Catching a Man

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  Vinnie groaned. “I’m usually so good at not showing any expression when I’m being Ralvin. But, you know, it’s not every day random gorgeous men walk into the throne room.” His mouth formed a tiny “O.” “Hey, do you think maybe he would…?”

  Kadin sighed, her exhalation carrying all the tragedy of the situation. “Married.”

  “Really?” His head perked up, eager for more details.

  “Yes, and to a total sub-D. You would not believe…” Are you seriously sitting in a droptop autocar with King Ralvin talking about boys? Kadin cleared her throat. “But that’s not what you want to talk to me about. You want to know how I knew about your alter ego.”

  The king stopped to let a foursome of laughing club-goers cross the street. The two girls wore stylish dresses and their boyfriends’ black leather jackets, while the men seemed impervious to the cold. “That was the top issue in my mind, yes.”

  The two couples stepped back onto the sidewalk outside Red Rock, one of the swankiest clubs in town. Kadin couldn’t imagine ever feeling so carefree. “I saw a picture of you out of royal dress in the hallway of the palace the other day, and then I saw you here.”

  King Ralvin swore under his breath. “What picture?”

  Kadin thought back to the image. “The one of you and Duke Baurus. You were teenagers, I think. But you still look like you.”

  The king set his mouth in a grim line as he stared at the road.

  Kadin sank back in her seat. “Oh, come on. I cannot possibly be the only person to notice. It’s obvious, once you have your glasses off.”

  King Ralvin kept his focus on the orange and white autocar in front of them. “Most people who have been in the palace hallway don’t frequent side clubs.”

  “But people know who you are,” Kadin said. “Ollie said Vinnie Royal is one of the most prominent members of sideways society!”

  The king banged his hands on the steering wheel. “And Ralvin DeValeriel is a statue!” He grabbed the wheel again, holding it tight enough that his knuckles turned white. “I didn’t expect my disguise to work when I started the whole thing. I thought for sure I’d get caught, which would at least get it out that I was sideways. But it did work. I guess if you tell a big enough lie, it doesn’t even occur to people that it’s not true. No one even seemed to guess. Except for you.”

  “Wait. Callista had guards who followed her everywhere, so I imagine you do as well. How do you escape for hours at a time?”

  He shifted the car into a higher gear as the traffic in front of them sped up. “I have a decoy. I pay his family a lot of money, and he’s pretty much at my beck and call.” Ralvin’s lips quirked upward. “But don’t worry. He doesn’t make any political decisions.”

  Kadin rolled her eyes. King Ralvin didn’t make any political decisions either. She looked out the window as they drove past the neon lights of a gentlemen’s club. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  King Ralvin put on his left blinker. “I’m taking you to the Imperial Forest, where I plan to kill you and bury the body.”

  Kadin’s heart stopped, and she whipped her head around to look at him.

  He had a wicked smile on his face. “Kidding, of course.”

  Kadin let out the breath she had been holding.

  He made the turn and then flicked his eyes to Kadin. “Seriously, though, you know my secret. What do you need to keep it?”

  “What, do you think I’m going to blackmail you?” Deity, I could blackmail him. I could get him to do anything I wanted. That never even occurred to me.

  His voice was flat. “Well, you did discover the biggest secret of one of the city’s most powerful personages. That kind of information would be invaluable to a number of parties.”

  I wonder what it says about me that I didn’t think of selling this to the papers. Am I a good person, or an idiot? “First of all, I did not intentionally uncover your secret. If I could figure it out, anyone could.”

  He snorted. “Unlikely. Few people are invited into the palace and hang out at parties hosted by Olivan King, Master of Ceremonies. Besides, I’m getting the impression that you are a… singular individual.”

  Duke Baurus said the same thing. But it’s ridiculous. Most people in my life don’t even trust me to work a java machine. “Fine. You want to know what my silence costs? The answers to any questions I have about your wife’s murder.”

  King Ralvin raised his eyebrows. “So you are going to blackmail me.”

  Kadin crossed her arms. “Don’t blame me. It was your idea.”

  The king stopped the autocar at a traffic light. “You know, when I hired Valeriel Investigations, I was told to expect an insufficient and cursory examination of the events surrounding my wife’s murder. I’m starting to think I made an error.”

  Kadin tapped her finger on the armrest on the door of the autocar. “Why would you want to hire a company who wouldn’t be able to solve the murder? Unless, of course, you expected to be a suspect.”

  The tires squealed as King Ralvin spun the autocar into the parking lot of a teal and white building with the word “Diner” sitting on the top in capital neon letters. “If you’re going to question me about Callista’s murder, I’m going to need a java.”

  A Dawban Steel song blared from the juke box as they stepped through the glass-faced door. Kadin had half a mind to turn around and walk out again, but she knew avoiding his voice wouldn’t change the events of that night. Her heels squeaked on the black and white tiled floor as she and the king headed for a booth with red vinyl seats in the back corner. Not that they need have bothered. The java- and grease-scented restaurant was empty except for a teen girl with a high blond ponytail, poodle skirt, and bobby socks and her letter-jacketed boyfriend.

  The king pulled a green menu from the holder at the side of the table and buried his face in it.

  If he thinks that’s going to stop my questions, he can forget it. “Why did you think you would be a suspect? The detectives thought you might have wanted revenge for Callista’s promiscuity. I thought that was ridiculous, even if you hadn’t been sideways. Everyone knew about her indiscretions. Even I knew, and I avoid those society glossies like the plague.”

  King Ralvin made a noise from behind the menu that resembled agreement enough that Kadin continued her train of thought. “I don’t know if Fellows and the rest would have been so quick to dismiss you if they hadn’t gotten so caught up in the Duke Baurus angle.”

  “Ah.” The king put down the menu. “But they have dismissed me, so I can stop worrying about having another awkward conversation with the investigators.”

  Kadin fought the strange urge to stick her tongue out at him. “Which would be a lot less awkward if you were nice to them. But I suppose if you prefer avoidance to basic courtesy, you could call a case seventh. Though that would convict you in the court of public opinion.”

  “Not that the court of public opinion holds much weight when you take all efforts to have as little public persona as possible.” King Ralvin folded the menu closed. “Would a reputation as a murderer hurt or help Ralvin’s image, do you think?”

  A waitress in a pink-and-white-checked dress with a matching hat and frilly white apron came over to the table and flipped her order pad to a clean sheet. “What can I get you?”

  The king gave her a bright smile. “I’ll have an order of pancakes and a cup of java, please.”

  The waitress jotted down his order and turned to Kadin.

  “I’m good, thanks,” she said.

  King Ralvin tried to hand the waitress the menu, but she indicated he should return it to the holder by the window. He did so, then turned back to Kadin. “So what do you think? Should I take unofficial credit for offing my wife?”

  Kadin put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her
hands. “No. I want to know who really killed her.” A thought struck her. “Unless it was you. Unless you killed her for a different reason. You didn’t care about her sleeping around, but you might have cared about something else. She already knew you were sideways, I assume. What if she found out about Vinnie Royal as well and threatened to tell?”

  King Ralvin snorted. “Callista? Find out about Vinnie? She would never have slummed it enough to hang out in his circles.”

  The words poured out of Kadin’s mouth. “Or maybe you cared who she was sleeping with. You must have been under pressure in Imperial circles to produce an heir. The general populace would assume that any child she produced had at least a chance of being yours, and as long as the baby’s father was your cousin, people would let it go. He would look enough like you, and Duke Baurus is almost royalty anyway. But she had ended things between the two of them, for real this time, and that could put a serious crimp in your lineage.”

  The king laughed, but he sounded nervous, as if he weren’t quite sure how serious she was. “Callista ended things with Baurus all the time. He would rage and pout, and she would go off and sleep with some other people for a while, and then she’d take him back.”

  Kadin shook her head. “This time was different. You said Queen Callista seemed happy on the afternoon before she died. Duke Baurus thought she was in love with another man.”

  King Ralvin sat back in his seat, as if suddenly unconcerned about her accusations. “Callista? In love with someone? Please. The woman was biologically incapable of empathy. Where are you getting your information?”

  Somehow the king’s dismissal didn’t rankle her the way everyone else’s did, probably because he was questioning her evidence, rather than her competence. Kadin opened her mouth to tell him that she had met his cousin, but before she could, the waitress returned and set Ralvin’s pancakes and java in front of him. The hilarity of the entire situation struck Kadin, and she giggled.

  King Ralvin frowned at her. “What’s so funny?”

  Kadin gestured around her. “Everything. This entire situation. I cannot believe I am in a diner in the middle of the night talking to King Ralvin about a murder that no one wants me to solve.”

  The king glanced around the room to make sure no one was paying attention to them, but the teens at the counter were lost in their own conversation. “First off, I’m Vinnie, not Ralvin. Ralvin doesn’t go out in public without wearing face paint, and often a stupid hat. And he definitely doesn’t have pancakes with detective girls who suspect him of killing his wife. And what do you mean no one wants you to solve the murder?”

  Kadin buried her face in her hands. “Well, you don’t, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, since whatever else you say, I don’t think you killed Queen Callista, if only because you haven’t killed me and hidden my body somewhere. The entire team thinks I’m useless because I’m a woman and because I mostly got the job in hopes it would help me meet a husband. And, well, maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my job. And Dr. Combs seemed willing to talk to me about the case, but he thinks I should stay out of it because investigating magic is dangerous.”

  “Magic?” King Ralvin—or Vinnie— raised his eyebrows. “You think magic was involved in Callista’s death?”

  Kadin could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew what she knew, that Baurus DeValeriel wanted magic more than anything else in the world. “Well, maybe…”

  Vinnie spread his hands out on the table and gave her a steady look. “Did you ever think that maybe everyone’s better off if you never find out who killed Callista?”

  Better if we never find out? But how can justice be a bad thing?

  Her disbelief must have shown on her face, because Vinnie looked away from her and wrung his hands. “Look, I’m not saying that she deserved to die or that I wanted her to die or anything like that. But… Well, she was a horrible person, and maybe whoever killed her had a good reason for it. Or at least a comprehensible reason. And maybe the world is better off without that person being locked away for ridding the world of a selfish, spoiled, and useless woman.” He looked back at Kadin. “I realize that this is hardly a noble motivation on my part, and you don’t approve. But could you at least try to understand?”

  No, I don’t understand. If everyone took matters like this into their own hands, society would fall apart. She took a deep breath. But that’s not what he’s saying. “You think Duke Baurus killed Queen Callista.”

  Vinnie sighed. “I don’t see who else could have. He was so angry that day, and I should have noticed his rage was worse than usual. But he gets angry all the time, and he always gets over it. I tried to reassure him that Callista would take him back, that she always took him back, but he seemed so convinced that this time was different. I didn’t think he planned to make it different. I should have stopped him. I should have realized…” His face crumpled under the guilt. “He shouldn’t have done it. Obviously. That’s a huge understatement. But she used him so badly, again and again. How much was he expected to take? And Baurus, for all his flaws, is worth fifty Callistas.”

  Kadin stared at Vinnie until he met her eyes. “But what if Duke Baurus didn’t kill Queen Callista?”

  “Hasn’t even occurred to me.” Vinnie picked up his silverware and began to cut his pancakes. “The timing would be too coincidental. I mean, even Callista couldn’t get two people mad enough to kill her in one day.”

  Kadin shook her head. “Maybe not, but the facts don’t add up. Several witnesses, including yourself, attest the queen still being alive long after Duke Baurus left the palace, and even after Lady Beatrin claims that he left the Oriole estate, allegedly much calmer than when he arrived. I suppose it’s possible he rethought everything and got angry again, but several witnesses saw him leave the palace earlier in the day, and none of them described his departure as ‘quiet.’ If he had been enraged, could he have snuck back in without anyone noticing?”

  Vinnie looked unconvinced. “Baurus usually regrets things that he does and says when he’s angry, but not always. Like at Beatrin’s wedding, when he called Frasis an ignorant pig and punched him in front of everyone.” The king smiled at the memory. “Well, Frasis rather deserved that. He said disparaging things about his new wife’s honor quite loudly. But Baurus still won’t apologize to Frasis—or even Beatrin, for making a scene at her wedding—and swears up and down that he would do it again. He may well have done something similar with Callista, decided that he wanted to kill her while he was angry and still thought it seemed like a good idea once he had calmed down.”

  “Putting aside the fact that there is a rather large difference between punching someone for being a jerk and murdering someone, the perpetrator must have planned the murder before the queen even talked to Duke Baurus that day. The queen’s guard was found buried in the woods, where he had probably been since the night before she died. Someone had gotten him out of the way so her protection would be inadequate, and it’s unlikely to have been the duke.”

  “I admit that’s odd.” Vinnie lifted a fork of food to his mouth. “But, seriously, this was far from the first time that Callista had upset Baurus. I can’t think of anyone whom she enraged anywhere near as much.”

  Kadin tried not to be distracted by the sweet-and-savory scent of pancakes. Maybe she should have ordered something. “But she had inspired strong feelings in someone. She ended her relationship with Duke Baurus because she claimed that someone who she truly loved had come back to her after a year away. She must have had a great impact on him indeed, if he would come back to her after all that time.”

  Vinnie swallowed, and his fork clinked as he set it against his plate. “Wait. You really think Callista left Baurus for someone specific, someone she loved? Who could that be?”

  Who indeed. “I was rather hoping you could tell me. I have a list of people
that she… spent time with… last fall, but there’s no news coupling her name with any of them lately. I can’t believe this renewed relationship isn’t connected to her death in some way.”

  “Wait a minute here.” Vinnie took a sip of his java. “Where are you getting your information? I lived with the woman, and I don’t have any kind of comprehensive list of her relationships. And I certainly never heard or saw any evidence that she was particularly attached to any one of her ‘suitors’.”

  Should I tell him? “The entire world could get a list of her suitors from the society glossies. But I got them from an interested party—Duke Baurus.”

  Vinnie set his mug down with a clunk, and the hot liquid sloshed up almost to the rim. “You spoke to Baurus? You mean after the murder? Even I haven’t seen Baurus since then.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t talk to him before the murder.” She took a deep breath. Okay, cards on the table. “I ran into him at the palace when the investigation team was leaving the day after the queen died. He was in the queen’s library, where he threw a book at my head. The next day he came by my house to apologize for attacking me and to let me ask him some questions. He told me that Queen Callista left him for another man, and I’ve been tracking down these alleged suspects ever since. The only one I still need to question is Lord Landis Imbolc, who is out of town indefinitely.” She let out a breath, relieved to have finally told someone.

  Vinnie snorted. “Callista was not having an affair with Landis Imbolc.”

  “Duke Baurus seemed pretty sure…”

  “Oh, I bet he was.” Vinnie smirked. “Baurus was adept at tracking down every activity of Callista’s, but he can be surprisingly clueless about many things. Like the fact that Landis is sideways.”

  I read that whole thick file several times... “Are you sure? Because the glossies have never even implied any such thing.”