Faded Steel Heat (30 page)

I said, “I’ll play the killer. You go be Genord. Genord, get out of the way. Nicks, you be Lance again. Ty, don’t move at all. All right?”

“Not a muscle.”

“Ahem,” Tinnie said. “What’re you trying to prove?”

“I’m trying to understand what happened. Something isn’t right. This doesn’t make sense.”

Genord glowered.

I checked the layout. The players were in place. I stepped outside — without closing the door, so the bogeyman couldn’t get me without somebody noticing — then walked through the murder with Gerris Genord directing. Reluctantly. Then we did it again so I could see things from Lance’s viewpoint. Then I told everybody, “Go back to the dining room.”

Tinnie tarried. I winked. She went but not without a frown.

Block asked, “You got something?”

“Maybe. It all may hinge on what could turn out to be a stupid question.”

“Seemed to me... I had a gut feeling... But a lot of times murder just doesn’t make sense.”

This one might not make sense even if it was right. “I think it happened pretty much the way we walked through. Nobody contradicted anybody.”

“But?”

“The question. What was Gerris Genord doing awake and answering the door in the middle of the night?”

“Shit. You’re right. I never thought of that.”

“You felt it. Or you wouldn’t have had a hunch. You didn’t see it because Genord is supposed to answer the door.”

68

“Sorry. Just family right now,” I told Tinnie. “Nicks, you qualify.” I considered before telling Gilbey, “And you.”

He was irked because I’d thought about it.

“Let’s go to yonder corner. Drag over some chairs.” I dragged one for myself. I gathered them in a circle, knee to knee.

“What is it, Garrett?” Max Weider was experiencing a resurrection of will. Maybe he thought something was getting accomplished. I hoped I could maintain the illusion.

“Some of you may think this is a stupid question. But the answer could be critical. Can anybody tell me why Genord would be answering the door in the middle of the night? Even I’m not superhuman enough to stay on the job all day and all night, too.”

Ty chuckled weakly. He said nothing. In normal times he would’ve spoken just to remind us he was there.

His eyes went cold when the substance of my question connected. “I didn’t think of that. Gerris is always just there.”

“You don’t have a night porter? Somebody like that?”

“No.”

“Let’s take it a step further, then. How do we know there was anybody at the door? We just have Genord’s word.”

“Shit,” Ty growled. “I never thought of that even when I was there. But Genord wouldn’t
 
—”

Max snapped, “Why was Genord up in the middle of the night?”

Nobody told me maybe I was good at what I do. Nobody said, hey, Garrett, maybe you’re onto something. I suggested, “Why don’t we ask Genord?”

Gilbey muttered, “I’d hate to pick which one I didn’t like the most, Lance or Genord, but under the circumstances —”

“Take it easy. We don’t know Genord is telling stories.” I didn’t want to lynch the majordomo. Yet. But I sure didn’t buy the tale he’d told.

Max raised a hand, glaring. Hard Max was back. “Get him, Garrett.”

“I’ll do it,” Gilbey said. He was right. In normal times he’d summon Genord.

Manvil stayed a step behind Genord as they approached. Genord looked worried. He felt the string running out.

I said, “I’ve got a problem with this thing, Genord. It goes right back to that guy at the door. Nobody saw him but you. Ty says he never heard the guy. But you said he was shouting.”

“Maybe I was so scared it just seemed like he was shouting.” Genord shrugged. “I can’t tell you anything else.”

“Sure you can. You can tell us what you were doing up in the middle of the night. You can tell us why you were at the front door when Ty and Lance came into the great hall.”

Genord shuffled his feet. He looked for a way out. He didn’t answer me.

“They took you by surprise, didn’t they? They couldn’t help but notice you. Sooner or later somebody would ask you what you were doing. You panicked. You didn’t think. You just did the first damned thing that popped into your head. And that was something really stupid. Which you compounded by making up an incredibly stupid story.”

“I just answered the damned door!”

“Sure. You heard the knock all the way up to your room on the fourth floor. Come on, Genord. You’re not that clever. It’s obvious you were sneaking in after being someplace you shouldn’t have been. Unless you were waiting for somebody. Or maybe you really were squabbling with somebody. Somebody who didn’t get out of the way fast enough when Lance came up and maybe recognized him...” That couldn’t be quite right. But it might be close. “Colonel Block.”

“Uhm?”

“You did have somebody watching the house, didn’t you?”

“The shithead supposed to be out there wasn’t. He sneaked off, he claims to get something to eat.”

“But don’t your men operate in pairs?”

“The other now former Guardsman wandered away even earlier. He hasn’t turned up yet.”

“You kept a few too many Watchmen on the payroll.”

“Evidently. Though the first shithead did yell as soon as he found out something happened. Give him that. He did the right thing even though he knew his butt was in a sling.”

Genord relaxed visibly while Block delivered his bad news. Not a soul missed that. I asked, “Anybody got a silver coin? And a knife?”

69

Gerris Genord was no shapeshifter. But he was a villain. I had no doubt about that. He refused to talk, though. Block predicted, “He will. Eventually.” A regular sibyl, he was.

I suggested, “Check his room, Gilbey. See if there’s anything there to tell why he’d blow such a cush job.”

Block’s men took Genord away. He went silently but with defiant pride. I asked, “Anybody know that man well?”

Young, old, male, female, human, or otherwise, none of the staff knew a thing. That this betrayal came hard on the heels of the other tragedies suggested treacheries of incalculable depths.

“Did he have any particular friends?”

Nobody even heard of Gerris Genord, suddenly. He’d never had a friend. Gerris Genord? Is that some tropical disease?

Gilbey returned. “I’ve got something I want you to see, Garrett.”

“What?”

“We didn’t know Gerris well at all.”

“The man was a pig
 
—” I started, but then intuited, “He was fanatically neat, wasn’t he?”

“He was.” Gilbey offered me a scrap of burnt wool. I saw nothing remarkable.

“What about it?”

“Would you burn your clothing?”

According to some I should. “Oh.” Genord’s room contained no fireplace. There was a small charcoal brazier, though, that had seen use lately, despite the season. It contained curled fragments of burned paper mixed with shredded wool remnants and crumbled charcoal. The air still stank of burnt wool.

I said, “Genord had some time to himself before the Guard arrived.”

“Obviously. And there were comments about the smoke when we gathered everyone downstairs. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. The chimneys do need work.”

I stirred clothing with a toe. “He didn’t have a lot of time.”

“Only a few minutes, really.”

“Then we might still find something.”

“And look here.” Gilbey indicated a large sack in a corner.

“Looks like an army duffel bag.”

“And it is.” Gilbey upended the sack. Clothing, small personal items, and trinkets cascaded to the floor. “Well. It looks like Brother Genord meant to leave his position without giving proper notice. And in a hurry. This explains why we’ve had so many valuables turn up missing lately.”

It did look like Genord had tried to provide himself with a handsome separation bonus. “He didn’t wear jewelry, did he?” He never seemed the type.

“No, Garrett. It’s obvious he expected to have to run someday. Soon.” Gilbey extracted a heavy gold pendant from the pile. “This was Kittyjo’s. It was a gift from Lancelyn.”

I glimpsed something blue beneath a tattered shirt, pointed. “Bingo.”

“A rightsist armband. I never suspected that. Genord came across as a political eunuch. What group?”

I plucked it out. “This’s freecorps. Brotherhood Of The Wolf.”

Gilbey frowned. “Isn’t that?...”

“An armed branch of The Call. With a really serious, hard-core reputation. This gets interestinger and interestinger.” Not to mention scarier and scarier.

We turned up nothing else. Genord had found time to do everything but get away. Which made me wonder if the armband wasn’t a plant. Or if it hadn’t been so special to Genord that he kept it nearby even though discovery would deepen his troubles.

As we went back downstairs I told Gilbey, “Let’s don’t tell anybody but Max. If everybody knows one of The Call’s people got himself arrested here, some of the goofier members of the movement might decide they have to give the Weiders lessons in how to treat their betters.”

We didn’t know that could happen. Genord might have kept his work and his politics compartmented. But I didn’t believe that. Not with the family and its brewery attracting so much attention lately. Not with the hard-core reputation of the Wolves.

“Good idea. But it won’t stay quiet forever.”

“Probably not.” Which suggested that my next move, inevitable but one I didn’t want to make, had to be undertaken soon or the opportunity would evaporate.

I pulled Block aside as soon as we got back to the dining room. “More trouble.” I slipped him the armband. “That came out of a duffel bag Genord packed after the murder. Looks like he meant to take off but didn’t move fast enough.”

“The Wolves were tough, Garrett. Commando types. Genord don’t fit the part.”

“Maybe he’s honorary. Or he’s a good actor. You never know about a guy who managed to survive the Cantard. He sure didn’t stop to agonize over the morality of killing Lance even though ultimately it was a stupid thing to do.”

“There is that. But people do do stupid things when they panic. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to but I’m going to try to get inside the movement. Maybe I can find some answers there. I want you to take care of these people. Whoever’s been trying to hurt them isn’t finished. He hasn’t gotten whatever it is he wants.”

“I’ll keep this armband. I’ll discuss it with Genord. You shouldn’t know anything about the connection if you’re going to get close to his friends.”

Good point.

“And you might clean up a little. You’ll do better if you’re presentable. Consider stashing the wonder buzzard, too. Some of those people have fairly refined sensibilities.”

“They even hate parrots?”

“They especially hate parrots with an attitude problem. You see what’s happening on the streets. Call people don’t believe in self-restraint. And the more they get away with the harder they push.”

Worth remembering.

“You be careful what stories you tell about yourself, too,” Block told me. “They’ll know when you’re stretching the truth.”

“Uhm?”

“Relway isn’t the only one watching you.”

“Really? Shit!” I have my pride. And one thing I’m proud of is that I’m good at working a tail or detecting one set on me. I hadn’t noticed anyone.

There aren’t many guys that good.

I had a bad feeling. I asked Block. He told me, “I don’t know how they’re doing it. Relway hasn’t figured it out yet, either. You know it’s a trick he’d like to have in his bag.”

I’ll bet. “How bad is it?”

“Sometimes you have an entourage.”

More agony for my bruised pride. Time for a subject change. “What do you know about the Institute for Racial Purity?”

“I’ve never heard of it. What’s it supposed to be?”

I told him.

“Something else to check in my spare time. You be careful, Garrett.”

“I’m not leaving yet.” I was ready, though. But not for the place I had to go. I preferred a destination where the beds weren’t stone, where I could sleep off my residual hangover without fear of interruption.

70

I plopped into a chair, told Max what I knew, what I was doing and thinking and suspecting. He was attentive. His anger burned hot enough to heat-treat steel. He didn’t blame me for his pain, as a lesser man might have done.

I started awake as an arm snaked around my neck. A taut bottom began making itself comfortable in my lap. “Ulp!” I said.

The Goddamn Parrot chortled. He was watching from the chandelier.

The behind belonged to Tinnie Tate. She was in a snuggly mood. “You fell asleep. Mr. Weider said to leave you alone because you’ve been working so hard.” She leaned back to let me see an expression saying she thought I had him fooled.

“And now?”

“Go home and get some rest?” She wiggled.

My head was so cluttered with sleep I missed her point. “I’ll just find a spare room and grab a nap before I hit the road.” Then, belatedly, the message soaked in. “On the other hand, there’re some mysteries at home that need solving. If I have the help of an amenable assistant.”

The Goddamn Parrot snickered.

I did need to be seen around there once in a while or some bad boy from the neighborhood would try his luck against the fear the Dead Man had woven so powerfully around our place.

Tinnie growled. She was tired. So was I. I said so. But, like everyone who didn’t have to be somewhere else, I didn’t want to abandon the dining room’s relative security. Block had left several men on guard there. For what good their presence might do.

Alyx heard me talking. She decided to come over. “Want me to show you a safe place to nap, Garrett?” The devilment was back, if weakly. The stay-together-in-pairs rule remained in effect.

“No thanks.” I winked.

Tinnie shifted to a less uncomfortable position. My reward for saying the right thing. She murmured, “How about I show you
my
guest room?”

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”