I smiled politely. “If anyone has any questions, they know where to find me.”
“Yes, sir.” He stepped away.
I kept walking.
It wasn’t hard to find Lacques, a thin blond man with short curly beard and a receding hairline. Not only was he one of the few chalkers around in late morning, but he had just finished signing a long mural on the stone in front of a boarded-up building a half block off the Plaza. He saw the uniform and stiffened.
“I wouldn’t run, Lacques. I’m also an imager. Besides, I only want to ask you a few questions.
His eyes took in the imager emblem on my cap and the pin on my grays. He didn’t relax, much as he slouched as I walked toward him. I looked over the chalk drawing of an abandoned building, with a figure peering over broken and uneven stones. The figure had a face that was split into two sides. One side showed a cherubic blond young man with an innocent blue eye and a happy half-smile framed with pinkish lips. The other side of the face depicted an angular and hard-eyed young woman with high cheekbones and a deep-set eye with a black iris. Her hair was swept back and curled over a bare shoulder, her mouth outlined in slashing red. It wasn’t bad.
“Did you ever study with a Guild artist?”
“Those pretenders?”
“Hand me the red and the pink chalks,” I said.
He frowned.
“I’ll give them back.”
After a moment, he handed them over.
It took me longer than I’d thought it would, but when I finished, the female half-face of the figure held a rose, with its green stem caught by white teeth, a single drop of blood seeming to hang in mid-air above the uncovered shoulder. I handed back the green chalk. “I think that fits in with what you had in mind.”
He looked at the rose and then at me.
“Some of the Guild artists aren’t pretenders.” I couldn’t deny that there were some, like Aurelean, who had aspects of pretenders, because Aurelean was a competent artist who pretended he was great.
“You…oh…you’re the one.”
I didn’t bother to ask for a clarification. We both knew what he meant.
“I understand you were a very good friend of Kearyk. Why did he drown?”
“He didn’t drown. I walked all the way down to Patrol headquarters. I told them he was drowned.” Lacques’s voice turned bitter. “They didn’t listen.”
“Do you remember who didn’t listen?”
“It was a patroller. He said his name was Merolyn.”
Merolyn was Cydarth’s assistant. “What else did he say?”
“He said he appreciated my concern, but the body showed no signs of anything but drowning. There were no wounds, no bruises.” Lacques shook his head. “There wouldn’t be. Kearyk was terrified of water. He wouldn’t even walk on the river side of the promenade. All anyone had to do was carry him to a bridge or somewhere on the river where the water was deep, and he would have drowned.”
“What else did the patroller say?”
“He started asking about why I was interested. I knew what he had in mind. If I pressed, he’d drag me in, say we had a lover’s quarrel.”
“Did you?”
Lacques shook his head. His eyes were bright. “Kearyk was supposed to meet me for dinner at Felter’s. He never showed. I never saw him again.”
“Did he ever mention that he had any troubles at the banque?”
The chalker tilted his head, and his brow furrowed. “No…well…not exactly. He did say something about the director badgering him about a ledger page missing from his desk, but it was a blank page. It bothered him. Little details, those bothered him. Fire could be raining down from Erion, and he’d be worried about whether he’d capped his inkwell tightly enough.”
At that moment, I wished I’d actually insisted on looking at the altered page that Tolsynn had mentioned. I’d have wagered that the entire page had been forged, probably carefully and over time. “Did he mention anything else?”
“No. I don’t remember anything. I just remembered that because it was so odd. A blank ledger page. Who would even care?” He shook his head again.
As with the Rykkers, I went back over everything and added questions. After half a glass, I hadn’t learned anything else.
As I walked away from Lacques, I was debating whether to get something to eat at a bistro near the Plaza because I’d sampled all of those in easy walking distance in my own district. At that moment, a hack pulled up, across the square, and a figure in the bluish grays of a patroller stepped out. He hadn’t taken three steps before I recognized Bolyet. So I just waited for him.
The Fifth District captain grinned as he walked up. “Morrsyn sent word that you were headed toward the Plaza D’Nord. I thought it might be a good idea to see what you were following. Do you care to tell me?” His tone was easy.
“You got word about the explosion at the Banque D’Excelsis in District Three, the one just off the Midroad?”
“You’re following up?”
“We got a tip that one of the clerks might be involved. The only problem is that he drowned before the explosion. I was talking to his family and friends…”
Bolyet nodded. “You’ll keep me informed?”
“Of course, but I have to say it’s not looking very promising.”
“You do have a way of making the unpromising promising, Rhenn.”
I shrugged. “I’m just telling you. I will let you know if something turns up.” I paused. “Have you heard anything about Cydarth pushing to become Commander?”
Bolyet laughed, sarcastically. “He’s never said anything to me, but it’s no secret that’s what he wants. He’s mentioned it to some of the lieutenants, including Yerkes. Yerkes doesn’t think I know that. Alsoran mentioned it to me, just before he left to come back to Third District. Good man, Alsoran.”
“I know. I was fortunate to get him.”
“No…Cydarth let you have him because he didn’t understand how solid Alsoran is. He thought that Alsoran would be in effective because he doesn’t speak unless he has something to say.” After a moment, he asked, “Anything I should know?”
“You might watch out for elveweed among the wealthier students at Jainsyn’s.”
“That’s in Third District.”
“It is, but half the students come from Fifth District,” I pointed out. “I thought you might like to know, given the subcommander’s directives.”
“What about things I can do something about, Rhenn?”
I had to think for a moment. “Well…that’s a problem. There’s someone running around setting explosions, but I don’t know who or why, except that whoever it is happens to be an expert. There’s the stronger elveweed, but I only know it has to be grown under glass or in the south of Solidar, and I have no leads on who’s behind that.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what else.”
“What about the banque case?”
“Explosion, but no one stole anything. The only tip we got was that a drowned clerk had embezzled funds. The records show he did.”
“That stinks worse than a week-old mackerel in midsummer.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Someone thinks he was framed,” Bolyet said.
“I suspect they do, and what exactly can I do, except watch and try to run down leads?”
He shook his head. “As if we didn’t have enough else to do.”
I decided against eating in Fifth District and caught a hack back to Third District station. On the way back, my thoughts went back to the picture Lacques had drawn. The side that had been a young man resembled the miniature I’d seen of Kearyk, but the other side suggested something very different. Yet…even with that insight, I
