by Dan Knight
~~~~~~
Jack and the Inspector faced the Capricorn. Niles was nowhere to be seen.
“Real bricks, the sewer here is very old.” Gumshoe picked at one of the stars. He tried prying a stone out of the melted clay.
Shotgun sidled up to his employer to listen in.
“Glass,” Gumshoe tapped one of the stars. The bubbles make it look like dirt.”
“Something melted the clay,” said Jack. “It was hotter than a kiln. Clay doesn’t melt in a kiln.”
The Inspector nodded, “Right, a kiln isn’t hot enough to make these marks.”
“Could a blaster do it?” Shotgun asked.
“No,” the policeman sighed. “Not that I know. That’s just the preliminary assessment by the forensic team. A blaster is hot enough, but it doesn’t spit out enough energy. Our resident physicist, Dr. Maiman, said it would require an industrial laser.”
“But it’s not magic,” said Jack.
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I don’t think I can do it. If it is magic, I’d hate to run into this guy down here.”
“You can conjure lightning,” Shotgun chimed in again. “Isn’t lightning hot enough?”
“I suppose. I don’t know how I create lightning anyway. I haven’t spent much time trying to figure out how to use magic as a weapon. I conjured up that lightning in a life or death moment. I think I can do it again, but I’m not sure.”
“Yes,” Gumshoe said. “If you can control it, is it hot enough?”
“I don’t know,” Jack held out his hands. “I’ll test it when I get a chance.”
“Then we’ve hit a brick wall,” said Shotgun. “No pun intended.”
“Shotgun, I saw you talking to Niles,” said Gumshoe. “Have you learned anything?”
“Yes, I think so Inspector.” Quickly, Shotgun reprised his conversation with the engineer.
“What do you make of his story?”
“He was credible and sincere even if some parts of his tale seem incredible.”
“That was my guess too.” Gumshoe nodded. “He could be mistaken. Dwarves are naïve as you pointed out. Did you get anything else out of him?”
“No, but he was emphatic. He didn’t want us to overlook the hatch. Whatever scared the killer, he risked exposure to escape up the hatch.”
“So we know the killer left through the access corridor,” said Gumshoe.
“But he entered the sewer through service bay upstream,” said Shotgun.
“Yes, and he probably went back to the local substation to return to his vehicle. If he came from downstream, Niles would have run into him.”
“In that case, we’d have two bodies instead of one,” Jack finished.
“Yep,” Gumshoe sighed. “My men will search the corridors and the sewer tunnels. I’ll have to call in more men. If we can believe Niles, the Black Dwarf and his men entered the sewer nearby. He intended to return the way he came, but something interrupted him. We’ll search the other lifts and hatches in the area and see if we can find traces of them.”
“What are we looking for?” asked Shotgun. “It’s been hours, he’s got to have gone into hiding.”
“Anything suspicious,” said Jack. “Something clean, something dropped, or footprints.
“Are you sure you don’t want my job?” Gumshoe tapped Jack with his tablet.
“Sorry, old man, just speaking my mind.” Jack shrugged, “But it’s obvious isn’t it.”
“Speak away, Jack. You’re doing all right.”
“If it’s all right with you, Shotgun and I will go up the tunnel and see what we can find while your men check the area.”
“Knock yourselves out,” Gumshoe turned away. “There’s plenty to do.”
The mage set out at a stiff pace and headed upstream. Taking Jack’s confidence as bravado, Shotgun straggled behind his employer. The tunnel curved until the crime scene disappeared around a bend.
“Boss, what will we do if we meet the Black Dwarf?” Shotgun glanced about furtively. “Worse, what if we meet Noddie?”
“Worry not my good man, I’m sure whatever startled the killer is no longer there. If it was Noddie, she won’t be back until after we leave.”
“How do you know?”
“Classic mythical monster behavior, my good man,” Jack grinned. “Sea monsters never appear when you’re looking for them.”
“Is Noddie a dragon or a sea monster?”
“All the old folk tales claim Noddie is a sea monster. She lives in the mines. We Noddie lovers believe she feeds in the Great River. She comes to the sewers to drop the bones. She’s not a real sea monster though. If she exists, she’s a synthetic leviathan.”
Shotgun searched the dim light thrown off by the sewer’s lamps.
“Fear not, Shotgun. Remember you’re traveling with an all-powerful magician with genetically manufactured command of the forces of nature.” Jack pretended to conjure a spell. “Abracadabra,” he wiggled his fingers. “Open say’s ah me.”
“Fine lot of good that’ll be if a sea monster eats you first,” said Shotgun.
Jack’s flippant attitude irritated his dogsbody, and his irritation merely goaded the mage.
“Shotgun, this is a great opportunity to see if there’s a cave or some other opening nearby. It isn’t every day you’re invited to explore a restricted area. It’s a chance to find out how the killer entered the sewer without being seen, and we might discover another crypto-zoological creature. Come on!”
Jack spun on his heels, and walked down the dimly lit tunnel. “We are far below Nodlon. Below us are the old mines. If we can find a shaft or breach in the tunnel, it might lead to the mines below or Moab above if doesn’t run up to Rickover Station.”
The dim lights in the tunnel barely lit the walk. They watched their footing by torchlight. From time to time, they passed tributaries. Weirs originally carried the sidewalk over the tributaries, and connected one side of the tunnel to the other. Time and water had dislodged many stones. They tested each stone to find the solid ones, and then stepped carefully over the weirs.
“Whoa,” cried Shotgun. A stone turned under his foot, and he fell. He flailed at the air, and tried to steady himself. In a panic, he braced himself for the cold splash into the murky pool.
An invisible hand caught him. The hand lifted him into the air and set him down on the walk.
“Watch your step,” said Jack. “I’m not always around to levitate you.”
“Whew,” Shotgun caught his breath. “Thank you, boss, I thought I was going for a swim.”
“No problem,” Jack grinned, “I just didn’t want to pay for drying cleaning your tuxedo.”
“Right, you probably just didn’t want to have to clean the Andromeda. I wonder what it would take to get the smell out of the leather.”
“Nonsense, if you fall in you’ll walk home.” Jack chuckled. “Ha, for that matter if I fall in, we’ll send the Andromeda home on autopilot, and I will walk home.”
“I knew it.” Shotgun mocked his employer. “You care more for that over-priced piece of junk than you care for yourself.”
“True,” said Jack, but he gave the dwarf’s shoulder a quick squeeze, and kept walking.
After a few hundred yards they saw the end. Making their way slowly down the tunnel, they approached the terminal of the sewer they were in. Thirty yards from the tunnel’s end, it opened up and broadened out.
The roof ended. They looked up into a square vault. At the back of the vault a chimney rose some stories above them and disappeared in the dark. It bespoke of ancient engineering. The chimney’s throat opened onto a shallow landing. The landing spread outward from the throat and resembled a hearth.
Two tubes were bored into the mountain on either side of the throat. The tubes rose sharply into the mountain. Between the tubes was a hole cut in the chimney’s throat. Brick and stone from the wound in the chimney’s throat fanned out over the landi
ng where the pieces fell. The mound covered most of the landing.
A muddy delta surrounded the landing. In the middle of the delta was a shallow pond. Little waterfalls fell from the tubes and splattered over the mound of bricks. Tiny brooklets emerged from the jumble of stones, bricks, and mortar. The brooklets flowed off the landing and into the delta. They wove across the delta and flowed into the pond. A tiny creek drained the pond into the sewer.
Shotgun strained to see in the dark. “Doesn’t that beat all?”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed.
They followed the walk along the wall. The sidewalk dipped at the end and sloped down to the landing. The ancient brickwork curved up to the gaping wound.
Stepping carefully, Jack picked a path between the brooklets towards the fan of bricks.
Shotgun hesitated before taking after the mage. Guess he hasn’t had any thoughts of breakfast. Shotgun climbed taking his time.
Finding a purchase on the bricks, Jack climbed. To his satisfaction, the fallen brickwork held its position for the most part and he soon reached the top. He avoided the waterfalls on either side of the mound.
Standing atop the brick jumble, he chided his man-servant. “Can’t a dwarf climb as fast as an elf?”
“Better to let the elf test the stability of a fallen pile, than to risk a dwarf. Besides, I’m not sure you can carry me.”
“Touché,” said Jack. He surveyed the area from his vantage atop the mound. A pattern stood out on the muddy delta.
Blinking, he refocused his eyes. Holding up his torch, he flipped the switch and flooded the muddy floor with light. The torch blazed vanquishing the shadows in the terminal; reminding Jack how very dim were the lamps. On the floor was a footprint.
A tingle surged up his back, and Jack swung the torchlight into the cavern behind him. He saw nothing save a cave. Grateful, he lowered the torch as Shotgun reached his side.
“See something?” Shotgun whispered, perhaps more cautious than his magically armed employer.
“Yeah, look at the rivulets in the mud,” Jack lighted up the footprint with his torch. “Is that what it looks like, or is my imagination working overtime?”
“Holy cow, that’s big. But there’s only one. If it really was what it looked like there should be a track, and we should have passed more of tracks coming up the tunnel.”
“Yes,” Jack ran a hand through his hair. “And we didn’t see any other Noddie holes,” he sighed. “This hole runs back into the mountain, and it’s been here a long time.” He shined the torch into the cavern. “See,” he waved the torch around, “nothing but stalactites and stalagmites.”
“Are we going up it, or try finding some breakfast?”
Jack switched off his torch, and slid it back into his cloak. Letting his eyes adjust to the dim, he stood still for a moment.
“Breakfast, then check with your maintenance friend. They must know about this cave. If not, I’m not sure I want to explore a dangerous, unknown cavern on an empty stomach, and without backup.”
Carefully, the pair retraced their steps down the mound and over the little delta. On the landing, they wiped the mud off their shoes until they felt less slippery. Walking faster on a path once trod, they returned to the crime scene in half the time.
Only police tape and Gumshoe waited at the scene.
“Sorry Gumshoe, I hadn’t expected you to be waiting.”
“Turns out there aren’t as many entrances to check as I feared.”
“Have you learned anything?”
“We found the lift they used, and the spot where they parked their airship. We went up the access corridor the way the dwarf suggested. We found nothing at all until we reached the first lift upstream along this trunk, not a hundred yards from here. At the lift, we found three sets of footprints. The lift ran back to the service bay upstream. They must have used a small airship. We found one print of a landing pad.”
“Sounds like you found quite a few clues while we enjoyed a pleasant walk.”
“No great feat of magic, Jack. Just basic police work.
“Was the mud from the sewer here?”
“Probably, but forensics will test it just to be sure. We think Niles guessed right. They came here to dump the body. They hoped the victim would wash downstream. Whatever Niles heard, it startled them. They ripped the alarm box off the wall, and beat a hasty retreat up the hatch. They forgot to wipe their shoes, and they unintentionally alerted Sanitation to the location of their victim’s body.”
“Do you still think Angela was murdered at the Ritz?”
“Yes,” Gumshoe frowned. “We’ll know for sure when we get the blood samples back from the lab. But there’s plenty to connect the two. Obviously, we have two Capricorns. We have three suspects at both scenes. The landing pad print in the service bay matches the ones at the hotel. To top it off, no one was caught on the cameras.”
“If they wanted to hide the body, why scorch the walls with the Capricorn?” said Shotgun.
“Easy,” said Jack. “It’s a signature. The killer is proud of his crime and wants to take credit for it. They’re self-absorbed narcissists. You don’t murder someone like this if you care about others. All criminals are selfish, but these guys are cold-blooded. They wanted to hide the body to avoid being caught, but they wanted everyone to mark this place as theirs. Think of a vicious dog pack. The pack leader always marks his territory. He probably thinks his victim deserved to die and he deserves to consume her life.”
“Thanks for the analysis, Jack. Want to write my report for me?”
“No way Gumshoe, I’ll leave the bureaucracy to you.”