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Another constable barred the way.
“I’m here to see the body,” I said. “Constable Russo has given permission.”
“You’re the lord’s private investigator?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Don’t touch anything, though, eh?”
“Of course. And the body is… where?” I asked but already knew.
“The dining room.”
Of course it was. Where I’d left him. Very much alive but screaming, with a clockwork beetle burrowing into his neck. The same beetle that had crawled out of Jacapo’s mouth. Was the beetle somehow responsible for both deaths? Had I delivered the means to his end?
Another constable let me into the dining room and paid me no mind as I approached the scene startlingly like the one I’d left behind the night before. Except, Rochefort lay sprawled on the floor, deceased. His shirt was untucked, and his trouser fly gaped, exposing the man’s flaccid cock for all the world to see. A knife jutted from his chest, at the center of a bloody bloom—straight to the heart. But none of that was the most shocking thing about his death.
Where there should have been a cut across his cheek, no such wound existed. But I knew I’d cut him. I’d seen it happen, seen the knife slice open his skin. I’d washed the blood from my face.
“Some might say this is the way of the world righting itself, if you take my meaning,” Russo said, entering the room behind me.
“I’m sorry. I don’t take your meaning.”
“He was known to be something of a… rake. I’m not suggesting that warrants a knife to the heart, but sometimes justice finds its own way.”
“That sounds a lot like you’re condoning murder in certain circumstances, Constable.”
“Just because I work for the law don’t mean I can’t see where those laws fall short.” Russo studied the dead man at our feet. “Was likely one of the maids. If not them directly, then a father’s retribution.”
The maids… One had walked me to the dining room. She’d remember me, and she’d also remember I’d eaten at this very table. If she’d listened in, which staff often did, she’d have heard my altercation with Rochefort. She’d know I didn’t kill him. “I wonder, has anyone questioned the staff?”
“Nobody saw anything. They never do.”
That was a relief. Finding the actual killer would free me of any wrongdoing, but my questions could also unearth evidence against me. Perhaps it was better to remain distant, in this case. Russo’s assumptions, although premature, were sound. Rochefort had been walking on glass for a long time.
“You won’t be investigating this one?” Russo asked me.
“As you say, my contract in Minerva ends with him.”
I’d seen enough. My stomach had begun to churn. I needed air, a blue sky, and freedom. I needed out of this nightmare. “I’ll leave this in your more than capable hands, Constable. Would you mind asking the valet to deliver my things to the inn?”
“Aye, Val. I will. Sorry we didn’t meet again under better circumstances.”
We shook hands again, and I turned away, fighting to keep my heartbeat from filling my head.
“You want to be careful with the toymaker’s boy,” Russo called. “A cog short of a clock that one, if you catch my meaning.”
I hesitated, torn between fleeing the room a second time and telling the constable that Devere Barella was nothing like the villain the town painted him to be—that I’d painted him to be in the past. But with my thoughts already reeling, I couldn’t engage. “Yes, I am aware. Thank you.”
I hurried from the house, down the steps, and ducked behind the carriage Devere leaned against. On the carriage’s far side, hidden from view, I doubled over and heaved the sparse contents of my stomach into the bushes.
After my body stopped trying to repel the horrors in my head, I slumped against the carriage door, wiping my mouth. “This godforsaken town.”
The carriage rocked, and the opposite door clunked shut.
“I still have errands,” Devere said from inside. “And I’ve paid for half this carriage, so if you don’t mind, let’s hurry along.”
At least he hadn’t seen me vomit into the undergrowth. I cleared my throat, breathed deeply to calm my head and heart, and finally opened the carriage door, hopefully giving the impression I was no more moved by the lord’s murder than any respectable citizen of Minerva would be.
