Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (8 page)

“Two correct guesses,” Kajari noted. “The Good King passed his sixty-fifth year last winter. He and I were the same height.”

“You may have shared the same stature, but you’re in different weight categories. Benedict’s got good underlying muscle tone, but he’s taken on some fat, due in part to age,” I replied. I gently manipulated the King’s jaw to partially open the mouth, while trying not to jostle the coins. Next, I continued to touch the skin and joints from the shoulder down to the arms, trying my best to get tactile sensations through the gloves. “I’m having trouble pinpointing the time of death through the body mechanics and lividity.”

“The preservation wards,” Galen reminded me. “I helped craft them myself. Though the Good King has been dead more than two days now, his flesh has resisted the worst corruption.”

I cursed under my breath. This world ran on magic. The fact that Benedict had been semi-preserved didn’t bother me in itself. Had we found him in Los Angeles, we’d have thrown him into the chiller and gotten similar results. But I worried about whether my own senses could be tricked, or come to the wrong conclusion based on facts that weren’t true—due to the intervention of magic.

“Subject’s left hand shows callus buildup on the inner side of the thumb, fingers, and the palm,” I continued. “Right arm missing below the elbow. Judging by the mass of scar tissue at the stump, this wasn’t a birth defect. My guess would be competent but hurried surgery. Battlefield wound?”

“Correct,” Kajari said. “Two score years before, at the Oxine River. King Benedict lost his arm to a centaur’s blade. Still, his heroism saved the day, allowing Andeluvia to beat back the centaurs.”

“Really?” Galen snorted. “When our bards sing of the battle, the centaurs were the ones who stayed their swords, showing the humans the hand of mercy.”

“Each side sees it differently,” Kajari allowed. I continued with my inspection of the body, moving around to the other side of the table, as he went on. “Wizard, let us agree that both sides ‘won’. That battle allowed Benedict to negotiate peace.”

“In that, we are in agreement, my Lord.” Galen said, abashed. “I spoke rashly and out of turn. Truly, Benedict was a great man.”

Of course, that was when Dayna Chrissie, winner of the Miss Sensitivity Challenged Award, chose to ask just the wrong question.

“Can one of you get a cutting tool? I’m going to need something sharp to slice through into the organ cavity.”

The two men stared at me in horror. Galen was the first to speak. His voice sputtered like a struggling steam engine.

“Verily, you wish to…to carve up our monarch and serve him up like a rasher of bacon?” The centaur looked as if he were in pain. “It pains me to no end, to see the Good King in this forlorn state. I for one counted him as a friend.”

Kajari also spoke up, politely but firmly. “I know you are thorough. But the body of our lord must remain whole. At least until his son returns, a week hence. Reconsider.”

I bit back the first response—hell, the first three responses that came to mind. I’d gotten away with sassing the Lord Regent once before, but doing it repeatedly would be testing my luck. And really, would it be worthwhile to push for the full autopsy with the services of a chem or bio lab? It wasn’t like Benedict died of heart failure or had hemlock poured into his afternoon tea.

“All right,” I said, taking a half step back from the body. “I understand. We’ll stop here for the moment.”

“What have you learned about our former lord?”

“I’m guessing that he was quite a scrapper earlier in his life. Later on, he enjoyed his mealtimes, his pipe tobacco, and especially red wine.”

Kajari blinked. “I’m impressed. How did you know?”

“Tobacco scent on the lips and in the hair. Wine stains on his tooth enamel. The abundance of the adipose tissue around his waist. And I’ve counted sixteen separate scars over the front and sides of his body, none of recent vintage.” I put my hands out to circle the trio of wounds in his chest. “But while I know what caused these wounds, the pattern is puzzling me.”

“Continue.”

“These wounds were made by a class of weapon from my world called a ‘firearm’. Guns. Very deadly weapons that can kill at a distance, like arrows.”

“We’ve observed their use in your world,” Kajari said grimly. “It is why Benedict restricted us to observation only. Even a single ‘fire arm’ could have lethal consequences here.”

“He was right,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve seen hundreds of the types of wounds made by bullets—the projectile shot by a gun. You learn what kind of damage can be done to the body. And in disturbing detail.”

“Will your examination allow you to unveil the King’s murderer?” Galen said eagerly.

“I wish I had that kind of magic. What’s puzzling me is why one of the bullet holes looks substantially different from the other two.” I indicated the topmost wound, which stood out from the pale skin of Benedict’s chest just above the sternum. The entry point looked like a tattered red star. “That’s one of the cleanest wounds of this type I’ve ever seen. Compare it to the other entry points.”

Galen and Kajari craned their necks to look at the remaining bullet wounds, located right next to each other, about three inches lower and to the left. These holes weren’t quite as neat. Just above each entry point lay a tiny bruise-brown crescent. A tiny arc of black spots, almost invisible unless one was looking for them, arched across the skin in the same direction.

“Those black marks are what we call ‘stippling’. Think of it as a tattoo. Tiny particles of gunpowder which embed themselves into the skin, when a firearm is discharged at relatively close range. Here, the stippling pattern is very faint. I’m guessing the shot was fired from five, six feet away. Which makes no sense.”

“Why is that?” Galen asked.

“These wounds tell me that the bullets which hit Benedict were relatively light, but moving extremely fast. So I’m guessing that this came from a rifle, one similar to the weapon used to shoot at me. But rifles are designed to be used at a distance.” I shook my head. “And you can add one more mystery to the pile. Why do the stippling marks show up only by the lower two wounds and not the top one?”

My mind flashed back to the construction site in Los Angeles. Right at the moment before Esteban had tackled me. I looked at the crescent shape marks on Benedict’s body again and with a
click
, my mind offered up a suggestion.

I reached over to the table and grabbed one of the metal probes. Ignoring the distressed sound that came from one of my companions, I inserted the probe into the topmost bullet wound. I pushed the probe in, slowly following the gory channel cut through the flesh until I heard a sharp
tic
.

I left the probe there, sticking out of the wound ungraciously like a meat skewer. Next, I picked up two more probes. I repeated the insertions, this time on the lower wounds. Each time, I continued until I heard a
tic
sound.

I crouched down at Benedict’s side to get a closer look at the three probes that now pincushioned the poor king’s chest. I gripped the cold, slick edge of Benedict’s slab and did my best to estimate angles off the three probes. The upper one stuck out at a distinctly different angle compared to the lower two.

“Galen, take note,” I said. “Upper probe indicates a downward trajectory of ten degrees. The lower two show an upward trajectory. A sharp one, around forty degrees.”

“…Forty degrees,” Galen repeated quietly, as he wrote down the data.

“Yes,” I said, almost to myself, “that could explain what I’m seeing here.”

“Share your thoughts, then.” This from Kajari.

“I’d be happy to,” I said, as I removed the probes, dipped the gloves in disinfectant, and removed them. “But while we’re on the way to the crime scene.”

“You wish to see the place of the murder? Why, when you have the body here to see?”

“Because sometimes, context is everything,” I said, and I walked towards the exit. That same damned skin-crawling sensation rippled over me as I stepped through the doorway. The wizard and the Duke followed me. “And there’s more evidence out there I need to collect.”

“Nothing else lay upon the ground to take back from where Benedict fell,” Galen said, his hooves clip-clopping on the marble steps. “What leads you to conjecture that more material is needed to locate the murderer?”

“I heard the tip of my probes strike the stone tabletop under Benedict’s body. That means all three bullets passed right through him. Those bullets must still be at the crime scene. How fast can we get there?”

“Galen can run with the wind, as a centaur can,” Kajari said. “You and I will need horses from the Royal stables. It’s a good two hour ride to the Grove of the Willows.”

I smiled grimly. “Then let’s get saddled. I’m under that three-day deadline, so every moment counts.

Chapter Nine

With a clatter, five sets of hooves thundered down the cobblestone-lined road that led, ruler-straight, away from the palace. Four horses, each snow white with midnight black manes, and a chestnut centaur. I sat on the steed in the middle, grasping the reins tightly in my sweaty grip.

Kajari followed slightly behind, Galen to my front. A pair of nattily attired knights bracketed us. The two Andeluvian horsemen were draped with chain mail and armed to the teeth with swords, shields, and an iron flail that looked as if it had been tipped with bits of barbed wire.

Okay, I’ll just come out and say it.

The reason for my being in Andeluvia was tragic. The countdown to the war I was supposed to stop felt like a sword suspended over my head by a frayed piece of string. But pounding through the heart of the city on the back of a mighty steed, flanked by a wizard, the acting king, and a pair of armored knights?

It felt like I’d been made queen for the day at the local Renaissance Faire.

Dammit, it felt
cool
.

We moved at a canter, passing blocks of the same tall, narrow-fronted houses. People scattered to the sides, looking at us with scarcely hidden curiosity. The houses soon slumped in size to smaller cottages, now roofed with golden bunches of thatch. The cottages gave way to fields of wheat and a kind of waxy green vegetable that looked like an artichoke the size of a throw pillow. These in turn faded into hamlets set amidst rolling orchards. We rode along under wide-spreading branches, catching the occasional tart whiff of ripening apples.

I had to squint as we rode more or less into the setting sun. For a second, I spotted an enormous, log cabin style tree house, perched high in the branches off to one side of the road. I craned my neck to get a better look, but it disappeared into the dense foliage as we moved along. Duke Kajari saw my questioning glance and made a little shrug.

“Legislators,” he said, which explained nothing at all. “They’re still asleep right now.”

The orchards gave way to a forest of sugar maple and ash trees. The horses gleamed with sweat, and even Galen had to mop at his brow. Kajari slowed our group to a gentle trot. The cobblestones gave out and our mounts’ hooves now made muffled thuds against packed dirt. We rode on for a while, with the sound of the hoofbeats and the jingling of the guards’ chain mail our only accompaniment.

Kajari spurred his mount to ride along at my right. Galen dropped back to trot along on my left. I noted that the centaur had brought along a small leather satchel, which he’d slung across one shoulder. The satchel itself sported shiny green scales and a heavy, gunmetal-gray lock. Whatever was inside, the wizard didn’t want it falling out.

“This is the main road to the Grove of the Willows,” Kajari said. “The sacred place where Benedict and the ruler of the Centaur Kingdom would meet, at least a half-dozen times in a given year.”

“Let me guess. It’s neutral ground between your two realms.”

“That is so. On occasion, I would accompany Benedict, but he usually went by himself. He didn’t even bring guards. As a show of trust, I believe.”

“On that subject, I can shed additional illumination,” Galen added. “King Benedict, for all his love of wine and merriment, liked the solitude of the ride.”

“Interesting,” I said. I chewed my lip for a moment. “Whoever killed Benedict would’ve had a few chances to simply ambush the King on this road. But it happened at this grove instead. Why?”