Death in the Hallows (Hank Mossberg, Private Ogre Book 2) Page 3

  The cop set it on the bed and opened the latches. He flipped the lid all the way open so we could see the contents. It was full of weapons. There were several daggers, a mace, a matching pair of axes, and a couple more swords that just barely fit in the case. Malone grinned triumphantly. He turned to me. “I told you,” he said. “That’s the entire collection that was stolen last night.”

  I heard a gasp and turned to see Nya standing in the doorway. “Where did that come from?” she said.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble, young lady,” said Malone. He turned back to the uniforms. “Lock it up in evidence,” he said. “I want the entire collection documented before we return it to the owner.” He started out the door and then paused next to Nya. “Don’t leave town,” he said threateningly, and then he threw a glance at me. “You either, Mossberg.”

  “You already said that,” I said with a sneer. He grunted and turned away.

  “One question,” I called after him. “Who’s sword was it?”

  “The mayor’s,” he called over his shoulder, chuckling. With that, he turned and disappeared down the stairs. The rest of the thugs in blue followed after him. I listened to the clip-clop of his hooves parading through the house and across the front porch.

  I turned to Nya. She was wrecked. I put my arms around her and she melted into me. I shifted uncomfortably, glancing down to make sure the fabric of my heavy trench coat stood between us. The last thing I needed was to touch her skin and knock her out. “I don’t understand, Hank,” she said, weeping into my chest. “I don’t understand any of this. Why would they say those things about Flick?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want you to find out like this. I sure didn’t think Malone would pull a stunt like this.”

  “But where did it all come from?” she said. She pulled away far enough to look up into my face. “I’ve never seen that suitcase before. Where did they find it?”

  “Under the bed.”

  She pulled away and began massaging her temples. “That’s impossible,” she said. “There’s some mistake.”

  “Look, Nya, you and I both know Flick wasn’t a thief. I’m going to prove it. Give me some time.”

  “No, you don’t understand. That suitcase wasn’t here before. I don’t know where it came from!”

  “Is it possible that Flick brought it in when you weren’t here? Maybe he snuck it into the house?” I hated saying that last part because of the way it sounded. I didn’t want to give her the impression that I thought Malone was right about Flick, but I had to entertain the possibility that Nya simply didn’t know about every detail of Flick’s life.

  “No! Flick didn’t come home last night. After I put the kids to bed, I cleaned the house. I even checked under the bed, because I was looking for dirty laundry. It wasn’t there.”

  I frowned. I glanced around the room. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Hank, believe me. That suitcase wasn’t there last night, and Flick hasn’t been home since. He called this morning and promised to be home to tuck the kids into bed tonight. And now-”

  Her voice went silent, choked off by emotion. I walked over to the open window and glanced outside. The bedroom was on the second floor, but there was a nice big oak tree right next to the house. One of the limbs actually stretched right up to the roof, right next to the window. Even a dwarf could have made that climb without too much trouble. I glanced at the bright little wisps fluttering about the tree’s branches, wishing they could speak. Wisps are little more than the fireflies of the fae world. They’re beautiful to look at and they have a vaguely human shape if you can get close enough to see them, but they’re no smarter than any other insect.

  In the old days, fairies used to work in concert with wisps to lure human children out into the woods. The fae love to play with human children. They don’t do it much anymore, though. With nearly seven billion humans on the planet, the fae are mostly just concerned with keeping out of sight and staying alive. They know what would happen to them if humans were able to prove their existence.

  “Do you leave this window open all the time?” I said.

  “Of course. It gets stuffy in here if I don’t. You know how it is in the undercity, with the humidity. If I close the house up, I’ll have mold everywhere in half a week.”

  I bent down to take a good look at the windowsill. The paint was old, filled with chips and scratches. I bent out through the open window, twisting sideways to fit my wide frame through the opening. I didn’t see any signs or markings on the roof or the tree branch, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Any half-competent elf could have made that climb with his eyes closed, even carrying that suitcase.

  I turned back to Nya. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go,” I said. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. My mother is downstairs. She got here while you were with the detective. She’s making phone calls to our relatives.”

  There was something about the tone of Nya’s voice. It was almost calm, accepting. I knew she was in shock. People get that way after something major happens. Their emotions shut down. Their brain goes into limp mode, providing just enough function so that they can get through the day. They eat, sleep, even converse just like normal, but inside they’re broken. Sometimes they stay that way forever. It was hard seeing Nya like that, and equally hard to imagine how the kids would cope with the news. This was the kind of thing that might destroy a family.

  “I’m going to find the killer,” I promised her. “I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to clear Flick’s name, and I’m going to find out who did this to him. I’m gonna make him pay.”

  She wiped the tears from her face and smiled. “Thank you,” she said, quickly embracing me and then stepping away. “I know you’ll make this right, Hank.”

  I left the house with a dangerous mixture of rage and determination racing through my blood. I was furious at the world for letting this happen, furious at the killer for what he’d done to Flick and his family, and furious at Malone for turning the whole thing around on Nya the way he had. And I was furious at myself for not getting there sooner. Just a few minutes might have made the difference.

  I wasn’t thinking very clearly at all, but I did have one thing working in my favor: I already had a clue. Maybe. It was a small thing, but if I was right, it could make a huge difference in the case. I hiked up the hill to the nearest tram platform and caught a ride Downtown. I used the time to mull things over, to try and calm myself down. It didn’t help much.

  When I left the tram, it was like stepping out into a whole different world. The Downtown neighborhood is a lot like the Business District in San Francisco. The streets are wider than in the rest of the undercity, and they’re paved just like human streets. The buildings are tall, traffic is heavy, and noise is constant. Of all the undercity, there’s no place where the effect of human culture on the lives of the fae is more obvious. Standing there, staring up at the skyscrapers towering overhead, basking in the light of flashing neon signs and all the sounds and smells of the city, I might as well have been in San Francisco or New York or Chicago.

  Don’t get me wrong, there are differences, too. The people for example. While some of the occupants of the undercity might look human, none of them are. Every human that comes into the undercity is actually a kindred: a human with fae blood in his or her ancestry. Without that, they wouldn’t ever be able to find the place, much less get inside. The spells that protect the undercity see to that.

  The streets of the Downtown District are bustling twenty-four hours a day, and the sidewalks are packed with gnomes, goblins, dwarves, satyrs and nymphs, and all the rest of the fae creatures you might imagine. Fairies and pixies fill the air, whizzing up between the skyscrapers, skittering through traffic, twinkling overhead like stars near the roof of the cavern. Occasionally, you may see a gnome or delver dwarf in some odd flying contraption whooshing over the streets. If nothing else nice can be said about the underci
ty, there’s certainly a lot to see.

  It would have been quicker to take a cab downtown from the tram station, but I can’t comfortably fit into any of the undercity taxis, so I made the hike on foot. That took half an hour. When I got to the police station, I found a wood-elf named Gen working the front counter. I had run into her a few times before and I was glad she was working and not one of the other rookies. Gen, like most of her kind, is quite attractive. She has auburn hair and mysterious dark green eyes, not to mention a build that’s quite pleasing to the eyes. She saw me coming from a mile away.

  “They told me you might be coming around,” she said, grinning.

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yep. They said you’d be prying for information on the Hunter case.”

  “Who said that? Malone?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well he was wrong. In fact, I’m not here to pry at all.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so? Then why are you here, exactly?”

  I grinned. “To help you.”

  She rolled her eyes and made an exaggerated sigh. “I’m not supposed to talk to you. Malone said that if I give up any information to you, he’ll put my job on the chopping block.”

  I leaned up against the counter and pushed my hat back, giving her my warmest smile. The counter creaked under my weight. “Gen, I promise I don’t need you to tell me anything. I just need you to check on something. Something important.”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “What are you up to, Mossberg?”

  I leaned in closer and lowered my voice. “Malone and his team came in here with a suitcase a little while ago. Yes?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I need to see it.”

  “Not a chance,” she said. She crossed her arms and glared at me.

  “Please? How about fifty bucks?”

  She snorted, looking insulted. “Is that supposed to be some kind of bribe? Because you know what happens to people who try to bribe cops.”

  She was playing right into my hands. I knew Gen wouldn’t take the money, and I also knew she wouldn’t let me into the evidence room. She’s a good girl, a regular straight arrow. Most wood-elves are. That’s why so many of them are cops. Gen wouldn’t go against her nature, and that was what I was counting on.

  “Fine, I get it. Rules are rules. But there’s no rule that says you can’t go back into the evidence room and take a look at it, right?”

  She was curious, but I could tell she wasn’t ready to give in yet. “I don’t think so, Steward. I could lose my job for tampering with evidence,” she said. “I could even go to jail.”

  “No, no!” I protested. “It’s nothing like that. I just want you to look at it. You don’t even have to touch it.”

  She unfolded her arms and leaned closer, a curious look on her face. “Look at it? That’s all?”

  I had her right where I wanted her. “That’s all.”

  “Look for what?”

  “Paint. White paint. Smudges, maybe chips around the edges of the suitcase. I’ll bet you fifty bucks it’s there.”

  I could tell from the look in her eyes that I had her now. She was eating out of my hand. “Why is that important?”

  I pulled away, grinning. “Check if it’s there. If it is, then I’ll tell you why.”

  She glanced around. “I could get in trouble, you know.”

  “Relax, I’ll watch the counter. If anyone asks, I’ll say you gave me the cold shoulder and went to powder your nose.”

  She took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and said, “Okay. Don’t move.”

  She disappeared through the door behind the counter and I stood there for a few minutes, patiently waiting. Nobody asked for her, but one bicycle cop came in leading a vagrant goblin in handcuffs. Not human handcuffs, mind you. These were the special ones. Magically tamper-proof. Not even a gnome could wiggle out of ‘em, or so they claim. I handed the cop the sign-in sheet. He signed it and disappeared into the back with his captive. Gen reappeared a few seconds later.

  “Well?” I said expectantly.

  “How did you know it was there?”

  “Because the upstairs window in Flick Hunter’s bedroom is a tight squeeze,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. I could see her gears turning as she realized what I was getting at. If I was right about the paint, it meant someone had wrestled the thing into Flick’s house through the window. It couldn’t have been Flick, because he would have just walked in through the front door. The suitcase had been planted there. The paint proved it.

  “Wait a minute… that suitcase is evidence against Flick? That’s why it came from his house?”

  “Yeah. Malone thinks Flick stole a bunch of enchanted weapons and that’s what got him killed.”

  “He wouldn’t do something like that,” Gen said. “I know him. He comes around here all the time… he used to come around,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I know. Look, do me a favor and keep this between the two of us for now. Maybe, if you get a chance, you could grab a sample of that paint and put it in an evidence bag? Just in case?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Why? What’s with all the secrecy?”

  “Malone said he’s giving the suitcase back to the mayor as soon as it’s examined. I don’t want to lose the one piece of evidence that might clear Flick’s name.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks, doll.”

  I left the department feeling a little better, knowing that I could prove Flick’s innocence and that I had at least one ally inside the police department. That didn’t leave me any closer to finding the killer though, so I had to keep moving. I decided the first thing I should do was take another look at that sword. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find out, but something about it was bothering me. Maybe it was just the fact that it had killed my friend. Or maybe it was the fact that the sword belonged to the mayor. How had he gotten Excalibur? Or any of the other weapons for that matter?

  When I got back to the docks, the police had called in a tow truck to remove the sword, boulder and all. They’d pulled the crime scene barriers down to make room for the truck. Malone had a street uniform on guard duty.

  I knew I’d never get a good look at the sword with the guard there, so I took a few minutes to formulate a plan. What I needed was a distraction. I walked a few blocks up into the Hallows and found a streetwalking nymph who called herself Jewel. She was pretty, but she had the haggard look of all streetwalkers. My heart went out to her as soon as I saw her, but I knew there was nothing I could do to help her. I’d tried that before. Believe it or not, some people choose to end up where they do, and they won’t change until they’re good and ready. The least I could do was let her make some easy money.

  Five minutes later, she appeared down by the docks. She was about fifty yards away from the guard when she started wailing and crying. Naturally, being a healthy young elf, the guard rushed to her assistance. I approached the truck from the other end of the beach.

  A six-foot hobgoblin was operating the winch, trying to maneuver the heavy boulder onto the truck’s bed. Hobgoblins are cousins to goblins. They’re larger, burlier, and have darker skin, but they have the same pointed ears and narrow, slanted eyes as goblins. They tend to have more hair, too, like big thick beards and tufts of chest hair poking out of their shirts. This one didn’t have the beard, but he had the rest.

  “That’s interesting,” I said passively, watching him work.

  “No kidding,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I’ve picked up lots of weird stuff but never somethin’ like this.”

  I stepped up closer, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “You mind if I take a picture?”

  “Sure, why not. Just don’t get too close. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  I smiled. I didn’t bother to tell him I’d lifted that entire boulder with my bare hands a couple of hours earlier. I used my pencil to activate the camera on my cell phone and then snapped a few photos of the sword. I
moved around the truck, getting as many angles as I could, and then got a few zoom shots.

  “What’s going on here?” the guard said as he returned. “Steward?”

  “I was just taking a look,” I said nonchalantly. “No harm done.”

  “I’m sorry Steward, but I have strict orders to keep you away from here.”

  “Sure, sure, no problem. I was just leaving.”

  I jammed my hands into my pockets and hiked back up to the street, hoping he’d decide to let it be. You never can tell with cops. Sometimes they catch a whiff of something they don’t like and they turn into a pit bull. The last thing I needed was a full on confrontation with the police department. Fortunately, he decided to stay at his post and I conveniently vanished into the streets of the Hallows.

  I located Jewel a couple blocks away and paid her the other half of the fifty bucks I’d promised. I thanked her for her help and gave her my card in case she ever needed anything. Then I headed back up to road, to the tram platform.

  In the back of my mind, I was trying to figure out who could tell me about Excalibur and the rest of the mayor’s collection. I was tempted to give Butch a call and have him do some research, but I was afraid he’d still be out celebrating. Either that or soundly sleeping, happily dreaming of the upcoming wedding. That meant Butch was off limits, and he would be for a while.

  I racked my brain. There had to be somebody out there, another collector or perhaps a museum curator who’d know about the weapons, but I wasn’t sure where to start. Maybe a few phone calls to the local libraries and museums…

  The truth was, I knew where my next logical stop should be, but I was talking myself into trying everything possible before confronting the mayor himself. Politics are tricky for the fae, just like they are for humans. There was no telling how the mayor might respond to my questions. If he took offense for some obscure reason, I’d be in hot water. The mayor’s not as powerful as the Elders or the nobles, but he holds a lot of sway. Enough sway that he could ruin my career if he wanted to. That was enough to give me pause before I went snooping around in his world.