by Rik Hunik
I told him about how I had followed Belita's trail from her home to the nightclub where she had last been seen.
"Yes, very interesting, but how did you find her body in the center of the labyrinth?"
"It's a magic talent I have."
Quintus's eyebrows rose slightly in mild surprise and he put a hand up to his mouth, but not fast enough to hide his smile. "Good thing you didn't tell Thaddeus about that. He hates magic, claims most of it is fake and all of it should be against the law. He thinks only the gods should be allowed to use magic." He smiled again without trying to hide it this time, and leaned his elbows on his desk. "What level are you?"
"I'm a Certified Magician."
He flicked my card with a fingernail. "How is your business doing?"
"It started out pretty slow, but then I made a few prominent finds, which generated a bit of notoriety and brought in more work. Since then it's been easy money."
"Yes, I remember hearing a a bit about you, but I thought you only found lost items."
I grinned, just a little bit sheepishly, and pointed at the card. "I thought I could use a bit more excitement in my life so I expanded my business to include missing people."
"It sounds like you got your excitement alright."
"Yeah, but it's like my mother used to say, ‘Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.'” I sighed.
Quintus grinned. "How very true. So why aren't you a wizard now? With your natural talent Elevation should have been a cinch for you."
So many people had asked me that or a similar question that I had a stock answer ready, and I'd used it so many times it no longer felt like a lie. "It's a pretty stiff competition just to get into R.I.M.. Only one thousand students are enrolled each year and only one hundred of those are elevated. I was number one hundred and one."
"Ouch," Quintus said, wincing.
"Yeah, but don't cry for me, I got over it pretty fast."
"Didn't you try again the next year? You're allowed to try three times, aren't you?"
"Yes, three times in your life, but it means a lot of bribes and another year in the university, and I'd already spent my inheritance the first time through. Besides, every wizard works for the government and that is not the life for me."
"Hey, I work for the government."
"I didn't say it was bad, just not right for me."
"Ah." Quintus glanced down at his notes. "So you found a skinless corpse you claim is Belita. How did you know it was her?"
"I was looking for Belita when I found the corpse. If it wasn't her I wouldn't have been there."
He rolled his eyes. "That's rather circular reasoning, and it wouldn't convince Thaddeus."
I smiled and shrugged. He had a point but I wasn't finished. "To be honest, when I first saw it, I wasn't sure it was even human, so I touched it to get an impression." I shuddered at the memory.
He leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and asked in a gentle voice he, "What did you see?"
I kept my eyes cast down. "She looked just like the image I saw when her mother first gave me one of her combs so I knew it was her. Then red washed over everything and for an instant I saw her, naked and spread-eagled, with a thin man on top of her, raping her." I looked up to meet his eyes. "At the same time he was skinning her." His face blanched. I looked down at my wet leather boots.
After a few seconds he said, "What do you mean, skinning her?"
I struggled to put the brief, confusing image into words. "I didn't see clearly, so I'm not sure how he was doing it, but I saw a strange knife with a wide, curved blade, and a big flap of skin peeled back from her stomach."
Another long pause. "Anything else?"
I shook my head. "I was so shocked I broke contact, and when I touched the corpse again I got nothing from it."
"What did this man look like?"
"Thin, with light skin and dark hair."
"That's not much to go on. A lot of people fit that description. How tall was he?"
"I couldn't tell, but the bartender at the Coconut Club might be able to give you a better description. He saw them leave together."
He took down the name of the nightclub and my description of the bartender I had talked to. "Now if you will just tell me exactly where this body is located."
I told him how I had taken a shortcut to the center of the labyrinth and exactly where I had uncovered the body. "I replaced the flagstone but I didn't conceal it like the killer did so it should be easy to find."
"That sounds like a great spot to hide a body. If not for you it might never have been discovered." He wrote rapidly for a minute, then said, "Thank you. That will be all."
"Don't you want me to show you where it is?"
He shook his head. "You've already contaminated the crime scene enough and the corpse isn't going anywhere. Two other bodies have been reported tonight so we'll get to yours when we have time. Don't worry, it won't be disturbed." He stood. "It's late, why don't you go home and go to bed? I know where to find you." He handed me one of his own cards. "If you remember anything more, anything at all, don't hesitate to drop in or leave me a message."
I nodded and pocketed the card and he showed me out. I nodded at Thaddeus as I passed but he ignored me.
Chapter 11
The persistent ringing of my office bell jarred me out of a sleep so deep I knew it was far too early for me to get up, so I just buried my head deeper in my pillow and waited for the noise to stop. When I first moved in pranksters sometimes came at all hours of the middle of the night and yanked on the rope, but they soon gave up when I never responded.
Somebody else started pounding on the back door of my apartment, the door that's accessible from the flight of stairs in the alley which, to be honest, is only marginally narrower than the street out front. I didn't have any idea who it might be so I was not at all inclined to get up and answer it, but neither the bell-ringer nor the door-pounder gave up.
A man at the back door shouted, "Open up. This is the police. If you don't open this door at once we'll break it down."
I didn't like the sound of that so I shouted, "I'm coming," rolled out of bed and stepped into a pair of pants on my way to the door. Apparently it really was the police and I wasn't quite fast enough, or they were a lot more serious than I thought they had any reason to be, because the latch broke and the door burst open, missed me by the length of my big toe, and slammed against the wall.
A burly, uniformed cop stumbled into the room, flanked by two others with drawn swords. "Don't move," said the cop in the middle.
Waving swords at me while I'm outnumbered, unarmed and half naked is an effective way to get me to cooperate. I didn't move.
"Are you Berk Halvorsen?"
"Yes I am, but you didn't need to break my door to find that out."
"You're under arrest. Please come quietly." One cop blocked the door while another began snooping around my apartment.
My head was still foggy from insufficient sleep but I could not think of anything I had done recently that I could be arrested for, which meant this had to be a mistake. "Don't I even get to know why I'm being arrested?"
"Like you don't know, you twisted son of a bitch. Or have you killed so many women you don't know which one we're arresting you for?"
That's when it hit me and I was so relieved I actually let out a nervous little laugh, which got me a whole round of hostile looks. "Hey, this is all a big mistake. I never killed any women."
"That's what they all say," said the burly cop, looking one hundred percent unconvinced, and totally unwilling to listen to anything I had to say. In fact, they all looked damned near ready to kill me on the slightest pretext. I tried to remember how many cases of police violence I had heard about recently.
The cop who was snooping said, "Hey, look at this." He picked up Belita's comb from where I had set it on my table last night and took a close look at it. "This isn't his style and these hairs aren't his. I'll bet t hey match the hair col
or of the victim."
The burly cop managed to keep one eye on me while he reached out to take the comb. "Yes, it's obviously his trophy from the kill."
"And look at this." He held up a small mortar and pestle. "This looks like magic paraphernalia to me."
"It sure does. Put him in chains and take him to the station." The two cops with swords approached me while the third one unhooked a set of manacles from his belt.
My best bet was to cooperate fully and hope they didn't decide to accidentally rough me up on the way to the police station, but it was too early, they were moving way too fast and I'd had enough. "Hey, back off," I said, with enough vehemence to stop them in their tracks. I took a deep breath and in a calm, reasonable voice I said, "This is all a mistake. Can I at least get dressed before we go?"
The burly cop nodded. "But be quick, and no tricks, or you could die real quick." His eyes never left me and the cops with swords blocked the doors. They all wore grim expressions, ready to jump on me the instant they thought I looked like I was starting to get out of line. I made no sudden movements as I put on a shirt and pulled on my socks and boots.
The burly cop approached me with the manacles.
"You don't need those," I said. "I didn't do anything and I won't run away. My lawyer will have this straightened out in no time."
The burly cop shifted one shoulder in what I took to be a shrug. "Maybe so, but it's policy. Are you going to cooperate or do we make you cooperate?"
Pushing my luck any more would not be to my advantage so I nodded and held out my arms and allowed myself to be chained. It is unpleasant and humiliating to be chained, but I would rather be chained than beaten and chained.
A police wagon, complete with barred cage, waited outside. Pale, uniform gray clouds covered the sky and the city seemed to be in a half-shadow, but at least the rain had stopped during the night, though the streets and building gleamed with moisture, making it a damp, chilly ride for me, a sharp contrast to the warm bed I'd been ousted from.
At the station I made sure I exercised my right to have a lawyer and had a message sent to Orfeo.
They ushered me into a small room with blank, gray walls, a wooden table, three chairs, and a door with one small window, about a foot square, but no handle on the inside. They left the manacles on, nobody came around to let me explain how this was all a mistake, and I was already cranky from missing breakfast, so I did some stretches and morning calisthenics to burn off some anger, but that only made me hungrier and thirsty to boot.
I knew they wanted me to be restless so resisted the urge to pace, but I also knew they could burst in at any moment so I couldn't relax. I sat down and used the disciplines I'd learned at R.I.M. to calm myself.
Time passed. I was now calm but bored. Let them come whenever they chose; it would be an end to the boredom.
I wondered idly if I could charge Lucina for my time in here, but decided I probably wouldn't even if I could.
As much a mental exercise to prove I could still do it as a necessity in this situation, I focussed my mind and deliberately slowed down my metabolism, starting with my breathing and my heartbeat, then I slowed my mind, so it didn't seem to me that my heartbeat was slow. By slowing my subjective time I effectively sped up the world around me, so for every minute I could stay focused two or three minutes would pass, or more if I tried hard, but nothing moved or changed in the room so I had no way to gauge how successful I was.
After what felt like an hour to me I started to worry and I couldn't regain my focus, thinking that they might not have sent my message, that they were planning to let me sit here all day to soften me up for some serious questioning. Then the door opened and Orfeo entered, followed by a cop who stood by the open door.
Orfeo, a junior member of the law firm of Delling, Hobart & Maslin, hurried over and enveloped my hand in his chubby fist, pumping my hand and patting me on the shoulder. "Berk, it's been far too long." Smarter, shorter and far heavier than me, for all his flab he had a strong grip. We had boarded together as students in Rome, although Orfeo had been studying at a law school next to the Roman Institute of Magic.
"Yes, it has. Too bad we have to meet in a place like this, where the decor is so unimaginative and depressing."
"I hear the catering sucks too."
"In that case, get me out of here, because I'm hungry."
"Already taken care of. You're not a suspect anymore. You'll be out on the street in half an hour or less, just as soon as you finish talking to Inspector Marco, and I made sure he's coming right away."
"Thanks for helping me out of this."
"Always glad to help a friend, but I've done all I can here and I have loads of work to do back at the office."
"Hey, I'd like to meet you for lunch and discuss some business."
"Today is your lucky day. I can squeeze you in, and then you can tell me all about that dead body you found." He suggested a restaurant and I agreed to meet him there at noon, then he pumped my hand again and hurried out.
A few minutes later a cop came in and took off my manacles, then escorted me to a small office with a desk remarkable for its lack of clutter. The man behind the desk stood up to shake my hand. He was my height and build but his hair was dark and there was none on the top of his head, and his neatly trimmed mustache and short beard were riddled with gray. "I'm Inspector Marco. Sorry about the misunderstanding. Take a seat."
I sat. "I thought Inspector Quintus was handling the case."
He stroked his gray mustache once with thumb and forefinger. "On the evening shift, yes, but the investigation on a case like this runs around the clock."
"So why am I here?"
One hand rubbed the top of his head. "Sergeant Thaddeus filed a report about a corpse being found last night, by you, which automatically makes you the first suspect. A team went out to investigate and recover it. The forensic magician took a reading and got a clear picture of you standing over the corpse. When he probed further all he got was dark fog, but he had enough to have you arrested."
"And judged by the arresting officers."
He maintained his composure but he only met my eyes for a fraction of a second. He hitched himself closer to his desk and leaned forward. "Ahem. We're sorry about that. It seems Sergeant Thaddeus neglected to forward Inspector Quintus's interview with you. I found it still on his desk this morning. I just finished reading it."
"I see." I didn't remember the report being all that long but I refrained from commenting. The dark fog the forensic magician saw was interference from the black magic so I could understand why he leaped to the wrong conclusion, but Thaddeus's little oversight, which had caused so much inconvenience for me, seemed to me like it might have been deliberate.
"Now that you have his report, is there anything more you need from me?" I was still angry but Marco was clearly not at fault, and in my line of work it's better to be on friendly terms with the police, so I just sighed and cooperated.
Inspector Marco asked me a few questions about some details that Quintus hadn't thought of, but they didn't amount to much. He became more interested in my business than in the case but I answered his questions politely, which was easy to do because he was a nice guy, and he was busy himself so he didn't keep me long.
Chapter 12
During my incarceration the sun had burned off most of the cloud cover, leaving thin white patches getting torn apart by the wind, which made walking back to my office a far more pleasant experience than my ride to the police station.
As I unlocked the door to my office and prepared to push it open a woman's voice hailed me by name. I looked down the street and was relieved to see that her dress was black, not blue, and her hair was nearly as dark as her dress. I smiled and waited, watching as she hiked up thirty feet of inclined sidewalk to me. She saw where I was looking and leaned forward just a bit further, displaying even more of her cleavage, and putting a little extra emphasis into her hip movement. Or maybe it was just the effort of the cl
imb.
I ate it up, wondering what she wanted with me. I was pretty sure I had never seen this woman before but somehow she looked vaguely familiar. As she neared I realized it was mostly her hair that reminded me of someone, though I couldn't remember who.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
"Allow me to introduce myself," she said. "I'm Silvina, your new landlady. I recently purchased these two buildings," she said, indicating the one we stood in front of and the one just below it.
They were anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty years old. The stucco, badly chipped at street level, was weathered to a pale, yellowish brown, slightly lighter on my building, and both buildings were streaked with gray from soot and rain.
They were three stories high, with apartments in the upper floors, while the street level had three storefronts, including my office, on Dirk Street, and another, larger store around the corner, facing Knife Avenue. Not prime real estate by any means, but I knew my building was structurally sound, in better shape than most of the buildings on the block, and only the apartment above mine was vacant right now, so the building must be bringing in money. It wouldn't make her rich but the combined income was nothing to sneeze at.
"Pleased to meet you," I said, briefly taking her hand in mine. Her slim fingers gave mine a firm squeeze and slowly released in a gesture she made sensual.
"The pleasure is mine," she replied, her intense, blue eyes looking me over from top to bottom and back up again. "I just hope you won't be a problem tenant."
"What do you mean?" I frowned slightly, wondering what she was getting at.
"Can you pay your rent from jail?" She arched her eyebrows at me.
I arched mine right back at her. "From jail?"
"Yes. In a news bulletin this morning I read about your arrest for a horrible murder."
I let out a nervous laugh of relief. "Oh that. It was all just a misunderstanding, a miscommunication between the shifts at the police station, and I got caught in the middle." She didn't look like she was ready to believe me yet so I explained further. "I found the corpse of young woman last night and reported it to the police just as night shift was ending. The midnight shift sent a Crime Scene Magician to the scene but he didn't read the report about me finding the corpse, so when he sensed my presence there he had a warrant issued for my arrest. Don't worry, it's all straightened out now. I'm in good with the police."