Chapter Fifteen
“I’m not going to let this go, Dunleavy,” Risa said just before taking another long swallow from her roofer’s black, a heavy dark beer that I thought tasted terrible. She’d brought it with her, and the windows in the room would all have to be left open for hours to get rid of the heavy yeasty odor. It was making me nauseous.
“Let what go?” I knew exactly what she was talking about. I wasn’t going to help her along.
“Costume,” she drawled.
I rolled my eyes.
“Dunleavy, I will nag at you and nag at you until you tell me,” she warned me.
Fine. “It really wasn’t that interesting, Risa. I danced the benches against spectators who paid for the privilege.” It was the truth, if not the whole truth.
“And the costume?” she prodded.
All right. Something less truthful than the short-skirted, midriff-baring embarrassment in scraps that I’d been forced to wear, but strange enough that Risa would believe I’d be made uncomfortable by it. “These strange trousers that came only to my knees. And a blouse that wasn’t too bad, except it was covered in all this golden glitter, and they put glitter in my hair and on my face.”
“Oh,” said Risa, and she sounded disappointed. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Really? I’d like to see her wearing something like that. “It was bad enough.”
“And you had me thinking there was something interesting going on.”
“Come now, Risa. When have you ever known me to be involved in anything interesting?”
And I knew right then that I’d overplayed my hand, because that was a stupid thing for me to say, and the look Risa gave me told me she thought the same.
“I’ll just get Shintaro alone and ask him,” she promised. Or threatened.
I shrugged as though I didn’t care. And I didn’t. While Taro was happy enough to tease me when he had an audience—and often when we didn’t—he knew how much I’d hated the whole Leavy the Flame Dancer experience, and I knew he wouldn’t betray me.
“You look like hell,” Risa said, because she could be ridiculously blunt if she wanted to be.
“Thank you so much,” I said without heat. I’d been hearing similar comments, though less blunt, so often that I couldn’t get angry at every one of them. I’d be exhausted. “Did I invite you over? I really can’t remember.”
I sipped on the revolting tea Ben had brewed for me. It tasted foul, but it did ease the ache in my head a little, which was the point of it.
“I came over to see why you’re begging off of drinks all the time. Can see for myself, now. What’s wrong with you?”
“Just tired and whatnot.”
She eased back on the chair. “Nothing catching, I hope?”
“No. It’s too much bile or something like that.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is? You look really bad.”
“The healer said it was nothing to worry about.” And I was beyond being bored with talking about my health.
“Where do you get your water?”
Wasn’t that a bizarre leap? And one I wasn’t able to follow. “What?”
“The water that’s used in this house. Where does it come from?”
“There’s a well out back.”
“Is it connected to one of the rivers?”
“Aren’t they all?”
“No, though a lot of them are.”
“Well, I have no idea. I’ve never thought about it.”
“They think that’s where the Riverfront Ravage is coming from. It’s something in the water. That’s why the illness is showing up in other parts of the city. Because their wells are fed by the rivers.”
“Holy hell.” That would be a nightmare. What would people do without water? “What’s wrong with the water?”
“They haven’t been able to figure that out yet.”
“Brilliant.”
“Is anyone else here ill?”
“I’m not ill,” I said. “I’m just tired. And I have too much bile. I think if I had the symptoms, the healer would have at least mentioned the riverfront illness.”
“You look really pale.”
“I’m always pale.”
“Really, you don’t look well.”
“Risa.” Her insistence on talking about it was making me think about it, and that just made me feel worse. “Leave it alone. Please.”
“All right, all right.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, I didn’t come to talk about any of that. We found out who killed that mayor.”
“Oh?” I didn’t really care. I was upset about the fact that he’d been murdered, but I didn’t really care about who’d done it. There was no reason for Risa to think I should know anything about it.
“It was one of his servants. A woman named Sara Copper.”
“I see.” Still had nothing to do with me.
“She’s your Ben’s daughter.”
That shocked the hell out of me. “Ben Veritas’s daughter?”
“Aye.”
“My gods. Does he know?” He hadn’t said anything while he wrapped my hand early this morning, and I hadn’t seen him since. If he did know, it would explain his absence today. Though none of his earlier absences. He’d been gone a lot recently.
“Probably not. She was arrested just this morning.”
Oh. “And you’re telling me first? Why?”
“She killed him,” Risa continued in a lowered voice, “so she could sell his ashes.”
“She killed him for his ashes?” I echoed dumbly. Yes, he’d been murdered. Yes, his ashes had been stolen. I hadn’t thought both crimes had been committed by the same person.
“Aye.”
“I thought they were digging the ashes out of groves.”
“Maybe they’re running out of likely sources in the ash groves,” said Risa. “Now that more and more people are doing it.”
“She didn’t want to wait for someone to die? She murdered him? That’s insane.”
“Murderers aren’t known for being rational.”
“I’d think that would depend on the murderer.” Was it possible? Were people really getting that crazy? Because this was a whole different issue. Digging up ashes, while disgusting and disrespectful, didn’t really hurt anyone.
But killing people. Killing people deemed to be particularly lucky. Just so their ashes could be consumed by or sold to de lusional layabouts who wanted spells to fix whatever they thought was wrong with their lives. “She said she killed him for his ashes?” Zaire, this was Ben’s daughter. Poor man.
“Zaire, no. She’s not admitting anything. But she was one of the servants who went missing from the mayor’s house.”
“That’s hardly conclusive evidence,” I objected. “There are all sorts of reasons why she would run. Fear of being blamed for his murder would be a big one.” I would do the same, in her shoes.
“There is more evidence than that. I can’t tell you what it is. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but I thought it was important you people knew the kind of man who’s living with you and working for you,” said Risa.
“What kind of man? You mean Ben?”
“Of course I mean Ben. His daughter is a murderer.”
“So? That doesn’t mean he’s a threat to us. It’s not like it’s the sort of thing that runs in a family.”
“You’d be amazed how much crime does run in the family, Dunleavy.”
That was, I thought, a horrible and dangerous assumption to make. “How old is this woman?”
“Twenty-five or so.”
“Was she raised by Ben?”
Risa shrugged.
“He lives here. He’s worked for the Triple S for years. Decades, maybe.” I realized, to my shame, that I didn’t know for sure. “I’m pretty sure if his daughter is into this sort of thing, it’s off her own bat.”
“Oh, she did it all right.”
“You can’t know that unless she confessed.”
“No, there will have to be a trial. But she did it. There’s no doubt. And after she’s convicted, she’ll get as many lashes as the charges demand. If she survives that, she’ll be hanged.” I grimaced. “She’s a murderer, Dunleavy. Don’t waste your sympathies on her.”
“It’s barbaric,” I insisted. “And it says something about us, all of us, that we’ll inflict that kind of pain on her before killing her. And that there are those of us who’ll enjoy watching it.”
“Not you, of course,” Risa sniffed. “You’re above that sort of thing.”
Well, yes. Did that make me arrogant? “It is not to my taste.” And I didn’t understand how it could be to anyone else’s. “So you are here to tell Ben about his daughter?”
“No, that’s not my place.”
It wasn’t her place to tell me, either. “Who will tell him?”
“Some member of the family, I guess.”
Wonderful. I knew something that was none of my business, and no one was going to tell Ben? That wasn’t right. “I’m out of tea,” I said, carefully rising to my feet. “Please excuse me while I get some more.” I walked from the room before she could utter more than a couple of words in objection. But Ben wasn’t in the kitchen, or in the hall, and I didn’t want to alert Risa to the fact that I was looking for him by calling out for him.
And perhaps it wasn’t kind to spring Ben on Risa and force her to tell him what she’d told me. Who was I to tell her what to do? Damn it. I filled my cup from the pot of tea brewing on the stove, wrinkling my nose at the strong smell and returning to the parlor.
“What was that about?” Risa demanded.
“I just felt a little unwell,” I lied. “The tea really helps.”
“Ah,” said the Runner, swirling her ale in her mug. “You don’t need to be delicate about such things around me.”
I did when I was lying. “Wait a moment,” I said as a few things clicked together in a mind that had apparently gone to sleep at some time. “You think she killed him to get his ashes?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And the ashes need to come from someone lucky.”
“Apparently.”
Damn it to hell. Why was it that every time there were weird killers about, the characteristics of the potential victims matched Taro? It was getting ridiculous.
And Taro didn’t know. He was out with friends, doing who knew what. One woman had killed a man for his ashes, and had gotten caught, but if one person would try something like that, someone else was sure to try it, too. People were stupid like that.
My stomach clenched with dread and sharp panic. I had to find him and tell him. I didn’t know where he was, damn it.
“What’s wrong now?” Risa asked.
Damn it, why was my face so easy to read now? “Nothing,” I said. “Just worried about Taro.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why?”
“It’s what I do.” I didn’t want to tell her why. She would tell me I was overreacting, which would be annoying, or she would agree I had something to worry about, which I really didn’t need to hear.
I wasn’t much of a hostess after that. I became increasingly worried about Taro. Because what if the mayor had been murdered because he was lucky and they wanted his ashes, but Ben’s daughter wasn’t the actual murderer? There might be some homicidal idiot wandering about, cocky because he or she had gotten away with murder.
And the people Taro banged around with, crowds of people. He probably didn’t know them all well. He probably wouldn’t notice or care if someone new joined the throng. Someone who could lure him away to somewhere more remote. He wouldn’t know enough to beware of strangers.
Risa finally, finally left. I was tired and nauseous, but my growing panic gave me the fortitude necessary to leave the residence. I had to find Taro.