“How did you find me?” asked Arcady, not turning around. He was gazing over misty Lake Washington, elbows resting on the stonework balcony railing.

Zene leaned on the railing next to him. “One, you wouldn’t go anywhere near your father, so I took the stairs on the opposite side of the room. Two, you’re moody as hell, so I looked for a dramatic view where someone can stand in the rain and feel sorry for himself.”

Arcady put a hand to his forehead. “You are an amusing companion. You talked to her, of course.”

“Nothing too interesting.”

Arcady gave Zene a searching look for a moment, then turned back to the city lights across the lake. “Perhaps this detective business is mere foolishness. Perhaps I ought to stop trying to be something I am not.”

“I think you should keep going with the detective side,” said Zene.

“What?” Arcady’s tone had a hint of suspicion.

“You care about it too much to just give it up because I tell you to. I don’t see any point in trying.”

Arcady peered at Zene. “Didn’t she… bribe you with something?”

“Not in my job description.”

“My father would pay you handsomely to just walk up to me and say ‘Don’t do it.’ Which I thought you were on the verge of, anyways.”

“Would he give me my chair back on the Philharmonic?”

“Yes,” said Arcady with a sigh. “My father is that good.”

“Well, fuck him and the horse he rode in on.”

A few more moments passed. The mist in the cool air started to coalesce into raindrops, splattering the damp stone.

“You know, by now I’d usually have to get a new cello player.”

“I figured.”

“I can’t offer you anything like my father can, so there’s no material advantage in staying with me. You haven’t known me for even a day, nor, I think, do you terribly like me. You seem to be an individual with a healthy sense of vested self-interest. Why stay on my side?”

“I don’t like people trying to take advantage of others, that’s all. And we might still split. But I’m not going to back stab you.”

“Thank you,” said Arcady quietly.

Zene considered how to phrase a question that had been bothering him.

“You and Hestia ever have anything between the two of you?”

“That’s a rude question.”

“I need to know.”

“Are you contemplating having an affair with her?”

“Looking at her’s like looking at a starved cow. And don’t change the subject.”

“I did… have a crush on her,” said Arcady. “When she was covering my cases.”

“All one of them?”

The lights went out.

“How odd,” said Arcady as he opened a frosted French window, and looked out at the now dark courtyard. “The lights on the neighboring properties are fine. And this is Medina, not Issaquah or some other outlying region.”

The lights came back on.

Someone screamed, the sound echoing up the maze of stairs leading from the ballroom five floors below.

“Someone help him! He’s still alive!”

Zene ran down the stairs. Arcady leaped multiple steps at a time, rabbit-like, quickly overtaking Zene and disappearing down the next flight.

“Damn showoff,” thought Zene as he rounded the corner, and stopped. Five men were racing up the stairs, taking a right when they reached the mezzanine level. They headed towards the nearer of the two grandiose six-tier chandeliers. It leaned obscenely towards the ornate brass railing, as though a heavy weight was attached to one side.

“Oh my god, he’s still moving!” screamed a female voice below, half-hysterical and too high-pitched to be Hestia’s.

Arcady leaned over the railing of the fourth-floor landing, watching the men trying and failing to reach for the heavy rope tied to one of the lower arms of the chandelier. The violinist reminded Zene of a pointer, with his sharp nose and entire body poised towards the scene below, tightly wound eagerness ready to spring at will.

Zene walked down to Arcady’s level. “I can take a guess at what’s going on,” he said, catching his breath.

“Murder,” said Arcady in a tense undertone, “murder most foul.” Felinely nimble, he fled down the steps towards the men.

“Tell me one that isn’t,” said Zene, running after Arcady.

On the mezzanine Zene stopped near the leaning chandelier, caught by the sight of the twitching body of Senator Bailey Cartwright, suspended high above the horrified crowd. A noose strangled the middle-aged man, the rope tied to an arm a couple feet too far inwards and downwards to reach easily. The rescuers desperately tried to reach him, attempting to form a supportive chain.

This was the wrong place for it.

Arcady ran past them and into one of the rooms on the floor, surprising, and then angering, the rescue party.

“You idiots!” bellowed Zene, drawing their attention. “Do you want to find out if your insurance has a ‘fucking stupid rescue death’ clause?”

There was a crash from the room Arcady had disappeared into, like the sound of metal mallets raining over a xylorimba.

A moment later Arcady reappeared with a bundle of red patterned velvet in one arm, using a sharp knife in his free hand to cut a gaping hole in the middle of the material. He threw this part of the cloth over the railing, and manipulated it quickly to catch onto the ornate ironwork of the lowermost chandelier arms.

“Four of you grab the ends and pull up!”

With a great effort from the rescuers, the chandelier righted itself, then tipped away from the mezzanine and pulled upwards, bringing the spasming body of the senator within reach. Zene and another man lifted the senator by his shoulders as Arcady loosened the noose with difficulty.

One of the others had brought the AutoPulse kit, and they were already slipping the thick band around Cartwright’s chest.

“Where are the fucking paramedics?” asked Zene.

Arcady glanced at his watch. “Probably in the second foyer. Give them another ten minutes to get up here.”

Tags: arcady, bailey cartwright, clent farsdale, just steaders, marsal hanbilt, marzo anders, murder, wolt jig, yolanda cartwright, zene

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