CHAPTER TEN #2
Hero smirked and tossed back her drink. It had to have burned going down but only a slight tightening of her lips revealed any discomfort.
“This place stinks, anyway,” she said. She spun her chair around to face the room and raised her voice.
“Stinks of secrets and lies. Of death and dark magic.” She sniffed dramatically.
More than one patron was staring at her, transfixed.
Horrified. A few men in tailored woolen slacks, cotton button-downs jauntily rolled back to the elbows and silk waistcoats paused in their game of cards to glare at her balefully.
“You can only hide behind your fine clothes, your wealth and status for so long,” she warned them.
“Mark my words: there is a killer among you. And I will find him. Or her.”
Mortified, Keen drained his glass of gin, nearly choking on the harsh liquor, eyes watering as he grabbed his hat.
It was time to go, apparently. “Come on, Inspector,” he wheezed, not daring to take her by the elbow and usher her out.
Hopefully, the urgency in his voice would be enough. “Let’s be on our way.”
“Here now! You can’t make accusations like that.
How dare you?” One of the card players was on his feet, outraged, hands curled into fists.
He was a big one, too, bulging at his sleeves yet trim at the waist. His thigh muscles were practically visible through the heavy crepe of his pants.
Not a dandy like the rest of them. Inwardly, Keen groaned.
Would he have to defend his partner against a violent man, or defend the man against a demon?
“I dare because I am the inspector on this case, and a death speaker,” Hero said, stepping down from her stool, cane in hand, taking a few menacing steps in his direction.
They were the same height, even if she was half his width.
She leaned on her cane and peered at the other patrons.
“I have Spoken to the dead, to Sister Catarine.”
A scattering of gasps and soft exclamations. Murmurs. Whispers. Did there seem to be an undercurrent of fear running through the place, beneath the morbid curiosity? Was it just for Hero, or was it fear for themselves?
Fear of what the dead had to say?
Keen no longer cared what Hero was doing to antagonize these people.
Instead, he kept a close watch on their reactions, looking for signs of guilt – a telltale grimace, a sweaty brow, a shaking hand, a too-loud laugh, a widening of the eyes.
Observation caught criminals more than any other skill in a PK’s repertoire.
“Then you already know what happened to her,” a woman spoke up.
Middle-aged and dressed in an elaborate frock of lace and silk and beads, she stared at Hero primly from beneath a wide-brimmed hat with a stuffed parrot pinned atop it, colorful wings open as if in flight but its black eyes dead and dull.
Keen recognized her with a start. She was Abigail Primm’s great aunt, Lady Sorsha Primm.
Her family could trace its roots back to pre-colonial times, a family of impeccable reputation.
“So, I am unsure as to why you are harassing good people in the middle of the day, Inspector Viridian.”
“Good people.” Hero scoffed. “You are a den of vipers.”
The woman sniffed disdainfully. Her cold blue eyes landed on Oleander. “I know who you are, boy. Don’t think for a moment that you have risen above your station. Your education was at our largesse. Remember your place.”
Stunned, Oleander nearly stammered an apology. Abby’s aunt was filthy rich and hugely influential. Abby’s immediate family, as wealthy as they were, were the poor relations by comparison.
Beside him, the inspector tapped her cane against the floor imperiously.
“I’ll not have you disparage my partner, madam.
And don’t think you’re above our authority, either.
Your family has its claws in everything, I recall.
I wouldn’t put murder past you and yours.
Scandals hover about you like flies on dead meat. ”
Gasps and angry growls answered her. Lady Primm paled, but her eyes were hard as diamonds.
Her gloved hand clenched on the fine tablecloth, scrunching the cloth into a knot.
A younger woman at the same table let out a soft cry and tumbled dramatically from her chair.
The mood in the room shifted as the burly gentleman dashed to rescue the crumpled lady.
Waitstaff swarmed around them, offering glasses of water, fanning the girl with unfurled napkins, creating more chaos than anything.
“Get out, you scum!” cried a man in a tuxedo, gesturing angrily toward the doors, handlebar mustache bristling with rage. “Get out before we toss you out!”
Oleander doffed his hat, apologizing profusely, and reached to drag Hero out by the arm, but the half-demon inspector had already slunk to the door – or so he perceived it.
Actually, she had moved with oily swiftness, but with little urgency.
The tinkle of her laughter echoed back into the dining room through the flapping doors.