19 — Suspects
I filled Johnathan in on everything I knew, and a lot I suspected. I recounted in exacting detail Daelus' flight from the entourage assassins, including every aspect of their use which could betray which delegate was at the helm.
Before we could do anything though, Johnathan wanted the name on the board to be accurate. He was now hesitating on the word
murder
, since I wasn’t actually dead. I insisted that the wound Daelus had received was likely fatal, moreover, they had been working their way into his chambers to finish him off. It was just simpler to call it a murder, not an
attempted–murder that I got ahead of through an amazing and unprecedented transformation
.
Now that it was once again a murder, what was the motive? The artifact was my immediate assumption, but he wisely wanted to avoid begging the question.
What if it had been a crime of passion? What delegate had Daelus offended, or wronged? Did anyone hold a grudge? Was this revenge? Daelus wasn't popular among the delegation, but he was also
mostly
unknown.
Phaeros, the mayor, seemed to dislike
everyone
, and had been content to leave Daelus
mostly
alone since he had begun playing by the rules. Jossimer, was always gruff, always impatient, but even at the worst of times, didn’t seem to have any grievance with Daelus he didn’t address immediately and hound until it was resolved. Markander, the cardinal, had an inexplicable yet undeniable disdain for Daelus that had, to this day, gone unexplained.
Each would likely celebrate Daelus’ death, but why
kill
him? Why act
now
? What had pushed them over the edge?
This led us back to the artifact. Johnathan was overjoyed that I had recovered it, and made what he described as
the obvious joke
when I explained how I had opened the drawer. After giving him a nonplussed stare, our focus resumed. Its possession could easily have been motivation, which meant our next step was to work out everyone who
knew
I had that artifact. The list wasn't long, but agonizingly, it forced us to consider motive from some we had considered friends.
At the top of the list was Anthony Carmichael, head of the expedition of archeologists that uncovered it. He was not a delegate, so we eliminated him as a suspect. On the other hand, this did point directly to Grégoire, of the research academy, who had intentionally kicked off this chain of events. Still, he had been friendly with Daelus for a time. What possible motive could he have had?
We could have easily spiraled at this point. Had it been an intentionally laid trap? We needed to avoid the temptation to get ahead of ourselves with paranoid speculation, and focus on the facts.
Finally, there was Delphiné. We knew that she often had an entourage or two at the museum, often in the form of schoolchildren, acting as her eyes to ensure the plaques were conforming to the Benefactor’s standards and specifications. Did she also check the mail? Had she seen Sheam or Daelus with the artifact in hand?
But, again, what would the motive have been? Delphiné had always seemed to be on our side, and though she could grow impatient with topics we didn’t see eye to eye on, Daelus had fallen in line. If she objected to Daelus having the artifact, she would have just asked for it, certain that he would give it to her.
Unless simply
knowing about
the artifact was what meant that Daelus had to die? They did go directly for him — they weren’t trying to capture him to interrogate him. Could this have been about silencing him?
Again, it was pure speculation.
Finally, what if Daelus was murdered because of, well,
me
? The rules concerning the use of entourage were largely unspoken, vaguely defined, and filled with double–binds and moving goalposts. It would be easy for anyone to decide that what Daelus had been doing — what I had been doing — was cause to eliminate him.
We thought of Randall who was, and by many accounts remained, the most famously skilled entourage projector of the delegation, and he was killed. There was a straight line that could be drawn between the two murders. Randall had created an illicit journal, which was now in my possession.
The story was that Randall was strangled to death by his entourage, but was that true? It would have been so easy for that entire story to have been a lie. Did they eliminate Randall because of what Jaeger was becoming? Did the delegation know, and put a stop to it?
Unfortunately, this once again led us to wild speculation, and an overwhelming implication — that this had been more than a simple murder. We set that aside, and resumed focus on what we knew for certain.
I was a case of murder-via-entourage, so we felt that means and opportunity were one and the same. We tackled both at once.
We began by questioning if anyone was outside the city that night, but quickly realized that would not be conclusive. We had no information on any theoretical upper distance an entourage could operate, so for all we knew the murderer could have been seated on the other side of the world, provided they were skilled enough.
The natural next question was skill, but again, we could only speculate. The projections seemed expertly deployed; swift, silent and precise. Jossimer was certainly skilled with the entourage ability, as were Phaeros, Markader, and Delphiné. Nothing that Daelus witnessed fell outside of what we had observed the four of them could do.
On the other hand, we weren’t sure if we had ever seen Grégoire use the ability, but Daelus had also usually met him at the lodge, where its use was considered gauche. If I could be kept a secret, whatever skills he had could be as well.
Finally, who knew the layout of the mansion? Jossimer absolutely did. We struggled to come up with other names, but what if the delegation had the floorplan of the estate on file?
If that was the case, it could have been enough for a delegate with sufficient imagination to set their entourage like clockwork. It did line up with what Daelus had observed. In fact, it seemed more likely. If the layout
was
known, why not just send a single assassin? A group would have fewer points of failure. That would narrow it down to who had access to such files.
We stared up at the murder board, satisfied with our start, but fearing we had a long way to go.