Лорел Гамильтон - A Stroke Of Midnight

I shook my head. “Only if we ask for your help; until that moment it’s our business.”

He shook his head. “You did ask us, Princess. Special Agent Gillett got your call, and he referred it to our local office.”

I’d figured as much, but it was still disappointing to know it for certain. “I made the call to Gillett out of courtesy and for old times’ sake. I realize now I was wrong to have called him at all.”

“But we are here now, and we have forensic facilities that the local St. Louis police can’t match.”

A woman broke away from the knot of locals. She had blond hair that was a little too perfectly yellow to be real and human. Dark glasses cut a pretty face so that it took you a moment to notice her eyes were large and long-lashed. “I’m Dr. Caroline Polaski, head medical examiner for St. Louis County, and I take exception to that.”

“You can’t compare your lab with ours,” Marquez said.

“I did my internship with you, so yes, actually, I can.”

“Internship, then you weren’t good enough to make the grade.”

She gave him a very unfriendly look. “Check your own records. I left because my husband got a better job here, and I got offered the run of the place. At your shop I’d have been someone’s flunkie.”

“Because you weren’t good enough to be head of our shop,” Marquez said.

This was getting us nowhere. “Stop it,” I said.

They looked at me. “You want to know who is in charge here, that’s what all the arguing is about, correct?”

Polaski and Marquez nodded. Walters just looked at me.

I smiled. “That’s an easy question, ladies and gentlemen. I am.”

Marquez gave me a look that, even in the dim light, said plainly that I was a little girl and shouldn’t try to play with the big boys. “Now, Princess, your call for help indicates that you don’t think you and your people are capable of handling a double homicide.”

“I am in charge of this investigation, Agent Marquez. I am glad for your offer of assistance, and I will gladly accept, but let there be no confusion among any of us.” I let my gaze take in Walters and the medical examiner. “I am in charge, and anyone who has a problem with that doesn’t step one foot onto our land.”

Marquez argued, as I’d expected him to. “You are not an officer of any kind, Princess. No offense, but this investigation needs more than just a private detective in charge of it.”

“My private detective license isn’t valid outside of California, Agent Marquez.”

“Then you have no legal standing to take control.”

I stepped into him so fast and unexpectedly, that he actually took a step back before he caught himself. I looked up at him, inches taller, and let him look into the delicate oval of my face framed by all that soft fur. “No legal standing, Marquez? I am Princess Meredith NicEssus. The only person who outranks me here on this land is the Queen of Air and Darkness herself. You and your people are here on my sufferance, and I think I’ve suffered enough.”

“You can’t mean that you’re going to send us all away because I hurt your feelings.” Goddess, he had an attitude.

“Not at all. I’m going to take Major Walters and his people with us, and let them do their jobs.”

“And when they can’t handle it, and you need our help, you may not get it, Princess.”

And we might need their help. I hoped not, but we might. I had an idea. I turned to Walters. “Do you have a cell phone?”

He looked a little uncertain, but he held it out to me.

“Can I make a long-distance call on it?”

“Who are you going to call?”

“Washington, D.C.”

Walters took in a deep breath. “Be my guest.”

I dialed a number that I’d had the queen’s secretary get for me before we came out here. I’d hoped not to use it, but I’d seen enough territorial disputes in L.A. to know that the feds and the locals could do more harm to an investigation than good, if they got into a serious pissing contest. Marquez was making this one serious.

After hearing my initial greeting and request, Marquez said, “You are not calling the president of the United States.”

“No.” I was on hold. “I’m not.”

Marquez frowned harder at me.

A woman’s voice came on the phone, and I said, “Mrs. President, how good to talk to you again.”

Marquez’s eyebrows went up.

I’d first met Joanne Billings when her husband was a senator. They’d come to my father’s funeral, and their regrets had seemed the most sincere of the political people there that day. After that Senator Billings and his wife had made several visits to faerie, and I realized that Joanne Billings was a faeriephile. My father had not raised me to ignore a political advantage, and besides, I liked Joanne. She was open-minded about the Unseelie Court’s unfavorable press, and made a point of talking us up in a positive light when she could. We exchanged holiday cards, and I made certain she was invited to my official engagement party, the one for public consumption. She had actually visited me at college once, without her husband, just to see how I was getting along, and by that time she and her husband were trying to get the young vote. Pictures of her with America’s faerie princess didn’t hurt. I understood that, and didn’t think badly of her for it. I had even invited her to my graduation, and they had both come. We’d gotten photo ops together. One of the last things I’d done before vanishing from faerie and the public eye was to appear onstage with them at a couple of rallies.

We exchanged small talk, then she said, “I assume you didn’t call at this hour for a social reason.”

“No.” I gave her the briefest sketch of the situation.

She was silent for a second or two. “What do you need from me?”

I explained some of what Marquez had said, and added, “And he threatened that if I didn’t let him in now, he would make certain the FBI didn’t help us later, if we needed their expertise to solve the crime. Could you talk to him for me?”

She laughed. “You could have called the diplomatic service, talked to your ambassador. You could have called a dozen people, but you called me first. You did call me first, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

She laughed again, and I knew she liked that I had called her first. I also knew she liked that I hadn’t asked her to talk to her husband. “Put him on the line,” she said, and her voice had already taken on that cultured, almost purring edge that it had on radio or television.

I handed the phone to Marquez. He looked a little pale around the edges. His end of the conversation was mostly “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Of course not, ma’am.” He handed the phone back to me, managing to look angry and sick at the same time.

“I think he’ll behave himself now,” she said.

“Thank you, very much, Joanne.”

“When you’ve finally picked a husband, you better invite me to the engagement party.” She was quiet for a second, then said, “I am sorry about what happened with Griffin. I saw the tabloid photos he gave to the reporters. I have no words to say how sorry I am that he turned out to be a such a bastard.”

“I’m okay about it.”

“Good for you.”

“And you will get an invitation to the engagement party, and to the wedding.”

She laughed again with honest delight. “All of faerie decked out for a wedding, I can hardly wait.”

“Thank you, Joanne.” We hung up, and I turned to Marquez. “Is there anything else you wanted to know, Special Agent Marquez?”

“No, I’ve had about all I can stand tonight, thank you very much, Princess Meredith,” he said, and gave me a look that said I’d made an enemy. Gee, an enemy that wouldn’t try to kill me. It was almost refreshing.