Death in Thendara — Dorothy J. Heydt

Keeper Marguerida Elhalyn and her paxman Donald Stewart must solve a whodunit that begins and ends with a smoking corpse.
The death of a scoundrel in chaos-ridden Thendara leads through a tangle of misrepresentation, forgery, smuggling, tax evasion, panic, paranoia, and amateur detection to the death of another scoundrel....

This story was originally published in DOMAINS OF DARKOVER in 1990.