Red Dog Conspiracy Sets

Chapter 8-2

“And no sign of Joe.”

Jon shook his head, not meeting my eye.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I don’t know anything.” Jon’s eyes flashed to mine, then away. “But there’ve been rumors.”

“Rumors? What rumors?”

“People claim to have seen him, Jacqui. Since we last met.”

“Who claims to have seen him?”

Jon’s face changed, as if he came to some decision. “Let me find out what this is about.”

I took Jon’s hands, relieved. “Thank you.” I gazed at the crowd milling around down the street to my right. “I’m sorry. I just want to know what happened to him. If they find his body.” Grief flooded through me, but I pushed it aside. “I need to know.”

Jon reached into his pocket. A blue-edged zeppelin ticket stub came loose, fluttering away in the breeze as he handed his handkerchief to me. “You honestly believe Tony had him killed?”

I wiped my eyes. “What else could he do? If not him, then his men. Roy. His men.” I shrugged. “I’m next. I can feel it. Even though Tony claims Roy said no.”

“My gods,” Jon leaned his hand high on the door-post, eyes wide. “Roy Spadros forbade his own men to kill you?”

I nodded. The Spadros Family Patriarch had one motivation, it seemed: to t*****e others. Who did he t*****e now?

Jon’s hand dropped to his side, and he sounded humbled. “I’m grateful beyond words. But I can’t fathom what’s going on.”

“Why was Charles Hart at court today?”

Jon glanced away, shrugging. “He insisted on it.”

Ugh, I thought. The man was old. And married! It was clear Mr. Hart had developed an unseemly attraction to me, a woman young enough to be his grand-daughter! But to force his way into a closed meeting with a judge? I laughed in spite of myself. “I wonder how much of a bribe he had to pay to get in there.”

oldJon smiled fondly. “Perhaps not as much as you might think.”

I found this amusing. “True. He is a Patriarch, after all.”

Yet Jon seemed uncomfortable. “I must be going.”

I felt weary, and a sudden loneliness, but I did remember manners. “Thank you for calling on me. And for appearing today in my support. I do appreciate it. Very much.”

Jon grinned, and whatever discomfort he had vanished. “It was fiendishly difficult to get here in the first place. Tony allowed me into the quadrant, so thank him for it.”

him

I closed the door, leaned on it.

Why would Jon have trouble entering the quadrant, especially if here to see me? He was Keeper of the Court: he should have no trouble going anywhere related to a Court matter. But he came in his own carriage, dressed in street clothes, not in his navy blue uniform and carriage of the Court. Why?

I brought the bottle to my room and took another drink. Maybe I was drunk, as Jonathan said. After everything that had happened, why shouldn’t I be?

I heard the side door open and shut. I could tell it was Amelia from the small sounds she made as she moved around the kitchen.

To be honest, at the time I didn’t care if it was Jonathan’s twin, Jack Diamond, come to t*****e then kill me for what my father had done to his friend. I almost would have welcomed it.

Joseph Kerr had to be dead.

Why was I still alive?

Amelia came in with a newspaper. She said sarcastically, “You’ll eat the way everyone else does. Anything else?”

I felt taken aback. “No. Thank you.”

She flung the newspaper at me then stomped off.

She must still be upset about last week, I thought.

Amelia stood slumped against the kitchen wall facing away from me, straightening when I entered.

“I shouldn’t have put the g*n to you, Amelia. And it was unfair of me to make you give Mr. Anthony my letter.” Tony was like a son to her. How his reaction must have hurt!

She didn’t turn. “You think I care about what happens to me?”

me“Well, then, what’s wrong?”

She got very still. “You told the boy you’d say good-bye —”

A shock went through me. Pip!

Pip!“— and you didn’t! He just lies in bed weeping.” She sounded ready to cry. “Why did you involve him?”

involveShe can’t even call her own son by his name? “Why do you care?”

She can’t even call her own son by his name?She turned, quick as a snake, and for an instant I feared she might strike. “You don’t understand anything! You act so high above us. But you’re just a common Pot rag scrap, w*****g about without any decency at all. I have to be here, but that doesn’t mean I have to crawl. If you had any heart, you’d go to him this minute and beg his forgiveness. But I’d tell him not to give it.”

any“Well,” I said, “at least now I know where we stand.”

I went back to my room and shut the door. Amelia’s outburst didn’t upset me: I deserved it.

Pip Dewey was just ten. His mother had all but abandoned him, and he’d become attached to me. I remembered the peaceful, happy look on his little face when he held my hand against his cheek in the garden. I should at least have left a letter.

I found a piece of paper, a pen, and a bit of ink at the bottom of the bottle in a writing-desk.

Pip —

I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye. I hope you’ll forgive me. I was afraid they would stop me from going.

I’m safe and well. I hear you’ve been sad since I left. I want you to be happy again.

Please write if you want to.

Your Friend,

Mrs. Spadros

I went down the front steps, where a policeman stood guard. “Would you post this for me?”

“Surely, mum, if you have money for the messenger.”

What happened to my money?

I rummaged around in my room until I found my handbag with the change I’d set aside for Mrs. Bryce. I gave the policeman his penny and hid the rest well. It might have to last a while: who would give a job to a suspected criminal?

Sitting at my table with a drink, I opened the newspaper.

The Golden Bridges was a disreputable tabloid — its byline: “f**k the fairy tales, get the Real Story.” The paper was a day old, and I imagined with Amelia’s mood (and the faint smell) that she fished it from a trash-can. But it was unstained and quite readable.

Golden BridgesDistrict Attorney Runs For Mayor

Vows To “Clean Up Bridges”

Well, I thought. This explained quite a bit.

District Attorney Mr. Chase Freezout has made a bid for Mayor of Bridges. According to our Inside Reporter, papers were filed late Friday afternoon.

This from a speech Mr. Freezout made on the City Hall steps moments after: “So much has befallen our fair city: financial ruin and the destruction of two of Merca’s greatest treasures. The bombing of Flight A26 is just one example of the rot which has crept into our quadrants. I vow to clean up Bridges, making it safe and prosperous once more.”

Mr. Freezout will resign as District Attorney should he succeed in his endeavor, but he intends to personally prosecute this current case to its end first. For the Bridges District Attorney to personally prosecute a criminal case is historic.

Mr. Freezout began his legal career in 1862 and was elected District Attorney in 1879. Although his father Sir Stayman Freezout was forced to cede his title, lands, and rank after the Coup, the Freezout family still lives on 190th Street, Hart quadrant.

Elections are set for November 4th to fill the post left by the recent death of Mayor Siete Badugi, who has served for the past twelve years. The cause of Mayor Badugi’s death is still under investigation.

So Mr. Freezout was an aristocrat, with both the money and the motive to destroy the Families.

But why target me? Did he believe I’d lost the Spadros Family’s support? He couldn’t possibly have known I’d planned to leave Spadros Manor: I didn’t know the timing of it until it happened.

I was missing something here.

I poured another drink and continued reading.

Mad Jack Captured in Spadros Quadrant

Yesterday afternoon, the notorious Master Jack Diamond was captured at a business on 2nd Street.

According to our Inside Reporter, Master Diamond was seen entering one Bryce Fabrics, where he accosted the shopkeeper, a widow. Neighbors, alerted to his presence, removed him from the shop and beat him before Spadros men arrived.

Master Jack was taken to the Spadros-Diamond city bridge where he was released into Diamond Family custody. The Spadros Family plans formal protest.

Although the quadrants are free from overt Family violence, the Spadros and Diamond syndicates have been at war since the Coup. We at the Golden Bridges hope that this offense will not throw fuel upon an already tense situation.

Golden Bridges“This is unbelievable,” I murmured.

Helen Hart Takes to Her Bed:

“Quite Seriously Ill”

Mrs. Helen Hart, wife of Inventor and Hart Family heir Mr. Etienne Hart, has taken to her bed. Doctors have declared Mrs. Hart “quite seriously ill” and “unlikely to survive.”

The Harts are not planning funeral arrangements at this time, holding out hope that the lovely Lady of Hart may yet recover.

In the same paper, I found an interview:

Our Inside Reporter Speaks:

The Hart Situation

The Golden Bridges now speaks with our Inside Reporter to give you the Real Story.

Golden BridgesGB: With the Hart heir over fifty, no sons, and his wife dying, what are the Hart Family’s prospects?

IR: Should anything happen to Charles Hart, we predict a battle between his main men.

GB: Indeed, the man is seventy and a prodigious drinker. But could his son Etienne not simply remarry? As ghoulish as it may sound with the wife not yet in her grave, the stability of the city may depend on the answer.

IR: The battle might happen even if he does. A sickly man rarely seen without his mother beside him, Etienne Hart seems most interested in books, not war. He may not be able to hold the quadrant.

Another man was found strangled. The headline brought fear to my throat — had they found Joe’s body? But this man was short, blond — not tall and brown-haired like Joe. I sighed in relief, without knowing why. I knew Joe had to be dead, but seeing reports of his death would have made it real.

Amelia set my dinner before me.

“Thank you,” I said.

She said nothing.

“I wrote to Pip. You know why I can’t go there.”

She shook her head.

“Sit down. We need to talk.”

Amelia froze. Her lower lip trembled. “Why do you do this?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I want to hate you! I do hate you! Then you do this.”

I remembered the confusion and fear when I asked the staff to sit with me after Tony was attacked. Tony’s anger after Tenni — Madame Biltcliffe’s shop maid — sat at the table with us. “What does it mean to sit at the table? I just wish to speak with you.”