Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (12 page)

“Where there flies yet? Were a bunch of them buzzing
through this room when you found the body?” Kyam asked.

Inattra turned to look at the shutters. He moved in slow
motion as if still in shock. Guilt pricked Kyam’s conscience, but he tried to
ignore it.

“Not that I noticed. There were a bunch flying around by
the time they took away the body, though. Now they’re almost all gone again.”

“Did you see Lady QuiTai this morning? Cuulon? Anyone else,
even if they belong here?”

Inattra shook his head to each.

“Did anyone else report hearing or seeing anything
unusual?”

Inattra mouthed
No
as he shook his head again.

Kyam looked around the destroyed barroom. “Where are the
other workers?”

“Upstairs, with a priestess, singing Turyat’s soul into
the arms of the Goddess.”

That
surprised him. “That’s kind of them.”

Inattra looked at him as if he were stupid. “Would you
want a vengeful ghost to materialize when you were with a customer? It’s good
business to make sure his spirit is ushered out of this building before it even
realizes the body is gone.”

Kyam tried hard not to show what he thought of that.
Ingosolians were avid innovators of technology; yet Ingosolians were also
serious devotees of spiritualism. He saw those as diametrically opposed
viewpoints. Ingosolians, apparently, did not.

He realized there was no need to be so superior about it.
To be fair, most Thampurians also believed in all manner of demons and wrathful
spirits.

Kyam was almost out of questions. “Did you hear anything
unusual this morning?”

After a brief frown, followed by a moment of intense
thought, Inattra finally spoke. “It’s not unusual, but someone was moving out
in the hallway. Or, at least, I think I heard someone. The outhouse is behind
the building, so workers have to go downstairs to use it. But my room is almost
at the end of the hallway. Why would anyone go past my door to get downstairs?”

Kyam
jumped as Inattra slapped his palm on the bar. The transformation from bewildered
to furious was instantaneous. Inattra shifted more male with each outraged
flare of his nostrils. The spray of blue freckles across his cheeks darkened.

“That
little bitch! PhaSun has the room across the hallway from mine. She knew the
body was there. She had to!” Inattra jabbed a finger at Kyam. “She’s been
trying to get me fired ever since QuiTai named me Madam. And to think I sent
her away to protect her from the militia!”

“PhaSun?”
He vaguely remembered a pretty enough young woman who seemed to live in a
perpetual party, laughing and talking with far more exuberance than anyone else
in the bar. She was one of the few Ponongese sex workers who lived in the Red
Happiness. Most of the others lived with their families. He wondered why PhaSun
didn’t.

“She’s
probably hiding with her clan by now, in Old Levapur,” Inattra said.

That was a problem Kyam didn’t need right now. “The
hillside slums. I’ll never find her up there if she doesn’t want to be found.
And you know a Thampurian isn’t safe there. Is there any way you could find her
and bring her to me?”

Inattra raised his hands. “I’m staying out of this.”

“I have only a few hours to come up with a better suspect
in Turyat’s murder. I can’t waste that time poking my head into hovels and
shouting PhaSun’s name.”

“And I can? I’m running a business here, Governor, one
your militia almost destroyed this morning. Now I have to fix it and open our
doors tonight, so I’m a little busy.”

“Not even for QuiTai?”

“How long have you been on this island? Even I know the
Pha hate the Devil for interfering in Old Levapur’s clan business. By
extension, they hate QuiTai, because for all intents and purposes, she is the
Devil, isn’t she?”

Kyam nodded.

“The Pha won’t help me find PhaSun if they think I’m
trying to help QuiTai.” Inattra put his fist on his hip. “Not that PhaSun would
be able to tell you much more than I can, and I guarantee you most of what she’ll
tell you is a lie. She’s a troublemaker. Do you know that seconds after I found
the body, she came running downstairs, went right into the street, and started
screaming murder? Can you believe that? I had to drag her back inside and shove
her into–” Inattra seemed to think better of finishing that comment. “Anyway,
I made sure the militia didn’t arrest her as ‘the convenient Ponongese.’ If I’d
known they’d pick QuiTai instead, I would have let them have PhaSun. You have
no idea the stupid little stunts she pulls to try to turn QuiTai against me.”

Inattra
was trying awfully hard to convince him PhaSun couldn’t be trusted. He wondered
what the woman knew. There were so many secrets here, and he didn’t know which
ones would help him solve the murder.

“You
shoved PhaSun where? Are you holding her prisoner somewhere inside here? Tell
the truth, Inattra.”

His lips pursed as he folded his arms across his chest. He
looked up at the ceiling for a while. “Okay, but this goes no further than us.
There’s a secret door in my room that leads down to the alleyway behind the
café next door. I dragged her, screaming and flailing, upstairs and shoved her
behind the hidden panel. She wanted to run into her room and pack some things.
I could hear the militia downstairs and had to warn the rest of the workers
that we were about to be invaded, so I slammed the door in her face. There’s no
way to open it from the inside. For all I know, she’s standing there fuming
still. But I didn’t lock her in. There’s an exit at the bottom of the stairs.”

Kyam
already knew about that passage, but he didn’t want to tell Inattra that. “I
believe you, about the secret passage. And about PhaSun.”

Inattra
relaxed a bit.

“I may
have more questions later.” Kyam nodded crisply and turned to leave.

“I’ll be
here. Cleaning up this mess.” Inattra sighed as he set a chair back on its
legs. “If you see LiHoun, tell him I want to see his wrinkled face right now
more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

~ ~ ~

Kyam walked out of the Red Happiness more discouraged than
he had been going in. He’d taken QuiTai to the fortress too soon. He should
have asked her more questions.

He wished he could talk with her right now. What would she
have seen in the Red Happiness that he didn’t? The militia had destroyed any
evidence he might have found there when they looted the crime scene. All he had
was the victim’s body.

Despite his wife’s protests, the mortician had spoken
about the body in detail. He’d guessed that the weapon that had fractured
Turyat’s skull was probably a bottle. Given that the murder happened in a
brothel bar, that wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination. But he’d also
ventured a guess that the blow had come from someone shorter than Turyat. The
former Governor wasn’t tall for a Thampurian, but he was a head taller than
most Ponongese men. QuiTai was short.

But why would QuiTai kill him? If Cuulon was telling the
truth – and Inattra seemed to agree with his story – she’d enjoyed
torturing the former Governor. Killing him would have ended her revenge.

As unsettling as it was, he’d always known she was cruel.
It jarred him, but he had to admit she had every right to revenge after the way
Turyat made her suffer. If he’d lost his entire family…

If he lost his family, it wouldn’t change his life that
much. The moment Nashruu disembarked from the
Golden Barracuda
this morning, he’d realized he had nothing to say
to her. He didn’t even know her. They’d gone through the public rites of
courtship without ever really talking. The night of their wedding, he’d gone on
a mission for Intelligence that required months of undercover work. They hadn’t
lived together or even seen each other since that day. He sent her boy Khyram
gifts from time to time. That was the extent of their relationship. Losing
family might not change his life, but leaving this island would.

He took the stairs down to the street as he mulled over
the thought that bothered him. He kept assuming QuiTai was guilty. She had
motive. But did she have opportunity? It seemed impossible, but he was used to
her doing seemingly impossible things.

This wasn’t helping. It would be far simpler to find out
who was guilty than to prove her innocent. So who were the other suspects?

Grandfather, the Devil, the mysterious enemies who’d
killed QuiTai’s lieutenants… if he focused on who might want to frame QuiTai
for Turyat’s death, the list of suspects was endless. If he focused on the
victim, there was Turyat’s wife – now she had motive. She’d been dragged
to Levapur with her exiled husband. For many years, they’d looted the treasury,
but once Turyat lost his office, they’d been cut off. Then Turyat had become a
vapor ghoul. Now that he was dead, his widow could return to Thampur. She
probably had plenty of money and jewels stashed away to make a comfortable life
for herself. That sounded like a good motive.

He stood
in the middle of the crossroads and squinted against the sun. A man with a
jungle fowl tucked under his arm walked past him. He turned to look the other
direction. Heat thermals rose from the dirt road in waves. Everyone had gone
indoors to nap through the hottest part of the day.

Where
should he go next? Probably to question Turyat’s widow. He didn’t want to upset
her, but it needed to be done. As he looked upslope, he saw the Dragon Pearl.
Turyat had taken his pipes in the private rooms of the black lotus den on the
second floor, as did many wealthy Thampurians in Levapur. Maybe the Ingosolian
owner, Lizzriat, would tell him something.

“Forgive me for interrupting, Governor Zul, but you seem a
man in search of something. Perhaps I can help?” LiHoun asked as he stepped out
of the alleyway. He’d shrunk since Kyam had last seen him, and his
whiskey-colored skin seemed coated in pallor.

“Madam Inattra asked me to send you along if we met.”

The Ponongese woman beside LiHoun was trying to seem
inconspicuous, but some people were too vivacious to hide in plain sight.

“I know you,” Kyam said as he stared at her. From where?
Her bright orange sarong was a common enough color, but the designs on it were
unusual.

“We used to be neighbors,” she said.

How could he have forgotten? Of course – those
botanical designs on her sarong were made by someone from Cay Rhi. “You’re
RhiLan’s cousin! That’s where I know you. RhiHalla?”

“RhiHanya,”
she corrected.

She
struck him as nervous, which seemed out of character for her. He squinted at
her as he tried to figure out what was off. “But I’ve seen you much more
recently. In the marketplace. You bumped into me.”

“It was a
narrow aisle, Governor.”

He
realized she might be offended. “Forgive me, I’m sure it was I who bumped into
you. And then I didn’t apologize. How very rude of me.”

A slow smile spread over her face as she relaxed. “Word
has it that you’re looking for Turyat’s murderer. How are you coming with that,
Governor Zul?”

“Too direct for Thampurian tastes,” LiHoun muttered to
her.

“You do it your way, uncle, I’ll do it mine.” She turned
back to Kyam. “Well? Do you know who killed that Thampurian? Lady QuiTai is in
danger every moment she sits in that fortress.”

It was as if she suspected he didn’t know how to
investigate a murder. “I’ve just started looking into it.” Should he admit he
was already stumped? “I don’t suppose either one of you was here this morning?”

“No.”

Their answers came a bit too quickly.

“Did you see Lady QuiTai earlier today?”

They exchanged a glance that made him wary.

“Tell me,” he said.

“We might have run into her upslope in the Quarter of
Delights early this morning,” RhiHanya said.

“Might
have?”

“We
chatted for a while. Then she headed down while we, uh, went on our way.”

LiHoun
nodded as she talked.

“Chatted
about what?” Kyam asked.

“The
murders of her lieutenants.”

From the
way RhiHanya said it, Kyam thought she was telling the truth about their
conversation. She was hiding something else, though.

“When you
say you went on your way, where did you go? Did you two stay together?”

LiHoun
pointed beyond the Quarter of Delights to the steep mountainside rising above
Levapur. “We went upslope, to my apartment, together.”

“Can any witnesses verify that?”

“My wives.”

Kyam sighed. He didn’t speak Li and he doubted LiHoun’s
wives spoke Thampurian. With only LiHoun to translate, he’d only get the
answers LiHoun wanted him to have.

“You seem troubled, Governor.” LiHoun’s expression was
entirely sincere, although Kyam thought he detected a hint of dark humor
glinting beneath it. “Is there any way we can help?”

“Only if you can tell me who murdered Governor Turyat.”

LiHoun spread his hands. “Alas, my rice bowl has no meat
today.”

“Would you tell me if you knew?”

He looked hurt.

“QuiTai is in the fortress. Of course we’d tell you,”
RhiHanya said.

“I suspect there’s plenty of meat hidden under your rice
that you two don’t want me to see. That’s fair enough. I’m not after the Devil,
and I’m not out to trick you into giving away QuiTai’s secrets. All I’m asking
for is a list of everyone who was in the Red Happiness this morning. In
particular, I want to speak to PhaSun. Inattra has no idea where she went. You
know everything that happens in this town, LiHoun, so I figure maybe you know
where to find her.”