Catching a Man

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  The man nodded and lifted his shaking hands from his lap to the table.

  Fellows kept his cold eyes trained on Strand. “My name is Detective Caison Fellows. I need to ask you a few questions about the death of Queen Callista.”

  “Y-yes, of course.” Strand straightened and looked Fellows in the eye for a moment, but his gaze flickered back to the bare table. “Please, I want to help in any way that I can. You can’t imagine how it feels, to know that I caused her death…”

  “You were assigned to guard Queen Callista last night.” Fellows’s voice held none of the delicacy it had with King Ralvin.

  I guess he reserves the respect for royalty… or people whose incompetence didn’t get someone else killed, Kadin thought.

  “Yes.” The soon-to-be-former guard hesitated, as if attempting to gauge what information Fellows sought. “It was a new assignment for me, or, rather, a temporary one. And last minute. I mean, I was about to go on duty at the west gate, and Sergeant Dervish ordered me to protect the queen. I guess he thought I would be okay to do it, since I used to be a door guard inside the palace.” He sighed. “But he was wrong.”

  Fellows made a brief note. “According to Captain Carver, you were instructed to remain with the queen at all times. Why did you disobey your orders?”

  Strand opened and closed his hands a few times. “I don’t know. I wasn’t supposed to leave her alone. But she seemed safe in her room, and she was so insistent, and it was only for a few minutes…” Tears formed in his eyes. “She asked me if I would retrieve a book she had left in her library. I told her, I said, I couldn’t leave her alone. I tried to get one of the hall guards, but none were around. I offered to escort her down. She insisted she wasn’t leaving, that she needed to prepare for bed, but that she needed to finish the book that night because she promised Lady Beatrin…”

  Strand took a deep breath, and by the time he spoke again, his voice had steadied. “She… she ordered me to go, and she was getting rather… loud…about it. I had my orders, but it’s the DeValeriels who sign my paycheck. I figured it would only take me a few minutes to go down and get it, and where was the harm?”

  Sounds to me as though she was trying to get rid of him, thought Kadin, making a note.

  Fellows leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes. “Did you suspect she was trying to get you to leave the room? Perhaps to meet someone or to engage in a behavior that she did not want you see?”

  Strand’s head jerked backwards, as if the idea had not occurred to him. “No… No, I don’t think so. I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but I was only gone for a few minutes. I wouldn’t have thought there was even enough time for someone to come in and…” He closed his eyes and took a second to pull himself together again. “I used to work in the palace, though not directly with the queen, and she was well-known for being… insistent. Bordering on demanding. I had been called on to obey a whim of hers a few times. I honestly think that she just wanted that book and didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t have it.”

  Must have been some book, Kadin thought. She moved her foot and accidentally kicked over one of her shoes.

  Fellows gave Strand a level glare. “You said that you didn’t think someone had enough time to come in and, I assume, kill her. How long were you gone, exactly?”

  “I wouldn’t have said more than ten minutes, though I wasn’t keeping track.” Strand’s gaze grew unfocused. “It must have been longer, I guess. I mean, you can’t kill someone like that in ten minutes, can you? So that there’s no sign? I mean, you could get a ject shot off, or stab somebody, or…” Strand’s hands shook harder.

  The killer didn’t just leave no sign. He ensured that no one would notice the crime was occurring. A projectile weapon shot would have made noise, and the victim of a stabbing would scream. Kadin used her toe to maneuver her shoe upright again as Fellows waited a full minute to see if Strand was going to pull himself together enough to continue. The guard, who suddenly struck Kadin as quite young, appeared to be finished, if not prepared to answer another question.

  Fellows cleared his throat. “Did she behave in an unusual manner earlier that evening?”

  Strand started. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what normal behavior for her would have been. She seemed the same as what little I saw of her before, but I don’t know what normal behavior is for her, or any Imperial.”

  Can there be normal behavior for a noble? Kadin jotted down something about confirming Queen Callista’s behavior with her regular guard, if the team ever found him.

  Fellows tapped his pencil against his notebook. “Well, did she appear to have any signs of illness?”

  Strand’s mouth opened in realization. “Oh, you mean, did she seem to be poisoned or something?” His brow furrowed. “No, I don’t think so. She wasn’t wincing or limping or anything.” His head jerked up. “She did seem irritable, in how insistent she was that I get the book and all. Irritable can mean pain, right?”

  Fellows flipped back a page in his book. “But you said that being ‘insistent’ was an accustomed behavior of hers. Now you claim it was unusual?”

  Fellows is good at this. Kadin tried to peek over at his notes, wondering what other tidbits he had picked up that she had missed.

  “No, no, I don’t mean that!” Strand’s breath came faster, as if he had just realized he might be a suspect in this case and might be facing more trouble than the consequences of being negligent on duty. “I mean, from what I knew of her, tantrums weren’t unusual. I didn’t think anything of her behavior at the time, except, you know, that I’d better not upset her more. But you asked if I noticed any signs that she was sick.” He lifted his shoulders with effort, then let them fall. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I left because she was yelling at me to go, and I came back, and she was dead. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. I wish I did. Maybe if I could help find whoever did this, I could stop seeing her face…”

  Either Fellows took pity on the man or he had all the information he needed, because he snapped his notebook shut. “Thank you for your time, Corporal. I trust that you will remain available for questioning at a later date, and if you think of anything, I want you to contact me immediately.” He handed Strand a card.

  Strand looked up at Fellows with haunted eyes. “I will, Detective. And please, please, tell me as soon as you find out who did this.”

  Kadin tried not to wince as she slid her feet back into her shoes, stood up, and tottered toward the door. Before she left, she turned back to look at Herrick Strand. He stared at Fellows’s card in his hand, but Kadin doubted the guard could read the words in his current state. She allowed herself one last pang of empathy before she closed the door on the man, leaving him alone with his guilt.

  When Fellows and Kadin arrived back at the palace, Dahran waited for them outside the queen’s bedchamber. Kadin had hoped the detectives would compare notes back at the office, or at least in a comfortable sitting room at the palace, but Fellows deemed the palace hallway a good place to deliberate, stiletto-unfriendly plush carpeting and all. She lifted her right foot out of its shoe and cringed as the blister on her heel rubbed against the too-tight back of the pump.

  I wonder if anyone would notice if I shrank by a few inches.

  Fellows either didn’t notice or didn’t care about his aide’s pain, because he turned to Dahran. “What have you got?”

  Dahran flipped through his notebook. “According to Sergeant Dervish, Queen Callista’s regular night bodyguard didn’t report for duty last night, so he had to rearrange his roster at the last minute. He assigned Corporal Strand to watch the queen.”

  Fellows raised an eyebrow. “Did he give a reason for the assignment? Why put a gate guard in charge of the queen? There must have been someone better suited to the position.”

  Dahran
snapped his fingers and pointed at Fellows. “Exactly what I wondered. The corporal was assigned to the west gate, where Dervish felt he could most easily spare people. Corporal Strand was also being considered for a promotion, so Dervish thought this would be a good way to test out how he handled additional responsibility.”

  I guess his move out the palace last year wasn’t a demotion.

  “Apparently not too well,” Fellows said. “Anything in the queen’s room?”

  Dahran flipped to the next page. “No sign of a struggle or forced entry that we could see. The queen was either poisoned before she went into the room, or she knew her attacker and let him get close enough to strangle her before she realized he planned to kill her.”

  Fellows clapped Dahran on the back. “That makes sense, given the corporal’s story. He claims he wasn’t gone for more than ten minutes—fifteen at the outside. If she had made any kind of fuss, he probably would have been close enough to hear it during the necessary window. What did you get from the servants and guards?”

  Dahran glanced in Kadin’s direction, which reminded her she had worn these accursed shoes to impress Dahran, and she hadn’t done a thing to impress him since her awkward attempts at flattery back at the office. She met his gaze and smiled for all she was worth.

  Dahran winked at her and turned his attention back to Fellows. “None of the staff were in the immediate area at the time, so they didn’t hear anything. But when I asked if they believed anyone might have wanted to hurt the queen, a large number of them immediately named someone who had expressed displeasure with her that day.” Dahran smirked. “I’ll give you three guesses who.”

  “I don’t think I’ll need them.” Fellows gave a small smile of his own. “Duke Baurus?”

  “One and the same.” Dahran grinned, and he turned to include Kadin in the expression. She did her best to look as though she admired his cleverness.

  “The duke came up in my investigation as well.” Fellows flipped back a couple of pages in his notebook. “According to the king, his wife and the duke had been having an affair for some time, an affair that she ended yesterday.”

  According to the king and every gossip rag in the city, Kadin thought. Don’t detectives keep up with that kind of thing?

  “Indeed, several servants commented upon an angry duke raging through the palace this afternoon, though he left several hours before the murder took place.” The corner of Dahran’s mouth quirked upward again. “Of course, I got the impression that this was not an entirely uncommon occurrence. The relationship between Queen Callista and Duke Baurus was not what one would call a secret, and it had its dramatic moments. The servants all expected him to do something violent long before this.”

  Well, at least he is up on celebrity news. Although I’m pretty sure something like the relationship between Duke Baurus and Queen Callista would better be called “olds.”

  “Well, I think that we will want to speak with Duke Baurus as soon as may be.” Fellows frowned at his notebook. “However, I don’t think we can rule out other suspects quite yet. After the breakup, the duke went to discuss the affair with the king, and I’m certain that we can both see how his wife’s infidelity might provide a motive.”

  When the men gave each other knowing nods, Kadin had to clap her hand over her mouth to prevent a snort. “I don’t think he minded so much.”

  Blinking, the men twisted their heads around to look at her.

  Fellows cleared his throat. “I’m fairly certain that King Ralvin is man enough not to want his wife spreading her favors around.”

  Dahran reached out and patted Kadin’s arm. “Miss Stone, you’re a woman, so you may not understand. He couldn’t help but be upset by it.”

  Kadin resisted the urge to bristle at the condescending tone. “No, seriously, I think that—“

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Fellows held up his hand as Dahran smirked. “We’ve all had a busy day and are obviously tired. Starting tomorrow, White, I want you to check out the financials of every guard and servant working here. If anyone got paid to look the other way, I want to know about it. I’ll set up an interview with Duke Baurus, and possibly his sister, as soon as may be. Dismissed.” Without another word, Fellows strode off in the direction of the entrance.

  Dahran turned to study a fresco on the wall. Kadin thought about taking the opportunity to strike up a flirtation, but the allure of going home and getting out of Octavira’s shoes proved more tempting. She turned and followed Fellows.

  I guess I shouldn’t have expected them to listen to me. With no one to look at her, she let herself cringe with every step down the stairs. It is my first day, and they’ve got a lot more experience than me.

  By the time Kadin got to the first floor, she realized she had no idea how she was supposed to get home. She couldn’t see Fellows ahead of her, but if he had planned to wait for the team, he wouldn’t have rushed out.

  Guess I’ll have to wait for Dahran to come down, so we can split an autotaxi. She trudged down the main hallway, the unsteady click of her heels providing evidence of the poor state of her feet to anyone listening. I can’t walk to the nearest autobus stop. Do they even have autobuses in the Imperial District?

  Kadin made it to the palace’s front door, but among the ornate columns and lions head frescos, she could not find anywhere to sit. The queen’s library was only a little ways down the corridor, though, and she figured she would still hear the other detectives come down if she waited in there. With the determination of one who knows that, if she suffers for a few minutes more, her swollen feet will get a respite, she headed toward the room and opened the door.

  “Get out!” a deep, commanding baritone shouted.

  Kadin froze. Oh Deity, I hope I didn’t offend someone important.

  “I’m so sorry, sir.” Without looking up, she backed away and started to pull the door shut behind her.

  A white and green object flew through the air, and she heard a papery fwap as whatever it was struck the wall next to her head, then thumped on the floor. Kadin stopped her retreat and looked down at the object lying next to her.

  “Did you… Did you throw a book at my head?”

  She lifted her gaze and gasped. She recognized the thrower from the pictures outside the throne room, as well as any number of clicks in any of number of publications Trinithy and Olivan had shoved under her nose. Same dark hair. Same hazel eyes. Same forbidding build. She even thought he might be wearing the same red-vested black suit as he had in the painting.

  She had snapped at Duke Baurus DeValeriel.

  The fury of his presence came toward her in a flood so powerful she almost felt the need to step back. His face, his posture, everything about him from his side-parted hair to his shiny black wingtips, radiated rage, as though he were so overcome by his emotions that he could not contain them inside his skin.

  He clenched and unclenched his fists. “What are you doing here? I said get out!”

  Get out of here, Kadin, the rational part of her brain told her. He might have murdered someone last night.

  But the waves of his temper had seeped into her skin, daring her to stay.

  She put her hands on her hips. “I was leaving, and then you threw a book at my head.”

  His lip curled. “That wasn’t incentive enough to listen to me?”

  Her heart pounded in her throat. “No, generally a man’s attempting to hurt me doesn’t sway my opinion in his favor.”

  True, fair, excellent logic, she thought. You have made your point. Maybe you should go.

  The duke’s hazel eyes flashed. “Do you always wander around other people’s homes uninvited?”

  Her jaw tightened. “It’s not your home either.”

  She wanted to clap her hand over her mouth as soon as she spoke. Please, please tell me you did n
ot contradict a duke.

  Judging by the way his eyes bugged, Duke Baurus had the same response to her words as she did. “I have a standing invitation to my cousin’s home.”

  Kadin held up her head. “I was invited, too. I’m part of the team from Valeriel Investigations looking into the death of Queen Callista.” He didn’t need to know that she was no longer on the clock. Or that the other detectives didn’t value her contributions.

  His countenance changed; the anger remained but was accompanied by surprise, guilt, embarrassment, curiosity, worry… A parade of emotions scattered across his open face, though none of them remained in place long enough for her to capture the thoughts behind them.

  His face cleared, and he focused a simple glare on Kadin. “Fine. You won’t leave, then I will.”

  She bristled, but before she could speak, he whipped the door out of her grasp and stormed out of the room.

  She sank down into the mauve loveseat, her hands trembling more than Herrick Strand’s had. I cannot believe I said all those things to Duke Baurus. To a murderer. She took a deep breath. Except…

  Her detective’s brain raced past her shock. If he were a murderer, why would he come back here, to the scene of the crime? I mean, criminals don’t do that, really. He has to know he’s a suspect.

  There must have been something he needed to do here. Some object to retrieve. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for anything suspicious or out of place. But though the queen’s sunburst clock indicated dubious taste, Kadin couldn’t see anything that would draw a former lover—or a killer. She resolved to tell Fellows about the encounter in the morning. Maybe he would have a better idea of what to look for.

  Kadin hobbled outside the palace just in time to breathe in the last fumes of the autotaxi carrying Dahran away. She sighed, realizing, as she had feared, she would have to pay for a ride across the city herself or else walk to the nearest autobus stop in her heels.