braymitch thornathy. (grever) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-01-31 11:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, bram thornton, lavitz fon amell |
would you just please bury me with it.
Who: Lavitz fon Amell & D.Insp Bram Thornton
What: Bereavement notice turns into an interrogation.
Where: The EKP offices.
When: Late morning, several hours after this.
Rating: PG.
Status: Complete.
This was not Bram Thornton’s best week. It went without saying, really, but the sentiment was still chasing itself in circles around his head. He couldn’t banish the assortment of images he’d seen this week. An inexplicable smear of blood on a cold and clammy sewer wall. And Leola Vancoor’s body: long brown hair coiling in the water like seaweed, her face pale and bloated, skin waxy and grey and unreal, corpse bobbing and jutting against the wooden struts of the pier while a dock worker leaned over with a pole, fishing her out like so much flotsam and jetsam. The detective inspector had stood on the pier hunched in his coat as other colleagues milled around him, watching the process impassively while he felt his gut churning. (He’d seen her at too many functions years ago, tagging loyally along by Nowe’s side. Officers’ wives were a special category of their own. The squad had pitched in at the time, given her consolatory gifts, stood quietly in a row at her husband’s funeral. Now there’d be another to attend.) And now, it was a few hours later and the grim details of the scene had been rendered into a manila report, everyday horror pulped down into paper. “Get Lavitz fon Amell,” he said to his assistant, kneading his brow. And he waited. If Lavitz wasn’t out on mission with the Dragon Riders (which he wasn’t; Bram would have heard from Foxe if they were out of town), then he’d likely be ghosting the guildhalls or traceable at the family estate. Not hard to find. (Unless he’d skipped town for some reason—but that was an uncharitable little thought, and after a moment, Bram dismissed it as unlikely.) He was still wrestling his thoughts back into order and staring at the report on his desk when the knock came. The officers of the Knights of the Peace had once been a more familiar sight to Lavitz, in the days that Nowe had been alive. So often did he find himself drawn in the direction of the offices, even four years after the man’s death, unable to catch himself before he veered too close. But now, on this day, standing before Bram’s office door, all of that familiarity was nothing more than a dull throb, every memory surging and twisting like a bad dream. Something was wrong; he’d known it from the moment he’d been approached. Upon being invited inside, Lavitz’s eyes immediately sought the other dragoon, searching his face for a sign of what this was all about. Was it about the Riders? Had there been an accident? Every worst possible outcome danced in his mind as he came to pause halfway across the room. “Bram,” he greeted, apprehension apparent in his slightly drawn brows. “Fon Amell,” the detective answered, and perhaps that was the second sign that something was wrong. “Please, have a seat. And close the door after you.” He moved the folder a few inches, then seemed to stop and think the better of it, hands flitting back to his lap instead and folding there. So this was official. Rather than questioning it, Lavitz could only do as told, shifting back to press the door shut and pausing, just momentarily, as the reality of the situation sunk in. This felt too familiar, but he couldn’t place just how as he took that seat as he’d been directed, fingers curling against his thighs. Knowing better than to ask stupid questions, he waited for Bram to speak. The older man paused for another moment – lining up the words properly – before clearing his throat and plunging on: “I'm sorry to have to tell you this, fon Amell, since I'm aware the two of you were still close. Leola Vancoor was found dead at the docks this morning.” And without Nowe, there was a certain void of familial notification: who was left? Who should be told? Strange as it was, Lavitz was the best replacement, the closest to a substitute. And he deserved to know. It was disconcerting how flat those words could fall, having heard them so often, only to have them sting like salt on a fresh wound. There was no disbelief, no denial as the younger dragoon processed the words, rolling them back and forth in his mind. Leola was dead. Instead of shock, all he could feel was empty. “How?” (But Lavitz knew— he knew.) Even years of practice with this worst part of policework couldn’t inure Bram to its effect, in which words were bullets and could lodge themselves beneath a man’s breast. That stony face finally cracked, softening in sympathy. (He’d been on the receiving end of this, after all, far too recently and far too intimately.) “We’re still working on the full details, but signs indicate she drowned. I’m sorry, Lavitz. Do you know if she had any other family in Emillion?” Leola had drifted off in the four years since her husband’s passing; Bram no longer saw the pale brunette around, no longer knew where the woman lived or what she did with her time. Though he knew Lavitz would know. The words that followed felt too detached. Too mechanic. (Of course she had drowned, the karma of it all so stifling.) “She lived with her family at her own estate,” Lavitz admitted, quietly. “Her family has seen less and less of her since Nowe.” All past tense, all too soon. “She wasn’t well and avoided them. Locked herself away.” But it was still difficult to say whether she killed herself at the docks in hatred to frame him, despite what had transpired the night before, or if she’d been murdered and this was once again some karmic joke he couldn’t bring himself to laugh at. It had been pathetic of him to assume things would work out. Pathetic and hopelessly naive. He didn’t even have to ask to know at which pier in particular her body had been found. He already knew it was where twenty years earlier, Cordelia’s had been floating. And it was that lack of surprise, ultimately, which made Bram Thornton’s professional instincts perk up, like some ancient beast cracking open one eye from sleep. The invocation of the past tense sank in too quickly, and so the officer instinctively started watching the by-play of emotion on Lav’s face, filing away the details—just in case. Not for any particular reason. (The death had not yet been ruled suicide or murder; the coroner was still working on it.) But just in case. “When was the last time you saw her?” Bram asked, voice still sympathetic, the sound of a man trying to offer comfort to a grieving (almost) next-of-kin. To a man looking for emotional clues, Lavitz’s gaze shifting just slightly was probably telling. If anything, it was mostly suspicious, but no more than the “Last night” that left his lips, soft and practically inaudible to anyone who wasn’t listening. Karma or a framing? The first was most likely. He might as well have shoved her into the water himself. Bram went still, the lines and angles of his face shifting to become more impassive. “Last night?” The news that had yet to settle in occupied the bulk of Lavitz’s attention and concerns, but the echo of his own words had him glancing back and meeting Bram’s eyes. “She was alive when I left her,” he confessed, curling both hands into loose fists. Again his gaze flickered away. The I would never lay a hand on her went unsaid. “What time was this, thereabouts?” Bram’s question was mild, but his hand started questing for a spare pen on the table and pulled out a blank sheet of paper, ready to start scribbling down notes. Possibly not a good sign. Dark eyes followed that hand, eventually drawing back up to the older dragoon’s face. Had Leola asked him to the docks only to allow for him to be implicated and blamed? Or was it really karma knocking him back down? He didn’t speak immediately, not because he hadn’t a clue, but because he knew anything he said would be suspicious. The way it was looking, he’d been the last person to see her alive. And probably the only one to kill her. “About half past seven,” he murmured. “That’s when she’d asked me to meet her.” “Half past seven.” A pause. “Did she ask to see you for anything in particular? Or seem out of the ordinary?” Lavitz sucked in a sharp breath. “She never said why. Most of the time, I was the one who came to see her. I thought it was strange that she’d invite me to a place she knew I hated, but I—” Faram, why were the words so difficult? “I stopped questioning her motives a long time ago. She lost herself after Nowe.” But then, so had he. There fell a thick and painful pause before he spoke again. “I’ve never wanted her to die, Bram. She was the one who wanted me dead.” Or had. The corner of the councilor’s mouth twisted, and his pen kept moving. “A place you hated,” he said. “You didn’t mention that before. Did you two meet at the docks, then?” The details were not stacking up in the dragoon’s favour. Bram tried and tried to avoid that edge of steel creeping into his questions and the suspicions starting to rise. But he was determined to keep his voice level—and the man was very, very good at it. Years of knowing Lavitz fon Amell tempered him, softening what might’ve come out as hard accusation with anyone else. “If you have to ask that,” the younger man started, not one trace of bitterness present in his tone, “then you know exactly where we met.” A place where twenty years ago, another woman that he adored beyond measure had drowned: Cordelia. Bram winced slightly, a reaction finally inching its way past his solid exterior. The pen lowered, hitting the paper. “This doesn’t look good, Lavitz.” (He had dropped the surname, at least.) The breath that Lavitz drew caught in his throat. “I know,” he admitted, softly. To confess that it wasn’t his fault, though, that he hadn’t been instrumental in her death would’ve been a lie. It was his fault she was dead. He hadn’t been the one to hold her under the water, but she was laying in a metal slab somewhere because everything that he touched eventually withered and died. His hands felt too cold as he glanced up. “She deserved better.” A half-dozen different responses, ranging from empty platitude and agreement to further questions, all flitted through Bram’s mind but he finally settled for a thin “Aye”. The wheels were already turning on a case which had suddenly become more curious, sprouting warts and mysteries overnight. But there was no need to press the issue for now. Lavitz looked shell-shocked, and more evidence needed to be gathered. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’m sorry again. We’ll be in touch, and will let you know once we learn more.” Then the heartbeat, the telling pause, the reluctant (yet always businesslike, Bram would never miss an opportunity to follow due diligence) addition: “Do us a favour and don’t leave town for now. To be on the safe side.” If there had been anywhere to go but on a mission, Lavitz might have considered taking Amarant out for a long, much needed ride to clear his head, but he found it difficult to be irresponsible, so he settled for a quiet, defeated “I won’t”. This wasn’t his best week, either. |