Naming Day (Jake Underwood Book 1) (13 page)

              “Then why are you getting involved? This isn’t your fight and there’s no good reason to stick your neck out. You should go.” I didn’t want Marty’s blood on my hands; I wanted him to get the hell out of here. The problem was that he was almost as stubborn as I was.

              “Well, in addition to the fact that you would do the same thing for me if the positions were reversed, there’s this thing.” He paused and drank some water. “There’s something about you that’s weird. Don’t bother denying it.” I didn’t. “Another thing, this girl you’re protecting isn’t anybody’s husband. She looks she couldn’t be over nineteen or twenty. She has that same weirdness swirling about her that you do. I don’t know what it is, but I know something is screwy here and I hate being left out. I will figure this out. The best place to do that is here.” He turned back to the duffels and began pulling out a black, hard-shell case.

There wasn’t any good response to that or any arguing with that it so I nodded and gathered up the dishes and took them to the kitchen for washing as Marty started unpacking security gear.

We spent the next few hours hooking up the cameras and the monitoring system and testing it to make sure that it was functioning properly. The Uzi’s looked to be in good shape, but we took them apart anyway and made sure that all the moving parts were working properly. The AK’s were still in their original packaging so we took them apart and checked them as well. It turned out that they were as fine a product of the Eastern bloc that you could hope for. All they need was a good cleaning to remove the protective coating of oil they had acquired.

It was about 2:00 AM when I went to sleep with a promise to Marty to wake him up before I left. I hoped that inspiration might come to me in the night but I didn’t want to leave my mind open to the probing of anyone who might be looking for me so I warded it off and fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep. After last night’s rollercoaster ride, I was just as glad.

              The smell of coffee woke me up. The thing I like about coffee best is the way it smells. It can be bitter to taste, but unless it’s burnt, it always smells good.

              I wasn’t sure when Marty went to bed, but he beat me up. I soothed my troubled conscience that I had a very long day yesterday and less restful sleep the night before but this was little consolation considering that he had less sleep. Dalia was still sleeping or least still in her room.

              Blearily, I stumbled through my morning routine and made my way to the kitchen bar where Marty had already poured me a cup of black java. I grunted a greeting and sat down and let the hot dark liquid turn me into a human being instead of a grumpy morning person.

              “What’s the plan for today?” Marty was trying to wrangle a piece of toast from a small toaster that didn’t seem to want to work. Every time he pushed the toast button down it would hang for a minute and then pop up. He finally gave up and pulled the partially toasted bread out and slathered butter on it.

              “I need you to stay here and watch Dalia while I see what I can do about this mess. She shouldn’t be any trouble but it probably isn’t safe for her to be running about with me.”  He nodded

“Do you have any idea how you are going to approach this?”

“I’m going to see if I can get one of the surveillance team alone and see if I can ask a few pointed questions. I have an idea about who is pulling the strings on them, but I have to know who before I can determine how to proceed against them or get them called off.”

              “You might try the local guy, you know, McNeely. He’s not a hitter and may not be part of that, but he might know who’s writing the checks, so to speak.”

              I thought about it and decided that he was right. I knew this guy. Chris McNeely was an okay guy. Maybe I could convince him to share the name of his employer as a professional courtesy. Maybe I could bribe him.

              Marty told me that he was going to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things and I suggested that he take Dalia with him. She could probably use a few changes of clothes. I wasn’t particularly worried about her skipping as I was him coming back to the house and discovering a nasty surprise. I advised him to try to be discreet and to not linger where she could be seen. He reminded me that he was the soul of discretion and tact. I went to talk to Dalia.

              I knocked on her door and she answered on the second knock. She would never need glamour to look stunning. The sunlight shone through her sheer gown and outlined her body without revealing anything except that fact that she was beautiful. She was unabashed in her movements and seemed unaware of the effect that she was having on me. Despite her radiance, I could tell that something was bothering her. It was either something that we had to deal with or some personal problem. I decided to ignore and hope that it wouldn’t interfere with my plans.

              “Good morn, Jake.” She smiled nervously.

              “Yeah, it is a good morning, at least so far. Look, I’m not sure what the current fashion at court is, but you might want to dress a little more conservatively around Marty. It’s not your virtue that I’m worried about, but dressed like that you might distract him at a crucial moment.”

              She looked at what she was wearing and blushed. “I forgot that so many mortals had such awkward attitude about their bodies. I am surprised that a fey, even a half fey would even notice, its bad manners.”

              “Yeah, well maybe that’s so. But we aren’t at court currently and I suspect that there isn’t much in that bag that isn’t going to attract attention. Even what you were wearing yesterday is a little much.”

              “Lucinda loaned it to me.”

              “It’s nice, but it stands out a little too much.”

              “What should I do?”

              “For now, wear what you were wearing yesterday and Marty will take you to some shops where you can buy some clothes that will be less noticeable. Ask the sales clerks to help you if you’re not sure what to do.” I took out my wallet and pulled out a half dozen hundred dollar bills. “That should get you a few outfits that will suffice.”

              She nodded and looked excited. Her life was in danger, she was forsworn and had the Twilight Order chasing her and she could still get excited about shopping for clothes. I shook my headed and wondered if this was due to inexperience or some kind of female gene that reveled in shopping in a way that a guy would never understand. Maybe it was just a Fey thing, Clothes were pretty important to most of them.

              “Oh, just one more thing, I know that I told you yesterday not to bother with glamours but at the time I didn’t realize how beautiful you actually are. I guess I was distracted by events. You need to frump it up a little.” She looked pleased and puzzled at the same time. “You’re too noticeable. Everyone who sees you today will remember the really beautiful woman who came into the shop. I know it’s against fashion to look less attractive, but while most of the fey who come here want to attract attention, you don’t. Try to look a little less stunning. Maybe some bags under your eyes or some frizzy hair.” She looked even more puzzled.

              “Look.” I turned on the TV and tuned into a local talk show and pointed to some of the audience members. “Like that. They are still attractive but not so much that you can’t help but stare at them.”

              Comprehension dawned on her face and she nodded. “What about Marty? Won’t he notice the change?”

              “Maybe. Probably. Certainly. But he won’t say anything. He knows something weird is going on with us and I hate to give him anything else to think about, but there is no way to avoid it. Just try and make it as subtle as you can and maybe he’ll chalk it up to bad lighting. He didn’t see you too much last night; you ducked out pretty quickly and didn’t say much.” Her look had turned serious and so I gave her an opening to say what was on her mind.

              “I wanted to think about things and I was certain that he wanted to talk to you alone, so I came in here to think. It took me quite a while to digest all that you told me. I thought about what you said and in hindsight so much of what you said made sense.” She paused and looked chagrinned. “I realize that I have behaved foolishly, certainly in regard to Jeryn Callisandra. I have let my dislike for him influence my judgment and endangered not only my own life but my father’s position at court. Worse, I have imposed on a blood relative that I barely know and exposed him to the same perils.”

              “There’s no-“  I started.

              “Please, let me finish.” She paused considering her words. “By my actions I have made your life here in this realm more complicated and dangerous, for that I am truly sorry. I cannot offer recompense at this time but I can release you from any debt if honor or blood tie that you feel might bind you to me.”

              “I appreciate that, Dalia, I really do. But at this point, I’m involved. I doubt there is anything you could tell the Twilight Order that would convince them that I am as clueless as I am.”

“But if I explained what happened-“

“I doubt it would help.” She looked disappointed. It had taken a lot of soul-searching to work her courage up to the point of giving up my help and I was dismissing her offer. “Besides, this is my fight too. My friend is dead and someone must answer for it.”

I thought about how much to tell her of what I suspected. Too much information could confuse her and make her hesitate at a crucial juncture, but she needed to have some faith in what we were doing, so I decided to point out a few things.

“Dalia, you can’t take this on yourself. I think you were setup to take the fall for this mess or at least part of it. I don’t know by who, yet anyway, but it could be enemies of your father or maybe even Jeryn Callisandra or maybe some other player who hasn’t come out of the shadows yet.”

“But-?”

“The point is, even if you could manage to get a word in with the Twilight Order, it wouldn’t stop whatever was going on from happening. Kevin would still be dead and the rather dubious connection between this Count Trellsor and I would still be the talk of the court. I would be in this even if you weren’t involved.”

She thought about it for a moment and then nodded.

“Besides, if you hadn’t come here I never would have gotten to meet my pretty cousin. As it stands, you are my favorite cousin and certainly the only person at the Court of Twilight that I would offer to help, gratis.” This seemed to hearten her and she smiled. I made my farewell and drove off in the minivan to shake the trees and see what I could make fall from the sky.

I drove by my office at the Americana building and tried to spot he crew that had been working the street. The good news was that they were nowhere to be seen, but that was also the bad news. With only Crosswich’s team watching the building I could go in if I wanted to, but it also meant I had no idea where there were. Maybe they got called off and went home. Right.

I went to a payphone in James Coney Island, a hot dog place that I like, and placed a call to Adrianna. She dug out the information on Chris McNeely that I needed and suppressed her natural curiosity about what was going on. I wasn’t too surprised when she told me that the office had been broken into. I had expected Crosswich to wait a little longer but I guess the fact that the office was so secured made him more anxious than ever to get in.

She sounded like she was worried about whatever I was into that caused her perfect filing system to be violated and wanted to know about filing a police report. I told her not to bother. Just put it all back the way it’s supposed to be and get on with business. She didn’t like it, but she would do it.

I cut the call short. My office phone was probably bugged and with a potential hit team hunting me and a surveillance team, however inept, snooping around I didn’t want to take a chance that the conversation might be overheard or traced. So I snagged the parking ticket off the minivan and drove off.

A quick call to McNeely’s office phone got an answering machine or an automated service, I can’t always tell which so I drove to the address that I had for him, an upstairs office in a small building on Washington

The office was located at the rear of a hall that was mostly deserted. The nail salon next door would periodically attract or disgorge a patron as I watched McNeely’s place. After about three hours of waiting I decided that maybe nobody was home and that it might be safe to take a closer look.

I’ve mentioned before that picking a lock takes longer than people think, so when I don’t have to pick a lock in a hallway where I am likely to be observed I am usually quite pleased. The door to the office was unlocked and gaining entry was easy, but I couldn’t say I was happy about what I found inside.

I eased my way into the door and closed it behind me. My first instinct was to get the hell out of there as I certainly didn’t want to try and explain this to cops, mortal or Fey, why I was in an office with a dead woman who had obviously been murdered.

A secretary was lying slumped over her desk with a blank look on her face, her mouth an O that seemed poised to ask if those flowers were for her. She had taken one maybe two shots to the back of her head. It was probably at close range, as I could see a little powder residue on her blonde hair. Her face was intact, if streaked with blood, meaning that it was probably a small caliber gun a .22 or maybe a .38 that had killed her. She had been alive when shot as the spray on the wall seemed to indicate that her heart had beaten on for a time. The blood was dark and coagulated, barring something weird like magic, she had been dead for no longer than day and probably closer to a few hours.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves and pulled them on. I didn’t know how long I had before someone else showed up, but I sure didn’t want to be found here or leave any fingerprints so I moved quickly into the inner office.

It was worse than the outer office. It was obvious that there had been a struggle in here. My theory was that whoever the killer or killers were, they had come into the office without raising an alarm. They quickly dispatched the secretary, who probably never even knew she was in trouble and then went on to the interior office. It wasn’t so clean in here. There was no order in the office and between the broken furniture and shattered glass, there was little left unbroken. Chris McNeely obviously knew he was fighting for his life, but it didn’t do him any good. He had been trussed up like a turkey and tortured. He was bound and gagged and one of his eyes was swollen shut and he had numerous bruises and contusions that had to have been administered before his death. Whatever they had wanted to know had taken time to get out of him.

His jacket was soaked with blood and it was easy to see why. His throat had been cut. The cut was deep, so deep that it looked like he had been decapitated. I looked a little closer and noticed that the back of his neck was still intact.

It was a bad death, not the worst I had seen, but bad nonetheless. It wasn’t even the gruesomeness of the crime that upset me or the fact that I knew the victim, one of them at least. It was the near certainty that this was related to whatever had killed Kevin and threatened Dalia and myself that caused me the most discomfort.

I let my vision unfocus and I tried to discern any vestiges of magic that might have been used here. There is always a faint background of magic that can be sensed. Some theorists believe that it is residue from the creation. Others, that it is a remnant of the titanic struggle between the Adversary and the Creator. Me, I don’t know what it is, but it gives the world a kind of red haze so subtle that you can just barely sense it. It’s quite handy when one is looking for a magical effect as it is highlighted by the very subtlety of the background.

It didn’t take very long for me to see that magic had been used here, but not to kill, just to make it easier. I’m don’t know what they used what it was, but I suspect that it was some kind of sound damping spell, to cover the sounds of the murder and torture. Pretty pointless actually, they probably could have used magic to get what they wanted from McNeely but apparently they preferred the hands on approach.

After I brought my focus back sharp and started looking over the desk. Splattered with blood, it was hard to make anything out. There were file folders tossed about, but one at the top of the heap was relatively easy to read. It had my name on it.

It was empty, but I took it with me anyway.

In general, it is a bad idea to tamper with evidence at a crime scene. This is another of those little things that upset the police so much. What you are supposed to do when this happens, is step out of the crime scene, call 911 and wait for the cops to show up. You then tell them why you are there and what you touched. This isn’t a bad idea if you are innocent and you believe in the infallibility of the justice system. In my case I failed on both counts. First, there was no way that I wasn’t involved with this murder. True, I didn’t kill either of them, but I would bet the reason they died had something to do with me. In addition to this little unpleasant fact, I couldn’t exactly come clean with them because it would involve an aspect of my dual identity which under The Compact, I was sworn to conceal. Besides, that information would make me look like a nutter. Second, Cops tend to like easy solutions. Here’s a PI on the scene of a gruesome murder scene with two bodies, who can’t explain why he’s there and who’s not being straight. He’s going to be looked at hard for it unless something else jumps up to take attention away from him. That wasn’t likely to happen in this case. I certainly wasn’t going to explain to the HPD that killers were probably members of the Black Watch, an elite unit of the Court of Dawn and experts in their craft who spent decades training or worse the Twilight Order who could teach a doctorate level course in being ruthless bastards. No, I wouldn’t be able to talk my way out of this with the mortal cops, so I would just have hope that I wouldn’t need to.

I didn’t waste any time in letting myself out. I wiped the doorknob that I had touched and the door that led to the parking lot. There was nothing I could do about the nail salon. But I’m naturally shy when I think I might commit a crime, like picking a lock, so I had done my best to minimize my exposure. This is one time when glamour would have helped me. Unfortunately, the downside of not being tricked by them is that they also won’t set on me with out major craft work. I’ve tried on various occasions to bring one up and it slides off me like a thick sludge. Very unpleasant and tiring.

I wasn’t sure exactly who would be investigating this crime scene, although I suspected that eventually the mortal authorities would be the ones who would try and solve this one. Not that they had much of chance if I was right about who did this. I felt bad about Chris McNeely. He was a good guy with a wife and kids. But he was in the game and that made him a fair target, just like me. I felt worse for the secretary. She was a civilian and shouldn’t have been in danger. They deserved justice and they weren’t likely to get it from anybody on this side of the veil.

I got in the minivan and slid the cell into the hands free holder and listened for the dial tone. I took out Bermuda’s card and dialed him. If he was in the Mortal world then I would probably get him otherwise it would just be voicemail. I was actually hoping for voicemail, but my crappy luck held and he answered.

“Detective Sergeant Bermuda, How may I serve?” It had the sound of an often repeated phrase, but he put enough effort into it so that he sounded legitimately interested in helping whoever called him.

“This is Jake Underwood.” The minivan made a sharp turn and sped towards I-10 as the tone changed from friendliness to wariness.

“Yes, Mr. Underwood. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call? Have you called to confess? That would certainly be a help.”

I smiled “No, not today. Maybe I’ll confess tomorrow. I just left the office of Chris McNeely and Co. I went there to see if I could shake out of him who might have hired him. That name probably means nothing to you but he was part of the second team that was on my office. I went to my office and they weren’t there anymore.”

“I know. I sent a few of my people over there to investigate what you told me yesterday and when they got to the scene they fled. In absence of specific instructions they did not pursue them. I hope that your inquiries were more successful than mine.”

“Yes and No. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him because he was dead. His throat was cut. That’s a little understated. His head was all but hacked off except for a flap of skin at the back of his neck that held it in place. The place is a wreck. His secretary took two in the back of the head.”

“The address please.” His playful tone had dropped away completely. I gave him the address. “I’d like you to wait there for me. I will have questions.”

“Sorry Sergeant, I’ve already left.” He started to talk but I cut him off. “There’s no way I am going to hang around this place and wait for anybody to show up. This guy had a family, the secretary probably did too. Unlike Kevin, they will be missed by somebody in the Mortal world and the Houston cops are eventually going to show up. The only reason I called you is that I think there is almost no chance that what happened to Kevin isn’t connected with this. I thought you might want to take a look before Houston’s finest were on the scene.” I merged onto Interstate 10 and sped towards downtown and Interstate 45.

“I see. What convinces you of this?” He question was calm and his words like ice.

“Three things. First, I knew both Kevin and this guy and he had my office under surveillance shortly after Kevin’s murder. Second, the method of execution. Whoever this guy is, he’s hell on the neck. Third, I did a background sweep of the office and picked up definite traces of magic.”

“Damn it! I told you that magic destroys any chance of using a re-enactment ritual!”

“Don’t blow a gasket. It was a passive scan only. It stuck out against the background like snowfall in Houston.” I took the exit to 45 and cut off another minivan.

              “I have some other information for you as well.” I hit the turn signal and changed lanes. “I had an encounter with a member of the Court of Twilight, named Jeryn Callisandra a few days ago. He said some off things, you might want to look into him.”

              “It would been more helpful if you had been more forthcoming with that information when we interviewed at the Silver Tree. We had already questioned him and released him.”

              “Sorry. I didn’t think it was connected. You might also want to look into a few names and see what you can find out. One is Count Trellisor and the other is Lady Dalia Klaris, daughter of Lady Mayletha Melliscant. They might be involved in this mess.” I hated lying to him, but I didn’t want to prejudice him by telling him what I thought. Besides he had a lot more resources than I did and if he used a few on my behalf it wasn’t going to kill him. At least I hoped not.

              “How are these people involved?” I could tell that he had shifted the phone as was writing information down in his pad while he was talking to me.

              “I don’t know if they are or not. They just came up in some of conversations I had the last few days.”

              He was silent for a moment. “If someone else dies because you are withholding information from me, I will personally have you declared Unclean and will direct the hunt for you myself. Do not play games with me.”

              “I’m not playing any. I don’t know how they fit. I’m hoping that any information you have on these two will help clear the mist a little so I can get a clearer view. For all I know they might not have anything to do with it other than me hearing their names during my investigation.”

‘Very Well. I will need to see you, where are you going to be? I will come to you.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, I’m going to be moving around a good bit for the rest of the day. Tell you what- as soon as I settle down I’ll give you a call and we can get together.” He knew I was lying when I said it, but had the good manners or sense to pretend I was telling the truth.