“Don’t we have—I don’t know—a witch doctor or something?” I asked.
Allorah looked pissed. She stormed off with her arms widespread, showing off the expanse of her extensive open office space. “Do you see what I’m working with here? High school classroom leftovers. . . I’m pretty resourceful, but I’m quite a bit short of being a medical MacGyver.”
Jane sat up, pulling her tank top back into place. “So, what do you suggest we do?” she asked. “I’m beginning to think I was safer when I was still temping for cultists.”
Allorah sighed. “For starters,” she said, “you can go home and relax.”
“That’s it?” I asked, exploding.
Allorah remained calm and cool. “That’s it.”
I looked at her in frustration, then walked off across the open loft toward her office area. “You’re as useful as going to the school nurse.”
“Simon,” Allorah said in a sharp tone. “Please understand. Jane’s been marked. Of that, there’s no doubt. The real question is: for what reason? She’s not in pain or visibly hurt. Until Jane exhibits some kind of symptom because of it—and she may not—there’s very little we can do.”
“Shouldn’t I be quarantined or something?” Jane asked, hopping down from the table. “I could barely pull myself out of the shower last night.”
Allorah smiled. “Maybe you just like showers,” she said. “There are some mornings I can’t get out of them, either. For now, you’re fine. I’ll research this. There’s no sign of anything wrong with you, other than the mark. Nothing viral, no wounds or sores . . .”
“I feel sore,” Jane said.
“You and me both,” I added.
Allorah put both her hands to her ears, covering them. “I don’t need to hear about your sexual exploits, I assure you.”
“It’s nothing like that,” I said, shaking my head at her. “We both just took a pretty brutal beating at the hand of that aqua-woman.”
“Hold on,” Allorah said, running over to her desk. She shuffled through several of the folders on it until she pulled one to the top, flipping through it. “Argyle told me about this. This is the same woman you dove off the roof after, yes? The one that tried to drown you?”
“One and the same,” I said.
“And you’re telling me you saw her again?” she asked. She flipped through the folder, and then stopped. “I don’t seem to have a report on that.”
“It just happened last night,” I said. “I haven’t had time to file anything yet. There were fire hydrants going off at us left and right using some form of water manipulation. I think it’s safe to assume she’s the one who drowned Mason Redfield from the inside out.”
Allorah closed the folder and came back over to the lab area. “Do you have a sample?”
I was about to say no, and then remembered my jacket, which was still damp. I went over to where it was hanging on the back of one of the chairs across the lab. It weighed a ton still. In my haste to get Jane to the Department for an exam early this morning, I hadn’t even thought to grab something dry.
I walked over to one of the lab tables covered with supplies and grabbed an empty glass container off of it. I lifted my coat up over it and twisted it until water trickled out of it.
Allorah set to work with different pieces of her chemistry set. “This is a pure sample?” she asked.
“Mostly,” I said. “We were fighting in the rain, after all.”
Allorah continued working in silence for several more minutes like Dr. Frankenstein in his secret lab, running tests and recording results. She was at one of her microscopes when she stood up from it and frowned.
“And you were where again?” she asked.
“Outside the high-rise where we found the professor,” I said, “way over on the East Side by the river.”
“Odd,” she said.
“What is?” Jane asked from the chair she had settled into.
“The water from all those exploding hydrants is still city water. It’s all processed and therefore should be drinkable. In theory, anyway.”
“So?” I asked. “It was raining. We weren’t all that thirsty.”
“That’s the thing,” Allorah said, pointing at the glass slide on the microscope. “You couldn’t have drunk this sample if you wanted to.”
Jane stood and wrapped her arms around my left one. “Why not?”
Allorah tapped at the slide. “Because this sample that this water woman attacked you with? It’s salt water. Seawater. . . as in, from the ocean.”
“But we weren’t even near seawater,” I said.
Allorah cocked her head, and then looked off toward a refrigerated glass case farther along the lab setup. “Hold on a second.” She walked over to the case and searched through it, pulling out three or four other slides. She slid one of them under the microscope.
“What are those?” Jane asked.
“The other water samples,” Allorah said. “These are all from what we found when they emptied the professor’s lungs. He was also drowned with seawater, so there’s confirmation of your killer.”
“I’m not sure what that means for the case,” Jane said.
“I am,” I said. “It means we need to expand our search area for this woman. The closest ocean water is much farther downtown, where the East River meets up with New York Harbor.” I was already heading for the door out of Allorah Daniels’s office. “Time to see the Inspectre for a boat.”
13
I nearly wept in thanks for the sturdiness of the railing leading up the stairs to the Inspectre’s office. Without it, I doubt I would have made it past step one. The burn in my legs from chasing the green woman was less than last night, but stairs were a whole different torture device after all that running. By the time I reached the top step and turned right heading for the Inspectre’s office, I had a nice, slow mummy shuffle going on.
The sounds of struggle came from behind the Inspectre’s office door. I went for my bat and pushed the door open only to find Argyle Quimbley all by himself. To my surprise he wasn’t in one of his usual hundred tweed coats today, nor was he sitting at his desk. The Inspectre was in jeans and a black turtleneck, his broken sword from the cane in hand as he advanced back and forth across his office floor. His face was red with the effort, but he swung the sword with slow, practiced patterns. Impressive as the moves were overall, I had the feeling that I could have easily dodged them had they been aimed at me. Regardless, I hoped that I had half the skill he showed at his age. I watched in silence for several minutes more until he ended his practice with one final enveloping flourish in the air. He still hadn’t noticed me standing at the door.
“Is it Casual Friday already?” I asked.
The Inspectre started, fumbling the sword cane. It spun out of control in his hand, but he had the quick thinking to pull back from it rather than grab for it, probably saving a few fingers. The blade clattered to the floor, taking a chip out of his desk with its broken tip on the way down. The Inspectre bent down and picked it up, then stood up slowly, his breath coming in short, winded gasps.
“Inspectre?” I said, stepping to him, arms ready to catch him if he fell.
Argyle Quimbley waved me away with his free hand. “It’s nothing, my boy, I assure you. Merely an old man feeling the full effects of his years.”
I nodded silently. I couldn’t argue with him. My psychometry had shown me what he was like in his prime, and he was far past those days.
“I’m dressed down today because I have the sneaking suspicion I’ll be back in the field soon enough the way the budget seems to be dwindling,” he said. “I still haven’t read through all the cuts yet. Thought I’d brush up on some of my old moves, but I fear my hinges need oiling before this Tin Man goes active again.”
“Not bad form, though,” I said, hoping to give some encouragement.
The Inspectre gave me a polite smile before walking back to his desk, where he grabbed up the empty cane and slid the broken sword back into it. “Thank you for humoring me,” he said, “but it’s not necessary.” He moved behind his desk and put the sword cane back up on the top shelf with care. “I trust you didn’t come here to watch me spar with shadows. Any developments on what happened to Mason?”