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Lila shook hands with Shaw and cut her chin toward the bacon. “You promised, Father.”
“I promised no sausage.”
“I can’t be assed this morning. Ignore your doctors’ orders, stuff your face, and have a heart attack for all I care.” She turned her attention to Chief Shaw. “I saw something very interesting on my way in. Mr. Muller and Mr. Davies, both wearing blackcoats.”
“The lawyers got involved, chief, and the Parks and Weberlys have better ones than we do. The men have been disciplined. We’ll weed them out after they mess up again. I’m giving them plenty of rope to hang themselves.”
“Before they hang someone else?”
“We’re watching. Bullstow doesn’t exile lightly.”
Lila piled two small pancakes onto her plate, pancakes she had no desire to eat.
“By the way, excellent work last night,” Shaw said, his gaze traveling to her jaw. “Oskar Kruger would have been killed if you hadn’t taken out that gunman.”
Lila poured a tiny amount of maple syrup on her pancakes, stopping as the sweet smell hit her nose. She placed the jar back on the table, far away from her place.
Her father clapped her on the back, glowing proudly, a smile lighting up his face. “That’s my daughter. She was the only one in the whole ballroom who saw him.”
“It wasn’t like the room was full of blackcoats, Father.”
“Yes, but the LeBeau militia let him in. Even my security didn’t notice him when they took a turn around the ballroom.”
“He might not have been inside at the time. Have you learned anything about him?”
“Nothing much,” Chief Shaw answered, chewing on a piece of bacon. “His name was Hans Schulte. He was a merchant from Burgundy. Southeastern Burgundy.”
“A German sympathizer?”
“One better, actually. He moved from Germany to Burgundy as a teen. The fool left behind a wife and two kids on this little crusade.”
“So he was a loyalist living in Burgundy? A sleeper for the crown?”
Her father nodded. “That’s our guess.”
Lila sipped her wine. “I suspect he’s not the only one on Saxon soil. Just the first.”
“Bullstow is on it. We’ve stepped up security,” Shaw assured her. “By the way, you were right about the suppressers and the poison. He didn’t want a tranq to slow him down, nor did he want to get caught and interrogated. He entered LeBeau’s ready to die.”
“That’s comforting.”
Shaw steepled his fingers. “There was another incident last night.”
“Was there?”
“Yes. Someone broke into one of the holding cells in LeBeau’s and tried to free Oskar before he hit the stage. This person took out the entire security system and put it on a loop, covering their activities. They cut some cameras completely. We have little usable footage for the evening, including the ballroom.”
Lila breathed a sigh of relief.
No one would spot her on tape, whispering to the void.
“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Shaw asked.
“So Mr. Schulte tried to bust Oskar out first?” Lila asked, schooling her face. “That changes things.”
“I doubt he was involved. I think someone else interrupted his first plan, which is why he killed the Burgundy proxy and took his clothes. He needed a way into the ballroom.”
“Mr. Schulte didn’t come to the auction with a backup plan? That’s sloppy. It’s not like a Roman, either.”
