Dimitri didn’t reply. He looked like a man accepting that a noose had been dropped around his neck and there was no way he could escape.
“The knockers don’t spit out enough fire to have done all that.” I pointed to the destroyed bushes and porch in the photo. “Just a little gout about a foot long to scare off intruders who don’t know the password.”
“Because Charlie Wu didn’t know the password, he is now dead,” Sutherland said.
“I’m sure something else killed Charlie Wu. Do you have photos of his body?” I wanted to see where he’d croaked and in what position.
“Not that we’ll disclose to suspects.”
“Suspects.” Dimitri’s sarcastic New York voice had gone squeaky. “At the worst, we built a defective product. We didn’t murder anyone.”
I elbowed him again and switched to telepathy to say, Don’t say anything to incriminate yourself. He might be recording this. We’ll get a lawyer if we need to.
Dimitri only looked glummer at this promise of a lawyer.
“Very defective,” Sutherland growled.
“Do you have proof of that?” I asked. “Clearly, the knocker didn’t blast an inferno at you when you walked up. You’re here, and your eyebrows are even intact.”
“Just because it doesn’t do it every time, doesn’t mean it didn’t do it once. And once was all it took.” Sutherland tapped handcuffs on his belt, as if he was ready to arrest us at any second.
Well, he could try. I had a date with Zav to visit another world, and I wasn’t going to miss it.
“If it did harm someone,” I said, “it had to have been modified to do so. We don’t sell anything capable of murder. Well, maybe the goblin-fuel coffee blend, but that’s only a risk if you have a heart problem and drink more than one cup.”
“You’re not helping,” Dimitri muttered to me.
“Who’s the homeowner?” I asked.
If we knew that, we might have an idea about whether that person was the type to modify yard art for inimical purposes. Had one of the goblins purchased it, I wouldn’t have doubted that a door knocker might have been modified, but I wouldn’t classify any of the goblins as inimical. Nuisances, yes. Inimical, no. They also tended to live under park benches, not in suburban houses.
Sutherland scowled at me, as if sharing this information was highly classified and would get him in trouble. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t check the social-media sites, where death-by-dragon-door-knocker stories would trend to the top immediately. Would stories of our knockers help sales or hurt them? All press was good press, right? Assuming I kept Dimitri from being arrested, his online shop might blow up like dragon fire in an arsenal.
“Maggie Kohler,” Sutherland finally said.
Not recognizing the name, I raised my eyebrows toward Dimitri. Did he keep a list of customers? Or just trade cash for knockers, no questions asked?
She’s a part-fae baker with a shop here in Fremont, Dimitri replied silently. She comes in early and gets a coffee every morning.
He didn’t have telepathic skills of his own, but mine had improved, and when I was paying close attention, I could hear his thoughts.
Almost every morning, he added. She hasn’t been here the last few days.
The fae weren’t known for their tinkering tendencies, but maybe her human side had driven her to modify the knocker. Because… because why? She wanted to murder someone in front of her own home? Maybe she’d only intended to scare the guy. Though the original knocker should have been sufficient for that.
“Have you asked her what happened?” I asked aloud, aware of the detective frowning suspiciously at us as we communicated telepathically. If he had that bracelet, he had some knowledge of the magical community and might know that some beings could speak silently to each other.
“Yes. That’s how I knew to come here.” Sutherland pointed at the floorboards. “She said her friend, Charlie Wu, was coming to visit, knocked using the ring attached to the belly, and then the dragon torched him. She didn’t see that, since she was inside, but she—and her neighbors—heard the ghastly scream. They’re all horrified.”
“Nobody saw the death, you say? Then you can’t arrest Dimitri or anyone else. For all you know, an assassin with a blowtorch was hiding in the bushes when this Wu arrived.”
“Nobody in the neighborhood saw anyone running around with a blowtorch.”
“Assassins tend not to flamboyantly stroll down the middle of the street with their murder tools.”
You do, Dimitri thought.
My strolling isn’t flamboyant. You might want to visit the baker’s shop and talk to her, see if there’s anything shifty about her story.
That will be hard to do from jail.
He’s not going to arrest you.
Are you sure? He keeps fondling his handcuffs.
That’s because he’s single and lonely. I smiled to the officer. “We’ll be happy to cooperate with your investigation, of course, but we will have to get our lawyer involved if there truly are accusations made against Dimitri.”
Not commenting on the lawyer threat, Sutherland pointed at a black door knocker. “I want to take one of these for the forensics lab to study.”
I imagined people who usually dusted for fingerprints and ran DNA tests on strands of hair presented with one of the T-Rexes. What would they think when they took it apart? Since I’d helped assemble some of them, I knew they ran on magic, not propane or anything else flammable.
“Sure.” I picked up one of the black ones. “They’re ninety-nine dollars, plus tax.”
Sutherland had been lifting his hands to accept it, but he froze. “You’re going to charge me?”
“For something worth a hundred dollars? Of course we’re charging you. Being a cop doesn’t give you the right to confiscate our inventory, not unless you’re considering it for safekeeping, evidence, or contraband. Besides, don’t tell me your people didn’t already take the one on Ms. Kohler’s door.” I beamed another smile as I shifted to thrust my chest toward him.
Sutherland stood with his hands out for a long moment, hopefully too enamored by my beauty to debate whether the knocker fell into any of the categories that would give him the right to confiscate it. “I’ll be back,” he finally said.
“You might want to take that trip to the bakery soon,” I told Dimitri as the detective walked out. “Sutherland may come back with someone who’s less enchanted by my boobs.”
“You think they’re what kept me from being arrested?” Dimitri quirked a skeptical eyebrow.
“Possibly what kept him from remembering that forfeiture is also a legitimate reason for the police to take stuff and that it might apply to a door knocker wanted for disassembly purposes.”
“Even though I’m not an admirer myself, I’ll admit that the female anatomy has interesting powers.”
A text came in. Your dragon is being difficult.
“I’ll see you later, Dimitri. I have to go use my anatomy on a dragon.”
“Will you bail me out of jail if I’m arrested by the time you get back from your trip?”
“Yes, but don’t get arrested. Call a lawyer.”