Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(17)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"You have trouble with the federal government?" she asked.

"As far as I know, none of them are prejudiced against half-Indian mechanics," I told her, matching her blandness with my own, "so why would I have a problem with them? However, I can certainly see why the fae would be reluctant to turn over a series of murders to a government whose record for dealing with the fae is not exactly spotless." I shrugged. "Maybe if they’d realized sooner that their killer wasn’t another fae, they might have done so. I don’t know."

She looked down at her notes. "So you told Zee that O’Donnell was the killer?"

I nodded. "Then I took Zee’s truck and drove home. It was early in the morning, maybe four o’clock, when we parted company. It was my understanding that he was going to go over to O’Donnell’s and talk to him."

"Just talk?"

I shrugged, glanced at Kyle, and tried to decide how far I trusted his judgement. All the truth, hmm? I sighed. "That’s what he said, but I was pretty sure that if O’Donnell didn’t have a good story, he wouldn’t wake up this morning."

Her pencil hit the table with a snap.

"You are telling me that Zee went to O’Donnell’s house to murder him?"

I took a deep breath. "You aren’t going to understand this. You don’t know the fae, not really. Imprisoning a fae is…impractical. First of all, it’s damned difficult. Holding a person is hard enough. Holding a fae for any time at all, if he doesn’t want to be held, is near impossible. Even without that, a life sentence is highly impractical when fae can live for hundreds of years." Or a lot more, but the public didn’t know that. "And when you let them go, they aren’t likely to shrug it off as justice served. The fae are a vengeance-hungry race. If you imprison a fae, for whatever reason, you’d better be dead when he gets out or you’ll wish you were. Human justice just isn’t equipped to deal with the fae, so they take care of it. A fae who commits a serious crime – like murder – is simply executed on the spot." The werewolves did the same.

She pinched the bridge of her nose as if I were giving her a headache.

"O’Donnell wasn’t fae. He was human."

I thought about trying to explain why a people who were used to dealing out their own justice would care less that the perpetrator was human, but decided it was pointless. "The fact remains that Zee did not kill O’Donnell. Someone got there first."

Her bland face didn’t indicate belief, so I asked, "Do you know the story of Thomas the Rhymer?"

"True Thomas? It’s a fairy tale," she said. "A prototype of Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle. "

"Uhm," I said. "Actually, I’m under the impression that it was mostly a true story, Thomas’s I mean. Thomas was, at any rate, a real historical person, a noted political entity of the thirteenth century. He claimed that he’d been caught for seven years by the queen of the fairies, then allowed to return. He either asked the fairy queen for a sign that he could show his kin so they would believe him when he told them where he’d been, or he stole a kiss from the fairy queen. Whatever the reason, he was given a gift, and like most fairy gifts, it was more curse than blessing – the fairy queen rendered him incapable of lying. For a diplomat or a lover or a businessman, that was a cruel thing to do, but the fae are often cruel."

"Your point?"

She didn’t sound happy. I guess she didn’t like thinking any of the fairy tales were true. It was a common attitude.

People could believe in the fae, but fairy tales were fairy tales. Only children would really believe in them.

It was an attitude that the fae themselves promoted. In most folktales, the fae are not exactly friendly. Take Hansel and Gretel, for instance. Zee once told me that there are a lot of fae in the rez, if left to their preferred diets, would happily eat people…especially children.

"He was cursed to become like the fae themselves," I told her. "Most fae, including Zee, cannot tell a lie. They are very, very good at making you think they are saying one thing, when they mean another, but they cannot lie."

"Everyone can lie."

I smiled at her tightly. "The fae cannot. I don’t know why. They can do the damnedest things with the truth, but they cannot lie. So." I sighed unhappily. I had tried to figure out a way to leave Uncle Mike out, but unfortunately there was no other way to tell this part. Zee and I hadn’t talked since his arrest; that was a matter of public record. I had to convince her that Zee was innocent. "I haven’t spoken to Zee yet, so I don’t know what his story – "

"No one has," she said. "My contact at the police department assured me that he hasn’t spoken to anyone since he was arrested – a wise move that allowed me to talk to you before I speak to him."

"There was another fae who went with Zee – he’s the one who told me Zee didn’t kill O’Donnell. He and Zee walked in and found the dead body about the same time the police showed up. The other fae was able to hide himself from the police, but Zee did not."

"Could he have hidden, too?"

I shrugged. "All the fae have glamour which allows them to change their appearance. Some of them can hide themselves entirely. You’ll have to ask him – though he probably won’t tell you. I think Zee did it so that the police wouldn’t look too hard and find his friend."

"Self-sacrifice?" Maybe someone who hadn’t been raised with werewolves wouldn’t have seen the scorn she felt for my theory. Fae, she apparently thought, weren’t capable of self-sacrifice.

"Zee is one of the rare fae who can tolerate metal – his friend is not. Jail would be very painful for most fae."

She tapped the end of her notebook on the table. "So the point of all of this is that you say that a fae who cannot lie told you Zee didn’t kill O’Donnell. That won’t convince a jury."

"I was hoping to convince you."

She raised her eyebrows. "It doesn’t matter what I think, Ms. Thompson."

I don’t know what expression was on my face, but she laughed. "A lawyer has to defend the innocent or the guilty, Ms. Thompson. That’s how our justice system works."

"He isn’t guilty."

She shrugged. "Or so you say. Even if Zee’s friend can’t lie – you aren’t fae, are you? At any rate, no one is guilty until convicted in a court of law. If that’s all you have to tell me, I’ll go talk to Mr. Adelbertsmiter."

"Can you get me into O’Donnell’s house?" I asked. "Maybe I can find out something about the real murderer." I tapped my nose.

She considered it, then shook her head. "You’ve hired me to be Mr. Adelbertsmiter’s attorney, but I feel some obligation to you as well. It would not be in your best interest – nor in Mr. Adelbertsmiter’s best interest – to prove yourself something…other than human at the moment. You are paying for my services, so the police will look at you. I trust they won’t find anything."