The Seer (32 page)

“Still, for all his pedigree and money, he couldn’t catch Kyrad. He confessed his devotion at that fancy dinner and she laughed in his face. She suspected what he was about and she wanted no part of him either in her bed or in her company. Decades later, Morgan Kodolli is still hearing her laugh. He hates her for so much more than business. Some trashy girl from a miner’s family turning him down! That’s been cutting at him for all these years. He got married, had children, hasn’t seen Kyrad in years, but he’s still burning with rage that she rejected his proposal.”

Jesco had been within minds like that, fuming over slights long after everyone else had forgotten about them. “She was under no obligation to marry him just so he could fulfill those fantasies about being in the papers and rubbing elbows with former royalty.”

“That’s how a normal person views it, Jesco. That isn’t how he views it. He was doing her an honor. She was nothing; he was everything. He was going to win his father’s approval through wedding her as well. She was the ticket to his future. For everything that he hasn’t accomplished in his own life since then, he lays it at her feet. The moment she laughed was the moment everything went wrong for him. He was practically spitting on the table in the station as he spoke, and I had to pretend it was all very logical to keep him going. He’s the reason the Rosendrie South Press published that nasty little article about her partying a few years ago. He hadn’t attended the party himself, but heard about it from someone who did. The article was his way to draw some blood, to get his pound of flesh from her, but that didn’t work out. No one cared. That infuriated him. She holds a supremely important position in his head-”

“Yet in no one else’s,” Jesco finished.

“He doesn’t see that. It was a bit rich to hear him savage her in the interrogation room for accidentally showing her brassiere when he himself attends sex parties at the home of his own daughter.”

Finally,
finally
, it was coming together. “Morgan got the timepiece from the storage office!”

“Yes. He was almost to Cantercaster and still looking for a place to dump the body when it came to him. How to get a real revenge on her all these years later. He reprogrammed the autohorse to go to the office, where he let himself in and dug around the boxes to retrieve the case. It was still there, exactly where his father had kicked it.”

“But it was that timepiece that led us to him and his family! He may as well have drawn us a map to him!”

Delicately, Scoth said, “There’s a reason that the old man hasn’t handed over the reins of the company to him, I’d say. Morgan . . . it became clear as we were talking that he just doesn’t have the same horsepower.” Scoth tapped his forehead. “He isn’t a clever man. This was his logic: he and his father had never touched the timepiece, so what was a seer going to get from it? Quay even said that he had barely touched it himself. It had sat in the case with the lid closed since it was given to him. What would a seer see except Kyrad Naphates and Tallo Quay, who was now dead and no one had ever come looking for him or reported him missing? Morgan got the timepiece and thought about where would be best to leave the body. Rosendrie is south of Cantercaster, and that was why he took the body all the way down to Wattling to be within a few miles of her home.”

“Did he know that he was in Poisoners’ Lane?”

“Not at first. It was night, and all he had for light in that area was the lantern he keeps in his carriage and another embedded in the chest of the autohorse. He wandered around Wattling, driving the horse manually and seeking a block where no one was hanging around, and eventually ended up in the dead zone. By the time he figured out where he was, he thought it might work to his advantage. There was absolutely no one around to witness him get the body from the carriage. He dragged Jibb into the alley and hung the timepiece from that nail to make it look like it had been dragged from a pocket by its chain. He never let it touch his bare skin.”

“Which was why I only had vague impressions.”

“He thought he was being brilliant with where he left the body. Anywhere else and someone likely would have swiped the timepiece. But in Poisoners’ Lane? Very few people go in there, and pretty much always just to walk through.
No one
is going to pick up a timepiece from there. He was guaranteed that it would still be in that alley near the body by the time the police arrived.

“As for Jibb, he had been clumsily wrapped in a throw from Grance Dolgange’s house. It was saturated with his blood and came off while he was being dragged. Morgan took it further down the alley, put a heavy rock in it and tied it shut with a cord left on the ground. He threw it in the river. The blade, too. Then he drove away into the night unobserved, passed back through Wattling and went home. There’s nothing remarkable about his autohorse or carriage, so he didn’t stand out to anyone. The timepiece would be found in the police search, he trusted, and the police force with a seer would link it to Kyrad Naphates. He had one of his bodyguards stake out the road going to her home. Once we went past and the bodyguard got confirmation from a servant of hers that it was the police, Morgan had that article run in the South Press. It did what he wanted: blew her chance of getting the liaison position, associated her name with an unsolved murder, and reminded everyone how she runs through escorts.”

Jesco was astonished. “That was an awfully big risk he took all to settle an old score. An old score that didn’t even matter to anyone!”

“It mattered to him. He’d also been drinking at Grance’s party, and drank more in his carriage. Something too risky when sober can seem like a great idea with a respectable amount of alcohol flowing through the veins. He wanted to make problems for Naphates, and he did. But he made a lot more for himself. In fact, in his efforts to stir the pot a little for Kyrad, I’d say he just brought down his entire family.”

“Did you ask him about the attack outside Somentra?”

“I did. Morgan recognized the photograph of Hasten Jibb and went into a blind panic that we were linking them. The timepiece, too, and Tallo Quay. He sent those riders after us with orders to kill, and believed it would be several days before the wreck was noticed. That isn’t a heavily traveled road. He informed Grance that the police were drawing lines between the body and their family, and they decided the best thing to do was to quit Ainscote. The sea is against them for a little while longer, however, so they took their time in getting down to Port Adassa. They’ve got homes in the Sarasasta Islands and also in Brozzo, lots of money in foreign banks. We don’t have an extradition agreement with Brozzo, and the island authorities won’t be in any rush. Yvod and Grance started south, and Morgan wrapped up some loose financial ends, packed up his things to get mailed to his foreign homes, and did the same. They traveled separately and arranged to meet at yesterday’s train. He intended to find the next freight headed for Brozzo or the islands and purchase passage. It never occurred to them that the police might be on their tails. Hasten Jibb was just a courier, after all.”

Scoth settled back in the chair in satisfaction. “We’ll dig up those fields behind the old man’s house and get him and the bodyguards on multiple counts of murder. We’ve got Morgan on multiple charges of being an accessory, and attempted murder in our two cases since he hired those riders. We’ve got Yvod Kodolli on rucaline distribution, and his sister on that plus the murder of Jibb. All the money and lawyers in the world won’t save them now. It’s a good day.”

“It really is,” Jesco agreed. “Maybe Kyrad will make an offer on Agrea.”

Scoth laughed. “Maybe she will. And maybe my suspension won’t be too long. I’m about to hand the captain a stack of arrests that will rock all of Ainscote. Every newspaper from coast to coast is going to have this story on the front page. It will be a storm.”

It was hard to imagine that when everything here was so tranquil. “But not yet.”

“Not yet,” Scoth said, tipping his head. His eyelids were drooping shut from fatigue. All of the tension was gone from him, as so rarely happened. In moments he was asleep, his hand still in Jesco’s.

Jesco watched the waves come in, fully within his own mind and memories, and all of his strength returning. Within each crest before it broke, the sun was reflecting upon infinite stars.

Epilogue

Jesco slipped back into the calm rhythms of the asylum, where life moved at a slower, more reflective pace. The gardener continued his never-ending battle with the flowers and foliage, doomed to lose in the loveliest way. The children circled around Jesco for attention as they always did, Nelle wanting to sit in his lap and the older ones requesting tales of murder and whirly-gig demonstrations.

A letter came from Isena, who had been shocked and proud to see his name in the papers connected to the case. His nephews had taken the article to school to show their friends, and now all of the little fellows wanted to meet this seer who solved crimes. Her postscript reported that she had visited their parents and siblings recently. While nothing had changed with their mother and father in South Downs when it came to Jesco, and she doubted anything ever would, she wanted him to know that Lyall sent his well wishes.

Lyall. They had been the best of friends until Jesco’s seer abilities came over him. That changed them into enemies. To have well wishes from an older brother who used to beat him was an extraordinarily queer feeling. Lyall had told Isena that he was sure Jesco wouldn’t want letters or a visit to the asylum from him and his wife, and Isena offered to pass along Jesco’s answer should it differ.

The world was changing. Some people changed with it. Yes, he would like to hear from Lyall, to know what kind of man he had become. Jesco still longed for his roots, and if his brother was extending a hand in friendship, then Jesco was going to take it. They could not help how they had been raised, and they were not who they had been long ago. Jesco would give him a chance. He would come out no worse than he had been before if Lyall still rejected him. If not, he had another member of his family back.

He would never step out of the asylum’s front doors to see his whole family arriving for a visit. That was a dream that would not manifest. But how rich he felt when a carriage disgorged Isena and her children, and one day Lyall might be there, too.

The storm had descended just as Scoth predicted, and all Jesco had had from him were terse though affectionate notes. The murder of Hasten Jibb was solved yet only gave birth to further cases. A fleet of seers was brought in for the bodies in the fields outside Torrus Kodolli’s Cantercaster home. Jesco was not one of them. His knife wound needed to heal. He hoped the cases wrapped up tidily and Scoth could step away when it was time to attend the whirly-gig convention.

He received a visit from Tammie one day. She had brought along a framed plaque that the station received from Parliament. Scoth had received one for merit, as had Tammie, and this one was for Jesco. His name was printed in tall letters, and hanging underneath the glass was a medal. In their struggles to solve the murder of a courier, they had ended up taking down the largest distributor of rucaline in their region.

Sitting beside him in the drawing room, Tammie was nonplussed about the plaques. “It beats a kick in the pants, but it’s not something we can use to pay the bills, is it? I suppose I can impress the ladies with the medal, take it from the plaque and wear it when I go about my day, but most will just think I look like a prat and secretly I’ll agree. I didn’t do so much on this case anyway. I do miss having you two as roommates, though, but I would like to ask why I came out that one morning and the curtain was down in the window.”

“You don’t want to know,” Jesco said, and she grimaced. “How is Laeric? Have you seen him?”

“Barely. Now he’s got those bodies in the fields to work. He was there at the station when they brought in Torrus Kodolli, however. That man! I heard his buttoned-up lawyers had a hissy fit at the judge for him being denied bail. He’s old, he’s frail, he’s not dangerous, they bleated. It was all the bodyguards’ fault and not his! But the judge considers him a flight risk, not to mention the corpses still coming out of the soil, so he can cool his heels in a jail cell and wait for trial. Also, Dircus Dolgange filed for divorce. He’s looking at the ruin of his business, his wife distributing rucaline right under his nose. But Kyrad Naphates is coming out of this smelling like roses.”

Jesco had seen her picture in the paper, though he had not read the article. “I’m still sorry she lost that liaison position.”

“Don’t be. She’s not. She said that she would just go for it again next time. That’s politics. And now she’s got a legion of women who know her name and are outraged on her behalf, because Morgan Kodolli gave a statement before his lawyers muzzled him that it was basically all her fault for spurning him ages ago. She
owed
him. So a woman has to accept a proposal from any man who offers one just because she’s afraid that he might try to implicate her in a
murder
far off in the future? Should I walk around all worried-like that the lordling with the squashed nose is even now plotting against me? That’s insane. Funny, that man.”

“The lordling?”

“Morgan. He looks so mild-mannered on the outside but you delve into his brain’s workings and see that he’s missing a heap of gears. His sentence won’t be as long since he didn’t stab you or the courier personally, or kill Quay or order him killed or have anything to do with the rucaline. But he’s ruined all the same, his son and daughter and father will be in prison for the rest of their lives, and good riddance to the whole lot of them.” She wrapped her hand in her sleeve and swatted Jesco’s covered arm. “You owe me curtains, the two of you. Ugh.”

He hung the plaque on the wall in his room but got tired of the sun reflecting off the glass. Removing it to his desk drawer, he forgot about it. Three weeks had passed since the train when there was another murder for him to work. Neither detective was Scoth. The thralls upon the evidence at the crime site were so intense that they landed him in his wheelchair for several days. Gavon tended him well until he could get about with a cane.

He had only just graduated to walking about on his own when Sfinx hurtled down the hallway early one evening. “Sir! Sir! A carriage is here for you! There must be another murder, sir!” He sprinted away, shouting to a friend.

Jesco had been on his way to the dining hall for dinner. He was sorry to have another case when he had just gotten back to his feet. Looking down the hallway to the front doors, he saw a regular carriage parked there instead of a police carriage. Then his heart jumped. Scoth was coming inside. He was just using his new personal carriage for the case.

He looked good, as he always did. But he wasn’t in his usual garb for work. Dressed in a casual suit, he’d warred with his hair yet could only claim a partial victory. A cowlick had sprouted up above his left ear. Whatever the case was, it had caught him out while doing something else.

“Is the destination card for the asylum really named Prick Pick-up?” Jesco called.

“It is,” Scoth said irascibly. His smile waxed and waned, and he stopped before Jesco. Strangely, he looked a little nervous. “It’s new. It’s all new. I made sure of it.”

“The carriage? I should think so. The old one was smashed in the riverbed.”

“No.” Scoth ran his hand through his hair in agitation. Cowlicks sprung up all over. “We’ve got a table reserved at The Seven Temptations’ restaurant, so hop into something more presentable and let’s go.”

There wasn’t a case. He had come to the asylum to take Jesco out. Just as he began to answer, Scoth said, “And you should bring some of your things for the next few days, too. I’ve got it all set up at my house, new sheets and everything else I could think of. And there are these . . .”

He pulled out a pair of theater tickets from his pocket. The showing was tomorrow night. “It’s a private box. You don’t have to worry about people touching you by mistake while getting to their seats. Then I thought the next day we could drive out to Whenx to see the autohorse races in their brand-new stadium. Place bets, have a mug of ale and a bag of popcorn.” His nervousness intensified. “You don’t have to do any of that. It’s only if you want to. I just have some days off and I thought . . .”

Jesco loved this man. “I want to go.”

“You don’t have to say that only to placate me-”

“I’m
not
. Laeric, I really want to go.” Jesco laughed, having never wanted to do something so much in his life. Taking off his gloves, he cupped Scoth’s cheeks and looked straight into his eyes. “I can’t wait.”

“Sure?”

“Very, very sure.” He tipped Scoth’s head and pressed a kiss to his cowlicks. Then Scoth offered his arm and Jesco took it, and they walked away together.