brothel where there was an orgy room for rent. That was when several enraged fathers got him by the arms and showed him the door. He thrashed and argued drunkenly to stay; he demanded to be released; he asked imperiously if they knew who he was and shouted that he would ruin the birthday girl’s career. All he had to do was send a handful of letters to do it. Ejected regardless, he swore and wobbled away. The fathers stood outside to ensure he didn’t attempt to slip back in, but they never saw him again.

  “But Grance wasn’t at the party,” Jesco said when the information came to the station. “Perhaps she’s not with him.”

  “She maintains a lower profile and always has,” Scoth said. “She throws parties at her own home where she’s in control. She doesn’t tend to go to affairs like these, or call attention to herself if she does.”

  A more recent sighting of Yvod came from Lanfolli, where he had toured breweries. His mood was jovial though subdued compared to the party in Radmark, and no one remembered much about him. After that he was spied in Four Coves, where he visited a brothel and became so intoxicated that he could not perform with the prostie he’d selected for the night. She recalled him well, since he could not afford to pay and had had to leave to get money from his sister back at the inn where they were staying.

  She was with him. Jesco and Scoth took out the map one evening and Tammie gave them a checker piece to put on every place that Yvod had been sighted. He and Grance were going south, in a general fashion that made it hard to anticipate where they would turn up next. Their pace was an ambling one. Drawing his finger down to Port Adassa, Scoth said, “Here’s where the ships leave to the Sarasasta Islands.”

  “They’re certainly taking their time about it,” Jesco said.

  “They may not think anyone is after them yet. And they have to know that the only ships leaving are freight. This could be killing time, if that’s their destination.” He slipped up the map to a blank space between Lowele and the port cities. “They have to take the train through the Squasa Badlands. There’s no other way to the port. If we left in a carriage tomorrow and cut straight south, we could be at the train station in two days.”

  “Two extremely long days, going from dawn to dusk,” Tammie said.

  “We’re supposed to clear it with the captain when we take trips that far away,” Scoth said, irritated. “And he’ll tell me to bump it all over to the Drug Administration so they can handle it, or leave it to the Lowele police when everyone knows that bunch of fools let anything slip by them for a dollar! They’re as bad as what passes for law enforcement in Korval.”

  “Unless you and Jesco just went, and gave me a message to deliver to the captain,” Tammie said with an evil glint in her eye. “Sometime tomorrow afternoon, say, seeing as I forgot it in my pocket. He can be mad and you can come back with an apology and a dumb comment that Lowele wasn’t as close as it looked to be on the map. Better to be stupid than defiant. Your problem is that you stomp in all righteous with him, that you’re the hammer and the nail and he’s just the dumb post where you hang your hat, and it gets his back up.”

  “Let’s go,” Jesco said as Scoth thought about it. “Let’s just go.”

  Tammie tapped the last sighting on the map. “Look at where they were just three days ago! Spotted in Corsingdale. They’ve got a long sweep west to get to Lowele, and if they’re still messing about as they have been, you might get there some days before they do.”

  “Or if they drove hard and straight, they’re there right now,” Scoth said.

  “Be stupid, Scoth. I know it’s hard, but it’s for the best.”

  Scoth stared at the map as they waited. Then he looked very faintly amused. Crossing his eyes and letting his tongue loll about at the side of his lips, he said in a thick, witless voice, “You know, Lowele didn’t seem so far at the time, Captain.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The rented autohorse pulled them at great speed south through Ainscote. Beyond the windows of the carriage was rolling farm country with quaint towns scattered through it, and less often, cities. When the traffic upon a road grew too busy, there was an audible clanking sound from within the gut of the autohorse. It changed destination cards to find side routes that would allow it not to slow. Scoth had paid top do
llar for this horse and the luxury carriage with a seat that pulled out and flattened into a bed.

  They did not stop at restaurants to eat or drink, having provisions in the carriage, nor at an inn to sleep when they had the bed. There was a second compartment behind the main carriage that held a waterless toilet. It was hard to reach with the wheelchair taking up space, but they managed. Speed was of the essence.

  Only once did they stop, and that was when something went wrong with the autohorse’s left hind leg. It instantly rerouted itself to a service station in the nearest city. Since Scoth had paid for a fast journey, two mechanics left another repair job to respond to theirs at once. They were welcomed into a lounge to sit and have a drink, and watched through a window as one mechanic rapidly detached the leg and the other hurried to the stock room to get a fresh one. In less than twenty minutes, they were back on the road.

  They arrived in Lowele a little more than a day after leaving Cantercaster. It was late morning, the autohorse ferrying them toward the train station at the southernmost point of the city. Lowele was a rough place: the roads unpaved and without streetlamps, and it had more saloons per block than any other kind of business. All of the wooden buildings bore false fronts that rose to peaks and overshadowed the streets.

  The sidewalks were raised and passed directly in front of the shops. Crowds of people were upon them. They could get nowhere quickly when employees of the shops had set up tables on the sidewalks to promote the best of what they were selling within. Children shouted for candy pinwheels and adults ogled whirly-gigs, families clustered together to pose for photographs, and older people sat upon benches and rocking chairs with their feet out in the way of everyone. Carriages stopped at the sidewalk outlets to offer rides or release travelers to inns and restaurants. Jesco searched in vain for Grance and Yvod, but it was impossible to see every bobbing head in the throngs. “What will you do if we find them?” he asked.

  “Hire a suspects’ carriage to ferry them back to Cantercaster,” Scoth said. He was looking out the window to the other side of the street. “I don’t know that we can hold Yvod for long, but at least we’ll get to hear what he has to say in an interrogation or two first.”

  They disembarked at the train station and Scoth gave the autohorse the destination of the closest service station to check itself in. With a programmed whicker, the autohorse bobbed its head and drew the carriage away. Jesco placed his bag in the seat of his wheelchair and pushed it along.

  The station’s platform was an absolute madhouse, due to the train arriving from the port only minutes ago. People clutched their hats at a breeze and hefted luggage and small children into their arms. All of them were speaking at once to hire carriages, get rooms at inns, find a place to eat, and asking where they picked up their autohorses. A school trip had been on that train, and two wavering lines of children in blue uniforms marched past Jesco and Scoth with satchels over their shoulders. They were singing, and the matron with them waved to four large carriages that could not find a place to park and had stopped directly in the road.

  Hard-muscled freight workers were unloading heavy crates from the four back cars of the green and black train. Wagons were waiting for the crates, drivers sitting in the seats and shouting the names of their businesses to the freight workers if it was not already printed on the wagon sides. Another car was opened and autohorses came out, travelers shouting to them. “Ya-ya! Come here, Ya-ya!” “There she is, Carcey, step lively now!” A worker directed the horses to a slim avenue that ran alongside the far end of the platform.

  “First class, prepare to board! First class, prepare to board!” someone shouted in a ringing baritone beside three cars near the front that had their windows gilded in gold.

  “They would ride in the first class cars with their money,” Scoth said. He forced his way through, Jesco following closely in his wake with the wheelchair. It wasn’t nearly as crowded where there was a queue of well-dressed travelers. Separated from the second and third class people by velvet ropes, they were waiting as the interior of the first class cars was cleaned. The work was almost done, maids with rags and sacks of refuse stepping out and going to cars further back.

  Neither Yvod Kodolli nor Grance Dolgange was in the clutches of people behind the ropes. Jesco and Scoth circled the group twice. The last maids exited and a station worker let the people board. All of them looked relieved to escape the hubbub, one old man saying to his wife, “Still some time until it leaves, but we can have a nice sit-down and order a cider.”

  “How many trains are there each day?” Jesco asked.

  “Just one,” Scoth said, turning to stare out into the crowds. Those who had just arrived in Lowele were all mixed up with the people aiming to leave it. “It takes almost six hours to pass through the badlands, so it leaves the south just before sunrise to get here, and leaves here at midday to get back by evening.”

  A station worker went by with a scrawny, squalling pickpocket of tender years in his grip, the boy twisting to free his collar as he was marched implacably to an office. Scoth motioned for Jesco to come, and they stepped in behind the worker and boy. “It isn’t stealing if she dropped it!” the boy said. His face was smudged with dirt and his clothes were more patches than whole. “Let go of me!”

  Scoth showed his badge and was let behind the counter to speak with someone. Jesco took a seat in the tiny waiting area. The office let out into the ticket exchange, which had three long lines of people waiting in aisles between benches to make their purchases. Vendors sold drinks and snacks along the sides. Turning away from it, he propped his foot upon the wheel of his chair and glanced out the window to the platform.

  Had Yvod and Grance already made it here and taken yesterday’s train? Or were they still dawdling about on their way to Lowele, if that was even where they were going? They could not be going anywhere else if their plans were to quit Ainscote. This was the only route out unless they were going to sweep back through the country and charter a boat to the Northern Ice.

  Something caught his eye and he looked down. A bit of air was going through his pocket. It was the boy, who had been shoved into another seat and told to stay there until someone could deal with him. His finger twitched as he stared innocently away from Jesco. An othelin child, obviously a manipulator, and homeless. He couldn’t have been more than nine. Jesco put his hand casually over his pocket, pinning his wallet there. Scoth was not yet back, so Jesco pushed his chair into the ticket exchange and bought a cup of lemonade and a giant, salted pretzel. The warmth of it bled through his glove. Returning to the office, he offered them to the boy. “Go on.”

  The boy took them warily. Then he ripped a hunk from the pretzel and shoved it in his mouth. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for him,” called the man at the counter. “He’s sneaking onto the trains and stealing all the time, dirty little demon spawn.”

  “Not the only demon spawn in this waiting area,” Jesco said. The man looked disgusted, since Jesco was the only other one there, and dropped his gaze to rifle through a ledger.

  “Where are you from?” the boy mumbled with his mouth full.

  “Cantercaster,” Jesco said. “You?”

  “Dorset, down by the port.”

  “Isn’t there an asylum in Dorset?” Jesco was sure there was. One of the Cantercaster nurses had worked there before moving north. “You’ll get all the food you want there, a warm bed and clothes.”

  The boy was offended. “An asylum! I don’t want to get locked in an asylum when I’ve got my brain about me.”

  “I’ve got my brain and live in the Cantercaster asylum, yet I’m not locked in or else how am I here doing my job for the police?”

  The boy had no answer for that, and gobbled up the whole pretzel. He was downing the lemonade when Scoth returned and gestured to the big room where tickets were being sold. Feeling like he had to say one more thing to the child, Jesco bent to him. “I was scared when I was taken to an asylum as a boy, too. But do you know what happen
ed to me when I got there?”

  “What?” the youthful manipulator asked uncertainly.

  “I found my home.” That was all Jesco could do. The rest of it was the boy’s decision.

  Jesco rolled his chair into the ticket exchange after Scoth. Profound aggravation in his eyes, Scoth guided them up to the front of the line while saying, “Yes, they received notification to be on watch for Dolgange and Kodolli. They hung it up on their wall. But that’s all they did. No one’s been keeping an eye out for those two. I knew it would be like this.”

  “So they could have strolled onto the train without problem,” Jesco said. “But maybe they haven’t showed yet. They haven’t done any of this trip with speed.”

  Scoth displayed his badge at the counter and held out money. “Two second class tickets to Port Adassa, preferably a quarter compartment, if there’s one available.” The startled clerk nodded.

  “Get back in l-” a man began to complain. Seeing the badge, he cut himself off and found somewhere else to look.

  “We’re going down there?” Jesco asked once Scoth had the tickets. The wheelchair marked as special handling, the clerk pulled another worker aside to ask for packaging to wrap the chair in. After that, it would be taken to freight.

  “We’ve got to go there,” Scoth said. “If they’re already down in Port Adassa and feeling antsy, I’m sure they could slip enough to the captain of a freight ship to buy themselves passage.”

  Freight was still being unloaded from the back cars when they stepped out onto the platform. Dozens of station workers were there to get it done fast. As soon as one car was fully unloaded, crates and oversize luggage were rushed inside. A line of autohorses waited patiently for their turn, one real horse among them stamping his hoof in dislike at the manufactured horses to provoke a reaction. They soundly ignored him.