Chapter XXXVII:
An Awful Predicament

PRADA HEELS MAY turn many a head, but they are sheer hell for running. A constable stopped me before I could exit the park.

“What happened back there, missus?”

“A man attacked me. I defended myself and escaped.”

“He’s dead, you know.”

“Is he? Oh, my!” Of course I knew he was dead; it seemed best to play dumb.

“Your name, missus?”

I felt more than a trifle taken aback that the constable did not recognize me, and so I did not answer right away. The constable was not pleased to repeat the query.

“Morganna Hanks, owner of the Knights.”

“Right. Prove it. Show me your ID, please.”

I could not, I realized with mounting dread. “I—may we go back? I must have dropped my purse in the scuffle.”

The officer agreed, but even with the aid of her LED torch, my purse remained out of sight. It must have gotten kicked into the pond—or else it was trapped under Ewan, in which case it would not be recovered until the forensic team had had their way with the body and any items recovered with it. Said team was arriving just then, heralded by screeching sirens and accompanied by many other officers and onlookers who, sadly for the latter, had nothing better to do of an evening than to watch a corpse cool.

I had no choice but to submit to arrest.

Almighty God, if I ever have the misfortune to travel forward another fifteen centuries to encounter another such brush with police again, it will be far too soon.

Being that it was by now pushing midnight, the desk sergeant looked bored when we entered the precinct. That changed in an eyeblink. “Good God—Morganna Hanks?”

“She says she is but can’t prove it. No ID. You really think it’s her?”

“Oh, yeah, I’d bet a month’s pay on it. What’s she in for?”

The arresting officer grinned. “Murder.”

Alleged murder, I thought. Both of them looked at me strangely. Had I said it aloud? I had no idea; my thoughts were whirling faster than a pinwheel in a hurricane.

“Good God.” The desk sergeant’s tone was not unkind. “Madame, you look—I mean no disrespect, but you look like you could use a spot of tidying up before we in-process you. Would you like to do that?”

As I nodded, the constable uttered a low whistle. “It must be her. I’d heard tell about Ms. Hanks’s effect on men; never thought I’d see it in action for myself. Fine. Come on, lady, this way.” She tugged me toward the women’s WC. “Before you have every man in the place stumbling all over themselves.”

The strange thing was that I had not done anything magical to engender the man’s sympathy—except perhaps to portray the semblance of a damsel in distress. That was no act.

She and I squeezed into a space intended for one, and she watched me repair my countenance as best I could with water, soap, and my fingers.

In-processing was conducted in the manner of a dance; I was ushered in a stately fashion from one room to the next for photographing, electronic fingerprinting, examining, documenting, and questioning. At some point, I asked whether I could call someone, and the female constable who had appointed herself my guardian led me to a cracked and faded monitor bolted to a hallway wall.

“Local calls only,” she stated.

Right. At this hour, with the GM dead, the trustees abed (and I was not on the best of terms with most of those toads, magical influence or no), and the team’s lawyers all engaged with handling the other scandals, who else in London—or in all of England, for that matter—was I going to call? I enchanted the phone to produce the tones for overseas dialing and called Clarice. The line sounded as if it had opened, but the picture remained blank. My gut twisted. I had wasted my lone allotted request.

“Hello? Centralia.”

How sweet, how utterly marvelous it was to hear her voice!

“Clarice! It’s me, Morganna Hanks!” I knew she would recognize my voice; I used my false name to clue her in to the fact that I stood among people who did not know me by my ancient identity.

“Ms. Hanks? I can hear you just fine, but I can’t see you.”

“This phone does not work properly. I am in a London police station—in a spot of trouble—and I need help. Do you think Malory might have a lawyer or two she could spare me? It is a long story.”

“O-h-h-h… Ms. Hanks, I am so sorry!” If she happened to be watching the same SNN newscast that was blaring on all the police station’s monitors at that precise moment, showing the crime scene in the park and my alleged involvement therein—complete with my awful police picture, damn them all with the fleas of a thousand hermits—then I could well understand all her hyphens and ellipses. “Don’t worry, Ms. Hanks! Sit tight, try to relax, and I’ll send help right away, I promise!”

I thanked her and rang off. The constable conducted me to a stark holding cell, motioned me in, and locked the door. The tumblers snapped into position with an echoing click. For the first time in my life, I knew the terror of my dungeon’s denizens. Panic clawed at my gut. I willed myself not to be queasy. Worry escalated when it seemed my will might not prevail.

 

“I knew the terror of my dungeon's denizens.”

 

 

I did not doubt Clarice for a moment. What I did doubt was whether help could arrive soon enough. Because of my celebrity, the investigation proceeded at a blinding pace, proven by the fact that not an hour later I was escorted back to the interrogation chamber and informed that they had found my ID underneath the body, and that witnesses had come forward in regard to that evening’s team meeting. The police inferred from the report of my final statement to McBain that I had entered the park intending to kill him. No amount of denial could convince them otherwise. And why should it have? A guilty person also would have employed the exact same tactic. “Stretching the truth” does not carry the same meaning as it did in days of old.

Back in the holding cell, my spirits shed the mantle of shock and plummeted. Sleep was impossible. In truth I could not even try—especially when the door opened to admit other prisoners, a trio of scantily clad, heavily made-up women who traded sex for coin. They eyed me lasciviously. I shut my eyes and did my best to ignore them.

“What’cha in for, ducky? Drunk and disorderly?”

I opened my eyes to mere slits and glared at the women. Unable to discern which had addressed me, I directed my reply toward them all. Mindful that we were being monitored, I phrased it carefully:

“They believe I killed a man.”

Their blood-red lips drew up like little bows, but no sounds emerged for several heartbeats. Finally one sucked in a deep breath and on the exhale said, “Right, then.” They fell to murmuring among themselves and did not look at me after that, except to cast an occasional furtive glance in my direction, no doubt trying to puzzle out how I had done it and why,—and whether I was mad enough to turn on them.

The sheer hell of it was that I had killed before by my own hand, and for far less reason; but never had my rights, my motives, my very honor been called into question.

Never had any queen sunk so low.