An Apprentice Without Magic, page 17
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
“Can you turn him over?” Sam asked one of the guards.
“Sergeant?”
Their escort nodded.
Sam looked at the filth ground into the man’s uniform. He stayed silent except to thank the guard for touching the dead body.
“What was that all about?” Dickey said to Sam when the sergeant left them to talk to a newly-arrived guard, this one a young officer.
“The guard was dragged into the alley. The gunk in the alley was ground into the side facing down. I could see the remnants of drag marks, although whoever staged the murder tried wiping out all the marks,” Sam said.
“Show me,” Dickey said.
Sam showed him the marks from the low angle, but he didn’t bother to have the body turned over.
“Say nothing,” his partner said.
Dickey walked up to the sergeant and the officer. “Captain Fork?”
“Generally there is a ‘sir’ after that, constable.”
“I have the same rank as you if you care to check with Chief Constable Bentwick, Captain.”
The revelation surprised Sam. He had thought Dickey was a snoop among snoops.
The captain snorted. “You should dress like one, then,” Fork said. “You have seen the body? Another pink pollen murder?”
“I won’t know until I see the pollen, Captain Fork,” Dickey said, but the underlying tone wasn’t as polite as the words spoken.
“That won’t be possible. The pollen was damaged by the guards who collected it.”
“Damaged?”
“The mud and slime at your feet. The pollen was contaminated and discarded.”
“Then how can you claim it as evidence?” Sam blurted out.
The captain sneered at Sam. “Who is this urchin?”
“My partner, Captain Fork. He has worked with me all through the pollen thefts, including the related murder.”
The captain nodded. “I’m sure you noticed the strangulation on the victim. Pink pollen, strangulation. It all adds up to the same perpetrator.”
Sam wondered if the officer was a complete idiot. He had been an apprentice for nearly four months and knew that the scene had been compromised.
“I think it is time for us to go,” Dickey said. He turned to the captain. “If there is another murder like this, seal off the scene like any good law enforcement person would. I’ll want to see the pollen, damaged or otherwise.”
They found a hired carriage a few blocks towards the center of Baskin and rode in silence to the constabulary. Dickey continually squeezed his hand into a fist, obviously upset at the way Captain Fork treated him.
“If I ran the City Guard, I know the first person I’d fire,” Dickey said.
“So the guard was murdered by someone other than whoever killed Millie Canker?” Sam said.
“We can’t say that for sure until we see the pollen. If it is genuine, then we can’t ignore the link.”
The Chief poked his head into the snoop’s offices. “Dickey and Smith, come with me.”
Sam sat down along with his partner while Bentwick finished up with some paperwork on his desk. He signed a page and set the pile aside, threading his fingers together and leaning forward.
“Your report?”
“A botched investigation by the City Guard,” Dickey said. “Some martinet of an officer showed up and claimed the murderer to be the same one who killed Millie Canker. That is preposterous.”
“Why?” Bentwick said.
“No reason to kill a guard,” Sam blurted out.
“Really?” Bentwick said. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t,” Sam said. “But why on the edge of Baskin? The pink pollen is used on lords, so they steal jewels. Why would they bother with a city guard?”
“Bribery,” Dickey said. “Some guards are richer than their superiors.”
Bentwick cleared his throat. “Not constables, of course.”
Dickey smirked. The chief must have been making a joke.
“But what does that have to do with pollen? What about the scene of the crime?”
“What was wrong with the scene?”
Dickey raised his hand to stop Sam from responding. “Sam noticed that the body had been dragged into the alley. The drag marks could still be seen from a low vantage point.”
Bentwick smiled and nodded to Sam.
“And the pollen?”
“Mishandled by the guards and thrown away,” Dickey said.
“What? Preposterous. Tampering, you think?”
Dickey nodded. “The guard was bludgeoned to death and then strangled while he was still dying. Even Sam could see that.”
Sam nodded when Bentwick’s gaze turned to him.
“What do you think, Sam?”
“I think it was staged, but Dickey reminded me that it could still be the pink pollen people until we see the pollen.”
“My question is, how did the guardhouse know about the details of the woman’s death? We don’t share details with the guards, and they really don’t share with us, yet they called me to consult. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
Bentwick shrugged. “Why am I talking to you about your visit to the West guardhouse? Of course, it is odd. Continue with your investigation, but I suggest you do some work on your own, as surreptitiously as possible.”
Dickey snorted. “Not with Captain Fork breathing down my neck.” He raised his hand to forestall another comment by the Chief Constable. “I just won’t be so surreptitious. He can’t stop me from conducting a snoop investigation.”
“Captain Fork, you said? He is Minister Bolt’s nephew. There is little doubt where the man found out about the murder,” Bentwick said. “Watch yourself, Captain Nail. Fork is noble and you...”
“That is enough, Chief. I know what you mean.”
“See that you act accordingly,” the Chief said with an air of dismissal.
~
“You are a captain?”
“I told you that we all have higher ranks than the constables. I’m a captain without any direct reports.”
“I report to you,” Sam said.
“Same thing.” Dickey sat at his desk. “So you still think it’s a ruse?”
“The pollen would tell us,” Sam said, taking his usual seat across from his partner. “If Minister Bolt was involved in the whole thing, the pollen might be genuine.”
Dickey leaned forward. “So what do you think is happening if Issak Bolt is involved in the thefts? I’m interested in your reasoning.”
Sam never knew if his partner was serious or setting him up for some kind of dressing down. “It gets down to authenticity. The guard’s death doesn’t make anyone money, and it doesn’t protect information like Millie Canker’s murder did. However, if the pink pollen is really deer pollen, then it becomes a signature of the thief or of the gang, really.”
“You think the Minister of Justice needs to create a gang?” Dickey said.
“No, I guess not.”
“You guess?” Dickey said accusingly.
“Let’s assume the Minister is involved in the thefts in some way. Maybe he is there to protect someone, a friend or an associate. He doesn’t direct the stealing, but he will get something for lending a helping hand.”
“That makes more sense. Then why kill the guard?”
“He was somewhere he shouldn’t be?” Sam asked.
Dickey frowned. “We don’t have enough information. We will just have to wait for something else to happen. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” Sam said.
“Write up the report for me to review,” Dickey said. He rose from his chair and left the snoop office.
Sam sighed as he moved to Dickey’s chair, so he could fulfill his superior’s order. It wasn’t the first time he’d been stuck with a report. He would do it as best he could. Dickey had pounded into him what to put in a report and what not to reveal. With the Minister of Justice looking over their shoulders, Sam had to be extra careful. Who would have thought snoop apprentices did so much writing?
Dickey gave him a task that was harder because of what he had to leave out. He couldn’t duplicate the discussion he had just experienced with Dickey, but he had to leave some elements of doubt. He decided the destruction of the pollen, however unintentional, marred the investigation and impaired the link with the other crimes.
Sam noted that the existence of pink pollen on this murder was an abnormality, since no deer pollen had been discovered around the Canker woman’s body. As he wrote it, he couldn’t shake off the certainty that the guard’s death just didn’t make sense. It wasn’t just the pollen, but it was the way the man died, where he died, and the way someone dragged the body into the slimy alley.
Why didn’t he bring up these suspicions a few minutes ago before Dickey left? He wouldn’t finish the report for Bentwick. Instead, Sam listed every fact that he noticed and annotated what questions it raised. The report would have to wait.
Sam drew a diagram of the alley, including the position of the body. He documented every fact, referring to his notebook. He sat back and stared at the scene, trying to absorb what might have happened.
An hour later, Sam had developed a list of possibilities and rated them as to what was most likely and what didn’t make sense. Dickey walked in.
“What did you come up with?”
“More thinking,” Sam said. He pushed his notes across the desk to his partner who sat in Sam’s usual chair.
Dickey didn’t say a word while he perused Sam’s work. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in reaction to some of what Sam wrote. His partner nodded his head. Sam thought that might be an expression of agreement.
After what seemed like forever, Dickey tossed Sam’s findings to the desk. “You can’t let anyone see this. You do know that. It is all uncorroborated. The facts describe the scene of the crime, but past that this is all conjecture. Guesses. We’ve talked about this before.”
“But I know all that. As I wrote this, I realized that this is a plan of investigation,” Sam said. “This is the framework for what we do until the next murder.”
Dickey sat up. “Next murder?”
Sam looked down. “If there is a next murder. The pink pollen is still the key. We already knew that.”
“And if we use your work as a strategy?” Dickey asked.
“We might be able to solve the murder even if we don’t see another,” Sam said.
Dickey nodded. “Good work. I don’t have any better ideas. Let’s go through your notes again and convert your findings into a list of investigative actions.”
Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know how Dickey would take his extra work, but as they reviewed Sam’s notes, Dickey threw out suppositions and questioned Sam’s thinking on some of the items. Dickey insisted that their plan had to address the relevant aspects of Sam’s observations.
The process was more brutal than Sam was prepared for. He felt like Dickey stripped him bare, but as Dickey went over the winnowed fact list, Sam could see that his partner cut out the unnecessary parts. He felt less dejected as he realized that Dickey had made Sam’s list more workable.
Perhaps that was why Dickey was a captain in the Investigative Division, and Sam was a mere apprentice. He tried to tell himself that, but the rejection of so many ideas still hurt.
“You look like I punched you in the face,” Dickey said.
“I’m just as hurt,” Sam said without thinking. “You cut all my work to shreds.”
“Pruned it to make it stronger. I applied some experience to your analysis. I doubt if I could come up with so many investigative threads. It is just that some of these will be unproductive or take too long to verify. You’ll learn.”
“I think I’ve already begun,” Sam said. “It is a stronger use of the concept of relevance. You have just demonstrated it to me.”
“And I will more and more,” Dickey said. “Just like sparring with the adults is making you a better swordsman, having me trim your investigative plan, as you call it, will make you a better snoop. It takes more than you looking at me to cross out your facts.”
“So, how do you do it?”
Dickey snorted. “Experience. It took a few years for me to get a feel for evidence that you already have. The rest is just doing it over and over. I operate more by instinct, but you seem to have applied some discipline. I think we will learn a bit from each other, but you will be doing a lot more learning than me.”
Sam sat back. Dickey had given him a huge compliment, and finally, Sam felt that he was a real snoop’s apprentice.
Chapter Twenty
~
“A nother guard,” Dickey said as he pulled Sam out of the commissary.
Sam had barely started his lunch, so he stuffed as much as he could in his mouth and took a slice of bread and shoved it in his pocket.
A hired carriage took them to the west side of Baskin again. It disgorged them at the same guard station. Captain Fork waited for them in the small lobby.
“You took your time,” the guard captain said with a snort.
“The message had to reach central Baskin, and then we had to travel back. I’d say we arrived promptly,” Dickey said.
“I was told to escort you to the scene,” Fork said. “We were under instructions not to destroy the pollen this time.”
Sam guessed Fork’s uncle, Issak Bolt, had given the instructions to his nephew. That was an interesting fact in and of itself.
They took a guard wagon to the scene, another alleyway. Sam and Dickey examined the corpse, another guard, while Fork complained in general to three city guards and a constable standing watch.
“No blow to the head,” Dickey said.
The body looked different to Sam. The strangulation marks weren’t as purple as the first. He had no idea why and kept the observation to himself to ask Dickey about it when they were alone.
Sam looked around for pink pollen but didn’t see any in the alleyway. He stepped a few paces farther into the alley and looked at the filthy cobbles. The killer had still dragged the body into the alley and tried to cover the action. He walked over the ground and looking casually at the scene, it appeared the man might have been killed in the alley.
“The same killer,” Sam said.
Dickey laughed. “Evidence?” He shook his head, obviously doubting Sam.
“Killed at another spot and dumped in the alley. The murderer has learned, but not enough,” Sam said.
Dickey smirked. “Not enough for you? Don’t get arrogant, Smith.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said.
“Here is the pollen,” the surly guard sergeant that had shown them to the first victim said, handing Dickey an envelope.
“Examine this,” Dickey said.
Sam took the envelope from Dickey and peered inside. The pollen consisted of threads and was pink, but everything was too coarse for deer pollen. Sam nodded to Dickey, but he winked at his superior.
The wink made Dickey laugh. He clapped Sam on the shoulder. He kept his eyes on the sergeant. “Is this ours? We’d like to take it to our pollen expert for analysis.”
The sergeant frowned and looked toward Fork, still chatting with the guards, and trotted over to him. The two men exchanged words, and both returned to where Dickey and Sam stood.
“Take what you need, but leave some for us and for the man’s file,” the unfriendly captain said. The man glared at Sam.
He felt like he was in enemy territory talking to Captain Fork. Dickey produced an empty envelope of his own. He blew into the open end and emptied some pollen inside. He showed what remained to Captain Fork.
“Is this acceptable?”
Fork frowned, but he nodded. “Are you through?”
“Has a doctor been here to establish a time of death?” Dickey asked.
Sam saw an expression flash on Fork’s face. “He has. He noticed something peculiar about the time, but he couldn’t explain it.”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
Fork pursed his lips. “The sergeant can provide you with his address. If you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.”
Sam watched Fork quickly walk away. As he turned the corner, he glanced back at them. The man looked uneasy. Sam was certain the doctor would have something interesting to say.
The sergeant walked up, pulling a notebook from his pocket. “Here is the name and address. Benjamin Apple.” He roughly ripped out the page he had written on and gave it to Dickey.
“At least he’s not a noble,” Dickey said under his breath. “Let’s go, Sam.”
After they turned the corner, out of hearing from the others, Sam said. “At least the doctor isn’t a noble? How can you tell?”
“The name. Nobles don’t have names derived from anything edible or any trade names like you have.”
“Nail isn’t edible,” Sam said.
Dickey shook his head ruefully. “I know.”
The doctor wasn’t far enough to hire a conveyance. The man’s office was above a women’s hat store.
Dickey opened the door to a clinic. It smelled of rubbing alcohol.
A man in a white coat came in from another door.
“Apple?”
The man nodded. “Doctor Apple. What is your complaint?” He looked at Sam. “Or is he the one needing attention.”
“Neither. I am from the Investigation Division of the Baskin Constabulary. You examined a corpse earlier today.”
“The guard?”
Dickey nodded.
Apple looked at Sam and then at Dickey, frowning. “Something odd about the body.”
“Odd?”
“I would swear he has been dead for a long time, but everything was too fresh, if you know what I mean.”
Dickey nodded. “I do. The body was encased in ice.”
“Ice?” Sam said at the same time Dr. Apple did.
“I’ve seen it before. The murderer wants the investigators to think the crime happened recently when, in actuality, it occurred some days in the past.” Dickey said. “The flesh was softer than it should have been, right?”
“A bit.”
“Then the killer knew about the chilling and wrapped the body up in a pollen shroud made waterproof.”
“Pollen to protect the body and the clothes from the dampness of an ice bath?”
