Wrapt in Crystal

by Sharon Shinn

  Benito glanced at the paper, reading the details. “Vaguely,” he said. “Only because it’s unusual for the type.”

  Drake sat facing him, balancing a cup of coffee on his knee. “Why unusual? Because of the amica?”

  “Not that so much, though she was a factor. Drug crimes of this nature seldom take place outside of the slums.”

  “Drug crime? Why do you think so?”

  “Execution-style of the murder, the weapon used.”

  “A gun, which makes it a black-market weapon.”

  “Which means the killers had off-world connections, which means they weren’t just local boys scrapping over a couple of missed shipments. Anyway, the professionals and the automatics make it a drug-war murder, and this wasn’t the part of town you’d expect to see that kind of crime.”

  “This kid they killed—what did he do to them?”

  Benito shrugged. “May have switched sides—from one faction to another. May have stolen a few packets of grain. May have threatened to come to the hombuenos with what he knew. Hard to say.”

  “And his sister—this Triumphante who was in the room and saw everything—why didn’t they kill her? Surely they knew she could identify them later.”

  Benito gave him a tight smile. “Ah, they like to leave witnesses. Someone to tell the gruesome story—much more impressive to have a couple dead bodies and one live one to describe what it was like to see those other bodies fall.”

  “But didn’t they realize she could testify against them later as part of the—the will of Ava, or whatever you called it? She’d seen their faces, she would clearly be believed—”

  “If the killers were off-worlders, they wouldn’t recognize a priestess. If they were called in for the job, which they probably were, they wouldn’t care if she saw them, because she’d never see them again.”

  Drake sat forward on his chair. “I wonder,” he said. “Maybe she did see something. Maybe they learned later that she was a priestess, and they needed to silence her. But they don’t even know the difference between Triumphantes and Fideles . . .” He paused again.

  “What, you think these people are connected to the temple murders? Lieutenant, this crime was committed more than five years ago.”

  “I know, I know. But that name—there’s a link there somehow—”

  “What name?” Benito glanced at the hard copy again. “Diadeloro?”

  “Noche cristal, dia del oro,” Drake said. “A prayer recited over the rosario. And the killer has left a rosario behind at every murder scene but one.”

  There was a pause a moment while Benito considered this, then he shook his head. “That’s pretty thin.”

  “I know it’s thin. But my instincts tell me it means something. Particularly since this Diadeloro disappeared five years ago, a few months after her brother was killed.”

  Benito looked sober. “Disappeared,” he said, “or died. She was probably a victim, Lieutenant, but of a totally different crime. I don’t see a connection.”

  “Yeah,” Drake said, standing and reaching for the door. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Wait,” Benito said. “I meant to tell you. We’ve pretty convincingly cleared young David Soleri of any suspicion.”

  Drake turned back. David Soleri? Then he remembered. The boyfriend of the murdered ermana Lynn. “Oh?”

  Benito was hunting through the papers on his desk for a report. “He’s been away at university on Crandelia. And he’s really been there, too, passed his exams and been a star player for the tamberline team. We checked game dates against murder dates and at least three times he couldn’t have been off Crandelia. I don’t think he can be a candidate.”

  Drake pulled open the door. “I never thought he was a strong suspect,” he said. “But it’s just as well to check him out. Later, Capitan.”

  “Luego.”

  * * *

  * * *

  He had meant to head directly to the Triumphante temple to check some facts with la senya grande Jovieve, but a few blocks from the hombueno headquarters he was distracted by what was, after a few short days, a familiar sight. A woman in a white robe walking down a city street—not her usual terrain, perhaps, but unmistakable nonetheless. Drake pulled the sedan over, parked, and got out.

  “Buenas tardes, ermana Laura,” he said in greeting, and fell into step beside her. She looked up with the slightest hint of surprise on her face.

  “Lieutenant.” she said and kept walking. He continued beside her.

  “Have you abandoned the poor and downtrodden to minister to those who are wealthy in purse but poor in spirit?” he inquired.

  “Not entirely. I am picking up money from the collection boxes.”

  “The collection boxes?”

  They had stepped into the shade provided by a very large pink marble building, and she pointed to a small iron-gray cauldron hanging from a metal post outside the main doorway. “The people of Madrid sometimes have a few extra coins that they feel they can share with the Fideles,” she said evenly. “One of us comes to collect the contributions every few days.”

  The pot was about half full of bills and coins. Drake was surprised to see that no lock held the thick lid in place.

  “Doesn’t anybody ever steal the money?” he asked, helping her transfer the contents from the pot to a thick burlap sack she carried.

  “You cannot steal what has been given away,” she said.

  He was slightly irritated by her whole coolness of manner. “Well, you can steal a contribution from the person it was intended for.”

  “The money is intended for those with no money,” she said. “If someone steals a few bills or coins from one of the pots, we consider that he or she needed the money to buy food or medicine. We do not begrudge the borrowing.” She closed the lid with a certain deliberate clang. “In any case, no pot has ever been empty,” she said, “so no one takes more than he needs.”

  He took the sack from her hands and slung it over his shoulder. It was surprisingly neavy. He wondered how far she had planned to carry it and how much more she expected to put in it. “How many collection boxes are in the city?”

  “About two dozen,” she said, walking forward again.

  “How many more to go?”

  “About half.”

  He glanced overhead. The sun, just inching past its zenith, was giving off a murderous heat. “Why don’t we take the car?”

  She reached for the bag but he hunched his shoulder away from her. Her lips tightened in momentary exasperation. “There’s no need.”

  “It’s hot.”

  “I don’t feel the heat as much as an off-worlder might,” she said, her voice expressionless. “I’m not uncomfortable. Why don’t you let me continue my task alone?”

  He could not help grinning. Her irritation erased his; it cheered him to know he had gotten under her skin, though she tried to conceal it. “No, no,” he said genially. “I want to drive you back to the temple. It’s a long walk on a day like this. You might get heat prostration or something.”

  She gave him a speaking look, but instantly shut it down. “You are hard to please,” she said, walking on. “You don’t like it when I’m out at night and you don’t like it when I’m out in the day. How would you suggest I go about the performance of my duties?”

  “With more care, for one thing,” he said promptly. “If you must go out at night, take someone else with you.”

  “Why should two people lose their sleep?”

  “Call for a cop. They’re awake anyway.”

  She did not answer, and he knew she was wondering what he might know. So he continued. “I asked capitan Benito if he might be willing to have his officers escort you around the city at night. He said the offer had been made and turned down by your abada. Is that correct?”

  Laura kept her eyes straight ahead. “I believe so.”

  “Why?
And don’t tell me Ava will protect you.”

  She shrugged and remained silent.

  “All right,” he said. “Maybe you would let me ask her myself.”

  She stopped short and turned marveling eyes upon him. “And just why,” she said, “do you think you would be able to convince her otherwise?”

  “I didn’t say I would convince her,” he returned mildly. He took her arm and urged her forward again. She pulled free and started walking. “I just thought I’d like to ask her. And maybe she’d tell me something else.”

  “What might that be?”

  “Whether you have volunteered for all the night shifts lately. To keep other Fideles off the street, you know. To keep the others safe.”

  “You’re mistaken, Lieutenant,” she said, her voice cold and precise. “I do not have a death wish myself, as you seem to think. I am sorry to have given you that impression.”

  “I recognize the symptoms, sister,” he said seriously.

  She had come to a halt before another collection box and opened the lid. He slipped the sack from his shoulder and held it open for her to drop in the money. “And yet you live,” she said. One of the coins was a hundred-dollar gold piece. “And so do I.”

  “It’s been eight years for me,” he said. “How long for you?”

  She took this second chance to bang the metal lid shut and looked up at him almost maliciously. Before this woman had become a Fidele, he thought, she had been as strong-willed and ungovernable as Lise. “A lifetime, or so it seems,” she said. “I have forgotten how to mark the passage of the years.”

  They talked very little for the remainder of their tour. After that minor outburst, Laura grew silent, retreating behind some cool marble wall. The burlap sack grew tiresomely heavy. Drake was relieved when they finally made it back to the car and he could drop his burden. In continuing silence, he drove her to the Fidele temple.

  “I meant it,” he said, as she gathered up the corners of the bag and prepared to get out of the car. “I would like to speak to your abada.”

  “She’s not present today,” Laura said with a certain satisfaction.

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  “Tomorrow the temple will be full of visitors.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  She turned to face him for almost the first time that afternoon, studying him intently for a brief moment. “Once a week we open the temple to all who care to help us,” she said. “Mostly women come, but sometimes men. They work in the gardens, they work in the kitchen, they bring bags of clothing and proceed to sew and mend. This gives them a chance to serve the goddess, for a few hours at least—especially those who are poor, and give time because they cannot afford to give money.”

  “May I come?”

  “And what kind of skills do you have with which you could serve Ava?” she wanted to know. “Do you bake? Do you sew?”

  He gave her back stare for stare. “Who are you to discourage a sinner from coming to the temple?” he asked in turn. “Who are you to say that my soul could not be soothed by simple tasks of goodness in the name of the goddess?”

  “I don’t doubt that your soul could use some improvement,” she said dryly. “But to pretend to serve Ava while in reality you pursue some dubious ulterior motive—”

  “I need to discover what I can about the Fideles,” he interrupted, “to understand why someone would want to kill them.”

  She did not answer him. She continued to watch him, and on her face was the strongest emotion he had yet seen, a stormy look of protest and rebellion.

  “Just exactly what goal do you think I am pursuing, sister?” he asked softly.

  Without another word she opened the car door and got out. “Tomorrow, then,” he called after her, but she did not turn around. He had not thought she would.

  * * *

  * * *

  At the Triumphante temple he had to wait nearly half an hour for Jovieve to be free. Lusalma had taken it upon herself to amuse him during this whole time, and she spent a good fifteen minutes drilling him on his Semayse. When he correctly conjugated a difficult verb, she clapped her hands in delight. When he mispronounced several simple words, she laughed at him, covering her mouth with her hands. She was as delightful as a child. She made him want to buy gifts for her just to see her joyous responses.

  “She’s adorable,” he told Jovieve when at last he joined her in her cool office.

  “Lusalma? Oh yes, a crowd favorite,” Jovieve said, smiling. “If I am ever tired or weary or less than happy, I want to go to whatever room she’s in and soak up her merriment. She always refreshes me.”

  He thought of Laura and the other ermanas, walking around the slums unguarded. “Keep her safe, then,” he said.

  “I try to keep them all safe,” she said.

  He nodded, and got straight to business. “I was going through old hombueno files last night,” he said. “And I came across Diadeloro’s name.”

  “You did? In what context?”

  “The death of her brother.” He watched her closely. “More precisely, the murder of her brother.”

  “Her brother—the murder of her brother?”

  “You told me it was an accident.”

  “But that’s what she told me!” Jovieve exclaimed, clearly distressed. “Cowen, are you sure?”

  He nodded, and gave her the gist of the report, as well as Benito’s comments. “You knew nothing of this?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. She told me—she told us—that he had died in an accident. I would not have thought—well, I met him once, he was a little wild, perhaps, but not the sort you would have expected—I’m truly shocked.”

  “What was she like?” he asked, still watching her. “You have told me a little about her. But I need to know more. Did she have friends outside the temple—lovers—was she as wild as her brother? Did she know the kind of friends he had made? Could she have been involved in this somehow?”

  “Involved in a drug murder? Cowen, I hardly think so.”

  “Well?”

  Jovieve lifted her expressive hands. Today she was dressed in a crimson dress, and the gold and crystal of her goddess-eye pendant made rich patterns against the gorgeous silk. “I never thought of her as wild,” she said slowly. “She was a little more sophisticated than some girls her age, when she came here. Yes, she had a few lovers, but so many of the Triumphantes do. She was—how can I put it?—she was so full of life. She played practical jokes, she said the most outrageous things in the most demure voice—there was a streak of the devil in her. But—wild? I don’t know. Aware of any of her brother’s wrongdoing? Again, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t even know why you think her brother’s death would have any connection to the murders we’ve had recently.”

  “Looking for motive,” he said. “Trying to figure out why someone would want to kill a priestess, and I’m looking at things that happened in the past that involved priestesses. This one caught my attention.”

  She shook her head. “I just can’t see it.”

  Drake rose to his feet. “Do you know where this house is? The one where the murder took place?”

  Jovieve stood as well. “What good would it do you to find it?”

  “Maybe one of the neighbors might know where Diadeloro went when she disappeared.”

  “What’s the address again?” He told her. She nodded. “I know the area. I could find it.”

  “Now?”

  “If you like.”

  They were inside the air-conditioned car again in five minutes. Drake drove rapidly, following Jovieve’s directions. The senya grande seemed distracted.

  “I meant to ask,” Drake said suddenly, turning down a side street that she indicated. “How soon after her brother’s death did Diadeloro disappear?”

  Jovieve thought for a moment. “It was a little while. At least two months, maybe longer.”
Drake frowned. “Why? What’s wrong about that?”

  If grief had driven her from the temple, it would have operated sooner than that, he thought. The delay argued that she had not planned to leave, that some outside factor had been responsible for her disappearance. “I can’t get the puzzle in place,” he said.

  “Turn here. No, sorry. Right. Because it doesn’t fit the puzzle.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, and turned.

  There was no one home at the house that had once been owned by Diadeloro’s parents, Eduardo and Juana de Vayo. It was a pretty, modest house built of some sort of blue stone that gave it a cool look even on this hot afternoon. No one was home in the house on the left, either, and the young woman who answered the door at the house on the right had moved in long after the de Vayos were dead. But Drake hit pay dirt when he inquired at the house across the street. He knew it as soon as the door opened to reveal a small, wrinkled, ancient woman with a smiling face.

  “Senya grande!” she greeted Jovieve, holding out both hands. Jovieve gave hers to the old woman and allowed her hands to be kissed.

  “Ava te ama,” the Triumphante said.

  “Tu tambien. Venga, venga.”

  Jovieve risked one quick, comprehensive look at Drake, the smile only visible in her eyes, and followed the woman through the door. Inside, the house was dark, stuffy and packed to the rafters with furniture. The visitors carefully picked their way through the debris in the wake of their hostess.

  “I have been baking all day!” the old woman called to them over her shoulder. She spoke with exaggerated, exclamatory delight, and her grammar was pure enough to allow Drake to follow almost every word. “How did I know I would have special visitors? How did I know? I thought my son would come over, but this is so much better!”

  Drake nodded vehemently behind her back; Jovieve cracked down on another smile. “What have you been baking, abuela?” the priestess asked, using the affectionate generic term for “grandmother.”

  “Oh, breads and cakes and ginger cookies. So much food. My son, he brings me groceries every week and I bake for him. He has seven children and no wife, so he needs all the help he can get. Pobrecito!”