“They aren’t armed,” I said. “They can’t do that much damage.”

“So we just aren’t up to your standards, is that it?” He was angry, and I wasn’t sure why.

The queen’s secretary must have caught enough of the conversation to give me a hint. She flashed the headline of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: POLICE FAIL TO PROTECT THE PRINCESS. Oh.

“Major Walters, I’ve just been shown a newspaper. My apologies for not understanding the effect this situation was having on your life. I was a little too preoccupied with my own being in danger.”

“I don’t need your apologies, Princess. I need my men to be good enough to protect you at public events.”

“How much crap are you getting about what happened? Are they trying to scapegoat you?”

“That’s not your business,” he said, which was almost as good as a yes.

“I think we can help each other, Major.”

“How?”

“You sitting down?”

“Yeah,” and that one word was not happy.

I told him the briefest version I knew about the reporter and Beatrice, and that the queen had given it to me to clean up.

There was utter silence on the other end of the phone for so long that I finally said, “Major, you still there?”

“I’m here,” he said, in a hoarse voice.

“I’m sorry that being on faerie duty has just gotten so horribly complicated. I’m sorry that it is screwing with your plans.”

“What do you know about my plans?”

“I know you want to be chief of security at a certain place of business when you retire early next year. I know you took the job as liaison to us for your résumé. I know that letting me get shot at probably didn’t win you any points at your soon-to-be new job.”

“You know a damn lot for a princess.”

I let that go, not sure if it was compliment or insult. “But what if I show, plainly, that I have utter confidence in you, Major Walters?”

“What do you want from me?” The suspicion was thick enough to walk on.

“I want a Crime Scene Unit down here. I’ve got the crime scene itself isolated, but I need science, not magic, on this one.”

“Didn’t you just lecture me about my men being in danger from enchantments if we came into your place?”

“Yes, that’s why I want only you, the CSU, and maybe one or two others, tops. My guards can protect you individually from magic if you are a small enough group.”

“The entire department is being crucified in the press, especially the St. Louis press.”

“I know that now. Let’s show them that Princess Meredith and her guards don’t believe all that bad press. I do have confidence in you, Major Walters. You and a good forensic unit. How about it, Major? Do you want to play, or do I leave you out of this? I can pretend I didn’t call, and just start with the chief of police.”

“Why didn’t you start with him?” Walters asked.

“Because you’re my police liaison. I respect that title. You’re who I’m supposed to call. Besides, you’re almost more motivated than I am to solve this case.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Don’t be naïve, Major Walters. The department is taking heat. They’ll hang someone for it, and it will most likely be you. Let me show the department that you still have my trust and they’ll back off. They’ll be desperate to solve this second violent episode and have someone to punish. They’ll fall all over themselves to give you anything I ask for.”

“You seem to know how it works.”

“Politics is politics, Major, and I was raised in the thick of it.” I sat on the edge of the desk and tried to get my shoulder to loosen up. The injured muscles had tightened sometime during the interview with the queen. Funny that, but now my arm ached, and that wasn’t funny, at all. Of all the things I missed with being part human, not healing instantly was one of the biggest envies I had. “I need a cop, Major Walters, not a politician. I need someone who understands that my crime scene is aging even as we speak. That valuable evidence may be getting contaminated right this minute. I need someone who will worry more about solving this mess than the political ramifications of it. I think you’re that man, and now that your political star runs beside mine, you are doubly motivated.”

“What makes you so sure of that? What makes you think I won’t cut my losses and run for the hills?”

I thought about that, and said, “The look in your eyes yesterday at the airport when you were angry with having to share leadership with Barinthus. The fact that you showed anger to me now on the phone rather than trying to toadie to me. I wasn’t sure with a rank as high as major, but you’re more cop than politician, Walters. And if you knew how little I like politics, you’d know what a compliment that is.”

“You seem pretty good at politicking for someone who doesn’t like the game.”

“I’m good at a lot of things that I don’t enjoy, Major Walters. As I’m sure you are.”

Silence again. “If we don’t solve this, my ass is grass, and no amount of confidence shown in me, by you or anyone else, will save it.”

“And if we solve it…” I said.

He laughed, a deep chuckle. “Then I’ll be the department’s shining star, and the executives will be climbing over themselves to give me an even bigger salary. Yeah.”

“Are you my man, or do I pretend that I didn’t make this call?”

“I’m your man.”

I smiled. “Good. You start making calls, and get me some CSU out here as soon as possible.”

“What do I tell the Chief about why you’re letting us into your precious faerie land?” he asked. Oh, yeah, he was definitely a better cop than politician.

“Explain that whoever did this has diplomatic immunity, but we are allowing this investigation to happen out of our mutual desire for cooperation and justice.”

“You want the bastard who did it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You probably don’t remember me—I was just another uniform keeping the crowd back—but I saw you the day your father died. They gave you his sword.”

If I’d had any doubts that I’d called the right person, that one sentence took them away. Out loud I said, “Yes, yes, they did.”

“Catching this bad guy won’t catch your father’s killer.”

“That is a very insightful remark for a man I’ve only met twice.”

“Well, I’ve been the uniform on faerie duty off and on.”

“My mistake, but it was still insightful, uncomfortably so.”

“Sorry. Sometime after we’ve caught this guy, and if faerie princesses have drinks with lowly police majors, I’ll tell you why I became a cop.”

It was my turn to be insightful. “You lost someone, and they didn’t catch the bastard who did it.”

“You knew that already.” He sounded accusatory.

“No, I swear I didn’t.”

“Then that was a hell of a guess.”

“Let’s just say that those of us who bear a particular wound recognize it in others.”

He made a humph sound, then sort of growled, “Yeah, I guess we do. What will you be doing while I make phone calls and get everyone out there?”

“I’ll be questioning witnesses.”

“You know, it’d be nice if I were there for the questioning.”

“Most of the fey who may have witnessed anything are ones who almost never travel outside of faerie. They’re a little shy around humans, especially humans in uniforms. They all remember the last great human-fey war.”

“That was almost four hundred years ago,” he said.

“I’m aware of that.”

“I’ll never get used to it.”

“What?”

“How you guys look so young, but you remember this country before my great—great—great-grandfather took a boat here.”

“Not me, Major. I’m just a poor mortal girl.”

“Poor my ass,” he said.

“I’ll let you know if we learn anything that’s useful from the witnesses.”

“I’d like to decide what’s useful and what’s not.”

“Then hurry up, Major, but I do not promise that any fey will talk to you. I can’t even promise that you’ll be in the room when I question everyone. Some of them will simply not talk to the human police.”