Breach of Peace (The Lawful Times #0.5)(2)

The officer jogged toward the front of the manor.

Khlid squatted near the window to inspect a mess of footprints in the mud. They all seemed to be one size—medium, if a male—headed both toward and away from the shed.

What happened was clear. The why remained murky.

Khlid walked around the shed, but found nothing else of interest. A rising sense of impatience grew within her. She was tempted to shoot the padlock off. Logically, it should work, but she had never actually seen it done.

As she began to seriously consider drawing her sidearm, the officer returned with a pair of cutters.

“Thank you, dear.”

The officer heaved at the cutters, but only got halfway through the lock. Another heave and the lock gave way with a solid clip. Khlid thought she could have managed it in one. True, she’d had plenty of time and tension to exercise over the last couple of weeks, but she was generally unimpressed with officers’ tendency not to keep up with fitness after basic training.

“Well, this is lavish.” Khlid had never seen a shed so clean and organized. Granted, she had not been in many royal sheds, but this was bordering on ridiculous. She took several beats to take in the room. Clearly, the floor was regularly swept and polished. Most of the tools looked like they had never been used—though this was unlikely, given that the grounds were equally pristine.

Either compulsively replaced or cleaned. More likely cleaned.

“Officer...” Khlid searched his face for a name. “...Smits. What do you think happened at the window?”

The officer looked nervous under her stare. “I assume that’s men’s footwear in the prints?”

“Yes.”

“Only one set?”

“Correct.”

“Someone broke in looking for a weapon, I’d say.”

“If they were a woman’s footprints, you’d have a different theory?” Khlid took another unconscious drag from a cigarette.

“I didn't say that. But—have you met many Imperial ladies, ma’am?”

“I have not had the pleasure.”

“They aren’t the type to run for a weapon. With the looks of this place, someone would’ve only come to this shed last night looking for two things: a weapon or a place to avoid death. Only one set of prints, so no chase. The royal men like to think they’re heroic. I could see one coming here with a last stand in mind.”

“Well done, and I believe you’re correct.” Khlid wasn't so sure about the officer’s remarks on upper-class gender politics, but everything else added up. She came to a stop. “But what tool would I take?” Khlid scanned the whole room once again. With a place this organized, it should have been obvious if something were missing.

“Should I get one of the workers, ma’am? I’m sure a gardener would know the shed well enough to spot—”

“No,” Khlid cut in. “We don’t want to bring any possible suspects in here until we’ve swept it repeatedly.”

“Right, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.” He paused, humor slipping into his voice. “It looks fairly well swept to me, ma’am.”

“Yes, this place is unsettlingly clean.” Khlid hardly even finished the sentence. Her mind was focused on the room now, and barely registered the officer.

Even the floor was clean. Who in the hell cleans their shed floor? The only signs of disturbance were the broken window and a smear of blood on the sill itself. Likely to have happened as the man climbed back out. Too much blood to be an immediate result of a gash. It had to have welled up over several seconds.

“Okay, Smits, here is what I know so far. A man came down to the shed after noticing something horribly wrong at the house. We know it was not one of the staff; none of them are hiding cuts. This man did not possess a key—probably one of the royal family; they don’t carry things like keys to sheds. So, he smashes the window. The door is locked from the outside, so he has to crawl back out the same way he came in, and leaves a blood smear on the windowsill on the way out. I suspect he did this well past midnight, after the rainstorm had peaked. Otherwise all that blood would have washed away.

“What we don’t know is what our mystery man snatched. We also don’t know if he had been in the house when things went to hell, or if he came home and witnessed it from the outside. Either way, he was trying to be a hero. Shame he’s probably dead.”

A voice different than Smits’ responded, “Well, that was enjoyable.”

That voice snapped the world back into focus. A grin spread across Khlid’s face. Heart beating just a bit faster, she stood and saw her husband, Samuel.

Samuel had been away three weeks. Sometimes inspectors were called to investigate matters in smaller towns to help maintain justice throughout the Empire. Samuel must have been handed a simple case: one could hardly do more in three weeks than travel to the provinces, turn around, and come back.

Khlid would have run to kiss Sam, but Smits still stood in the corner furiously writing in his notepad. She settled for walking over and giving Sam a hug. He placed his hand on her face before recomposing his professional demeanor, stepping away and looking around the shed.

“I got in this morning,” Samuel said. “I went to the station after I saw you weren’t home and was told you were out here on a homicide.” A grin pulled at his cheeks. It was something Khlid loved dearly about him. He would do whatever it took to be around her more throughout the day, even visit a murder scene, and would do so with a smile on his face.