A Snoop Without Magic, page 14
“Good. Let’s go get something to eat.”
Sam thought that was an overly quick visit to the flat, but Target managed to grab an extra key that he dangled in front of Sam. “All yours until you leave.”
“You aren’t going with me?”
Target pursed his lips. “It hasn’t been decided yet. Chief Bentwick had made some plans, but those were put on hold once he was captured in Duar.”
“Someone might have said something in a letter,” Sam said.
“There are a lot of possibilities, including noble spies among us. We will leave that to the others. Right now, all you have to do is avoid being caught. Even with your friend in the keep, we should be able to make it for a few months.”
~
Sam remembered the Mountain View constabulary. It was the place where he had his first run-in with Banna Plunk and bought Emmy from Lennard Lager. He had thought Lager was so thoroughly discredited that he would have landed in prison, but the lord’s connections must have been outstanding if he could return to the spot of his defeat
“This is my cousin, Jay Thresher. He wants to be a snoop,” Target said as he walked into the snoop office. There were three desks, but only one other man was in the room.
The other snoop shrugged. “If he is willing to work for free for a few months so we can find out what potential he has.”
“I can do that,” Sam said. “I’m living with Target, and I brought along my life savings. I really think I have the aptitude for it.”
“You can’t eat aptitude, kid,” the snoop said. “But I’m willing to give you a try, since we are short-handed.” The man pointed to the empty desk. “It is all yours.”
Sam sat behind the desk. He unbuckled his wand and his sword and sat down. “All mine?”
“For a few weeks,” the snoop said. “You can call me Pickle.”
Target gave Sam an encouraging smile.
“I’m Jay.”
“I’m a snoop because I have a good memory, Thresher.” Pickle looked at Target. “Have Leadback see if he can wave that fancy sword of his with a little bit of menace.”
Target led Sam out of the room. “Pickle is a good snoop, but he is in charge, and it turns him into his namesake,” Target said.
“Is the person who will evaluate me Mark Leadback?”
“You know him?”
“He was an apprentice in Baskin.”
Target smacked his forehead. “That is right. So much for lying low, but he won’t recognize you, will he?”
“I don’t know. Is he…”
“One of us? So far I’d put him in our column. Pickle is, at present, unconvinced. It isn’t your place to convert people, Jay,” Target said.
“I won’t, unless pressed.”
Sam didn’t remember the training room, but it looked new, so perhaps it wasn’t part of the constabulary when Sam had visited before.
Mark had grown taller, but he still looked like the apprentice he had met almost five years ago. At the time, Mark wasn’t the best swordsman of the apprentices, but he looked the part now.
“Pickle has agreed to let my cousin try out as a snoop.”
“He is free to try. I got that out of my system when I first transferred to Mountain View,” Mark said. He looked at Sam. “Name?”
“Jay Thresher.”
“A farm boy wants to be a snoop?” Mark had picked up some arrogance since Sam had last seen him.
“I have been around a bit,” Sam said.
“And that sword? It reminds me of a Norlankian dueling sword.”
Sam looked at his Lashak. “It does, doesn’t it? Actually, the sword is from Wollia, given to me by a friend.”
Mark nodded. “Fancy yourself as a duelist?”
“I have won my share of matches,” Sam said.
“Then let us try you out.”
Sam drew his blade after removing his wand and the sword belt. Target waved as he left the training room.
They faced one another. Mark cocked his head. “Have we fought before?”
“If we had, I would have remembered it,” Sam said, and he did remember.
“Two out of three touches? Blood is a missed point.”
“Surely a scratch is permissible?” Sam said.
“If it isn’t deep. This is a friendly bout,” Mark said.
Sam searched his memory, but he doubted that anything in his memory would apply to the Mark Leadback of today, watching his opponent warm up.
Sam held out his sword. He had never dueled in Toraltia, so he didn’t know if he was doing it right.
“We don’t do that in real duels,” Mark said. “Raise your sword and swish it to the side.” He demonstrated, and then had Sam do it. “Tolerable.”
Sam held out his sword waiting for Mark to attack.
“You are smart enough in your opening,” Mark said. Then he lunged quickly at Sam.
Before Mark’s sword was close, Sam had stepped aside. His opponent telegraphed his moves rather blatantly, at least he had on his first move.
“And that was well done.” He motioned Sam to attack with his fingers.
Sam jumped forward without raising his blade, and then when Mark relaxed thinking Sam wasn’t really going to attack, Sam lunged and hit the back of Mark’s hand.
“A touch?” Mark said, rubbing his hand.
Sam nodded.
“You aren’t a farm boy, are you, Jay? That move requires training.”
“I said I have been around,” Sam said.
Mark attacked. His movements were better masked this time, but Sam could see through them. He could end the match with another touch, so he did. He clasped Mark’s sword hand and touched the back of his Lashak to Mark’s neck.
“Enough. You would win on the dueling platform at Mountain View. Where did you learn to duel with such precision?”
“I had a Polistian duelist teach me.” Sam was very glad that Mark had stopped their match. His healing shoulder was beginning to complain about all the activity.
“A Polistian teacher, a Wollian sword.” Mark looked as Sam sheathed his blade and put on his belt. “What is that other weapon?”
Sam could see wheels turning in Marks’ head. “This?” Sam asked. He was certain it all came together for Mark. “It is my shield.” He pulled out his wand.
“You are Sam Smith all grown up. Whatever happened to your practical fighting style?”
“It is still there,” he tapped his head, “when I want it to come out.”
“In Polistia?”
Sam nodded. “I am here secretly. Please don’t let anyone know.”
“Does Target know?”
Sam nodded again. “I knew Target in Baskin.”
Mark nodded. “I would have never thought, Jay,” he said smiling. “Perhaps you can teach me instead of me teaching you.”
“I would be happy to.”
Sam took a risk letting Mark know who he was, but they had been too good of friends in Baskin, Sam thought.
Target returned. “How is he?”
“Very good. He’d spank you in his sleep, Target,” Mark said.
“Really?”
“I picked up lots of bruises and scars in the last few years,” Sam said.
“Lots of bruises, as I recall,” Mark said.
Target’s eyes grew.
“He remembered my wand,” Sam said.
“Wand?”
Sam showed Target. “I used to use this in Baskin rather than carry around a sword, which fourteen-year-olds weren’t supposed to do unless specifically granted permission.”
“So you know,” Target said to Mark.
“And I won’t tell anyone. Target, you know me better than that.”
Target gave Mark half a smile. “Don’t forget it. I didn’t see you fight. Can he really defeat you?”
Mark nodded. “Probably ten out of ten.”
“A candidate for the Baskin Trials?” Target said.
Mark grinned at Target. “Definitely. I want to take lessons from him. You could join us.”
Target grinned. “As long as you keep calling him Jay.”
“I can do that.”
~
Sam and Target walked in from an investigation of a theft of horse feed, getting protection from the freezing rain, and sat at their desks. Target examined a rolled-up message.
“This is for you, Jay,” Target said.
“Who would dream of sending me a message?” Sam said.
“Open it and find out.”
“Glad to see you are intact and back with us. We will contact you in a few weeks. - Winnie. Emmy misses you.”
Sam stared at the note. He could still use some work building up his shoulder strength, and he quite enjoyed his sparring sessions with Mark and Target. They were both good swordsmen and learned some of his moves quickly.
Winnie was the one to send the message, but then Sam didn’t think it would be wise to use Faddon’s or Harrison’s name in any correspondence.
“Do you need to reply?” Target asked.
“Not if I don’t need to. I’d hate to waste a bird,” Sam said.
Chapter Seventeen
~
A constable walked into the snoop office. “We have a murder.”
“You and the kid go out on this one,” the other snoop said.
Target gritted his teeth. “We will,” he said, but muttered something not so nice under his breath.
Sam thought it better to ask him what it was when they were outside the constabulary. They walked out and were hit by a frigid gust of wind.
“What were you about to say?” Sam asked, tucking a new notebook under his arm before jamming his hands in the pockets of this coat.
“Pickle never goes out when the weather is like this,” Target said, grimacing. “He has seniority on me and gets to pick which cases he takes.”
“So that was a curse?”
“It was, indeed, Jay,” Target’s face relaxed into a smile. “Now we have a good murder case for you to show me what kind of snoop you are.”
Sam nodded, buttoning up his coat. “So what kind of murder is it?”
Target shrugged. “I just have an address. The constables guarding the place will know.”
They walked through the cold weather for twenty minutes until they reached a neighborhood of row houses. Sam could see two constables huddled together halfway down the lane.
“What do we have here?” Target said.
“No Pickle? What a surprise,” one of the men said, grinning. “A murder. I’ll show you.”
They walked into a disheveled space. The fire had burned out long ago, and the room was nearly as cold as the air outside. In the middle of a floor lay a thin man, eyes and mouth open as if in shock. Sam knelt down at the purpling on the victim’s neck. “Strangulation,” he said.
“What a revelation!” the constable said.
“It looks strange,” Sam said.
Target sank to his haunches and put his hands close to the purpling. “Big hands. We are looking for a big man,” he said.
Sam examined the room and saw a few dirty footprints and looked back at the bare feet of the victim. The footprints were smaller than the man’s feet. “Not big,” Sam said. He stood thinking about the evidence. “Maybe even a woman. Look at these footprints.”
“A man doesn’t have big hands like that and little feet,” Target said.
After another look at the mottled neck, Sam was uncertain. The purpling wasn’t as defined as he had seen before. He sketched the footprints and took measurements of the victims’ feet and the footprints.
“What are you doing?” Target asked.
“Writing down the evidence. Will you verify these measurements while I make a sketch of the marks on the deceased?”
Target chuckled. “You like things nice and proper, just like Dickey Nail.”
“There is a reason for that,” Sam said. “Sketches help you remember things. We can’t do all our thinking in this room.”
Target laughed. “Nor would we want to. The man will begin to stink soon enough.”
“Not in this cold,” the constable said, hunched down in his coat.
Sam looked around the room for evidence of a fight. It wasn’t easy, as the place was topsy-turvy. Various thicknesses of dust coated most surfaces, so Sam looked for an item that had little or no dust on it.
“What are you looking for?” the constable said.
Sam shrugged. “Anything that looks out of the ordinary. The place is dusty. Where isn’t it dusty? What can we do to figure out how the victim was killed?”
Target looked at the constable and nodded. “Let’s do what he says.”
“You mean humor the boy?”
“If that is what it takes,” Target said.
Sam traced a faint path from the broken-down couch to the front door. It wasn’t easy to trace it out since there were the boot marks from Sam, Target, and other constables, plus whoever had discovered the crime.
The front door was where the trail of smaller footsteps started, but where Sam needed some clarity, the visitors to the house had obliterated information that he might have used to reconstruct the strangulation. The victim was very thin. He was in his forties or fifties and looked sickly, Sam thought.
Sam noticed the small footprints going into the kitchen. The person, he pictured the murderer as a woman, had cooked something. Dirty dishes were in the sink, and there was evidence of a meal eaten at the kitchen table. No dust. But why the footprints in the center of the room and then the fading out in the kitchen?
He stood looking at the floor until he realized what he saw.
“The murderer embraced the victim, cooked him dinner, and they ate a meal together before the killing took place,” Sam said.
“And how do you know that?” the constable said.
Target looked on with interest.
“The smaller footprints on the floor are the clearest near the front door,” Sam said walking to the entrance. “She, I’m identifying the murderer as a woman, walked to the victim and embraced him in the center of the room. Then she cooked dinner.” Sam walked to the kitchen and picked up a pot with a little water in the bottom. “The food in this unwashed pot isn’t that old. The remnants of their meal are still somewhat soft, not dried hard.” He went to the table. “They ate here. That is where the smaller footprints just about disappear, since she had been walking in the house and the water from her shoes had dried.”
“What about…” the constable looked perplexed, but then his eyes brightened. “So the embrace is what you originally thought was the murder?”
Sam nodded.
“Then perhaps someone without shoes, a large man with big hands, could have come in and done the deed, as well.”
Sam smiled. “It is possible. I don’t see any signs of a struggle.” He looked at Target. “Do you?”
His partner shook his head.
“So where are we, really? Back to the beginning?” the constable asked.
“No, not at all,” Sam said. “We can place the woman in the room before the victim died. That is evidence. I’m confused by the marks on the neck.” Sam shook his head. “So we should at least try to find the woman. Let’s go upstairs.”
“You can look as much as you want. I’d like to get a breath of fresh air,” Target said.
The rest of the house was still a mess, but Sam couldn’t find evidence of a woman living in the place. He guessed the female was a relative or a woman friend of some kind.
“What are you doing up there?” Target called from the living room as Sam sat on a rumpled bed upstairs.
“No women’s clothes, so the visitor wasn’t a live-in.”
“You still think a woman did the strangling?” Target said as he finally entered the room.
Sam looked at Target. “The only reason you think it is a man is the wound on the neck. Everything else points to a woman.”
They heard voices downstairs and descended to meet the healer contracted by the constabulary to examine the body. Sam watched the man go through the motions of an examination.
“A man’s hands, obviously,” the healer said, “but it doesn’t look like there was a lot of strength applied.” He scratched his head. “I guess the victim’s death didn’t take much, as frail as he was.”
“Frail?” Sam asked.
The healer nodded. “The man had a wasting sickness. He was probably in a lot of pain.” He looked around. “He obviously didn’t have enough strength to clean the place properly.”
Sam noticed the blanket on the couch. The man might have lived downstairs. He went to the stairway and noticed Target’s footprints and his own. No one else had been upstairs for some time. His new perspective made everything fall into place, except for the big hands.
This wasn’t a crime of passion, but one of compassion. The last meal with an old friend, perhaps? It wouldn’t be the first time someone ended their life prematurely due to a wasting sickness that would never get better. Another reason, Sam thought, that the perpetrator didn’t bother to clean dishes that would never be used again.
He sat at the kitchen table and looked around. There were a few clean dishes. The man had tried, but he might have been consumed with pain. He would have to ask the neighbors if they had seen anything.
“Let’s go,” Sam said. “We need to see if the houses on either side saw anything.” He didn’t tell Target of his suspicions.
The door to the left didn’t answer, but a woman in an apron clutching a pollen rag came to the other door.
“Did you know the man who died next door?” Target asked.
The woman gave him a sorrowful look. “Mr. Ladle finally died? Poor man. He has been sick for a long time. The last few weeks I could hear his moaning right through the walls.”
“Did he have a lady friend? Someone who helped him?” Target looked at Sam and then nodded towards the notebook in his hands.
“He did. His niece. She was born a Ladle, too. I saw her bringing a bag of groceries last night, as a matter of fact.”
Target asked more specifics, which Sam wrote down.
“We will speak to her,” Target said.
“This was a mercy killing.” Sam looked out at the street.
“I know, Sam. I’m not an idiot. We will have to notify the niece, anyway.”
