Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

the shapes absently as he spoke. “We need to get this body someplace secure, and open a proper investigation.”

“You don’t need to tell me how to investigate a homicide,” I said.

“Then act like it.” He glared at me. “As far as we know this man got himself lost in the geo-vents on his own, and left a shriveled-up corpse for us to find and puzzle over.”

We both knew that was nonsense. Nobody got lost in the geo-vents, any more than they got lost in a bank vault after hours. But I swallowed my bile and nodded. “I’ll get him to the Medical Examiner’s office,” I said. “We can store him there, and he’ll be secure until we can come back at it with a full investigation.” Because if the trail did lead to Paulus, we’d need a lot more evidence to back us up.

“How many people have seen this?” He waved the ID in my face.

“Just you.”

“How many saw you carry the body to your car?”

I shook my head. “A half dozen? Maybe more. Maybe much more if the news crews were rolling. But with the hillside collapsing and the Barekusu running for their lives—”

“They probably didn’t notice you,” he finished. “Good.” He seemed to consider all of this, and then nodded to himself. “Move the body like you suggested. If anyone asks, it’s just another corpse you pulled out of the rubble. Tell your captain about this, and no one else. Is that clear?”

“Clear,” I agreed, still a little shaken by how seriously Auberjois was taking this situation. If he’d been any more gung-ho, I’d have felt some suspicion about his motivation. But he seemed more concerned about the headache and logistics involved in sorting out what had just happened. Whoever had planted the body and badge, it didn’t seem like Auberjois was in on it.

I secured the remains in the back seat, and started the engine as Auberjois walked away. I’d get Klein to the medical examiner’s office as soon as possible. We’d find this poor bastard a spot in the body stacks, and start to unravel the mystery of his death from there.

I spent most of the night in the ME’s office, but didn’t get much further. The pathologists had their hands full with the influx of other, more recent victims. In the early morning hours I headed back to the Bullpen, where I found Ajax sitting at his desk, head in hands, eyes closed. He wore white slacks and a blue silk shirt decorated with a silver mountain scene.

I sat down and slapped my hands on the desk. He jerked awake.

“Guess you heard the news on your way back from the concert, huh?”

Eyes blinking, he said, “Yes. I dropped off Talena and came straight here.”

“Did you talk to CaDell about your badge?”

“Yeah.” Jax shrugged. “He said they didn’t find anything. He’ll keep looking, but . . .” He glanced at my dirt-streaked clothes. “What happened?”

“First, some good news.” I pulled out his badge, cupping it in my hand as I reached across the desk. He stared at it as if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around its sudden appearance. Finally, he reached out and took it with tentative fingers.

“Where’d you find this? Was it in the Hasam the whole time?”

“Yeah, well,” I leaned forward, “that’s the bad news . . .”

Over the next half hour I filled him in on everything, the buzzing howl, the sinkhole, Auberjois’s involvement, the body, and his badge. He was quieter than usual, only asking a few questions. The whole time, his eyes were on his badge, watching as he traced the embossed shield and badge number. When I was done, he held it up.

“Someone at the festival found this,” he said.

“Most likely.”

“I could have lost it in the snow-runner,” he said. “Or someplace else.”

“Could have,” I said. “But if it was the snow-runner, it would’ve been found by another cop, or a service crew. And what’s more likely, that it fell off in the snow-runner or while you wrestled with Dinah McIntire’s dancers?”

“Someone found it,” he repeated. I could practically hear the mental footsteps as he walked himself through it.

“Someone,” I agreed. “But there are only two people who are really running that festival.”

“Vandie Cedrow and Dinah McIntire.”

“So the question is, do either of them have a reason to try and tie you to a dead body and a natural disaster? Because I sure as Hells can’t think of one.”

“You said the body was old.”

“Right. Looks like it’s been down there for decades.”

“So whoever planted the badge wasn’t trying to hang a murder on me.”

“No. They were trying to make it look like you’d been in the vents. In Titanshade, that’s a far more serious offense.”

Jax rotated the badge so it faced me. “When you saw this, did you know who it belonged to?”

“I had a pretty damn good guess.”

His eyes crinkled. “But you didn’t know. You don’t have my badge number memorized. And whoever found this would only know that it belonged to one of us. Which means they may have wanted to target anyone, to throw confusion into the mix. Or they could have been targeting you.”

“Same problem. They wouldn’t know it belonged to me, either,” I said.

“If someone had to guess whether it was you or me that lost a badge, who’s the more likely suspect?”

“You’re lucky I even gave that thing back to you.” But I couldn’t deny his point. Stretching my back, I sighed and said, “Between Dinah and Vandie, only one of them dislikes me enough to do something like this.”

“And how is Vandie Cedrow getting into the geo-vents? How did she know when the sinkhole would happen?” Ajax was chasing the next question. “Was the body planted along with the badge, or did Vandie plant the badge on a body that was already there?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said—”

“Jax, I don’t know!”

He sat back, absently tugging the sleeve of his nice silk shirt. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t?”

“The badge.” His voice grew crisper, a jangling anger sounding in