A Pocket Full of Murder (18 page)

“I'll take Lilet to the Relief Shop tomorrow,” said Anna, dropping the coins into her pocket. “And now I have good news for you. I found out a few things about that cleaning maid you've been looking for.”

As it turned out, the maid's name was Ellice. The other servants at the college remembered her as a plain-faced woman about ten years older than Anna, with thin brown hair and a stammer; Mister Jespers had thought her a slow worker, but reliable enough once she knew her duty. But
the juiciest details, as usual, had come from Meggery.

“She said Ellice had been married once,” said Annagail, “but her husband died. So she went back to live with her mother.”

If Ellice was only in her midtwenties now, she must have been widowed unusually young. “What did her husband die of?” Isaveth asked.

“I don't know. Meggery thought it was an accident, but she couldn't remember the details. It happened a few months after Ellice first came to work at the college.”

Definitely strange. Perhaps the death of Ellice's mister wasn't as accidental as it appeared. “Did Meggery know anything about the husband? What sort of man he was?”

“I didn't ask. Anyway, that's all I could find out. Does it help at all?”

“I'm not sure,” Isaveth admitted. “I wish Quiz . . .” She sighed. “Never mind.”

Anna's face softened. “Don't despair. There's bound to be a reason he's stayed away, and it needn't be a bad one. You don't know who else might be relying on him.”

It would have been nice to think so, but Isaveth doubted it. If Quiz had merely been late to visit his friend with the broken leg or to run an errand for one of the shopkeepers, he wouldn't have acted so panic stricken the other day. And he wouldn't have been gone this long, either.

“Well,” Isaveth said, “I can't sit around and wait forever. If I don't hear from Quiz by tomorrow, I'll have to find Tomias Rennick myself.”

Annagail's brow furrowed anxiously. “Vettie, I'm not sure that's a good idea. Have you thought about this?”

“Of course I have. I still think Master Orien was killed by someone at the college, but perhaps the murderer bought the exploding-tablets from Rennick, and if I can get him to—”

Anna seized her hand. “This is about
murder
, Vettie. You're chasing someone who plotted to kill the governor in his own office and make it look as though Papa had done it. If this person is that cruel and that cunning, what makes you think you can catch him without getting hurt?”

Isaveth opened her mouth, then shut it again. Yes, Papa's life was more important than her own safety, and she'd gladly risk anything to help him. But Anna had a point too. Even Quiz's fighting skills, impressive as they'd been against Loyal, wouldn't be a match for a grown man with a weapon. How did Isaveth expect to defend herself all alone?

Yet she couldn't afford to worry about such things, or she'd lose her nerve. “I know it
sounds
dangerous,” she said soothingly, patting Anna's hand in return. “But it's not like I'm going to charge into Tomias Rennick's house,
yelling, ‘Stop, murderer!' I'm only going to ask him a few questions. And in plain daylight, too.”

Annagail sighed. “I'd still feel better if you had some kind of protection. Like a dog or . . .”

“We can barely feed ourselves, and you want to get a dog?” Though the Kerchers kept Bruiser, but they weren't much of an example. The poor beast would surely have starved by now if Loyal didn't turn him loose in the factory yard every night to hunt rats.

“Vettie, you know what I mean. You ought to have something.”

She looked so distressed that Isaveth relented. “All right. I'll see what I can do.”

*  *  *

Isaveth was sitting on the back step, sorting through her unsold spells and setting aside a few she thought might come in handy when the door creaked open behind her.

“I'll be there in a minute, Anna,” she said, without turning around.

There was a brief, uncertain pause. Then a throat cleared, and an absurdly high-pitched voice replied: “All right, darling!”

Isaveth scrambled to her feet, aglow with joy. “Quiz!”

“The very same.” He swept off his cap and bowed. “My abject apologies for dashing off so rudely the other
day. I'd forgotten something that landed me in quite a boggy hole, and it's taken me this long to climb out.”

“What kind of trouble?” Isaveth asked, but Quiz went on as though he hadn't heard.

“Nonetheless, here I am, at your service. I've already asked your sister if she can spare you, so I thought we might squeak in a visit to our Mister Rennick before it gets dark. What do you say?”

There could be only one answer to that. “Yes, of course!” exclaimed Isaveth, stooping to collect her arsenal of spells. “Let me pack these up, and we'll go.”

*  *  *

The address they'd found for Tomias Rennick took them to the most run-down part of the city, only a few blocks from the rail yard and the harbor front running behind it. The houses here had been stately once, when Tarreton was new. But over the decades they had gradually decayed, merged, and subdivided into rows of narrow tenements, grime-caked windows staring blindly out at the heaved and crumbling cobbles of the street.

No trees or even grass grew here, only the occasional patch of weeds, and the alleyways were heaped with broken bricks, rusty metal, and other old rubbish. A page from a discarded news-rag skittered in front of them, and something lithe and dark wriggled under a nearby
fence—a small dog, Isaveth thought, until she saw its whiplike tail and realized it was the biggest rat she'd ever seen.

“Ugh!” she said, pressing closer to Quiz as he cycled along. “Are you sure we're in the right place?”

“Well, there's only one Gentian Lane on the map,” said Quiz. “So I'm afraid so. But it does seem odd. I know everyone's struggling these days, but if Rennick was a good enough stonemason for the Sagelord to recommend him, he shouldn't have to live in a place like this.”

Isaveth was tempted to point out that her papa was an even better stonemason, and they still had to live in a tiny rented house on Cabbage Street. Though Papa was Moshite, a widower with four daughters to support, and had gone for months without steady work. As far as she knew, Rennick had none of those troubles.

“There it is,” Isaveth said, pointing. “Forty-eight C.”

Quiz stopped the pedalcycle a few paces from the house, where a cluster of grubby, raggedly dressed children were climbing on one of the scrap piles. They darted for cover as Quiz and Isaveth dismounted, peering out from the shadows with bruise-dark, suspicious eyes.

“I've got a cit for every one of you,” said Quiz, showing them the coins on his palm, “if you watch my cycle and don't let anybody touch it. Can you do that?”

The children exchanged looks, and all four heads bobbed at once. “Right,” Quiz continued, “it's a bargain. Now, is this the house where Mister Rennick lives? The stonemason?”

“He's my da,” piped up the smallest girl. “But he's not home right now.”

“Do you know where he is?” asked Isaveth, but the girl shook her head.

“You can talk to my mum, though.” She pushed between Quiz and Isaveth, ran up the steps, and shoved the door open. “Mummy! There's a boy and girl here to see you!”

“Please send them away,” came a weak, unhappy-sounding voice from inside. “I don't want to buy anything.”

“Missus Rennick,” Quiz called back, “we're not peddlers. I have a message for your husband. About an important business matter.”

His tone was courteous, but there was an authority in it Isaveth had never heard before. “Oh—oh, I see,” said the woman, cowed. “Well, then, you'd . . . better come in.”

Quiz stepped through the doorway, and Isaveth followed. Dim light revealed a staircase running up the wall to their left, and beside it a corridor so narrow that they had to walk in single file. A door to their right stood
open, and there in a tiny parlor lay Missus Rennick, stretched out on the faded sofa with a blanket over her lap and pillows propped around her. Her skin was pale as watered milk, her cheeks sunken, and her hair so lank and thin that the scalp showed through.

“I'm sorry I can't get up,” she said, with a wan smile.

Isaveth gripped the strap of her satchel, shaken. For months she'd tried to forget it, but toward the end her mother had looked just like this. She tried to speak, but her throat was dry, and words refused to come.

“You can give me the message if you like,” Missus Rennick continued. “I'll see that Tomias gets it, whenever . . . when he comes home.”

Quiz stood straighter at that, and Isaveth could tell he'd caught the woman's slip. She wasn't sure when to expect her husband, if he came home tonight at all. “I'm afraid I can't do that,” he said in an apologetic tone. “The sender told me to give the message only to Mister Rennick, and that it was urgent. Do you know where we might find him?”

The woman wilted, her outstretched hand falling to her side. “I . . . I wish I could help. But he left early this morning, and he didn't tell me where he was going. If it was Duesday, you might try the club, but . . .”

A tingle ran up Isaveth's spine. Her guess about
Rennick had been right. But Quiz must have missed that particular clue, because he was scratching the back of his neck and looking puzzled. “I don't mean to be rude,” he ventured after a moment, “but is Mister Rennick fond of drinking?”

“Oh, no!” The woman's heavy-lidded eyes flew open. “Tomias would never—well, he did drink once, but that was a long time ago. He hasn't touched a drop since I fell ill.”

Suddenly Isaveth understood, or thought she did. Yet she had to be certain. Her eyes prickled and her chest felt sore, but she swallowed the pain and forced herself to speak.

“Mister Rennick sounds like my papa,” she said. “When Mama was sick, he worked every job he could get his hands on, and all the extra money he made went to pay for medicines and the best healers he could find. He loved her too much to spend any of it on himself.”

“Yes,” whispered Missus Rennick with a smile that was pitifully sweet. “That's my Tomias. He'd do anything for me.”

“S
O MUCH FOR THAT,”
said Quiz as he and Isaveth left the tenement. “I thought we might find Rennick at his favorite watering hole, but if his wife says he's not a drinker . . .”

“No,” said Isaveth, “but she as good as said he was a member of the Workers' Club.”

“Are you sure? She mentioned a club, but there's plenty of—”

“She also mentioned Duesday. That's the day Papa always used to go.” Isaveth wrapped her arms around her stomach, a fresh wave of grief surging over her. She'd imagined herself confronting Rennick the way Auradia stood up to the petty villains in the talkie-plays, all firmness and righteous anger, refusing to back down until she got the truth. But now that Isaveth had met Rennick's missus and little girl and heard all he'd done to provide
for them, it was hard to see him as wholly corrupt.

“Well,” said Quiz, rubbing his lower lip thoughtfully, “I suppose we could look for him at the next Workers' Club meeting. Not that it's likely to be Duesday, and it definitely won't be in the usual place, but there's bound to be a gathering somewhere.”

“Even with the antidissenter law?”

Quiz gave a short laugh. “Especially with the law. They may lose a few members, but that'll only put more fire into the rest of 'em. It's not that easy to stop a revolution.”

As they came down the steps, the urchins who'd been guarding the cycle jumped to attention. Quiz dropped a cit into each dirty palm, and they vanished like smoke. Only the Rennick girl remained, her hand stubbornly outstretched.

“I let you in to see Mummy,” she said. “That's worth two.”

“So it is,” he agreed, and dug out an extra coin. She flashed him a gap-toothed grin and scampered back into the house.

“Are you all right?” Quiz asked Isaveth, holding the cycle steady for her. “You look a bit pale.” He lowered his voice. “Was it Missus Rennick?”

Isaveth gave a wretched nod. She didn't have the words to untangle all the emotions inside her, but Quiz
seemed to understand. He put a hand on her shoulder and left it there a moment. Then he swung himself onto the cycle in front of her and kicked off.

Such a small gesture, but it was enough. The ache in Isaveth's chest eased, and she slipped her arms around Quiz's waist as they pedaled away. “So how do we find the club?” she asked. “If their meetings are illegal, they're not exactly going to put up signs or give out leaflets on the street.”

Quiz snorted. “I should say not. I bet I can find out from the Devaneys, though. Even if they don't have the answer, they can point me to somebody who does.”

“Devaneys? Weren't they the brothers you—”

“Thumped for trying to pick your pocket, yes. But don't worry, we have an excellent relationship now. Built on mutual respect and understanding.”

“The understanding that you'll thump them again if they don't respect you?”

“You make it sound so harsh,” said Quiz in an injured tone, and Isaveth hid a smile against his spine. She leaned with him as they turned the corner, and they sped up the street toward home.

*  *  *

“I'll come back for you tomorrow,” said Quiz, stopping in the coal-lane behind Isaveth's house. “Probably in the
afternoon—it might take me that long to find out where the Workers' Club is meeting. Think you'll be able to get away from your sisters if you have to?”

Anna did most of her work in the early mornings, so she could look after Lilet and Mimmi if need be. “I'll be ready,” said Isaveth, and turned to go.