Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: The Author's Cut (11 page)

“Really?”

“From the confidential tip line. Word gets around fast, I guess,” said Magda, producing an expression of profound cynicism, and headed out of the front cubicle.

Lee looked at Gelert, raised her eyebrows. A moment later Matt came through one of the office’s side doors, nodded to them both. He looked cheerful. “Lee, Gelert,” he said. “I think we’ve got your boy.

You ready to look him over?”

“All set,” Gelert said. “You have time to run through our sweeps yet?”

“Right after this,” Matt said. “Sorry, but yesterday got busier than I expected.”

Lee exchanged a look with Gelert as Matt led them over to a frosted glass and steel door to one side, touched a code into it, let them in. On the far side of the door was another long narrow room, empty, its only features a window that was half-silvered on the side away from them and frosted on the inside, with two vents high up on either side of the window. “Let me know when you’re ready,” he whispered.

Lee took a couple of long breaths, brought her implant online, glanced at Gelert. He flicked an ear at her.

“Go ahead,” Lee said softly.

Matt touched the wall, and the glass went unfrosted. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, wearing a prisoner’s orange coverall, was the blocky man with the crewcut. As Lee looked at him, the man raised his face and looked straight at the window. Possibly he had heard them coming in; or possibly he felt her regard—occasionally a suspect did. Lee simply looked at the man, and the Seeing settled itself down around her, around him. Within seconds Lee caught the same tang of mind as she had at the murder scene, and Saw the same shadow of self trembling about this man as had etched itself on the night outside the club. The shadows of his earlier anger, and a certain cold resolve, were still there: but so was sadness, and weariness, and fear.
Too bad
, Lee thought; 
he should have considered the likely
 
consequences of his actions a whole lot earlier.
 For hard behind the image of this man came that of Omren dil’Sorden falling past her, in shock, already dying before he even hit the ground. “I positively identify this man’s psychospoor as identical to one I detected at the scene of the murder of Omren dil’Sorden,” Lee said for the benefit of the recording that her implant was making. “I also confirm colocation of his psychospoor with that of the person who used the weapon that killed Omren dil’Sorden, and with traces of the same psychospoor associated with the murder weapon itself.” She glanced at Gelert.

He sat there gazing at Castelain for a long moment, his nose working. 
No question
, Gelert said at last.
The scent is identical.
 “I positively identify this man’s psychospoor as identical to one I scented at the scene of the murder of Omren dil’Sorden,” he said aloud. “Further, I colocate this man’s psychospoor with the location of the weapon used in this murder and found at premises at 3850 Rampart Avenue, Los Angeles.”

They both stood quiet for a moment, and Matt said nothing while they “signed” their depositions and closed their implants down. “If you’ll wait a few minutes, we’ll move him into the interview room,” Matt said.

“Sure,” Lee said. Matt went out, and Lee took a few long breaths to bring herself fully out of the judicial state.

“That’s the saddest murderer I’ve smelled in a long while,” Gelert said softly, as a uniformed officer came into the room and took Castelain out.

“Yes,” Lee said. She still wasn’t up to feeling much in the way of pity for him.

“Betrayed,” Gelert said.

Lee threw a glance at him. That was something she’d thought she detected as well, but the impression had been so fleeting that she’d thought she would have to review her own recording before she could be sure of it. “By whom?” she said softly.

“Whoever called the tipoff line, for starters,” Gelert said. “But it may not stop there. I got a sense that he thought more than one person was involved.”

Lee was just thinking how to respond to this when the door opened again, and Matt stuck his head in. “We’re ready for you,” he said.

They followed him out and around to the door of the interviewing room, another pane of frosted glass set in metal. Outside it was a large, round, smiling man in a charcoal onepiece suit; he was bald as an egg, and had the kind of broad-featured face that wouldn’t have been out of place painted on an egg—round eyes, flat nose, a smile threatening to become a grin that would go right around that head and meet on the far side. Paul McGinity worked for the Public Advocacy Office, and Lee grinned at the sight of him. He always had that effect on her, which sometimes amused and sometimes annoyed her, depending on whether it looked like he was going to win a given case, or she was. “Advocate,” she said.

“‘Mancers,” McGinity said. “Saw you on the news the other day.”

“Fame,” Gelert said. “It’s such a nuisance.”

“Not politically,” McGinity said, giving Lee a jocular look. “Thinking of a job in the DA’s Office?”

“Please,” Lee muttered. “That’s not at 
all
 high on my list.”

McGinity smiled, a look of disbelief. “Well, maybe not for you. But Gelert could probably manage something like that if he wanted. The DA’s never been happy with the percentage of nonhuman employees there.”

“He’ll just have to stay unhappy, I’m afraid,” Gelert said, as the door opened before them. “Anything like real work would interfere with my social schedule. And as for what I would have to do every day to 
keep
 that job, such as sticking my nose up Big Jim’s—” He paused, grinned a fangy grin, said no more.

Inside the interview room, Castelain was sitting at a small one-person table to one side of the room. On the far side of the room were two benches—one nearer the table where McGinity took his seat, one where Lee sat down, and Gelert sat beside her on the floor. A fourth table, opposite Castelain’s, was for Matt, the interviewer. There were a few minutes spent dealing with pads, briefcases, and so forth; then Matt closed the door and touched it locked.

“Interview with suspect LARC22799847, Jacques Xavier Castelain,” Matt said, sitting down at the separate table, “as per”—he glanced at his own pad—”case docket CARR8574.665. Suspect is charged with assault with first degree murder under statute number EllayLP2533.1 of the civil code of the city and county of Los Angeles. Present, the accused: Matthew Carathen, solicitor, District Attorney’s Office, LAPD; defense mantic, Paul McGinity, lanthanomancer, Holmes, McGinity and Oaxachitl, acting for the Ellay County Advocate’s Office; prosecution mantics, Liayna Enfield and Gelert reh’Mechren, reh’Mechren and Enfield, acting for the Ellay County District Attorney’s Office. Time is 1138.”

He paused for a moment to let everyone settle fully into judicial sensorium, glancing down at the pad again. “Mr. Castelain, state and national law require me to ask you at the beginning of this interview whether you have been informed of your legal rights by the advocate assigned to you.”

“Yes,” Castelain said.

“You are Jacques Xavier Castelain?”

“Yes,” Castelain said. “Look, I did it, all right? Let’s get this over with.”

No one moved or said anything for a moment. Paul McGinity’s expression was not one of surprise, but there was a thoughtful quality to it, as if something was occurring to him that had not occurred before.

“Advocate?” Matt said.

“Mr. Castelain,” McGinity said, “please don’t say anything for a moment. I have to remind you that your defense will be endangered if you become any more specific, about 
anything
. Please just answer the questions.”

Castelain squirmed a little in his seat, said nothing.

Lee saw his anxiety, and Saw the reason behind it. 
He wants to be in jail
, Lee thought. 
Desperately.
She said as much to Gelert down their Palmerrand linkage.

It’s nearly rolling off him like panther sweat
, Gelert answered, intrigued. 
He’s terrified of even
 
being offered the possibility of being released on bail.

“All right,” Matt said. “Let me start with the evening of June 16. Where were you that night?”

“Ellay,” Castelain said.

“At around ten o’clock—”

“I was in a bar on Wilshire Boulevard,” Castelain said, looking from one of them to the next. As his eyes lit on Lee, she clearly heard him thinking, 
nice looking broad, shame about the eyes, they’d give you
 
the creeps if she looked at you like that normally, guess she doesn’t, but how’d you tell until it was
 
too late
— Then he was looking at Gelert again, and the thought ebbed in intensity and felt much more clinical, 
one of them death-hounds, keep expecting him to howl and jump you any minute, those
 
teeth are as bad as her eyes
— But there was something else going on there: something he was much more afraid of. Lee held her curiosity in check with some difficulty: “digging” in a suspect’s sensorial display tended to produce false negatives. 
Just relax and See: the truth will reveal itself, it wants
 
nothing more—

“I left around ten and caught the bus down Santa Monica to Eighteenth,” Castelain said. “I walked up Eighteenth and went around the corner to the club. I got into the doorway by there and waited—”

“Mr. Castelain—” McGinity said, sounding much more concerned.

“Mr. Castelain,” Matt said, “if you could just—”

“Mr. Carathen,” McGinity said. “May I ask—”

“Look, I 
told
 you, I shot him,” Castelain said, annoyed. “Don’t you people listen? Guys from one of the gambling clubs down here, they called me, said he had a big debt for a long time and he wouldn’t pay. Said they were done with him, he needed shooting or people would stop taking them seriously. So I did it. Price was right. Not a hard job, either. Guy walked out of the club like he was walking out of his living room, didn’t look right or left. Drunk, whacked out, who knows? He heard me then, saw me, started to run. I followed him around the corner, blam, that was it.” He paused. “Actually,” he said, “two blams.”

Matt and McGinity were looking at each other rather helplessly. Matt was bemused. McGinity passed a hand over his eyes. But Lee spared neither of them much attention, for right now her intent was mostly bent on Castelain. All over him, as Gelert had said, was the desire to be safely behind bars. It wasn’t just that jail was someplace Castelain was most familiar with after many years’ worth of ins and outs, a secure and structured environment where he knew how to behave. Much more to the forefront of his mind at the moment was the image of jail as somewhere where 
that
 one would not be able to get him. A tall, dark figure…

Lee bent her Sight against that shadowy background perception with all her force. It faded, as if it had stepped sideways into the air.

He thinks whoever tipped off the police will think he’s trying to get out of the deal if he’s released
, Gelert said.

Yes. But there’s more.
 Lee looked at Matt and willed him fiercely to ask the question that most needed asking.

If he was aware of Lee’s gaze, he showed no sign of it. “Right,” Matt said. “If you insist on being so forthcoming despite your advocate’s advice, then tell me: was there anyone working with you?”

“No. I work alone.”

Lee Saw clearly that Castelain was telling the truth. Her mouth went dry. Could it be that he’d genuinely been unaware of the Alfen figure watching him?

“You didn’t see anybody else?” Gelert said.

“Nobody. You think I’m stupid?” Castelain gave Gelert one of the faintly irritated looks with which he’d favored Matt. “That’s why I shot him. If there’d been anybody else around, I would’ve waited, got him the next night or something.”

“Did you look behind you?” Gelert said.

“Huh? No. Why? Nobody coulda been there: I looked all around first. Then I went around the corner, I shot him, I made sure he was dead. Afterward I ran down the road and over a few blocks, and ditched the gun. Caught the bus afterward.”

Lee looked at Castelain and Saw nothing but a man telling almost all the truth with a kind of awful relief to be doing so, certain that this was the only way he was going to stay alive. But one thing he 
was
 lying about: the figure he’d seen watching him after he shot dil’Sorden… the figure that had stepped sideways and vanished. Once again Lee bent her Sight against that memory, and Saw a glimpse of something else: the interior of the bus, fading around Castelain’s point of view as the floor suddenly, bizarrely came close, bumped up against his face. Did he pass out? Or was he knocked out?— Then the point of view fading back in, a glimpse of dirt: Castelain pushing himself up to hands and knees, looking blurrily around him at waste ground somewhere. 
Up north, probably—

“Mr. Castelain,” Matt said after a moment, “under the circumstances the law requires me to offer you the chance to make a fuller statement regarding this incident in writing. I am required to advise you that no clemency in your case is implied or in any way guaranteed by your agreeing to make such a written statement, and that you may ask the Advocate to assist you with the statement if you desire.”

Castelain waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I can write just fine by myself,” he said. “Thanks.”

“All right. Interview closes at 1156,” Matt said.

He went to the door, touched it unlocked, opened it, and looked out. A few moments later a uniformed officer came to take Castelain away.

Lee and Gelert and Paul McGinity sat there for a moment closing their various visions down and sealing off their recordings of what they had just perceived. When Matt came back in, Paul had stood up and was recovering his briefcase. “Sorry, Paul,” he said. “Looks like a wasted trip.”

“
Looks
 like?” Paul said, dry. “Matt, I think that boy needs a psych evaluation: I’m going to order one.”

“You’re not implying duress, though.”