Sweet Silver Blues

28

Morley was a long time showing. When he did, I knew he had not been running from anything—unless it was himself. He wasn't scared of anything else.

"A little trot to settle your meal?" I asked.

"Started out that way. I came back here, you weren't in yet, so I thought I'd get in five or ten miles while I had time. I've gotten out of training since we left TunFaire."

He seemed a little pallid for Morley Dotes. "Something happen? You get yourself into trouble?"

"Not exactly. Let me catch my breath. Tell me what you did."

I did. He seemed mildly amused by my gambit on the waterfront.

"Your turn," I said.

"First a conclusion, then two sets of facts which may support it. My conclusion is, you're in over your head, Garrett. We keep cutting the trails of people with big clout. And they're starting to notice."

"And the facts?"

"My run took me out near the Narrows. I decided to see if my tribute to the vermin had earned me anything but scorn. Wonder of wonders, they had something. Zeck Zack is back in town. He arrived early this morning. The comings and goings started an hour later. I gave them a bonus and told them to keep an eye on him."

"One set of facts, Morley. How about the set that has you spooked?"

He did not argue, which was proof enough that he was nervous.

"I decided to drop in on Father Rhyne. I figured I'd go in the back way so I wouldn't inconvenience anybody, what with a rowdy service going on in the main hall."

He was stalling getting to the point, which meant it was something that did not please him.

"He came up dead, Garrett. Sitting at his writing table, dead as a man can get, still not cold."

"Killed?"

"I don't know. I didn't see any wounds, but that leaves plenty of room."

Plenty of room for sorcery or poison.

"He didn't seem like the kind of guy who drops dead coincidentally after people come around asking questions that only he can answer. Especially when you consider the fact that his boss and Father Mike have turned ghost."

He meant they had vanished. "When?"

"Sometime after breakfast. The prune was at first services. Father Mike was at breakfast. When I mentioned to somebody that Father Rhyne didn't look too healthy neither of them could be found. Nobody saw them leave."

"Maybe they decided they couldn't trust you not to be a tattletale."

"Maybe. Father Rhyne did try to leave a message, however he died. I don't know who he meant it for, but since you're looking for a married woman, I grabbed it."

He gave me a wad of paper. I smoothed it out on the table. There were just two words on it, printed big in a very shaky hand.

"Blood wedding? What does that mean?"

"I don't know, Garrett. I do know this. Rhyne was number four. They're dropping like flies around us."

He was right. Four deaths. Three of them on the manslaughter level: the burglar in Denny's apartment, Uncle Lester, and the thug from the alley beside the civil city hall. And now one unexplained. "It does seem that way."

"Any change in plans?"

"No. Let's go see the boys at city hall."

Inspired by a silver memory-jostle, the guard outside frankly admitted that he had been paid to disappear for an hour. He gave us an excellent description of an ordinary guy who could have been right there on the street with us. I suspected he was the guy who had gotten away in the alley.

The clerk was not pleased to see us. In fact, he tried to take a sudden, unauthorized leave of absence. Morley was on him like a wolf on a rabbit. We took the committee into the records room to confer.

He claimed almost as much ignorance as the guard. But he said they had come to see him again awhile after we busted up the ambush to ask about us. The clerk said they talked it over and decided we were not the people they had expected, confederates of a man who had been there earlier. They had jumped the wrong people.

So who the hell were we?

The words investigators from TunFaire had done nothing to cheer them up.

We turned him loose, then, and headed for the inn.

"He wasn't coming across with everything," I said.

"He's on somebody's pad. He's more scared of them than he ever could be of us."