As detectives went, I was a youngblood, still a grade three. I only had a couple of cases under my belt with Martinez, a grade one, who had quizzed me over everything and sent me to do all the grunt work. I still had a lot to learn. Only now, I didn’t have Martinez, a computer to look anything up, or even a procedure manual to consult since I was stuck in the Fairy Tale Realms.
Still, the people here didn’t exactly have the skills of master criminals to cover up their crimes. One of Queen Catherine’s maids had pried open the settings of the jewelry, liberating stones here and there. While she didn’t pick them all clean, only taking a stone here and there, it had added up enough that Roderick asked me to look into it.
It didn’t take long to find a stone in the maid’s quarters where the mortar had been chipped away enough to pull a small block free. The block had even been hollowed out on the inside to create a pocket for the stones. A few more, and the maid would have had enough to retire on.
But instead of patting myself on the back as King Roderick and Andurias, the captain of the guard, had done, I heard Martinez’s voice tsking as all of the other clues started to make themselves known, and all of the procedures that I had missed. Sure, the Realms didn’t have fingerprint dust, so I couldn’t—or could I?