A piercing whistle cut through the crowd of the Shindig. Several people turned to look as Naia stood up and waved at Aran when he entered. When she noticed the additional attention, she waved everyone off with a hand gesture and sat back down.
Aran made his way over to the table she occupied, right in the middle of the large taproom. Neither Shale nor Ailmon were anywhere in sight.
“Aha!” Naia said triumphantly, slapping a hand on a notebook that lay in front of her, so forcefully her tea sloshed. “Not in a hurry to get here before everyone else so you can be all high and mighty, huh? That seems strangely out of character for you, Aran!”
“If I’m not mistaken, they only just started serving lunch.”
“Ha! It’s been at least six minutes! Oh, looky, my lunch is being served,” she said, gesturing to the tray-on-legs deftly making its way towards them through the crowd, “because I had time to order, and they had time to make my food.”
“…Yes, I hear you. You got up early.”
“Yes, to spite you, of course,” Naia said casually as Ibbi slid a tray with her food onto the table. “Thanks,” she added.
“No problem, hot stuff. Did you catch the killer yet?” Ibbi asked, obviously curious.
“Nah, but we’re working on it, me especially. We’ll let you know as soon as we catch the little cockweasel,” Naia said.
“If my hair was long enough, I’d braid it for luck,” Ibbi said and looked at Aran. “Can I get you anything?”
“Eh, I guess; a plate of goblin dippers and a tarbean tea.”
“Coming up,” Ibbi said and left.
“So, anyway, I’ve been working hard this mor–“
“Oh, no. What did you do?” Aran demanded.
“I went all Ailmon and made a list of when things happened.” Naia grabbed the notebook in front of her and slapped it angrily down on the table. “Sheesh-a-dripping-loo, Aran, stop being up my nose and down my pants all the time!”
Aran stared at her, expressionless.
Naia, annoyed, waved a hand in front of his face. “Hello!”
“Sorry, let’s see your list, then.”
She narrowed her eyes, staring harshly at him. “No. Let’s not yet. Let’s talk about you until the others get here.”
“About me? Why?” he asked, confused.
“I hardly know anything about you, and I need to figure out what your problem is.” She crossed her arms, glaring at him.
“I hardly know anything about you either…”
“Yet you believe you know enough to be all over everything I say and do because I have actual fun with the job!”
“We’re not doing the job to have fun!” Aran snapped.
“You aren’t! But why not! There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t do a good job and enjoy the process,” she shot back. “Why are you so damned gloomy whenever something seems interesting?”
“I’m… I’m not gloomy!” Aran put his hands on the table and leaned towards Naia, who mirrored his movement and stared angrily at him. “Why are you so damned happy and unaffected?” he demanded. “We’re wading in corpses and you’re walking around like it’s a wonderful celebration.”
“No, I’m not! I’m walking around as if death happens, and I’ve seen a lot of it!” Naia gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Alright, fine. Look, here’s my problem.” Aran closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s really hard to work when you’re bouncing around, giggling at everything, and I have to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t tell everyone what we’re doing.”
“You mean with that Dibble guy? You’re still sour about that? We weren’t getting anywhere and just lying to him would have been useless. I can bet you fifty gost he’s a brilliant liar, so he’s probably also pretty good at spotting lies.”
“So what? At least he wouldn’t have known …everything!” Aran snapped.
“Really? Because I think he’s a curious man with a lot of resources, so if he sniffed a mystery that remained a mystery, he’d likely start spying on us and interfering. Now, with my intervention, he settled for trying to buy the shicks and helping us. We became a curiosity, not a personal quest!”
“Are you seriously, seriously saying you did that on purpose? Honestly? Hand on your heart?” he asked.
Naia put a hand over her bosom and stared grimly at Aran. “You think being professional is all about being boring and not enjoying anything. And that being smart means being silent. Well, you’re wrong!”
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“Look.” Aran held up his hands. “You…” he faltered. Naia was looking at him with big eyes and it seemed her anger had unexpectedly gone.
Suddenly, her shoulders dropped. “We’re pretty different people, huh?”
Aran nodded, unsure what to say. It seemed he’d unwittingly dodged the Naia-maelstrom. “Yes, we… we are.”
Naia leaned back in her chair and looked at him. She crossed her arms.
“It’s just… I have no idea how to handle…” Aran began, Naia raised an eyebrow. “Poor choice of words,” he amended. “I …have worked alone for over ten years. Shale and Ailmon, they function like–“
“Nicely and quietly, like you,” Naia interrupted.
“Well, yes. I guess so,” he admitted, though it felt like losing ground.
“Your food.” Naia still held his gaze, but nodded sideways towards the bar.
“Oh,” Aran just said as his lunch arrived. He waited until Ibbi had gone again, then he sighed.
Naia clapped her hands sharply. “I know! I should teach you to not be a stick in the mud! Maybe it’ll help!”
“I’m not a ‘stick in the mud’, what does that even mean!” he snapped harshly.
“Yes, you are, but we can fix that! A little, at least. You’ll lighten up and I’ll lighten down!”
“Naia, I…” He looked at her for a while, from the short, dark hair framing her pretty face to the wild colours of her dress, unsure why it was necessary for her to reach this accord between them.
“Come on!” she said, exasperated. “We’ve known each other for months now and I just want to know if it’s actually possible for you to say the words ‘good job, Naia’! And I’m willing to work for it. But of course, if you’re just a coward…”
Aran rolled his eyes but suddenly realised what exactly was so odd about this conversation. “Why do you care?” he asked. “You strike me as a person who doesn’t give a damn what others think. So why is this so important?”
Naia just looked at him like he was powerfully dim-witted. “Because I like you. You smell good.”
He opened his mouth to respond but closed it again.
“…Which is frankly a bit weird, since you’ve been wearing the exact same clothes every single day I’ve ever seen you,” she added.
He put a hand on the chest of his dark grey shirt and tightfitting jacket in the same colour, made with a wealth of hidden pockets with room for the smaller tools of his trade. “I like this, so I just have ten of them.”
“Are you serious!” Naia exclaimed. “You only have the same kind of clothes? Gods below! You are such a dork!” She shook her head, eyes wide.
“I’m really not going to sit here and defend my fashion choices.”
“So, you’re saying you actually could?” She pushed the notebook into the middle of the table. “Anyway, it gives me plenty to work with and the others have been hovering for a while, wondering when we’d be done arguing.”
Aran leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and drew a long sigh. “Of course they have,” he just said.
Naia gestured to the others at the bar, and Ailmon and Shale came over with their plates and mugs.
“Sorry,” Shale said. “Technically, we are late, but you seemed to have something you needed to sort out.”
“That’s very diplomatic of you,” Aran said flatly and forcefully stopped himself from rolling his eyes.
“So, back to work,” Ailmon said, taking a sip from his mug. “I propose we–“
“I’ve made a list of when things happened, since we never counted the extra dead prostitute into the mix before,” Naia interrupted.
“Very well, a good place to start. Please enlighten us.” Ailmon nodded at her.
Naia smiled triumphantly. “Six nights ago, our murderer… maybe… found Nester and killed him by bashing his brains in, right? That was what the note said?” She looked at Shale, who patted her belt pouches and found the note from Sef.
“Correct. The note says, ‘found dead five days ago’, but that was yesterday,” Shale said. “’Found in a tenement building hallway five days ago with his head bashed in’.”
“Thanks. He was killed by being hit over the head, so it might not be related,” Naia said. “Anyway, two days later, during the day, Ginnifer runs out and kills herself opportunistically. Definitely not the work of the stabby-stab-man. Then, during the late evening, stabby-stab enters the brothel, hires Shandra, and stabs her. That’s the first one we know is on him, for sure.” She looked to the others as if expecting resistance, but nothing was forthcoming, so she continued, “Then, the night after that, stabby-stab is at it again, going into the house on Murder Street and killing Corwin in his sleep. I guess we now know from the brothel that he could climb in and out the window. Then, two nights later, he goes and kills Sargon in the street. But weirdly, he takes the time to carry the corpse to the Guildhouse. That’s strange, right? Since Nester and Corwin were just left where they were.”
“Maybe he had a more personal relationship with him?” Aran suggested.
“Yuk-o-rama!” Naia exclaimed.
“Well, that alley where the murder happened was pretty secluded,” Shale said thoughtfully. “Maybe he wanted to make sure the corpse was found? The others have been easy to find.”
“Corwin wasn’t. Rather the opposite, actually,” Ailmon said, frowning thoughtfully. “If any of them should have been carried into the street, it should have been him.”
“Would have been a bit risky, though,” Aran said. “In a building with several tenants.”
“Or perhaps he’s not a trained assassin who really knows what he’s doing?” Shale offered. “Corwin’s downstairs neighbours said they heard someone apologise. I mean, that’s not really a lot to give your victim before killing them, but still…”
“So you mean he’s doing it against his better judgement?” Ailmon asked.
“That might be stretching it, but for whatever reason he’s doing it, he might not be too happy about it?” Shale mused, pulling one of her braids thoughtfully.
“All of them were sick,” Aran said. “Ginnifer was falling ill, Corwin was hearing whispers in his ear if Dibble is to be believed, and Minna said the murderer was rubbing his head as if he seemed to be in pain too.”
“Oh, now you’ve done it!” Naia said excitedly. “What if he gave them all some disgusting disease, and now he’s realised that he has it and so have they, so he’s running around killing his old bedfellows, apologising as he does so? Maybe he’s doing it to spare them the pain and dripping humiliation?”
“That might not be completely farfetched …to some degree. Perhaps he did know them, maybe even work with them,” Ailmon added.
Naia gasped theatrically, “It could be that Sef guy. He probably dealt with them all.”
Shale chuckled. “He also didn’t seem particularly ill. And he sent us out to solve it.”
“A clever ruse!” Naia stated, then gave a laugh.
“There might actually be someone who handled information retrieval for the guild and had contact with all of the victims as a result of that. I don’t find that particularly hard to believe, I suppose we just have to poke deeper into the inner workings of the guild, which might not be particularly welcome, but let’s see what the day brings,” Ailmon said, stabbing at his swizzle eggs with a frown.
“Excellent!” Naia said, looking at Aran. “So let’s hurry over and investigate Nester’s death so I can show off my timelining skills.”