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Chapter 9: They find the body
He was barely half-way through the previous day’s AviNewz and a small bowl of candied fruit when someone reached up and knocked on the window outside loudly enough to get his attention. The passer-by, some random resident of Krim normally completely beneath Trask’s notice and could be expected to recognize, knocked again and then stepped back away from the window and pointed in the direction that Joe had gone.
Now that he could see more than just the top of his head, Trask remembered who the man was. Bonefist the Hurricane. Not anyone important at all. Just one of several people on the membership committee of the Paladins of Death. His main job, Trask recalled, was getting members to pay their guild dues.
Trask raised an eyebrow and Bonefist gestured again, more forcefully, then threw up his hands and walked away.
Trask levered himself up from the table. It seemed to be harder than ever to get to his feet, possibly due to all the exertion of the day. Trask reminded himself to take it easier on himself. No point in running himself ragged.
He left the newspaper behind, told Quimby to put the food on his account, opened the front door, checked for assassins, and left the inn. He went right, away from the city center, towards the alley that the griefer had disappeared into. Lead Pan Alley.
As he approached, a shopkeeper leaned out a window and yelled, “Joe is waiting for you down there!” and pointed.
“Thanks, Tom.” Trask gave the book binder a small wave and turned into the alley.
Lead Pan Alley was a semicircle. It went behind the bindery and a couple of other buildings, then swung around again and back onto Leadenhall Street.
It was empty.
Trask yelled hello and his voice echoed between the stone buildings on either side. He was about to turn around and leave when he saw Joe’s face pop into view from around the curve.
“It’s over here!” Joe waved and disappeared again.
Trask paused, catching his breath, then set off down the alley. It was still the middle of the day, but the alley got darker and darker as he walked, the stone building closing in on both sides.
Then he turned the corner and saw his chief–and only–deputy standing over a dead body.
“I found purses and a briefcase a little further down,” Joe said, pointing to a small pile stacked carefully to the side.
Trask looked down at the corpse. The face was frozen in a twisted grimace, and there were flies buzzing around the drying pool of blood that spread away from the griefer’s neck.
“Default assassin avatar seventeen,” Trask said. “Thank God. It’s over.”
Well, for at least two weeks. When the suspension lifted, the griefer might come back, but griefers were not generally known for their patience. He’d probably get bored and move on to hassling some other world.
“No calluses on his fingers,” Joe said. “So not a professional archer.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have any if he just created the character.” Trask let out a big breath, then bent over to look at the man’s hands.
Joe grabbed Trask under the armpit to steady him.
“No broken nails,” said Trask. “No obvious defensive wounds. I wonder who killed him.” He straightened up and pushed away Joe’s hand. “And where his crossbow is.”
“Maybe he was taken by surprise,” Joe said.
Trask stepped away from the body and looked at the small pile of bags. “Larry the Lifter’s work, probably. I saw him earlier, working the crowd.”
“I’ll take these back to city hall, in case anyone claims them,” Joe said. “The money is gone, but there are some personal items in there. Keys, scented balms, knives, hair brushes, personal-sized flails, mini morning stars, flea-repellent oils, emergency caltrops. And this briefcase is full of papers.” Joe bent down, picked up the briefcase, and handed it to Trask.
“Hmm.” Trask rummaged through it and pulled out an envelope. It was addressed to an unfamiliar name. “I think the thief opened this and looked inside,” Trask said, and ripped the envelope open.
“Right,” said Joe. “The thief did that, not us.”
“Huh, it’s a subpoena for a John Singh-Thompson Robins.” Trask didn’t recognize the name. It didn’t sound Krimmish. He opened another envelope. “This one’s also a subpoena.” The third one was addressed to Sidney Gellhorn. So that was her real name. Huh. He put it back without opening it. He quickly glanced at the names on the other envelopes. He didn’t recognize any of them, probably because they had people’s real names on them, not whatever they called themselves on Krim. Most importantly, none of them were addressed to him. Not that he expected anyone back in the real world to sue him, but still.
“The dead guy’s a process server?” Joe’s normally stoic face grew even colder.
Process servers didn’t have a lot of fans on Krim..
“No, he’s just a griefer,” said Trask. “The process server is someone else. I actually met him earlier today when he was trying to serve papers on the newspaper editor.”
Trask looked through the first briefcase again. “The process server’s name is Jordan Rex Crewe,” he said. He repeated the name to himself. Jordan Rex Crewe. Sure, the griefer was bad, but a process server loose on the grid could be even more disruptive to business. He was going to have to do something about that.
“Let’s get all the stuff back to city hall,” he said, nodding at the pile of purses. He stuffed the subpoenas back into the briefcase. Who even sells briefcases on Krim? Well, maybe the leatherworkers off of Baronet Boulevard. The Cow’s End on Cudgel Street had a very nice selection.
“So what do we do with the body?” Joe asked. “Do you want me to take it to city hall?”
“No point in bringing him with us,” said Trask. “And we don’t want to litter.”
“We wouldn’t be the ones littering,” said Joe. “Wouldn’t it be Larry? Or whoever killed the guy?”
“Good point.” Trask tucked the briefcase under his arm, took out a notepad and made a note. “Once we find whoever killed him, we can levy a fine.”
“Should we give them a medal, instead?”
“No reason we can’t do both.”
Joe nodded, then leaned down and grabbed the griefer’s ankles. As he pulled the body towards the trash chute, Trask saw something glittering between the stones.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Joe stopped pulling, stepped around the body, and picked up the object. “It’s a bloody knife,” he said, and cleaned it off on the griefer’s cloak. “Very sharp.” He showed it to Trask, who flinched away, then steeled himself and took it.
“It’s part of the default assassin kit,” said Trask. Same as the dead griefer. “And if it’s still sharp then it either hasn’t been used enough to get dull, or the griefer kept up with his weapons maintenance.”
“So the griefer was killed with his own knife,” Joe said.
“Looks like it,” said Trask. “Unless he killed himself.”
Joe looked down at the body, then shook his head. “Nah. The pain would be too much. You’d pass out before you could do any serious damage.”
Trask dropped the knife into the process server’s briefcase, then snapped the case shut.
“So you think Larry killed him?” Joe pulled the body the rest of the way to the trash chute.
“Probably not,” said Trask. “He’s more of a grab-and-dash kind of guy. And what would a noob have that’s worth stealing, anyway? A generic crossbow? Though maybe he killed the griefer in self-defense.”
“Maybe the process server did it.”
“And left his briefcase?” Trask tried to imagine the series of events where the process server, last seen heading in the direction of city hall, ended up in an alley that was in the opposite direction, then killed the griefer but left his briefcase behind. Well, people have done stupider things.
Joe patted down the griefer’s body, rolled it over and checked under the cloak, then pulled off the boots and looked inside. “No other weapons,” he said. “Quiver’s empty.” Then he opened the lid on the trash chute and with only a little effort got the body over the side and tossed the boots in after it. “Oh, hey, I found the crossbow.” He stepped around to the side of the chute and picked up the weapon. “Do you need it for evidence?”
“I don’t think so,” said Trask.
“Yeah, it’s just a worthless noob special,” Joe said. He threw it down the chute after the corpse and shut the lid.
Trask considered throwing the briefcase with the subpoenas in after the body, but decided against it. The process server could easily enough leave Krim, print another set of documents, and come back again. In fact, they probably already did. Tossing the briefcase wouldn’t slow them down. But showing the briefcase to a Krim administrator might force management to act. This level of privacy violation was definitely against the grid’s terms of service.
“Let’s head back,” Trask said. He put away his notepad, and, swinging the briefcase, turned back towards Leadenhall Street. “Don’t forget the purses,” he called back at Joe and started walking without waiting for the guard to catch up.
But Joe quickly passed Trask, despite his heavier load. “I’ll meet you back at the chamber after I drop these off.”
Trask didn’t hurry. He didn’t want to be seen walking next to a man carrying a big pile of purses. People might think he was a minor tradesman in the fashion business. Plus, he had some thinking to do.
Other worlds had official, legally-binding notification systems in place. All Krim had was a post office, and that was only for those users who had premium memberships, fixed addresses, and paid for a mailbox. And even then, there was no legal confirmation that a resident had opened their mail, or that they’d even picked it up.
That’s was one of Krim’s benefits. No electronic communications of any kind.
So that explained why process servers had to come to the grid in person.
But how did they know who anyone was? Sure, some people kept their own faces, like he did, out of comfort and convenience. Sidney obviously kept her real name, and probably her appearance, too. That’s probably why the process server was looking for her, first.
But if someone was on Krim to hide from whatever they were being sued over, they’d normally change their appearance, wouldn’t they? And even if they didn’t, the process server would have to walk around the whole grid trying to match a face to a photograph. Not a photograph even. There were no photographs on Krim. So, a drawing. And if anyone spotted them doing it, they’d definitely be killed quickly, and they would be off the grid for two weeks. Or, worse, they’d be killed slowly.
Trask didn’t think he’d ever seen a process server on Krim before. Not that he knew of, anyway. And he was sure the Chamber would have received complaints if one was around.
And what happened once the process server found their target? What if they just said, “Nope, that’s not me?”
It was a mystery.
Chapter 10: The walk back to City Hall
The weight of the process server’s briefcase was heavy in Trask’s hand as he walked along Leadenhall Street, past the Barley Mow, past Tottie’s, past the central post office. Then, he crossed Banking Street but, instead of turning left and going into the Chamber of Commerce building, he turned right and headed north towards the central square.
He could have let Joe take the briefcase, too, but Trask didn’t want to let the legal documents out of his sight.
And maybe Crewe and the griefer were working together somehow. What were the odds that a process server would show up on the grid at the same exact time that a griefer started killing tourists and merchants? And the griefer shot at Seymour, Trask remembered, at about the same time as the process server tried to serve him papers. Could those things be connected?
Maybe he’d solved the case and was carrying the main piece of evidence. He clasped the briefcase to his chest before another purse-snatcher could grab it from him and started walking a bit faster.
Pedestrians stepped aside to let him go past. They had to, since, with all the padding his clothes had, he was nearly as wide as the entire sidewalk. Tourists squeezed closer to the buildings, or stepped off the curb and into the gutters to give him room. Some gawked or pointed, while others asked for his autograph or wanted him to pose for a sketch. Normally, he’d stop and chat, doing his best to support Krim in its efforts to attract new users, but today he was in a rush.
But then a force even bigger than he was stopped him in his tracks.
It was the Baron de Mowbray, surrounded by nearly a dozen larger-than-life fighters, and he and his retinue didn’t just take up the whole sidewalk, but also half the street. Normally, the wagon drivers would be yelling insults at whoever was obstructing traffic, but the Baron’s presence made everyone go quiet.
“Baron,” Trask said, as he came to a stop .
“Varlet,” said the Baron.
“Out of the way, lackey,” yelled one of the fighters at his side.
Trask tapped his badge. “I’ll have you know that the Krim Chamber of Commerce is a vaunted institution,” Trask said. “It is the merchants and the creators of Krim who feed you and clothe…”
“You got that right!” the fighter interrupted. “You feed us!” She stressed the “us,” then spit on the sidewalk. “Servants!”
Trask glanced around. The crowd was buzzing with anticipation, and two sketch artists had already set up their easels. Trask made a mental note to find them later and get copies of the drawings. If he looked good, he’d get one to the newspaper. He could see the headline now: “Trask faces down an army.”
“What are you waiting for? Out of the way!” barked the Baron. “Move or be moved!”
“Maybe he’s in a hurry to get somewhere and make his deliveries,” said the fighter in a snide tone and other fighters tittered in a way most unbecoming of a military force.
“Can I order a side of skirrets to go?” one of the fighters said.
“I will not tolerate this level of disrespect to the office of the chief of security of the Krim Chamber of Commerce,” Trask said loudly and looked around at the crowd of pedestrians who had slowed or stopped to watch the action. That number now included a man in an assassin cloak, who stood silently at the back of the crowd. Trask had seen him before, walking past the Barley Mow Inn. He was wearing default avatar outfit eighteen. There was something about him that Trask couldn’t put his finger on that made him think that the man didn’t belong on Krim. Something more than just the fact that he looked like a noob.
The Baron nodded at a fighter to his right. “Move the varlet out of my way.”
Trask drew himself up. “As it so happens, I’ve already arrived at my destination,” he said. He turned to his left and marched up the front steps and through the door of a perfume shop.
The fighters laughed behind him, but he needed to restock, anyway. Krim’s pungent smells required a constant supply of perfumed sachets, nosegays, pomanders, handkerchiefs, and smelling powders.
Great job, Maria!