Murder at the Kinnen Hotel by McClellan Brian

Author:McClellan, Brian [McClellan, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Brian McClellan
Published: 2014-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

“What else do we have?”

White sat down at the cafe table across from Adamat, glancing surreptitiously at the newspaper in Adamat’s hand before raising her chin and waiting for an answer.

Adamat let her wait. It was still early in the morning, not yet eight, the sky still dark, and he was nursing a significant headache and trying to keep his eyes open enough to drink two cups of the cafe’s stoutest Fatrastan coffee. Very little sleep was a hallmark of police work. He’d managed to get used to it, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Nor did he enjoy spending so much time away from his wife.

“Very little,” Adamat responded. He couldn’t help the spike of annoyance when White’s eyebrows rose. Cold-blooded killer or not, have a little damned decency. “I managed to find two more of my informants yesterday. Neither of them had any idea who in the Brickmen gang might be related to the powder mage. One said it wasn’t a relation at all, just someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time and was hired to kill a rival gang member. Regardless, the story is the same: as soon they found out he was a powder mage no one in the docklands would come near him.”

“Did you find out a name?”

Adamat shook his head. It was one of his greatest frustrations from the previous night. A name would let him ask more specific questions, peruse employment, prison, or even church records. It was so much more useful than “powder mage.”

“Did you find anything at all of use to us?” White drummed her fingernails on the table.

“I left the Public Archives just an hour ago,” Adamat said. “Found something curious about the Kemptin family.”

“That applies to our search?”

“I think so.” Adamat raised his eyes from his newspaper. “The Kemptin family is much larger than I thought. None of them are particularly high in the peerage, nothing more than a baron, but they have to be the most prevalent example of nepotism in the whole country. Members of their family occupy public office and high station throughout most of central and northern Adro.”

“So?”

“Commissioner Aleksandre is one of them. A second cousin of Walis Kemptin.”

“You’re looking for a conspiracy.” White narrowed her eyes at him.

Adamat almost balked at that look, but he forced himself to go on with confidence. “I’m not looking. I’m being smacked in the face with it. Ricard Tumblar was framed for murder. Tumblar is trying to get the House of Nobles to legalize his union. The Kemptins are a prevalent family who employ thousands of laborers, giving them vested interest in seeing his efforts fail. They’ve put dozens of family members in useful positions all over the country, and they would damn well make use of them. They could have hired an assassin to frame Ricard Tumblar, and then when someone like myself fingered the real killer, had cousin Aleksandre step in and make sure Tumblar would still take the fall.

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