Blood Relation (Arcane Casebook Book 6) Page 5

  “On whose authority?” Nicholson demanded, getting right in the man’s face.

  Alex had to admit, Nicholson might not be much of a detective, but he made a great guard dog.

  The immaculate man reached inside his suit coat and Alex pressed his thumb against his flash ring. He didn’t figure the man would pull a gun in a room with three policemen in it, but dumber things had happened.

  When the man’s hand came out again, he clutched a folded piece of paper which he shoved into Detective Nicholson’s chest.

  “I have authority from the War Department,” the man growled. “You can read it right here in black and white. Assuming you can read,” he added.

  Nicholson ground his teeth so hard Alex could hear it from across the room and he was starting to turn red.

  “What interest does the War Department have in Alice Cartwright?” Alex asked, raising his voice to cut off an outburst from Nicholson. Alex’s curiosity had been piqued by the man’s claim and if Nicholson exploded, that would probably ruin his chance to fish for information.

  The man in the blue suit jumped a bit and turned. Clearly he hadn’t heard Alex’s approach.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Alex plastered on his friendly smile and stuck out his hand.

  “Detective Lockerby,” he said. “And you are?”

  The man looked like he wanted to tell Alex to go jump off the roof, but he mastered himself and took the offered hand.

  “Earnest Harcourt,” he said. “Now if your friend here is finished,” he nodded at Nicholson, “I need you all to clear out of here.”

  Alex didn’t look at Nicholson to see if he’d finished reading the paperwork, he just smiled and nodded as if he agreed.

  “Well if that paper says what you claim, we’ll go,” Alex said. “We’re only too happy to help the government.” Harcourt took a breath to argue, but Alex had anticipated that and rushed on. “Of course, a woman was murdered here, so we can’t just take your word for it, you understand. You might be in league with the killer.”

  Harcourt gave Alex an annoyed look.

  “And what would I possibly want here if I was involved in Alice’s death?” he asked.

  So he isn’t just some official, he actually knew Alice.

  “You could be here to destroy vital evidence,” Alex explained in the voice one might use to calm an unruly child. “We have to be careful, criminals these days are getting very clever.”

  “I assure you, Detective Lockerby, I am who I say I am,” Harcourt growled.

  “And I believe you, Mr. Harcourt, but my Lieutenant would have my hide if I just turned the crime scene over to you without checking first.”

  Harcourt had no rebuttal to that, but he clearly didn’t like it.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Alex said, putting a conspiratorial arm around the man’s shoulders. “Detective Nicholson will use Alice’s phone to call this in, and the officers will wait out in the hall, how’s that?”

  Harcourt considered it, then nodded.

  Nicholson shot Alex a look of pure venom, but he nodded for the other officers to wait in the hall. Once they were gone, he took the paperwork Harcourt had given him and stalked back in the direction of Alice’s office.

  “How long did you work with Alice, Mr. Harcourt?” Alex asked, wondering if this was the man Alice shaved her legs for.

  “About three years,” Harcourt said. The irritable tone in his voice had receded, though he still wasn’t happy. If Alex could get him to relax just a bit more, the man might start talking.

  “She was stabbed,” Alex said. “We think by someone she knew.”

  “Well it wasn’t me,” Harcourt said, the irritation returning to his voice.

  “No,” Alex said with a chuckle. “I was wondering if you knew of anyone who might have wanted to kill her. Was she seeing anyone? Did she have debts? That sort of thing.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” he said. “Alice worked for me as a computer, I wasn’t privy to her private life.”

  Alex turned to look at the blackboards.

  “Is that what this is?” he asked.

  Harcourt had been too busy arguing with Detective Nicholson when he came in and he clearly hadn’t observed the room. The second he saw the blackboard, the color drained from his face.

  “That’s it,” he shouted. “I want you out of this apartment right now.”

  Alex started to protest, but Nicholson cut him off.

  “Let it go, Lockerby,” he said. “I just got the word from Captain Callahan. We’re to turn over this crime scene to Mr. Harcourt for as long as he likes.”

  Alex wasn’t too surprised to hear that. Harcourt had been throwing his weight around as if he believed he had the authority.

  “Good,” the government man growled. “Now get out.”

  Alex just smiled, picked up his kit, and followed Nicholson out into the hall. As soon as they were gone, Harcourt slammed the apartment door and Alex heard the lock snap into place. He almost laughed, but Detective Nicholson grabbed his arm and walked him quickly away from the door.

  “You want to explain what all that was about?” he growled.

  “He wasn’t going to talk to you,” Alex said with a shrug. “I just gave him an alternative and stalled for time.”

  “And?” Nicholson demanded.

  “And Harcourt said that Alice has been working as a computer for the government for the last three years.”

  Nicholson looked confused at that.

  “What’s a computer?” he asked.

  “Detective,” Alex said with a sigh. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  5

  Feds

  The incessant ringing of his alarm clock pulled Alex from sleep at seven the next morning. There were many reasons Alex enjoyed being a detective, but one of his favorites was not having to be at his office exactly at eight AM. Still, he had a gang of professional thieves to find and only one day to do it, so he felt guilty about just going back to sleep.

  Alex slept in his bed at the brownstone, which was his usual habit, so he showered and dressed, then headed downstairs to see if Iggy was up. They hadn’t spoken the previous evening as Iggy retired early with a headache, so Alex was eager to talk.

  “Morning, lad,” Iggy said when Alex entered the kitchen in search of coffee. Having anticipated his need, Iggy handed Alex a steaming cup on a saucer.

  “Thanks,” Alex said, dropping heavily into one of the massive oak chairs that surrounded the kitchen table. In the days after Alex had spent the bulk of his life energy to move Sorsha’s falling castle, coffee had been one of the things that kept him going. During that time, he almost couldn’t function without it. Now his relationship with the brown elixir was more like greeting an old and cherished friend. Alex didn’t want to start the mornings without it, and he wanted the occasional visit throughout the day.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked Iggy as he blew across the top of his steaming cup.

  “A bit,” his mentor admitted.

  Now that Alex had a few sips of coffee, he observed that the old man was looking a bit run down.

  “I think I’m due for a trip to the spa,” he said.

  Thanks to his recent work, Alex now traveled in much more exclusive circles than when he was younger. He knew that rich men and women would often travel to exotic spas to eat strange foods and bask in the reputed healing properties of natural hot springs. For Alex and Iggy, however, the spa was a slaughterhouse by the rail yards, not very exotic but extremely therapeutic.

  Ever since Iggy had figured out Moriarty’s secret to transferring life energy from pigs, they’d gone back three times. The first time was to restore Alex’s lost life energy. It had worked so well that Alex hadn’t needed to go back in almost two years. Since then, they’d tried a toned-down version of the life transference construct on Iggy. At his age, they had worried he wouldn’t be physically able to tolerate the transfer. Once the first one worked, however, they�
��d gone back six months later with a slightly more powerful version. After each experience, Iggy felt better than he had in years.

  The problem with small life infusions like this, however, seemed to be that they wore off more quickly than expected, and Alex could tell Iggy was becoming impatient with the small steps.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked. When Alex had taken the risk of a large life energy infusion, it had been because he really didn’t have any other option. Iggy, on the other hand, could keep using the smaller ones indefinitely.

  His mentor gave him a hard look over the top of his bottle-brush mustache, daring Alex to object, then nodded with an air of both confidence and finality.

  “I feel like each time we’ve managed to turn the clock back a few minutes,” he said, “but then it just runs faster. It’s time I took a larger step.”

  Alex wasn’t sure he liked the idea, but it wasn’t his life, and he’d learned a long time ago that when Iggy made up his mind, he was not to be dissuaded.

  “I’ll write up the construct and we can go on Saturday,” Iggy went on, picking up a wicker basket that contained a half-dozen eggs. “How was your day yesterday?”

  While Iggy cracked a few eggs into a hot pan, Alex recounted his experience with the stolen herbs and how he was out of leads already.

  “Well,” Iggy said, adding strips of cut bacon to the pan. “If these thieves are as proficient as the warehouse manager claims, this can’t be the first robbery they’ve pulled off.”

  Alex nodded, catching his train of thought.

  “Maybe if I find some other robberies done by the same crew, I can find some way to track them down,” he said.

  “Everyone makes a mistake sooner or later,” Iggy said sagely.

  “It’s a place to start.”

  Iggy brought Alex a plate of eggs with two strips of bacon, then went back to the stove to fill a second plate.

  “How late did you stay at the warehouse looking for your thieves?”

  “I finished up at five, but I got another call,” Alex said. “Say, do you know what a computer is?”

  Iggy sat down across from Alex, setting his plate on the table.

  “Someone who computes would be my guess,” he said.

  Alex explained about Alice Cartwright, her blackboards of unintelligible math, and Earnest Harcourt, the government man.

  “Maybe she works for the Internal Revenue Service,” Iggy guessed when Alex finished. “I’m sure the government wouldn’t want their inner workings getting out.”

  “You’d think if Harcourt worked with money, he could afford a better hairpiece.”

  Iggy chuckled at that.

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “A friend of mind looked into getting a hairpiece once, and a good one can cost over a hundred dollars.”

  Alex whistled at that.

  “In the end, my friend didn’t go through with it,” Iggy said with a grin. “He decided it was too much toupee.”

  Alex just stared at the old man as Iggy chuckled, amused by his own joke.

  “Harcourt said he was with the War Department,” he said, trying to pull the conversation back on course. “Plus, IRS math would be accounting. The stuff Alice was doing was, I don’t know, more advanced than that?”

  Iggy considered that between bites of egg, then he shrugged.

  “If it’s something scientific, you should ask Barton. He deals with that sort of thing all the time.”

  Alex chided himself for not thinking of that and he nodded. Before he could comment, however, the phone in his bedroom upstairs rang. According to the clock on the wall it was only seven forty-five, a bit early for calls.

  Rising, Alex went to the phone mounted on the kitchen wall. A box with a metal plate on the front had been added above the phone. There were two wires running into the box and one wire running out to the phone. The metal plate on the box’s front sported a lever with two positions, one marked ‘Home’ and one marked ‘Alex.’

  Reaching up, Alex turned the lever from ‘Home’ to ‘Alex’ and the phone on the wall began to ring.

  “Hello?” he said after picking up the receiver.

  “Mr. Lockerby, this is Stan Green down at the security desk,” a man’s voice greeted him. The phone in his bedroom was the same line as his office and the one in his apartment in Empire tower. Alex had run a connecting wire through his vault to the brownstone so that no matter where he was, he could answer his phone. Stan was calling from the security desk in Empire Station.

  “What is it, Stan?” he said.

  “There’s a man here from the government,” Stan said. “He’s insisting we let him up to see you. His name is…uh.”

  “Earnest Harcourt?” Alex guessed.

  “Yes, sir,” Stan confirmed. “That’s him.”

  Iggy looked up from the table with a raised eyebrow.

  “The government man wants to see you at this hour?” he asked.

  Alex nodded, then spoke into the telephone.

  “Send him up.”

  “Did you make any copies of Miss Cartwright’s incomprehensible math?” Iggy asked as Alex hung up.

  Alex nodded, pulling his notebook from his shirt pocket.

  “That’ll be what he’s after,” Iggy said with a nod.

  Alex was already ahead of him. He flipped open the spiral bound notepad and tore out the pages where he’d copied down the math from the blackboards, being careful to clear away any telltale bits of paper left in the wire. He thought about removing the first page, the one with Alice’s name and his observations about the crime scene, but decided against it. Harcourt would know something was up if Alex didn’t have any notes at all.

  Tucking the torn pages in his trouser pocket, Alex shoveled a fork full of the scrambled eggs into his mouth and grabbed the remaining strip of bacon.

  “Let me know how it goes,” Iggy called after him as he hurried through the hall to the stairs and up to his room.

  Grabbing his vest and suit coat, Alex opened his pocketwatch and passed through his vault back to his apartment in Empire tower. He was just shutting the vault’s cover door behind him when he heard his doorbell ring. It rang again with an impatient insistency before he managed to get to the door.

  “Mr. Harcourt,” he said, pulling the door open. The skinny man with the immaculate suit and the bad toupee stood so close to the door that Alex felt the need to take an involuntary step back. While he took the step, Alex resisted the urge to laugh as Iggy’s toupee pun came rushing into his mind. “What can I do for you at this hour?”

  “You lied to me, Lockerby,” he said, barging past Alex and into his apartment.

  “I did no such thing,” Alex protested as he closed the door.

  Harcourt scanned the room and, once he’d assured himself that they were alone, he turned to confront Alex with his hands on his hips.

  “You told me you were with the police,” he said. “You can imagine my surprise when I called on them this morning and they told me that you are, in fact, a private detective.”

  “I told you I was a detective, and I am a detective,” Alex said, pulling one of his business cards from his shirt pocket and holding it up. “It even says so here on my card.”

  “You led me to believe you were with the police,” Harcourt went on, not losing any steam.

  “Mr. Harcourt,” Alex said, patiently but firmly. “I cannot control your assumptions, especially when I’m not privy to them. I am a consultant, I work with the police and Detective Nicholson, whom you no doubt remember, asked me to consult on the Cartwright case. Now, what is it I can do for you?”

  Harcourt glared at Alex with what looked like naked hate, then he mastered himself.

  “When my men went to remove Miss Cartwright’s files, they found three of them out on her desk,” he said. “They’re all old files, dating back several years, so I’m reasonably sure that she didn’t put them there.”

  “I removed them from her fil
ing cabinet,” Alex admitted. “I was about to go through them in the hopes of discovering Miss Cartwright’s profession when you arrived."

  Harcourt’s glare didn’t soften.

  “Policemen keep notes,” he said. “How about private dicks?”

  Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out his spiral notebook. He opened it to the front and handed it to the government man.

  “Are these all the notes you took?” he asked, scanning through the information Alex had recorded.

  “Alice’s name and address,” Alex recited. “The method of her death, and the results of my search of the apartment. What did you expect me to write?”

  “You didn’t take any notes or her files?” he demanded. “Or the formulae on the blackboards?”

  Alex almost grinned but that would have given away the game. Iggy had been right — whatever was on those blackboards was something the government didn’t want getting out. He had a momentary thought of coming clean to Harcourt, but the man’s officious, demeaning attitude bothered Alex. He decided to keep pursuing the Cartwright case on his own just to spite the man.

  “As I said, Mr. Harcourt,” Alex said, keeping his voice calm and even. “I hadn’t even opened Miss Cartwright’s files when you arrived. As for the blackboard, why would I bother writing that mess down? I barely recognized it as math in the first place.”

  “You write things down, Detective Lockerby, so you can figure them out later,” Harcourt growled, putting particular emphasis on the word detective.

  Alex laughed at that, not bothering to cover it.

  “You do when it’s your job to figure it out,” he said as the government man fumed. “But that’s Detective Nicholson’s job. I was there to see if there was any magic involved in Alice’s death.”

  “And?”

  “As far as I can tell, there wasn’t.”

  Harcourt held his gaze for a long moment, then he flipped Alex’s notebook closed and reached up to tuck it into the inside pocket of his coat. Alex was ready for that and he snatched the notebook with a quick movement.

  “I’ll need that notebook,” Harcourt said. “Everything about this case is classified.”