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[oom: Shufti and Guppy compare notes on the Teja Murder case. And despair slightly.]

Shufti, having made a brief pit stop home, looks around the bar for one of two people. Not spotting either, she leaves a note for Yrael.

'Yrael,
Apparently you have information on the Teja murder case. If you could fill me in please, that would be great. If you have evidence that can help us get to a conviction, I daresay I could find you a bottle of Atlantean in thanks for your trouble.
Shufti'

She wishes Guppy hadn't hacked the guy off; it's a rather expensive bribe. One she can afford, but that's not the point.

Her badge visible, she sits nearby and keeps looking for people of interest.

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"Greetings," Teja says, sitting at her table.

Shufti smiles slightly.

"Hello Teja. Guppy told me; glad to see you back."

"It is good to be back," Teja says.

Pause.

"Only in Milliways, one would assume, do the forces of the law get to work with the actual murder victim. However, I did not see who shot me, nor what the weapon was."

"We now have an idea of the weapon." Shufti says. "A bolt or spear made of frozen gelatin. Given how close that would have made the killer if it was a spear, probably a crossbow. Guppy was able to match the sample of the sticky stuff on your chest to gelatin, following a tip-off from Yrael.

What do you remember about that night?"

"Nothing that would be useful," Teja says. "And I know about the weapons, albeit I saw them not. But I have an idea where I would find them."

"How do you know about the weapons?"

"I spoke with Yrael, who has accosted the one he is sure is the murderer," Teja says. "And I spoke with Guppy, and viewed my former body."

"What else did Yrael tell you?" Shufti asks. "Guppy tried to get evidence off him, but apparently he's flying solo. If he hasn't kept the evidence as proof, it's going to be hard to get justics on this case."

"He told me he was sure, beyond doubt, that it was Urquhart, the tall blond Scotsman with the little crossbow," Teja says. "And he told me where he found him, and spoke to him. I believe we might find evidence there. But I did not wish to go there alone, but take a Security member with me."

Pause.

"Say nothing."

He puts his hand in his belt pouch, takes out his badge, and shows it to her briefly in the palm of his hand; then, he closes his fist puts it back.

"Say nothing. It is because of the rogue blood-drinker."

Shufti looks at the badge, and nods, then looks back at his face.

"Let's go out back."

Teja stands, then leads the way outside.

"By the pond in the forest, in the clearing, where there are water lilies in the summer," Teja says. "That is where he found Urquhart, and spoke to him, and was convinced it was Urquhart's fault. That is where we would find the bolts, one may assume."

"Won't they have melted?" Shufti asks, moving over.

"How long?" she adds.

"As the snow is still on the ground," Teja says, "they will not. How long in what way?"

"How long have you had what you showed me." Shufti rephrases.

She looks around for the bolts.

"If they are here, that doesn't make any sense. Why would Urquhart leave them for us to find when he's still free?"

"Some weeks now," Teja says. "Mel swore me to silence, except in case of emergencies. I think my own murder is. As was the need to deal with young Ramon Salazar, when he came to this place from his past."

He leads the way through the forest. "I know the clearing and the pond; the place is dear to me. And from what Yrael told me, he must have put the fear of the big white magical cat into the miserable murderer's cold heart. He cannot be found; he must have gone to ground in some way."

"Is Yrael trustworthy?"

Shufti gets her crossbow out.

"He is," Teja says. "If he says that Urquhart will not attack me again, then he must trust the impression he made upon him, also."

It is something else that Teja suspects Yrael has done, but he would not speak of that.

He reaches the clearing. There has been a smattering of fresh snow in the course of the five days since Teja returned and Yrael found Urquhart, but it's still evident under which tree the snow had been disturbed.

"We must search there," Teja says.

Shufti photographs the area, then crouches, gets a paintbrush out of her pocket, and nudges away the snow.

In the older snow, there are faint traces of blood. And among them are the frozen crossbow bolts that Yrael had upset from their cache among the roots of the tree.

"My Charlie and I were shot from above," Teja says, summarising,"and both an eye witness and Urquhart's scent as Yrael found it, places him in the crook of a tree overlooking the murder scene, during the time we were attacked. There were marks in that tree, showing one climbing it. And here he have the other bolts he made, in the place where Yrael said he found him. And blood, from a presumed fight. Do you think Guppy might prove that this is Urquhart's?"

Shufti bottles some of the bloody snow.

"Probably, if he can get a sample off Urquhart. But that will only prove that Yrael assaulted him."

She chips off a bolt sample to give to Guppy.

"If he can match this to the sticky substance on your body, we'll know they were the weapon. Can't link them to Urquhart though, we've only got Yrael's word against his. If Bar can confirm Urquhart bought the gelatine, then that's enough evidence for arrest I think."

Looking up at him. "Why would Urquhart want you dead?"

"Take a whole bolt," Teja suggests, "and put it in a freezing cabinet. It would be good to preserve the shape, so they may be shown in evidence, if any needs to see it?"

Pause, while he picks one up and twirls it in his fingers. "I know not why," Teja says. "He is a paid murderer, and proud of it; somebody might have paid him for my murder. Some days before the murder, I told him and his -- woman, to take themselves upstairs to a room, when they were about to break the third rule on a couch near the fireplace. I did not tell them my secret, of course; merely pointed out I did not wish for an incident that would disturb me while playing with the cat. They went, with some muttering, but they went. Perhaps the woman has put him up to it, offended at having been spoken to thus?"

"I will, when I have a big enough box." Shufti says. "Otherwise my hands will melt it by the time I get it to the office. Do you know the name of the woman?"

"No," Teja says. "I never spoke with her. But you cannot mistake her -- she has very red hair, very blue eyes, a little cleft in her chin, wears a little less than a respectable woman should wear, by my book, and" -- pause, while Teja blushes a little -- "has a very impressive bust. One cannot help but notice, even if one does not want women in such ways. She is quite short, and I have seen her with Urquhart before that incident."

Shufti nods.

"If you find the name let me know. But it doesn't really sound like motive for murder."

"No," Teja says, "it does not. But we might wish to speak with her; she might know things, as she has been with him more than once, I would suspect."

Shufti nods.

"Does he have other friends that you know of?"

"I saw him with several women," Teja says, "of which some I knew, and some I knew not, but I doubt one may call any of those friends. Otherwise, he seems to have made only enemies."

Shufti nods.

"He works fast."

"I know not if those enemies were what he wished for," Teja says. "But he seemed not to mind, as long as the women kept coming."

"We need to find him."

"Yes," Teja says. "We do!"

She may feel something deceptively soft wander by her ankle.

"You summoned me?"

Shufti looks down.

"Yrael?"

"Yes?" he asks, sitting on her foot and looking up at her, small and cute and pure as the driven snow.

"You're a cat." Shufti observes. "Should I have bribed you with tuna instead?"

"It would have been a more cost-efficient alternative, yet possibly just as effective," he says, winding about her ankles and purring.

"Well, if you can get me something to work with, since tuna is so much cheaper, I could offer you tuna every day of this month as an alternative if you want. But I'd like the evidence please. Guppy and I trusted you with the task of helping us, and I'd rather reward you than get you arrested for obstructing the case."

"I have not obstructed the case," he mwrrs winningly, leaning against her ankles. "I merely gave the evidence to whom I thought had the most right to it."

Because while he likes Shufti when she's bribing him with tuna, he has no respect for Security. He is bad about carrying grudges, and the then-head of Security made the mistake of laughing at him for being preposterous when he offered his services to the Security force.

"What evidence do you have, then, that I could add to for the price of either a bottle of Atlantean or a dinner of tuna every evening for a month?"

Shufti scritches Yrael gently.

"I think you have better senses than any of us humans, amongst other abilities. You found out about the frozen gelatine bolts, which was better than any of the rest of us. We managed to retrieve that evidence, but there's nothing to prove we can link it to Urquhart. I've heard second hand bits of what you found, I'd like to hear exactly what evidence you got against Urquhart please. And preferably what happened when you confronted him."

"What evidence I had was an eye witness having seen him in a tree overlooking where Teja and Charlie were attacked, before the attack, and having seen him returning to the bar afterward, around the time when I found Teja and Charlie," he says, leaning into the scritches despite himself. "It places him at the scene at the time of the attack."

"Also, Urquhart's scent is in the tree overlooking the place of attack, and the marks in the same tree that you also saw. I could smell the faint scent of gelatin in the wounds, and found the gelatin ice bolts he had hidden among the tree roots below where he was later."

"When I questioned him regarding what he had seen on the day of the attack, he was evasive despite my insistence that answering my questions was in his best interest, as it may help to clear him of suspicion. Instead, it only served to deepen my suspicions of him, suspicions that were confirmed when he shot at me with his crossbow."

Shufti notes all of that down.

"Thank you." she says. "Were you hurt? What happened after he shot at you?"

"He leapt down from the tree, onto me, and we fought for a time," Yrael says, "until I convinced him what he had done had been a very foolish decision."

"His mind couldn't bear up against much, however, and he lapsed into what seemed to be a traumatic flashback from some other time before I left him."

Shufti nods.

"Thank you." she says. "That's been very helpful. Do you have anything else to add?"

"Yes, I do," Yrael says, coiling up on her foot.

"I like my tuna raw."

Scritch. "Then tuna it is. I'll be sure to tell Bar to take it off my tab for you."

Small smile. "I'll tell Guppy to feed you fish next time he tries to help with the detective work. Save him stressing himself out."

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