by Gini Koch
“Who besides the servers came by your table once you were seated?” Melville asked.
“No one came by our table once we were seated, not even before Kitty arrived,” Jeff answered.
A bad thought occurred to me. Someone had indeed come by, in that sense. “And he said he was sorry . . .”
“What? Who?” Chuckie asked.
Prince whined and nudged against me. I looked down, Prince whined again, louder. We were on the same wavelength. “Ah . . . Prince wants to, um, smell the body. Please.”
“What?” Melville sounded shocked.
“Let him,” Jeff said, and he had his Commander voice on. He didn’t use it as much these days, but he still possessed the ability to let anyone and everyone know he was the man in charge in less than three syllables.
Melville handed Prince’s lead to Jeff, who took it and handed it to me. Prince and I went to the gurney, Prince sniffing like mad. He put his front paws up onto the bed and sniffed Reyes’ body. Tito pulled the sheet back before I had to ask him to, which was a relief.
“Be careful,” I said quietly. “It can kill you, too, if you get any on or in you.”
Prince stopped sniffing for a moment to look at me derisively. I’d gotten this look from cats, Poofs, and Peregrines, but it was a first from a dog. However, I got the point—Prince was a highly trained professional and he knew better than to put his paws, nose, or tongue onto a body that was toxic, thank you very much. He snorted at me, then went back to sniffing.
After a couple of intense sniffing minutes he got down. “You can cover the body again,” I told Tito, who did as requested. Prince whined and looked around. “He wants to check out the room where this happened.”
To everyone’s credit, no one asked me how I knew what Prince wanted. One tiny favor in a night full of badness. Chose to enjoy the moment.
“You sure you’re up to this, baby?” Jeff sounded worried.
“Yes. You figure out who’s going to go with Santiago’s body. Chuckie, you come with me and Prince.”
“Me? Why?”
“I think you’re going to be helping Prince make an arrest.”
CHAPTER 21
WE HEADED UPSTAIRS. “Kitty, who do you think did this?”
“Tell you if Prince and I agree.” It made no sense, and a part of me didn’t want to believe it. But only one person had acted weird—weird on my scale, which was a pretty heavy-duty scale—all night.
“No, tell me now, so I’m prepared.”
Chuckie had a point. “Fine. Eugene practically broke my chair fighting with both Santiago and Edmund Brewer to be the one to help me sit down.”
“He wasn’t sitting at your table . . . I can see why that could be suspicious. But how could he have poisoned anyone moving your chair in?”
“He practically fell onto Brewer, slammed me into the table, water spilled . . . it would take sleight of hand of some kind, but it would have been doable.”
“This is Eugene Montgomery you’re talking about, right?” Chuckie didn’t sound convinced. Couldn’t blame him.
“Right. I know, he’s not exactly Mister Smooth, but maybe he got lucky.”
“Or maybe he practiced. But what’s his motive?”
“Beats me. We get to find out, if I’m right. And if not, we’re back to square one anyway.”
“Oh good. Routine.” Chuckie opened the stairwell door for me and we headed back into what I hoped I wouldn’t now always think of as the Pretty Room of Death.
I was surprised to see everyone still at their tables. Well, almost everyone—obviously some of the guests weren’t in the room and we had a lot of Security A-Cs and most of the K-9 squad up here, but they were all hovering on the edges. The guests were seated, looking worried, bored, or outraged, depending.
People started talking. Not to me—at me. My name and title were being spoken, called, and shouted. Amazing how fast a relatively quiet room had gone to bedlam.
Looked at Reader for support. “Ignore the rest, do your thing, and let me know when, Kitty,” he said softly as I went past. That I could hear him over everyone else was most likely because I was looking right at him, but it helped. Reader was being kept in his seat by Cliff—I could tell Cliff’s hand wasn’t merely resting on Reader’s shoulder, but pressing down. Wasn’t sure why, but assumed Cliff had his reasons.
Prince ignored all of this, and I chose to listen to Reader and follow suit. We aimed for the head table, which, in addition to the Brewers, Armstrongs, and McMillans, held my mother. Kevin was standing behind her. Mom had her In Charge and Pissed to Be Here face on. I couldn’t blame her.
Reyes’ seat was empty—Mom was sitting in my vacated chair. “You brought a dog?” she asked without preamble.
“I brought the Top Dog of the K-9 squad. Prince and I need to do some work, Mom.”
“I’m not even going to ask. Do you need us standing up?”
“Only you. Everyone else is still in their original seats.” Mom obliged as I brought Prince over to Reyes’ seat. “Search and seizure time, Prince.”
He sniffed Reyes’ chair, then my chair, then he sniffed Brewer for a good little while. Initial investigation done, Prince jumped into Reyes’ chair and started sniffing what was on the table. His nose reached one of the glasses and Prince snorted. Prince looked around the table, sniffing like mad. He sniffed the one glass again, snorted again, looked at me, tossed off a third snort, and jumped down.
“Wow. Mom, the poison was in that glass. And, I think, only that glass.”
Mom motioned a couple of A-Cs over. “Find out who put that glass on the table.”
“Run it for fingerprints, too,” Chuckie added. Mom nodded approvingly. Kevin motioned for a couple of the K-9 cops in the room to come over.
I was going to pet Prince and give him praise, but he wasn’t done. He started sniffing the floor around the table. He was moving fast, and I was in heels. Decided this was the best trained animal in the Zoo right now and dropped his lead. Prince didn’t even seem to notice. He was intent on his sniffing.
It didn’t take long—after all, the table in question was right by this one. Prince sniffed around Reader’s table and ended up next to Eugene, who looked nervous and mildly terrified as Prince stuck his snout right into Eugene’s crotch.
Eugene’s expression went to fully terrified when Prince started to growl. Chuckie, who’d been hovering nearby, moved in his super fast and highly trained way that showed why he was able to take out an A-C if he had to and grabbed Eugene. “Let’s see what the dog’s upset about.”
“N-nothing,” Eugene stammered. “I’m not really good with dogs.”
Prince backed off to allow Chuckie to stand Eugene up, but he started barking. This wasn’t friendly barking. This was teeth-bared, fur up, growl-barking meant to indicate the barkee was bad news and should be taken out by the pack immediately if not sooner.
Chuckie patted Eugene down with great prejudice while Prince barked his approval and support. It was clear that, if Eugene so much as breathed wrong at Chuckie, Prince was ready to remove one of Eugene’s limbs, at the very least.
“You’re also not good with lying,” Chuckie said as he took a napkin off the table, then pulled a small packet out of Eugene’s pants pocket. He held it toward Prince, who barked his head off at the packet. Chuckie nodded. “Angela, I think we’ll discover this packet contained arsenic.”
There were gasps from a variety of people, Lydia foremost among them. “My husband would never hurt anyone!”
Apparently Kevin didn’t agree, because he slapped cuffs on Eugene. “You want to search him some more?” he asked Chuckie.
“We’ll strip search him later. We need to verify if he had any accomplices first.” Chuckie eyed Lydia. “Such as his wife.”
“Lydia didn’t do anything!” Eugene exclaimed. “And neither did I.”
Lydia looked shocked and confused, but Eugene looked trapped and panicked. He also looked guilty. I stepped up to him. “I get how you did it,
sort of. I don’t get why you did it, though. What had Santiago ever done to you?”
“Nothing! I didn’t do anything to him. I don’t know what that packet is—your friend here must have planted it on me.”
Cliff let go of Reader, who stood up and came to our side of the table. He looked furious. “Right,” Reader said as he reached us. “Of course he did. We’ll listen to more of your lame and completely ridiculous accusations of innocent people later. You’re on American Centaurion soil. And that means that, as Head of Field for Centaurion Division, I’m putting you under arrest—our kind of arrest.”
“I want my lawyer,” Eugene said weakly.
“Do you?” Reader asked with a pleasant smile. “That’s nice. American Centaurion doesn’t really do lawyers. And yours isn’t allowed to come visit at this time.”
“You can’t do that,” Lydia protested.
“Actually,” Cliff said, “they can.”
“Particularly when you, an American citizen, have perpetrated an unfriendly act on American Centaurion soil,” Kevin added.
The room went quiet. Wasn’t totally sure why. Assumed Kevin had said some code word that meant something to everyone else. Perhaps this information was in the Briefing Books of Boredom and the Diplomat’s Handbook that was more like the Diplomat’s New York City Phone Book. I’d been trying to read through them. Hadn’t gone quickly.
“Are you officially stating that you believe an unfriendly act was committed by an American citizen?” Armstrong asked carefully.
No one spoke. I had no idea why, it seemed clear to me. “I think murdering Santiago Reyes, in our Embassy, in cold blood, counts as an unfriendly act, if anyone’s asking me.”
Chuckie and Cliff both winced in unison. Uh oh. Risked a look at Mom. She had the same expression as she’d had when I’d come home after two in the morning without calling her first. I’d never done that again, and I had a feeling I was never going to use the term “unfriendly act” again without a lot of thought attached to it.
“Um, what does my saying that actually, ah, mean?”
Reader shook his head. “Oh, nothing much, Ambassador. You just shared that American Centaurion is considering this to be an act of war. As in, we’re considering war with the United States.”
Whoops.
CHAPTER 22
“I WOULD LIKE TO offer Romania’s good offices to help resolve and repair this matter,” Andrei, Olga’s husband, said before anyone else could speak. He ensured his voice carried.
How anyone had heard the prior exchange was beyond me, but I put it down to my luck being consistent. On the plus side, Olga was here, and I was sure that was why Andrei had reacted so quickly.
“Good offices?” I was sure I’d seen this term somewhere. Couldn’t remember where, but was pretty sure it didn’t indicate the penthouse suite of an office building.
“Means Romania’s offering to help settle this dispute between countries,” Chuckie said. “Thank God, and please stop speaking, Kitty,” he added under his breath.
Really wasn’t sure how to react to this. Didn’t seem to matter. Andrei came to our part of the room and he, Reader, Cliff, and Chuckie started having a very fast, very high-level discussion. They managed to move in such a way that I’d have to shove in in order to hear or speak. Fine. I’d blown it, but I wasn’t the bad guy here.
Speaking of whom, Kevin moved Eugene next to Mom. Mona and the rest of the Middle East Contingent had followed Andrei over to this part of the room, but they were with Mom. So I went over there—I was more used to being bawled out by my mother than Chuckie anyway.
“It’s okay, kitten,” Mom said softly. “As the ambassador, you have every right to declare this an act of war.”
“If this had happened in our Embassy, we would have declared the same,” Mona agreed.
Oren nodded his agreement. “Same for Israel. Any of us, really.”
Jakob cleared his throat. “What, as good friends to American Centaurion, can we do for you right now, Ambassador?”
Had to say this for Chuckie telling me to shut up—I thought about the ramifications to whatever I was going to say to this question before I replied.
We were standing next to three powerful political couples. Now wasn’t the time to share insider information. “Honestly, if you all wouldn’t mind staying around, even after the police release you, I’d appreciate it so much. I feel very lost and alone right now, and could use some advice from all of you.”
Mom shot me a look that said I was indeed actually as smart as she’d always suspected. Mona nodded. “Of course, Ambassador. Just tell us where you want us to go and we’ll ensure that we remain to assist in any way.”
“I’d say the fifth floor, once you’re all cleared. Have one of the Barones come and escort you.” Jeremy and Jennifer Barone were an A-C brother-sister team of Field agents who’d been permanently assigned to our Embassy after Operation Destruction. We’d had them remain upstairs with Hacker International tonight, to ensure no one wandered up there and to have A-Cs right there to advise and alert in case the hackers found anything of significance going on. Clearly the impending murder of a representative hadn’t hit their airwaves. Had no idea what this might or might not mean.
“Absolutely, Ambassador,” Khalid said. “Is there anyone else you would like to join us?”
Everyone seemed so much more on top of things than me right now. Thank God. “Yes, please ask the Romanian ambassadress and her assistant if they’d be so good as to join you. It looks like the Romanian ambassador is going to be here for some time, so it would be nice for them to be able to wait comfortably for him.”
“I’ll make sure the police clear all of these guests first,” Kevin said, as he handed Eugene off to Mom and headed toward the officers I’d nicknamed Larry and Curly during Operation Assassination. They had real names, but for whatever reason, unlike Melville, they weren’t attached to my using them. Ergo, I still called them Officers Larry and Curly. Either they didn’t understand my Three Stooges references or they were flattered by them. Decided not to worry about it right now.
Jeff chose this moment to arrive, which was nice. But he was instantly pulled into the impromptu Kitty’s Screwed Up Again meeting, which wasn’t. Always the way.
Because of where we all were, Eugene was standing near to Brewer, who shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this, Gene. We’ll get it sorted out.”
“Thanks,” Eugene muttered. He looked at Brewer—his expression didn’t say, “So glad I have a friend.” It said, “I hate your guts.” He wiped the look off his face quickly, but I’d seen enough to recognize it—it was reminiscent of the looks Jeff used to give Chuckie, gave Buchanan these days, and was currently shooting at Raj, presumably just to keep in practice.
Pushed aside worry about Buchanan’s whereabouts for the moment—there were bigger fish to hook, gut, and toss to Pierre to have fried.
My brain nudged. Eugene was in the Cabal of Evil only because of two reasons—his wife had managed to get into the Cool Kids Crowd and had no intention of leaving any time soon, and he was sleeping with one of the other members. With Brewer’s wife, to be exact.
Maybe Eugene hadn’t changed as much as I’d thought. Or, rather, maybe he’d changed in a different way.
Stepped away from the group just a bit and examined our table. Not too much had been moved, Mom’s doing no doubt. Reviewed what had happened from the point Raj and I had reached this part of the room. Then I looked at Brewer’s place setting and the light dawned.
Rejoined Mom as Kevin came to take the Middle Eastern Contingent off to give their statements. Waited until Mom and I were alone. “I have a strong theory. Should I share it now, or do you want me to wait?”
“Wait one moment. Charles!” The way Mom said his name, there was no way Chuckie wasn’t going to come right over. She’d definitely put the “you will obey me without question, young man” tone into one syllable.
He indeed disenga
ged immediately. “Yes, Angela?”
“Kitty has a theory. I’d like you to hear it.”
Jeff had great hearing, yet another A-C trait enhanced by Surcenthumain. He joined us, too. “It’s okay, baby, we’ll get everything taken care of.” He took my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back.
“Good. And, thanks, Mom. I actually think Eugene’s telling the truth. In a way.”
“Really?” Chuckie didn’t sound impressed or pleased that he’d been called over here.
“Really. I do think he’s the one who put arsenic in the water glass, only Santiago Reyes wasn’t his target.”
“Shut up, Kitty,” Eugene said desperately.
“No way in hell, you jerk. And, just in case you weren’t sure, I’m never forgiving you for both murdering Santiago in such a horrible way and doing it on American Centaurion soil, regardless of whatever diplomatic thing is being facilitated by Andrei.” Maybe I could insist that Eugene be executed in the public square, so to speak, as appeasement for American Centaurion’s outrage. Unlikely, but still something to daydream about.
“Kitty, can you get to the point?” Chuckie asked in a pained tone.
“Sure, since we’re on a schedule and all. Eugene wasn’t trying to kill Santiago—he was trying to kill Edmund Brewer.”
CHAPTER 23
MY ANNOUNCEMENT engendered lots of gasps of shock from everyone other than Eugene, Mom, and Chuckie. Even Jeff gasped. Enjoyed my Big Reveal moment. Knew everyone’s being impressed with me wouldn’t last long.
“Why do you feel that Representative Brewer was the actual target?” Chuckie asked, speaking quite slowly and distinctly. Reader, Cliff, Andrei, and the others from their table gathered ’round.
“Because Edmund Brewer didn’t drink his water. He gave it to Santiago instead.”
Everyone gave me polite looks that said I was either crazy or making no sense.
“See?” Eugene said, sounding slightly hysterical. “He’s the one who did it! His fingerprints will probably be on the glass.”