John Ringo - Princess of Wands

“Strangely enough, I agree with most of that,” Barbara said, considering it carefully. “So what’s this book about?”

“Magic and dragons,” Duncan said, shrugging. “Actually, that series isn’t going all that well. I’d thought that it would really sell, both because my other series sold so well and because the big market is high-sales fantasy. But it’s just limping. I swear I’d sell my soul to get it off the ground!”

“You’re a very odd person, Folsom Duncan,” Barb said, frowning slightly at the expression.

“Ain’t I then?” Duncan said, grinning. “Check your assumptions at the door, as Lois Bujold would say.”

Barbara blinked for a moment and then sighed.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” Duncan asked.

“It’s… hard to explain,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“What’s so important?” Janea asked when she met Barb in the lobby followed by Greg.

“Timson,” Barbara said. “You said that he knows a lot about the occult. Right?”

“He’s blond,” Janea said, realizing where she was going right away.

“That’s what dye is for,” Barb pointed out, sharply.

“No, he’s blond,” Janea said, definitely. “Trust me on that one.”

“Oh,” Barbara said. “Damn.”

“Nice try, though,” Greg said. “I’m starting to agree with Janea that it’s probably a LARPer.”

“I’d already considered him, though,” Janea admitted. “And rejected him for just that reason.”

“So what do we have?” Greg asked.

“I’m looking at motive and opportunity, I guess,” Barb said. “There are several of the Wharf Rats that meet the criteria for suspects. Also a couple of people around Larry Whatsisname, the magazine publisher. One being Larry. Baron and Sean both have jobs that move them around the state and both have ties to Ohio.”

“The body that they found there,” Janea said, nodding.

“Sean’s got a real case of the bums at women at the moment,” Barbara continued. “He found his live-in girlfriend in bed with another man and then she took out a restraining order on him. So he’s not very happy with women right now. Baron’s… well, he’s more or less what I thought we were looking for. Not very socially apt, so having the power to compel women would probably be attractive to him. Both of them travel a good bit for their jobs. Eric and Larry both travel. Eric’s married, admittedly, but I’m not sure that discounts him. And he’s ambitious. Demons can tinker with earthly powers to aid in ambition. Larry… I just don’t like. But he also fits the profile.”

“There are at least six of the LARPers that fit the profile as well,” Janea said. “But not Timson. And from what I’ve gleaned about the Wharf Rats, I’d put Sean and Baron high on the list of suspects.”

“I’m interested in Duncan as well,” Barb said. “He has something very strange about his… soul. He’s like a power sink or something. If Remolus is a power absorber, then I’d expect his touch to be something like what Duncan has.”

“That’s… outside my territory,” Greg said. “But don’t get caught up on motivation and opportunity. Or clues. Before you know it, you’ll decide that it was done by a one-legged butler in the library or something.”

“I wish there was some way to go around getting DNA from all these suspects,” Barbara said, then paused, looking thoughtful.

“Ain’t gonna do it,” Janea said, shaking her head.

“It wouldn’t take all that long,” Greg said, grinning. He had another hickey on the other side of his neck.

“Says you, Flash,” Janea replied, shaking her head. “Some people take more than thirty seconds.”

“Hey!”

“You don’t know what I was thinking,” Barb protested.

“Bet you a dollar?” Janea said. “Ain’t gonna do it. What got you on Timson, anyway?”

“Somebody said to check your assumptions,” Barbara said. “Timson was such a nice guy, I wondered if it was all an act.”

“Oh, it’s a good bit act,” Janea said, fondly. “He can be a very bad boy if you know what I mean.”

“That wasn’t quite where I was going,” Barb said, tartly.

“Why’s it always about bad boys?” Greg said, sighing.

“I’m not sure what or who we’re looking for,” Janea said, seriously. “It could be one of the guys at the con that’s popular and can pick up the girls. Or it might be one who seems to be a total loser on the surface and is using power to attract them.”

“I guess we just keep looking,” Barbara said, sighing. “This sucks.”

“This is how most investigations go,” Janea said, shrugging. “At least this time we know the perp is here at the con. I’ve done three of these investigations and never gotten so much as a sniff.”

“We’re doing better than I’d hoped, frankly,” Greg said. “We’ve narrowed it down to no more than two or three dozen suspects because we know the necromancer is somewhere here in the hotel. That’s better than the millions we started with on Friday. Just legwork after the con will get us to the suspect relatively quickly. It would be nice, though, if we could narrow it down more. If worse comes to absolutely worst we could call in and see about locking the whole con down and doing DNA tests on all the males with brown hair. The ACLU would scream bloody murder, though, and it would be all over the press. We also would have a hard time showing probable cause, come to think of it.”

“Did you get in touch with the Bureau about Goldberg?” Barb asked.

“Yes, I did,” Greg said. “You’re correct; Goldberg is a pen name. They’re trying to track down her actual identity through her employer in Charlotte but since she’s not a suspect that might be hard if they get sticky. And they’re a newspaper; newspapers almost always get their back up when we ask them for information. I also asked about back-up. But with the weather the team couldn’t make it up. They’re stuck in Roanoke. The Bureau’s dispatching a helicopter to move them if we have to have help, though. It should be up there by sometime this afternoon.”

“I hope we can close this up quietly,” Janea said, looking out the window. “I was talking to the con-chair and one of the off-duty cops that’s working the con says even the sheriff’s department’s shut down until the snow stops. The stuff is coming down faster than they can plow it.”

“This is crazy,” Greg said, shaking his head. “Why’d this happen now ? This is more snow than this area gets in three years!”

“That’s why they can’t keep up,” Janea said, shrugging. “This is, like, Buffalo snow.”

“So if anything happens we’re on our own?” Barbara asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Looks that way,” Greg said. “If it seriously starts getting nuts we can call in the HRT from Roanoke. But they’re going to be twenty minutes, maybe a half hour, away rather than five minutes. No way they can bring in a chopper in this. And even four-wheel drives are going to find it tough.”

“A lot can happen in a half an hour,” Barb said, shaking her head. “I hate doing this bits-and-pieces thing. I feel like I’m wrestling with fog.”

“You just keep tapping away until you find your suspect,” Greg said, shrugging. “There’s no other way to do it.”

“Well, there is ,” Janea said, thoughtfully. “But it’s a bit of a risk.”

“What?” Greg asked, frowning.

“We push instead of pull.”

Hi, Mandy,” Barbara said, as she finally tracked the woman down. “Could I talk to you, privately?”