“Julie? Julie?” He started up, almost grabbed his senior’s hand. “JULIE? No! She can’t be —”
“She’s the one who recruited him,” the Old Woman answered in a tight voice.
“No. No. Oh, no.” So that’s what Corwin was getting at with that last sentence of his. Looking back, Dave guessed he should have seen it coming, if he’d been any kind of an objective detective. If he hadn’t let his blind spot take over.
“Come on, Detective Clayton.” She was all Sergeant Lestrade again. “Get Vergucchi and Little Bird. And everybody else we can round up. We don’t need a warrant this time. Emergency rescue mission. We’ll try Imani’s place first.”
“Right, Sarge!” The only way he was going to get through tonight, Dave saw, was by turning the man off completely and letting the professional shell carry him.
* * * *
One side of the lounge was open to the front office, so Angela saw the tall woman come in, saw her hand something to the desk officer while saying, “Everyone on hand to this address. Bring the security limo. There are at least five of them. Maybe more.”
Angela got up and went out of the lounge to her. “Are you Sergeant Lestrade?”
The tall woman turned, looked at her. “And you’d be Angela. M. Garvey.”
“Wherever you’re going—is it about Corwin?”
Muscles tightened in Sergeant Lestrade’s jaw before she answered. “It’s about M. Davison, yes.”
“Let me come with you!”
“M. Garvey. It’ll be no place for civilians. I want you safe here.”
“Sergeant—please! I can’t just wait behind and…worry. I’ve been worrying since midnight! All last night in Boca Raton—all day on the airplanes! I won’t get in the way. I’ll stay back. Only—Sergeant Lestrade, I can’t just sit here doing nothing! I’ll—I’ll follow you in my own car, if I have to!”
Sergeant Lestrade glanced at the envelope in Angela’s hand. “What did he write to you?”
“I don’t know—I haven’t even opened it. That would be like admitting he’s…he’s… Please, Sergeant! Woman to woman?”
“Come on,” said Rosemary Lestrade. “Stop wasting time.”
* * * *
They took the marked police cars this time, sirens and all. Lestrade put Clayton behind the wheel because he was the speedier driver, sirens or not. Maybe not quite as speedy as Little Bird and Vergucchi, whose car could have passed theirs five minutes from the station, if it wasn’t for protocol and the city traffic they were already sending scuttling.
All three of them—Lestrade, Clayton, M. Garvey—sat mostly in silence.
Out of my Lady-damned mind, Lestrade was thinking. Won’t get in the way, my Auntie Henry! Oh, no, she’ll stay well back out of our way, all right, just like that double-blasted sweetheart of hers obeys a direct “suggestion”—as he so self-servingly puts it—from police authority. Holy martyr Silverstairs! However tonight plays out, I lose. Let’s see, any way I can excuse bringing a civilian along? Okay: she knows the house, she’s been in there before, I figured she could help us out as a guide. And if we hadn’t brought her along in the police car, she’d have followed us in her own, for double the trouble. There. My excuses when Chief Grayling rakes me over the coals about all this. Lady God! If we can’t salvage anything else tonight, at least let us salvage Davison alive. Preferably in mendable condition. Because he’s going to need his strength when I light into him!
Be nice if we can salvage Whitworth, too. Dave’s department.
When they reached Vadnais Estates, they shut off the sirens—no point announcing a raid too early—and slowed down just enough to avoid any unexpected after-dark traffic, motor or pedestrian, on the winding residential roads.
They pulled up quietly beside Imani’s grounds. Two police cars and the security limo with Brown and Wentworth. Six officers. Should be plenty, unless this “Purgatorio” group had a lot more members than Davison knew about. And one civilian, more likely to need protection than give them much help, no matter what Lestrade’s cover story for Chief Grayling was going to be. She turned her attention to Imani’s Victorian.
It seemed to get bigger, the closer they got. Big and dark. Should be lights on somewhere… Lestrade squinted up. Was that a faint glow, there in the tower windows? Lightblock drapes? Shutters? Den in the basement, lights probably wouldn’t show at all.
“‘Purgatorio,’” M. Garvey was whispering beside her. “Dante’s Delight. I just read the Divine Comedy last year. Mount Purgatory.”
Lestrade saw that M. Garvey was looking up, too. “Right,” the detective sergeant said in a voice just loud enough to take in her whole squad. “We’re trying that tower first.”
She got out her police ring of skeleton keys. The second one fit Imani’s lock. They made it inside with minimum noise, started pointing their flashlights around. Six thin beams of light, weaving around like some kind of crazy cat’s cradle. The whole house seemed quiet, dark. But it didn’t feel deserted. It felt like somebody at home somewhere in here. Probably that blame tower, so Lestrade decided a light or three downstairs would be safe enough. She found a light switch and tabbed it on.
Fine vestibule. Victorian style, well kept up. Like stepping back into the era of Holmes and Watson, for sure.
M. Garvey looked around, frowned a little, and led the way into the house, waving them to follow. Not pushing it. Polite and shy and right in the spirit of silence. The Old Woman’s leathery old heart warmed to her a little.
They proceeded as a group, Lestrade first behind their blond Sacajawea, tabbing on more lights here and there, Clayton beside her wherever space allowed. She noticed he looked pale but determined, and every now and then pressed his lips into a tight line.
“Here,” M. Garvey whispered, bringing them to the foot of a wide staircase with a smooth wood banister. “I’m not sure how high these go,” she confessed.
Well, it was a start. Nodding to her, Lestrade took the lead.
Lady, they damn well better leave enough of him for me!
The staircase continued to the third floor before stopping at a corner where two corridors met. Lestrade shut her eyes and mentally checked her orientation before turning down the hallway she thought led to the tower side of the house.
Bingo. Another stairway. Going down as well as up. Treading carefully, they went up. By now they were back on flashlights rather than risk stairwell lights.
The last three steps to the next landing up had been stripped of all carpeting and painted: looked in the beam of the flashlights like black, some midway color—red?—and white, in ascending order. Fortunately, pollies wore rubber soles they could keep quiet on bare wood.
The staircase made a ninety-degree turn and continued past this landing one level higher, but all she could see up there was one more landing, in front of a blank wall, with maybe above it a ceiling trapdoor to the roof. And there was something about those three painted steps… Softly and cautiously, she mounted them and tested the doorknob. Felt unlocked, well oiled. Turned without making a sound.
She glanced around behind her. Clayton at her right shoulder, good. M. Garvey pushing up at her left shoulder—not so good, but trying to get her back and an officer into her place could cause more noise pollution than Lestrade wanted to risk right now. She waved the flashlight in her left hand to signal “Be Ready,” tabbed it off, thrust open the door, and announced into the sudden flow of light:
“Everyone in this room is under arrest.”
CHAPTER 22
Still Tuesday, October 3
There were three of them, sitting on the floor beneath a full-sized green cross, other pleasant apparatus scattered neatly around the edges of the chamber, fancy framed mottoes or something—bless the Prexy!—hanging on the walls. The ceiling was high, the windows shuttered, the floor sunken to the depth of three steps down—painted w
hite, red, and black—giving Lestrade a good view of things. The far side, facing the door, was closed off with heavy purple theater-type curtains. The trio sitting on the floor looking up at her were a solid brown-haired man approaching middle age, an attractive—to say the least—black-haired young woman, and a hefty Chocolate Pureblood who could have been either gender. All fully dressed and ready for public appearance. The man and woman had white neck-scarves, the Pureblood a white vest. All this Lestrade saw in a couple of heartbeats.
The man said, “We’ve all signed consenting adult forms, Officer.”
“You’re not under arrest for all this nonsense, M.’s.” Lestrade waved around at the room. “You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder and kidnapping —”
“Sergeant, no!” And look who came waltzing out from behind the purple curtains, bandages peeking beneath both sleeves but otherwise acting cozily at home and none the worse for wear. “They are inno-”
“SHUT UP, M. DAVISON!” snapped Lestrade, aware that at the same moment M. Garvey was crying,
“Oh, Cory, your solemn promise!”
“I said everyone in this room,” Lestrade went on. “That includes you, M. Davison.”
“-cent,” he finished in a whisper, closed his mouth, and mechanically held his hands up for the bracelets. But his shocked gaze never left the doorway. Where, Lestrade verified with one quick backward glance, M. Garvey no longer stood.
Noticing the bandages were elastic, neatly wound halfway up over the heels of his palms, she pulled the steelplas cuffs just tight enough not to slip off. He ignored the whole process, still staring toward the place where M. Garvey had stood. Only when Lestrade stepped back, probably blocking his line of vision, did he seem to pull himself more or less together, lifting his wrists to examine the handcuffs with what looked like abstracted curiosity.
A second man had come through the curtains. Tall, skinny, with a broken-crooked nose, about thirty, carrying a half-eaten sandwich. As Officer Little Bird approached him, he stuffed the last of it in his mouth and held out his hands. Vergucchi was taking care of the middle-aged man, Wentworth the Pureblood—maybe not quite a Pureblood, with that shoulder-length straight hair. “Detective Clayton,” Lestrade told him, jerking her head at the woman, “cuff her.”
* * * *
Julie stood up and watched Dave approach through a wavery film of tears. Looking away to wipe her eyes, she saw that Curly had turned around and deliberately held her wrists out in back to her polly. What an inspired idea! To salvage as much purgatory as they could out of the situation. Besides, Julie didn’t really want to risk looking Dave in the eye. As he got close, she followed Curly’s example.
Instead of cuffing her hands in back, he put one hand on her shoulder and turned her around to face him again. His touch was neither gentle nor rough, just…businesslike, impersonal.
“Dave,” she whispered, trying after all to look up into his gray eyes.
Completely the police detective, he slid his gaze neutrally down, picked her wrists up one at a time, and cuffed them together in front. He never said a word to her. Just one glance at her face, too quick for her to read his expression, right before he turned back to the one who had to be his “Old Woman,” Sergeant Lestrade.
* * * *
Lady Goddess Mother! Lestrade was thinking. Any more pairs of lovebirds we can manage to split apart tonight? Seems unbalanced to leave all of three hearts unbroken. “Now,” she demanded, “how many more of you are there to come out of the woodwork?”
“Nobody else, Officer,” the middle-aged one replied. “You got us, all four.”
“Five,” Lestrade corrected him. “You’d be M. Imani?”
“Sam. Sam Imani. And it’s four. That one —” he did a double-handed gesture at Davison, “shouldn’t fall under your arrest. He was just joining us tonight. Not even a full member, yet.”
“He stays arrested. All right, Officers, let’s take them away.” Gripping Davison by the shoulder, she watched the others file out first.
“Sergeant Lestrade,” he said softly, “I had…labored under the impression that Angela—M. Garvey—was safe in Boca Raton.”
“Giving you your chance to break a promise to her as well as a direct command from me. You young idiot, she flew back today out of worry for your questionable hide!”
“‘Questionable’ has my full endorsement.” He took one shaky breath and said, “Will you grant her police protection?”
Lestrade relented, just a little, and just for the moment. “To the best of our power. Now come on!” and propelled him out at the end of the line.
They found M. Garvey waiting beside the front door. Davison came to a stop. “Angela…”
“How long did your solemn promise last, Corwin Poe? Two days?” She held up an envelope with her name on it.
“Have you…read it?” he asked.
For answer, she tore it in four and thrust the pieces back at him before she stormed out the front door.
Only one of the pieces stayed in his cuffed hands. He ran his fingers over it as if checking whether the flap was still sealed down, then let it fall beside the other pieces and exited the house into Officer Brown’s waiting custody. Lestrade lingered long enough to gather up all the pieces of envelope and letter. Evidence, you plodding drudge of a pollydeck. Evidence to sift and comb and try like hades to make something out of.
That was the excuse she handed herself.
* * * *
The police security limo had four wide back seats separated from the driver’s section by a plate of steelglass. Julie had never ridden in one before. It was as comfortable as any regular car, or would have been, apart from the fact of being under arrest, with Dave…
Beside her, Corwin suddenly yanked his fists apart until the cuffs bit into his bandages, winced, and broke the silence. “An ant striving to play croquet with no height to swing the mallet and no access to the rulebook!” he exclaimed.
“Make that mallet a live flamingo,” Sam remarked from the next seat back, “and you’ve just about got it.”
“Your forgiveness is naturally rescinded,” Corwin continued.
“What?” said Sam. “Why?”
Curly pointed out, “You tried to insist it was just four of us, Sam.”
“Hey, Corwin, I didn’t mean—” Sam began… “Look, I was just hoping to keep you out of it. Everything considered, why should you be under suspicion with the rest of us? Anyway, pretty poor argument for the ideals of the Purgatorio, if we started rescinding forgiveness now. What about it, gang?”
There was a murmur of agreement from Curly and Paul. Julie added her Yes to complete the consensus.
“After I have served as your Cassius and Brutus and Judas? It is thanks to me that we sit here now.”
“Just don’t hang yourself on us,” Paul spoke up from the back seat. “Judas’ problem was, he couldn’t accept being forgiven.”
Sam added, “And try making that Shakespeare’s Brutus instead of Dante’s.”
Corwin bent forward and put his face in his linked hands.
“It was probably bound to happen sooner or later,” Sam went on philosophically. “I think we got a little bit too complacent when the consenting adult laws came in.”
“Adult…” Corwin murmured, and Julie remembered he was just twenty-two. Still getting used to being grown-up in the grown-up world. She remembered when she was that age. That had been about the time she joined Dante’s Delight. With Dave still years in the future.
After a few more blocks, Julie said softly, “Corwin. We’ve lost them, haven’t we?”
“I fear I have.… Let my comfort be that Angela can do far better.”
“No, she can’t.” Scooching across the seat, Julie groped for his hands and got them into her own. “And call me selfish,” she went on, “but I don’t think Dave is going to do better
than me. Not that I’m so good. But we fit together, Dave and I.”
Corwin returned the pressure of her fingers. They sat, two pairs of cuffed hands layered together, awkward but comforting.
Another short silence. Curly broke this one. “Next time I play it smart like the rest of you and let ’em cuff me in front. This isn’t penitential, it’s just darn uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable counts,” said Sam. “I think we’re almost there, anyway.”
“It’s embarrassing to own to this,” said Corwin, “but I have never before been under arrest, never hitherto experienced serious embroilment with the legal authorities.”
“None of us have,” said Julie.
“You’re wrong there,” Paul announced. “I was arrested once. When I was a kid in high school. For shoplifting.”
“What are we to do?” Corwin asked. “How comport ourselves?”
“Just let the pollies take the lead. Go where they push you, do what they want, don’t give them any backtalk. We don’t have anything much to worry about tonight. It isn’t like screenshows about the bad old days before pollies got paranoid about lawsuits for false arrest and/or police brutality. And they make doggone good coffee.”
“It’s what comes after tonight that we have to worry about,” said Curly.
“What comes after tonight…” Julie murmured. She thought she was going to cry again. Oh, Dave, Dave, my Dragon Prince!
“I think we’re there, gang,” Sam observed as the limo pulled up to the police station.
* * * *
At the station, Lestrade grouped her team, except Wentworth, who was herding the arrestees from the limo into the station.
“Body searches on these, Sergeant?” Vergucchi wanted to know. If it hadn’t been a case of murder, the question wouldn’t have been asked, even by an old-timer like Vergucchi. Nobody did body searches nowadays for any crime less than arson and armed robbery. Even in those cases, if one was done on a floater who turned out to be innocent, the automatic monetary recompense could put a big dent in the year’s budget. But this was suspected murder and kidnapping—no, strike the kidnapping, the idiot had run into it with arms open.
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