“Are you asking my opinion?”
“Well, I think they could be more connected with the old cases, not sure. There’s some fanciful stories, of course.”
“A great giant taking children?” Minox asked.
Recognition flashed over Mirrell’s face. “Yeah.”
So there was something connected. “I’ll look it over, see what I can determine.”
“Good,” Mirrell said. “And if you figure something out, I’ll send Kellman and Tricky out to run it down.”
Minox scoffed reflexively at that. Of course, he would be asked to do the deduction work, even stuck in here. Others would actually be in the field.
“Sorry,” Mirrell said. “I know you and Tricky are still at odds. Just let me know what you find.”
“Always,” Minox said, taking the files to the archivist desk he had claimed.
Mirrell believed that Minox and Inspector Rainey were at odds. That was their current subterfuge, a ruse for them to privately investigate the corruption in the Constabulary and the city, by giving the appearance of division.
Unfortunately, over the past nineteen days, that investigation hadn’t progressed much. Minox had largely been sorting through files, earmarking the ones that could apply to such corruption, or to cases he had considered unresolved. Inspector Rainey had had her own problems to deal with.
Satrine Rainey was an Inspector Second Class, and she shouldn’t have to deal with an altercation in a corner grocer like she was a fresh-from-cadethood footpatrol officer. Of course, she never had been a cadet or served as footpatrol, having started her Constabulary career late in life as an inspector, so perhaps this was some act of balance. A test the saints or sinners were putting on her to teach her humility.
Satrine was not interested in having divine humility thrust upon her.
She ran to the corner of Jent and Tannen on the summons of a winded and terrified page. He had found her all the way in Hashrow, on the north side of the city, where she and Inspector Kellman had been working another crime scene that was beneath their skills. Old man, killed in an alley over the coins in his pocket. The only reason why they had been called out at all was because the man had been a retired inspector, but there was no reason to believe there was a case there.
This was an emergency that had required her, so she had whistle-galloped back to Inemar, until her horse had given out on her at Promenade. She had run the rest of the way while Kellman dealt with the exhausted horses.
She got to the grocer shop, finding a small crowd formed around the place. They gave a wide berth to the door and the patrolmen.
“What do we have?” Satrine asked the two patrol officers who were outside the grocer, both of them with their crossbows up and their fingers on the trigger. “And put those down.”
“But—”
“You’re likely to fire by accident and hurt a bystander,” she said.
They lowered their weapons. “Fight broke out between the proprietor and a customer. We think they’re both armed. Another customer had run out and called us, and when we tried to come in, the customer shouted they’d shoot anyone but you.”
“Any stick besides the ‘dirty spec Tricky Rainey,’” the other officer said. “Not my words, ma’am.”
“Not the worst I’ve been called this month,” Satrine said. “So the proprietor and the customer are in there? No one else?”
“As far as we know,” one said.
“All right,” Satrine said, pulling out her crossbow. “Call for a Yellowshield. Someone will probably need them in a minute.”
She checked her crossbow—loaded with a blunt-tip. She might need to incapacitate someone, but she didn’t want to go further than that.
“This is Inspector Rainey!” she called out. “Coming in!”
“Trini, you tell this rutting posk to get off my neck!”
“This old lady—”
The proprietor and the customer were both on the floor in the back, like they had wrestled each other into a lock and now had blades at each other’s throats. Satrine was tempted to let them finish the job, but that wouldn’t be fair to the grocer.
“Mom, drop the damned knife.”
“He tried to kill me!”
“She tried to rob my store!”
“Those rutting kids were—”
“Mother!” Satrine shouted. “Drop the knife or by every saint I will shoot you with this crossbow and iron you and drag you down to the stationhouse. Are you going to make me do that?”
Her mother let go of the knife.
“Sir, now disentangle yourself from her and step away.”
The grocer pulled himself off of Satrine’s mother and scurried behind his counter. “You take her out of here.”
“I will,” Satrine said. “Get up, Mother.”
Berana Hace, once Berana Carthas, got to her feet, looking like she wanted to slap Satrine. She was gray and drawn, but still looked like she could scrap like she used to. Satrine was perfectly eager to give her a scrap right back, but her mother didn’t start anything this time.
“What did you take?”
“Nothing! It was those kids!”
“You told them to take it,” the grocer said.
“I did not,” she said. “Like I’d bother.”
“What does she owe you?” Satrine asked.
“Twelve ticks,” he said.
“Pay the man, Mother.”
“I ain’t got that.”
“What happened to the money I gave you?”
“Spent it.”
Satrine sighed. She had gotten a raise with the promotion to Inspector Second Class, and with her mother released from Quarrygate around the same time, brand-new expenses.
“I don’t even—” Satrine pulled three five-tick coins out of her pocket and put them on the counter. “Keep the change and keep this to yourself.”
“She can’t come in here anymore,” the grocer said.
Satrine grabbed her mother by the arm and dragged her out.
“We done?” one of the patrolmen asked.
“Handled,” Satrine said. “Back on your beat.”
The patrolmen, thankfully, didn’t argue.
“And you,” she said to her mother. “You go back to Phillen’s apartment and you stay there.”
“I’m not doing what you tell me—”
“You stay there, or I will iron you up and drag you in,” Satrine said. “I’ll come by day after
