Brian McClellan - Murder at the Kinnen Hotel

“Blacklisted?” Adamat suggested, finding there was croak to his own voice. He’d seen officers threaten witnesses before. Pit, he’d played the menacing interrogator from time to time himself but he’d never seen anything like this. Part of him wanted to be impressed. The other part felt slightly queasy.

“Yes, blacklisted,” Teef said eagerly. “Nobody would touch him. Word has it he moved on.”

The Brickmen was one of the larger gangs in Adopest, mostly consisting of disenfranchised dockworkers that had finally given up on finding consistent work and now terrorized the companies they used to work for. “How did he get work in the first place?” Adamat asked. “Strangers like that don’t just walk in and get jobs around here.”

Teef glanced sidelong at White and licked his lips. “He was cousins or something with one of the ranking Brickmen. Both northerners. A pitrunner, I think. Look, I don’t know anything else. I would tell you if I could.”

“Not where he went?” White said softly in Teef’s ear.

“No! No idea. Maybe someone does, but it’s not me.”

“Who would?” Adamat asked.

“One of the big bosses, maybe. I dunno.”

Adamat removed another two bills from his pocketbook and gave them to Teef. “Thank you, Teef. That will be all.”

Teef snatched up his razor and left the tavern at a run, trailing the smell of sweat and urine. Adamat watched him go, then turned to White. He found that he couldn’t quite look her in the eye. “What did you make of that?” he asked.

If White was aware that her little display had had a profound effect on Adamat as well as Teef, she didn’t show it. She stood up, springing on the balls of her feet like a woman thirty years her junior. “We’ll have to talk with one of the big bosses.”

“That would be both immensely difficult and, I think, unnecessary.”

“Oh?” White asked.

“We have a clue,” Adamat said. “Teef said the man was a pitrunner.”

“I’m not familiar with the term.”

“It’s a derogatory slang for a barrowman. Someone who works in the mines up in the northern mountains, rolling wheelbarrows out of the deepest coal pits. It’s one of the worst, hardest jobs in Adro.”

“You think he’s a convict? Someone from the Mountainwatch?”

“No,” Adamat said. He half-closed his eyes, running through the information stored in his mind. “If I recall correctly, which I usually do, pitrunner is geographically specific. Refers to barrowmen in the Kemptin Region, in mines owned by the Kemptin family.” He finally forced himself to look White in the eye. “Employment records should be available at the Public Archives. Are you any good at research?”

“Quite.”

“We need information on all the barrowmen who worked there over the last two years.”

“That sounds … tedious.”

“Paperwork is a fantastic way of tracking people down because they rarely bother to cover their trail even when they should. If you can take care of that, I’ll do a little sniffing and see if I can find out who the powder mage’s cousin is among the Brickmen.”

“I thought you said that wouldn’t be necessary.”

“I don’t think it will. But it doesn’t hurt to have two leads. I won’t try to approach him without you.”

White’s nostrils flared and she watched Adamat for a moment before giving a curt nod.

Adamat walked with her out to the street, where she took their cab and headed north toward the Public Archives. He waited until the cab had disappeared before going looking for his own. It would have been easier to just share a cab. Their destinations were quite close indeed. But Adamat didn’t want her to know that.

He found the closest cab and paid the driver before getting inside.

“Where to, sir?”

“Sablethorn Prison,” Adamat said. It was time to talk to Ricard Tumblar.

Across the city square from the precinct building sat Sablethorn Prison. It was a black, basalt obelisk of a building, a nail jutting from the city center high into the sky in testament to the Iron King’s merciless imprisonment of those who opposed him. It was as much, if not more, a statement to the public than the guillotine permanently fashioned in the center of the square.

The sheer size of the building meant it served as incarceration for political prisoners and dissidents, as well as the city jail. Its proximity to the First Precinct building only made it all the more convenient.

Adamat showed his credentials to the jailer just inside the big main doors and was directed up three flights of stairs where another jailer took him down a long hall and thumped twice on a thick wooden door before unlocking and opening it for Adamat.

“Just give a yell if you need anything,” the jailer said.

It was a small room with a single barred window that faced away from the main square. There was a cot, a chair, and a table with writing implements. The only light came from the glow of coal stove in one corner, next to which squatted Ricard Tumblar.

He still wore the same jacket he had on yesterday morning. His hair was frayed, his clothes rumpled, the collar of his shirt stained with wine and sweat. He glared up at Adamat in hurt confusion.

As if I had anything to do with you being in here . “How much did you have to bribe a guard to get a noble’s cell?” Adamat asked.

“Just a hundred krana,” Ricard said. “I guess they were told to put me with the rabble, but I did a favor for the head jailor’s cousin a few months back. Adamat, why am I here? I’ve been demanding to see you since they brought me in here yesterday and no one will listen to me. You said I wasn’t a suspect.”

Adamat looked for someplace to hang his hat. He gave up and kept it in hand. “I was taken off the case.”

“What? Why?”

“Someone wants you to take the fall for this, Ricard,” Adamat said. “Someone who can make it happen.”

“Of course they do! That’s why they tried to frame me. But I didn’t do it, and … “ Ricard trailed off. “You mean someone in the police?”

“Or someone who can exert a great deal of influence on them. The commissioner himself took me off the case and handed it to his incompetent nephew.” Adamat thought of telling Ricard what the commissioner had said about seeing him to the guillotine, but that would have been cruel. Ricard didn’t need to hear that now.

“So I’m strapped to the millwheel, am I?”

“It appears so.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed. Who would do this?” Adamat asked.

“Who wants me dead, you mean?”

“Dead? They don’t just want you dead. They want you discredited and imprisoned. I want to know who wants you out of the way so much that they’re willing to kill innocent people-people like Melany-to do it.”

A slow realization began to spread across Ricard’s face. Adamat waited for the candle to light behind his eyes. Ricard had always had the habit of being willfully naive. Everyone was a friend to him, a possible business partner or lover. It had gotten him into trouble on many occasions-but the attitude had also made him a wealthy man.

“What have you been up to, Ricard?” Adamat asked. “We haven’t spoken since … for a while. Last I read in the papers your latest attempt at unionizing the dock workers had been shut down by the police.”

Ricard waved dismissively. “That was months ago.”

“And you’re doing something new?” Adamat urged.

“Yes. I’ve decided to go straight to the top. I’ve managed to get a bill sponsored in the House of Nobles that calls for limited legalization of labor unions. It’s a small thing, really, but vital to the future of unionization. They’ll be voting on it in the House of Nobles next week.”