of the line."
Brennan slumped back in the car seat. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to Jennifer, but he couldn't speak. His head whirled with her revelations and the aftereffects of the drugs Quincey had pumped into his system. Something was wrong here, very wrong, and there was perhaps only one person who could set them straight, only one person who would know for certain if it was Chrysalis's shattered body that'd been found in her office.
The man who had discovered it.
Dutton sipped from his cardboard cup very calmly. "Would you prefer that I spill my coffee in shock or just quietly turn pale with guilt?"
"Either one, just so you confess," Jay said, "I'm not fussy."
"Assuming that I was guilty, isn't it a bit naive to expect that I'd own up the moment I'm accused?"
"Hey, it always works for Perry Mason," Jay said. "You can't blame a guy for trying."
Dutton put down the coffee, took off his cloak, and draped it over the back of a chair. Beneath the banks of fluorescent light, his skin was a ghastly shade of yellow, here and there mottled with dry, dead patches of brown. "I happen to look like the popular image of the grim reaper," the joker said. "Sometimes that causes people to make unfortunate assumptions about me. I did not kill Chrysalis."
"Not personally," Jay said, "but you had the bucks to hire it done. And you had the motive."
"Did I?" Dutton seemed amused. "The land on which the Palace stands is worth quite a bit, agreed. The saloon itself is a good tax loss. I may keep it open and I may not, but I'd hardly kill for it."
"Her other business was real profitable," Jay pointed out. "Tax-free, too." He took a sip of coffee. It was so hot it burned the back of his mouth going down. "You own part of that one, too?"
"No," Dutton said. "Oh, she willingly shared certain pieces of information whenever she heard anything that might affect my business interests, and there was never any charge to me. That was part of our arrangement. But otherwise her little hobby was her own."
"Only now it's yours by default," Jay suggested. "You wouldn't want to put all those snitches out of work."
"Perhaps not," Dutton said. "Undoubtedly her files contain items of considerable interest, and others of considerable value; I won't pretend otherwise. Still, it's nothing I'd bloody my hands for. I could have bought and sold Chrysalis a dozen times over, I didn't need to murder her."
"So who did?" Jay asked.
Chapter 7
"I'm mystified," Dutton said. "She was privy to a great deal of dangerous information, of course, but that very thing kept her safe. Alive, she could be dealt with. Kill her, and who knows what skeletons may come out of the closet."
"There are a lot of closets in the Crystal Palace," said Jay. "You take my meaning then," Dutton said. He shrugged. "I wish I could give you something more to work on. Truly I do."
"It's okay," Jay said. He took a last swallow of coffee and stood up. "Well, time to shuffle home to bed. You got a back door on this place?"
"A side exit on the alley," Dutton said, rising. "Come, let me show you."
The joker led him back through the labyrinth of silent wax, their footsteps echoing down the long corridors. They were crossing a small rotunda when Jay heard something behind them.
He stopped, looked back. Nothing moving. "Are we alone here?"
"Quite," Dutton said. "Is something wrong?"
" I heard something," Jay said. "And I've got a funny feeling. Like we're being watched."
Dutton smiled. "That's very common. It's the waxworks. People say their eyes follow you around the room."
Jay glanced around. They were passing through the Gallery of Beauty. In the shadows he glimpsed Peregrine: Aurora, Circe. "Peregrine's eyes can follow me anywhere," he quipped, but somehow he didn't think that was it.
"This way," Dutton said.
They turned a corner. Jay took Dutton firmly but quietly by the arm and pulled him back into a dark alcove beside a towering metal-and-wax likeness of Detroit Steel. Jay held a finger to his lips. Dutton gave a small, quick nod.
In the stillness, Jay heard soft padding footfalls. Coming toward them.
It couldn't be the Oddity Whatever it was was lightfooted as a cat. And barefoot by the sound of it.
Jay shaped his hand into a gun.
A shadow darted past them, faster than Jay thought possible. It was small, no more than knee high, and it