"Are you sure we shouldn't do this down at the racetrack?" Virdon carefully kept his voice and face neutral.
"Nah, I'm fine." Burke critically eyed his stance. "Don't let your elbow sag. I'm due today anyway, to show Ga... Faro my stitches. Wish he could pull them, but that'll only happen after the race."
They were in the garden behind Morla's inn again, doing Tai Chi. Virdon still felt slightly ridiculous for doing those flowery moves at snail's pace, but he couldn't deny that his leg felt better than it had in a long time. And it did get the kinks out of his back after a day of cutting and sewing leather.
He concentrated on the movements for a while, thinking of nothing. Perhaps that was why he enjoyed these sessions so much - they were a respite from the constant planning, reminiscing, the silent conversations with Sally...
Stop thinking.
"How's that foot doing anyway?" It was no use trying to get back into that empty mind state. "You're moving it more than can be good for the wound."
"It's fine. The cut isn't over moving parts."
Virdon huffed a laugh. "You're making it sound like machinery."
Burke didn't join in the laughter. "Better than making it sound as if I'm an animal."
"Something happen again, at the tracks?"
Burke looked up, surprised. "I'm not training down there anymore. Don't want a second wire to get me at throat level."
"Ah." Virdon hadn't known that. They were so dispersed now, each of them wrapped up in their own business. It worried him - they weren't out of Urko's reach yet, not until they were north of the mountains, and they couldn't afford breaking apart now. "Good decision."
They sat down on the steps to the kitchen for a moment, neither of them in a hurry to go inside and deal with a curt and cranky Galen. "It's nice out there," Burke said after a moment. "Not an ape in sight for miles and miles... well, mostly." He shook his head and turned up a corner of his mouth. It wasn't quite a smile.
"Ran into some monkey business yesterday," he continued. "At first, I thought they were bootlegging, but whatever they were cooking in those huts wasn't alcoholic. Must be illegal, though, or they wouldn't have taken such pains to hide the huts."
Virdon frowned. "Huts, plural? Were you able to have a look inside?"
Burke flicked him a sideways glance. "Now why would I do that? Do I care what the monkeys cook up to fry their brains with?"
"Because I know you, Pete," Virdon said dryly. "And besides, who says their drug is meant for other apes?"
Burke stared at him. "You mean it's for humans? What do you know about this shit, Al?"
Virdon pulled himself up. "It's high time we stop compartmentalizing like that." He gestured to the house behind them. "Let's go upstairs - Zana has some interesting things to tell, too."
But Zana wasn't there when they opened the door; Galen was sitting alone at the table, clasping a mug with tar-colored tea. He didn't look up to acknowledge either of them.
After a moment of tense silence, Burke moved into the room and sat down at the table. "You wanted to see me," he said roughly, "or my foot, actually."
Galen blinked and inhaled sharply, as if he had been dozing with his eyes open. "Oh, yes, I did, didn't I?" He sighed deeply and pushed away from the table. "Give me your foot."
Virdon went to the tea oven to boil fresh water. The apes were always preparing or drinking tea, a habit that had prompted Burke to moan that the Brits had evolved and come back to reclaim their former colony. Virdon would've preferred coffee, but at least it gave his hands something to do.
"Where's Zana?" he asked while he put a new log on the fire.
"I have no idea," Galen murmured without looking up from Burke's foot. "For all I know, she's watching the sunset with her paramour."
Virdon shared an exasperated look with Burke, but wisely chose to say nothing.
As if on cue, the door opened, and Zana came in, balancing two boxes stacked upon each other. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the assembled team; apparently she had expected to come home to an empty room. Virdon suspected that she had planned to quietly stow away her booty, and bit back a smile. Caught red-handed, Zana .
After a moment's hesitation, Zana nonchalantly crossed the room and put the boxes on her bed. "Galen, dear," she said over her shoulder, "I wouldn't have expected you so early in the day."
Virdon rubbed his face, his momentary bout of amusement gone; he could already see another argument brewing between those two, the rare chance of comparing notes being wasted...
"I'm checking on Peet's foot," Galen mumbled, who thankfully seemed equally uninterested in a fight. "It's healing, just keep it clean," he added to Burke, and let go of his ankle.
Burke put his foot on the floor again, but not quickly enough for Zana, who had dropped whatever she was doing, and had hurried over to the table.
"Mothers, Peet, what did you do to your foot? Those are stitches!"
Burke flicked a glance at Galen, rubbed his neck, and mumbled something about a bramble vine.
Zana propped her hands on her hips. "Don't lie to me, Peet," she said sternly, "an injury from a bramble vine doesn't require stitches. What happened?"
Virdon saw a muscle tick in Burke's jaw, but his friend just bowed his head, and quickly repeated his story about the wire that someone had stretched across his track.
Zana sucked in a deep breath. She looked ready to explode. "Vilam," she said, and Virdon was taken aback at the venom in her voice. "He is notorious for crippling competing racers. That son of a monkey! I'll have him arrested!"
Virdon thought it wise not to point out to her that they didn't have a shred of evidence that it had been Vilam who had prepared the track, and desperately cast for something to distract her.
"Pete was allowed to run outside the racetrack, in the woods," he said quickly, "so he could utilize the inclines for his training. Anyway, he found something in those woods today that you might find interesting." He nodded at Burke to continue.
Burke frowned at him in askance, but obediently took up the thread. "I found some huts that were camouflaged pretty well, and a bunch of mon... apes who were cooking something foul in vats of tallow. They were all pretty hush-hush about it, an' what's most interesting is that there wasn't a single human around, not even for the low stuff, like stirring the whatever."
Zana stared at him, then at Virdon. Her eyes were ablaze with excitement. "Do you think... that this is the evidence?"
"Maybe," Virdon said hesitantly. "Right now, we don't even know what they were doing out there, much less if it's illegal. I mean-" he held up a hand to stop her protest, "it looks shady, yes, but we should exclude other explanations. Maybe they need to do it far away from settlements because it smells bad..."
"It stank like hell," Burke interjected, "like fried battery acid."
"What in Cesar's name are you all talking about?" Galen spoke up. For once, he sounded more bewildered than irritated.
"Yeah, what's that about evidence?" Burke scowled fiercely enough for both of them.
Virdon and Zana exchanged a look. Then Zana sighed. "Alan, will you make some tea? I need to get out of that heavy robe." She nodded at the boxes on her bed. "I bought some more of this lovely citrus tea. Mothers know, Felga's tea house can use every bit of support they can get right now. The poor things are really struggling..." Her voice became muffled as she pulled her overcoat over her head.
She sat down at the table just as Virdon carried the teapot over to them. "Well," she said, and patted the chair beside her, "It's nice that we're all together in one place again..." She fell silent, as if she didn't know how to segue into the less than nice subject of their talk.
Virdon glanced at Burke. "It's time we put together the pieces of this puzzle. Maybe the result will give us a picture of what's going on here."
Everyone's eyes were on Alan, Galen noticed... well, he was staring at the human, too, as if Alan had somehow returned to his old leadership position. There was no question about who had offered him that position: Zana was patting the chair beside her, inviting Alan to sit down with them.
"I can't wait," Galen murmured, but he was too tired to put much heat into his words. If he was honest with himself, he was faintly curious what everyone was talking about. He just hoped the whole debacle with Marpo wouldn't come up again.
Well, Peet was obviously as loathe to break that subject as he was, but there was no telling how much Alan knew about it. Peet might have confided in him, seeing as he was another human, and his senior. Galen was reasonably sure that Alan wouldn't confront him about it. Zana, on the other hand...
Let sleeping bushcats lie.
Alan and Zana exchanged a look, and after a silent tug-of-war, Alan relented and began to speak. "Zana told me about her attempts to find out who really killed her friend Felga."
Galen barely managed to keep his face under control. "Her murderer was arrested and is awaiting trial. Do you really think you are better suited to do police work than the police?"
Zana bristled, but Alan held up a hand, and she bit back whatever she was going to throw in his face.
"The circumstances of Felga's murder were a bit too neat," Alan said. "And as Zana discovered, a lot of people had motive to kill her. But what she's still missing is evidence that ties any of them to Felga's death. Her main suspects have given each other an alibi, so we need something physical that they can't explain away."
Peet chipped with his thumbnail at the rim of his mug. "An' you think that bootlegging mon... apes are that evidence?"
"I doubt they were making whiskey out there," Alan said dryly. He glanced at Galen and hesitated. "You studied medicine," he said finally. "Can you imagine what one would have to cook in fat?"
Galen leaned back in his chair and drew a deep breath. He had no idea where this was supposed to be leading, but for once, he wouldn't have to think about the race, or Zana's erratic behavior, or the gossip in the pub that Morla had sent a letter to Urko for help with that murder case.
He hadn't believed that gossip even for a moment. Even if Morla had written that letter, Urko had better things to do than care for some grandmother in the hinterland.
"There are a lot of herbs whose healing powers are only unlocked when you treat them with another substance," he said. "Like wine, for example, or honey. And a lot of herbs need to be soaked in fat or oil, and heating hastens that process. But I can't tell you what herb they could've used, there are so many..." He took a sip of his tea.
"What about Horny Goat weed?" Zana asked.
The tea burned his throat, and the coughing made it worse. "Why... why that herb in particular?" he wheezed when he was able to take a breath without provoking a new bout of coughs.
But Zana just stared at him with an intensity he would've found exhilarating if it hadn't been stirred by her obsession for that dead woman. "Just humor me, dear," she said.
"Well," Galen said weakly, "Horny Goat weed is a, a tonic that ah, rejuvenates the... the body."
Zana just gave him a look. "Really, Galen," she said, "you don't have to be dainty with me."
"Alright," Galen said nervously. "The flowers of goat weed are used for food coloring, but the medicinal properties reside in the root. Usually, the root is dried and sold to herbalists, and they grind it and soak it in wine. It's used to treat urinary infections, and... other problems of the organs in that region."
"It's an aphrodisiac," Alan said in a deadpan voice.
"Yes," Galen admitted.
"Does it smell like dead ape in rock oil?" Peet wanted to know.
"It has a strong, very peculiar smell," Galen said, forcing himself not to glare at him. "It has been described as everything from the smell of a, well, horny billy goat to turpentine..."
"That's it!" Peet cried out. "Knew that it reminded me of something ... Something disgusting."
"But why would they cook it in fat?" Zana wondered. "Did you ever read about that, Galen?"
"Not that I remember..."
"Could it be used to make it more potent? Like a drug?"
Galen shook his head. "Not by cooking alone. That's just used to extract the essence of the plant. If you want to potentiate it, the extraction would only be the first step."
"There were more huts," Peet remarked. "I just didn't climb them all to look inside. I had the feeling they wouldn't be too thrilled if they saw me."
"If they were making drugs, they'd have killed you, no doubt," Galen muttered. "You took a great risk by even spying on that one building."
"It wasn't as if I went looking for them," Peet defended himself. "I just sorta stumbled over them."
"You should've turned away immediately," Galen said sternly.
"I'd be touched by your concern," Peet scoffed, "if I didn't know that it's more for that prize money than for my health."
"Pete," Alan said calmly, and Peet leaned back in his seat with a scowl, submitting to him with an ease that he had never shown towards Galen.
"Can you find out how Blaze is made?" Alan returned to the subject at hand, and Galen tore his mind away from the question of how Alan handled his volatile friend so easily.
"Oh, that's what you think it is?" he asked, surprised. "Well, I'll see if I can find something about it in my scrolls." He sighed. "If I was still Dr. Kova, I could ask Dr. Aldo if I could borrow his scrolls, but he has no reason to let a leatherware trader have a look..."
"So, suppose they do cook that shit in the woods," Peet spoke up; he was again chipping at the mug, not meeting anyone's gaze. "Who are their clients?"
"Kennel owners, mostly," Zana sighed. "They use it on their humans, to make them run faster. It is illegal," she added hastily, "anyone who is caught using it is immediately disqualified and has to pay a heavy fine..."
"I thought you said it's an aphrodisiac."
"Yes, it... depends on the dosage." Now Zana seemed to be uncomfortable. "If you overdose, it will even kill the... the recipient."
"So you think Felga was killed with an overdose?" Peet scratched his head, clearly confused.
"No, Felga was strangled." Zana's hand crept to her own throat. "What a terrible way to die," she murmured.
"Actually, you fall unconscious very quickly," Alan murmured. "She didn't suffer, at least."
Galen didn't believe that for a moment, but appreciated the human's attempt to console her.
"So, what does this drug business have to do with her?" Peet wondered.
"We don't know yet," Alan admitted. "Maybe nothing. But Felga was investigating some shady business going on at the racetrack - kennel owners killing the racers of the competition, fixing races... Maybe she found a connection between the drug business and one of those owners. That'd definitively have given him a motive to silence her. Did you hear anything about a chimp named Vilam?"
"Yeah, one of his racers smashed his elbow into my face at that first race, an' his trainers love to use the crop on them during training." Peet shrugged, but his body was tense. "Got welts all over the back of their legs."
"That barbarian," Zana murmured.
"Did you ever see him or one of those trainers threaten any of the other racers, or their connections?" Alan wanted to know.
Peet glared at him. "I'm not gonna play private eye for you or Zana down there. I just wanna survive this last race and then get the hell outta Dodge."
"I'm not saying that you should start investigating," Alan said calmly. "But if you happen to see or hear something..."
"I'm gonna report to you, Colonel, got it." If anything, Peet looked even more sullen than before.
"You know," he added abruptly, "even if that Vilam filled all his racers up to their ears with that shit, they'd still have enough of the stuff left. I mean, that was like a whole village out there, an' who knows if it's the only one? I saw those fields when I was still working for that timber company; didn't know what it was for then, they just said it was a medicinal herb they're selling down South..."
"So you think they are selling the drug to someone else?" Zana asked.
Peet shrugged. "Wouldn't make sense to go to all that trouble if they didn't make a nice buck with it."
"I agree," Alan said. "Maybe some apes want to take advantage of the... endurance-enhancing properties of Blaze, too ."
Peet rubbed his face. "Oh man. Coke-sniffing apes. What else is this fucked-up world gonna throw at me?"
Galen remembered something, and immediately wished he hadn't. "The drug is used in certain circles," he said slowly. He stopped when all eyes turned to him.
"I never took it," he said, a bit more forcefully than intended. "But I saw others take it, at student parties... Ango was notorious for his wild parties, the wildest in the City... none of the, ah, respectable girls were allowed to come..."
"Is the name Ango quite common, or are you talking about that Ango?" Alan asked, a strange glint in his eyes.
Galen nervously scratched his head. "I'm talking of Privat Ango, yes," he admitted. "Of course that was before he joined the order... anyway, Blaze has been around for some time, and done its dirty work, and maybe it has been delivered from this little town all that time. It would be possible - goat weed doesn't grow in the South."
"Fine." Zana clapped her hands. "We don't have much time left - the race is in four days, and Levar's trial... and execution... will be on the day after that. If he didn't kill Felga, an innocent man will end up on the gallows. I can't take that on my conscience. Can you?"
She would've been a good defense lawyer, Galen thought cynically; she certainly knew how to use leading questions. Predictably, Alan shook his head; Peet shrugged, but sighed and held up his hands in surrender when she glared at him.
Finally, Zana's eyes locked with his. "What about you, Galen?" she asked, keeping her tone carefully neutral.
"I wouldn't want an innocent man to die, either," Galen hedged, "but what can I do here? What can any of us do?"
"Well, Peet can keep his eyes and ears open at the racetrack, as Alan had suggested," Zana said. "It's a place none of us can go without sticking out..."
"Al can chat up that ol' drunkard," Peet interjected. "Tovar's really doting on you, Al."
"... and Peet could also show officer Rogan the drug kitchen," Zana continued, ignoring his last comment. "I'll try to find these notes that supposedly incriminate Levar... I find it strange that I found no mention whatsoever of him in the notes that Felga had hidden at her mother's house. Maybe someone forged that complaint... maybe the same ape who killed her."
"And what do you want me to do?" Galen asked, faintly amused.
Zana hesitated for a moment. "I think... I'm convinced that Olman is behind the whole Blaze business. And he needs to account for the money he earns with that business, somehow. I'm sure he's hiding it in his books somewhere. Would you be able to find it, if you had access to his books?"
Now it was Galen's turn to hold up his hands. "What do you think I am," he protested, "an auditor? Even if I could get access to Olman's books - and you haven't told me yet how you're going to accomplish that - it could take me a long time to discover anything. This isn't something I can do in a quick search, while you keep him occupied with flirty banter and a scandalous cleavage!"
Beside him, Peet spit out his tea. "Hot, it's damn hot," he gasped, "burnt my tongue."
Zana drummed her fingers on the table. "Well, what can you do?" she asked, frustrated.
For a long moment, Galen drew a blank. The only thing he knew was that he absolutely wanted to contribute something to Zana's project; it seemed that her investigation had put her on a collision course with that constable, and this was a golden chance to get her back... to prove to her that their relationship was something she could count on in times of need.
Then he had an idea.
"I could find out if Olman's and Vilam's mutual alibi holds up," he suggested.
Zana frowned. "Even if it doesn't, we still wouldn't have a physical clue - like that bandage. Rogan said without evidence, we can't accuse anyone."
"I assume Rogan hasn't heard of circumstantial evidence, then," Galen said mildly, careful to hide his triumph.
"Well, neither have I," Zana said, nonplussed.
"It's evidence that implies that the defendant was involved in the crime," Galen explained. "Those physical clues your constable is so fond of are evidence, but so is everything else that allows to infer that the suspect is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
He leaned forward, happy to have found something that would dull the constable's shining image in Zana's mind a bit. "So if neither Vilam nor Olman have an alibi for that night, and we could show that Vilam had access to those bandages, for example, it would strongly imply that he had been involved in the crime, especially since he lied about his alibi - that lie itself is also a fact that you can make inferences from."
He leaned back in his seat. "Of course, all those clues have to add up. You, or rather, the judge needs to be able to connect the dots, which means that the more dots you have, and the better they line up, the better your chances of getting the true culprit to the gallows."
Zana nodded thoughtfully. "And how do you want to find out about those alibis?"
Galen smiled. "Just leave that to me, dear. I have my ways."
He'd get that information, and thus get on her good side again.
But he'd also get his payback for her shameless flirting with that rogue.