Solitary Page 3
CHAPTER 3
In spite of his reaction to Amanda's joke, Shim had to admit that maybe he was starting to feel the weight of his accumulating years. Or that he hadn't yet fully recovered from the meeting with Wilton Grange's undead, that aside from putting him in an awful situation had forced him to use very drastic methods to get rid of them.
The second option was the most likely, actually. At one hundred and three years, he was a bit more than a kid for his people. Quite too early to start feeling the problems of the third age. Unless all the humans he had to deal with every day had started to transmit to him by osmosis some of their humanity, just like they had done for the taste for coffee. In truth, that dark and bitter drink disgusted him a little, yet he couldn't do without drinking it, especially when, just like now, his eyelids where struggling to stay up.
While going toward the coffee-maker he met Celendlinis Delmenar, the head of the first homicide squad. The elf didn't even look at him and walked by, head high, pretending not to see him at all, even though it was more than obvious that he had seen him quite well.
Shim ignored him.
The relationship between them had become even harsher further to his return to work. Although Shim usually did his best to keep a polite attitude toward his colleague, as hard as it was for anyone who didn't have the patience of a god, when he had returned to the precinct and had been informed of the news, he hadn't been able to persist in that behavior.
Celen had spent the previous week boasting about how he had dispatched the undead responsible of a massacre at the precinct – killing the coroner, doctor Crew, first, followed by twelve officers, before anyone could stop him. The truth was quite different. The elf had only had the remarkable timing of hitting the creature with a spell in the very moment it had ceased living by its own accord – if his could be called life anyway – due to the death of his creator. Actually there was no way for him, or even for Shim, to be aware of this detail. It hadn't been the statement in itself indeed – after all it could even have been made in good faith – to upset the dwarf. Quite simply, he couldn't really understand how Celen could rejoice for having killed the undead when he knew all too well that there would have been no need to kill him if the corpse had been moved – as per his explicit request – to the morgue of his department. No undead could have come to life in there.
As long as the rumors about the braggart attitude of the elf had only reached him trough other people, Shim had done his best to just ignore them, as difficult as it was.
When, however, he had accidentally seen him telling the great story of how he had defeated the killer monster single-handedly, he'd been no longer able to resist and he had spat on his face what he thought of all that, recalling the thirteen dead people that should have been on the elf's conscience.
That could have ended there, if the elf hadn't replied that he had had nothing to do with the missing transfer, and that probably Crew was to blame for delaying it. Then Shim, who had no need to know how things had gone to be absolutely sure of that, had climbed on top of a desk and knocked him out with a straight punch of which a boxing champion would have been proud, soliciting the applauses of the beholders.
From then on, or better from the moment he had come back to his senses, the elf had no longer spoken to him, leaving him to wonder why – considering the result – he hadn't punched him much earlier.
Celen went on his path, steadily intentioned not to have that meeting ruin his day.
Apparently he didn't think that having to survey the scene of a homicide was enough in itself to ruin a day. After all, that was his job.
A short time later he was on the roof of the building, where some officers had been waiting for him, ready to leave on board of their carpets. The elf sat on one of the vehicles and said they could leave.
It didn’t take them long to reach an elegant villa in the suburbs, in the eastern part of the city. The whole area had already been enclosed by the patrol who had answered the first call, so to prevent any stranger to walk in.
The carpets landed directly within the perimeter. Celen left his vehicle and moved swiftly toward the corpse, lying face down on the entry alleyway, not far from the gate facing the street. The body was that of a woman, slender and fair-skinned. Her long blond hair covered it like some kind of transparent shroud. The clothes she wore where much too thin for the season, and on her left foot she had a simple, heelless sandal. The one she used to have on her right was nearby, probably slipped away while she was falling.
An unnaturally pale bloodstain spread around her head like a halo, flooding the cracks between the stones paving the alleyway. The elf examined it with live interest.
Right then, one of the two officers who had already started to inspect the scene approached him with a small purse in his hands, probably belonging to the victim. He fished out of it a small rectangle of some rigid stuff and gave it to the elf, who examined if, frowning for a while. That explained the color of the blood, but in turn it made a whole new series of questions arise.
«Odd,» he murmured, rather to himself than for the benefit of the others, «a fairy with an identification card.»
«Evidently she had obtained citizenship», one of the agents replied, kneeling over the body. Fortunately for him, Celen was deep in his thoughts and didn't stress out how useless and obvious that unasked for information was.
The fact that a fairy, or any other creature coming from Faerie actually, asked for citizenship in any place of the prime plane was quite rare. Usually those beings were less than inclined to conform to laws that weren't theirs, as well as to mingle with mortals, if not at their own conditions, mostly inexplicable to anyone else. As far as he was concerned, Celen had never seen anyone belonging to the fairy Kingdom sporting a valid identification card.
«I thought fairies were immortal», added the same officer, challenging his luck and losing miserably.
The elf answered him with such an acrid tone that his words could have dissolved the corpse, not even leaving the bones. «They are», he hissed. «They can't die of old age, or illness. Violent death is a different thing. I thought you learned such things at academy.»
The agent seemed to become suddenly much smaller.
«No... I...» For a second he was about to tell him that maybe courses of that kind where planned for lab technicians, and that he didn't belong to the crime scene investigation unit, being just a simple patrol agent. That, however, should have already been clear by his uniform, and pointing it out would probably make the elf even sourer.
The elf solved his problem by starting to ignore his very existence completely and moving to one of the small columns the gate was hinged to.
«There's blood on this», he remarked.
One of the officers who had come there with him immediately moved closer to examine the area he was looking at. A pinkish stain, the same color as the blood on the stones, could be seen in the inner corner of the column.
«Probably she hit her head on the corner, here», he said, pointing a finger at the column, careful not to touch it. «The impact could have been enough to kill her.»
«No, you idiot», Celen replied, huffing. The officer turned to him a perplexed look.
«She must have hit this», the elf added, pointing at the metal ornament on the top of the column, more or less at the height of his head. It was an elaborated decoration shaped like something halfway between a pineapple and a pine cone. There weren't any visible traces on it, even though it would have probably been hard to see that clear fluid on its dark surface without any aid.
Judging by the reaction of his subordinate, Celen concluded he hadn't understood a thing, and didn't restrain from telling him.
«It's iron!» he shrieked, almost hysterically «A fairy doesn't die for hitting her head on a stone, it's not that simple. Cold iron is extremely dangerous for them. She must have hit this, then the blood flowed down the stone.»
He turned again his attention to the document.
«She didn'
t live here. Whose is this villa?»
The first officer was quick to answer, glad that the conversation had turned back on a subject he knew some more about.
«It's doctor Grace Elmond's», he replied, then hurriedly added. «The surgeon.»
Celen knew the name, but not the person. He had never met her. Till then.
«Is there anyone home?»
«No, no one.»
«Then find this Grace Elmond and bring her to the precinct for questioning. Any witness?»
«None. The area is quite secluded, the ideal place for people who want some degree of privacy. Between each villa and the others there is...» he was about to say there was a lot of free space, but the left eyebrow of the elf arching made him desist, before he could strike him just for having said something he was able to see by himself. He immediately changed subject. «We tried to question the neighbors but there is no one home at this time of the day. The person who informed us of the body did not leave any name.»
«Detective,» the officer who was still looking into the bag of the victim cut in, «I think you might be interested in this.»
He handed him a small sheaf of papers. They were creased, and it was obvious from the folds they sported that they had been folded in three, maybe to put them into an envelope that wasn't there.
The elf took it and carefully read the first page. An expression of live interest appeared on his face.
«Good. Very good. I'm going back to the precinct. You finish the examination of the scene and have the body brought away as soon as possible.»
As soon as Celen walked away, the remaining policemen sighed in relief.
The patrol officer waited for a while before speaking, unsure whether it was the case to. Finally he couldn't restrain himself any longer and asked: «Is he always like that?»
The other officers exchanged a look. «Even worse, at times», the one holding the bag said.
«No, no, sometimes he is not worse. All the rest of the time he is», the one who had been called an idiot for his remark about the column, and who was now examining that very place, specified.
«Anyway, there is no blood on this thing», he remarked.
«It doesn't matter», the patrol officer replied without having been asked.
«What does it mean it doesn't matter?» asked the first, surprised.
«Your chief said a fairy does not die simply for banging her head. Whatever he meant, I guess she didn't die just because she fell and hit that.»
«He also said that iron...» started the first, beginning to think that, maybe, the elf hadn't been too wrong treating his colleague like he had.
«Yes, I heard what he said. But that's not iron, that's bronze.»