jeriendhal | RVA: Shadow of Doubt, Drawing Room Denouement

Almost two years and fifty-three thousand words to reach this point. :)

* * *

In less than two hours both the Blacksailor sisters arrived at Darktail Manor, Karra accompanied by her spouse, Fin. Fin was indeed a Blended as Ali had told Salli, wearing the baggy, androgynous clothes some of the genetically engineered sex preferred. Karra looked like she’d been crying on the flight over, and leaned on Fin for support as Salli and Zaker led them to the conference parlor.

“I’m glad you were all able to come,” Salli told them. “I know, Karra, that you quite upset about the that unfortunate incident with Ali and your two boys.”

“Of course I was upset, but I don’t want her dead,” Karra declared, as Fin gave her a supportive squeeze.

“Our boys are in school today,” Fin said. “They wanted to see Ali, but I told them it would be a bad idea.”

“When you see her, I think you will all agree it wouldn’t be a sight for young children, no,” Salli agreed regretfully.

“So why did you want us to come here first, Lady Sallivera?” Razi asked.

“I have some things I wish discuss with you, about what to do… in case some hard decisions need to be made, about Ali,” Salli said. “It might be best if we discuss that now, so there won’t be any needless confusion when her brother Lu becomes legally involved.”

“Ah, yes,” Razi said. “Though we could have done that over the com if need be.”

“I think face to face is much preferable in situations like this.” Salli turned to Zaker, who doing her furniture imitation along the wall, much as Ali once had. “Zaker, please flag down Nari and have her bring tea and biscuits for us while we discuss things. Then double-check the CP locks on my and Ali’s rooms.”

“There’s an alarm set to go off if they’re tampered with, Lady Salli,” Zaker noted, raising an eyebrow at the request.

“Do it anyway, please. For my peace of mind.”

Zaker shrugged and touched her forehead in salute, heading out of the door.

“If you’ll be patient, Nari should be along shortly,” Salli told the others. “No sense in starting only to be interrupted.”

The others murmured agreement, and sat in somewhat uncomfortable silence until a few minutes later, when Nari came in bearing a tray with a teapot and cups, with sugar sprinkled biscuits along the side. While the young serving vixen started laying out the cup and saucers, and pouring the tea, Salli began to speak.

“Nari is one of the most trusted servants in our house,” she said by way of introduction. “During the period right after I escaped from my marriage to my husband, Kev, she spent many hours sitting outside my suite’s door, keeping an eye on me for my parents, in case I thought to do something, well, foolish.”

“Thank you, Milady,” Nari said, ears reddening slightly. “I happy to do it. No one here wanted you to hurt anymore.”

“I know, dear.” Salli gestured to the other vixens in the room, who not by coincidence were all sitting in a line with Salli, across the table from Nari. “Nari, this is Karrandar and Razinadar Blacksailor, Ali’s aunts, and Karra’s spouse, Fin. They’ve all come to see Ali in the hospital.”

“Oh, how… well, not nice I suppose,” Nari said, looking a bit taken aback, and this unexpected introduction of a servant to her lady’s guests. “I am sorry, that she was hurt, so badly I mean.”

“Yes, indeed,” Salli agreed. “As are we all.” She spoke up to the parlor’s computer. “Security Mode, please.” There was a soft click from the door and the windows, as they all automatically locked themselves and the windows polarized to prevent outsiders from looking in.

“Milady, what’s going on?” Nari asked.

“Everything is all right, Nari,” Salli said calmly. “I just wanted to make sure Zaker doesn’t come barging in unexpectedly while we talk. Sit down, please.”

Looking baffled, Nari sat down across from them, balancing on the edge of her chair. “Milady?”

“Nari, you know this house as well any of the servants, and you’ve served it since you were an adolescent, ” Salli began. “The same can’t be said of some of the newer ones, such as Zaker. What do you think of her?”

Some of the tension seemed to ease from Nari’s posture. “Miss Zaker? She’s… well, she’s fine I suppose. But she was part of old Countess Highglider’s house, before the Countess was arrested. I mean, nobody should hold that against her, I guess, but still she was.”

“That fact is foremost in my mind,” Salli agreed, while Ali’s relatives looked at the two of them, obviously wondering where this was going and why they were being allowed to listen in on it. “That itself wouldn’t be suspicious to me, but did you notice how she seemed to be right on top of things every time one of the ‘incidents’ occurred? She was the one that brought my skimmer around to drive me to my physician's appointment, and was the one that found the graffiti on the door. She was nearby when you found that paint splashed on my bed. And she was the one who called me when she ‘found’ Ali fallen on the floor of the Necessary. She says she heard Ali scream, but if Ali was screaming that loudly, why didn’t anyone else nearby hear her?”

“That’s right, Milady,” Nari said, nodding eagerly in agreement. “Do you really think she did it?”

“Possibly, out of a twisted loyalty to old Countess Highglider I suppose.” Salli let out a little sigh. “But it wouldn’t help with the other problem.”

Nari’s ears flicked back slightly. “What other problem, Milady?”

“Before she was poisoned, Ali pointed out something very important to me. Do you remember Lt. Hotclaw, the first mate on our family’s produce freighter? The male who gave our shipping route to the old Countess, and then tried to shoot me when I was visiting Lady Melanie with Rolas.”

“Yes, milady?”

“Well, Ali figured out that he must have had help. He had been waiting in ambush in the woods near Lady Melanie’s home, but how could he have known in advance that I would be visiting that day?”

Nari’s ears flicked back and her tail curled over her lap. “I don’t know, milady.”

Salli stared at the young servant with her good eye. “The only answer is that there had to be a second traitor in our household to tell him. Probably the same one that kept Countess Highglider apprised to the updates in my itinerary when I was off on my Grand Tour, so she could arrange for Bloody Margo to try and kidnap me.”

“That… I suppose that makes sense, milady,” Nari said, her voice growing smaller as her paws unconsciously took hold of her tail, her eyes flicking downward, avoiding Salli’s gaze. Beside Karra, Fin leaned forward in their own seat, frowning deeply.

“The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why they would draw attention to themselves again with these attacks. Evelina Highglider and her son Kev are both dead, their district now part of House Darktail. Why take the risk?”

“I don’t know… why… either,” Nari mumbled, eyes still lowered.

After a moment’s awkward silence, Salli spoke again. “I think owe you an apology, Nari,” she admitted.

The serving vixen finally looked up, confused. “An apology, to me? Whatever for, milady?”

“You sat on that settee outside the door of my suite for over two years,” Salli said. “Sat there, ears pricked up, waiting to something you desperately didn’t want to hear; a warning that I was about to hurt, or even kill myself. I sat in my dark rooms, lost in my despair and misery, and I never even noticed you.”

Nari’s expression drooped. “You didn’t notice me?”

“No,” she said, keeping her tone deliberately flat. “But you noticed me. Saw how much I hurt. You wanted to help me, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did, we all did.” Nari gulped back a sob. “You were hurting so much.”

Salli drew in a breath. “Then why did you betray us to Countess Highglider, Nari?”

“Me?” Nari gasped. “I wouldn’t! I-I’d never!”

“Nari, I went into your room after I called Razi and Karri earlier. I found something… very disturbing.” Salli reached into her pocket and drew out a small black plastic box, about the size of a charging plug, and set it on the table. “Officer Fin, do you recognize this?”

Fin reached over and picked up the box, turning it over in their fingers, looking at the connecting ports and the small LED display on the front. “It’s an electronic lockpick. A commercial version. You can buy one, but only if properly licensed.”

Salli nodded, as Nari’s eyes widened and her ears flattened to her head. “As my mother’s heir I have access to all the security measures and locks in our home. So I unlocked your door, searched, and found that in your room, Nari. Hidden in your dresser amidst you underclothes. A rather childish hiding spot.”

“You… you can’t prove that’s mine!” Nari gasped, shaking in fear.

“This alone, no. But if I were to visit Lt. Hotclaw in prison, and ask him if he had any accomplices, what do you think he would say to me?” Salli asked. When Nari ducked her head down and failed to answer, Salli continued, speaking to Razi, Karra and Fin. “The CP’s who examined Ali’s bathroom found that the refrigerated medicine box she kept her medication in hadn’t been tampered with. Or rather, there had been no visible tampering. Admittedly it was meant to keep children’s paws away from something that could harm them, not prevent outright theft, but still, if the lock had been forced Ali would have noticed and been suspicious.”

“Corroborative evidence,” Fin noted, looking at Nari in suspicion now.

Nari let out a keening wail, rocking in her seat, head lowered as she wailed, “It’s not fair… It’s not fair…”

“Why, Nari?” Salli asked gently, feeling faintly sick at the serving vixen’s distress. “Why did you betray us to Countess Highglider?”

“But you betrayed her first!” Nari wailed. “Your parents were going to break their oaths and take everyone to Glyph. I didn’t want go to a nasty colony world, I wanted to stay here! Hotclaw… he heard me talk about it. Then he asked if I wanted to help stop it from happening. I wasn’t sure, but… well… I thought… just telling Mr. Hotclaw things I had heard your parents discussing at the dinner table, that wasn’t really doing anything wrong, that was just passing along gossip. Then your brother Rolas was kidnapped by that pirate and then he came back, and then the day we were going to leave passed without anything happening and that was the end of it.”

“But it wasn’t the end, was it?” Salli prodded.

“No,” Nari sobbed. “I got a call on my palm comp, from Countess Highglider herself. She said I would have to report your movements to her, and that if I didn’t she’d tell every I was the one who had informed the pirates where your family’s freighter was going that trip.” She looked up briefly, snuffling. “I swear by the Mother Goddess I didn’t know Hotclaw was going to try and shoot you! I thought it was just going to be another kidnapping.”

And that makes everything better, does it? Salli kept the thought to herself. “But even though the Countess was in prison, you weren’t free yourself yet, were you?”

“No,” she admitted. “Countess Highglider contacted me again. She said she’d tell Civil Protection about everything I’d done for her, if I didn’t pass along your travel itinerary to her agents, when you went on your Grand Tour. I didn’t want to! You have to believe me, I didn’t!”

“But I survived, and Countess Highglider committed suicide before an investigation could really get started. You were finally free, Nari. You didn’t have to betray anyone anymore. What happened?”

“Well, you came home,” Nari said. She shuddered in suppressed revulsion. “And you had her with you. That monster.”

Razi and Karra stiffened at that, but said nothing.

“You hated her at first sight?” Salli prodded.

“No… but… It was obvious that you two were in love with each other. A little bodyguard you’d only met a few months before, after I had watched you for…” Nari shook her head, letting out another snuffle. “You never even saw me,” she said softly, despairingly. “I watched and served you for all that time and you never saw me.”

“All this, it was break Ali and I up?” she demanded.

“Yes,” Nari said, her voice rising in anger. “I thought… I thought maybe I could scare her off, or convince you it wasn’t worth it. I mean… couldn’t you see what a horrible person she was? She murdered children. Your mother could see her for what she was, everyone could! I didn’t understand how you could defend her so! And then I caught her shooting up those drugs into her veins and I thought, surely if you found out about that you could never love her!”

“Those wheren't illegal drugs in her cabinet, Nari, they were medication,” Salli said gently. “But you didn’t bother to look when switched them out, did you?”

“I thought it would just make her a little sick,” Nari said, shaking her head. “I didn’t think it would.... I didn’t…. I honestly didn’t! You have to believe me, Lady Salli!”

“Oh, I do,” Salli told her. She did. She could see how all the betrayals Nari had committed had only caught the serving girl deeper in Evelina Highglider’s web, forcing her to commit even more to protect herself. And all that time, even as she betrayed Salli’s family, she protected Salli herself, out of loyal devotion, then out of unrequited love.

She couldn’t bring herself to hate the girl. Nari was too small, too sad, too scared. She was no more a monster than Ali was. I’m tired, Salli thought. I’m tired, and cold, and I want Ali to warm my bed again. Hating Nari wouldn’t help fix that.

Fin broke the silence that had been gathering, clearing their throat to address Nari. “Ma’am, I think it would be best if you stopped talking now. Lady Sallivera, I’m sure you’re going to want to contact your local CPs.”

“You can’t do that!” Nari exclaimed. “You can’t prove anything!”

“After saying all that in front of four witnesses?” Karra demanded, speaking up for the first time since Nari’s confession had began.

“I’ll say you were all lying!”

“Nari, that won’t work,” Salli cut in. “I had the conference parlor’s com system recording the whole time we’ve been in here.”

Nari’s eyes went wide and her ears flattened to her head in terror. A low keening wail began to sound deep in her throat, animalistic fear at being trapped. Then she reached into the pocket of her skirt, pulling out a small, compact plasma pistol and pointing it at Salli.

Fin let out a short curse, freezing, Salli thought, as they calculated the odds at trying to stand up and try and tackle Nari before she could get a shot off.

“That’s Ali’s, isn’t it?” Salli asked. “You must have stolen it from her gun case when you tampered with her medication, didn’t you?”

“She had so many. I didn’t think she’d miss one,” Nari gibbered. She stood up from the table, keeping the weapon trained on Salli.

Salli stared at the young servant girl and the gun in her paw, and then said very calmly and distinctly, “Please put that weapon down, Nari. You're frightening me.” She began counting the seconds under her breath.

“Y-you're coming with me!” Nari demanded, waving the gun vaguely in Salli's direction.

Salli kept her paws folded in her lap, making no movement that might be construed as either an attack or an attempt to get away. Instead she said, “And why would I do that, because you have a gun?”

“Yes, exactly,” Nari gulped. “Because I have a gun.”

She smiled, and willed herself to be patient while the seconds ticked by. Time was her ally in this matter. “Very well. Security Mode off.” The room’s locks clicked back quietly. “Now Nari, assuming I did go with you, what exactly are your plans? Try to get offworld?”

”Yes. Offworld. Away from here!” The poor girl's eyes were wide with fear, as if Salli had the weapon and not her.

“And if I don't agree to go with you?”

“I'll... I'll shoot you!”

She shook her head. “Nari, Nari.... What would that accomplish? You could kill me, kill all of us here, and prevent me from testifying, but that wouldn't help you get away. Everything you said has been recorded and backed up on the house’s computer system. Plus, a murdered Viscountess would just result in every spaceport, airport, tube station and border crossing in Darktail Domain going on immediate lockdown. And before that happened, could you erase every bit of your DNA from this room? From the gun in your paw? They'll track you down for certain, because unless I'm very mistaken you have no knowledge of criminal society, and no means to obscure your identity. The first time you pass in front of a publicly posted CCTV camera or try to access your bank accounts Civil Protection will be down on your position in a matter of minutes.”

“And what do you think I should be doing?” Nari demanded.

“I think you should put the gun down, sit in the chair opposite me, and wait for the CPs to come,” Salli told her.

“You're trying to trick me!”

“No, I'm trying save you from making a much deeper mistake,” Salli said. She found it easy to keep her tone calm and level. Salli had spoken to monsters before, and she knew the serving girl was no monster. Nari's crimes were merely foolish and stupid by comparison to her late husband and Bloody Margo, after all. But they had been enough to raise the specter of her destruction, to make her desperate to find a way out, any way out. “You're already guilty of conspiracy, attempted murder, and now of threatening a Countess' heir, but you may still find a sliver of mercy in my mother's courts if you stop now and turn yourself in.”

“I don't want to go to prison!” Nari cried out, tears welling in her eyes.

“The choice is between prison and death, Nari,” Salli said, keeping her eyes locked on the weeping girl's. “In prison you have a chance to find redemption for your crimes. Murder us and the only way out of this will end is with your funeral.”

“This isn't fair!” Nari sobbed. “I've never hurt anyone and you tell me I might go to prison! But you've got that cub killer, that monster, walking free to serve you!”

“Ali is no monster,” she said. “The murders she committed were done when she was a slave, with no choices allowed to her. And I see the consequences of those crimes with every nightmare that haunts her sleep. She will spend the rest of her life trying to make up for them and likely die in her old age knowing nothing was ever enough to wash the blood from her paws. She will never, ever be free.” Salli said that last word with an unintended hiss, making Nari take a step back in surprise. “But if you stop here and now, you still have a chance to live with your conscience intact.”

At that point the door burst open and Zaker, warned by the keywords Salli had spoken in range of her palm comp sitting in her pocket, rushed in, her stunner in hand. Nari let out a shriek, turning partway to try and fire her gun at Zaker, when the bodyguard’s stunner fired and took her down, dropping the serving girl to the floor.

“Thank you, Zaker,” Salli said mildly, as Razi and Karra both let out a whoosh of relief, and Fin rose from their seat to check Nari’s unconscious body.

“Milady,” Zaker said, slipping her stunner back into in her tunic’s holster. “What was going on?”

Fin glared up form where they knelt beside Nari. “Well apparently Lady Sallivera thought this was a drawing room mystery, so she decided to channel her inner Matron Marmalade. What were you thinking, Lady Salli? If you had that much suspicion, you should have called the CPs and told them! If she had shot you at that range you would have been dead meat!”

“Once she told me the gun was Ali’s I knew she couldn’t have shot me,” Salli told them. “Ali keeps all of her weapons palm locked for safety. The grip scans her pad print so it will only fire for her. I’ll admit it was all a bit dramatic, but I did want to see if my suspicion about Zaker was true.”

“What suspicion?” Razi asked, still looking shaken.

“Whether Zaker was bugging my and Alinadar’s palm comps. You were, weren’t you, Zaker?”

“Now why would I do that?” Zaker asked, her tone rather carefully nonchalant. Still, she couldn’t stop the grin from returning to her face finally.

“Because you were never working for House Darktail, or House Highglider I suspect,” Salli said. “If Ali could figure out that there had to be a second traitor in our manor, the Ministry of Justice could as well. They’d have to investigate, and who better to send in than someone who already has a reason to be deeply involved in a House’s security? That’s why you were right on top of things when Nari screamed and Ali was poisoned. Isn’t that right, Zaker?”

“I fear I am unable to discuss that with you, Lady Sallivera.” Zaker gave her a little apologetic bow. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think we should call the CPs before your ex-serving girl here wakes up.”

“You do that,” Salli said, leaning back in her seat and closing her good eye. She should rest while she could. The day was far from over.