A Fraudulent Death, Draft 02, CH 13 (Patreon)

The Mixcoat family still lived in the house Hardir had before he died. The area was middle productivity and aimed at families. By its size, Marlot guessed they’d had three or four cubs.

He’d considered pulling the information from the public databases, Stalker 1.0 could at least still do that. But he’d decided to face them with no scents to avoid preconceptions. He parked by the curb. He saw no other cars, but also no signs it wasn’t allowed. The markings might be on the road, but the clearing crews had only removed the snow from the center of the road.

He reminded himself to be careful as he hurried up the path. Having to raise cubs alone couldn’t have been easy on her or the cubs left behind. Nearly slipping on an icy patch reminded him to just be careful. Not seeing a buzzer, he knocked then pushed his hands in his pocket against the cold. Before the freezing wind made it too deep under his jacket, the door opened and Marlot looked at a younger version of Hardir Mixcoat.

“Yeah?” the young male asked. His eyes were gray, instead of blue.

“I’m here to see Miss Mixcoat.” Marlot reached for his ID, but the male was looking over his shoulder already.

“Mom!” he called. “There’s someone here for you.” He motioned Marlot in. “Come in, before you freeze your tail off.”

“Thanks.” The door led to the living room, which took the front of the house. Three cubs played there; one a game on the screen and the other two on the floor with toys. Their coloring was the same brindled as the young male and Hardir, but the one on the couch was more on the red side, while the two other two only had hints of rust in their fur. The rust-tinted cub was in his mid-teen, while the ones on the floor couldn’t be over six or seven.

When he finished his study of the room, he realized the male who’d let him in was gone.

“Brathen, check on Vix.” A female said, appearing through a door, wiping her hands on a cloth. “She’s been too quiet.” An indistinct reply came from an opening leading to a hall. She was where the rust color in the cubs’ fur came from. Her red was fading, with age or, Marlot suspected, the stress of raising the cubs.

She smiled at him. “How can I help you?”

He showed her his ID. “Registered Investigator Marlot Blackclaw. I’m wondering if I can have a word with you.” He looked at the cubs. “In private might be best.” The two on the floor were pulling a figurine between them.

She chuckled. “I don’t know how private I can make any room, but follow me. Tarl, let your sister have the toy, there’s enough for both of you.” The male let go of it and his sister gave him a raspberry.

He followed her into the kitchen; which was cluttered; the eating table pushed to one side to make room for a prep table that had seen better days. On it, chunks of meat, baking gloves, and a knife waited. She put the gloves on. On the counter behind her containers of vegetables, a mixing bowl and a package of pastry dough waited, along with other ingredients to some recipe he couldn’t fathom.

“I can’t afford to feed everyone an entirely meat-based diet,” she said without a trace of embarrassment.

“How many cubs do you have?”

“Six living here. My eldest left two years ago. Brathen’s old enough he could get his own place, but he’s staying to help out. Without him and Jareth, before she left, I’m not sure how I’d have managed. I hope you don’t mind if I keep working while we talk, feeding this bunch isn’t something that’s quickly done.” She indicated a chair at the table. “Take a seat. Can I offer you something to drink? I’m afraid all I have is water. The blood is for the youngest. They need it the most since they’re still growing.”

“Thank you, I’m fine.” He pulled a chair while trying to come up with a way to ask his questions that wasn’t as blunt as he normally did.

“Ask away,” she said once he was seated. “I’m guessing you’re here because of Brathen’s hunting?”

“Why do you think that?”

She shrugged, starting back on the cutting. “You’re an RI. him and me are the only ones of predation age and I know I haven’t left anyone lying around. Brathen…” she trailed off. “Well, he’s still young and not always as careful as he should be.”

“This isn’t about him,” Marlot replied. “My questions are about your deceased mate.” He hesitated as he took out his pad. “He is deceased, correct?”

She nodded, cutting the fat off the slab of meat she was working with. “It’s been over five years now. Pardiss never got to know her father.”

“What do you remember of the circumstances surrounding his death?”

She paused. “I never found out how he died. A hunting accident is what I expect. He didn’t come home one evening. We were low on meat, so I didn’t think much of him being late. As much as I loved him, Hardir was never the greatest provider; either in food or money.”

“So having to use greens to round the meals isn’t something new?”

She chuckled, putting the fat on an old section of butcher paper. “This is much better than how things were back then. There were too many meals when all I ate were vegetables, so the cubs had meat on their plate.”

Marlot looked around the kitchen, trying to find a considerate way to ask what he wanted. “You seem to have done okay, all things considered. In many families, losing a provider, even if he wasn’t the greatest one, tends to create a spiral of problems.”

She nodded, adding cut meat to the mixing bowl. “I was terrified for that week. As I said, we were low on meat. I hadn’t had to hunt in years. Then his belonging came. I wasn’t surprised, even if I hadn’t known he was dead, I was too busy trying to keep us afloat. Handling this bunch was my full-time job.” She cut in silence for a while. “I had my oldest, Jareth, right out of the academy. She wasn’t planned, but we didn’t mind. Hardir worked hard, and keeping the three of us fed was simple. Even once Brathen came, we were still doing okay.”

She opened a package of vegetables and began cutting them. “Then about ten years later, his company downsized. He found work, but his productivity suffered, less pay, more stress.” She smiled. “My Hardir dealt with stress through sex, and I had no problem helping him. But it leads to making the family larger.” She sighed. “Which added to his stress, and that meant more time in bed.” She smiled sadly and nodded to the opening. “You’ve seen the result.”

“Didn’t you consider fertility treatments?”

She shook her head. “We’re somewhat traditional, but even if we’d wanted to, we couldn’t afford them. Until then, I depended on knowing my cycles. In my family, we have to learn them if we don’t want so many cubs we have to start giving them away. But once he lost his job, keeping up his stress meant the cycles didn’t matter anymore.”

“Then he died,” Marlot said, as gently as he could, to bring the conversation back on track. “You were afraid things would get worse, but clearly they didn’t.”

“It didn’t get as bad as I feared, no. His survivor benefits were higher than I expected. Then Jareth was offered a new job with better pay and benefits. She came home to help. With her here to help with cubs, and Brathen now old enough to give a hand, I found work at a restaurant near here. Just part-time, but the owner let us split whatever was left over at the end of a night instead of throwing it out. It wasn’t a lot, and I couldn’t depend on it, but every little thing helped. It wasn’t easy, but we got by, and in times, things improved.”

“Did you receive any outside help?” Marlot asked. More curious now than wanting to know about her mate. He’d been fortunate to grow up well-off. The commune didn’t work like the cities, but even there the Blackclaws were a well-respected family, so even in the bad years, they never went hungry.

“I applied to the government programs I could, but with Jareth’s help, we were just over the limits. Without her, I didn’t think even the help would be enough, so I gave up on them. I might have qualified once she went back to building her own family, but now Brathen works and helps. She also sends me what she can.” She added the vegetables to the mixing bowl, then emptied a jar of a sweet-and-sour smelling sauce strong enough Marlot had to cover his nose. “Sorry, the affordable stuff isn’t the best. But it means every plate had meat in it.”

Marlot nodded. It felt wrong that someone should have this much difficulty feeding her family. At least the commune had that going for it. If someone needed help, they got it.

If a predator needed help, he corrected himself, they got it. The farmers were expected to walk themselves to the processing store when things got too tough for them. And if someone angered one of the more powerful families, they could expect a few hard months themselves.

He looked around the kitchen, at the clear disarray, the stress in her fur, but also the pride there. The family she kept alive without having to worry about someone’s opinion of how she did it turning into misery for them. He couldn’t decide which system was best. Probably neither was.

He brought up the picture Jaxca provided him. “Do you mind looking at a picture?” The male there would never pass for alive, but the examiner had positioned him and combed the fur well enough to be recognizable as the person he’d been when alive. “The reason I’m here is that I have a body that’s a double of your dead mate, and went by the same name.”

She paused in wiping the prep table clean and studied the image, “that certainly looks like him.” She looked closer. “The fur doesn’t have his sheen, but this male’s dead.” She nodded, going back to wiping. “I can see why you thought he might be my Hardir. He didn’t have any brothers, only two sisters, so I have no idea who that might be.”

He turned the pad off. “Did he know anyone, have access to anything that would make it worthwhile for someone to assume his identity?”

She chuckled, taking the package of dough and unrolling it on the table. “I don’t see what. The company he worked for no longer exists as far as I know. His parents are as middling as we are. They might be doing a little better since all their children have moved out, but nothing that would let them hand over money to someone claiming to be Hardir.”

“How old was your mate when he died?” he asked, to confirm the information he had was accurate.

“Forty-two,” she said. “He would have turned forty-three a month later. He was two years older than me.” Jaxca estimated the body to be in the mid to late forties, so that fit.

Marlot’s instincts told him no one would take someone’s identity after they died unless there was a reason. If Marlot were to plan on taking someone’s ID, especially if he looked so much alike. He’d kill them and assume the identity as his own. Moving to a different city to avoid running into anyone who would know the original.

What did this leave him with? A lookalike accidentally going by the name of his double? Until the ID showed up, Marlot couldn’t know if the name belonged to the body or was just used among people. Only if there was an active ID with that name on it, it would have shown up in his search.

Was there any way his body was the original Hardir Mixcoat? If so, how had he lived? He was too well dressed with homeless, which was what he’d become without his ID. How did he function without one? A fake ID under a different name, while still using his original one? That was dangerous. The wrong person hearing it, recognizing him, and it all fell apart.

And if he was the original, what did that mean for his case? His tax had already been paid. Would the killer have to pay it again? Would Marlot be stuck with the body unless he found a way to reactivate the ID so it could be matched to the body and it could be paid? Would he be considered as having no value and he was wasting his time looking for the killer?

He rubbed his temple. First, he needed to confirm if the body was Hardir Mixcoat. After that, he’d figure out what needed to happen.

“Do you have anything of your mate I could take?” He asked, putting his pad away. “The body isn’t in the database, and your mate’s ID had been retired. I’d liked to at least have it on the record the body isn’t your mate.” The lie had been so easy he almost corrected himself, then realized he hadn’t really lied. Yes, his intentions were to confirm if he was Hardir, but if he wasn’t, he’d need to have a record of how he’d determined it.

She folded half the dough over the large spoonfuls of the meat and vegetable mix she’d put on it. “I still have the belongings they returned, if that’ll work. I think they’re still sealed too.” She pressed the dough down around the mounds and cut them apart. “I couldn’t get rid of them. At first, they were what I hung on to; as if he was still here and he would show up late, with some lame excuse, and help get everything back on track. Then I thought the cubs would want to know what their father smelled like.” She sighed. “Then I got busy living and just forgot about it.” She looked at her work, then took the gloves off. “I’m going to have to find the box it’s in. It might be a few minutes.”

“Take your time.”

Was he doing the right thing, getting her to remember all this? She seemed okay, but then not everyone broke down on the spot when they had to confront some trauma. Some lived with it for decades until something triggered them and they had to look at who they’d become. She had had time to mourn. She seemed at peace with their situation. Or was he rationalizing, so he didn’t feel like he’d bullied his way into her life with lies to get what he wanted?

He realized he was asking himself the wrong question. What would he do, if his body turned out to be her mate, their father? That he’d been alive all these years and hadn’t told them. Would he tell them? Would the knowledge help them come to terms with… what? He’d died. As far as they were concerned, he was just another predator who’d misjudged a hunt and hadn’t survived it.

He decided they didn’t need to know. No matter the result, he’d keep the information to himself. Her uninterested expression, as she returned with the revenue issue package, told him he’d made the right decision.

It was unsealed, a claw or a knife had cut a side open. It didn’t matter, all he needed was some blood, fur. He opened it and carefully pulled the top fabric out, pants by the heaviness of them.

“You can take it all.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, surprised. He could smell it affected her. “I just need one piece. I don’t want to take all you have left of your mate.”

Her smile was wistful. “That’s not Hardir. He’s in here.” She tapped her heart. “With me. The memories are enough now.”

He almost agreed, since she’d given the okay, then remembered others might be affected. “Your cubs?”

She looked at the package. “It was at the bottom of a box. Whichever one went looking for his scent decided they didn’t need him either.”

He nodded. “I’ll return this when I’m done.”

“Thank you, but don’t feel you need to hurry on our account.”

She escorted him to the door. Then he hurried to his car, dumping the clothes on the passenger seat and starting it, wishing for it to warm up. Looking at the package, at the pocket where the predator would place the ID when returning the belongings, he realized he had another question.

If this turned out to be the Hardir Mixcoat who had died over five years ago. It meant that when he was killed; he didn’t have an ID on him. So why would a killer leave a body behind after discovering it was basically a free meal?

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