3 Time to Steele

by Alex P. Berg

  Luckily for me, I didn’t have to focus on the case at hand while following Wyle through the streets of New Welwic, because once the realization about Shay hit me, my deductive powers turned to jelly. So I walked and thought and stayed close to Wyle’s heels, a lantern confiscated from the precinct’s supply room clenched in my right hand to help banish the night’s encroaching demons. I paused when he paused, I turned when he turned, and I fought back my rising tide of unrest as our journey stretched well past the hour mark.

  Together, Shay, Wyle, Rodgers, Quinto, and I walked across the Bridge, over to the east side of town and into the industrial district where foundries spewed smoke and ash and where the ringing of metal on metal and the grunting of men lifting crates and weighted sacks formed an ever-present sonic backdrop.

  Wyle led us along a wide thoroughfare deep into the heart of the industrial district. A cart drawn by two burly fellows in shirtsleeves, piled high with rolled metal bars that clanged together, clattered past, and workers chatted as they walked along the side streets, swinging supper pails as they headed into factories to start their night shifts.

  Wyle paused in mid stride. Our detective troupe stopped behind him, me on the far right and Quinto, who also carried a lantern, on the far left. I gave Wyle a minute, thinking he needed to reassess and continue as he’d done dozens of times already, but he just stood there, his jaw set.

  Eventually, I spoke. “Is there a problem, Wyle?”

  “I…think this is it,” he said.

  I looked around at the looming factories with their jutting chimneys and high walls, all eerily lit from within, whether by lanterns or burning fires or by the radiating pools of molten metal that were the source of the business owners’ livelihoods.

  “What do you mean, this is it?” I asked.

  “I mean, this is where the ripples led,” said Wyle, “but they’re gone now. I could feel them a moment ago—faint, to be sure, but they were there. Now? Nothing. Either they’ve faded completely, or we’ve reached the center of the drop.”

  I inferred what Wyle meant by his metaphor, but I wasn’t happy about the result. “Seriously? Your time magic led us to the middle of a street?”

  “Yes,” said Wyle.

  “And…what?” I said. “Where’s Scar Face? Where’s Bock? There’s nothing here. Literally. Nothing.”

  “I…I know.” Wyle hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

  I pressed a hand to the bridge of my nose, pressure building in my sinuses and in the back of my brain. This couldn’t be how it ended. I’d been sure Wyle was involved with Scar Face, somehow, in some way. I was sure he knew more than he’d let on, sure he’d lead us to another clue or a lair or something. But this? The middle of a street? Was that really the best the man would, or could, offer?

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said slowly.

  Wyle shrugged while keeping his eyes on the ground, the actions of a beaten man.

  “Damn it!” I exploded. “Come on, Wyle. Give me something. Anything! I know you know more than you’re letting on. Tell me what you know. TELL ME!”

  No one said a word, though I felt a few heads turn my way from the direction of the factory workers, their eyes working in tandem with my own embarrassment to heat my cheeks and neck.

  Quinto broke the silence. “Maybe we should pack it in, Daggers. Head back to the precinct. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, Daggers,” said Rodgers. “Let’s go.”

  “No,” said Steele.

  I turned to face her, but she wasn’t looking at me or Wyle or anyone else. She gazed, brows furrowed, down the street.

  “No?” I asked.

  “No.” She turned to me and smiled. “What do you notice about this area of the city, Daggers? What sticks out to you?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how you ever solved any cases without me, Daggers. You’re great at putting the puzzle pieces together, but sometimes you can’t see the pieces at all. At least, not without my help.” Her eyes twinkled. “We’re smack dab in the middle of a metalworking district. Even though it’s evening, there’s foot traffic. Workers are heading to night shifts. The fires of industry burn bright all around us, lighting the skies. Behind us. Across the street from us. To our left, the way we came. And…”

  Shay held her hand out to her right, in the direction she’d been staring, toward another large, industrial facility, one that stood dark and cold and silent in the early evening. Shay turned to one of the passing factory workers. “Excuse me…sir?”

  The guy, a squashed-faced dude that could’ve passed for Quinto’s younger, leaner cousin, looked around, confused, and pointed at himself. Perhaps he wasn’t used to unsolicited advances from pretty, professionally-dressed elves standing around in thoroughfares.

  “Yes, you,” said Steele. “Can you tell us what that building over there is?” She pointed.

  “Durr, dat’s uh, a Bock Industries place,” said the guy, scratching his bulbous nose. “Da plant where dey make dose big mechanical doohickeys.”

  “Does it normally shut down at night?” asked Steele.

  Schnozz Derpsalot had to think about that one. “Duh, nope, nope dey don’t. I dink dey shut da place down for dat fair. You know, da one downtown.”

  Someone grabbed the rope that descended from my mind and gave it a mighty tug, giving the bell inside a furious ring. I wanted to slap Wyle on the back and plant a big, wet kiss on Shay’s cheeks—or lips—but I did neither. Instead, I patted my jacket to check on Daisy and hefted my lantern into the night.

  38

  I stumbled through the near darkness, the now-shuttered lantern grasped in my right hand. I held my left hand out before me, feeling for exposed metal rods and heavy pieces of industrial equipment that secretly thought nothing funnier than seeing me bang my head against them.

  “Dear gods,” I said in hushed tones. “It’s darker than a…”

  “A what?” whispered Shay, her voice coming from my right.

  “Um, nothing,” I said. “I was going to say something rude and possibly offensive. I thought better of it.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Shay.

  “Huh?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “You thought before you spoke?” she said. “This is a big day. We should celebrate.”

  “With drinks?” I said. “Sure. You buying?”

  Wyle’s voice came from between us. “Are you guys always like this?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “Unless I’ve said something to piss Steele off, or I’m moody because she’s one-upped me.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” said Steele.

  I couldn’t see her smile in the darkness, but I felt it.

  We stood in the cavernous interior of the temporarily closed Bock Industries factory, surrounded by silent sentinels: mechanical behemoths with wide metal chests and thick iron flywheels as legs, connected together with ligaments of belts and chain and with spent coals lingering in their bellies. Heavy lifting hooks hung from cables which disappeared into the gloom like the cords of giant marionettes, waiting to be attached to the machines to bring them to life in herking, jerking spurts. A chill crept into my bones, more from the ominous environs than the temperature, and I smelt cold steel and long dead fires and industrial lubricant.

  Upon reaching the factory, I’d sent Rodgers and Quinto to swing around the back while I went in the front with Shay and Wyle. For once, I’d decided to keep the time mage with me, despite the fact that I knew it would be dark inside and that he could probably overpower Shay if given the opportunity. Perhaps I took on the task as a favor to Rodgers and Quinto—neither of them put any faith into Wyle’s rambling predictions and I didn’t want to burden them with him, again—but it was more than that. I honestly didn’t think Wyle would make a break for it. He’d had plenty of opportunities since we’d snagged him early in the morning, yet he’d intentionally stuck with us, for reasons
that, despite my best efforts to pry them out of him, were still his and his alone.

  The shuttered lantern released only the barest dribble of light, and so I snaked forward through the factory slowly, watching for low-hanging lifting hooks and piles of cans I might clumsily knock over, creating a ruckus that would awaken the dead, as well as Scar Face should he be hiding nearby. At the same time, I kept my eyes peeled for signs of life or of a recent struggle: discarded bottles or takeout food containers, drag marks on the floor, or, most tellingly, the light of another lantern. Of course, I let Shay do most of the heavy ocular lifting. Being half-elven, her eyes were quite a bit better than mine.

  “See anything?” I asked, again keeping my voice low so as to not alert anyone.

  “Other than heavy machinery and darkness, you mean?” said Shay.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Not so much,” she replied.

  “What about you, Wyle?” I asked. “Did the ripples or whatnot pick back up? Can you give us any direction?”

  “Um, no,” he said. “The trail ended in the street outside. But since you asked, I do feel something here. Not a ripple in the time stream, or even a fluctuation, but a sensation of sorts. Kind of like being underwater, perfectly still. A temporal pressure, if you will.”

  “How convenient,” said Shay. I think she rolled her eyes, but I couldn’t tell in the gloom.

  We kept moving, and suddenly I experienced an incredible sensation of déjà vu. Around a corner—and by corner, I mean the edge of an enormous cast iron cauldron—I noticed an increase in brightness, just as I’d spotted while stalking the abandoned halls of the Physics and Chemistry building in search of Buford Gill. I hissed at Shay and Wyle to slow as I peered around the edge of the cauldron.

  A few dozen paces away, next to an empty foreman’s shack, two chairs faced one another, made visible by the light of a lantern set to the side on a table most likely designed to hold engineering diagrams.

  In the first chair, the one that faced us, sat a portly individual in a rich wool coat, pinstriped slacks, and glossy black shoes—a man, based on his body shape. A tan gunny sack obscured his head, and from the way his arms wrapped around the back of the chair and his feet splayed out next to the chair’s legs, I assumed he was tied to the thing. Though he didn’t move, I didn’t spot any blood or other evidence of a struggle.

  Across from him, with his back to us, sat another individual, slouched low and with his feet stretched out and crossed before him. His head was also obscured by a hood, but not a makeshift one fashioned out of a potato sack, rather that of his hooded jacket—a ratty, worn thing I remembered quite well from my brush with death earlier in the afternoon. Scar Face’s hood. Like the man across from him, he lay motionless, and unless my ears deceived me, I heard something coming from the direction of his chair.

  Snoring.

  Ever so carefully, I laid my lantern down at my feet and slipped Daisy out of my jacket. I held a finger to my lips for Steele and Wyle, pointed at them and the floor, then pointed at myself and the chairs. Apparently, my pantomime classes had paid off, as both Steele and Wyle nodded, catching my drift.

  Like a two hundred and ten pound shrew, I scuttled across the expanse between me and my quarry. First one step, then two, then three.

  The hooded one didn’t move.

  I kept closing, more swiftly now, a couple steps at a time. The man in the gunny sack struggled intermittently against his bonds, weakly, as if without hope. The snoring became more clear, more distinct. I was sure it came from the figure nearest me.

  The hooded one didn’t move.

  My feet became a silent blur. My heart raced with anticipation. I held my breath to keep from uttering a single warning sign.

  And still the hooded one didn’t move.

  I swung Daisy in a rapid arc and clocked the man in the hoodie upside the head. A yelp like that of a kicked dog escaped his lips, and he crumpled to the floor.

  “Daggers!”

  Steele’s voice pierced the silence behind me, and the man in the potato sack startled and shook and started emitting muted moaning sounds. The hooded figure lay motionless and silent at my feet.

  “What?” I asked.

  Steele rushed up to join me, the hem of her jacket fluttering as she ran. “You can’t go around indiscriminately bashing people in the head.”

  “You do recall this man nearly killed you, right?” I asked. “And that he tried to kill me as well?”

  “Scar Face did,” said Steele. “But we don’t know who this is. This could be a setup. It could be anyone behind this hood. Why, it—”

  I bent over and used Daisy’s tip to push back the floor-snoozer’s hood. Scar Face’s bearded, scarred face appeared from within, complete with bite marks on his jaw. He didn’t look quite as wild and crazy as before, most likely because the dude’s eyes were closed.

  “Oh.” Shay’s face fell. “Sorry. As we approached, I got this weird feeling like it wouldn’t be him. Like it would be someone else pretending to be him, here to lure us out.”

  I snorted. “I don’t think Bearded and Ugly here is smart enough to pull off something like that. I’d accuse you of reading too many hackneyed mystery novels, but that description applies to me not you.”

  With Scar Face momentarily incapacitated, I peered back toward the cauldron. Luckily, Wyle still stood there. Apparently my gut instincts regarding the guy had been well-founded. I motioned him over.

  “Is it him?” asked Wyle. “Did you get him?”

  “Sure did,” I said. “Scar Face, in the flesh. Did you feel anything pulse through the magisphere when I smacked him?”

  Wyle shook his head. “Nothing. But maybe that’s a good thing, right?”

  A few indistinct mumbles from the direction of the still-occupied chair drew my attention, but Shay beat me to the punch. She walked over to the figure and pulled off the hood, revealing a man with tousled, graying hair, a white circle beard, and a pair of chins. He blinked in the sudden light and tried to speak, but thanks to the rag in his mouth held in place by a length of hemp cord, all that came out was a grunt.

  Shay untied the rope and, with more grace than I could’ve mustered under the same circumstances, plucked the spit-soaked rag from the man’s mouth. “Linwood Bock?”

  Bock spat, rubbing his tongue against his teeth, and nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s me. Who are you?”

  “Detective Steele,” she said. “This is my partner Daggers and our…consultant, Mr. Wyle. You’re safe now. Detective Daggers apprehended your assailant. In a sense…”

  Bock glanced at Scar Face’s motionless form and at Daisy, who I still clutched in my fist. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Are you hurt? Did this man torture you?” I pointed at Scar Face with my baton.

  Bock shook his head. “No. Physically, I’m unharmed. Though I’m parched. And these restraints are digging into my wrists, so…if you’d please?” He tilted his head toward the back of the chair.

  I got to work on the knots. “Steele, let’s find Rodgers and Quinto and tell them the good news. I’ll free our captive and secure Scar Face. And Mr. Bock? I hope you’re not too tired, because we have a lot to talk about.”

  39

  Steele and I emerged from the precinct’s sitting room and headed toward our desks, avoiding the civilian crowd that milled in the hallway. The insect-like buzz infesting the station’s interior had subsided once we’d returned with Bock and Scar Face in custody, replaced instead with an exhaled cloud of relief as beat cops and detectives alike were given the all clear signal and allowed to return to their wives and families.

  However, as soon as the horde of flatfoots and officers abated, their warm bodies had been replaced with those of Linwood’s hangers-on: friends and family relieved to hear of his rescue, bodyguards—probably newly hired in the wake of his disappearance, cronies, journalists, and, of course, lawyers. Lots of lawyers. More than Bock could possibly need—unless he had something to hide. An
d given how tight-lipped Bock had been until their arrival, despite me and my partner’s affable and encouraging approach, I guessed he might have a secret or two up his designer coat sleeves. I even thought I knew what said secrets might be. Proving my suspicions, however, was a different story, and so it was that Bock walked toward the exit, free as a bird, surrounded by his posse.

  Quinto and Rodgers intercepted us on route to our desks. While Steele and I had interviewed Bock, they’d taken a run at Scar Face in one of the interrogation rooms. Apparently, they’d already finished their round of questioning, which didn’t surprise me. Bock’s lawyers had taken their sweet time arriving at the station.

  Quinto crossed his arms and eyed the retreating crowd. “Quite the welcoming party, eh, Daggers?”

  I glanced at Bock’s entourage and shrugged. “When you’re as rich as that guy is, I’d expect it. Hell, if I had his kind of money, I’d probably pay people to hang out with me. Make me look cooler than I really am.”

  “Who’s to say he isn’t?” said Rodgers.

  “Well, he is, in a sense,” said Shay. “But I don’t think lawyers ever helped anyone look cool.”

  I chuckled. “Good point.”

  “So what did you guys learn from the magnanimous Mr. Bock?” asked Quinto.

  “Not a whole heck of a lot.” I skirted around Quinto’s broad shoulders and slumped into my chair. “He basically confirmed everything we already suspected. The killer, Scar Face—”

  “Cedric Mitchell,” said Rodgers.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “His name’s Cedric Gene Mitchell,” said Rodgers. “That’s one of the few things we got out of him. But I’m interrupting. You finish. We’ll fill you in on our side in a minute.” He waved for me to go on.

  “Right,” I said. “So anyway, Bock said Scar Face…err, I mean, Cedric, accosted him in one of the World’s Wonders Fair bathrooms. Punched him and beat him. He’d brandished a knife and told him if he screamed he’d kill him. Then he gagged him and slapped the sack on him, and according to Bock, his next breath of fresh air—heck, the first time he even knew where he’d been taken—was when we de-hooded him in the middle of his own factory.”