The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"Once in contact, always in contact," I quoted. "Modem as next week." A lot of buildings in Angels City cool themselves by contagious contact with ice elementals. That wasn't what I meant by modem; the law of contagion may be the oldest magical principle known. But regulating the effect so people feel comfortable, not stuck on an ice floe themselves, is a new process - and an expensive one. The people who made a profit off the dump didn't stint their employees; I wondered how the leak had happened if they had money like this to throw around.

Once his secretary had brought coffee for both of us, Sudakis settled back in his chair. It creaked. He said, "What can I do for you, Dave? I gather this is an unofficial visit: you haven't shown me a warrant, you haven't served a subpoena, you don't have a priest or an exorcist or even a lawyer with you. So what's up?"

"You're right - this is unofficial." I sipped my coffee. It was delicious, nothing like the reconstituted stuff that makes a liar of the law of similarity. "I'd like to talk about your containment scheme here, if you don't mind."

His air of affability turned to stone as abruptly as if he'd gazed on a cockatrice. By his expression, he'd sooner have had me ask him about a social disease. "We're tight," he said.

"Absolutely no question we're tight. Maybe we'd both better have priests and lawyers here. I don't like 'unofficial' visits that hit me where I live, Inspector Fisher." I wasn't Dave any more.

"You may not be as tight as you think," I told him. "That's what I'm here to talk about" "Talk is cheap." He was hard-nosed as a linebacker, too. "I don't want talk. I want evidence if you try and come here to say things like that to me."

"Elf-shot around the dump is up a lot from ten years ago till now," I said.

"Yes, I've seen those numbers. We've got a lot of new immigrants in the area, too, and they bring their troubles with them when they come to this country. We have a case of jaguaranthropy, if that's a word, a couple of years ago. Try telling me that would have happened when all the neighbors sprang from northwest Europe."

He was right about the neighborhood changing. I'd gone past a couple of houses that had signs saying Curandero tacked out front. If you ask me, curanderos are frauds who prey on the ignorant, but nobody asked me. A basic principle of magic is that if you believe in something, it'll be true - for you.

I'll tell you something I believed. I believed that if the EPA took Devonshire dump to court just on the strength of an increase in elf-shot around the area, the lawyers Sudalds' people would throw at us would leave us so much not-toolean ground beef. I had no doubt Tony Sudakis believed it, too.

So I hit him with something bigger and harder. "Are you going to blame the immigrants for the three cases of apsychia around here in the past year?"

He didn't even blink. "Coincidence," he said flatly. One hand, though, tugged at the silver chain he wore around his neck. Out popped the ornament on the end of it I'd expected a crucifix, but instead it was a polished piece of amber with something embedded inside - a pretty piece, and one that probably cost a pretty copper.

"Speaking off the record, Mr. Sudakis, you know as well as I do that three soulless births in one area in one year isn't coincidence," I answered. "It's an epidemic."

He let the amber amulet slide back under his shirt. I deny that, off the record or on it." His voice was so loud and ringing that I would have bet something was Listening to every word we said, ready to spit it back in case we did end up in court Interesting, I thought Sudakis went on.

"Besides, Inspector, think of it like this: if I didn't think this place was safe, why would I keep coming to work every day?"

I raised what I hoped was a placating hand. "Mr. Sudakis - Tony, if I may - I'm not repeat not, claiming you're personally responsible for anything. I want you to understand that. But evidence of what may be a problem here has come to my attention, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I ignored it"

"Okay," he said, nodding. "I can deal with that Look, maybe I can clear this up if I show you the containment scheme. You find any holes in if Dave"-I was Dave again, so I guess he'd calmed down-"and I will personally shit in my hat and wear it backwards. I swear it."

"You're not under oath," I said hastily. If he turned out to be wrong, I didn't want to leave him the choice of doing something disgusting or facing the wrath of the Other Side for not following through. "You heard me." He got up from his desk, went over to a file cabinet off to one side, started pulling out folders. "Here, look." He unrolled a parchment in front of me. "Here's the outer perimeter. You'll have seen some of that; here's what all really goes into it. And here's the protection scheme for the complex we're sitting in."