Serenity glared at the man in the circle. “Did you deliberately wait until everyone was gone?”

“Of course. I don’t need a repeat of what happened the first time. The ward meant Lessi couldn’t enter the building; a mistake might mean a real fight, but at the least it would mean another ward. Everything might even be moved! So I had Lessi wait until the ward was down and everyone was gone. How are you making me talk? I don’t tell anyone this.” Frank put the gun away and stepped up to the barrier. He tapped it and seemed to look for a weak spot.

Serenity didn’t see any reason to answer that question. The answer was obvious; Frank had willingly stepped into a ritual without being able to tell what it was going to do, simply trusting the man he thought was his friend. Betrayal always stung.

Even when - like this case - it wasn’t really betrayal.

“Who is Lessi?”

Frank patted his pants pocket. “An animated statue. It does whatever I tell it to, and if I word things correctly it can even think a little. It’s tiny when it’s inactive, but it can grow. It can even imitate a person! It’s completely loyal, too. I keep it in my pocket.”

Serenity made a mental note to make sure to take “Lessi” off of Frank before he left. “What do you know about the buyer?”

“One of the people I buy from suddenly didn’t have anything to sell, but he was willing to sell me the information once I made it clear I wasn’t going to sell through him…”

It was a long story how Frank managed to make direct contact with the person doing the actual buying. Most of the time, he was able to get away with threats or money, but he “had to” kill people or kidnap relatives a few times as well. Serenity had thought that a lot of the antiques market had moved online with eBay, but apparently more of it was still done in person or over the phone than he’d realized.

The one thing Frank never said was the name of the final buyer. It seemed like he didn’t know who it was; he just knew that if he called a specific number, he’d be talking to the buyer’s agent. For some reason, Frank had never tried to move past that phone number; it was like he was blind to the possibility of more links in the chain, even though he’d just gone through several of them quite violently.

It wasn’t even that there were criminals in the market; from the story Frank told, Serenity suspected that it was actually pretty nonviolent. Frank had needed to take extreme action not because people were strong-willed but because they didn’t believe he’d do what he threatened.

By the end of the recitation, Serenity was wondering if the recording he had would be admissible in court. Frank needed to be taken off the street; Serenity would prefer to avoid the trouble that would come from killing him, so jail was a logical solution. In fact … he had an idea.

He pulled out his phone and found a text from Rissa.

See you soon :heart:

It had clearly come in during Frank’s long recitation; in fact, it looked like it’d been there for half an hour. Serenity checked the time and was shocked; he’d apparently been listening to Frank for more than three hours - possibly four, depending on how long the ritual setup took. He’d known it was a while; no wonder Frank sounded hoarse and had been reduced to sitting on the floor instead of pounding the barrier.

Serenity made a mental note to never allow anyone to cast this ritual on him. He’d been under it for practice back when he learned it, of course, but that had been only a minute or two at a time.

Frank was sitting there happy as can be telling all his secrets. It was probably safe enough for a few minutes, but after being in there as long as he was, Frank wasn’t even trying to get out. Serenity was beginning to suspect that the “want” the ritual imparted was stronger than he’d always assumed, at least if it was left on for a long time. “Do you like answering questions?”

“Yes!” Frank grinned broadly. “This is wonderful. Best I’ve felt in … I don’t know how long. You really opened my eyes to the world, Liam! This is better than I thought it was going to be, that was just power!”

Serenity doubted Frank would feel that way when the endorphins or whatever the ritual did physically stopped, but for now it was definitely useful. He hadn’t realized when Frank had decided that he was actually Liam after all. He hadn’t really expected the disguise to hold against Frank; he’d just wanted something that couldn’t be traced back to Rissa and himself.

This was better than he’d expected; it was perfect. They had what they’d come for and he even had a lead on who was buying magical antiques and information, so now he just had to take care of Frank. He’d have to be careful what questions he asked, but if he was careful this should all work out.

Serenity texted Lancaster.

If I call you, can you not say anything and just record the call?

Lancaster replied immediately. Good; this might work.

Yes, why?

You’ll know when you hear it.

---

Voice Call Transcript used to obtain a warrant in the investigation that became the criminal case United States v. Frank Smith

The call was made from REDACTED to Officer Lancaster of the NYPD on September 17, 2036 at 11:28 PM.

Officer Lancaster does not speak during the phone call.

Frank Smith: Who are you calling?

REDACTED: It doesn’t matter. Speakerphone … here we go.

Muffled noises

REDACTED: What did you tell me about Betty Norfair?

Frank Smith: I told you why I had her son killed. How do you keep getting me to talk?

REDACTED: How did you have her son killed?

Frank Smith: I had one of my bodyguards shoot him. She wasn’t cooperating. He wasn’t supposed to die, but that’s what happens when you get shot and then your mom still doesn’t cooperate.

REDACTED: Then what?

Frank Smith: Betty was still swearing at me and wouldn’t tell me the name, so I had her daughter brought in. Betty must not have loved her son enough, but there’s so much you can do to a thirteen-year-old girl, you know? Letting them think about that is always so helpful.

REDACTED: What did you do to her in detail?

Frank Smith: Not too much, her mother gave in pretty quickly after I cut the girl’s face. I’d hoped she’d hold out a little longer, but the point was information, not fun.

REDACTED: What then?

Frank Smith: I had them both killed, of course, and had it staged as a robbery that went wrong. Can’t leave loose ends behind. I did send flowers to the funeral.

Frank Smith: Why do I keep answering your questions? That seems like a question I shouldn’t have answered while you have a phone call going.

REDACTED: You’ve been talking a lot tonight. Do you want to answer questions?

Frank Smith: Yes, I do. I don’t know why, but I answer because I want to. It’s great.

REDACTED: Then let’s keep going. What did you tell me about Ryan White and his business?

Frank Smith: It was MY business! I built the business, found the rare antiques for nothing, found clients, dealt with all the auction houses, even did the sales originally! He just provided the initial capital and storefront! That good-for-nothing rich skinflint is where he belongs, lying in the basement of his shop, under a pile of dirt. It was the only way to make him disappear so that I could extract everything from the business before reporting him missing. I needed it to build up my business; he was doing too well and had started talking about dissolving the partnership. As if he deserved anything!

REDACTED (speaking over Frank Smith): And what secret did you tell me about this building?

Frank Smith: -obtain things their owners didn’t want to sell- oh? This building? Well, there’s the incinerator. I had one of the good ones installed, it’s proven extremely helpful. There’s no better way to get rid of inconveniences than to burn them in something that will actually turn them to ash.

REDACTED: Who was the last person you had put in the incinerator?

Frank Smith: Oh, I’ve never had a person put in the incinerator. They’re always dead by the time they go in. Putting them in alive would be cruel and stupid.

REDACTED: Okay then, who was the last body you had put in the incinerator?

Frank Smith: A girlfriend of mine, what was her name? Kitty? Something like that.

REDACTED: Why?

Frank Smith: She got pregnant. I was willing to pay for the abortion, but she refused, said I could either marry her or she’d take me to court for support. It wasn’t worth the fight.

REDACTED: So you killed her to save the hassle?

Frank Smith: No, it was mostly the money. Do you know what lawyers cost? And I could have lost; it’s possible it was my kid. She was supposed to be on birth control, but if she was really pregnant then it could’ve been mine.

REDACTED: How many people have you killed?

Frank Smith: Uh. I’m not sure. There was … uh … five or six I think? I don’t like doing it myself. Too messy.

====END OF TRANSCRIPT====

---

When the local police arrived, having found a judge who was willing to issue a warrant at a positively unreasonable time of night based on a recorded phone call and some text messages, the warehouse was silent and the parking lot was empty other than two vehicles but one of the warehouse doors was propped open.

They found Frank Smith tied up on a clearly freshly-swept floor giggling to himself. They arrested him, but took him to the hospital. He’d clearly been given something, since giggling was not a normal reaction to being tied up and left on a concrete floor for hours, never mind what he’d said on the phone call.

Nothing was ever identified in his toxicology, but he did seem to recover after a few hours; he was then taken to jail.

It took a bit longer to locate the second person; he was an off-duty member of the local police force working as the night security guard. He was still unconscious when they found him, so he was taken to the hospital to be assessed for a concussion. It turned out that it wasn’t a concussion; he’d just had a significant dose of a sleeping pill, which seemed to have been added to his energy drink.

He came out of the incident fine, other than losing his second income and coming in for some serious ribbing at work for the ninja that dosed him with sleeping pills.

All of the camera recordings for the day were deleted and overwritten and all of the cameras were off. If the recordings had ever existed, no one wanted to try very hard to recover them.

A search of the facility found the incinerator without much trouble. It was difficult to establish for certain if people had been incinerated in it, but traces of precious metal alloys used almost exclusively in jewelry were found scraped against the side.

This triggered a larger hunt of the grounds to see if a dump site could be located, and it was. There were burnt bone fragments that were definitely human found buried a dozen yards from the building. Matching them to individuals would be challenging at best, but it was better evidence than the recording.

Frank Smith was denied bail on the grounds of being a flight risk.