Apollo's Ghost-Hunting Daughter

Chapter 13

Kipps beat us to the café, and we were running ahead of schedule, despite an extended detour at Berkeley Square. He was situated in the corner furthest from the doorway and the counter, barely visible through the large windows that were currently beaded with water droplets from the rain that had begun to fall about twenty minutes previously. Honestly, I was shocked it hadn't started in sooner, the sky had been so overcast.

"I'll get some tea," Kane suggested, pushing me toward Kipps.

I shot him a knowing glare, but if he was willing to pay, I wasn't going to turn that down.

"Hello," I said, pulling out a chair beside Kipps and sinking down. "I brought Kane up to speed. He's actually been surprisingly helpful. Didn't think I'd ever say that, yet here we are. Did you have a productive morning?"

"No, not particularly," Kipps said with a frown. He waited until Kane set down two steaming cups of tea to continue. "I reported in at Fittes House and was told to report to Ewing at DEPRAC to gather the materials on our next case. When I arrived, a whole bunch of security measures had been put in place and it took me half an hour to get in to see Ewing. The case is unrelated, at one of the palaces. I did, however, run into Barnes, who was walking out of interrogation. The holding cells are packed full of every know relic-man, relic-dealer, and relic-collector, but no one is talking or knows anything. I didn't have the chance to talk with him, unfortunately. What did you turn up?"

I pulled open my bag and unearthed a grainy black and white photocopy of a newspaper. An obituary, to be specific, with a large etching of our archeologist.

"Meet Doctor Baxter Westhouse," I said, sliding the paper towards Kipps and pausing for a sip of tea while he scanned the page. "Just as my father said, in 1879, our doctor was in Greece, where he encountered a group of fishermen who pulled our famed dagger from the ocean. Baxter was thrilled with the find, stuck it with the rest of the artifacts he'd discovered, and returned home in 1881. Two of his crew died under mysterious circumstances, and it wasn't until Westhouse started studying the artifacts did the dagger regain its once-renowned reputation. Several people studying Westhouse's finds died under mysterious circumstances, and in 1883, Westhouse himself finally bit it. He died with the dagger in his hand in his private workspace, blue in the face. His wife swore the dagger was evil, and while the rest of his finds and possessions were mostly donated, the dagger was rejected from every institution and ultimately laid to rest with Westhouse in Chelsea."

"Which lines up with the one thing I was able to get," Kipps said. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and smoothed it on the tabletop. "Dispatch logs from Fittes. One of our teams was at the sight when the tomb was cracked open. Barnes was on sight as the lead investigator."

"Do you know the team?" I asked.

Kipps grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

"Yes, and they have a reputation. You remember the other day, when the Tendy agent fell into the karaoke lock-in on your table?" Kipps said, capturing Kane's interest. "I warned you about James Lighton and Collin Donovan. It was their old team."

"Tell me more about these rocky terms they left Fittes on, then."

We all leaned in a bit as our tones dropped.

"Basically, James was in the process of taking over the team as supervisor and things started to go missing. Relics, pieces of evidence. Nothing too big, nothing too obvious, but their team was investigated under a microscope. All the paperwork was in order, but things continued to go missing. No one was talking, but it became such a problem that Fittes let Lighton go. As leader of the team, it was his responsibility, so he was the one that paid the price. Donovan followed, but not before burning quite a few bridges along the way. The team hasn't improved much, but they onboarded a new supervisor that has tried to lock things down. The problem is, it's one of the most efficient teams on the Fittes roster. If there's a problem that no one else wants to face, they send them in. They've pulled some mental stunts, but they get results. Since their work is so good, the higherups wouldn't dare get rid of the team.