Hell's Maw. James Axler
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tilted his head to show he was uncertain. “When Shizuka and I arrived the place was full of hanging bodies—I didn’t imagine that, right?”
Corcel nodded. “Go on.”
“I guess there were twenty-two, twenty-four people hanging from the ceiling in nooses,” Grant recalled. “Didn’t know why.”
“So you confirm you were at the scene prior to our engagement?” Corcel checked.
“Yeah. I saw someone I thought was suspicious—three people, all together—and so I followed them while trusting Shizuka to look after the—I dunno what you call them—victims, maybe?”
Corcel looked intrigued. “When you say you saw someone you thought was suspicious, what happened then?”
“I followed them through the service door and out into the back streets,” Grant said, “but they threw something at me—the sharp disc-thing you saw—and escaped before I could catch up to them.”
“I see,” Corcel said, “and could you describe these people?”
Grant nodded. “Yeah, I got a good look at them and I have a good memory for faces, clothes.”
“But you yourself had nothing to do with the bodies you saw?”
“No, sir,” Grant confirmed.
Corcel watched Grant for a few seconds, searching for the truth among his words. Then Grant spoke up.
“You’ve had your chance,” Grant said, “so let me now start answering the questions you should have asked, and we’ll see if we can get somewhere on this—”
Pretor Corcel’s eyebrows rose with surprise.
“Number one,” Grant began, “I’m an ex-Magistrate—what you’d call a Pretor. So I’m one of you.”
“An ex-Magistrate…?” Corcel asked, placing emphasis on the first word.
“Cobaltville Mag Division, but I left,” Grant elaborated. “Little disagreement, but not to do with the law.”
Corcel gestured for him to explain.
“Turns out my boss was a snake—literally—so I found myself in an untenable position,” Grant explained. “Me and Shizuka came here for a vacation—she’s an important muckety-muck in New Edo, and I’ve got my own thing I wanted to get away from. My guess is that we should have been at that ballroom when all the hangings happened, but we were running late—ate later than we planned, didn’t leave the restaurant until almost ten.”
Pretor Corcel’s eyes lit up at this. “Which restaurant was this?” he asked. “Do you think the staff there could confirm you were there when you said you were?”
“I’d hope so,” Grant said. “Guy like me kind of stands out in your city.” So did Shizuka, from what he could tell, Grant mentally added, recalling that he had seen no other people here of Asian descent.
Corcel nodded slowly, pondering the information that the hulking man had given him. It could be true, although it didn’t confirm that the man calling himself Grant was not also the killer. He would need to take this one step at a time.
“So that’s why I followed them,” Grant finished. “Old instincts getting me involved when I didn’t have an invite.”
“I’ll look into your story,” Corcel told Grant, rising from his seat. “You’re going to have to sit tight until then.”
Grant nodded. Despite his frustration he could understand things from this local Magistrate’s point of view. “Just tell me something,” he said as Corcel strode across the room to the door. “Is Shizuka all right?”
Corcel stared at Grant, the professional hardness in his eyes softening for a moment. “She’s a little shook up, but otherwise she seems to be fine. We have her here right now.”
For questioning, Grant guessed. “Just make sure she’s okay for me, all right?” he asked.
Corcel nodded. “I’ll do that.”
* * *
SHIZUKA, MEANWHILE, WAS in a room two flights above from where Grant was being held. She had been checked over by one of the Pretors’ medical staff and now she sat with Pretor Cáscara on a comfortable couch, discussing what had happened in the hotel ballroom.
There was not much that Shizuka could say that she had not already told Cáscara, but she sketched out a rough timescale of the events and outlined the state of the room when they had entered and how she and Grant had discovered the bodies.
“You’ve had a traumatic few hours,” Cáscara said sympathetically. “The clinician here wants to keep an eye on you, to make sure you don’t go into shock. Do you think that would be okay?”
“I should speak to Grant,” Shizuka said.
“I’ll tell him you’re here,” Cáscara assured her. “He’s fine.”
Shizuka eyed the female Pretor warily. “Can I see him?” she asked.
“Soon, yes,” Cáscara promised.
“When?”
“Soon.”
Cáscara left Shizuka then, and the samurai woman was escorted to a safe room—a cell by another name. The room was comfortable and low-lit with white walls and a vase of flowers and a jug of water on a nightstand beside the single bed. It looked like a private hospital room. Shizuka was too tired to argue, but she remained alert for a long time, pacing the room and wondering about Grant.
In the corridor outside the room, Pretor Corcel met with his partner, Cáscara, to share information as they watched Shizuka pace back and forth through a one-way pane of glass.
“My guy says he’s innocent,” Corcel said in Spanish.
“That’s always the first defense, Juan,” Cáscara said dismissively.
“But there’s more to it than that,” Corcel continued. “He says he’s—get this—an ex-Magistrate, US. He’s retired from service, he’s not shy about explaining that, and he happened to be out here on vacation.”
Pretor Cáscara pushed one slender hand through the long bangs of her fringe. “So he’s one of us. Do you believe him?”
Corcel looked thoughtful. “It’s certainly an unusual tactic if he is lying,” he concluded. “What about the woman, Liana? What does she say?”
Cáscara peered through the one-way glass before replying, watching as Shizuka tidied her hair in the mirror that lay on the obverse side of the glass. “She says she’s the leader of the Tigers of Heaven from New Edo,” she said.
Corcel let out a grim sigh. “Their stories match. Did she give you anything else?”
“The name of a restaurant she and the boyfriend were attending when the crime was committed,” Cáscara stated.
“Yeah, I got that, too.”
“What do you think? Are they for real?”
Corcel shrugged. “The man—Grant—is certainly built. And if his story is true, then he’s been trained to kill. He could be our killer—he’s physically capable.”
“But why come back to the scene?” Cáscara wondered.
“To remove evidence maybe,” Corcel proposed. “Something he left behind. Or…”
Cáscara raised a querulous eyebrow as her partner left the sentence unfinished. “Or…?” she prompted.
“Or maybe they really did just bungle into this mess, in which case we’re no closer than we were before to finding out who’s committing these showpiece murders and how, Liana,” Corcel said grimly. “Except that my suspect claims he saw the killers—or,