Today was the critical day. Constabulary regulations dictated that once a request for an Inquiry of Fitness had been put in, the hearings had to begin within eighty days, which meant that the first interview had to be done today, or the formal inquiry would have to be dismissed. Minox would be relieved—his position would no longer be in danger, for now.
Today, at the eighty-day mark, he had not even been informed of anyone being appointed to his Inquiry board. As far as he knew, there was no one to conduct an interview today. So at the end of shift today, the Inquiry would be dismissed. But it also meant that the cause behind the Inquiry—valid cause, Minox agreed—would never be properly answered, and could be raised again.
He’d rather face the Inquiry now and have it resolved.
“Just get through today,” Joshea said. “Corrie told me your captain doesn’t even think the Inquiry is necessary. I bet he didn’t take it seriously, and said so when he put in the formal request.”
“It’s not his to take seriously—nor is it my sister’s place to gauge his feelings. But he isn’t part of the Inquiry, other than to observe and abide by the board’s recommendations.”
Inspector Rainey came up to the inspectors’ floor, approaching their desks at a strident pace.
“I should go,” Joshea said. “But good luck today.”
He left before Minox could say a proper good-bye, going out toward the back stairway. When Minox turned back, Inspector Rainey was at their desks.
“Did I interrupt something?” she asked.
“We were just discussing the case,” Minox said.
“Was that—” She paused, and her face showed that same hint of reserved distrust she’d been displaying for the past three months. Ever since the Tsouljan compound, and Minox’s hand changed. “I’m sure it’s fine. They brought him in here, after all.”
“I’ve been going over the evidence for these murders—”
“All night?” she asked. “I keep telling you to stop that.”
“My mother is in agreement with you, but that is not of the moment.”
“You should listen to your mother,” Rainey said. “Did you sleep at all?”
“A few hours. I should have had tea ready for you—”
“It’s fine, I’ve had a cup already today. So what did you determine?”
Minox put together the various sketches and notes he had compiled and handed them to her. He had learned over their months of partnership that she preferred to be presented information with a bit of neatness and organization. “I’ve theorized that each of the victims we’ve found has been chosen to send a coded message.”
She raised an eyebrow—she was intrigued. “What sort of code?”
“Bear with me, because this is possibly a coincidence that I have ascribed meaning to . . .”
“What sort of code?” she asked again.
He went to the slateboard by their desks and started writing. “The first body that was found: Edgin Follickar. Then Nalia Askent, Barrin Imber, Reb Latty, Astin Unger, Ialana Restin, and now Nantel Emmarik.”
“Right. And we’re certain there’s no connection between any of them. Is there?”
“As individuals, no. Nothing I’ve found suggests a common element among these people.”
“So what’s the code?”
Minox underlined the first letter in each of the victims’ family names. “If you take the first letter of their family names, in the order they were killed, it spells ‘failure.’”
Rainey looked at the slateboard. “I suppose it does. Interesting, but it could be a coincidence.”
“I acknowledge that,” Minox said. “But there’s another part to this.” He underlined the first letter in the victims’ given names. “What does that spell?”
“Enbrain.” Inspector Rainey looked shocked, and there was a degree of acknowledgment on her face that indicated she was finding his theory credulous. “‘Enbrain failure,’ that’s the message?”
“Imagine that,” Minox said, taking the sketches from her hands and laying them out on the desk, “someone went through the pains of these elaborate, torturous murders of seven random people . . . entirely because their names would spell out a message.”
“Wait, wait,” Rainey said, sitting down. “You think this entire thing is just to make some sort of threat on Commissioner Enbrain?”
“I think this is the . . .” Minox considered his next words carefully. “This is the overture of a greater plan targeted at the commissioner.”
Whatever Inspector Rainey was going to say next was interrupted by shrill whistles through the stationhouse. A senior page—one Minox was not personally familiar with—came running onto the floor. “Where’s Jinx and Tricky?”
Minox grit his teeth. He hated the “Jinx” nickname he had acquired, though he knew Inspector Rainey took more ownership over the “Tricky.” “It’s Inspectors Welling and Rainey to you, page. What’s on?”
The page didn’t seem remotely rebuked. “There’s an emergency call. Needs the GIU and the Special Response Squad. Told it needed to be you.”
“By?” Minox asked as he grabbed his coat off the desk. He had noted that Captain Cinellan had not yet reported to the floor, nor were there any other inspectors. At this hour, that was odd.
The page shrugged. “I was told. Come on.” He darted back to the stairs.
Inspector Rainey was on her feet, checking her crossbow. “Let’s see what’s on. How else are we going to earn our keep?”
Minox wished he had a valid argument against that, but he didn’t. Putting on his coat, he followed Inspector Rainey after the page.
Chapter 2
SATRINE AND WELLING raced after the page to the street, where Sergeant Iorrett was already waiting with twelve of his men and Corrie Welling—the Special Response Squad that Joshea Brondar was training. They were all dressed in riot armor—heavy coats and helmets and wide shields supplementing their crossbows and handsticks.
“What’s going on?” Satrine asked. “You told the page to call us?”
“We’ve got a situation,” Iorrett said.
“That’s a time-wasting statement,” Welling said.
Corrie spoke up, rushing her words. “There was a heist on a rutting silverwagon as it was heading over The Lower blasted Bridge.”
“That seems ill-advised,” Welling said.
“Damn right it was,” Corrie said.
“Here’s the scene,” Iorrett said, scowling at Corrie. He whistled to his people to start moving. “Inspector Mirrell was on hand when it was going on—”
“Why was that?” Welling asked, following the squad. Satrine was thinking the same thing. Mirrell lived in Gelmin, west of the stationhouse, regularly taking the tickwagon in. For Mirrell to be on The Lower Bridge—north and east of here—was odd.
“I couldn’t say, specs,” Iorrett said. “This is what I know, from the brief from the patrolman on the scene—we should move faster, by the way.” He broke into a jog, as did the rest of the squad.
Satrine took that as a cue to match his pace if she wanted to hear the brief.
“Like I said, Mirrell was on the scene, and he tried to intervene, but the silverwagon, along with Mirrell, the original guards, and the robbers, all crashed into a teashop in Lower Bridge Square at the end of the bridge.”
Satrine nodded. She was familiar with the teashop. “It’s a small place, right across the street.”
“What requires our intervention?” Welling asked.
“Because the rutting robbers took Mirrell and the folks in the teashop hostage!” Corrie almost shouted.
“Ah,” Welling said. “So we’re supposed to intervene somehow? This isn’t our usual sort of case.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Iorrett said with a shrug as he ran. “That’s what I know.”
The street corner was
pure chaos. The armored carriage was smashed into the front of the teashop, blocking the doorway in. The entire shop face was a wreck, and there wasn’t a good way to see inside. The driver must have managed to trigger the yoke release before the carriage crashed, as the horses were off to one side, the only calm element on the scene.
People in the streets were crowding around, and the few patrolmen on the scene were struggling to keep them back. Two Yellowshield teams were also on the scene, holding back and waiting for directions from the Constabulary.
Satrine took point on that. “Corrie, take half the squad and secure this area. Who’s in command right now?”
“Ma’am?” one of the patrolmen came over. “Hently, ma’am. I was the one who was here when it happened, put in the whistle calls.”
“Tell us what you know, Hently,” Satrine said. Welling still seemed to be taking in the scene, with a distinct lack of urgency. Perhaps because he usually arrived on a scene after the bodies were found, not during an active incident.
“Wagon came down the bridge, and the driver lost control and released the horses before it hit the teashop. Now the robbers, I couldn’t properly tell you what they were doing or how, but they were all on the top of the carriage, one grappling with the driver from what I saw.”
“While it was driving?” Welling asked idly, still glancing around the scene. “And Inspector Mirrell?”
“He was hanging on it as well. I think. It went by in a blur, sir.”
“I’m sure it did.” He approached at an almost languid pace. “I presume once you had men here, you secured that back alley, where the teashop surely has its kitchen door.”
“Yes, sir,” Hently said. “I’ve got one of mine back there.”
“Iorrett,” Welling said. “You still have six more men at your disposal?”
“That’s right, Inspector.”
“Put two on the alley, stage three back here with crossbows, and you and your last man move in as close as you can to those windows.”
Satrine thought that was all well and good, but didn’t properly address the situation. “Has there been any communication with them inside the shop?”
Welling added, “And do we have any intelligence on the robbers?”
“Yes, sir, ma’am,” Hently said, looking at them both. “Shortly after the incident, when I tried to get close, I heard Inspector Mirrell call out that I shouldn’t come closer. That the robbers had him under aim, and the driver, the teashop keeper, and three patrons also at arms.”
“So they have crossbows,” Satrine said.
“They may have a crossbow,” Welling said. “It’s entirely possible that they took Mirrell’s. And we cannot see inside?”
“No, sir. The shop already had very few windows, and the ones that weren’t blocked or wrecked by the carriage they managed to cover up.”
“Back door locked, yes?”
“Of course,” Hently said. “I was going to try and crack it down, but I think Mirrell realized that and told me not to.”
“Very good, Hently,” Welling said. “A word, Inspector Rainey?”
He stepped away from Hently and the rest of the patrol officers, as much as could be done in this situation. The crowd was growing, including a few newsprint folks. Satrine recognized Rencir, from the South Maradaine Gazette. That man was sometimes friendly with Welling, but he was a pain in the side to most of the Constabulary. More often than not, he strove to paint them in a negative light.
Welling still glanced about, as if he were observing an interesting social event. “Are you not taking this seriously?” she asked him.
“Of course I am,” Welling said. “Serious, but not urgent. We must deprive the robbers of their perception of power. We cannot act too quickly or rashly. We cannot appear to be desperate to rescue Mirrell or the civilian hostages.”
Satrine let out a sigh of relief. There was a logic to his casual behavior here. She should have trusted Minox a bit more. “What do you think?”
“The only intelligence we have is from Hently’s report, including what he heard from Mirrell. We cannot proceed without more information. Thus we must talk to them.”
“You have a plan for that?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “You’re going to do it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know I’ve never done anything like this.”
“Not precisely, but that’s fine.”
“You, however, actually have done this before.” When Imach radicals had taken hostages in Ironheart Ward, Welling had tried to negotiate with them. Of course, that ended somewhat disastrously.
“That was a different situation, and frankly, my mental capacity at the time was suspect. This is—” He paused for a moment. “This is not the sort of thing inspectors typically do.”
“Yet here we are.”
“Indeed.” Something was swirling in his brain. “We were explicitly summoned.” He started to glance around the area. If he was on the track of something, it was best to let him continue down that path.
“All right, I’ll try to engage. And you?”
“I’ll try to determine how many robbers we have, where they are, and the risks to the civilians inside. You just keep them talking.”
Satrine nodded, and moved over to the broken entrance. Now that she was closer, she saw there was a bit of a gap between the carriage and the doorframe. Someone could slip through there, possibly, but slowly. Not too useful.
“Hey, is everyone all right in there?” she called out. “This is Inspector Satrine Rainey. I just want to make sure everyone is all right.”
“They sent a rutting skirt?” a man yelled out.
“Inspector skirt,” Satrine said. “Are you one of the hostiles?”
“Quite a word, Inspector. You presume I’m hostile?”
That was interesting. The man’s tone was light, like he didn’t consider the situation serious. “You’ve crashed a silver bus and have taken people hostage. That’s fairly hostile.”
“That’s one way of seeing it,” the man said. “Don’t reckon I agree.”
This wasn’t a fruitful path to take. “Are the hostages safe and uninjured?”
“I suppose they are.”
“I need to talk to the inspector in there with you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, skirt,” he said. “I can’t very well let him just flap his lips about what’s the score in here.”
This guy was very odd. She waved Hently over to her.
“Ma’am?” Hently asked.
“Did you speak directly to Inspector Mirrell?”
“When?”
“When he told you to bring Welling and me over here.”
“No, no, I didn’t,” Hently said, looking a bit confused. “Well, I called out, and the man in there said that Mirrell said—”
This was beyond strange.
“Sir?” she called out to the man in the shop. “What do I call you?”
“Hebbler,” he said. “That’s name enough for you.”
Something about that hit a memory for Satrine—something familiar she couldn’t quite place. Not just the name, but the whole phrase. In not placing it immediately, she recognized that it must be an actual memory of her own, rather than one of the inserted ones from her psychic education. Those were usually perfect.
“All right, Hebbler,” she said, moving a bit closer to the shambles of the door, “then tell me what you want.”
“Oh, well, there’s still the matter of me and my boys getting this silver and getting out of here.”
“That’s not likely.”
“That’s what the hostages are for, skirt. To change the odds.”
“Tell me about the hostages.”
“Well, there’s the nice teashop man and the driver. And there’s the cranky lady, the pair of old gent
lemen, and of course, the two Constabulary inspectors.”
“Two?” Satrine asked. “Who do you have besides Mirrell?”
“A skirt named Rainey.”
The door opened up, and three sets of hands pulled her inside.
* * *
“They grabbed her!”
One of the other footpatrolmen came running into the alley while Minox was still examining the back entrance. He hadn’t determined any further insights from the alley, save that much about this whole situation seemed wrong.
“Be clear,” he said. “Who grabbed who?”
“The robbers inside! They grabbed Inspector Rainey and pulled her inside!”
Minox came out of the alley. He didn’t say it, but what they were describing sounded patently impossible. Inspector Rainey would not be “pulled inside,” certainly not without giving significant resistance.
“Who saw it?” he called out as he emerged onto the street. He focused on his sister, working to keep the crowd back. “Corrie? Did you see what happened?”
“Hmm?” she said, her attention on the crowd, the shop, the ground—anywhere but eye contact. “No, I rutting didn’t see anything.”
That was atypical behavior.
“Specs?” Iorrett said. “What’s the word?”
Minox glanced around. Eyes were all on him. “I am the ranking on scene? Very well.” This was very curious. There should have been a patrol lieutenant, if nothing else. This was not a role for an inspector. Of course, it was his duty to assist in any way within his power, and he would do so willingly. But that didn’t change the fact that the entire scenario was incongruous.
Given the apparent severity, it was shocking that Captain Cinellan hadn’t come onto the scene himself, especially with one of his lead inspectors being held hostage.
Where had Captain Cinellan been this morning? He hadn’t been in his office, or even come onto the GIU floor. His position as captain of the GIU often put the politics of the office on his desk, forcing him to go to meetings with city officials, but he still checked with the inspectors each morning.
A Parliament of Bodies Page 3
