Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  “All right.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Later,” I said. I looked at the cracked screen and frowned. The spiderweb of fractures had formed when the phone had hit the ground in the scrap yard. The display partly worked, enough to make a few calls. I was probably going to need a replacement. I put the phone away and climbed out of the car. Sergeant Derosiers’ eyes still wandered, and I did the best I could to ignore them. I crossed into the cordon and approached Uncle Kyle. He was still dressed as Rookhound.

  “What happened to the theory that Red Death was one of the Amaranth sisters?” I asked quietly.

  “Molbrech was only partly wrong,” he said. “Jill Castel was a trust fund baby whose family money came from an arms company. In this case, the much more venerable Mercian Armament Corporation. Spun off from the First Lord Death’s legitimate business enterprises. She did live in the Sandy Shore area when she studied at Maitland Fenn University as a fourteen year old prodigy. Her intellectual precocity is probably why her trustee let her make decisions about how to run the trust and shirked his own duties.”

  “Scary how close he was...” I trailed off as one of the firefighters approached us.

  “We’ve been through the building. No sign of any people, alive or dead.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. My relief was cut short by Kyle’s pronouncement.

  “So Masquerade is still on the loose.”

  Epilogue

  Eerie normalcy settled in. As the school year opened, I donned my new Leyden Academy uniform. The style was the same, but I had grown a little. The most distressing thing was seeing Donny wearing the same suit.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Getting ready for school,” he said, a smug grin crossing his features.

  “Stop joking around and take off my uniform.”

  “This is my uniform,” Donny said. “Since I’m smarter than you, I got accepted on my academic merits instead of a track scholarship.”

  “Oh really? And how are you paying for it?”

  “I got a Fowler Foundation scholarship for economically challenged yet academically gifted students.”

  “You conned Jack into footing the bill.”

  “He’s not your exclusive friend,” Donny said.

  “You two, shut up and get your things in the car,” Dad said.

  I stopped Donny as he began to step away. He glared at me, but I simply fixed his tie. “They give you demerits for having it loose like that.”

  “Thanks,” he said, sheepishly.

  As we stepped out the front door, we stopped. An unfamiliar brown jalopy sat at the curb in front of the house. I could see all of us tense as the passenger door opened. Donny’s tension was replaced by confusion as Norman Wilson stepped out. I fought the upwelling of anger as the sad little man came up the walk.

  “Morning, Leo,” he said, almost too quietly.

  “What do you want?” Dad asked through a clenched jaw.

  “I realized... I realized that I have always treated you poorly. I-”

  “You’re on parole,” Dad said.

  “Yes, I just wanted to-”

  “You’re not supposed to associate with known felons.”

  “Leo-”

  “Just. Leave.”

  Norman cast his sad gaze over us, let his head sink, and shuffled back to the car. Dad watched the battered vehicle drive away until it was gone before heading to our car.

  “Leo?” Donny asked as we got inside.

  “I don’t use that nickname anymore,” Dad said. It was true, everyone who spoke to him on a first-name basis called him Lenny. Both were short for his legal name, but nobody called him Leonard.

  “What was that all about?” Donny asked, oblivious.

  “Painful memories,” Dad said. “Leave it alone.”

  “But-”

  “No buts. Just drop it.” Dad started driving. The aggressive motions of the car finally clued Donny in to the font of rage bottled up under the otherwise composed exterior. I would have to fill in the blanks for him, but just not right before the start of the first day of school. Dad calmed himself as we crossed the city, and was driving relatively normally by the time we pulled into the lot at Leyden Academy.

  “Do you want me to show you around?” I asked as we got out of the car.

  Donny cast his eyes over at a gaggle of girls in their skirted Leyden uniforms. “No thanks, I’ll introduce myself to people.” Without a glimmer of hesitation, he walked right up to the clique. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it elicited an eye roll from one of the girls. But another one giggled, and he was not in the least bit discouraged, following them inside.

  “Peter!” someone called out.

  I watched Dad drive away and started towards the school.

  “Peter!” the voice repeated, closer this time. The third time the voice called out, their hand landed on my shoulder. I spun about and the man took his hand off me. Standing there was a tall, bookish man with round glasses and a slate gray suit. A manila envelope was tucked under his left arm. “Peter,” he said again.

  “I’m afraid you have me mistaken for someone else,” I said.

  The man extracted something from the envelope. It was a passport with a dark red cover. He flipped it open. “This isn’t you?” he asked, holding it up. The picture was me, without my mask or eyepatch - a state I was rarely in. I was about to ask where the picture came from until I saw the name.

  “Peter Bussard II,” the passport read.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Lawrence Emberholm,” he said as if expecting recognition. After getting none, he sagged a bit. “I see. Peter is dead.”

  “I’m not sure what you want,” I said.

  “I have a business proposition for you.”

  The school’s warning bell rang.

  “I have to get to class,” I said, glancing toward the school.

  “Of course, we’ll talk about it later.”

  I ran.