Free Undone Deeds by Mark Del Franco Page A

be involved, and I hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day I had been at his house.
    Police vehicles gathered at the intersection. The power plant looming above bore signs of damage. Soot marks from a fire a few months earlier still streaked down the blank six-story wall, which was painted a strange pink—to mimic brick, I supposed.
    The fire had been a false alarm. Bergin Vize had been hiding in the power plant, protected by solitary fey who thought they were helping one of their own. In truth, the solitaries were being used by the Consortium in a proxy war against the Guild. The Guild, in turn, manipulated the Dead of TirNaNog into flushing Vize out of the complex by setting it on fire.
    The scheme set off a night of rioting and other fires like nothing Boston had ever seen. The solitaries—always the scapegoats for fey transgressions—fought back against the combined forces of the Guild and the National Guard. The Dead were in it for the bloodbath. Since they were already dead, dying didn’t mean much to them. They resurrected with the next day’s dawn.
    The riots produced profound changes. Eorla brought the solitaries under control and started her own court. Ceridwen, a murdered Danann underQueen, ruled over the Dead in disguise as the King of the Dead. The Guild and Consortium backed down, but not before I lost control of the darkness in my head and almost killed everyone. It was not fun. The entire Weird had become a crime scene that night, so another dead body at the power plant was no more than a coincidence, but an interesting one.
    The power plant was a vital component of the local utility grid, and any major crime in the area prompted precautionary measures. Even though there was no fire this time, an alarm had gone out, and a ladder truck idled on standby as a precaution.
    As luck would have it, the truck was from Kevin Murdock’s station. He sat on one of the running boards, talking and laughing with his coworkers. As Briallen predicted, he was none the worse for wear from his deep sleep, probably better. His body signature glowed a deep bronze among the humans. He stopped laughing when he saw me. His face became a suspicious mask as he tracked my approach to the temporary police barrier.
    Kevin, along with his brother Gerry, had decided I was the cause of the tragedies that had struck the Murdock family. I was present when their father—the former police commissioner—was killed. It didn’t matter to them that he was a dirty cop who had brought about his own downfall.
    They blamed me. They also blamed me for destroying their family by having an affair with their mother. It had happened years ago, when I was young and green, hormone-filled and stupid. I didn’t even know the Murdocks then. Leo, who was the oldest, was still in high school then if I had my math right. I had no idea of the trouble the affair caused until years later. But they blamed me for that, too, despite the fact that their mother lied to her husband and initiated the affair. No one wanted to believe their parents were flawed human beings. Scott Murdock and Moira Cashel were as flawed as they come. I survived both of them, so somehow I was the villain.
    I ignored Kevin’s stare as I waited for a police officer to let me through. Gone were the days when I sauntered past checkpoints, secure in the knowledge I had the authority if not the connections. Too much bad blood existed between me and the Boston P.D. these days. I hadn’t killed Scott Murdock, but that didn’t stop his son Gerry from encouraging the lie on the force. He wasn’t respected like Leo was, but that was what made him a problem. Gerry appealed to the rough edges of the blue, the cops who chafed at the rules. They saw criminality everywhere they looked and acted on it. I didn’t want to give them any more reason to pull out a Taser.
    Leo waved me over to where the body lay. Not many other peoplestood near. The few people who were nearby kept their distance.