Small town sleuth the de.., p.30
Small-Town Sleuth: The Detective's Apprentice, page 30
Attending an evening of spoken word poetry was maybe the last thing in the world Mick wanted to do. Saying so wouldn’t made for very good mortar in his brick wall of rapport, though.
“I’m sure it’s a powerful experience. Me? I like playing billiards. You ever played?”
“Never,” said Lena.
Mick tried to pierce her expression, work out what she was thinking. This was the problem with her; she was hard to read, and even harder to disbelieve. She could tell you the clouds were raining chickens, and it’d have a ring of truth.
“There’s a club down on Knapper’s Street. Heard it’s good,” he said.
“Oh, that place? Liam goes there sometimes, come to think of it.”
“Your brother-in-law?”
“Ex-brother-in-law, yes.”
So Mick had laid the trap, and Lena had deftly hopped over it and then flung it in her ex-brother-in-law’s direction. The problem was that the club membership form had belonged to a L. Turner. Why the club had allowed someone to write their first name as ‘L’ was beyond Mick, but they had, and that was that.
“What’s your old married name, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Is that a guard question, or a Skinny Mick question?” said Lena.
“Could be either.”
“Well, it’s not a state secret. I used to be a Turner.”
L. Turner. No ‘Mr.’ on the form, no ‘Mrs.’ So it could belong to either Lena or Liam. Mick couldn’t contradict anything she had said so far. What did Starter Sleuthing say to do next in an interview? Let’s see… There was establishing rapport, then…right. Ask indirect questions.
“I called by the Knapper’s Street club. Fancied a game of billiards. Wouldn’t let me play without a member’s token. You believe that?”
Lena shrugged. “Those kinds of places like to keep out the ruffians.”
“It wasn’t exactly the Emeraldvale Hotel. The only food they served was fried potatoes.”
“Nothing wrong with a basket of fried potatoes. Hits the spot.”
Mick agreed with her, actually. “I s’pose serving food is a minefield, though. So many things you have to get right. It’s not just about how well you cook stuff. There’s ordering ingredients, making sure you get a good food hygiene rating…”
He eyed her now, looking for a reaction, but Lena’s poise was a huge, stone boulder that it would have taken a horse-pulled carriage to shift even an inch.
“Things are getting tough for businesses these days,” he carried on. “You heard about how lots of eateries are getting scored low by the Food Safety Board?”
“That’s unfortunate,” said Lena. “Though, hygiene is important. I s’pose places that score low are to be avoided if they can’t keep their kitchens clean.”
She’d given him nothing so far, damn it. Then again, Lena Coarty had probably been interviewed by members of law enforcement more times than Mick had had hot dinners. And he had had a heck of a lot of hot dinners. No sense getting too disappointed that she hadn’t cracked right away.
He moved onto the next stage of an interview: propose a hypothesis and see how the target reacted. Trying to act casual, he blew on his drink before taking a sip. Only when the cup reached his lips did he remember he was drinking cold water, but Lena didn’t seem to notice.
“If you ask me,” he said, “something funny’s going on. So many eateries all getting poor scores. Tell me something; what do you think a person would gain by falsifying ratings and sending them out to places?”
“I couldn’t even begin to imagine.”
“Put yourself in their shoes. The kind of person who’d do that. Y’know, a criminal.”
“A criminal’s shoes? Don’t think I’d like the fit.”
He was getting nowhere. That was plain to see. Best not to waste any more time or energy on it. His decision made, he stood up. Time for the final part of an unsuccessful interview; give the target one last out.
“Well, that was a damned tasty cup of water. Think I’ve taken up enough of your time, Ms. Coarty. Anything you’d like to tell me before we finish?”
She shook her head. “Don’t think so.”
“Alright, then. I’ll be seeing you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Despite her not giving him an inch during their conversation, Mick left the townhouse cupping his hands around a flickering candleflame of optimism. Getting a warrant to arrest Lena Coarty and search the townhouse was feasible if he explained everything he had uncovered so far. The only problem was that it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Lena would skip out of the city before he got permission to start the search.
If that happened, what did he have? A bag with no owner, a house belonging to a businessman. That was all. Lena’s name wasn’t on a tenancy agreement or anything like that, and if there was any forgery equipment inside, then she’d probably used gloves while handling it. Connecting her to any of this would be like trying to lasso a wild horse while blindfolded.
His best bet was cracking Lena under a more concentrated interrogation. Once he got her singing, all the other circumstantial stuff would be like a backing chorus. But how did you crack a stone like Lena Coarty? He supposed you just needed the right hammer. Somewhere in that townhouse was the hammer.
Yup, that was the key to it. He needed to get a warrant to search the house, and he needed to make sure Lena didn’t skip town in the meantime. But how would he do both?
There were no benches here on Lexingdale Drive, since the occupants didn’t want to give people a reason to linger. Leaning against an acorn tree, he kept an eye out for guard patrols. The Full Striding guardship had a promise; every single street, avenue, or alleyway in the city would play echo to a guard’s footsteps at least once per day or night. This promise wasn’t always kept, of course, but then, guarantees dreamed up in a boardroom rarely were. He only had to hope that today was a day when the guardship stayed true to their vows, and that this street hadn’t been patroled already.
As long a day as it had been already, Stakeout Stamina kept Mick as alert as a meerkat as the hours went by. At five minutes to midnight, footsteps drew his attention. It wasn’t Lena Coarty sneaking out of the house; instead, it was a leather armored guard striding down the street, toward him.
He moved away from the tree. “’Scuse me, fella,” he said.
The guard jumped a little. He evidently hadn’t expected anyone to be lurking on this kind of street at this time of night. He immediately adopted a straighter, more authoritative posture.
“Can I ask what you’re doing here, sir?”
Mick showed him his guard badge. “I need you to do me a favor. Head back to your station, tell them what I’m about to tell you, and come back with a search warrant.”
The guard peered at the badge. “You’re the same rank as me.”
“I’m a sleuth in training.”
“Until then, you’re technically a guard. I don’t see why I’d take orders from you. I’ve still got half my patrol to do. I can’t just go running off to do your errands.”
“Can’t you help a guy out? See that house there? Well, there’s a lady inside, and she…”
Mick explained everything to the guard, whose name was Henny Ramsbottom. He’d worked as a Striding guard for thirty-six years, he said. He ought to have been a desk sergeant by now, but he was happy patroling the streets. The minute you got chained to a desk was when you dipped your quill in death’s ink and started writing your own obituary. Trust him on that.
“Right…” Mick said. “Anyhow, you can see my dilemma. I need to search that house. But if I go, Ms. Coarty might slip out, and then there’ll be no chance of catching her.”
“Seems like you’ve run into her three times in the last year alone. If I was a betting man, I’d say it’s more likely you’ll see her again than not.”
“Even so, I just need to wrap all this up and put my friend’s mind at rest. If I can get a nice cell for Lena Coarty in the process, it’d be like getting two sweet rolls for the price of one.”
“All well and good, so why don’t you run along to the station, and I’ll wait here?” said Henny.
“What’s the difference?”
“My feet are aching like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Fine. Just don’t take your eyes off that house,” said Mick, then added, “Please.”
Not that Mick was keeping a list, but if he was, he’d have marked Henny Ramsbottom down as a trustworthy member of the Full Striding guard force. When he arrived back from the station forty-five minutes later, Henny hadn’t moved an inch from his position on the street.
“One warrant signed and ready,” said Mick, displaying the sheet of paper. “Let’s go see what’s inside Nine Lexingdale Drive.”
“Allow me,” said Henny, when they reached the front door. He gave the guard’s knock. It was a fine piece of door knocking – firm without being overly loud, each rap-rap-rap echoing with experience.
“Very nicely done,” said Mick.
Henny brushed his knuckles on his guard coat. “Thank you kindly.”
Inside, Henny kept an eye on Lena, entertaining her by telling her some of his many patrol stories. Meanwhile, Mick searched the house and found what he’d half expected. In one of the spare bedrooms, underneath a bed, he discovered a bunch of forgery equipment, a stack of stolen letters from the Food Safety Board with the sigils removed, and a leather bag bulging with gold coins. He was still some way from connecting Lena to it, but the find was enough to justify taking her to Elmshore East station for questioning.
All the main interview rooms were full thanks to a plot that had been foiled earlier in the evening involving four men, two women, three cows, and a stick of dynamite. As such, Mick had to interview Lena in a supply room on the east wing of the station. It smelled strongly of chalk, so much so that it brought to mind the Knapper’s Street billiards club. There were no inspectors, sleuths, or detectives available to accompany him, so he had to make do with a duty guard called Jimmy Ripple, who rarely spoke more than one word, and even that often came out as more of a grunt. This, Mick soon learned, was how he’d earned the nickname Soliloquy Jimmy. He soon found himself wishing Lill Gill or Henny Ramsbottom were there.
“Right then, Ms. Coarty. Just have a few questions to ask, and then we’ll see what’s what,” began Mick.
“Ask away,” she said. Sitting in the chair opposite, slouched back and with her legs crossed, Lena looked like she could have been getting ready for a face peel and foot rub at a beach retreat.
For this interview, Mick decided to begin with a more direct approach. He asked Lena about the forgery equipment. About the fact that he’d found her billiards club token in a bag that also contained black gloves and some tampered Food Safety Board sigils.
“Nothing illegal about a pair of gloves,” she said.
“And the sigils?”
“I collect them.”
“Ah. So the bag was yours, then?” said Mick.
This threw her, but only momentarily. “Nothing illegal about owning a bag.”
He carried on, directing his questions this way and that. The only thing was, Lena had an answer for everything. It was clear to him that at some point, she’d sat down and imagined all the questions she might get asked about her scheme if she was caught, and she’d reasoned out answers that were plausible. And that was all they had to be – plausible. The onus was on Mick to prove anything.
If his questions were gold coins, then his coin pouch was emptying by the minute. Finally, Mick put his hand inside and found it empty. Worse, Lena seemed to realize it, too, and her demeanor had grown smugger and smugger as the interview wore on. Soliloquy Jimmy was no help, either; he might as well have been a statue wearing guard leathers.
As spent as Mick was, he did have one more thing to ask.
“Let’s go back to the townhouse. Your brother-in-law’s place,” he said.
“No problem. I’m ready to go.”
“No, we aren’t going there physically, Lena. I mean let’s talk about it. About something I noticed about the place when I was searching it. In the hall.”
“Oh, the vases. Liam’s idea of style. You can’t account for taste.”
Mick shook his head. “Not those. There was some mail left out near the front door.”
“…there was?”
“In white envelopes. Same color as the little table they were resting on. Easy to miss, I s’pose. Only, I had a little look at them, and something stuck out to me. Namely, that they weren’t addressed to an ‘L Turner’. So while I was getting a search warrant, I had a little look at the Striding property records. Turns out the townhouse is owned by a lady named Phillipa Sue. She works for a company that sells agricultural equipment. Often on the road, she is. Touring farms, selling them new tinkered plows and the like. She’s gone for months at a time. A person could break in, stay there for a while, and nobody would say a thing. Not even the neighbors. Not if you told them you were minding the place for her.”
“Letters in the hall?”
“There is no brother-in-law, is there, Lena?”
“No comment.”
Mick grinned. “That tells me all I need to know. Isn’t that right, Guard Ripple?”
“Hmph.”
“See? Even Soliloquy Jimmy thinks you’re backed into a corner like a… rat that just got…uh…backed into a corner.. How about you make this easy on yourself, Lena?”
30
There was no more satisfying a moment in his career – short as it had been so far – than when Mick was able to take the Food Safety Board letter that Lena had sent Spruce, and rip it up in front of him.
Over a free burger and fried potatoes, Mick told Spruce everything. About how Lena had been sending these official-looking letters to eateries, then waiting for a week or so to let the owners worry and fret, before approaching them in person. Telling them that she worked for the Food Safety Board, and that she could arrange to have their ratings changed…for a price.
“And to top it all off,” said Mick, “She spent a while scouting out a bunch of houses in the city, where she knew the owners would regularly be away for a while. Found them all listed in an address book she stuffed under a mattress. She goes from house to house, breaking in and living there for a while, then leaving before the owners get home.”
“So all this worry I’ve had…”
Mick put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I know. But at least there’s no problem with the café.”
“Can’t thank you enough, mate. How much do I owe you?”
Mick couldn’t believe what he was about to say. The Mick Mulroon from even a few months ago couldn’t have thought these words, let alone utter them. “No charge. You’re a friend! Doesn’t feel right getting paid for your misery.”
“You must have spent ages on this.”
“Put your coins away. I’m not walking out of this empty-handed. The Lena case, and all the stuff with the six Connors…along with my other jobs… well, it’s been enough to get me my last two skill trees. Simple Deduction and Simple Interrogation. Now I’ve got them all.”
Spruce smiled. You couldn’t have described him as a relaxed person right then, even with all this business over with. He was still too flushed with adrenaline and the remnants of worry. But he looked better than before.
“So that’s it? You’re a fully classed sleuth?” he asked.
Mick took a big bite of his burger, chewed, and swallowed. “Not quite yet. There’s something I need to do, and then there’s the graduation ceremony. But almost.”
The commuter cart to Full Striding gave Mick ample opportunity to review his skill trees for maybe the tenth time. He just never tired of looking at them. He had all five of them now. Technically, there wasn’t a collective noun to describe five trees specifically, but Mick liked to think of them as a copse. A nice copse of sleuth skill trees, their leaves nice and green from the sunlight of experience.
Pushing up his right sleeve, he set his Simple Interrogation and Simple Deduction skill trees in the slots of his token bracelet, and then gave them a quick tap. Token text filled the air in front of him. Percy Tattersall was sitting on the seat opposite Mick, and he wouldn’t be able to see the token text. It would look as if Mick was just staring intently at him.
“I’m not looking at you,” he said, preempting an awkward situation. “My token text.”
“Ah. Right.”
With that dealt with, Mick studied the text again, savoring the feeling of pride it never ceased to give him each time he read the words.
Skill Tree: Simple Deduction
Level: 1
Abilities:
Mental Corkboard
You can keep all your evidence, notes, and observations on a corkboard inside your mind, meaning you always have all the intricate details of a case to hand. With more experience, more cases can be held.
Pattern Recognition
Enhances your ability to pinpoint patterns in evidence that a cursory glance might miss, teasing out clues from obscurity.
Skill Tree: Simple Interrogation
Level: 1
Abilities:
Detect Lie [Passive]
The more experienced you become in questioning people, the more obvious lies become to you, even from practiced truth jugglers.
Effective Questioning
When formulating questions, you can compare different ways of wording them, and Effective Questioning will tell you which is likely to be most effective in each situation.
Sleuth Bonus: Sense Emotion
You pick up on signs of particularly strong emotions that may hint at a possible line of questioning.
There they were, then. His last two skill trees. He had all he needed to be a sleuth now, and it was just a matter of watering his trees over the course of a career by using his abilities and closing cases. Of course, he was joining a race that some people had already started years ago. There were sleuths out there who were already master ranked at his age. Still, better late than never.
