D. Jackson - Thieftaker

Ethan’s eyes strayed to the pouch. “And if I happen to find Jennifer’s killer while I’m recovering the brooch…”

“Obviously, Mister Berson would be most pleased.”

Ten pounds. And more when he found the brooch. Ethan had to admit that he was tempted. But only the night before he had decided to keep out of sight for a while, to live off the money he had gotten from Ezra Corbett. More to the point, in all the time he had been working as a thieftaker he had tried to avoid taking jobs involving murders. They were far more dangerous, and he could never justify sparing the life of a thief who also killed, which meant that he himself might have to take a life. He had vowed long ago never to do that again.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said, meeting the stranger’s gaze once more.

“If it’s a matter o’ more money…”

Ethan shook his head. “It’s not. I don’t work murders.” He stood. “Please thank Mister Berson for his offer.”

“He asked for ya specifically,” the man said quickly. “And he doesna like bein’ refused. Ya might wan’ t’ consider if Abner Berson is someone ya want as an enemy.”

It wasn’t the threat that stopped him. He had heard far worse in his years as a thieftaker in this city. But the other part… He asked for you specifically.

“Why would he want me?” Ethan asked.

The man shrugged; the expression on his face didn’t change at all. “It’s no’ my place t’ ask. But he did.”

Now that he thought about it, Ethan realized that this should have been his first question. He usually worked for men of middling means-merchants like Corbett, craftsmen like Henry, for whom he had recovered a valuable set of tools before taking the room above his cooperage. Men as wealthy as Berson didn’t come to him. They went to Sephira Pryce. Pryce was better known; she was as wealthy and influential as they were. If word got around Boston that Berson had come to Ethan instead of going to the Empress of the South End, as many called Pryce, both Ethan and the merchant could expect visits from her and her toughs-never an appealing prospect.

Kannice would have told Ethan that this was all the more reason to send the silver-haired stranger away, to follow through on his plan to avoid the streets for a time. But that had never been his way.

“Have you approached Sephira Pryce about this?” he asked.

For the first time, Berson’s man seemed unnerved. His face paled, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “No,” he said. “Mister Berson sent me here.”

“Has he had dealings with Miss Pryce in the past?”

“It’s no’ my place t’ say,” the man said. He seemed unsettled by the question. “Mister Berson sent me here.”

“You already said that.”

“An’ will ya accept his offer?” He shifted in his chair, then straightened, regaining some measure of his composure. “Most men o’ yar… station would leap at th’ chance t’ work for Mister Berson.”

“Most men of my station wouldn’t be offered the opportunity.”

“Ya make my point for me, Mister Kaille.”

“Right, but what I’m wondering…” He stopped in midsentence, staring at the man.

“Yes?”

Of course. It came to him in a rush, along with his memory of the conjuring he had felt the night before. He should have understood immediately. If he was going to risk angering Pryce, he couldn’t afford to be this slow-witted.

“All right,” Ethan said. “I’ll do it.”

The stranger looked genuinely surprised. “Ya will?”

“Aye. I’ll need a description of the brooch and some information about Mister Berson’s daughter-where she was killed, and exactly when; where she had been, and where she was going. If possible I’d like to see her corpse.”

He had expected that this would trouble the man, but the stranger merely nodded, as if he had expected Ethan to request as much. What did it say about the streets of Boston that a merchant’s man should be more disturbed by the mention of Sephira Pryce than by the dead body of his employer’s daughter?

“She’s a’ King’s Chapel,” the man said, “downstairs in th’ crypt.”

“The crypt? She’s already been buried?”

“No. Tha’s where her body was taken. She’s t’ be buried on th’ grounds there.”

Naturally. The King’s Chapel Burying Ground was the oldest cemetery in Boston, and the only one a man like Abner Berson would have deemed appropriate for the interment of his child.

“Mister Caner, the rector there, knows yah’re comin’,” the man went on. “Once yah’ve seen her, yah’re t’ come t’ th’ Bersons’ home.”

“All right,” Ethan said, although he was already having second thoughts. He had his reasons for taking the job, but he had also had his reasons for refusing at first. Perhaps the stranger read the doubt in Ethan’s eyes, because he stood, put on his hat, and strode to the tavern entrance, as if determined to leave the Dowser before Ethan could change his mind. He paused by the door and looked back at Ethan.

“Until later, Mister Kaille,” he said, and left.

For several moments Ethan sat staring at the door, wrestling with the urge to run after the stranger and give him back Berson’s money. At last, knowing that by now he had waited too long, he reached for the pouch, which still sat on the table. He held it in his palm, enjoying the weight of it, the soft jangling of the coins. Then he stood and slipped it into his pocket.

Turning toward the bar, he froze. Kannice was watching him, her brow furrowed, her lips pressed in a thin line.

He walked over to her. “You have something to say to me?”

“I thought you weren’t taking any jobs for a while.”

“This one’s different,” he said. “I couldn’t say no.”

She didn’t respond.

“That man works for Abner Berson. His daughter’s been killed.”

“I heard,” she said, her voice flat. Ethan had been sure she would have much to say about him working on a killing, but if she did, she kept it to herself.

“They want me because there were spells involved. He didn’t say it, but I’m sure. I think I might even have felt the conjuring that killed her. That’s why Berson didn’t go to Sephira Pryce.”

“And do you have to work every job that calls for a conjurer?”

“Would you rather I left it to Sephira or the sheriff? They know nothing about spells. Or rather, they know just enough to cast suspicion on every speller in Boston, myself included. It has to be me, Kannice. I’m the only one who knows enough about conjuring to find the truth.”

Kannice went back to wiping the bar, rubbing at the wood with such fury that Ethan half expected her to take off the finish.

“She died last night,” Ethan said. “Berson’s man made it sound like she was killed by the same mob that destroyed Hutchinson’s house.”

She frowned, but she didn’t look at him. “You don’t believe that any more than I do,” she said quietly. “The men who wrecked those houses might be fools, but they’re not murderers.”

“Not all of them. But one of them might be.”

Kannice cast a hard look his way, but continued to clean the bar.

“I have to go,” he told her at last.

She nodded, a strand of hair falling over her forehead. He started to reach out to brush it away, then stopped himself.

“Will you be back here tonight?” she asked, pushing the strand away herself.

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

Her frown deepened.

“Anyway,” he went on. “It’ll probably be a late night.”

She straightened, her eyes meeting his. She draped the polishing cloth over her shoulder and tipped her head to the side. “If you change your mind…”