“Oh, let’s not be so stuffy about protocol, Chief Trew,” Gideon said, recovering enough from his shock of seeing me to ignite a perfect politician’s grin. “However Ms. Jenkins managed to get here, I am confident that she has a genuinely urgent reason for doing so.”
“In the dead of night, Gideon?” Ms. Falk asked, derision -- or, was it suspicion -- dripping from her words. “The only reason a person's up at these hours is because guilt won't let them sleep.”
As usual, her lips didn’t move much as she said this. But her eyes were animated enough to make up for that lack with a quick stare at David.
“Quite wrong, Ms. Falk,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “I have come to tell you that you’ve got the wrong person in custody, CPI Trew.”
“I know that’s what you’ve been thinking, Hattie,” David said. “I could see that on your face when I made the arrest. But, the proof—“
“—has changed. I just came from Maude’s. Between us, we found out a few more details that didn't quite fit for Ravena being fingered for this.”
While I was making my speech, I took a quick glance down. Fraidy was nearly in position, but he had to fight his shakes every step of the way. I told Fraidy earlier that I could get Shade or Midnight to perform his task. He wouldn't have any of it. You can do it, sweetie.
“Such as?” Gideon asked, showing genuine interest or at least being very good at pretending to show it.
“The condition of the place where the body was found,” I said. “Maude was able to confirm that Millicent died in the very spot we discovered her, but the only thing that was scorched in that area, despite the lightning strength voltage that killed her, was Millicent's body. Or her corpse, rather.”
“But, there’s still that Taser of Dr. Valley’s—“
“Which only throws out a fraction of the voltage you’d need to get those electrical burn scars on Millicent’s body. Even if she could throw out the full 50,000 from that unit, it’d still only come up to maybe an eighth of the charge that did our Ms. Pond in. It wasn't the taser, Chief Para Inspector.”
“Gideon, this is absolutely ridiculous,” Ms. Falk said. “Nothing this woman says counts as proof of one kind or another.”
Her eyes shifted back to David once again. For just a second, I thought I saw her give a disbelieving blink as if something she’d expected to happen didn’t. Fraidy was almost there. I just needed to stall for a little more time.
“Dr. Valley is a research scientist,” I pointed out. “If she’d wanted to make Millicent’s death look like the lightning accident we all assumed that it was, don’t you think she would have dressed the scene up a little more convincing?”
“What do you mean, Hattie?” David asked, crossing his arms. The furrow in his brow had gone from tight-knit angry to thoughtful. “There’s no disputing the fact that she was killed by an overdose of electricity.”
“But the vegetation around her was pristine. If it had been an uncontrolled bolt of lightening, the sand around her body would have become a solid pane of glass. Those are things that Ravena would have thought of had she wanted the investigation to come to the 'accident' conclusion.”
“Absence of evidence is not the same thing as proof,” Ms. Falk spoke in a nervous kind of confidence. “How long must we endure this nonsense, Gideon?”
The same furtive look crossed Ms. Falk’s face. But this time, I noticed that the governor of Cathedral seemed to be equally nervous. He was fidgeting rather alarmingly in his chair. Quite a difference from the cool, poised character I'd met on the beach on Cathedral.
“Let her lay out her case, Mari,” Gideon said, holding up his hand. Between his fingers, I saw Fraidy crouch into position at last. Luckily nobody had noticed him still. He was quite the stealth moggy. I actually felt quite proud of him in that rather tense moment.
“Also, there’s the black diamond around her neck at the time of her death,” I added in triumph.
A bit of Gideon’s composure slipped at the mention of that bauble. “How do you know that—“
“We happened to find a picture of it in the course of the investigation,” David explained. “In fact, that’s one of the things we’ll be looking for at Dr. Valley’s—“
Ms. Falk’s lips opened for the first time as she screamed. She glared down to see who had caused her the sudden pain in her ankle. Her eyes blazed in hatred at the cowering, retreating form of Fraidy. As my cat scrambled to get under the nearest desk, I got between him and Gideon’s right-hand woman.
“Don’t you even,” I said, waving my wand within an inch of her face. “Fraidy?”
The slight scratch of a tongue against kitty claws was followed by; “It’s the same, Hattie.…ta-tastes like just c-cow's milk. Sour cow milk.” His face puckered in disgust, despite his crushing fear.
Without waiting for anyone’s permission, my gloved hands made a dive into Ms. Falk’s purse. It only took a few seconds for my fingers to find what they were looking for. I yanked out the black diamond pendant that Millicent had once proudly worn and held it up.
“We’ll have to check with Maude to be sure,” I said to David. “But this looks an awful lot like a match for the patch of Millicent’s skin on her chest that was untouched by the charge.”
Ms. Falk’s lips were moving again as she said, “You saw what she just did, Gideon? She just violated my—“
“Do you know how you can tell a Huldra is telling the truth?” I asked rhetorically. “Her lips move.”
At that comment, Mari Falk's game was up. She became her true being. A dangerous Nordic seductress whose real home was the forests of Scandinavia. The room fell silent as we heard Mari's pants tear. A painfully slow zipp sound filled the room, followed by David's gasp as Mari's cow tail burst through the fabric and swished slow, lazy arcs in the air. She glared at me and said with animated lips, “Gideon, must we—“
“In this case, Mari, yes,” Gideon said with a deep sigh of regret. “I’m afraid that we must come to the conclusion that you are the real murderer of Millicent Pond.”
We watched the Huldra's eyes cycle through the emotions. First disbelief, then shock, followed by a burning fury. “How can you say such a—“
“I swear, if you say your boss’ name one more time, I’m going to scream,” I said. “Portia Fearwyn disarmed that mental tripwire earlier tonight. You’ve got no mental leverage over David here.”
“Could I get a closer look at that, Hattie?” David asked, gesturing for the diamond while not taking his eyes from Mari's tail.
“I wouldn’t recommend it, David. These gloves have a vulcanized rubber mesh under them to keep any stray tachyons coming off this rock at bay. Maude had a feeling that I might need them.”
“Satisfy a bit of curiosity for me, Hattie,” Gideon said, stroking his chin. “How did you know that Mari would even have this piece of evidence with her?”
“David’s arrest of Ravena was spur of the moment,” I explained, pulling out a folded-up rubber bag from the same pocket that had Fraidy’s leash. “Nobody could have anticipated the timing. But once he got in touch with you and, through you, Ms. Falk, she knew that she’d have to plant the evidence to make the arrest stick. No doubt, after this little late night pow-wow, she'd have simply broken into Ravena's and planted the pendant in time for Chief Trew to find it.”
Falk bared her teeth at me. Goddess, they resembled cow teeth. No wonder she never opened her mouth. Looking at her now, she just looked silly and bovine. I couldn't actually believe that I felt threatened by her.
“Also, Ms. Falk wasn't concerned about leaving her skin cells on the diamond itself,” I went on as I bagged the diamond. “But given how charged the crystal still was with that electric bolt she threw at it, she didn’t need to be. Based on what I found out at the morgue, the tachyons would have crisped every last one of her cells by the time forensics gave it another look.”
“I’m still not seeing evidence linking her to the crime,” David pointed out
.
“My cats were licking your brow when you were having that first seizure at Ravena’s. They talked about how much like cow-milk you tasted. Ravena confirmed that you had a major lack of magnesium and over-saturation levels of calcium in your blood cells. At the time, I thought it was just due to the backlash from Maude’s home electrical kit finally catching up with you the way it had Carbon.”
I handed David the bag before going on to say, “But then Maude found cells behind the part of Millicent’s chest the diamond shielded. Only they weren't Millicent's cells. They were someone else's entirely. Fraidy confirmed the cow milk taste while we were at the morgue, which is why I had him do his quick little field test again. But this time on Mari.”
“I'm switching to goats milk tomorrow, okay?” Fraidy asked from his hiding place.
“But how do we know that Dr. Valley isn’t another Huldra who’s framing Ms. Falk here?” Gideon asked, his tone neutral. Did he know the truth about Ms. Falk before this?
“If what Maude says is right, the Fae make lousy scientists,” I said. “Ravena is anything but that.”
I got in the Amazon’s face. She was way less intimidating with a tail. Seriously, having a foe with a tail does wonders for your confidence. “What you didn’t count on was the black diamond still having a charge. It emitted enough tachyon energy to warp the liquid you were feeding David. To the point where the mental programming went haywire. Between Ravena’s report, the diamond and what they’re going to find on your body to match the cells that were found on Millicent's body, there’s more than enough evidence to nail you, Ms. Falk.” My smug satisfaction only lasted a second.
Ms. Falk pointed at Gideon. “He’s the one who made me do it!”
“Preposterous!” Gideon said with a credible look of outrage plastered to his features. “You get caught red-handed for this heartless crime, and you wish to blame it on me?” Shields' face was crimson. "And, Mari, I'm a careful man. I like to have audio files of all transactions I make. Therefore I dutifully recorded the request I made of you to present Millicent with the pendant. CPI Trew has already heard the conversation in full. Some days ago. I merely gave it to him in case it would prove useful in his investigations. I never really thought it would be used.”
Mari lunged, her tail slicing the air in a menacing arc.
It was David’s turn to get between the Huldra and someone she wanted to do violence to. “Constable!”
Phillips grabbed Mari from behind and slammed her fairly aggressively into the wall. As the constable cuffed her, Gideon said, “Well, Chief Para Inspector, this is a rather startling turn of events. If it would be helpful, I could look through my records to see if there is any further supporting evidence to back up the impressive work of your consultant here.”
“It would be appreciated, Governor,” David said. The undertone I caught in his voice told me that he shared my suspicions that Mari had been telling the truth about him. After all, her lips had been moving.
“In fact, it would probably be best if I got started on that straight away,” Gideon said as more constables joined Phillips to herd (pun intended) Mari towards a cell. “Good evening, CPI Trew. Or, rather, good morning as the case may be.”
As the bronze haired governor was walking away, I called after him, “There’s just one more thing, Gideon.”
He stopped and turned to face me. “And what is that, Ms. Jenkins?”
“David and I had our reasons for being up at this ungodly hour. But why were you still awake?”
“Oh, I have frequent bouts of insomnia,” Gideon replied smoothly. “Have ever since I was a child. So, on those nights, I do what I can to ensure the smooth administration of my Isle. Ms. Falk often joins me on those nights. We were here merely to check in on the investigations. Murder is, ahem, murder for tourism. And Cathedral counts on its visitors.” He gave what passed as a regretful smile.
I could feel the sheer insincerity of his answer taunting me. But, I just nodded, thanked him and wished him a good night. How did Columbo do this all the time?
“So, David?” I looked my friend in the eye. "That liquid you were being fed ... for the mind control? Exactly how was that administered?" I teased him. Sure, I was jealous of those unknown intimate moments he likely shared with Mari, but man was I glad to have my friend back. Whole. Mentally balanced, and as gorgeous as ever.
Chapter Twenty
When Millie arrived at the shop later that morning, I surprised her by asking if there was anything more I could do to help stop the airstrip from being built. Once her frothing excitement died down, Millie suggested that I become the new local leader to the Runway Resistance Group. Within a week, I was splitting my duties at the shop with coordinating protests, strategies, and petitions to Talisman to stop the airstrip.
Shields did the same on his end, but with a lot more money, a hell of a lot more charisma and for an opposite cause.
In the end, I wonder how much good we actually did with all the demonstrations and Town Halls. What ultimately killed the proposal was less my group’s efforts as it was the fallout from Mari Falk’s arrest for Millicent’s murder. Whatever mine and David’s suspicions of Gideon’s involvement in the crime, he was officially cleared of all links and suspicions when he produced additional vocal recordings between Mari and him. Only innocent requests were heard. It was reasoned, albeit reluctantly, that Mari Falk had been operating under her own volition.
But the fact remained that she had been the Governor's loyal right hand, intimately involved in every detail of running Cathedral and indeed even his personal life. The secondhand taint of this association proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Ministry of the Interior cited the possibility of corruption as the main reason it ruled against the airstrip being built. The environmental side effects were a mere afterthought. Gideon never called on me again for that dinner. I have to say it was a relief in light of what I’d uncovered.
Meanwhile, Ravena carried on the other main fight that Millicent had been involved in at the time of her death. She lobbied Cathedral’s government on the Rock Grumlin bill and used the recorded testimony of the Grumlin’s themselves to bolster the campaign. Luck would have it that she steered well clear of the Godmarsh Toad campaign and consequently Portia's property in the Gorthland Swamps. We didn't need another murder on our hands. With regards to the Grumlin affair, though, the esteemed doctor had somehow managed to get testimonials linking their ill treatment by the now-disgraced Ms. Falk. Gideon Shields was never mentioned. He was so squeaky clean it was almost frightening.
In an effort to mitigate the bad press, the bill for Fair Treatment was passed near-unanimously and signed by Gideon the very next day. As the new public face of the bill, Ravena attended the signing ceremony. I could see the stress lines on her face as she shook Gideon’s hand for a photo op. I wondered if her hands would have been around his neck under the right circumstances. I started making regular visits to her isolated home just to talk. We have become good friends and we both look forward to the visits.
A week after the arrest, I made a quick detour to Cathedral on an unusually slow day for deliveries here on Glessie. The hidden rope that I’d used to get up to the cave was gone. Though I was unable to fly close enough to confirm this, I had a suspicion that the cave entrance was barricaded in some way as well. But, my Rock Grumlin guide had been waiting for me in the underbrush. I fancied that I even saw a smile as he came out in the open. He gave me a black diamond sculpture of The Infiniti. He scuttled off before I could show my true appreciation. I'd never seen something so beautiful. The cats immortalized in the hardest gem on the planet. Okay, so I know they're already immortal, but you get my point. It was a beyond-kind gesture on the Rock Grumlin's part. Once Maude had confirmed the gem was harmless, I put it in pride-of-place on the main counter at The Angel. The cats were tickled pink.
Two days before my Cathedral scouting trip, there had been a headline that talked about how the black diamond mines h
ad been shut down by the Ministry of the Interior over “safety concerns.” But a quick chat with David had confirmed that the sort of teams that had gone into the mine had come from the Ministry of Defense. Hopefully, they were taking steps to shut down that gate the Grumlins had accidentally created.
I was still stuck on the matter of motive. Oh, not of Millicent being killed…it was obvious that she’d found out something she shouldn’t have with that gate and gotten a little too vocal to remain alive. But I didn’t understand why the black diamonds had been so important to Mag Mell in the first place. That was, until Dilwyn dropped by later that afternoon.
Even though Anima Mink had returned to the pet clinic, Dilwyn felt a responsibility towards his “patient." So he was there on a house call to check on Carbon’s health. After confirming that my heat loving kitty was very much on the mend, he spotted the black diamond sculpture behind the counter.
“Ahh, a little gift from our mutual friend in Cathedral?” he asked with a weird expression.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Apparently, I rate about as much as Millicent with them now.”
Dilwyn tried for a smile but didn’t make it. “Yeah, well…might not have been the best gift they could have given you.”
“How do you mean?” Millie chimed in as she came from the back. “It’s beautiful and I know that Hattie had it checked with Maude to make sure it was safe. Jet knocked it off the counter yesterday, and it didn’t even crack.”
Dilwyn shook his head. “Ahh, it’s nothing. Just some old tales of Tiamat’s heart I heard from my gram on Phlange.”
Tiamat. That name again.
“What kind of tales?” I asked.
“Well, any black diamonds that come out of the Glimmer Mountains are supposed to be part of the Faidh Coch.”
“Which had been part of Tiamat’s heart before it succumbed to calcification. Or at least that’s what I heard.”
The Black Diamond Curse (Hattie Jenkins & The Infiniti Chronicles Book 4) Page 20
