The Pantry Authority's lead investigator was named Asparagus — tall, pointed, and
possessed of the institutional stubbornness of someone who had spent twenty years in a
bureaucracy that processed everything slowly and thoroughly. He had not yet officially
classified Fennel's death as murder. He had been calling it a 'concerning incident of
undetermined cause.' This was not stupidity. This was caution. He was waiting to see
which way the political wind blew before committing the word.
He was waiting in Kale's lodgings when she returned from Tier Zero. This was not
authorised. He had, she gathered, a key. She sat across from him without removing her
coat and looked at him with the expression of someone who had too much already to do
without adding a territorial dispute with a local investigator.
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "Agent Kale. I've been patient. You have been
in this city for less than three days and you have visited the Archive Tower, the
Condiment Guild, the Cereal Confederation's barracks, two establishments in Tier
One, and — as of approximately forty minutes ago — the passage that leads to Tier
Zero, which is technically outside my jurisdiction and therefore deeply
inconvenient."
AGENT KALE: "I have been investigating a theft."
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "You have been investigating a murder. I know
he's dead. I found the body the same morning the Director told you. I was asked —
by my department head — not to use the word. I declined."
AGENT KALE: "Thy department head is connected to the Frozen One's network."
A pause. He looked at her very steadily.
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "I suspected. I didn't have proof."
AGENT KALE: "Thou hast it now. Fennel identified the Frozen One's sleeper
credential in the Archive Tower three weeks before the theft. The Frozen One
arranged his death through Pepperoncini — a Pith Cartel enforcer. The payment
ran through the Condiment Guild's Freezer Isles account, processed without Mayonnaise's authorisation using a three-hundred-year-old registration code
belonging to the founding house of Old Vinegar."
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "That is a complete chain of evidence."
AGENT KALE: "Yes. And when I make the broadcast tonight, I will include it.
Fennel's death will not be a 'concerning incident.' It will be a murder, with a
named victim, a named perpetrator, and a named contractor. That is what is
owed to a man who died alone trying to do the right thing."
Asparagus sat with this for a long time. He was, she could see, a man who had been
waiting for someone to say exactly this.
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "My department head will attempt to obstruct
the broadcast."
AGENT KALE: "The Director hath removed him from the communications
network. The obstruction hath already been prevented."
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "Pepperoncini is still at large in this city."
AGENT KALE: "The Pith Cartel's own intelligence operative hath indicated the
Cartel will not protect him in this matter. Mango is currently occupying his
attention. After the broadcast, Pepperoncini will find that every door in Shelf City
that was previously open to him hath been, simultaneously and permanently,
closed."
Asparagus stood. He extended his hand. She shook it.
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "I have been in this service for twenty years. I
have twice closed a case correctly and been overruled. I intend this to be the third
time I close one correctly, and I intend to not be overruled."
AGENT KALE: "I cannot promise that."
INVESTIGATOR ASPARAGUS: "No. But thou canst make the closing so public
that overruling it becomes embarrassing. That is all I ask."
AGENT KALE: "That much I can promise."
He left. She changed her coat, checked her documents, and prepared for the
broadcast. She thought about Fennel one more time — his careful hand, his lone
investigation, the sentence in large script: I have found it. She thought about what it cost to
be right about something the world was not prepared to hear, and to be alone when the
cost was collected. She resolved, with the completeness of a resolution arrived at through
evidence rather than sentiment, that she would ensure it was not paid silently.