Sword in the Store

"Thirty four years old. Served a term for grievous bodily harm. Works as a mechanic. Look, Flanagan, you interview Duke. I want to go back to the crime scene."

The shop was silent. The yellow tape undisturbed. Dilgin stepped inside, feeling her neck tingle with ancient instincts of danger as the swords closed in around her. The lure of the chalk outline on the floor was irresistible. Dilgin came closer, squatted and studied the store anew from this different angle.

She straightened and her knee caught, pain freezing her in an awkward half-crouch. She swore, the stream of invective changing suddenly from complaint to awe.

"Well, now," Dilgin said to the empty store. She moved slowly, letting her knee adjust and accept her weight. Carefully she smoothed on gloves. Inches from the object she had sighted, Dilgin hesitated. She phoned the evidence tech.

"Did you get a photo of the spring mechanism on the shelving close to where the body lay? Dust it for prints?" Two negatives. Dilgin sighed. "Then I want you back here now with kit to do both." She hung up on the can't-do protests.

The sp mechanism was positioned at throat height for her. It would have been chest high for Sam Campbell given the difference in their heights. An imposing dragon statue, extending beyond the shelf on which it stood, hid the spring mechanism from above. Perhaps it was what attracted Campbell to stand there, presenting a perfect target. Dull looking books hedged the mechanism in on either side. Dilgin traced to the counter a wire which would trigger the spring's release. The wire was hidden under a shabby carpet.

"A nasty contraption," Dilgin explained later to Flanagan. "We tested it with a similar short sword at the store. It definitely released the sword with sufficient force to stab a man."

Flanagan whistled. "You thinking the owner?"

"Morgan?" Dilgin considered the question. "He would have the best opportunity to set up the mechanism, but it wasn't complex. If someone had private access to the store for an hour, they could rig it."

"Still," Flanagan entered the caveat.

"Yeah," Dilgin agreed. They hauled Morgan in.

"From the counter you could observe everyone in the store. When they were all occupied – especially Rachel whom you knew was Campbell's bodyguard – you flicked the switch. The spring released, driving the sword into Campbell's chest, killing him instantly."

"Why would I do that? Campbell was a customer."

"He was more than that," Dilgin slapped the stack of paper on the table. "We've been talking with Rachel. She says Campbell thought of you as a friend. She says he often went to your store."

"Look," Morgan spread his hands in a gesture of openness. "My store attracts a lot of weirdos. Just because they think of me as a friend doesn't make it so."

"No," Dilgin agreed. "But it does mean they confide in you. Peter overheard Campbell telling you of a computer game he invented."

Morgan stiffened. His mouth twisted in an attempt at a smile. "Pete got it back to front. I invented the game. Campbell was interested, was all. Probably because he was a computer geek."

"And how does a non-computer geek, like yourself, write the software for a computer game?"

"With a lot of cursing." Morgan's smile was better this time, inviting them to share his joke. Dilgin frowned and slowly shook her head.

"Interview terminated, 11:02." Flanagan held the door for her. "What next?" he asked.

"We need evidence that Campbell wrote the computer game, but both his home computers have been wiped, and there's no disks."

"That's odd in itself, isn't it?" Flanagan considered it. "Maybe Campbell wiped the computers himself. We know he was paranoid, hence Rachel. Maybe he wanted to be sure no one stole the game from him," Flanagan paused. "Ironic, if so."

"Yeah," Dilgin breathed a sigh of pure tiredness. She sat at her desk, drinking the third of too many coffees. She read a report and glanced across at Flanagan. "Morgan's store was barely covering costs. I wonder if a computer game would earn enough to tempt him?" Dilgin pushed aside the empty coffee mug. "What if Morgan fed Campbell's paranoia? Would Campbell come to believe only Morgan could be trusted with his precious game?"

A search warrant for Morgan's house revealed a set of CDs containing the game and its development. But nothing on Morgan's computer or his shelves showed that he had the knowledge to write the game. And then, on two of the development CDs, they found forgotten files containing work Campbell had done for Teckko. "Gotcha," Dilgin gloated.

She saw Jack that night, turning up unannounced on his doorstep. "You still waiting?" she asked.

"Always," he said, and reached for her.

THE END