The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “In case,” she commented. “Only we might be harder to satisfy than people like Sergeant Holmes Hennessey Harvard.”

  “Let’s hope so,” agreed the assistant deputy commissioner.

  * * * *

  Li Clene was a tall blond who showed about as many Oriental genes as Abe Lincoln. “Yes, M.’s,” she told them, “Andy brought his workout jacket in yesterday afternoon. Big traces of bloodstain. He’d already gotten the worst of it out himself with soap and water and elbowgrease, but real cotton-linen blends can really hold stuff sometimes. Still the most comfortable fabric ever invented for the purpose, they say, and nothing’s too good for our Basketweavers, I always say. Even if it takes a little extra upkeep. That’s what I’m here for, after all. Gave him a little scolding for not bringing it to me right away, but he insisted I charge him extra if I had any extra trouble because of what he’d done. Is that boy all heart, or what?”

  “All heart,” Stan agreed, “and a big one. Did he happen to mention how the blood got on his jacket?”

  “Nosebleed.” The laundrywoman shook her head. “Sure hope it isn’t anything wrong. He told me it happens to him every so often and no harm done, doesn’t mean anything, but I told him if he was my son I’d get him down right now to the medics and check it out. Sure be a shame if anything happened to the Basketweavers’ best player ever.”

  “A crying shame,” Lestrade said tonelessly, but with a straight face.

  * * * *

  Back in the polcar, she said, “He figured out he’d better get it to the laundry, after he told us that’s where it was. He must have been on a razor all the time I was out of his living room, afraid I’d find it. Next time he should remember to give his launderer the same story he’s just made up for the pollies. Or maybe he didn’t tell her anything and she was covering for him. Not consciously. She could have thought up her own theory about the blood, and come to believe it.”

  “I wonder how much of it matters.”

  “Maybe a lot. Depending on how many details we need to help convince him that us pollies See All and Know All.”

  He looked around at her. “You want to take it, Rose? You put most of it together.”

  “No, you carry the ball, Stan. You’re the senior. You’re the voice of authority. The one most likely to get results. I’d rather just stand on the sidelines and watch how you do it.” She leaned back and shut her eyes. “You know the really hellish part? If there weren’t at least two that we know about ... M.’s Swensdatter and Pargeter…and a poor fancy-class floater doing life for Swensdatter, and someone else being arrested right now for Pargeter…and maybe others down the road if he gets away with it again this time ... I’d say, ‘Why not let it go, leave Ahbeenahbee its hoopball wonder boy until some other team grabs him?”

  “We’ll never know whose life we may save, Rosemary.”

  “Funny. Just about what Harvard told Smythe about his having gotten Cutlass-Supreme off the road.”

  “Except that netting Dah Smythe isn’t going to be easy,” Stan went on. “Our only hope is a confession, and confessions don’t always gush out that easily, not after the mandatory warning.”

  “That’s another reason you should take it, Lieutenant. Older man—”

  “Not by much, Pretty-Soon-Sergeant!”

  “—to younger man, lieutenant to stripling. Besides, Harvard already undermined me with Smythe yesterday. But if we’ve got any chance, it’s now, as soon as possible. While we can hope he’s still a little unsettled, nervous, maybe trying to remember if he gave us both—us pollies and M. Clene—the same story about the blood on his jacket. While Debbi is still fresh in his mind. Before he has time to build his confidence up again.”

  Stan Carter glanced at her. Even in repose, comparatively speaking, today Lestrade looked like ... “I wouldn’t be too sure about that knucklehead having undermined your effective authority, Officer Lestrade. I don’t think I’d like to face you today.”

  Her eyes flew open and she turned her head to stare at him. Prudently, he kept his main line of sight on the road. After a few seconds, she sighed and said, “But it’s got to be you today, Stan. How about if I give him the warning and then step aside and you take it from there?”

  * * * *

  She had underestimated herself, or overestimated Harvard’s influence, or something. Stan could see it in Andy Smythe’s face from the moment the ballplayer opened the door to them.

  “S-Sergeants?” Smythe began.

  “Lieutenant,” the policewoman replied at once. “This is Lieutenant Carter. I’m still just plain ‘Officer,’ if you remember from yesterday. And before you say another word, M. Smythe ...” She strode inside and began the familiar warning: “You have the right to remain silent ...”

  Lieutenant Carter stepped in after her and shut the door with a solid thump, feeling glad that he wasn’t the one in front of her gaze. By the time she had finished the hallowed formula, Smythe was sitting slumped on the couch with his head in his hands. The assistant deputy commissioner half expected Lestrade to carry the ball after that; but, having finished the warning, she stepped aside to clear the path for him.

  He took his stand in front of the athlete and said, “Do you understand that, M. Smythe?”

  “Ye…es. But ... why ...?”

  “You know that and we know it, M. Smythe. But for the recording, here’s what happened night before last. You went for your date with M. Debora ‘Debbi’ Pargeter Pargeter, as scheduled. She had been looking forward to it very much, and for a while it must have gone just fine, because it lasted the better part of the night. Dinner, romancing, conversation ... It wouldn’t have been until sometime between about oh three hundred and oh three thirty hours that it all turned sour. Violently sour.

  “You were both in her living room. Maybe you were getting ready to head for home, because you’d already put your jacket back on, your corn-yellow team workout jacket with the green trim. But not your trousers. Time for a good-by lyrical interlude there on the living-room carpet.

  “That was about when it turned sour. I hope it was about something important, M. Smythe. I hope you didn’t pick up that marbleplast vase with the Chinese dragons and slamdunk it onto your lady’s head over any trivial difference of opinion.”

  From behind Smythe’s hands came a stifled sob. Nothing else. Stan glanced at Lestrade. She stood in the background, looking on with a face that resembled…the Gorgon’s, if he remembered his Greek mythology.

  He turned back to Smythe and went on, “It stunned her, but it didn’t put her out. She didn’t stop fighting. The struggle carried you both into the kitchen, where she got hold of one of her carving knives. She tried to defend herself with it, but you wrestled it away from her, reached around, and stabbed her near the small of the back. Three times. She was a tough woman to kill, wasn’t she? Tougher than Lucy Bharghava Swens—”

  “She wouldn’t marry me! Debbi wanted a baby but—but ... she wouldn’t marry me! She had a one-child procreational permit for herself, but she wouldn’t marry me!”

  Lestrade said, very softly, “And Lucy Bhargava Swensdatter?”

  “W-Wanted her ring back. Tried to give me my ... mine. She said, now we were out of school, going off to different u ... niversities, we should both look around, see ... She was the one who insisted on different universities!”

  The assistant deputy commissioner let him sob a few seconds longer before saying, “For the recording, M. Smythe: is that a confession?”

  “Ye…es. Yes.”

  Stan looked at Lestrade again. She blinked, nodded, and said, “My guess, sir, is that we won’t need handcuffs this time.”

  * * * *

  Not even a confession made a foolproof conviction, Lestrade reminded herself. Especially when it came from somebody like Dah Smythe. But at least it told the police what was what. It gave them a record to watch in
case Smythe stayed free and more of his women friends met suspicious deaths. That ought to be worth something. And it cleared Windcrystal Crowley.

  Maybe that was part of the problem. Rosemary Lestrade had always daydreamed herself clearing accused people who were innocent in every sense. People whom anyone could love. Saints and good guys. Cathartically speaking, maybe Windcrystal should have been guilty and Smythe innocent. Too bad Lestrade hadn’t figured out sooner in life that being innocent of serious crime didn’t necessarily mean being lovable.

  Or maybe it was just self-dissatisfaction.

  “They’ll be lining up to partner you now, Rose,” Stan Carter told her after Smythe was delivered. “I swear, if you’d looked at me like that and asked ... Well, let’s just say I’m glad none of my own dark little personal secrets happen to be criminal.”

  “It was a fluke,” she replied. “It isn’t going to happen again.” Thank you, Lady God, but no more Scrying Mugs. No more Kali. From now on, let’s have just plain old rationalist plodding and human thought processes. Just let me be a lestrade in every plain, unvarnished sense. Aloud, she added, “He was ready to break at that point anyway. Psychomystically hoping to be found out.”

  But thanks anyway for the change in partners.

  She would just as soon not have seen Windcrystal again, but the magist was still hanging around the lobby when she and Lieutenant Carter came through on their way to a small celebration at Kaplan’s. Stepping forward with hands extended, the magist told Lestrade, “So I have you to thank for restoring me to my rightful status as witness to this tragedy.”

  “You have routine policework to thank,” the policewoman replied, giving her a perfunctory handshake to get it over without further comment.

  Windcrystal stared at her. “Search your soul, M. Lestrade. Consult your deepest dreams. This workline may destroy you.”

  You could be right, Mama Windcrystal, thought Lestrade. Labor without joy and all that. But to be trite about it, where would you be right now if pollies like Holmes Hennessey Harvard had things all their own way? Aloud, she said, “You be careful, M. Crowley. And if you want a hot tip, get rid of that mug.”

  “Come on, M. Lestrade,” Stan cut in, to her relief. “Kaplan’s Victorian Supreme menu is calling us.”

  Well, maybe a few little spots of joy. Here and there. As they left Windcrystal and the station behind, she asked him, “Did you get a nota bene to Pippin Micawber’s, formerly Cutlass-Supreme’s, lawyers?”

  “M. Searchkey was entering it when I left.”

  She hoped that Micawber turned out to be worth it. At least when kept permanently out from behind the wheel.

  * * * *

  In the new R.S.A. cycle, Lestrade gets a somewhat revised family history. Largely because at the time I wrote Lestrade in Love I had not revisited the above story for years. Also, the exact details of her bad school experience get a little changed, for the same reason.

  The chronological order of the next four stories is not so easily determined (although “October 2078 looks like a good clue): they clearly follow “Who Mourns for Silverstairs” but may, one or all, take place before The Standard Murder Mystery and/or The Monday after Murder. (I doubt, however, that all four of them could fit between those two novels.)

  THE BLUE THREAD KILLER

  It was almost 23:00 when we finally left the hotel dining room and found that the lounge we had reserved was already occupied.

  The new Salt Lake City Hilmar had been opened in October, 2078, just in time for the 75th Annual Conference of the United North American Genealogical Association. Of course we assumed at first that its internal computer still had a few bugs. That was annoying, but there are plenty of etiquette guidelines for such situations. The previous occupant was nodding off in the chair, so before we all moved on, we milled for a few minutes in the doorway. During that time Peter went around the door and checked the screenplate.

  “Wait a second,” he remarked. “It isn’t a computer glitchup. We’re here, all right—Private Lounge Eleven B—UNAGA Freefloat Module 23A.”

  That was enough for M. Damascene. His jaw clenched, his nostrils stiffened, and his dark brows lowered over his fine, wideset eyes with their clear, deep whites. I had known him only a day and a half, but nobody knew M. Michael Adams Damascene longer than a few hours without glimpsing the depth of his zeal for the right and proper way of doing things. He strode into the lounge declaiming, “The next time you decide to root yourself in a private lounge, M., I suggest that you first check the doorplate.”

  Wakened by his voice, the woman stood up and turned around. M. Damascene took one step back. I couldn’t understand why until I caught sight of the badge on the left shoulder of the woman’s light-blue tunic. A polly! She was a polly!

  “I checked the plate, M.,” she told him. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve been here since twenty-two fifteen. You people reserved it for twenty-two hundred.” She glanced at her watch. “You’re fifty-seven minutes late.”

  Mrs. Peacock swept into the lounge and said graciously, “I hope you can forgive us, understanding how it is when enthusiasts sit together over dinner. We generally see each other only at these annual conferences, and only three of us in particular have ever met before this year. The other two are new faces to all of us—very, very welcome young new faces, it goes without saying, but with a lot of social bonding still to do, and dinner is such a good time for social bonding! At any rate, we’re here now, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” said the policewoman. “You’re here now.”

  M. Aberdeen McTavish took a breath and said from behind me—I was the youngest face there—”Yes, we’re here now, so might we invite you to join us for a little while, M. ...?”

  “Lestrade,” she replied, pronouncing the “a” with a French “ah” sound. “No, it isn’t a family name. It’s a workline final name, and yes, it was deliberately chosen. I can’t trace my family lines back farther than my great-grandparents, and not all eight of them. Until this week, I never had much interest in anybody’s genealogy. I’ve been waiting tonight in hopes of catching Lady Echo Jorgensen Warwick.”

  “Oh, my God!” I exclaimed. “Is it Mother? Father? Evan?”

  “Easy, M.,” said the polly. “It’s nothing like that. As far as I know, everyone in your family is all right. I’d just like a few words with you in private, that’s all.”

  Like a lot of perfectly respectable people, I have a deep-seated fear of the police. Not all the school propaganda in the world about kindly Uncle Pol and Aunt Polly could blank it out. Now, feeling how hard Peter was squeezing my hand, which he’d taken to second me as soon as M. Lestrade had said my name, I knew that he had the instinctive phobia, too.

  We were the pair of new faces in Mrs. Peacock’s freefloat module this year, new to each other as well as to the other three UNAGA members with us. He was eighteen then, I was sixteen and a half. Maybe it was our joint newness and youngness that bonded us so quickly—within a day and a half Peter and I were first-naming each other like very old-fashioned people. Now, drawing energy from him, I said, “I’d really just as soon hear whatever it is while I’m with my friends, Officer Lestrade.”

  “That’d break my guidelines, Lady Warwick.”

  “My goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Peacock. “What can it all be about? No, no, don’t tell us if it’s against your guidelines. Does it have anything to do with the Privileged Communications Rule? No, how could it?”

  M. McTavish coughed, as he did sometimes to warn her that she was running on.

  Officer Lestrade said, “It has to do with common social etiquette, M. Even telling you that much probably bends the guidelines.” Then she turned back to me and said, “The odds are, it’s nothing, your ladyship. But it could be very important.” For the first time, she smiled a little, as if she was trying to be friendly and put me at ease. It was such a sad, fatalistic kind of smi
le, and she looked so old and tired, that for a moment I felt almost tempted to let her take me aside.

  Instead, I said, “Well, if it’s nothing so very pressing ...”

  “What a splendid idea! Sit down with us for half an hour, M. Lestrade,” Mrs. Peacock cried, as if M. McTavish hadn’t already suggested it. “Let us buy you a nightcap,” she went on, “and tease you for this deep, dark secret. I’m sure you won’t let it slip, of course. I’m sure you’re far too good a police officer for that. But please give us the sport of trying!” For all her fluffiness, Mrs. Peacock could be remarkable. I really envied her social ease.

  “Sport,” M. Lestrade repeated moodlessly. “All right. Why not?” Sitting down again, she said, “Coffee, thanks. Black, natural caffeine.”

  M. McTavish went to the autoserve table for it and everyone else’s preferences: caffeine coffee with cream and honey for M. Damascene, tea for me, blue curacao for Peter, Fra Angelico for Mrs. Peacock, and for himself M. McTavish tabbed something that looked like Scotch with seltzer and ice diamonds.

  M. Damascene asked, “Don’t you police usually work in pairs?”

  She took a swallow of coffee and replied, “My partner is running down some other individuals we came hoping to talk with.”

  I felt so relieved that I blurted out, “Then I’m not—I mean, it isn’t just me? It affects other people, too?”

  “Quite a few.” M. Lestrade looked at me and nodded. I’d thought a little while earlier that she must be almost as old as M. McTavish and Mrs. Peacock, but now I saw that she wasn’t really so very old at all, not as people over thirty go. She had only about half a dozen gray hairs. But she still looked very, very tired. That must have been what had made her seem old. She looked around at all of us again, took another swallow of coffee, and repeated, “Sport. All right.” Sitting forward, she went on, “It shouldn’t twist my guidelines too much to ask how closely you people follow the news.”

  “I don’t,” Mrs. Peacock said quite frankly. “Except for UNAGA news and family matters.”