by S A Shaffer
David puzzled over the information. The Third’s industrial sector was not exactly the most profitable area. Where did Bentsen get twenty thousand sterling to blow on a campaign donation? However, it might not have been Bentsen who donated the money. He was the manager of Braxton Industrial Investments, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was the owner of the company. David wrote the information down on a scrap of paper and was just about to call Braxton’s office of business organizations when a knock came at the office door and then a deliveryman entered with everyone’s lunch.
David was famished and decided to leave the question until later. He put the scrap of paper in his top drawer and walked over to collect his lunch. Bethany had of course confused everyone’s orders and each sandwich was a hodgepodge. David got Mercy’s bread with Francisco’s meat and Blythe’s tubers. Nobody said anything. It wouldn’t do any good.
After lunch the group, minus Bethany, was back at it. They worked for another few hours, finally finishing at a few minutes before close of business. It was well that they did, for the audit team arrived not five minutes later. David and Mercy presented the donor lists: businesses in one, nonprofits in the other, and individuals in a third.
After the audit team left, everyone was too tired to celebrate a job well done. Blythe left the moment the team did. He hadn’t been very talkative since the last accusation. Francisco escorted Bethany home at Mercy’s request—per David’s instructions—and then it was just David and Mercy left in the office.
“Can I escort you home?” David asked.
“Is that concern I hear, David?” Mercy said as she slipped her red coat on and pulled her flowing hair from the folds in the fabric. She turned around and gave David a mischievous smile.
David blushed and looked down. “Maybe a little. I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”
Mercy’s smile softened into an expression David had never seen before, or at least not for a long time. It was the same expression his mother used to wear whenever his father paid her a compliment, or helped her with her coat, or took her hand when she stepped out of an airship. David didn’t quite know what it meant, but seeing it on Mercy made him feel warm inside, like he’d just drank an entire bottle of spiced wine.
Mercy said, “I’m walking straight to the air-taxi dock, flying directly to my apartment, taking a hot bath, and then going bed. Now tell me, apart from staying with me, which I will not allow, what could you do but sleep on my porch in the rain?”
David blushed even more as he walked to the door of the office and opened it for her. “I’d do it if it meant you were safe.”
Mercy smiled. She walked right up to David and gave him a peck on his cheek. “I’ll be fine, David. You should get some sleep. All this work will get you sick if you’re not keeping up on your rest. Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She walked out the office door. David watched the way she went long after she had disappeared around the corner. Finally he shut the door and walked over to get his coat. For a moment he considered waiting a few more minutes in case Inspector Winston called about Paula’s evidence, but in the end he decided to take Mercy’s advice and catch up on some sleep. With the new airship facility he was able to get home in half the usual time and was in bed only a few minutes after dark.
The next morning, he walked into the office feeling more rested than he had in weeks. He was the first one there, so he set about making a pot of tea. Twenty minutes later he heard the door open and turned with a smile, expecting to see Mercy. It was Francisco, and David felt very silly as he stood there grinning at the stoic man.
“Um, fancy a cup of tea?” he asked as Francisco held the door for Bethany.
“Yes please,” Bethany said as she walked by Francisco and sat at her desk.
David made them each a cup of tea and then took up residence at his desk, reading the morning newspaper he’d picked up on the way to work. He’d been caught off guard twice now because he hadn’t kept a careful watch on the news, particularly the Voxil Tribunal. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.
An hour later, after Blythe arrived, David put down his paper and wondered why Mercy hadn’t arrived yet. He checked the clock. She was forty minutes late, far past due for a girl who was always early. He drummed his fingers on his desk. Why did she have to be late the day after he’d told her to be careful and basically to not get murdered? He sighed and resolved that she must be taking a little extra time this morning due to the past few days of hard work, that was all. She couldn’t be early every day, after all. She deserved a late start.
David meandered over to the refreshment station and poured himself another cup of tea. He sipped it, too preoccupied to care that it had gone cold. Walking back toward his desk, he put a hand in a pocket. Bethany still sat at her desk, sound asleep with her head down and hair sprawled out on the desk. Francisco read his newspaper with his good eye, his mechanical one following David as he moved across the room. David grimaced and walked a little quicker. He paused at his desk and idly pushed some papers around.
“Odd, don’t you think—Mercy being late?” David asked Francisco.
The man only grunted in reply.
“I mean, in all the months we’ve worked here, has she ever been late?”
Francisco sighed and let his paper fall to the desk. He stared at David with both of his eyes before making an eloquent reply: “No.”
David ignored Francisco’s apathetic manner and started to pace back and forth across the office. Images of Mercy lying on a table in a cold room came unbidden to his mind. He shook them from his head. He was being paranoid. She was fine. She was perfectly fine. He paced for another thirty minutes before he had a thought.
“Bethany? … Bethany!” David said, louder the second time.
The girl shot up in bewilderment, her light blonde hair a mess of static and loose strands.
“Yes? Who—I mean, what do you want?”
“I need Mercy’s file. It should be in your desk.”
Bethany huffed and pulled open her drawers one at a time, far too slowly for David’s mood.
“Top left drawer, Bethany. No, your other left—the top one. Oh, let me do it!”
David scooted Bethany’s chair away from the desk, along with the girl on it, and pulled open the correct drawer. He slid out a stack of files and dropped them on the desk, sifting through them and knocking several of them onto the floor. He found Mercy’s file and flipped it open to the contact information she had filled out along with her application. David grabbed Bethany’s phonograph and slid it across the files, but as he prepared to key up the operator, he realized that Mercy had left the phonograph section blank.
David gritted his teeth and resumed his pacing, ignoring the pouting look Bethany was sending him. No matter what he did, images of Mercy pale and lifeless returned to his mind and the pacing only made it worse. He couldn’t take it anymore. What if she needed help? What if they were torturing her this very moment? He turned and ran to Bethany’s desk, snatching up Mercy’s file. Ripping her address page from the folder, he let the rest fall to the floor as he ran from the office without even shutting the main door.
When he arrived at the orbital taxi station, he didn’t bother waiting in the line. David pushed and shoved to the front, knocking a lad down as the glass doors opened. David heard some commotion behind him, but he didn’t care as he hopped into the first taxi he saw. He read off the address from the scrap of paper he still held in his hand and told the taxi driver it was an emergency.
The driver placated David with a vigorous nod and then proceeded to fly at the same pace as every other pilot. David tapped his foot the entire flight, clenching and unclenching his fists. By the time the taxi bumped to a halt as it docked, the piece of paper bearing Mercy’s contact information was nothing more than a crinkled wad. David hopped out of the taxi and threw a handful of coins at the driver. The driver yelled a few expletives as David raced across the balcony. Only then did Da
vid realize where he was: Château Fleur, the nicest apartment tower in Capital City. It stood at the very center of the residential district, with gardens built into the side of the structure, dangling down to the levels below like a hanging paradise. This was the top apartment in the tower, the most expensive of the lot, arguably the most expensive in the city.
David skidded to a stop in the middle of the porch and checked his raging emotions. Was he overreacting? He was about to barge into Mercy’s apartment uninvited. If anyone saw him doing it, he’d be arrested before he could jump off the balcony. But the image of Mercy lying on a table still hovered at the back of his mind, and he pressed forward. David stepped around lush greenery and fragrant orchids, picking his way toward a brass door with frosted glass. When he reached it, David lifted his hand and knocked, but before he could knock again, the door swung open. It had already been unlatched.
David stood for a moment at the doorway, hand still raised mid-knock, gazing into the dark apartment. He called for Mercy, but no reply came. The scoring along the doorframe did not escape his notice. He stepped into the apartment and gaped at the white marble floors and plush rugs. The white walls reached fourteen feet high before they curved into coffered ceilings. Gold-and-crystal chandeliers reached down and sent their sparkles around the room, reflecting the light coming through the open door. A sickly sweet smell hung in the air, and the scent of it made David’s heart race. He walked farther into the glamorous abode, looking around at furniture that appeared unused. The marble countertops still had the manufactured sheen. He followed a dark hallway with doors on either side. A broken vase lay on the floor beside a crooked console table. The door across from the broken vase stood open. He inched forward. He called Mercy’s name again, to no avail. The apartment was so quiet that he could hear himself breathing. He reached the open door and looked in. The room held a sprawling bed, but the bedclothes were in a heap on one side. The rest of the room décor lay strewn about, some of it broken. However, that wasn’t what brought tears to his eyes.
Blood coated the bed and the carpet, even some of the walls. It looked like someone had handed a toddler a bucket of red paint and sent him in to play. David stumbled into the room, throwing caution to the wind. He shouted Mercy’s name as he spun around searching. He ran into the conjoining closet—nothing. He ran back, knocking dresses off hangers in his haste, and threw open the bathroom door. There he froze in place, choking off a sob. On the floor, wrapped in a bloody nightgown, lay a body with flowing auburn hair arrayed in a tangled mess. David dropped to his knees and rolled the body over.
It was Mercy.
David gasped for breath as he clutched the body—his eyes disbelieving what he saw, but his hands forcing the truth into his mind as they held the bloody figure. He called her name a few more times, but it was a different kind of call, more of a keening. He sobbed into her silky red hair. It still smelled of her floral perfume. He buried his face in her neck as he held her close. She couldn’t be dead. He had seen her just yesterday. She was fine. She was alive and beautiful, full of life and intelligence. But as his face rested against her neck, her cold, pallid skin told him the truth. There was no life here, no more laughter or sarcasm, no more sweet words or small kisses—only cold, unfeeling flesh.
It was some time before the sobs stopped, before his eyes dried out and the tears stopped flowing. He laid the limp body back onto the floor and arranged the limbs in a proper fashion. Then he sat back against the washroom vanity and stared at the body. Fresh bruises puckered the face and strangulation marks striped the neck. The part that David found strange—at least the portion of his mind that wasn’t filled with grief—was the bloody stab wound along the torso. That was something new.
David sat there for a long time, or perhaps it was only a minute or two. He couldn’t tell, but his senses returned when he vaguely heard some commotion somewhere in the apartment. A moment later a man in a dark suit spun around the corner into the washroom and pointed a pistol at David.
“Show me your hands, lad,” the man said.
David turned his head slowly toward the man, tears staining his cheeks. He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. A moment later two other men in dark suits entered the washroom and hauled David to his feet. David let them drag him into the hallway, where they laid him down on his face and cuffed his hands behind his back. He didn’t care that the blood on his clothes soaked into the thick white carpet. One of the men searched him, but all he came up with was a crumpled wad of paper bearing Mercy’s address.
After a few moments a team of men entered the apartment. These ones wore white lab coats, and they walked straight back into the bedroom. A few minutes later they scooted across the floor as they carried out a long bag—a body bag … Mercy’s body bag.
“Is this the man?” someone asked.
“Yes, sir. I flew him here not thirty minutes ago. He told me it was an emergency. Didn’t think much of it at the time, but now …”
“Right. You may go.”
After a moment someone grasped David’s hands and uncuffed them. Then two men lifted him to his feet and led him to the living room he’d passed on his way back to the bedroom. A man sat there, penciling down some notes on a pad, and David assumed him to be a police inspector.
He looked up at David and offered a sympathizing smile. “Have a seat, son. If you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to ask you some questions.”
David sat on the couch across from the inspector. He sank several more inches into the cushion than he had anticipated. It made him feel uneasy and trapped, so he scooted forward and perched on the edge of the cushion.
“You knew Ms. Lorraine?” the inspector asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“How?”
His questions were quick, but not insensitive. He spoke in a manner that made it clear he wanted to get this over with as fast as possible, yet still emphasizing significance.
“We were both aides for House Braxton’s Third District.”
“You arrived here this morning in a rush. Were you concerned for Ms. Lorraine?”
“Yes. There have been two other murders of our office staff, and when she didn’t arrive at the office this morning, I presumed the worst.”
“And when you arrived, you found the … scene … as it was when I entered.”
“The door was already open when I got here. I rolled the body over, but that was it.”
“I’m guessing you held it for a while as well.” The inspector pointed with his pencil at the red stains on David’s coat.
David looked down at his clothes for a moment, and then he realized the implications of the questions. “Yes—yes, but I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean. We were … close.”
“I know you didn’t kill her.”
David frowned. “But …”
“I just wanted to hear you say it. That body has been dead for at least a couple of hours. The taxi pilot said he brought you here less than an hour ago. Unless you were here last night as well …” The inspector paused and gave David a look. “… then you did not kill Ms. Lorraine.”
David shook his head. “I didn’t even know where she lived until I looked it up in her file this morning.”
The inspector nodded and made a note. “You mentioned other murders?”
“Paula Carbone and Samantha Samille, previous secretaries for the political office. Inspector Winston is on those cases, and I’ve talked to him about them. I’m sure he will want to see the evidence of this case as well, given that Mercy was … killed in mostly the same fashion.” David swallowed hard.
The inspector opened his mouth to ask another question, but shut it again and made a note.
“How did you get here so fast?” David asked, just now realizing the strangeness of the circumstances. “Did someone from our office call?”
“No.” The inspector paused for a moment as he took a breath and held his mouth open, poised to speak. “I am not an inspector with the Homicide
Division. I’m not even with the Capital City Police. I’m the inspector dispatched by the Census Oversight Committee.”
“What? Why would that bring you here?”
“The committee did an audit on Ms. Lorraine’s finances. Several thousand sterling were transferred from her accounts to a shell company in the Third. That money was then doled out to bribe citizens outside the Third into registering inside the Third in next week’s census.”
David stared at the inspector for a long moment, a thousand thoughts spinning in his addled mind, but one forced itself into words: “And then she was murdered.”
The inspector looked at David before nodding. David leaned over, rested his head in his hands, and let out a long, shaking breath. It made sense in a way. Mercy had said many times before that she would do anything to unseat Speaker Walker. Evidently that included committing a house crime. But she wasn’t an idiot. If she were going to commit a crime, she wouldn’t be so obvious about it.
“Officer, why don’t you see this lad home?” David heard the inspector say.
Someone rested a hand on David’s shoulder, and David stood and followed after a police officer. He felt unusually tired, like he had just run a ten-grandfathom race … and lost. He hardly remembered the ride back to the Third in the orbital gunship, a ride he would have otherwise enjoyed. All David could think about was Mercy’s bloody, ruined body. He had fretted over this possibility for days, and yet he had still let it happen.
