by Alex P. Berg
“And the honey one’s yours,” I said. “Come on, I know you as well as you know me.”
“Well, that’s debatable, but what isn’t?” Shay plucked the honey kolache from the bag and took a bite. “Mmm. These are good, don’t get me wrong, but weren’t you down to two a week?”
I shrugged and sat down at my desk. “Yeah, but there were extenuating circumstances this morning.”
Shay lifted her eyebrows and tilted her head. “Don’t tell me you forgot to eat last night? See, this is part of the reason I asked you to come with me.”
“No,” I said pointedly. “These are more for emotional support purposes.”
“Ah, I see,” said Shay. “You’re still upset about how things unfolded last night following the interrogations, aren’t you? With Mitchell and Bock?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s a big part of it.”
“So I take it you haven’t heard the news, then?”
I raised a brow. “What news?”
Shay took another bite of her kolache. The honey glistened on her fingertips. “Linwood Bock fell down a flight of stairs in his mansion this morning. Broke his neck. Died on the spot.”
I blinked. “What? You’re kidding.”
Shay shook her head and tore off another chunk of the glazed donut.
“And there wasn’t any evidence of foul play?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Shay.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, as crazy as it may be, the evidence supports it,” she said. “His wife Sophia, the Bock’s butler, and one of their gardeners saw it happen, and they all tell the exact same story. The guy tripped and landed on his head. Didn’t move after that. There’s a team at the estate grounds now, surveying the place to make sure there’s no evidence of…well, anything. But the body should be here soon. Cairny’s going to take a look. If he died from a fall and a broken neck, it should be pretty easy for her to tell.”
I sat there and stared at Shay, my apricot kolache sitting in the paper bag, untouched.
My partner finished the last of her pastry and licked her fingers. “You don’t seem terribly pleased. I take it you don’t believe in karmic justice?”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence, is all,” I said.
Shay shrugged. “People slip and fall all the time. It’s not that rare with guys approaching Bock’s age. And from what I understand, even though we didn’t find him with one last night, he normally walks with a cane. Maybe his balance wasn’t that great. Or maybe his legs were tired after walking all the way back here from his factory last night.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I said.
I must not have looked convinced. Shay jerked her thumb towards the far set of stairs. “His body should be here any minute. I was going to go check with Cairny while she did her analysis. Want to come?”
“You’re going down there while she’s cutting into people?” I asked. “And after having eaten? Who are you, and what did you do with my partner?”
Shay chuckled. “I’ve been working on my intestinal fortitude. For example, you don’t disgust me the way you used to.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
Shay jerked her thumb again. “So…you coming?”
I tapped my fingers on my desk. “Not right now. I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the aroma of my apricot pastry.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “Alright. Don’t hurt yourself up there while I’m gone.” She tapped the side of her head. Clearly, she didn’t buy my explanation of why I wanted to sit back and cool my heels.
“I’ll try,” I said.
Shay stood and headed toward the stairs. As much as my partner thought herself my intellectual equal, she didn’t understand there were actually three reasons I wanted to stay back instead of joining her in the morgue. Yes, I did want to think, but I also needed time to eat my kolache, and—a very underrated reason—by hanging back I got to enjoy the sight of her swaying backside.
Unfortunately, the sight lasted only a few seconds, and soon enough, I was left with the unsightly void of the pit’s interior. I opened the paper bag and removed my kolache. I set my teeth into the gooey, sugary dough, seeing if the activation of the flavor receptors in my tongue might help awaken whatever part of my brain I needed to help me make sense of Bock’s death.
They didn’t have long to work their magic. Before I’d finished my second bite, a young man approached me from the direction of the front door.
42
The fellow who walked toward me sported a crop of tousled, medium-length brown hair to go along with a thin mustache that needed a few years and several ounces more hair before it would look respectable. A blazer with patched elbows hung over his narrow shoulders, one that looked like it had been snatched up from a retired professor’s rummage sale. He walked slowly, glancing to his sides. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or merely uncertain, but unless he planned on making a sudden detour, he seemed to be headed my way.
I rested the uneaten portion of my kolache on the paper bag. “Can I help you?”
“Um, yes,” he said, stopping at my desk. “At least, I think so. Are you the detective in charge of the Bock case?”
“One of them,” I said. “But I guess it depends. Are you referring to the kidnapping, the murder investigation, or the falling down the stairs episode?”
“Um, the latter, I suppose.”
I wasn’t sure who’d been assigned to that particular event—I wasn’t sure if it was even a detective from our precinct—so my first instinct was to tell the kid to get lost. But he looked perplexed, and gosh darn it if Shay’s compassionate influence hadn’t shaped me for the better. Besides, something about the kid seemed familiar.
“Why don’t you tell me what you need and I’ll see if I can help?” I asked.
“Well, I’m here to deliver some notarized testimonials from the Bock residence, specifically the written statements of the witnesses regarding Mr. Bock’s fall.” He reached into his blazer pocket and produced a sealed envelope. “I’m one of Mr. Bock’s assistants—or at least, I was. I quit this morning. Anyway, the point is, Mrs. Bock asked me if I could bring these over here as one last favor.”
The kid’s statement jogged my memory. “Ah! That’s it. That’s why you look so familiar. I saw you at the World’s Wonders Fair a couple days ago. You were working the levers on that lightning hickamabob.”
“The electrical generator?” he asked.
I snapped my fingers. “Yeah, that’s it.”
The kid nodded. “Yes. I’m very proud of that exhibit. It’s exciting for people to actually see electricity. But it’s the implications of the generator that are far more interesting. Of course…”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “It’s just that, with Mr. Bock’s death, I don’t know how that’s going to affect the pace of the projects, including the ones involving electrical experimentation. Without Mr. Bock’s leadership, I have no idea what’ll become of the company. His children certainly aren’t up to the task of running it, nor is his now-widow. Not that it matters to me much. Even if I hadn’t quit, I wasn’t going to last long at Bock Industries, at least not after…well, it doesn’t matter. I’m rambling. None of this is your concern. Here.” He held out the envelope.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it. “I’m not sure I’m the detective these need to go to, but I’ll make sure they end up in the proper place. Before you leave, though—can you give me a name? So I can pass it along to whoever ends up getting these?”
“Oh, yes,” said the kid. “I’m Sherman. Tanner Sherman, technically, but everyone calls me by my last name.”
Both of those names tickled my brain, and in different ways. The first was due to something Wyle had said, something about how in his futuristic society, all the history texts referenced a ‘Sherman Industries’—but that had to be nothing more than an odd coincidence…right? The second way in which the name tickled my brain couldn’t be a coincid
ence, however.
“Wait…Tanner Sherman?” I narrowed my eyes. “You knew Buford Gill, didn’t you? The scientist?”
The kid started inspecting the floor. “Uh…”
I leaned forward in my chair. “Look, Sherman. I’m not the detective in charge of investigating Mr. Bock’s untimely death. I’m the detective who was investigating Buford Gill’s murder, and I know Gill collaborated on his scientific endeavors with someone by the name of S. Tanner. That’s you, isn’t it?”
Sherman held up his hands and shrugged. “Um, yes…which is why I mentioned I probably wouldn’t have been working at Bock Industries for long, even if Mr. Bock hadn’t passed. Mr. Bock didn’t pay any attention to what Buford Gill had to say other than the insults he threw his way, but sooner or later he would’ve put the pieces together and realized it was me in those papers.”
“So, hold on a second,” I said. “You risked your job to collaborate with Linwood Bock’s sworn enemy? Why?”
“Look, Detective…what was your name?”
“Daggers,” I said.
“Detective Daggers,” said Sherman. “Buford Gill, despite his personal failings, was a brilliant mind. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with him, even if it did cost me my job. And honestly, given how the past couple days have played out, I’m glad I was able to find him when I did. I learned so much from him. His murder is…tragic. But given what he taught me, at least I’ll be able to continue his work.”
Continue his work? My fingers felt numb.
“So, uh…what are you going to do now?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t betray any of my creeping concern. “Seeing as you’re unemployed and all?”
“I don’t know,” said Sherman. “Continue my studies on electricity, one way or another. Maybe try to get a position at one of the universities. Or if Bock Industries doesn’t pursue the opportunities, maybe I’ll start my own company.”
I swallowed. Hard.
“Anyway, I should get going.” Sherman jerked his thumb toward the doors.
“Oh, yeah. Sure. Of course,” I said. “Thanks for the depositions.”
Sherman turned toward the door, and I sat there at my desk, my mind swirling with possibilities. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d stuffed the last of my kolache in my mouth, wolfed it down, and headed to the Captain’s office.
The door was open. I knocked on the frame. “Captain?”
The old bulldog looked up from his desk. “Yes?”
“There haven’t been any new murders today, have there?”
The Captain shook his jowls in the negative.
“Ok. Great,” I said. “I have a few things to check out. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
43
I wandered back into the precinct just shy of midday. Luckily for me, Rodgers and Quinto were nowhere to be seen, nor was my partner—which was good, because I needed a few uninterrupted moments to think. I plopped into my chair, leaned back, and rested my feet on the edge of my desk.
During my impromptu morning jaunt, I’d hit the Grant Street Precinct, Public Records, and Taxation and Revenue. At the Grant Street station, I’d muscled my way into the office of the local captain, a surprisingly polite elven fellow by the name of Dean Flyleaf. I’d asked him about Detective Ledbetter, and much to my surprise, the captain told me he’d never arrived at the precinct last night, meaning Wyle hadn’t arrived either. Even more to my surprise, the captain told me Ledbetter wasn’t a detective. In fact, no one by that name or his description worked at the precinct.
After that discovery, I wasn’t particularly shocked when neither Public Records nor Taxation and Revenue had any records of a Marcellus Ledbetter. Nor did they have any records of a François Turtledove, Harold Drambuie, or any other alias of Wyle’s Ledbetter had mentioned. According to the city’s pencil pushers, neither Ledbetter nor Wyle, in any of their forms, existed, which of course meant one of two things: either they’d both lied to us, repeatedly, about their motives and identities, or the more chilling of the two possibilities—Ledbetter and Wyle simply…didn’t…exist.
In my mind, I kept revisiting the conversation I’d had with the young scientist, Sherman. How he planned on continuing Buford Gill’s research. How he might start his own business following his exit from the now doomed Bock Industries. And what Wyle had mentioned in passing. Sherman Industries. Sherman Industries dominated the future history texts.
Of course, there were plenty of logical scenarios that explained everything without my stooping to the sorts of wild, unfounded journeys on which my subconscious liked to take me. Ledbetter and Wyle were clearly conmen, and beyond that, partners. They’d worked together to steer our investigation in the direction they’d intended. To what purpose, I could only guess at, but my suspicions were the explanation Ledbetter had given was probably fairly close to the truth. Someone undoubtedly wanted Bock out of the picture, whether dead or because he’d been implicated in the sordid murder of his archnemesis, to help gain market share for their own industry. It all seemed convoluted, but plausible. I could convince myself of it—if not for one lingering bit of information.
I recalled Mitchell’s ramblings as we’d dragged him to the precinct late last night. ‘I was so close. So close,’ he’d said. And the other part. ‘It’s fine, take me—so long as you hold Bock in custody as well. At least for a few days.’ Mitchell had kidnapped Bock and held him at the warehouse, but he hadn’t tortured him or hurt him in any way. When we’d captured him, he’d pleaded with us to keep Bock in custody. What would’ve happened to Bock if he’d stayed at the station overnight instead of heading home?
It seemed impossible, but…could Mitchell have known Bock was going to fall down the stairs? What was it Wyle had said? About anti-event temporal reconstruction theory? That established events couldn’t be changed through direct action but instead had to be prevented from unfolding?
“Daggers! There you are.”
I practically jumped out of my seat at the sound of my partner’s voice. “Gods, Steele! You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Shay hopped up onto the corner of my desk, a spot which apparently was becoming a second home for her posterior. “Where’d you head off to? I leave for twenty minutes to go chat with Cairny and you disappear for the whole morning—or at least what was left of it following your inherent tardiness.”
“I, uh…needed to run some errands, that’s all,” I said.
“On company time?” Shay tsk-tsked. “I can’t imagine the Captain’ll be happy about that.”
“He gave me the go ahead,” I said. “Or at least, he didn’t say I couldn’t go.”
“Well, anyway,” Shay continued, “you’ll be happy to know Cairny’s exam revealed Bock suffered two fractured cervical vertebrae resulting in a partial severing of his spinal cord. The guy slipped and broke his neck, just as all the witnesses claimed.”
“Oh.” I nodded and blinked a couple times. “Good. Great.”
Shay narrowed her eyes. “Are you ok, Daggers? You seem out of it. More so than usual, I mean.”
“Um…” My mind raced as I tried to sum up the implications of everything I’d gleaned over the course of the morning. How could I possibly substantiate the evidence in a way that would satisfy both Shay’s scientific sensibilities and my own deductive gut sense? What was the logical synopsis that explained all the facts? And then it hit me.
There wasn’t one.
“You know what,” I said. “It’s nothing. I’m just a bit off after yesterday, that’s all. Talk about a whirlwind case.”
“No kidding.” Shay glanced at the windows on the far side of the Captain’s office. “So…it’s almost lunch time. You want to go out together to get something to eat?”
All thoughts of the Gill and Bock case were swept out of my mind with a few choice words. “Wait…what did you say?”
“I said, do you want to go out together to get some lunch?” One of Shay’s eyebrows rose. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
>
I hadn’t imagined it. Go out. Together. Her exact words. With a swift verbal slice, our weeks of lunch and dinner non-date posturing had been stripped like so much chaff.
I pulled my feet off the desk and planted them firmly on the floor. “Yeah, I’m fine. More than fine. And lunch sounds good.”
“Great,” said Shay. “I was talking to Cairny earlier, and I thought you and me and her and Quinto might all go out together.”
“You mean…” The obvious metaphor popped into my mind. At any other point I would’ve been afraid to use it because of its awkward connotations, connotations I’d convinced myself weren’t founded in reality, but now? I figured what the heck. “…you mean like a double date?”
Shay smiled. “Yeah. Why not? I’ll even let you pay.”
“Wait. Hold the horses,” I said. “I saved you from having your skull beaten in by a murdering psychopath less than twenty-four hours ago, and as a reward, you’re going to allow me to pay for your meal?”
Shay’s smile didn’t dissipate. “What? I thought you might be amenable to that.”
It wasn’t an outright admission of her romantic interests, but it was probably the closest I’d get at the moment. I’d take it.
“Alright,” I said. “I guess I can do that. Today. But next time we’ll swap, and I’ll let you treat me to a meal.”
“Fair enough.” My sprightly half-elven partner hopped off my desk. “I’ll go snag Cairny from downstairs, and hopefully find Quinto—I haven’t seen him in a while. Meet you outside the front doors?”
“Sure,” I said.
Shay walked off, and call me crazy, but I think she had a little more pep in her step than usual. As I rose out of my chair and walked toward the exit, I realized—so did I.
I pushed open the precinct’s heavy double doors, and the streets of New Welwic welcomed me with open arms. As I stood on the station’s steps enjoying the breeze and the cool air, I couldn’t help but feel that to me, it felt a lot more like spring than fall, and even though the morning’s clouds hadn’t abated in the least, the day suddenly seemed a whole lot brighter than it had a minute earlier.