Dead Waters - Anton Strout [48]
“That’s everything?” he asked when I was done.
I nodded. “The students who did talk to me about Professor Redfield spoke very highly of him,” I said, going with encouragement again. “But even after that aquatic she-beast attacked and marked Jane last night, we still don’t know why she killed Mason Redfield. On the plus side, Aqua-Woman did try to drown Jane as she was trying to escape us when we cornered her, so we must be getting closer to the truth.”
The Inspectre slammed his fist on his desk. “People are dying and this city would rather have us worrying about how much printer paper we use and who we can live without in the Department.” He shuffled through the files on his desk, snatching up a piece of paper, shaking it at me. “Do you know that we spent over ten thousand dollars last year on pens alone? How on earth did we even do that?”
“Actually,” I said, “I have an answer for that one.”
“Oh?” the Inspectre said, raising one of his busy eyebrows. He stroked at his mustache.
“Jane mentioned it to me. It seems the ink in them is a perfect replacement for Wyrm’s Blood. Easier to find, too. Greater and Lesser Arcana have been going through them like crazy. At first I thought maybe Jane was a closet pen fetishist, but nope. Just Wesker and his crew scrounging up spell components.”
Inspectre Quimbley sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Well, then! Maybe the Enchancellors should put Director Wesker in charge of everything here. I haven’t the heart for all this red tape or letting people go.”
“I suspect Thaddeus Wesker would take a perverse pleasure in assuming the throne,” I said.
“The budget cuts,” he said, angry. “The passing of old friends . . . How is one supposed to mourn let alone get anything done around here?”
“I’m sorry there hasn’t been more progress,” I said. “It’s no excuse, but like you said, everyone is overworked these days. It’s causing a lot of stress, even more so with me and Jane.”
“Power still flaring up on you?” he asked.
“You’ve heard about it, too?”
“A good leader keeps his ears open for what may be troubling his agents,” he said. “A lesson I learned far too late to help Mason with his problems years ago, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t want to trouble you with it, sir.”
“Nonsense,” the Inspectre said, gesturing toward the free chair across from him on the other side of the desk. “Clearly it’s troubling you or you wouldn’t have brought it up. If something’s distracting you from your work, I’d like to know about it. An undistracted agent is a living agent, as it were.”
“Very well,” I said as I sank into the leather chair, feeling a bit like I was in therapy. “Ever since helping out our sunlight-challenged friends over at the Gibson-Case Center, I’ve been channeling all this jealous anger and rage. This ghost tattooist left me trying to shake off all these twisted feelings of hers from when she had been living, and it’s been causing me to snap at Jane. She had been asking me about more space for her at my apartment, and I don’t know. After feeling the tattooist’s rage after trusting someone and being betrayed, it’s just messing with me being close to someone right now. It really gives me pause.”
“So, what?” the Inspectre asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I want to take it slow, but I found myself looking at antique dressers the other day when I should have been concentrating on fieldwork. When I was hunting around for students who knew the professor.”
“Be sure to note that on your time card,” the Inspectre said.
“I’m salaried, so . . .” I started to say, and then stopped myself when I saw him smiling. “See? Even my sense of humor is thrown off.”
All the anger was gone from the Inspectre’s face now. He looked me in the eye, his hands folded together in front of him. “My boy,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of things over the years that I don’t understand. Things that naturally defy understanding, but there are some things I do understand. That girl Jane loves you. Not everyone gets that in this world, not