Silence. He’d been working at the Bristol station under Hargreaves for only a couple of weeks, but he’d already learned to be wary of that weighty silence.
“There’s something damn strange about the CIU team from Putney jumping on this case when it should be outside their jurisdiction,” Hargreaves finally said. “So I want someone in the village who reports to me and can handle the day-to-day business during this investigation, and I’ve decided that someone is going to be you.” After a moment, he added, “We need to be careful. Can’t afford to step on any toes. Town boys don’t always appreciate that when they come into a small place like Sproing.”
In other words, despite all the evidence over the past year of how the terra indigene respond to things they don’t like, the CIU team might want to treat this investigation as if they were dealing strictly with other humans.
So there he was, the temporary officer in charge of the police station in Sproing while the Putney CIU team looked into the suspicious death of Franklin Cartwright—if the business cards he’d found near the body actually belonged to the victim.
Captain Hargreaves had told him the station would be unlocked, and if it wasn’t, he should check with the mayor or with the tenants who had offices on the second floor. The door was unlocked, so Grimshaw went inside to look around, glad he didn’t have to talk to anyone yet. Finding a set of keys in the middle drawer of one of the desks, he pocketed them, assuming they had been left for him. He also assumed the landlord—or the holding company that owned the building—had a set for the station as well as the two offices on the second floor. One office was rented by the village’s lone attorney. The other? Hargreaves didn’t have information on the other tenant.
Two desks, one on either side of the room. Two chairs to go with the desks and a visitors’ chair in front of each. Gun cabinet empty of firearms. A cell in the back part of the building—more accurately, a room with a single bed and a rickety bedside table, bars on the window, and a barred cell door. Storage room for supplies and a wall of filing cabinets that actually had files, although nothing current. A bathroom that included a shower cubicle. A small kitchen area that contained an old refrigerator that still worked and a new coffeemaker.
If push came to shove, he could bunk at the station until he found temporary lodgings.
Grimshaw ran a finger over the desks and was surprised that he didn’t swipe away more than a thin layer of dust—nothing more than what you’d expect just before the weekly cleaning. So the grungy feel was more from age and dingy walls, not a current lack of upkeep.
He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
Having seen his new headquarters, he stepped outside. The village hall, which housed the courtroom as well as the offices for all the municipal services, was on one side of the station. The lone bank was on the other side.
Directly across the street from the police station was a store called Lettuce Reed.
“By all the laughing gods,” Grimshaw muttered as he crossed the street. Was it some kind of produce market? Or something more esoteric and borderline legal?
As his foot hit the sidewalk and he saw the sign in the window announcing a sale on used books, it hit him. Lettuce Reed. Let Us Read.
“Cute.” He hated cute and was already predisposed to dislike the froufrou owner of the place.
The wooden door stood wide open. Grimshaw opened the screen door and went in. As his eyes adjusted to the darker interior, he had the unsettling experience of recognizing the man standing behind the information island in the front part of the store.
“Hello, Julian,” Grimshaw said.
“Hello, Wayne. If you got pulled into this business with the dead body, then I’m sorry for you.”
A decade ago, they had been cadets together at one of the Northeast Region’s police academies and had remained friends until Julian disappeared a few years after graduation. But it had only been because of the events of the past year—events that had rocked the whole continent of Thaisia—that Grimshaw had pieced together enough information to make some educated guesses about Julian Farrow.
Julian had been a brilliant cadet. While he didn’t excel to the point of ruining the curve for the rest of them when it came to some of the tests, he had an uncanny ability to sense his surroundings and know when something was off, even when there was no indication of trouble.
During the academy drills, he knew when police needed to go down an alley with weapons drawn and when their mere presence would break up—or calm down—whatever trouble was stirring. Once he was on the force, that ability had saved his fellow officers too many times to count. Which was why the Incident was more damning than it might have been.
Julian had uncovered some bit of naughtiness—probably some kind of corruption within official or police circles. The kind of naughtiness that destroyed careers and came with prison sentences. But no one was really sure, because one night when he was on the late shift and his partner had called in sick, Julian responded to a call for assistance. When he arrived, he didn’t find the frightened woman who had called the emergency number; he’d found five men wearing balaclavas waiting for him. Wielding clubs and knives, they jumped him before he could draw his weapon and fire.
Or tried to jump him. He hadn’t walked far enough into that alley for them to make a thorough job of it. Two of them managed to stab him and a couple more landed damaging blows with clubs before Julian shook free and ran for his life.
Maybe he’d been disoriented. Or maybe his uncanny sense of place, which seemed to have let him down in that alley, started working for him again. How else to explain why he turned down another alley, one that ended at a solid wall. He’d scrambled up on the big garbage containers and managed to get over the wall before he blacked out, having lost a lot of blood.
That was the testimony he gave: he blacked out and couldn’t provide any information about what walked into that alley behind the five men who were chasing him. But something did. Something large enough and powerful enough to eviscerate five men before ripping off their arms, their legs, and their heads. The savagery had shocked the entire police force in the Northeast Region, to say nothing of causing a panic among the citizens in human towns who had thought they were safe from the terra indigene as long as they stayed within town limits.
No one could prove Julian hadn’t blacked out, that he hadn’t heard everything that happened to those men. No one could prove he’d chosen that alley with the intention of trapping those men. No one could prove he was anything but the victim of attempted murder—or assault at the very least if the men were only supposed to “discourage” him from further investigations into the naughtiness.
No one could prove anything. But everyone on the force who had gone to the academy with him or had worked with him knew about his ability and were certain he hadn’t chosen that alley at random, that he’d known in some way that it was his only chance of escape.
And no one could prove that he’d sensed what would happen to the men who followed him into that alley. But two of those men were fellow officers, which caused a stink and all kinds of investigations. In the end, Julian was awarded a settlement for his wounds, which were declared grievous enough to end his career as a police officer, and he disappeared.
Until now.
Grimshaw looked around. Didn’t seem to be a thriving business, but that could just be the time of day. “A bookstore?”