Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) Page 9

  Next, I went through the files on F that Andre had given me. I was halfway finished when he tapped on my cube wall. “Afternoon, partner.”

  “Afternoon?” I checked the computer’s clock. “Oh, so it is.”

  “So it is indeed.” He bumped his knuckles together.

  “You’re perky. I hope you’re not expecting me to have already cracked this case and discovered who’s producing F.”

  “You haven’t? Slacker.” He shook his head, feigning disappointment. “Actually, I’m here because we’ve got another lead. Well, maybe we got another lead. Come on, we get to go meet him.”

  I got up and stretched my back. “Our lead is a him?”

  Andre consulted a notepad he was carrying. “It is, and he has a name too: Curt Murphy. He came forward to the Newton PD, and they turned him over to us. He just got here, and we get to question him. Aren’t you excited?” He punched me lightly on the arm.

  I punched him back. “I can barely contain myself. Suspect, witness or something else?”

  Andre scratched his head, his expression turning serious. “Something else from the sound of it. He’s a friend of the Stacys who wanted to give a statement. He thinks he might know something.”

  Down on the first floor, we passed through a cluster of rooms I’d gotten very familiar with during my own questioning. Those few days after Victor Aubrey had been arrested, I’d been forced to tell my story over and over again to multiple Gryphons while sitting in one of these bland little rooms with their bland little furniture, often while drinking bland little cups of coffee. I shuddered to see them again.

  We entered one such gray-walled room, and its sole occupant checked us out expectantly. Curt Murphy appeared to be in his late twenties and was in every way as bland as the room, from his khaki pants to his blue, button-down office shirt. His hands fidgeted with his phone, and a thin sheen of sweat clung to his face. It was over air-conditioned in here, so that had to be the result of nerves. Beneath his not-so-calm exterior, he was filled with indecision, fear and no small degree of boredom. None of that was surprising under the circumstances.

  Andre held out a hand and did the introductions. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  Curt shook his head. “Not long. I’m just… I’m not sure I can help, but Mike was a good friend. I want to do whatever I can.”

  “Michael Stacy?” Andre confirmed. “Did you know his wife too?”

  “I knew them both, yeah.” Curt spun his phone around on the table. “The thing is, the police aren’t saying exactly what happened, but it sounds like everyone at their party on Friday was murdered. Is that true?”

  I took a seat and waited for Andre. He’d told me on the way over to let him do the questioning, and I was fine with that. This was another watch-and-learn session.

  Andre laid his notepad and pen neatly out on the table while he assessed Curt. If I could have, I’d have told him there wasn’t much to assess. Curt’s anxiety spiked when he mentioned the party, but I didn’t sense anything malicious in it. It was a good bet Curt knew what went on at those parties and was feeling awkward discussing it with strangers.

  “The people at the party died,” Andre said. “Whether it was murder, an accident or some other cause remains to be determined.”

  “So it wasn’t necessarily foul play, or whatever the reporters are calling it?”

  Andre picked up the pen. “Nine apparently healthy people dying in one place for no clear reason is suspicious. Let’s go with that. So what do you know that might be helpful?”

  Curt squirmed in his seat. “I was supposed to be at the party, but I backed out at the last minute. I got sick Friday afternoon, half of my office did. Anyway, I was feeling it Friday night, so I stayed home.”

  “Good call,” I muttered.

  Curt’s attention shifted to me, maybe hoping I’d be more sympathetic. “Come on, tell me. What happened to them? It wasn’t just Mike and Shannon that I knew. I had a few friends there.”

  Andre cleared his throat. “What happened is something or someone killed your friends. Can you tell me about them? Start with the Stacys. Did they throw these sorts of parties often?”

  Curt must have figured out what Andre meant by “these sorts” because his cheeks burned and the vinegar-like taste of his embarrassment flooded my mouth.

  I supposed I was spending so much time around satyrs that other people’s sex lives no longer seemed weird. I’d witnessed too many idiot humans driven to all sorts of public displays of depravity at The Lair. At least these people had been having fun behind closed doors and not in a place where I’d have to be an unwilling witness.

  Curt talked a bit about the Stacys before finally coming around to Andre’s question about the party. “They had parties about once a month or so.”

  “How long had that been going on for?”

  Curt twisted his fingers together. “A year, maybe more?”

  “And did you know everybody who was supposed to attend Friday’s party?”

  Curt took a deep breath, and his body sagged. “Yes. I wasn’t close with everyone. But Mike and Shannon were careful, you know? They didn’t just invite anyone. You had to be vetted, so I’d gotten to know everyone there at least casually.”

  I bit my tongue because I wanted to make an inappropriate comment about our differing definitions of casual. Andre caught my eye, apparently sensing my childish behavior.

  “But that’s actually…” Curt cringed. “That’s what made me think I needed to come talk to you about it. Something was supposed to be different this time.”

  I leaned forward. “Different how?”

  “Mike said something about a surprise. I don’t know what he meant by that.” Curt rested his face on his hands. “I was super pissed off to not be able to go because whatever it was, he was very excited about it.”

  Well, that was ominous. I looked at Andre, figuring I should keep my mouth shut.

  Andre seemed to be debating something. “When your friends died, they all had F in their systems.”

  Curt’s icy surprise and fear peaked then dimmed like a melting sour orange popsicle. “Did they?” Curt glanced between us. “I wouldn’t have thought…”

  And now he was lying. The burnt-toast taste of that sort of anxiety was unmistakable.

  “Sure, you would have. I mean, that wasn’t the surprise, was it?” I asked, taking a stab at what I was sensing. “They’ve had F at their parties before.”

  It was Andre whose surprise I noticed this time, but the corners of his lips twitched, so I thought he was pleased. “Mr. Murphy, we’re only interested in the F if it relates to why your friends died. So you need to be honest. You came to us because you had information and wanted to help.”

  “I know. Sorry.” Curt rubbed his stubble. “Yeah, that wouldn’t have been the surprise. They used to get F occasionally.”

  “Do you know from who or where?”

  “Only that it was at some club.”

  “What kind of club?”

  Curt stared at his phone as though he wanted to hide behind it. “A dance club. That’s all I know. I never went with them. The noise and the crowds—not my thing. But I guess this club did some fetish thing every now and then that they liked. That’s all I can say.”

  Dance club. Fetish thing. F. Checkmate. I knew our club, and it wasn’t a surprise considering it was owned by a satyr. Damn it.

  Andre probed Curt with a few more questions, but the guy didn’t seem to have much else of use to share. He was feeling survivor’s guilt and thus obligated to tell us what he knew. His problem was that he felt like an idiot doing it. An embarrassed idiot.

  Andre got Curt’s contact information then walked him to the lobby. I was still sitting in the room, silently cursing what the next item on my to-do list was likely to be, when he returned and collapsed into the cha
ir across from mine. “That explains why there were ten wineglasses sitting out at the party, but only nine used. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Even numbers?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Sure. What do I know about swingers’ parties? Handcuffs and blindfolds and whips, oh my.”

  I snorted, grateful to Andre for relieving some of my tension. “What? You’ve never been to that sort of shindig?”

  “I’ve never been that cool.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You?”

  “Closest thing I’ve ever gotten was working at a satyr bar.” It was a risky thing to admit, but not like my very temporary stint as one of Lucen’s servers would be difficult to uncover. Besides, I’d rather these people know as much of the publicly strange parts of my life as possible. It might keep them so distracted that they wouldn’t think to search for all the truly important strangeness I was hiding.

  A smile slowly crept over Andre’s face. “You did what? I have to hear about this someday. I could tell you were crazy.”

  “Oh, come on. Anyone who knows how I got drafted into working here knows I have to be crazy.”

  Andre laughed. “True enough. Okay, so back to the case. Curt Murphy’s information about a surprise at the party is interesting, but not illuminating. We’ll have to keep digging. And that reminds me—nice job catching him on the F. I forget sometimes I’m working with an empath.”

  “A very limited-in-her-scope empath.”

  “Limited or not, it’s plenty useful in this line of work. We’ve got all kinds of tricks for detecting lies, plus regular old polygraphs, but I’m going to guess you’re just as efficient and accurate. And best of all, I don’t need permission to use you.”

  “I’m probably more accurate.” I slid off the chair, frowning. Might as well bring up the next point. “The club he was talking about—I think I know which one it is.”

  Andre picked up his pen and paper. “Now see, that also surprises me because you don’t seem like the clubbing type.”

  “I liked to go dancing when I was younger.” Actually, I’d liked to go dancing at that club in particular. Fetish Fridays—which I guessed was what Curt was talking about—wasn’t my favorite event, but in general the place had been a haven for dark, angry dance music. I’d had a lot of angst to work out of my system back then.

  Hell, I still did.

  Andre seemed amused by my comment as he chewed on the pen cap. “Okay then, clubbing queen, what place do you think he’s talking about? I think I know too. It would be good if we were thinking of the same place.”

  I sat on the table. “Purgatory.”

  “Purgatory, it is.”

  “Damn. And how did you know the club?”

  “We keep a list of all the businesses in the area that are owned by preds, especially the ones that are pred-owned but not obvious about the fact.”

  I squeezed the table edge. “Like Purgatory.” As with so many things, I’d had no idea the club was owned by a satyr until recently. “So are we going to go there?”

  “Do dragons bite? We just got a tip that F is being dealt out of Purgatory. This means we can be thorough and professional about it.”

  I got off the table and followed Andre out of the room. “And thorough and professional—what does that mean?”

  “It means if someone’s dealing F out of Purgatory, and satyrs produce F, and satyrs own Purgatory… Then you add it all up, throw in nine dead humans for extra credit, and we can get a warrant to search the premises.”

  I paused in the hall, my stomach sinking to my boots. “Do I really have to go with you?”

  Andre threw me a funny look. “You’re my partner-in-training. This is our case. Of course you’re coming with me. Just hang on because it could take a couple hours to get the warrant. I have to do the dreaded deed called paperwork.”

  “Got it.”

  I took several deep breaths as he walked away. It wasn’t just satyrs who owned Purgatory. It was Devon. Which meant in a couple hours I was going to be pissing off Dezzi’s lieutenant.

  Fucking awesome.

  While Andre obtained the warrant, I returned to my desk. Though I tried reading the files on F, I wasn’t comprehending much. Showing up at Purgatory with a warrant, getting on Devon’s bad side—these things didn’t leave me with lots of good feelings.

  I looked up at the sound of someone approaching, and Tom Kassin gave me one of his strained smiles as he stopped at my cube. “Ms. Moore, I’m glad to find you here. Would you mind coming to my office with me so we can talk?”

  Actually, I would mind. The unsettled feeling I got around him hadn’t subsided since Saturday.

  I made a show of checking the time. “I’m waiting for Agent Pagan to let me know—”

  “Yes, I know about the warrant, but that’s going to take a while. This won’t.” He stepped back and gestured into the hall. “Please.”

  “Of course.” What else could I say?

  Tom’s office was down the hall, a weirdly shaped interior room that was covered in boxes. I supposed even Gryphons from World Headquarters didn’t have the seniority to bump someone out of an office with a window. Some of his boxes were unpacked, and the contents—or so I assumed—were sitting on one of the several bookshelves behind his desk. The books themselves appeared gravely old. Many were leather-bound, and the writing on the spines of several had worn away to the point where I couldn’t read it.

  Spell books? Pred lore? I wondered what was in them, why he needed them and if I could take a look.

  Tom moved a box off one of the room’s two chairs so I could sit. “I apologize for the mess. I needed to bring some resources with me, and it’s amazing how few of our old texts have been digitized yet.”

  “I remember hearing there are storerooms full of interesting old books and artifacts at World,” I said, thinking about the stuff I’d learned at the Academy.

  Tom closed the office door most of the way. “There are, all meticulously catalogued, yet not easily accessible despite that. So.” He sat across from me and folded his hands.

  “So?” I raised my eyebrows. He was the one who’d requested this meeting, after all.

  “I understand you asked to speak to Victor Aubrey.”

  A small drape or flag in the same red and gold colors as Tom’s pin sat in a crumpled ball on one of the bookshelves. I pondered it and the pin as I responded. “I did.”

  “I’m curious about why.”

  Dragging my eyes away from the cloth, I gave him my full attention. It wasn’t his fault, but his baby face made every question from him sound condescending. Maybe that was why I didn’t care for him. When he spoke, it felt like a child was lecturing me, although I suspected we weren’t too far apart in age.

  I tried to hide my annoyance. “As I explained to Director Lee, Victor and I have the same weird ability, and I thought his fury master might have told him a few things about it that would be useful for me to know too.”

  It was clear from Tom’s face he didn’t quite buy my reasoning, and the bitter chocolate of his suspicion confirmed it. It was muted though. Watered-down chocolate. I wondered if he were truly uninterested, or if he had some seriously powerful magic protecting him. “I would think it’s unlikely that anything Victor Aubrey tells you could be trusted. He might tell you what he believes is the truth, though I doubt it. But even so, if anything was told to him by a fury, I’d say it’s unlikely to be truth. If you want to know more, you should turn to us for answers.”

  “No one around here has heard of anyone with a gift like mine. That doesn’t bode well for discovering answers.”

  Not unless someone had the clearance to decrypt my stolen files, but yeah. I wasn’t about to bring those up.

  “We have all kinds of resources at World. For example…” Tom picked up one of the books on his desk and read the title. “Well, this wouldn’
t be of use, but I can help you access a lot of information. All you have to do is let me know what it is you want to find out.”

  The falseness of his sincerity made me want to smack him. “The problem is I don’t know what I want to find out. All I know is I want to know more. Anyway, I thought you were here because of the furies. You probably shouldn’t be wasting time helping me.”

  “You’re connected to the furies. I can’t imagine helping you would ever be a waste of my time.”

  “That’s nice, but you’ve read the reports on me. You know what I know. If you have any suggestions for where to look for more information, I’d be happy to hear them. Meantime, I think it’s worthwhile to talk to Victor.”

  Tom sighed. “That can’t happen because of the case.”

  Shit. I’d expected as much, but still.

  “I know you’re disappointed,” he continued, reading my face, “but trust me, you’re better off. He’s not a pleasant person, and he’s less so going through withdrawal.”

  “Yeah, I’m very aware of Victor’s personality flaws, having been on the receiving end of a few. Was that all then?” Or did you want any more time to dig for information?

  “That’s all. I just wanted you to know that I’m available as a resource and a friend, and I’d be very interested in helping you answer any questions you might have about your unusual situation. I realize you might feel a bit concerned after what happened, but we’re here to help. I hope you feel you can trust us.”

  Uh-huh. Trust me, said the scorpion to the frog, the pred to the human, and the mysterious Gryphon to the woman with something to hide. No thanks.

  “I appreciate the offer, and actually I do have a question.” I pointed to his pin. “I haven’t seen any other Gryphons with one of those. Does it have something to do with being stationed at World?”