Harrison to see scales.
By the time he was sure he wasn’t going to slip, he felt the metal of a handcuff bite into his wrist.
“Griffen McCandles, you have the right to remain silent. Something you seem to be very good at, you little shit.”
“Detective.”
“Shut up! You held out on me. I thought we were square, McCandles. You seemed to get the rules. You do not jerk me around.”
Griffen let his other arm be pulled back, hands securely cuffed behind his back. He didn’t know if he could actually break a pair of handcuffs, but he was willing to give it a try.
“Not only do I find you know exactly what Slim has been involved in, because of you being the frickin’ ringleader here, but I hear you and he been going sideways at each other. And I have no less than three local street performers willing to witness that you were looking for him before he was killed. You know how badly you got to screw up in this town for people to talk to the
“I didn’t kill Slim,” Griffen said.
“You are the number-one suspect, and you are going in for obstruction and withholding. And I should break your teeth in. You are never getting another favor out of me or any of my boys, McCandles.”
“Why is this even your case? I thought you were vice.”
“I know the vic, I know the suspect, and it’s my beat. It may not be my case, but they will understand me wanting to get at you first.”
“With all the jurisdictional nonsense I hear in this town? I find that very hard to believe,” Griffen said.
Harrison grunted, and Griffen was hauled back again. A heavy hand pushed him down into a chair, which wrenched his wrists. Idly, Griffen wondered if a dragon claw could pick a lock, if he knew how to control his shape changing that well… or knew how to pick a lock.
Harrison moved into the chair at the opposite end of the table. There were no bright lights in Griffen’s eyes, no two-way mirror along one wall, but he knew an interrogation scene when he saw one. Except Harrison was definitely bad cop, with no good cop in sight.
“So maybe I called in a favor,” Harrison said. “Just so I could hear it from you, why you lied to me, or why you killed Slim.”
“I didn’t lie… I just decided to wait till a better opportunity to talk to you. And I didn’t—”
“Kill Slim,” Harrison interrupted. “Yeah, and you know, I almost believe that. So tell me, what is this collection of whack jobs you’ve got going on, and what’s your connection?”
“Honestly, I didn’t help organize it. I just got asked to come in as a neutral party. Kind of keep the peace. That’s the only reason me and Slim had a problem. He was causing a little trouble, and I had a word with him, it wasn’t any more than that.”
“Well, that can be an awful lot. And you didn’t tell me who these people are.”
Griffen looked at him levelly.
“You really don’t want to know, Detective. Trust me.”
Harrison looked back.
“The last thing I am going to do right now is trust you… but I might agree with you on that.”
Harrison stood and walked over to Griffen. A few moments later the handcuffs were back in his pocket.
“There is no evidence, no sign of you on the body. No murder weapon. And witnesses who talked to me… might not be so willing to talk to whoever gets the case. But, McCandles, this is your mess, and you got a group of people, suspects, who are skipping town in a couple of days.”
Harrison opened the door. The uniforms were gone. Griffen wondered if they had been there just for him.
“You have till the end of your little convention here to get me some answers I can use. Or I am dragging you, and every last one of them, in on whatever charges I can cook up. And then I find out… everything.”
The door closed behind him, and Griffen sat in the chair, rubbing his wrists and trying to figure out if he was more or less confused than he’d been earlier thas morning. A soft knock came from the door, which opened a crack. Jay poked his head in tentatively.
“We are ready to start the first meeting, if you are done with the room, Griffen,” he said.
“Sure, sure,” Griffen said absently.
“Are you busy, or will you be sitting in?” Jay asked.
“I, uh… I’ll sit in.”
Jay nodded approvingly. He opened the door fully and in walked several of the conclave members. Griffen barely paid attention as they all found their seats, clumped into their cliques and groups.
The changelings gathered close to him, and after a few more distracted seconds, Griffen realized they were looking at him. Especially Robin and Hobb, their eyes wide and eager.
“Yes?” Griffen asked.
“Well, uh, we wanted to know, since you are still leading the meetings,” Robin began, hesitantly.
“Are we still going to have our pre-Halloween ghost tour?” Hobb asked.
“Pleeeease,” several of the changelings said at once, eager as puppies.
Griffen found himself smiling.
It was all about priorities.
Forty-eight
No matter what type of tourist you are, the Quarter has something for you.
Beautiful scenery for the shutterbugs, endless stores of all ranges of quality for the shopaholics, bars and clubs for the party animals, exotic and local cuisine for the gourmands, museums and galleries for the hoi polloi. Even clowns making balloon animals for the children. Though if you really want to experience the Quarter, it’s always best to leave the kiddies at home.
For the most part Griffen had sampled all the various facets of the tourist-milking machine that is the French Quarter. He reveled in the low and the high. He even occasionally poked his head in the countless T-shirt shops to see if there was anything clever. Except for the tours. For all his months there, he hadn’t been on a single tour. It just wasn’t something that the locals tended to do, and it wasn’t something that had any particular draw for him.
That was before he found himself made a moderator. With everything that was going on at the conclave, Griffen felt driven to try to keep things together. He was holding the bag, but that didn’t mean he was going to choose the easy route and drop it.
One of the activities that had been planned was a group excursion with the Haunted History Tour. Again, Griffen knew very little about the tours themselves though he had seen them around. Groups of fifteen to thirty tourists would gather around a storyteller as he spoke of the Quarter’s sordid past. Most of it was made-up; if one listened to rumor, it was invented on the spot. A really bored tour guide could be the worst, or best, thing that a tourist might encounter.
One of Estella’s people had offered to give the tour, but Griffen politely declined. Not only did he want the conclave members to have a “normal” Quarter experience, he was hoping that most of them would keep their eccentricities in check with a normal tour guide.
Hoping, not expecting.
This was actually the most mingling he had seen among the various groups in the conclave. It was hard to form little cliques when you were all clustering around a single storyteller. Also, it was mostly followers, not leaders. Drake, Robin, and Hobb were there, but not Tink. Several of the voodoo practitioners had attended, but Estella was busy. Even Lowell was absent, though a few of his vampires lurked at the edges.
The garou were absent entirely, as were the higher shape-shifters. True to his word, Tail had invited the female shifter from the demonstration to dinner. Griffen had suggested the Desire Oyster Bar, and had a discreet word with Amos, one of the waiters there. He had convinced Amos not only to let him pick up the tab, but to be sure
