“That sounds like… your job.” I couldn’t exactly judge. I had been in a job I hated before. But I needed to get this kind of information.
“I mean, it was, but it was also super boring. The money here is decent, but that’s about it.”
“So why do it?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said about the money being decent?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I also heard that Rudoldir was pretty hard on you, and that you seemed to resent him for it.”
“Sure. I got my work done, and then I did other stuff. But he was old school. He thought that I should be working on going above and beyond. He kept talking about how my father was one of the best lawyers he knew and how he would be disappointed to hear how his son was wasting his life away playing around on this newfangled technology. Blah, blah, blah. Real old elf stuff. But I didn’t really care. Not really. He could say what he wanted, but I got my work done, so there was no way he’d be able to fire me.”
“I don’t know, I think if my boss was on my case all the time like that, I’d be pretty pissed,” I replied. “You’re sure you didn’t get mad at him?”
“Ok, maybe from time to time, sure. But you can’t seriously think I would kill him. He was just my boss. Who kills their boss?”
“The phrase ‘going postal’ from the human world comes from just that,” I replied.
“Well, I didn’t do that. Seriously, do I seem like the kind of elf who would murder another elf just for being on my case? I’m way to apathetic for that, and besides, I’m a pacifist.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Are you really?”
“Yeah, of course. If I had a problem with Rudoldir, I’d just quit. Do you know how many companies are out there looking for elves of my skill level? Lots. The guy was on my case all the time, but I mean, I’ve spent my whole life with my father being on my case for not working hard enough, too. If I was going to kill anyone, it would be him. And you can go talk to him; he’s alive and well.”
I had to admit, Jundordir really didn’t strike me as a killer. The entire time we were talking, his voice didn’t rise by a single decibel. He didn’t seem to care about Rudoldir one way or another.
“Then if you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“My money’s on that vampire who came in all pissed off about the liquor license.”
“Andrei?”
“That’s him,” Jundordir said, nodding. “He came in for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been here a lot since. Always yelling. First it was about how our laws are racist against vampires. Which, to be fair, I actually think he has a point about. If he wants to run a restaurant during the day, who cares if he wants to serve some wine? If he gets super plastered every day, he’ll probably lose his business anyway. Then it was about how he doesn’t want to have to bring in another paranormal as a partner. Frankly, I don’t think anyone is going to want to be a partner with that guy. He’s hard work.”
“Did you ever hear him make any threats?”
“Sure. Lots of them. I never took any of them seriously since he just seemed to be blowing off steam, but now that Rudoldir is dead, I have to say I’d take a really close look at that vampire if I were looking for suspects.”
“Anyone else? How about Vernon Montgomery?”
“Oh, him,” Jundordir said with a wry smile. “Now there’s a piece of work. He knows how to work within the laws; he just doesn’t like to do it. If I were you, I’d avoid buying anywhere developed by him. He’s the kind of guy who likes to cut corners everywhere he can if he can get away with it. And if he’s doing that with his permits, my bet is he’s doing it in other parts of his business, too. I don’t think Vernon would have killed Rudoldir. He was mad about his plan to convert the abandoned factory at the end of town into condos being initially denied, but he knows the drill. He knows he has to make sure everything is in perfect order before Rudoldir will approve it, and he knew that he wasn’t there with his last submission. So yeah, he yelled at Rudoldir for a while in his office, but we all knew he was going to go away, actually do his application properly, and that the next time it would be approved.”
“Right,” I said. “So you don’t think he was the one who killed him.”
“Nah, he wouldn’t have the balls to do it, even if he wanted to. Vernon is like a little, yappy dog. He likes to scream and yell at everyone, but when it comes down to it, he runs away with his tail between his legs. Fjordir told me the story when I first started working here of the first time Vernon had a run-in with Rudoldir. He was trying to get a permit for a different development, and I guess he thought he could get away with being lazy about the requirements because Rudoldir was new to the job. Anyway, Vernon started yelling at Rudoldir and pulled out his wand to threaten him when Rudoldir denied the application. Rudoldir got so mad he grabbed the wand out of Vernon’s grasp, snapped it in half, and then told Vernon that if he ever threatened him again, Rudoldir would personally rip every organ out of his body and donate it to the hospital. Vernon ran out of the room with a face so white he looked like a vampire.” Jundordir grinned, the first time I’d seen anything remotely resembling a smile on his face. “I wish I had been here to see
