The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)

“I was there for him to offer me your job, asshole,” I say, and wait for Wells to reprimand me. He’s doesn’t, which can’t mean anything good. “What does Tuatha think? Does she think I’m Saint Nick?”

Ishii takes back his evidence bag.

“She’s distraught. She doesn’t know what to think.”

“Meaning she doesn’t think it was me. You’ve always had it in for me and now’s your chance to prove you’re the investigator to the stars.”

Wells looks at me, then at Ishii.

“Is it true that Blackburn offered Stark a job?”

“According to him.”

“Ask Tuatha,” I say. “She was there.”

“Where did the murder take place?” says Wells.

“In his office at home,” Ishii says.

“What time?”

Ishii pulls out his phone and checks a note.

“The doctors say yesterday between eight and eleven. The necromancers say closer to ten.”

Wells shakes his head. Leans back in his chair.

“Then it wasn’t Stark. He was with my team on official Vigil business all morning. Sorry, Mr. Ishii, but you’re looking at the wrong man.”

Ishii closes in on Wells’s desk, stabbing the top with his finger.

“No, I’m not. Saint Nick is clearly working with powerful magic forces. Stark is an accomplished magician. He could be fooling all of us. Played with time. Killed from a distance. Or possessed someone to kill for him.”

Wells leans forward, glancing at the fingerprints Ishii left on his pristine desk.

“I have a dozen accomplished magicians on my staff. Not all of them are pleasant ­people. Personality defects seem endemic among the Sub Rosa. But it doesn’t make them killers.”

“Maybe it was you, Audsley,” I say. “You knew your days with Blackburn were numbered, so you flipped out and killed him by mistake. Maybe you’re the thing that was making him nervous for his safety. Then you go Jack the Ripper on the corpse to make it look like Saint Nick.”

“That’s an interesting point,” says Wells. “Blackburn was a scryer. Why wouldn’t he have seen who was coming after him or the time of the attack?”

Ishii gives me a look.

“More proof that it would take a very powerful magician to hide both his identity and his intentions from the Augur.”

Wells nods.

“And you just said that Saint Nick was a powerful magician.”

Now Ishii shoots Wells a death-­beam look.

“I have the entire Sub Rosa board on my side. If you don’t arrest Stark right now, I can’t guarantee his safety.”

Wells stands up and comes around his desk.

“You let me worry about his safety. And his criminal tendencies. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a lot of work to do.”

He goes to the door and holds it open. Ishii doesn’t move.