Goblin Precinct (Dragon Precinct) (4 page)

“No wonder they’ve gone to shit.”

At that, Torin and Danthres both laughed. The former said, “We’ll send some guards over for the body forthwith.”

“Suit yourselves—I got me more people to burn up, eh?”

“Better you than me,” Danthres said emphatically. “C’mon, Torin, let’s go so I can breathe through my nose again.”

THREE

“YOU’RE KIDDING ME, YOU FOUND A BOAT?”

“Maybe,” Hawk said cautiously at his partner’s query. “See, this is why I wasn’t gonna be tellin’ you. You’re always jumpin’ the gun on me, gettin’ all excited when it ain’t so yet.”

Dru rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Hawk, you been talkin’ about getting a boat when you hit your twenty-five. You’re sayin’ you found one you can afford
now
?”

Hawk repeated, “Maybe. He said he could be givin’ it to me for two hundred gold, which is way less than what I thought I’d be payin’, and he’ll take half now and the rest next year.”

Now Dru had a faraway look, and Hawk could almost see his cynicism kicking back in. “There’s gotta be somethin’ wrong with the boat.”

“That’s what I was thinkin’, too, but I looked it over five times—even paid off that friend’a Horran’s down in the docks to check it out, and he said it was ship-shape.”

As they turned the corner onto Frannik’s Lane toward the main branch of the Cliff’s End Bank, Dru asked, “You trust Horran’s friend?”

“After payin’ him three gold? Yeah, I trust him.”

Dru winced. “That’s overpayin’, ain’t it?”

“I wanted an honest assessment, and the guy I’m buyin’ from wouldn’t be payin’ more than that in a counterbribe.”

Nodding, Dru said, “Yeah, you’re probably right. So, you gonna do it?”

Hawk sighed. “Still not sure. I mean, what’s Dad gonna do?”

“Seriously?
That’s
your worry? Hawk, your Dad—”

Whatever Dru was going to say about Hawk’s Dad was lost to the very tall, very thin man in the tailored suit who met them in the middle of Frannik’s Lane in front of the bank.

He had his hands together, fingers interlaced, over his heart as he asked, “Oh, please, for Ghandurha’s sake, tell me you’re here to investigate the robbery, yes?”

“Yes, sir, we are. I’m Lieutenant Dru, this is my partner, Lieutenant Hawk.”

“I’m Than Martel, the manager of this branch. I’m so very glad to see you—this is such a disaster, especially with Mr. Grovis about to be on the rolls! Please, for Ghandurha’s sake, tell me you’ve investigated robberies before, yes?”

“Of course we have, sir.” Hawk was surprised he was so outraged at the question. It wasn’t like he wasn’t asked it every single time he and Dru showed up at a scene. He wondered if Torin and Danthres got the question, too. (Grovis and Iaian probably did, but he’d expect people to be unsure of the pair of
them
on sight.)

Dru added, “I’m sorry, Mr. Martel, but did you say that Harcort Grovis is gonna be made a member of the court?”

“Yes, he told us all last week. Why?” Martel had a very mouse-like face for a man so tall, and now his cheeks were twitching.

“No reason,” Dru said, though Hawk assumed his partner was thinking the same thing he was: why hadn’t Grovis mentioned that Daddy was being made into Sir Harcort? It was unlike their fish-faced partner to miss a chance to gloat about his family.

Martel clapped his hands once for no obvious reason. “Now, then, I suppose you’ll need us to clear the bank. Er, where is your magickal examiner?”

Hawk exchanged glances with Dru. “I’m truly sorry, Mr. Martel,” Hawk said, “but our M.E. isn’t available. Don’t be worryin’, though, he’ll be back soon, and he can cast the peel-back then. Meantime, we need to be havin’ a look ’round.”

“I’m sorry, but—well, please, for Ghandurha’s sake, tell me what
you’re
doing here?”

Angrily, Dru said, “Hey, look, we don’t just go where the M.E. points and arrest somebody. The peel-back isn’t completely conclusive every time, and sometimes all it tells us is what the perp looks like, not where he is or who he is or anything like that. We still need to do
our
jobs—the M.E. just helps. So if you’d be so kind as to show us into the bank and tell us what happened, we’d be grateful.”

“Yes, but—well, you two shouldn’t even be the ones handling this case. I mean—well, please, for Ghandurha’s sake, tell me that the only reason why Lieutenant Grovis isn’t here is because he’s on another case.”

Without thinking, Hawk said, “Why would we want
him
here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Martel was now staring with his long face twisted into an expression of shock and disgust. “He
knows
this bank—his father
owns
it, after all. Shouldn’t
he
be the one to investigate?”

“Trust me,” Hawk muttered, “whatever he knows about the bank is more than made up for by what he don’t know about policework.”

Martel frowned and moved closer. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Hawk was about to repeat his insult louder when Dru interrupted. “What my partner means is that Lieutenant Grovis is our least experienced detective. Yes, he knows the bank, but he doesn’t have as many years in the job as Lieutenant Hawk and I do.”

With a very long sigh, Martel said, “Very well, please do come inside.”

The main branch of the Cliff’s End Bank was a two-story structure, with the second level being a balcony that ran around the entire edge of the building, still allowing those on the first floor to look up at the ceiling, which was decorated in what was once probably a lovely painting, but which now looked like muddy colors all running together.

Hawk had never been inside the bank before—he preferred to keep his money somewhere safe, like under his bunk—but he figured there were usually more people wandering the marble floor. The teller stations were empty, and only a few people were on the main floor, and most of them were guards assigned to Dragon Precinct.

Simon, one of the latter, approached. Frannik’s Lane was located on the border between Dragon and Unicorn, and Hawk grumbled at Simon’s presence at the bank.

“Toldja Dragon’d take the call.” Dru was gloating. “You owe me a copper.”

“Gimme a break—I got a boat to save up for.”

“’Course they came to us,” Simon said with a smile. “Youth squad hates goin’ to Unicorn. They’re shit tippers up there.”

“Which is what I told you,” Dru said. “So what do we got?”

“Some guys came in and robbed the bank. They had swords and daggers. That’s all I know—I saved ’em all for you two.”

“How many guys?” Hawk asked.

“No, seriously,” Simon said, “that’s all I know.”

Dru frowned. “So, what, you don’t know how many there were?”

“Anywhere between two and fifteen, depending on who you ask.”

Hawk sighed. “That’s just great.”

“S’okay, Boneen’ll come by and do the peel-back, right?”

While Dru shook his head, Hawk answered. “Boneen’s off on some brotherhood thing. We’re stuck with what these upstandin’ citizens be seein’.”

Simon winced. “Yeah, good luck with that.” He pointed at the back area of the bank, and Hawk noticed that there were about two dozen people of various races seated there. None of them looked particularly happy, least of all the four humans wearing suits very similar to that of Martel. Hawk figured them to be the other bank workers.

Hawk looked around and saw two small offices. “What’re those?”

“Manager’s office,” Simon said, “and assistant manager’s office.”

“Good—we’ll be usin’ those. I’ll take the manager.”

Dru folded his arms. “Why do you get the manager’s office?”

Shrugging, Hawk said, “What difference does it make?”

“Fine, then let me have the manager’s office.”

“No.”

Dru grinned. “What difference does it make?”

“Because I called it, and because you’re bein’ all childish.” Refusing to even continue this conversation, Hawk turned to Simon. “Send us each one at a time. We’ll be takin’ their statements.”

“Have fun.”

Hawk snorted a chuckle and went into the manager’s office. Martel certainly worked in comfort: he had a leather chair and a wooden desk that was well polished. A lot better than the pitted monstrosity he had to sit behind in the castle.

Simon sent in the first witness, an elderly elf.

“Well, you see, I’m afraid my eyesight isn’t very good, and I’m afraid I didn’t see much, but I can tell you that there were three of them and they had longswords—big ones, very sharp. Couldn’t see their faces, though—probably magic. Maybe they were wizards?”

Next was a young human woman.

“I saw
everything
! There were five of them, and they had these
really
shitty short swords, I mean they couldn’t cut
shit
. And they came in, and they had really cheap-shit glamours. I can tell you they were all human, and wouldn’t no good glamour allow you to tell
that
.”

Then there was the middle-aged dwarf.

“Only saw some of what was goin’ on, but I can tell you this much—there was definitely four of ’em. Had some kind of maces or some such, all three of ’em did, and you couldn’t see none of their faces. All five of ’em had masks or some such.”

Hawk was about ready to yank all his dreadlocks out by the time he got to the fourth person, a human male.

“Of course I saw what happened. I mean, I know for sure that there were six of them—probably. And they were almost definitely armed. And I’m pretty sure they were elves. I mean, yeah, they had glamours, but I know an elf when I see one.”

Hawk saw a few more people before he finally leapt from the oh-so-comfortable leather chair and leaned into the assistant manager’s office, where Dru was talking to an elderly human woman.

“Why yes,” the woman was saying, “I do believe that they were gnomes. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Although I think the sixth one was an elf.”

“Thanks, ma’am, you can go.” Then Dru looked up at Hawk. “You need something?”

“To be talkin’ to you for a sec.”

“Sure.”

The woman walked out of the office and Hawk walked in.

“Whaddaya think?” Dru asked.

“I think we need to be gettin’ Boneen’s bony ass in here.”

“Yeah.” Dru shook his head. “How many people you got?”

“Three to six.”

“Oh, I got up to fifteen—and one guy who says the bank wasn’t robbed. He was my favorite.”

“Great.” Hawk motioned for his partner to get up. “C’mon, let’s get Martel to inventory what was stolen and see what we can do about gettin’ the peel-back as soon as possible.”

“Sure.” Dru grinned. “But you still owe me a copper.”

FOUR

TORIN AND DANTHRES RETURNED TO THE CASTLE AND IMMEDIATELY sent two guards to the shop to bring Elthor’s body. They then retired to the squadroom, each of them sitting at their desk until the guards returned.

Fanthral stayed with them in the squadroom, to Torin’s annoyance. He was concerned that the elf was going to dog their every step during the investigation. The erstwhile general was now standing near the pegboard, arms folded over his chest.

Torin couldn’t even hope that Fanthral would be distracted by someone else, as the three of them were alone in the squadroom. Osric wasn’t in his office, Dru and Hawk were on the bank robbery case, and Iaian and Grovis weren’t at their desks, either.

“Where will the body be stored once those guards bring him back?” Fanthral asked.

“That’s actually a good question,” Danthres said, sounding surprised to be saying such a thing about Fanthral. “Without Boneen to put the bodies in stasis . . .”

Torin frowned. That was a problem, as Boneen’s magic was all that kept the corpses from decaying prematurely.

Sergeant Jonas picked that moment to zip in, his green cloak billowing behind him as he placed parchments on both Iaian’s and Grovis’s desks. “Not to worry—Dru and Hawk had a similar issue during the Corvin case. Boneen set up a sprite to take care of that until he got back.”

“Oh. Joy.” Danthres let out a sigh as Jonas dashed back out of the room. “Bad enough we’ll have to deal with that damned gryphon, now we get one of his sprites on top of it?”

Fanthral folded his arms and then smiled. “You object to sprites, do you, halfbreed?”

“I object to magic,” Danthres said pointedly. “It never fails to give me a headache, and always has since I first left home.”

Blinking, Fanthral parroted Danthres’s words. “‘Left home’? You were not born in Cliff’s End?”

Raising an eyebrow, Danthres said, “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I wasn’t.”