Dusting off the Looking Glass

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly walked nonchalantly down the street, away from the mansion she'd just left. Despite the dogs and number of hired hands that had supposedly been keeping watch, it had been remarkably easy to sneak in over a crumbled dip in the old wall at the back, over the green grass that was just starting to gather the night's dew, into the painted white limestone walls, through the granite and marble tiled halls, past the red velvet drapes, to the heirloom jeweled dagger, and back out again. She didn't think she'd been seen at all, and had, of course, left her calling card so that they could chase her to a town some twenty miles north, where they'd find their next clue.

As she turned a corner and moved out of sight of the mansion, the red coated dark elf took in a deep breath, letting the crisp air fill her lungs and stream out in a little cloud.

I love fall, she thought, idly reaching out to catch a falling leaf that almost matched her ensemble. It's just so...colorful...

Sure that she wouldn't be followed until at least the next morning, Alydia, self-titled best thief in the world, got a room in town and went to sleep, planning to wake early and make her "narrow escape."

The thief's relaxed steal wasn't destined to last long, however.


~*~*~

Inspector Kynan Iver ran a hand through his thick brown hair that was starting to prematurely silver, then down over his eyes. While his area didn't have much in the way of serious crimes, young punks liked to keep him busy with their pranks. However, for tonight, all was still, and he was about to enter the tavern to enjoy his first free night in weeks when Locke Athow nearly ran him over with a horse lathered in sweat.

"Hold there, young Locke. What has you in such a hurry?"

"Inspector Iver!" Locke Athow was a handsome young man. Light brown hair fell in waves almost to his shoulders, his green eyes shone with a vital fire, his face was masculine without being rough, and his frame was neither too stocky nor too slim.

"I was looking for you, Inspector. It's horrible...we need you to come, right away...my father..."

Iver held in a weary sigh. "Settle down, lad. I'm coming."


An Hour Later...

So much for few serious crimes. He was sure to face public outcry about almost anyone he brought in for this, and truth be told, he didn't want to start the investigation and get dragged through the muck that families like the Athows had accumulated.

"I'll return tomorrow morning," he told Locke. "Don't let anyone leave."

The young man nodded. "Of course, Inspector. And...we found this. It was by a case where we kept great grandfather's dagger...the item was missing."

"All right, Locke. I'll follow up on this. Thank you, and good night."


~*~*~

It wasn't even five in the morning when the door to her room crashed open and a hand reached for her arm. Fortunately, she'd been up, dressed, and almost ready to go, so no one saw her whole face...but unfortunately, she didn't have anywhere to run. For the first time in five years as a thief, Aly had been overconfident, and it was so humiliating to be bound at the wrists and dragged through town down to the police station.

Now I know how all those other crooks felt when I did it to them, back in the day. Ah well. I'll give back the knife, let them toss me in the clink, wait until night, and get the hell out.

Little did she know...this was not about the heirloom she'd stolen in the least.

[Alydia Ettermire]

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b56/Kaymiril/BGs/Font.jpg

Inspector Kynan Iver looked over the scrap of paper carefully, before looking through the grate of the door to the interrogation where his prisoner was shackled to the chair. Somehow, she had managed to keep hold of her hat, and the willful law hound liked being able to look into both eyes of his suspects.

"Sergeant," he began, turning toward one of the men under him, "you know as well as I do that suspects are allowed nothing that blocks their eyes."

"I'm sorry, Inspector...but none of us could get it off of her, and she's been cooperative otherwise. Handed over her weapon and everything." The stocky man gestured to a table, which held a whip, a map case, and a tour book. "Unless you need her hat off, she's ready for questioning..."

Iver sighed, looking over the information his men had obtained from the woman before stepping into the dark, cold interrogation room. The door shut behind him with an ominous thud, and his heavy footsteps clicked as he walked to the table.

Alydia looked up at him from beneath her bright red fedora, the blue eye he could see shining from a black face without so much as a hint of trepidation. She stared unwaveringly at him, into his piercing hazel eyes, at his heavily lined face, worn with long hours and hard cases.

No innocent person had eyes like those, Kynan decided, and he slowly lowered himself into the chair across from her.

"You were at the Athow Estate last night. We found this at the scene of the crime." The words lanced out at the petite dark elf like an accusation, but she didn't flinch, even when he slid the evidence in front of her. After a moment of examining the small painting, she shrugged.

"Yes, I left it there," she admitted in a voice as smooth as silk. A grin upturned her lips. "It seems that for the first time I've underestimated the local law enforcement, or that family's sense of value on that little trinket. I didn't even get to leave the next clue. It's somewhat a disappointment...it would have been a fun chase."

Kynan's eyes narrowed. She was talking about a theft, as though she didn't even know the real reason she'd been brought in. But she wasn't done talking.

"Still, the rules of the game are the rules of the game. I've been captured with the item in hand, and so I relinquish it and commend you on a well played move."

The dark head lowered, and a jeweled dagger slid out of the air, landing with a rattle on the table.

"I don't care about the theft, Miss..." he looked at her information again "...Ettermire." The Inspector leaned forward, encroaching on his prisoner's personal space with a predatory gleam in his eyes.

"I want to know why you killed Elias Athow."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia's eyebrows raised for a second before her face grew cold. It was either the expression of a remorseless killer who hadn't expected to be caught, or of someone unaware that there had been anything more malign happening in that house than petty theft, and somewhat irked that it was being pinned on her.

"Murder is quite a serious accusation, Inspector," she said in that sultry purr...but now her playful grin was gone and her tone had taken a turn for the serious. "Especially when you haven't any evidence placing me anywhere near any member of that household and neither will you find a body trail in the list of warrants out for my arrest." Her right eye peered at him from under the wide brim of her hat, a cool blue lake in a sea of red and black. As far as Kynan could tell, she wasn't phased by the accusation, and that just deepened his suspicion. There wasn't anyone who could be weighted down with such a crime and not so much as stutter. None but the very worst of criminals.

Still, sometimes you had to play their game.

"So you admit to having a criminal record. For what sorts of crimes?"

"Theft." The suspect shrugged, the chains of her bound hands rasping lightly against the hard wooden slats that formed the back of her chair. "I steal obscure, hard to reach, or odd items from wherever in the world seems most interesting at the time. Then I leave clues for the local gumshoes to follow, and see how far along they get. If I have a fun chase or have been...how to say...cruel, I suppose, like the time I stole some poor person's house, I'll return the item within a few days to a few weeks. If not, or if the item I stole was particularly obnoxious, I keep it or dump it somewhere it will never be recovered."

"You're acting like it's just a game to you."

"It is. But murder, Inspector...murder is no game." Her gaze didn't waver, that cold blue orb still locked with his nearly amber ones. What was she that she could look at him so despite being a criminal?

"On that, we're agreed. So why did you murder Elias Athow?"

"I did not." For the first time, something crept into the woman's voice, a defensive edge that the seemingly unflappable woman hadn't shown before. "What I take are things, Inspector. Things can be replaced. Reconsidered. Restored. While people become angry, sad, or even furious and devastated at the loss of an item, there is absolutely nothing about that loss that a normal person cannot move beyond given a little time. Lives are both unique and vital; they cannot be replaced. There is never true justice for a young child whose father or mother is ripped from them, a parent cannot just 'acquire' another son or daughter. I may have turned my back on most of the things my mentor taught me, but I share his views that murder, direct or indirect, by action or inaction, is more evil than crimes against the bureaucracy."

Now it was the Inspector's turn to raise an eyebrow. While her little speech hadn't convinced him, he was starting to wonder if his suspect was, indeed, merely guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kynan tapped his fingers on the smooth, cold surface of the aluminum table separating him from his suspect, letting the hollow sound fill the emptiness of the room for a moment.

"Who was your mentor?"

"We just called him 'Karliik.'" Once more, her tone had become cool, almost bored. That aggravated Inspector Kynan Iver. She seemed so much less human with that tone.

"Karliik. That means...?" Alerar and its language were the least of the detective's concerns, with everything else on his plate. And he was tiring of her game.

"It translates, in this case, to 'Chief.' He was the head of Ettermire's local law enforcement. I spent just over eighty years under him."

Iver blinked. She was a thief...and a member of Alerar's law enforcement?

"Don't look at me like that Inspector, if you please." Damn that voice, it kept intruding on his thoughts. "I was only a 'Kyorli,' a detective like yourself, but, while you're here to serve the people, my goals were rather less altruistic."

She sat up, leaning forward a little in her chair. "Still...I brought in a fair number of criminals during my time in law enforcement. I don't have any murders so much as remotely connected to me anywhere but here. And I am not going to let that stick. Nor will I spend the time rotting away in a cell idly. So, Inspector, I shall solve your murder case."

"No." Inspector Iver stood up. "Suspects don't work on cases, especially not like this."

"I don't expect to work it alone. I don't expect to be alone for so much as a minute. I expect you to be there with me at all times, and if you were able to find me, Inspector, when I didn't want to be found yet, I'm sure you'd be able to catch me tampering with evidence.

"But my methodology differs from yours. I'll see things you won't, you'll see things that I won't. And maybe, even more importantly...I don't know these people. As the wealthiest family in a hundred mile radius, their business is the business of each and every local. I have none that I'd like to see cleared or condemned above any other. I don't know the gossip or the history. I have -"

"An outsider's perspective," he finished for her, seeing that yes...if she was what she said she was, with proper supervision she could prove invaluable on the case. And he could be the proper supervision.

"All right," he decided. "You're in. But you don't tell anyone anything without my express directions. If you go anywhere without an escort, you will be found and arrested pending trial. You do not speak to the family or see the scene of the crime or any evidence without me there. Are we clear?"

Aly almost sighed. This was going to be so restrictive...still, she smiled, disappearing briefly in a puff of smoke, to reappear standing with her foot in the table's shadow, now free of her binds. She held out her hand for Kynan to shake.

"Perfectly clear, Inspector."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly remembered the plans to the Athow estate well. One of her contacts had a contact who had a lover who had a sister whose husband worked for the local Office of Public Affairs, and that contact had managed, through a series of favors, to procure her a copy of the plans. Staking the place out and bribing the dogs had been on her shoulders, and if all had gone well, it would have been well worth the trouble.

Especially since the local detective knows his game...

When the two stepped through the coal black wrought-iron gate, a small group of baying red hounds swarmed them, but when the Drowess greeted and scratched them, they followed along the shady path a little ways before leaving the detective and his temporary deputy alone.

"You spent weeks around here, if the dogs know you so well. How did you get by without alerting suspicion?"

Aly just clicked her tongue at him. "I don't ask your secrets, so don't ask mine."

As their boots crunched for the last time on the gravel of the path and onto the slightly worn limestone entry steps, Alydia ran her hand along the brim of her hat, pulling it down a little more securely over her left eye. In just the short time he'd known her, Iver had pegged it down to a defensive mechanism. No one saw both her eyes, no one could look her directly in the eyes, and so she perceived some sort of control...and at the very least, she achieved mystery.

"Actually, Inspector," she said as they approached the polished oaken door, "the hat is all about style. The clues are about control."

"How did you...?"

"An old Kyorli trick." She smiled, and the door opened for them. Waiting just inside was the wrinkled face of the old butler, Elden Barclay. Barclay had been an institution in the area for three generations, greeting the town's young folks with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. As a teenager, Kynan had been on the receiving end of many of his good natured (but hard hitting) admonishments.

"Inspector," the old servant rasped before turning to Alydia and squinting hard. "And...who is this...?"

"She'll be working with me on this case, Barclay. Her name is Alydia."

"Very good, very good." The old man shuffled out of their way, letting the detective and his suspect in before reaching for Aly's coat and hat. "If I may just take these..."

She took a step away, then turned to face the person in charge of trying to take her. "No, thank you. I'll keep them."

Before he could make a fuss, Iver stepped forward again. "I realize that it's been a trying day for you, Barclay, but could you show me the body again?"

With a grumble, the manservant started leading them upstairs to the study. "Don't know what the young masters and mistress will do...the old master made some noise about leaving everything to that woman he kept around these last few years, since the dear mistress passed...terrible creature, that, wouldn't be surprised if it was her...can't find the will, kept its location secret...so we don't know..."

None of this was news to Kynan Iver; the business of the Athows was, as his prime suspect had noted earlier. What did surprise him was that Alydia didn't seem to be paying attention, instead pulling on a set of black gloves while Barclay trudged them down the hall to the study.

"He's still in here, hasn't been moved yet...got to get everything arranged..."

Inspector Iver stopped him before he could open the door. "We'll take it from here, Barclay. Thank you. Please make sure that everyone stays inside so that we can talk to them afterwards."

When the old servant had left, Iver turned to Alydia. "How would you kill a man, alone in his study?"

She sighed, reaching up to rub her forehead. "My goal is to never be seen, Inspector. If the study had someone in it, I'd find another way. Hypothetically speaking, though...I would probably stab him with the fancy letter opener the obnoxiously wealthy always seem to have."

Iver raised an eyebrow, then opened the door to the study.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly stood in silence for a moment, gazing upon the slumped, flabby corpse that was Elias Athow. His lips were blue, and beneath the ashy gray of a dying man, the skin was white, bloodless. "Well, my next guess would have been poison, but asphyxiation due to strangulation works, too."

She walked into the room, already starting to stink of decay, with the composure of a jaded professional, giving the body a cursory inspection before starting to look around the room. It was obvious that Elias hadn't let anyone into his study on a regular basis, not even Barclay. Cobwebs hung thick in the corners, and almost everything that wasn't routinely moved was covered in dust.

"Strangulation? How can you tell?" He had come to that conclusion the night before, without having touched the decedent, but he wanted to see how she worked.

The thief looked back at him. "Don't you hang your criminals around here? Strange, I thought humans liked capital punishment...here, Inspector." She lifted up the dead man's head by his iron gray hair, tilting it back to show the purple bruising around his thick neck. "Someone threw a noose over this man's head and pulled hard enough to kill him. His hands are also torn up, meaning he tried to pull it away from his assailant. Simple." What she didn't mention in her analysis was the dark circular bruise at the front of his neck that would have made it a very slow, torturous death. If the Inspector didn't know that, he really wasn't worth his weight as a detective. Explanation done, she went to examine the dusty tomes in the bookshelves.

"What you're telling me is that we're looking for someone strong enough to overpower Elias Athow." Iver looked into his reflection at the base of one of the giant candelabras on the desk. The name that came to mind at once was the name of a man who had plenty of muscle and experience with rope.

"Maybe. It's a little soon to say that everything is as it appears." The thief had pulled a book from the shelf and opened it, and as the Inspector looked back up at a suspect he doubted had the sheer physical strength to have killed Athow, she snapped it closed and sent a cloud of dust flying.

"Is there anything else here?"

"Later, there might be, Inspector. But for now, no."

"Good. Because it's time to talk to the family."

[Alydia Ettermire]

"The first person I want to talk to is Elias's nephew, Hector Skeldon. Hector's parents died in a boating accident when the child was young, and he was raised thereafter by his uncle," the Inspector explained to Alydia as he set up the parlor table for interviews. "His father owned a trading company, put in his uncle's care in trust. However, old Athow's concerns were not with his nephew's business, and by the time Hector was of age to inherit, the only ships left were old, small, and barely sea worthy. Through genuine misfortune, he lost two of them, but within a few years, with the one he had left, he'd accumulated enough wealth to buy a bigger, better one, which he captains himself. It's known that there was some lasting enmity between them. He's also here now, and has been for a few days."

Aly took a chair, crossing her legs at the ankle. Hector could be placed near the scene, so he had location. His uncle had betrayed him and nearly made him a pauper, so he had motive. As the owner (and presumably captain) of a ship, he had access to ropes of various thicknesses. Not necessarily the murder weapon, but...a good start, anyway.

"After him, I want to interview the son. Locke is a good man -" Here he was interrupted by Alydia sharply lifting a finger.

"By assigning values to people - like good or bad - you create bias. Now, you might think that this boy is the most perfect example that humanity can offer, someone else might think him a devil. But that doesn't matter in the least. What matters is...you don't know if he killed his father or not. So you can't think of him as good until his name is cleared."

Ivers cleared his throat. "Locke is, as far as anyone knows, the one in line for the family fortune, estate, and business. He'd be good for it, he's been helping his old man since he turned sixteen, eight years ago. However...there's been some talk of giving the money to his mistress."

Aly nodded, taking that in. An impatient young man who wanted more for himself could find it in his heart to kill his father. Or if he was desperate to keep his father's will the same...or punish him for a will change...that would be motive. "After the son, you'll want to see...?"

"The daughter, Kiley Athow. She's pretty sheltered from the spotlight. She's never really done anything to merit attention, but she is the example mothers of the town point to when they want their daughters to behave themselves. I don't like her for this, but she was here, so we'll need to question her briefly, in case she saw anything. That'll take care of immediate family."

"Who else will you be questioning?"

"The mistress and the butler," answered the Inspector. "Sharon is a forty-something gold digger," he told Alydia with contempt. "She thinks she's in line for the fortune, and spends money accordingly. Whatever Sharon wanted from Elias Athow, she got, so long as she was keeping her part of whatever understanding they had. And Barclay...he's old, slow, loyal, and somewhat feeble. I need to question him because very little happens here without Barclay's knowledge...he might know what happened."

Alydia thought that if Elden Barclay could potentially deliver their killer into their hands, it would be prudent to question him first, so she lent a voice to her notion. The Inspector's answer was merely a glare; he was going to question the family first.

Whatever he wants to do.

"You're still a suspect," Ivers reminded her. "So, if you're wise, you'll -"

"Sit pretty, sit quiet, not correct you about anything in public, and only in private if you're making greenhorn mistakes. I know, Inspector. After all, I was bringing in some of Ettermire's hardest criminals when your father was still suckling at his mother's breast." A sarcastic grin turned up the corners of Alydia's mouth; she rather enjoyed letting the humans know that they could never gather the experience she had.

"Still, all you have on me for this is that I was coincidentally at the manor the night Elias Athow was murdered. However, the closest you can get me to his body is a floor down and a wing west. If I were to strangle him, I would not have used common hemp rope when I have a whip that I can take with me. If I had, I'd have left it on the body, rather than removing it from the scene. So you can't put the weapon in my hand. And finally, that detail that I find rather insignificant but still seems so important...motive. I have no motive to do it. He wasn't bothering me or anything, and you've seen my possessions, Inspector. Hardly the kit of a killer."

Well, Ivers hardly knew where to start after that. She hadn't so much proven her innocence as told him why he should think she wasn't guilty.

"Just keep your mouth shut while we're interviewing the suspects."

Aly shrugged. She didn't really think that interviewing the individual players separately would be anything more than a waste of time, but Kynan was going to do the investigation his way...and it wasn't like she'd ever had any jurisdiction this far out of Ettermire, anyway. All she could do, for now, was sit back, relax...and watch the show. And something told her that it was going to get very interesting, before the end.