I’m gonna have to be careful not to let this get above 80K words.
“A word, Shamus?” Foster said as they started loading corpses on the coroner’s wagon.
“Sure,” I said as we moved to a corner. I offered her a smoke; she took it. “And I’m guessing that the word ain’t ‘Nebraska.’”
“First off, I’m just passing this on,” Foster said, and I almost groaned. When somebody says that, it never ends well for you digestion. “But the word from around the Castle is, you don’t like the Ambassador for the murder?”
“I ain’t cleared him completely yet,” I admitted, “but unless he’s suddenly allowed to just throw demons around, then yeah.”
“What does that mean for the Case, Shamus?”
I looked at her. “It means that I probably won’t end up pinning the crime on the Ambassador. But it’s still a Case, Lieutenant. It ends when it ends.”
“Well,” Foster said, “some people might want to tell you to take it a little easy, now that the prime suspect ain’t one anymore. And some people might even suggest that this Case of yours might be better off going Cold.” She stubbed out her cigarette with one sensible boot. “But me?” she went on, “I’m not dumb enough to tell a Shamus what to do with his Case, especially when it’s just some Castle flunky who wants me to do the chiming in. You have a good evening, Tom.”
After she left, I looked at the crime scene again. Part of me hated doing it, because part of me loved doing it, too. Murder! Mystery! And now the Castle sticking its nose in! This was what Shamuses were for.
If only three more people weren’t dead.