LEO

26

WHILE HETTY COULD SEE a number of connections coming out of the revelation that the deaths were staged as a message for them, she found fault with the crux of Benjy’s argument.

“You told me earlier going to Olmstead was a waste of time,” Hetty said as they approached the old boardinghouse. “This is a greater one. Six weeks have passed. We don’t know if Raimond was seen by anyone other than his murderer, and even if that isn’t true, people might not want to talk to us.”

“I was wrong about Olmstead,” Benjy countered. “And people will answer our questions.”

“You don’t sound confident,” Hetty accused.

Her husband tapped his fingers against Raimond’s journal. “Well, I’d probably have more luck without you with me.”

Hetty fixed a rather stern glare at him that remained even when he hastily moved to correct himself. But before he could formulate an apology, a voice called out to them:

“I thought for a moment I was seeing ghosts! But here you are!” The careworn but friendly face of their old neighbor appeared behind them. Willa was in her maid’s uniform, though it hung looser off her frame than it had when Hetty had seen her last, and there were dark circles under her eyes. But she was not faking her pleasure at seeing them. “What are you two doing back here?”

“Why else? Murder,” Hetty said.

“No one’s died recently.”

“No, this was several weeks ago,” Hetty clarified.

“An older man who might have come here looking for us,” Benjy added.

“Who didn’t know you moved!” Willa added slyly. “I think I know who you’re talking about. A few people come looking for you every so often, but they usually scuttle off when someone pokes out their head and looks at them funny. But this man, he asked for you by name.”

“Did you see him or hear about him?” Hetty asked. Of her old neighbors, Hetty trusted Willa the most to tell them the straight truth, but she still needed specifics. The difference in hearing gossip and seeing things with your eyes could alter a case drastically.

“I spoke to him,” Willa said. “My baby was fussy, so I took her out so the older ones could do their schoolwork in peace. When I came back in, I saw the old man. He was knocking on your door, getting no answer. Then he saw me and asked about you. I told him you moved, but I didn’t say where. I might have. He was a nice-looking old man. Worried, of course, but polite enough to me when we talked. Even when I pretended to not know where you’d moved to.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Hetty asked.

Willa shifted a bit, screwing up her face as she thought back to the day. “Well. There was this other man in the hall. Younger and lingering at the other end. I didn’t know him. Wasn’t anybody new in the building. The last people who moved in were the folks that got your old room. And this man, he didn’t have a good look to him. He was staring our way and pretending he wasn’t.”

“Maybe he was a friend of the old man,” Hetty suggested, just to see what Willa would say.

As Hetty hoped, Willa shook her head vigorously. “I doubt it. The old man left, and the other man didn’t.”

“He didn’t follow the old man?”

“I can’t remember exactly,” Willa said. “My little one was making a fuss then. But I know he left. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

“You’ve been more than helpful,” Hetty assured her.

“What did the man look like?” Benjy asked suddenly. “The one that was watching?”

“I​—” Willa started. She squinted, and a frown tugged on her features. “I don’t remember. I can see his face, but I can’t describe what it looks like!”

This was not the first time Hetty had heard this, and she glanced over at her husband, realizing right away why he’d asked this question.

The person who murdered Raimond Duval and quite likely his son was the same man who was selling stolen magical items!

Spells to hide a person’s face were so unusual that no other conclusion made sense.

Hetty excitedly explained all this to Benjy on the long walk back to Juniper Street. “It’s got to be the same person killed them both,” she said. “I know it!”

“You’re right.” Benjy nodded. “I just want to know why Nathan Payne killed the Duvals.”

“What!” Hetty’s voice echoed in the mostly empty street. A window opened above their heads, but she barely heard an annoyed grumble before the window shut again. Barely heard it because she was reeling from Benjy’s words. “What do you mean, Nathan Payne murdered them?” Hetty said in a measured whisper.

Her husband blinked, and then Benjy said the words she absolutely loathed to hear him utter: “Isn’t it obvious?”

“To you it is!”

He had the grace to look chagrined. For this was not the first time he’d leapt to a conclusion without even telling her the way to get there first.

“Nathan Payne,” Benjy said carefully, “is dealing with stolen magical objects, something we know for certain, between what you saw with Thomas the other night and what we found at that warehouse. He moves about in a few tunnels, gets the goods using people like Wise Sammy, and has the blessing of men like the alderman to sell his purloined goods. He uses a spell to make it hard for people to remember his face since his scar makes him so memorable.”

“Which is how you linked this all together.”

Benjy nodded. “This might be me forcing the connection, but the pieces fit well enough. Payne worked for One-Eyed Jack. And if he could work for a bounty hunter, it’s not a long road from there to becoming a hired killer.”

“I’m not going to say I dislike the idea,” Hetty said. “But it doesn’t change much. We still don’t know who orchestrated all of this. And our list of suspects isn’t very long. There’s Adelaide, who is suspicious-looking on the outside for small things but without true motivation. Then there’s Horace, who is after an inheritance and is easy to dislike because he’s so loathsome. After that, there are no real suspects, just profiles of them. Ambitious teachers like George who might bump off his betters for a spot. A rogue member of Beatty Hose striking out on his own. A person who might have had a personal grievance with the Duvals, for their past work in the Vigilance Society, their present work with magic rights, and their future work they might offer the city. Do any of them strike you as someone who’d hire someone else to kill for them? And to do it in vastly different ways?”

“Not different,” Benjy corrected softly. “The deaths weren’t different.”

“Raimond was found after a fire and Valentine in his bed.”

“The outcomes were different, but they were designed to be taken at face value. These weren’t hastily done crimes​—​they were meticulously planned. The work was just sloppy with Valentine.”

“How was it sloppy?”

“The timing,” Benjy said.

Which wasn’t much of an answer, but it was hardly a poor answer. But she would have to ask what he meant later, because Darlene stood on their front steps.

“Oh, there you are. I was just about to leave.” Darlene shifted her baby to her hip. “Is my mentor still a murder suspect? I can spy on her if you need me to.”

“No need. You’d be looking for proof of her innocence. Which isn’t helpful,” Benjy said.

Hetty hastily interrupted, “Have you come for a visit? How long have you been here?”

“Long enough. I wanted to talk to you about something. Although I suspect I might have to wait a bit, since I was the last to arrive.”

“Those are ominous words,” Benjy remarked dryly. “Who else is here?”

“Oliver and Thomas are in the cellar,” Darlene said. “Penelope is in the garden, and her cousins are in the study. They came in with boxes of books. I’d go talk to them first if I were you, because neither Sy nor Rosabelle was keen on telling me the truth.”

“Don’t know why, it’s just books,” Hetty said.

“Exactly,” Darlene said mysteriously as she went inside.