In Stone Vol. 1-6: The First Six Travis Eldritch Problems (A Travis Eldritch Problem)

by Jennifer Vandenberg

  Jet shrugged and continued to look at the building that once held our office. Now it was half a building and the rubble that had been our office was being removed to a landfill. He wasn’t smiling and that made me nervous. “You seemed very eager to find a new office a week ago, but you have declined to look at any of the spaces Anda has found.” Jet looked at me and the grin flashed briefly. “She is getting annoyed.”

  “I know. I am worried she is going to flash me with her glamour just to get me to say yes to something.”

  Jet nodded and his smile stayed a little longer. “She might. So why do you want to quit?”

  “I’ve been thinking about choices. Did I choose this job or was it handed to me? Am I just continuing down the easy path or is there something else I’m supposed to be doing?”

  “I do not know. I do not think about it. I just take each day as it comes.” Jet ran a hand through his unruly red mop. Now I was really nervous.

  “Jet, what will you do if I decide to shut down the agency?” I realized I’d been so wrapped up in my own uncertainty that I hadn’t considered what my choices might mean to Jet or Anda. Was I being selfish?

  “I will marry Anda, have five gorgeous, short, red-headed children, and open my own detective agency.”

  My jaw dropped. I quickly closed my mouth but it took longer for words to come out. “You’re marrying Anda?”

  Jet’s grin rivaled the sun. “No. But I was curious which part to my plan you would object to most.”

  I nodded. “I get it. Apparently I have no problem with you opening your own detective agency.”

  Jet turned to go. “I hope that makes your choice easier.”

  “Jet.” I couldn’t just let it go. “Were you serious about any of that?”

  Jet still had his smile in place when he looked at me. “Tell me your decision and I will let you know.”

  I turned back to the remaining half of our building and felt a little better. Anda and Jet would be fine. I think that was what Jet was trying to tell me. Of course that still meant I had a choice to make. And I should figure out my answer sooner than later—Jet may be understanding, but I doubted he or Anda would be patient for much longer.

  I was getting a headache. I decided to make a choice. I would ask the first person who walked by for advice. I didn’t have to follow it, but it might give me new options.

  I saw a woman walking down the sidewalk toward me. She had on a lovely Suntern dress paired with strappy sandals. Her dark hair was cut short and made her neck look really long. I couldn’t see her eyes because she was wearing the darkest pair of sunglasses I’ve ever seen. I would have thought she was blind but she walked a very straight path and had no assistance.

  I stepped toward her, ready to follow through with my plan when she stopped in front of me.

  “Mr. Eldritch?”

  I nodded and the thought went through my mind that this woman was not going to help me with my problem. Before I could speak, she took off her glasses and started straightening the collar of my shirt. I was so surprised it never occurred to me that I should stop her.

  “Ma’am.”

  She seemed so intent on my shirt that I wondered if that was her Problem. I finally realized I wasn’t going to learn anything if I didn’t stop her. I slowly touched her roving hands and held them in my own. She didn’t seem to mind and I certainly didn’t mind holding on to her long smooth fingers. After a moment she smiled, not a manic smile like Jet had but a sincere, grateful smile, like she understood me. Withdrawing her hands, she put her sunglasses back on.

  “I’m sorry I was so forward. It is my Problem and why I need your help. I’m Meggie Delagardie and I’ve been accused of murder.”

  So much for choices.

  ●●●

  Well, I did make one choice at that moment. I chose to include Jet and Anda in Meggie’s problems. I was sure I was going to need their help. For the first time since becoming a detective, I felt a little overwhelmed.

  So instead of having Meggie explain herself in front of what had been our office, I took her to Hen’s Breakfast Roost, where Jet, Anda, and I had been meeting all week. Over coffee and stacks of flatrounds we learned about Meggie.

  The first thing I learned was that she wore the glasses as a defense against her Problem. She had to straighten things. I was surprised when she fiddled with my collar, but quickly learned to adjust when she straightened all the silverware at our table. I took her hands again before she could start on the napkins and menus. Her smile was so sweet that I assumed she was used to people stopping her wandering hands.

  We were in the middle of our sugar-sauce covered flatrounds when Anda got the ball rolling. “First, I have to say that it is a pleasure to meet you, Meggie. Anyone who can get Travis out of the funk he has been in gets a gold star in my book.”

  Jet said nothing, just grinned his ridiculous grin. I had a feeling they had been talking about me a lot during my absence.

  “I’m glad to help, but I am afraid I bring nothing but trouble.”

  “You said something about murder,” I said.

  Meggie nodded. “If it wasn’t for Inspector Young I would be in jail right now, and I am not sure even he can save me if more evidence is not found to clear me.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Anda said. Meggie nodded. She carefully placed her fork parallel to her spoon and slipped on her dark glasses.

  “I hope you don’t mind the glasses. It stops my Problem from distracting me. I am a graduate student working at the Interlunar Institute for Inventions. We call it I Cubed.”

  “Don’t they mostly work on energy issues?” I asked.

  Meggie nodded. “I went off-moon for college and ended up doing my research on Feros with Dr. James Notch.”

  Jet whistled and looked impressed. “I considered heading there. That is where they find all those crazy magnets.”

  Meggie nodded again. Other than that movement she was very still. “Feros is an odd moon. The electro-magnetic field isn’t uniform so there are many different types of magnets. Dr. Notch was working with pulse magnets and hoping that he could make them work the same on Ausdine as they do on Feros. If it worked than he could have used them to make clear energy here.”

  “Did Dr. Notch die?” Anda asked. She must have picked up on the past tense as I did.

  “He did. Three days ago I made a trip to Feros and got back yesterday afternoon. I was picking up more samples for Dr. Notch. When I arrived at his office he was lying on the floor in a pool of blood and his office was in total disarray.”

  Meggie paused and I knew what she was going to say next. “You straightened up his office.”

  Jet and Anda frowned. “Why would you do that?” Anda asked.

  “It’s her Problem. She straightens things,” I said.

  Meggie nodded. “It is a constant Problem. I wear the glasses when I want to reduce the urge, but his office was always in perfect order so I didn’t usually wear them in there.”

  “Did you call the police?” Jet asked.

  “I did. The moment I found the body.”

  “And did they arrive as you were straightening up the office?” Anda asked.

  “They did. Inspector Morris Jesper told me to stop, which is really hard for me to do unless I am physically restrained.”

  “I bet he restrained you,” I said.

  She nodded. “With handcuffs as he was reading me my rights and passing me off to his officers. I spent last night in jail.”

  I knew that murder suspects were not usually granted bail so how was she out of jail? When I asked, she smiled. “Inspector Young is my brother-in-law.” She paused. “Well, ex-brother-in-law. My sister was his second wife. But we always got along well and he knew what my Problem was. He came to my cell last night and got me a good lawyer.”

  “And bail was set low enough for a grad student to afford?” Anda asked.

  Meggie shook her head. “No. I have very little. But my sister and Hector still have a ho
use that they rent out. They put it up for my bail.” She took off her glasses and looked at me. Her hands came up and I took them. I was beginning to enjoy holding her hands in mine. “He told me to come find you and you would figure out who did do it since Inspector Jesper is a Skeptic.”

  Jet rolled his eyes. “I had a boss who was a Skeptic. That must be one of the worst Problems ever.”

  I frowned and took Meggie’s glasses to slip them over her lovely green eyes. I didn’t want to hide them, but I did want to finish my breakfast and I couldn’t do that if I was holding her hands.

  “What is so bad about a skeptic?” I asked

  “There is nothing wrong about a person being skeptical. You and I are skeptical about most people.” Jet turned to Meggie. “I do not mean that we are skeptical about you. You are a very sincere person and I am sure you are not leading us on.”

  Anda nodded. “I don’t even have Jet’s Problem of sensing sincerity in women and I would have believed you, Meggie. But Jet is right. A good detective should be skeptical.”

  “But if the Problem one is born with is Skepticism they cannot trust anything that is said unless the evidence is directly in front of them,” Jet said. “You could tell them the sky was blue, but if it was sunrise and the sky looked pink than a Skeptic would not believe you.”

  I digested this along with the last of my sweet bite of flatround. “So Inspector Jesper believes Meggie is guilty because he saw her straightening the office and that is what guilty people do.”

  Meggie nodded. “That is what he said.”

  “How is this guy a cop?” Anda asked.

  “Being a Skeptic is probably a good trait for a cop as well as a detective. His is just a Problem,” I said.

  “So can you help me?” Meggie asked.

  I nodded. “I think we can.”

  “Are you choosing to do this?” Jet asked. I looked at him and Anda sitting across from me. They both were looking at me with polite smiles, which I might have believed from Anda, but not Jet. What were they plotting?

  “We’ll call it a test,” I said.

  Jet nodded and his true smile emerged. “Good enough. Are we going to her office?”

  I took out my phone. “We need to get Hector to let us in. I’m sure Inspector Jesper has it sealed.”

  We left the restaurant and caught a bus out to the waterfront. This section of the river was nicer than the warehouse district, but I still thought it was an odd place to have a lab.

  “Why aren’t you located in the University district?”

  “I Cubed deals with a lot of hazardous and explosive materials. The University wanted to isolate us from a lot of the infrastructure,” Meggie said.

  I nodded. Made sense, but it also made me uneasy. Dr. Notch had to have died for a reason—what if that reason was hazardous or explosive?

  Inspector Hector Young was waiting for us outside the lab. He didn’t say anything to us; he simply kissed Meggie on the cheek. I took this as a bad sign. Hector was always willing to toss out a sarcastic remark around me, partly because sarcasm was his Problem and mostly because we got along like a tailwagger and a tiny-chewing crawler. If I was a flying crawler he would probably just swat me. Meggie took off her glasses and led us up to Dr. Notch’s office where Hector undid the seal. I expected him to stay but after uttering a grunted comment about better places to be than babysitting a bunch of troublemakers, he left.

  “He is such a nice person,” Jet said. I chuckled. Jet never understood sarcasm, in himself or other people.

  “I think he is very worried about me,” Meggie said. “I’ve never heard him so silent.”

  We went into the office and I could see why Meggie would feel the need to straighten things up. Except for one shelf that was in perfect order the contents of every other shelf in the room were scattered around the floor. It looked like a T-5 wind-twirler had come through.

  The only floor space that was bare was in front of the neat shelf, a long spot exposing the stained carpeting. I turned to Meggie to ask her if that was where the body had been and found her picking up books and putting them neatly on a shelf by the door. I went over to her and carefully took the books out of her hands. I then helped her up. While holding her hands in my right I reached into her bag with my left and pulled out her sunglasses.

  “I’m sorry to have to cover up those emerald beauties, but I need you to stop now.” I handed her the glasses and she put them on.

  “I’m sorry, Travis. I should have realized that the office would still be in disarray. I won’t do it again.”

  “You will, but I’m glad you seem very accepting of it. There is no point in apologizing for your Problem.”

  Her smile made me feel like I had drunk sunshine. It was a very different feeling from when Anda showed off her glamour. That was like drowning in melted brown-sweets. Around Meggie I just felt a little better about life. It was refreshing and a little worrisome.

  “Is that where you found Dr. Notch?” I asked, pointing at the clear space on the carpeting.

  Meggie nodded. “He was covered in books so I removed them to free his body. I hadn’t gotten far when the police arrived.”

  Anda, Jet, and I carefully stepped over the scattered books and went to look at the shelf Meggie had filled. I motioned her to stand near us. I had a feeling that one of these books held an answer and that answer would be in the last book the killer looked at.

  “I have a question about this shelf,” I said. “Don’t look at anything else.” I removed her glasses and took her hands in one of mine. “Do you remember which book you put on the shelf first?”

  Meggie leaned in and looked at the titles. She nodded. “It was his work on pulse magnets. It’s just a rough draft but he liked to bind his findings so he could review his notes easier.”

  Anda removed the book that was on the right end of the shelf and flipped it open. It looked fine and I wondered if the murderer didn’t find what he was looking for. Anda got about halfway and then opened it from the back and flipped forward. About a third of the way from the back several pages had been torn out. I took the book from Anda and handed it to Meggie.

  “There are pages missing. Do you know what they would have been about?”

  Meggie looked at the pages on either side of the tear and then flipped to the front. She found the Table of Contents and ran her finger down the list. She shook her head. “I should have guessed.”

  “What should you have guessed?” I asked.

  “The pages that are missing are from a chapter on the dangers of pulse magnets.”

  That sounded bad, I thought. “And what are the dangers?”

  Meggie frowned. “I don’t know for sure. We always wear lead jackets when working around them. I think Dr. Notch feared that the human body might react badly to the magnetic field of a pulse magnet.”

  “Was he doing tests to figure out what the dangers were?” Jet asked.

  Meggie shrugged. “I don’t know. I only worked with the magnets as an energy source. But he had several grad students working on pulse magnets.”

  “Could we talk to them?” Anda asked.

  Meggie nodded. She set the book on the shelf in perfect alignment with the others and then picked up a book at her feet and placed it perfectly straight on another shelf. When she bent over again I took her hands and stilled her movement. “Put your glasses back on.”

  She put her glasses on and I sighed. I was sorry that she saw so little of the world, but I agreed with the police. This room needed to be as untouched as possible.

  “Is there a list of the grad students working with Dr. Notch?” I asked. Meggie nodded and took a booklet out of her bag. She lowered her glasses and flipped through the pages. She then handed the booklet to me and pushed her glasses back up. I glanced at the list. It had Dr. Notch’s name at the top with his phone number and then a list of five names and phone numbers. I grunted. Five wasn’t bad. Actually it was four since Meggie’s name was on the list. Meglandsiare Delag
ardie. No wonder she went by Meggie. That was quite a mouthful. It was also a little antiquated. Who named their daughter after an explorer who had been dead for more than three thousand years? Odd.

  I handed the book to Anda. “I want you and Jet to call each of these students. We need to know how dangerous pulse magnets are to humans.”

  Anda nodded. “You are thinking the Battleboys wanted it.”

  I nodded. “Either Jem or Brian. And I think time is running out.”

  Jet nodded. “If they have enough of the magnets we may be out of time.”

  “And why do I want to keep doing this job?” I asked. I turned to Meggie before anyone could answer.

  “Obviously dangerous things like pulse magnets are not being kept in this office. Can you show me where they are kept?”

  Meggie nodded. “I can, but your phones will not work in the lab.”

  “Jet and I will step outside,” Anda said. “We’ll find you once we know something.” We all left the office and I put a book in the door jamb so we wouldn’t need Hector to open the door for us again. Jet and Anda headed down the stairs and Meggie and I went up.

  “Your lab is at the top of the building? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “It is dangerous anywhere. Pulse magnets are very unstable everywhere except on Feros. But we have protocols in place so that the danger is minimized.” We walked down a hallway that had skylights every ten feet or so.

  “One protocol is to have lots of sunlight and ventilation. It seems to help.” Meggie slid a card into the slot beside the last door on the right. I glanced around and then stopped her from opening the door. The lock clicked back in place.

  “Where does that door go?” I asked, pointing behind her.

  “The same place we are going. It’s all one big lab, but the lead coats are on this side and I always wear one.” I nodded, thinking that was smart, but I still stopped her from going in.

  “That door has been forced,” I said softly. She frowned.

  “So what do we do?” she whispered.

  “Is there anywhere to hide in this lab of yours?” I asked. “Somewhere where we can see what is going on but not be seen ourselves?