The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (24 page)

If she ever even arrived. He’d made sure to be at his desk a quarter-hour early, but he was sure at least a full half had passed since then. Another barb of irritation stabbed him in the stomach. She’d cattily pointed out when he was just barely on time, yesterday, but he highly doubted it would be appropriate for him to return the favour. Christopher Buckley kept Olivia Faraday’s hours, but Olivia Faraday…she, of course, kept her own.

He distracted himself by weaving atrocious limericks onto the back of a useless receipt until he finally heard the sound of the front door opening. It took all of his self-control to keep from saying something clever. “There was post for you,” he said instead, using his most polite voice. “I put it just inside the door of your office. One of the notices came from the coppers. You might want to see to that first.”

“Oh, she won’t,” a voice that most certainly did not belong to Olivia Faraday said dryly from the door. “Who are you?”

Chris’s head shot up in surprise. A stout, solid-looking woman gave him a small but not unfriendly smile before closing the door and taking off her wrap. She had shoulder-length, orange-red hair, curly like a nest of springs. A splatter of freckles sprinkled across her nose. A Northerner? Most likely. The accent matched the look. Her face had a handsome strength when seen in profile. She hung her wrap on the coat rack. Underneath, she wore the smart blouse, split skirts, and royal insignia of a female police officer.

“You’re Maris Dawson,” he said aloud, then cursed his lapse and hurried to answer her question. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Christopher Buckley, Miss Faraday’s assistant.”

When Officer Dawson turned to look at him, it was with renewed interest. She watched him, her sharp green eyes efficiently taking stock of all his strengths and weaknesses. He tried not to cringe under the look. When she glanced away, it was accompanied by a dismissive cluck. “Of course you are,” she said, and the acid on her tongue surprised him. There was an awkward pause, and then she walked across the room and settled down into one of the chairs. She sat back, and gave Chris another look. The freckles on her pale skin were like chocolate drops in vanilla. “Where’s Faraday?”

“I don’t know,” Chris admitted. Under those sharp eyes, he felt somehow responsible. “She hasn’t been in, yet.”

Officer Dawson rolled her eyes. “I swear, that woman just does these things to upset me. She must think she’s the only investigative truthsniffer I monitor. Mother Deorwynn forbid I do anything other than hold Olivia Faraday’s leash.” She eyed him yet again. “I don’t suppose you make a decent pot? Constance never could. I’d consider you an upgrade if you could manage that much.”

Despite her rough nature, he found himself warming to her. “I’ve never objected to what I’ve come up with, myself.”

“Well, do your worst,” she said. “I suppose I can be grateful I got here before Faraday in this, at least. I don’t have to hear her harpying on at me to drink that bitter black poison.”

Not long after, they were both seated and sharing the pot Chris had laboured over. Officer Dawson pronounced the tea underwhelming but adequate, which was apparently leagues beyond what the mysterious Constance had ever managed. Chris hid a grin in his cuff when he saw the no-nonsense police officer put not two, not three, but four lumps of sugar into her cup. They drank in companionable silence, both shooting knowing glances to the door and shaking their heads occasionally, until they were interrupted by it finally opening and Olivia Faraday at long last appearing in a flurry of motion.

Today she was dressed like a waggoner woman, with a loose blouse, large golden earrings, and a large patchwork skirt in a riot of colour. Her usually ruler-straight hair was styled into large, looping ringlets that put Rosemary’s natural curls to shame. She set down a pile of books, turned to them both, and clasped her hands together in what seemed like all one motion. “Maris!” she exclaimed with great affection. “How are you? How is Emilia?” And without waiting for an answer, she turned to Chris, her jewelry all tinkling. “And Christopher! My handler and my slave, getting on so well! Really, I’m relieved. Maris, I’d worried you’d think he was a fop.”

“I like fops well enough,” Officer Dawson said evenly, setting down her cup on the table between them. “I certainly like them better than Deathsniffers who make me wait all morning when I have twenty other places to be.”

Olivia made a needlessly theatrical gesture with one hand. “Something came up,” she proclaimed, looking down her nose at them. Queen Olivia. “I knew you wouldn’t mind waiting, since I had to wait an entire
day
for you to find the time for me.”

Officer Dawson didn’t sidestep the slight. She simply let it bounce off her iron hide and fall, forgotten, to the floor. “What happened to Constance, Faraday?” she asked bluntly. “Why the new assistant?”

A bit of the life seemed to snuff out of Olivia. Her fluttering hands dropped to her sides and her eyes lost their playful, energetic gleam. “She quit,” she said. She offered no further explanation and clearly intended the conversation to end there.

It didn’t. “Constance? Quit? As if she’d have the courage. What did you do to her?”

Olivia’s eyes flashed. Her lips went into a line and she planted her hands on both of her hips. “My assistants aren’t any of your business,” she said flatly, all of her theatrical good nature gone in a flash. “Constance is gone. I replaced her. Does the Queen’s Police have a problem with that, Maris?”

Officer Dawson met Olivia’s eyes and held them. It went so long that Chris wondered if Olivia would be the one to back down, if she would relent and tell the story of what had happened to his predecessor—a story he found himself very interested in—just because Maris Dawson’s sharp green eyes told her to. If there was anyone who could have cowed Olivia Faraday, it was this woman.

Or maybe not. Because it was Officer Dawson who finally blinked and shrugged. The motion was careless, but Chris noticed she dropped her eye contact with Olivia as she did so. “Well, keep this one, if you would,” Officer Dawson said. “He makes a good cup, and he’s a proper gentleman.”

Olivia smiled to herself, the wicked gleam coming back to her ice-blue eyes. She hadn’t missed who had won the exchange. “I’m thinking about it,” she declared. “He does the job all right, and oh, he’s so nice to look at, isn’t he? Much better than plain old Constance.” She grinned wickedly. “I was―” she began, but Officer Dawson cut her off.

“No more talk,” she said, hauling herself to her feet. “I meant it when I said I’m busy today. I’d prefer to get moving as soon as possible.”

“Oh,
Maris
! I wanted to share a cup with the two of you!” Olivia protested with a pout. “I feel so left out.”

Officer Dawson brushed past Olivia without a glance back, and Olivia’s pout intensified. “If you’d been here on time, I would have considered it.” The stout officer retrieved her wrap and swaddled herself, then turned back to Chris and Olivia with her lips folded in a line. “I’m serious. Get ready. We’re leaving.”

The three of them were soon settled into a taxicab, bouncing along Darrington’s cobbled streets. Chris stared listlessly out the window while Olivia slumped in the far seat, the least merry waggoner woman Chris had ever seen. Maris Dawson’s presence was authoritative and commanding, deterring any thought of idle conversation with an aura spread over the interior of the car. When the silence was broken, it was Officer Dawson who did the breaking.

“Suspects?” she asked. Or rather, ordered, for it was more command than suggestion.

Olivia perked up, sitting forward in her seat. “Duchess Evelyn val Daren,” she announced immediately, eagerly. “The Duke’s wife. Cold, arrogant, not in any real mourning, had reason enough to hate him, tampered with my crime scene, Miss Caldwell suspects her,
and
she’s hiding something.”

Officer Dawson raised an eyebrow. “Other suspects?” she asked mildly.

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Analaea val Daren, I suppose. The Duke’s daughter. Classic case of ‘Daddy didn’t love me,’ seems a bit volatile, her grief could easily be guilt, and I personally find it interesting she was squatting in that mysterious room when she knew there was a Deathsniffer in her house. Guarding it from me?”

She began counting the names she’d already listed on her fingers. There was an excited flush rising in her cheeks. “Vanessa Caldwell. The Duke’s current protégée. She’s a wild card in an unlikely suit. Like she said herself, at first glance, it doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? He was patronizing her art. He was her way out of a life she hates. So why kill him? But there’s so much we don’t know about her, and the whole situation rings suspicious to me. We’ll know more in an hour, hopefully!” Her eyes glittered.

Finally, she held up one more finger, and gave Chris a meaningful look. “Lastly, an anonymous enforcer.”

The officer raised her other eyebrow at long last. “Oh?”

“It’s all just a loose theory!” Olivia said. “And one suggested by my assistant, so it might not have much merit. But apparently, there’s some money problems in the Old Blood. Bad ones. The creditors are playing games with them, and since they deserve it, they’re following all the rules.” She smiled sweetly. “Now, if someone were to
break
the rules…maybe they’d need to be made an example of? So everyone else knows they have to be good?”

“I like that best,” Officer Dawson said thoughtfully. “Explains how he was laid out, and it seems tidier and more logical than one of the people he loved killing him.”

“Now, Maris,” Olivia chided playfully. “If nobody ever killed someone they loved, the second hell would be a lonely place, wouldn’t it? Sins of Passion don’t come about because the sinner
hates
the one he sticks the knife in.” She looked thoughtful. “And then butchers and strings up to the ceiling. I admit, that part is picking the back of my brain in a way that’s driving me just mad.”

“That’s what makes me think this isn’t a Sin of Passion,” the officer pressed. She looked considerably more alert than she had moments before. She made Chris think of a hound who’d caught a scent. He was reminded that, like all police officers, she was a truthsniffer herself. “Didn’t you say he was butchered and strung up
after
he died? That’s cold. That’s calculated. That’s not passion, and it’s not rage. That’s a Sin of Greed.”

“And he had his todger hanging out of his pants,” Olivia pointed out. “If
that’s
not passion, I don’t know what is.”

“Was he a heavyset man?”

“Average, I suppose. Why?”

Officer Dawson’s lips split into a smile. Her front teeth overlapped ever so slightly. “You list three feminine, frail beauties as your main suspects, but the Duke was strung from the rafters of his study. How did they get him up there? With their fragile, skinny arms?”

Olivia opened her mouth and then closed it. She pushed her nose up into the air. “I don’t feel it’s relevant.”

“You don’t get to―”

“I don’t
feel
it’s relevant, Maris.”

Officer Dawson went to reply, and then shrugged and leaned back against the seat. Her increased interest, however, did not go away. It was clear in the tension of her muscles, the set of her shoulders. “I’d like you to look more into it. The creditor theory.”

Olivia sighed. “
Yes
, ma’am,” she said placatingly. “I’m so grateful I have a generous supervisor to tell me how to do my job!”

Officer Dawson refused to be baited. She grunted and looked away. “You certainly need her to tell you how to do your paperwork.”

Olivia fixed Chris with a long-suffering look, tipping her head meaningfully towards her supervisor and rolling her eyes. Chris cleared his throat, coughed, and turned to the window. He intended to stay neutral in this war.

He saw they were already nearing the little hospital where Vanessa Caldwell worked. He squared his shoulders, steeling himself for the sterilized, white walls. Before long, they all jolted as the cab slowed to a halt. The doorman opened the door, and they all filed out.

Chris trailed dutifully behind Officer Dawson and Olivia, holding his notebook open in front of him in case anything needed to be recorded. The same girl at the same desk looked into the same, half-empty book and, once again, directed them to where they might find Vanessa Caldwell. This time, she didn’t ask for their categorization cards. Chris wondered if that was because she remembered them, or whether Officer Dawson’s sharp police uniform superseded procedure.

They found Miss Caldwell changing the starched white linens on the beds in an empty room. She was so intent on her work—and humming quietly to herself—she didn’t notice their entrance until Olivia raised her voice, smug as anything. “I brought the police to make you talk, just like you asked,” she sang cheerily. “Are you going to waste less of my time, today?”

“Too much to hope you might have just arrested the Duchess by now,” Miss Caldwell said, continuing her work. Her raven-black hair was pulled back in a smart but stylish knot, leaving little strands to fall around her face, and her uniform was as immaculately white as ever.

“I did warn you we’d―” Olivia began, but Officer Dawson cut her off without grace or so much as an apologetic glance.

“There’s no evidence to convict Duchess val Daren in this murder,” she said. The authority in her voice snapped through the air like a whip, and Chris watched every muscle in Miss Caldwell’s body suddenly go rigid. Her hands stilled. “In fact, there’s precious little evidence at
all
, something you have not helped in your refusal to assist an authorized investigative truthsniffer. Well, no more. Olivia Faraday has questions for you, Miss Caldwell, and I expect to see you answer them honestly and respectfully. Is that clear?”

Miss Caldwell’s flat, disdainful eyes had gone round with surprise, and her lips had parted into a small
o
. She stared at them, and then she shook herself and nodded feebly. “Y-yes, Officer.”

“Good,” Maris Dawson stated evenly. “Is there a cafeteria where we can sit down and talk?”

Miss Caldwell looked around the empty white room and its empty white beds. “I’m supposed to have all of these changed,” she said meekly. Chris could barely glimpse the face of the haughty young poet.