Page 90 of Steel & Thunder
“We can talk ideas after Mr. Grimrock finishes answering our questions.” Khazak’s tone shifts into what I’m calling interrogation mode. “You take him first. I am going to ask the forensic mages to take a look at the journal.”
“On it, sir.” Ragnar’s tone shifts the same way as he starts walking Thog through the building, talking to him. “This all could have been so much simpler.”
After that, there isn’t much for me to do. Khazak joins Ragnar in the interrogation but won’t let me follow. He says something about regulations, but I think he’s more worried that I’ll throw off their rhythm. Which is fair—they’ve worked together for years, and I wouldn’t even know what to ask.
It’s just so boring sitting here in the breakroom and pretending to read my book when all I want to do is figure out this mystery. There’s an entire shipment of weapons and armor missing, magical alarms and traps that were dispelled like they were nothing, and a mysteriously burned book that our suspect ran at the sight of. It’s been over an hour already. I just wanna know what’s going on!
“Hmm.” Orim is in here with me, seemingly doing the same thing, though he’s much further along in his book. He looks up from his table. “Can you help? Please.”
“Sure.” I’ll do my best, but book-learning has never been my strong suit, so book-teaching isn’t gonna be much better. I move over to his table. “What’s wrong?”
“Just...confusion,” he starts. “‘I walk to work’” is right. ‘I walk to work yesterday’ is not right. Why?”
I reread both statements a few times because I’m not sure what he’s talking about at first. “Oh! The second sentence isn’t in past tense.”
“How do I fix?” He looks at me intently.
“Well, I think you just need to change the verb.” I hope I don’t sound like I know what I’m talking about. “So you want to change ‘walk’ into ‘walked.’”
“Add ‘ed’ to the end?” He scratches his beard.
“Yeah.” Yay, he gets it!
“Do all past tense words end in ‘ed’?” He looks hopeful when he asks.
“Err, no.” I shake my head. “Sometimes you have to change a ‘u’ or an ‘i’ to an ‘a.’ Other times it’s something else entirely. It depends on the word.” He scowls at me. “Hey, don’t get mad at me. I think it’s stupid too.”
“Thank you for help.” The scowls fades into something happier, then he looks over at my book on the other table. “I can help you sometime?”
“That would be great.” I’ll take all the help I can get. “Actually, maybe you can explain to me the difference between these two letters because I swear they sound exactly the same when Captain Ironstorm tries to show me.”
I go to grab my book but don’t get the chance because the man himself walks in. “David, we finished questioning Mr. Grimrock, if you would join us.” Still in interrogation mode I see. Woof.
“Yes, Sir.” I turn to Orim. “Next time?”
“Next time.” He nods.
“Making friends already I see,” Khazak comments as we walk to Ragnar’s office.
“I’m very popular.” Not too shabby looking either.
“Unfortunately, we were not able to get much information out of Thog.” He starts to fill me in as we enter. “We have no idea where the shipment might be.”
“What could he have done with it?” We’re literally talking about supplies for a small army.
“He claims to have destroyed it,” Khazak answers flatly. “Says he threw everything in the river. We have already sent officers to scour the riverbed, but we are fairly confident they are not going to find anything.”
“Why would he do that? Or why would he say he did that, I guess?” Kind of bold to just confess after leading us on a chase like that.
“We’re still trying to figure that out,” Ragnar speaks up. “He was tight-lipped about everything else we asked him. The only other thing we could get out of him was when he denied that he was working with anyone else. So we know that’s a lie.”
That’s really frustrating. He has to be protecting someone, right? “What about the book?”
“A schedule of deliveries, including the one that has gone missing.” Khazak taps the book where it sits on Ragnar’s desk. “The shipments themselves do not seem to have much of a connection. More weapons and armor, alchemy and medical supplies, even food. Some of are not expected for more than a month. We are not sure how he would have gotten the information.”
“Couldn’t he have stolen it from work?” He does work at the place people ship things to.
“Already considered that.” Khazak takes a seat on the couch. “We need to check the shipyard’s files, but it seems unlikely. I doubt some of these orders have even been placed yet. The shipyard would not have a record of those.”
