by Dan Stout
I winced, and Guyer stood. “No problem,” she said. “I need to follow up on a few things while I’m here. I’ll be on the floor if you need me.”
Bryyh nodded, though she was already eyeing me and chewing her lip. “Close the door on your way out.”
I slipped into the seat Guyer had vacated, mentally prepping myself for the speech I expected to receive.
When the door shut, Bryyh clasped her hands and took a breath. The smile she’d worn when talking with Guyer had faded completely. Once again I was struck by the droop in her cheeks and bloodshot whites of her eyes.
“First of all,” she said, clearing her throat. “I want to tell you that you did the right thing in the moment.”
My stomach tightened. Compliments weren’t Bryyh’s strong suit.
“What I don’t get,” she continued, a little heat entering her voice, “is why you felt the need to make a speech afterward.”
I had no intention of talking about the CaCuris, but I didn’t need to worry: Bryyh had no interest in hearing my comments anyway.
“Frankly,” she said, “the riot was the only thing that kept your appearance at a political rally from being bigger news.”
“I was at the rally to observe. CaCuri made a thing of it.”
“Which is exactly why I told you to not attract attention.” She spread her hands across the desk, palms down, as if she were trying to hold it to the ground. “Imp’s tits, Carter! I don’t worry about you having opinions, you’re allowed to think your own thoughts. What I worry about is other people latching on to you.” She grimaced. “It’ll pass. This kind of thing always does. But until then, you need to keep your head down. It doesn’t help anyone if you drag department resources into your orbit.”
“I don’t have an orbit,” I said.
“Everyone does,” she snapped. “The question is whether the hassle of dealing with it outweighs your contribution to the force.”
I slumped backward, rocking my chair onto its back legs. “How many of the drunks are being charged?”
“Two.”
I raised my brows, but she waved off my concerns.
“Hells, Carter, we’re not going to pretend it never happened. But there’s a bigger picture to consider. The officers on scene were a little more concerned about getting the crowd dispersed before they had a full riot on their hands.”
She was right. If the situation had escalated, there’d only have been more violence, more victims in the hospital. And it’s not like I’d arrested anyone, or interviewed the witnesses. I’d been bundled up and hauled out of there as fast as possible. In the same way that a paramedic has to stabilize a victim before bringing them into the hospital, the redbacks present had opted to get me out of the crowd’s eye before processing the situation.
“In the same way,” she said, “I need you to get off the brass’s radar.” She slipped a departmental form out from under a paperweight. It was an assignment sheet, like I’d been given when moved to desk duty after the manna strike. “I’m putting you on NICI data entry for two weeks.”
“What?” I stood, shocked and angry. “You’re punishing me for doing the right thing?”
“No one’s punishing you. I’m worried that you’re overly focused on your single case.” She tapped a finger on the assignment sheet and exhaled loudly. “And I need you out of my hair while I clean up after your performance.”
“Performance? I was at the scene of—”
“You stood in front of a half-dozen news crews and told the city to be ashamed of themselves.”
She had a point. And I couldn’t tell her the message was for the CaCuris unless I ratted out Dungan and whatever he was working on. Though I also didn’t know if Dungan was worth protecting anymore. Basically, it had all gone to Hells like everything in Titanshade did, sooner or later.
Bryyh was still talking.
“Where do you think I spent my morning? I’ve been in front of the brass for hours, explaining that you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So putting me on NICI isn’t your idea?”
She ignored the question. “This isn’t a full-time switch. I only need you to lie low for a few days. You’re still free to work your Jane Doe case, make phone calls, whatever. As long as you do it where no one sees you. Don’t show up on the news or irritate other departments or whatever it is that you do most days.” She paused, and stared at me. “This is what I convinced them would work. This needs to work. Can you handle that?”
I fumed. I didn’t want to sit at a computer terminal, blindly pecking at a rubber chiclet keyboard. I wanted to be left alone to do my job.
“Carter?”
I released my legs, letting the chair drop forward. “Yeah, I can handle that.” I took the assignment sheet, doing my best to not snatch it out of her hand. “Am I excused?”
Bryyh’s forehead creased. “You know how many open requests I have from officers looking to transfer to Homicide?”
I didn’t answer.
“Twenty-eight.” She held my gaze. “There are patrol cops who’ve been pushing a cruiser for more than a decade, waiting for their chance to move to a new assignment. There’s no rule that says I can’t transfer who I want in and out of my department. I’ve gone to the mat for you more than once. Don’t make me regret it.”
I left her office, assignment sheet clenched in my fist. Jax was at our tandem desks, standing as he ended a phone call. He squinted as I paced, resisting the impulse to punt my trash basket across the room.
“How ’bout I grab a couple sodas,” he said. “Then you can tell me how screwed you are.”
He headed toward the hallway vending machines, and I tried to settle myself with a few controlled breaths. Across the Bullpen I spotted Guyer, studying the big board with Hemingway and Andre.
I made my way over and hovered until they acknowledged my presence. Andre didn’t seem happy to see me, but he wasn’t openly hostile, and Hemingway even favored me with a polite nod. Her normal ponytail was absent, blond hair loose at her shoulders, not quite hiding the bruises she’d picked up while holding back the crowd the previous night. Andre, too, was sporting a bandage along his cheek. Neither of them had been featured in the coverage of the near-riot. It was the kind of thing that contributed to the hostile gazes I normally received from my peers.
The press loved to talk about the daring raid that helped return manna to the world. They didn’t like to talk about the death toll. Myris and dozens of rig workers had lost their lives, men and women who hadn’t done anything to deserve their fates. Maybe the press didn’t talk up Hemingway because her partner’s death made her less heroic in their eyes. Maybe it was the same reason the newspapers referred to her as a “female detective.” Or maybe it was a cost-saving measure—all that extra ink from the word “female” probably made her more expensive to write about.
“Can I borrow you for a minute?” I asked Guyer. “I want to show you something.”
She made her excuses to Hemingway and followed me to my desk, where the golden plunger still occupied a prominent position.
“You must be so proud,” she cooed. It was worth it to see a bit of humor in her face.
“You said you’d look at this.” I chucked the plunger beneath the desk and opened up the Jane Doe murder book. When I got to the photos, Guyer dropped her smile and leaned closer.
“Shit.” She flipped through the photos. “It’d take a lot of force to take off a chunk of her jaw.” She looked at the murder book’s cover. “Jane Doe on Ringsridge Road? I got cc’d on the lab work for this one.”
“And?” I hadn’t seen the results yet. Another joy of governmental bureaucracy.
She nodded. “The liquid on the shards of glass came back manna-positive, mixed with angel tears. Whoever it belonged to had actual snake oil.”
“Could this
damage be magic?” I managed to keep my voice even. Whatever I was dealing with, it apparently wasn’t triggered by touching manna. Was it all in my head after all? I had a brief, nervous moment as I worried that Baelen might get wind of my inquiries and pull me in for observation.
“Don’t know.” She squinted at the photos that showed the damage to Jane’s face. “The teeth, they could be used for a divination or communication spell. But this?” She indicated Jane’s missing palp mandible. “Mandibles aren’t used for speech. So whoever took it didn’t know Mollenkampi very well. Or they weren’t thinking clearly.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You said divination or communication. What kind of communication?”
“The top secret kind. It’s one of the biggest uses for manna in the military, diplomacy, high finance. That kind of thing.”
I thought of Tenebrae, Gellica’s handsome friend at the art gallery. She’d said he was involved in long-distance communications. He’d also sat next to me at the table, and I knew he didn’t have so much as a scratch on his manicured hands, let alone the kind of gouge Mumphrey had told us would mark Jane’s killer.
Guyer slurped her coffee, then continued. “Let’s say I create a bond between two trusted people, and when they speak it’s like they’re whispering into each other’s ear. Instantaneously,” she shrugged, “or close enough to it. The point is that it’s totally secure. No one can eavesdrop on a manna connection.”
I chewed my lip. Donnie had eavesdropped on our meet and greet with the CaCuris, thanks to his friendly sorcerer Micah. What kind of background did she have?
Guyer and I stared at the photos for a few seconds. “These ARC teams,” I said. “How do I get one on this?”
She sucked in a breath through her teeth. “I’ll help you put in a request. But frankly? We’re spread too thin right now. Unless we have one-hundred-percent certainty, you’ll be at the bottom of the list. But if you see anything else let me know. If it is magical, you don’t want to mess with it on your own.”
Ajax ambled up to the desk, holding a pair of sodas. “I didn’t grab one for you,” he said to Guyer.
“I’m fine.” The DO held her coffee high and took a deep whiff of its aroma. “Nothing’s more magic than java.” She patted Jane’s murder book. “Good luck with this one, boys.” Then she merged back into the crowd of officers milling through the Bullpen.
Jax handed me a soda and popped the tab of the other, tugging on the front rim where the metal was engineered to be weaker, allowing the round can lid to taper to a point.
“You want to look into your art dealer today?”
“Napier?” I said. “That’s what I should be doing.” I waved the assignment sheet in the air. “I’ve got a NICI orientation class this afternoon.”
Jax examined the paperwork and whistled. “Well, on the bright side you’ll . . .” He tipped his head one way, then another, searching for a silver lining. “Nah, you’re gonna hate it.”
“Thanks, kid.” I tucked the paperwork into my top drawer. “Tell you what, how about I give you a ride to Napier’s gallery, and you can try and shake the info about the artist loose.”
“The one Napier saw Jane talking to?”
“That’s the one. I’ll circle back here and report for my orientation with NICI, and we’ll compare notes tomorrow.”
I hoped he’d say yes. Anything to feel like I wasn’t being pushed off the one case I was permitted to work.
“Works for me,” he said, and we headed out. I managed to not even look in Bryyh’s direction as we left.
* * *
We walked to the garage in silence, sipping our beverages and stewing in our own thoughts. When we got to the Hasam, Jax glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot and sat on the hood. “Let’s talk.”
“You’ll get to talk to the gallery owner,” I said. “Once you get off the hood.”
“Not until we talk about the OCU techs tainting the St. Beisht evidence.”
He knew exactly what it meant. But he also knew Dungan was my friend, so he wasn’t going to be the one to say it. Fair enough.
“Maybe Dungan was lying about how and where St. Beisht was killed,” I said. “Or maybe he was just wrong. I don’t know.” My soda was almost gone, and I listened to the remaining liquid slosh as I waved my hand. “Either way, we can’t confront him until we’ve got more information.”
“Why not?” Jax crushed his can and tossed it into a nearby trash container. “Because it’d be awkward for you?”
“Because he can lie his way out of it,” I said.
“Says a lot that you think he’ll lie.”
I pressed the cold metal of the soda can against my temple.
“I think everyone lies,” I said. “Some people do it on purpose, some because they’ve lied to themselves so long they can’t keep the truth straight anymore.” I killed my drink, shaking the last sugary drops onto my tongue. “If you want to chase this down, we’re gonna have to investigate the St. Beisht killing.”
He snorted. “We were first Homicide on scene.”
“I’m not finished.” I took a breath. “Looking into St. Beisht means talking to anyone who might’ve wanted him dead. I know you don’t want to talk about your hometown, but—”
“Again with this?”
“St. Beisht was a Harlq. If we’re gonna do anything with that case, we need to talk to them. And we can’t go through OCU to do it.” I let what that meant sink in. “Are you willing to make that call?”
He wiped one hand across his biting mouth and stared at a point over my head. “If I have to. But only if I have to.” He shifted his eyes to meet mine. “The real question is, are you willing to deal with Dungan if it turns out he’s covering the crime?”
“What do you think?” I tossed my can toward the bin as well. It bounced off the side and struck the ground with a clatter. Jax stood and plucked my can off the grease-stained concrete.
“You want to get out of here?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll drop you off so you can pay a visit to that gallery owner. Maybe he’s got a beret you can borrow.”
Jax cleared his throat. “I’m not saying Dungan’s dirty.” He took two paces toward the car. “Just so you know. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“I know you’re not, kid.”
“He’s got his own agenda, but that’s not the same thing.” He did his best to meet my eyes, to broadcast his sincerity right after he picked up my trash. “He can have his own agenda. That’s fine.”
Jax barely turned, and tossed my can in a smooth arc. It landed in the bin, striking his with a clink. A pair of shiny tin cans for the trash heap, like so many shiny tin badges that had gone there before.
He slid into the passenger seat and buckled himself in. “It might still be good to work with him on this one.”
“We’ll see,” I said, and started the engine. “We’ll see.”
16
THE REST OF MY DAY was spent in the data lab. My instructor was a muscle-bound Gillmyn named Trevor who seemed to hold two great passions in life: computer code and physical fitness. He explained the proper way to load and unload NICI’s storage devices, then regaled me with tales about his favorite flavors of protein shakes as I shuffled reels of magnetic tape the size of my chest from a spindle-covered cart onto metal data machines that were taller and broader than me. NICI had been created about a decade earlier, a system to braid together the police databases of the various AFS city-states. Each of those deceptively heavy tape reels was a weekly shipment from another city-state, with a list of their case updates. Titanshade sent out weekly copies in exchange. And that’s where I came in.
My two-week assignment was to type in the many sins of the city. Or at least the ones that had been reported. Trevor showed me how it worked; the pertinent details of a case were entered into a
generic NICI form using specific keywords, and that was followed by a long and painful proofing process, for which we logged in to an emulator that showed us what our entries would look like to an officer from Fracinica or Gibston, or any of a number of AFS city-states. No one used NICI to look up local cases, since any local system would be more up-to-date and more convenient. Still, NICI was a way for the myriad enforcement agencies to at least share a portion of their information, such as when Jax had searched the system for attacks similar to Jane’s, or for missing persons who matched her description.
At the end of the day, Trevor congratulated me on my efforts, and told me that for our next session, I’d earned the privilege of progressing to data entry. Feeling like I’d spent a day breaking electronic rocks in a prison yard, I stumbled home and spent my Friday night with a TV dinner and the new vinyl from a garage band out of Norgaerev called Imps of the Perverse.
Halfway through the album I heard an off-beat thumping, and assumed my neighbors were pounding on the wall. I cranked up the volume. When the thumping persisted, I realized it was someone knocking on my door. I padded over and peered through the peephole. Jax and Talena stood in the hallway. I froze. I didn’t want to talk to them, didn’t want to hear from anyone who’d shower me with pity. I considered simply standing silently until they left. Talena threw her head back and flashed an obscene gesture.
“We can see your shadow under the door,” she said. Beside her, Jax held a bag of takeout big enough for three.
I slipped open my locks and let them in.
* * *
Talena and Jax spread the takeout across the coffee table while I wandered into the kitchen and tried to remember how to interact with houseguests.
“You want something to drink?” I opened the fridge. “I got water, and half a soda, and milk.” I pulled that last from its shelf, sniffed the container, and tossed it in the trash. “No milk.”
“We brought our own,” Jax called from the couch, shaking a to-go cup.
