Mermaid Precinct (ARC)

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Rodolfo?” She stood up and did something she never did with an interview subject in fifteen years in the Castle Guard: she hugged him.

  “What are you doing on a pirate ship?” she asked during the embrace.

  “What are you doing in guard armor?”

  She pulled away. “My job. After I—I left Sorlin, I eventually found my way to Cliff’s End. I’m a senior detective now, and Lisson specifically—”

  Holding up a hand, Rodolfo said, “I know, I was there for the arguments.”

  “Arguments?” Danthres sat back down in the wardroom chair and indicated that Rodolfo should do likewise in the chair opposite her.

  “Chamblin was against bringing in outsiders. Lisson pointed out that none of us knew how to investigate a murder, plus everyone on the boat was a suspect.” Rodolfo smiled sheepishly at that. “They almost came to blows over that. Everyone wanted to kill whoever was responsible, but we couldn’t imagine who that was.” He sighed. “It was that last part that made the difference. We had absolutely no notion as to who might have done this. It just didn’t make sense.”

  “Not even the newest arrivals?”

  Rodolfo smiled, and he had the same mischievous smile as an adult that he’d had when he was yet another half-breed infant the Pirate Queen had brought to Sorlin for refuge. Though even then, Danthres knew he was special.

  “I’m one of the newest arrivals,” he said.

  “And already a boatswain?”

  “I had the experience. I originally left Sorlin when I was a teenager and signed aboard a merchant ship, Letashia. Unfortunately…” He trailed off.

  “Go on.”

  After taking a deep breath, he said, “We got caught in that hurricane a few years ago. Letashia was demolished, and only a few of us survived.”

  “I’m sorry,” Danthres said, and she meant it. It was never easy to lose comrades and friends. Danthres has lost far too many over the years, from her best friend Lil in Sorlin to the servant girl Harra in Treemark to so many fellow detectives who perished on the job, the latest of whom was Hawk. It never got easier.

  But those years of experience also taught her that the words of others were often useless, so she limited herself to simply saying she was sorry, acknowledging the person’s sadness without making the whole thing ridiculous with platitudes.

  “Thank you,” Rodolfo said. “I didn’t really know what to do with myself, so I came back to Sorlin. I only left last year when the community disbanded—I assume you heard about that?”

  Danthres nodded. “Javian visited on his way to Saptor Isle last year and filled me in.”

  Rodolfo brightened. “Oh, so you two are speaking again?”

  Wincing, Danthres said, “After a fashion. We’ve been writing each other.” That reminded Danthres that she owed him a letter. She also realized that she had broken her cardinal rule that she was the only one who asked questions during an interview.

  Of course, Rodolfo was an old friend...

  “So you signed on to the Rising Jewel after leaving Sorlin?”

  Nodding, Rodolfo said, “Yes, along with Gavin and Nimma, two of the deck hands, and Bottin, the carpenter’s mate.”

  Danthres didn’t recognize the first two names, but she knew the third well. “Wait, Bottin?”

  “Yes.”

  “She couldn’t build a rabbit snare, with step-by-step instructions.”

  Rodolfo grinned. “Which is why she’s the carpenter’s mate. She’s the apprentice, and she’s learning.”

  “How’s that coming along?”

  Tilting his head, Rodolfo said, “Slowly. Our carpenter is very patient.”

  “He’d have to be.” Danthres shook her head and chuckled. Bottin always broke everything she touched, much less anything she tried to build. “So you four are the newest arrivals?”

  “And Cook. He wasn’t from Sorlin, but he signed on at the same time we did. I think he’s from Treemark.”

  “Voran.” Danthres had spoken to him earlier, but he’d said more or less the same things everyone else had said. He also sounded more like he was from one of the more northern city-states—Barlin, Iaron, or Cliff’s End itself—than from Tremark. “And he seemed utterly devastated by the Captain’s death.”

  “The Captain always made it a point to treat Cook well.” He chuckled. “I have to admit, I didn’t know his name was Voran until you said it just now. He was always just ‘Cook.’“

  “And the Captain was always the Captain. Or the Pirate Queen.”

  “Actually, her real name was Lillyana. She told me once, about six months ago. We’d just salvaged a boat that had hit the Zokorvian Reefs, and in gratitude, they gave us a case of wine. We put in on Vikeez Isle and celebrated.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t try to throw a virgin into the volcano.”

  Rodolfo looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “I’m sorry?”

  Danthres shook her head. “Never mind. Had a case involving virgins and the Vikeez volcano over midwinter.”

  “Oh. Well, no, the volcano is still inactive, and virgin-free as far as I could determine.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “But we celebrated on the beach that night, and at one point, the Captain, who was on her fourth bottle of wine, very drunkenly declared that she had been reluctant to take me on board at first, but that now she was glad to have me as boatswain. I said, ‘Thank you very much, Captain,’ and she said, ‘My name is Lillyana.’ And, ah, and then she passed out.”

  Danthres found that to be very interesting, though probably not for the reasons Rodolfo thought.

  “All right, I think that’s all we need for now. We may have more questions. For now, you’re all confined to the boat until we find the killer.”

  “That makes sense.” Rodolfo stood up. “Thank you, Danthres. And perhaps when this is over we can share a meal and catch up more properly?”

  “I’d like that.” Danthres smiled, memories of Rodolfo arriving in Sorlin as an infant, of the sweet child she and Lil sometimes took care of, of the cocksure teenager he had just turned into when she was thrown out of Sorlin, all came crashing into her mind. “But first let’s find out who killed the Captain.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  ~*~

  Torin found Danthres waiting for him on the deck, along with Lisson and a tall, mustachioed sailor Torin didn’t recognize. He had tapered ears and was tall enough to indicate elven blood in his heritage, so he might have been one of the other Sorlin refugees Gavin mentioned.

  The Rising Jewel was now anchored near the under-construction new port. It wasn’t ready to actually house a boat, but it was close enough. Torin could see Boneen standing on the deck. He could also see Jayson, Gonzal, and about a half-dozen other guards from Mermaid, many of whom were keeping back the crowd that was building.

  “I see the Jewel has drawn some attention.”

  “Yes,” Lisson said souly. “It’s why we prefer not to dock in large ports. It only causes a scene.”

  Danthres was peering at the dock. “Is that Mannit?”

  Torin followed her gaze, and saw a guard in a green cloak. It was too far away to be completely sure, but Mannit was the day-shift sergeant for Mermaid Precinct. “Not surprising. Mannit always prefers to be out and about instead of staying at the precinct. He’d rather be in the action.”

  “Mmm.” Danthres turned to face Lisson. “I take it that all the crew remains accounted for?”

  “No one left the boat after the last nose count, no,” Lisson said. “Same people’ve been here since we set sail last.”

  “Good. You’ll need to stay put. Torin and I will return to the castle, report to our captain, and compare notes on our interviews. We will likely have to follow up with some of your crew—if so, we’ll summon them to the castle.”

  “All right,” Lisson said. “I’ll take you back in the dinghy.”

  “May I make a suggestion?” the tall man asked.

  Lisson shrugged
in response. “Go ahead, Rodolfo.”

  Torin nodded. It was one of the Sorlin refugees. Danthres seemed to be looking upon him with a certain kindness as he spoke. Torin had chalked that up to Lisson’s presence as an old friend, but it might well have applied to both of them. He made a mental note to ask Danthres how many of the Sorlin quartet that signed on last year she was familiar with.

  “Since we’ll be stuck in port in any case, let’s give the crew something to do. I think we should do a thorough search of Rising Jewel to find a stowaway.”

  Looking at the boatswain as if he were mad, Lisson asked incredulously, “A stowaway?”

  “It makes sense,” Danthres said. “We’re assuming one of the crew did it, because the boat is a closed environment, but what if it was someone who snuck on board for the purpose of killing the Captain?”

  “Wouldn’t they have gone overboard after doing the deed?” Lisson asked.

  “Wouldn’t we have noticed that?” Rodolfo asked right back.

  “Perhaps.” Lisson shook his head. “But I can think of several ways one could sneak off-ship without the lookouts noticing or the wards being activated. Still, the notion is absurd. We haven’t had a stowaway in almost a decade.”

  Torin said gently, “You haven’t had your captain killed before. I don’t think precedent should be your watchword at this stage.”

  “Besides,” Rodolfo said, “the point is more to give the crew a task to perform while we sit in this port waiting for the lieutenants to solve the case. It would be a useful distraction.”

  Lisson rubbed his chin and scratched his head, then nodded. “Very well, Boatswain. Since it was your idea, you can organize it. And who knows? Perhaps we will turn up a stowaway.”

  “Aye aye, Sailing Master.”

  “But first, let’s get Danthres and her partner back to shore.” Lisson moved toward the dinghy—

  —and then he stopped just as he was about to climb over the deck railing and onto the dinghy, which was tied to the rigging. “I can’t move forward!”

  Torin sighed. He’d been afraid of that. “Boneen has already warded the area around the Jewel. If he’s done it right, Danthres and I should be able to pass through them, but nobody else currently on board will. For what it’s worth, that would include any stowaways.”

  Rodolfo smiled. “Good to know.”

  “Get started on the search, Rodolfo,” Lisson said. “I’ll lower the dinghy.”

  Torin had no trouble clambering over the railing onto the dinghy, and neither did Danthres, so Boneen got that part right. Though, he did feel the same shiver that he’d felt when he’d boarded the boat earlier.

  Within a few minutes, they’d managed to maneuver the dinghy to the port, where Gonzal grabbed the rope and secured it to the dock.

  “Thank you,” Torin said to the M.E., “for putting the wards in place.”

  “You should thank me,” Boneen said in his crankiest tone—even more so than usual, which was impressive. “It was incredibly difficult. The wards they’ve already emplaced on that ship are almost palpable. I understand now why you didn’t ask for a peel-back.”

  “The wards are apparently necessary,” Torin said.

  Danthres looked at Gonzal. “This dinghy is to remain secured here. We may need to come back or send someone else to fetch people and bring them to the castle for more questioning.” She turned to Boneen. “The wards will allow anyone from the Castle Guard on board, yes?”

  Boneen reached into his satchel. “Yes, but if you wish to bring someone off the boat, you’ll need to carry this.” He pulled a red crystal out. “No, wait, that’s not the right one. Hang on.” He rummaged through it, then pulled out a purple one. “If you’re carrying this charm, then anyone you’re touching can also penetrate the wards.”

  Gonzal took the purple crystal. “What happens if I let go while we’re going through?”

  “I would advise very strongly against finding that out,” Boneen said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, this entire enterprise has been utterly exhausting.” He gestured and disappeared in a flash of light.

  “I wish he’d taken us with him.” Torin gazed with trepidation at the crowd that had gathered to gape at the Rising Jewel.

  “That makes one of us.” Danthres shuddered.

  Torin knew that Danthres always threw up whenever she was the subject of a Teleport Spell. “Looking at that crowd, I suspect that if given a choice between moving through it and puking, I would choose the latter.”

  Danthres regarded him with amused amazement. “Have you ever puked in your life, Torin?”

  “Oh, yes.” Unbidden, memories of his first winter away from Myverin came back to him. He got very ill, and kept heaving long after the meager contents of his stomach had been upchucked back to the earth, as it were.

  Mannit saw them and came over, his green cloak billowing behind him in the sea breeze. There were still half a dozen guards keeping the crowd at bay. “How long these shitbrains gonna be in dock?”

  Danthres said, “Until we figure out which of the forty-six people on board is a murderer.”

  Glancing back at the crowd. “Well, make it quick, will you please? I already got a murder in the Seagull, and now this. Crowd control was already outta control before today, and now it’s gonna be a helluva lot worse.”

  “Wait,” Danthres said, “someone got murdered in the Seagull—in daylight?”

  “First time for everything, right?” Mannit said with a grim chuckle.

  “Who caught the case?” Danthres asked. “Manfred and Kellan?”

  The sergeant shook his head. “No, Aleta and that half-dwarf.”

  Torin grinned. “No guarantee of success, then.”

  “Oh, please,” Danthres said, “you’re not putting stock in their stupid streak, are you?”

  “They have closed a dozen cases in a row.”

  “So what?”

  “We’ve never closed a dozen in a row.”

  Danthres rolled her eyes. “Because they always give us the difficult cases. A copper says they don’t make it to thirteen.”

  “You’re on.” Torin glanced back at the Rising Jewel. “Of course, they didn’t give us this one, either, it was dropped on us.”

  “Hope it ain’t that difficult,” Mannit said. “Look, do us a favor—see if Dru can send down a few guards from the other precincts to help out with crowd control? It’s gonna be a mess here tonight, especially if the Seagull can’t open back up.”

  “We will,” Torin said. “If you could ask the guards you do have to help clear us a path?”

  The pair of them headed toward the crowd, joined by Mannit and Gonzal. The guards from Mermaid were able to clear a thin path, and the two lieutenants managed to squeeze through the docks and work their way to Salmon Alley, which would lead them across to Meerka Way.

  Once they could walk side by side instead of single file, Danthres asked Torin, “So now that we’re away from the crew, I can ask this: what is it you have against pirates?”

  Evasively, Torin asked, “What makes you think—”

  But Danthres, typically, wouldn’t let him get away with being evasive. “Don’t give me that. You’ve been snotty about pirates from the moment we started talking to Lisson. You haven’t been this terse and obnoxious since your father visited last year.”

  All things considered, he would have preferred not to annoy his partner, but that seemed a forlorn hope. “I’m sorry, I know they’re your friends, but—” He sighed. “I don’t like pirates. I encountered several of them during the war—not the Pirate Queen herself, mind, but a few others. Not many, as they mostly stayed out of it.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Another sigh. “They mostly stayed out of it. They claimed to have no loyalty to any nation, to be a people of their own, but mostly that struck me—and several of my fellow soldiers—as an excuse to avoid having to get involved in the war. And when they did get involved, they would attack our supply lines, leaving u
s without necessary food and materiel. They either ignored the war or exploited it for their own benefit, and I have very little use for that.”

  “They didn’t just do that—or, at least, the Captain didn’t,” Danthres said as they turned onto Meerka Way, heading away from the sea toward the castle. “She broke the blockade any number of times in order to rescue orphans and mixed-blood children who were condemned to death and bring them to Sorlin.”

  “Like Rodolfo, Gavin, Bottin, and Nimma?” Torin grabbed at the opening to yank the conversation back to the actual case.

  Danthres nodded. “Yes, though the only ones I knew from my time there were Rodolfo and Bottin.”

  That conveniently answered Torin’s question from when he was questioning Gavin. “Have they changed much?”

  “I always knew Rodolfo would do well in whatever he chose to do. He was always very intelligent and self-directed.” She smiled. “But then, he came by that honestly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Danthres hesitated. “Rodolfo is the Pirate Queen’s son.”

  NINE

  “This is exciting,” Dannee said as she and Aleta worked their way through the late-afternoon crowds on Meerka Way. “I’ve never even been to the docklands before.”

  Aleta shot her a look. “What? How’s that possible?”

  Dannee shrugged. “I came here from Barlin on a caravan. Then I found lodgings in Dragon Precinct, and I got hired and was assigned to Unicorn Precinct. The farthest from the castle I’ve ever gone is to Jorbin’s Way.”

  “So not much of a fish eater?” Aleta asked with a smile. The main reason why anyone went to the docks was if you had business with one of the boats or wanted to buy fish.

  Dannee’s nose wrinkled. “Xinf, no, I can’t stand fish. Awful stuff.”

  “Prepare yourself, then,” Aleta said as they crossed Jorbin’s Way, bringing them into new territory for the half-dwarf. “By the time we hit the River Walk, all you’re going to smell is fish.”