Bradley looked a little worried, as well he should have. He’d been so sure the leaves were window dressing for a con that he hadn’t given them any more thought… and so until now, he’d been able to dismiss my objections as twee, elfy-welfy nonsense from the Pixie Patrol.
But now? Now we were talking about evidence.
Bradley stuck out his jaw. “They’re just leaves,” he said.
I didn’t squeal with delight, not outwardly. I just turned my smile up another notch or two, and folded my arms. And leaned back to watch what promised to be a truly epic smackdown unfold.
“Just leaves,” nodded George, “Right.”
I watched Bradley’s face, saw him going through stages of indecision and reflected, not?for the first time, that George must have been a hell of TA.
“Look, if you’ve got something to put on the table, just do it and quit playing Plato.”
Even Colby winced at that one. It had officially turned into a day full of win for me.
“Socrates,” I said, helpfully.
Bradley waved it off. “It doesn’t matter, the point –”
“Doesn’t matter?” George was, I think, genuinely appalled, “Because they’re inconvenient, because they aren’t what you want to hear, details don’t matter? What’s right, what’s true, those things don’t matter? I thought I was talking to a cop, Detective Bradley, not a… a…. a spurking lawyer.”
It was beautiful. Bradley just wilted.
“If I can bother you for a moment with something as irrelevant as facts and evidence, here’s a point you might want to consider,” George said, and handed Bradley a leaf. “Here’s another, and a third,” he added, passing Bradley two more leaves, each a different shape, I noticed.
Bradley stared down at the leaves, then at George, then finally, helplessly, at Colby.
Colby responded with the conversational equivalent of a mercy killing. He stepped closer, closing the circle formed by the four of us, and took the leaves from Bradley.
“Help us out, Officer,” Colby said, “What, exactly are we looking at here. Besides leaves. I got that part.”
George nodded. “Each of these leaves is significant. This one is oak. This is ash. And this one is thorn.”
“Oak, ash and thorn,” I said, softly, “Of course.”
I noted Colby’s cocked eyebrow, and went on, “Oak, ash and thorn trees are all particular favourites of faeries. Any time the three are found together, you’ll find the Fae. It makes sense that they’d use these leaves.”
“I get the impression that bit of folklore isn’t exactly a secret, though, is it?” Colby asked, “Jenny Kim could have known that.”
“And besides,” said Bradley, “Just because three of the leaves–”
“You don’t understand,” said George, “It’s not that these three leaves are oak, ash and thorn. All the leaves Glenn Jackson gave Jenny are. In exact proportion. That means the same number of each, Plato,” he said to Bradley.
I’d been on the receiving end of George’s sarcasm, smugness and, yes, snobbery more than once myself. It isn’t fun, because he’s so damned good at it. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for Bradley.
But then I didn’t.
