Buried Deep Part 17

Flint sipped the coffee, ignoring its bitter, burnt flavor. If Arrber were a fake subsidiary, set up for a mineral-rights scam, how many other companies in the Gale Research and Development list were also fake?

He set the coffee down and started a new search, knowing it would take a while. First, though, he transferred all of BiMela's financial doc.u.ments to one of his chips. He would store this information on his own system. It would take a lot of time to work through it, time he didn't want to spend at public terminals.

But he did look up each company. Only a few still existed. He examined those if they predated Lagrima Jrgen's death. Two did, but he found no Lagrima working for them, and no Jrgen either. It would take quite a while to see if a woman fitting her description had once worked for the company, but he would do it if he had to.

He just hoped he wouldn't have to.

26.

DeRicci stood in the doorway of the small office. The stench of blood, feces, and rotting corpse made her stomach turn. She was noticeably out of practice at visiting crime scenes.

A body lay in the middle of the windowless room, legs and arms splayed, stomach carved open, and internal organs draping the room as if someone had decided this was a new form of decoration. The room's three chairs had been pushed against the wall.

The rookies who had found the scene hadn't been able to deal with it. They had gotten sick, outside, fortunately. The detective who had the case, a Bartholomew Nyquist, hung back as if the sight offended him.

DeRicci had seen too many Disty vengeance killings to find this one offensive. It stank worse than some, but not as bad as others. At least the body had been discovered fairly quickly. That was a small blessing.

DeRicci backed out of the doorway into the street. She hoped she hadn't gone in far enough for the stench to stick to her clothing. Nyquist closed the door behind her. She was grateful. That smell would travel otherwise.

The rookies stood on either side of her car, watching the roads. Several more officers guarded the perimeter, keeping the media and the gawkers back.

DeRicci had to come down here and see for herself what all the fuss was about. She wasn't sure what she hoped to find.

The owners of the building-a disappearance company- hadn't been allowed inside even though they were protesting, claiming they had a right to see what had been done to their office. They had been the ones who had gone to the media, complaining that their lives might be in danger from the Disty, and they couldn't even dig into their records to find out.

DeRicci agreed with Nyquist's decision to keep the owners out. She doubted this killing had much to do with the disappearance company. From everything she had seen, this vengeance killing was legal and justified.

The victim, Aisha Costard, had countless outstanding Disty warrants. She had gone to Mars, gotten herself involved in some kind of highly offensive murder, and then had come to the Moon.

Based on the location of the body, Nyquist had guessed that Costard had been trying to disappear. DeRicci agreed with that a.s.sessment.

The vengeance killing served as a dual warning: the first to anyone who was involved with Costard or the murder that had sent her fleeing here, and the second to disappearance companies for helping people charged with Disty crimes escape punishment.

The media had contacted DeRicci's office because Costard had gotten into Armstrong relatively easily. From what DeRicci had seen in the logs about the Costard case, Costard had been treated precisely the way anyone else with similar red flags would have been treated. She had been sequestered in customs for days and then released once the Disty were contacted. The Disty had confirmed that Costard was on a mission to clear her name, and was allowed a limited travel visa to meet with detectives and Retrieval Artists.

The warrants said nothing about Disappearance Services.

But it wasn't the security issues that had DeRicci intrigued. It was the hints that this wasn't a Disty killing at all.

DeRicci would have thought this killing completely Disty if she hadn't worked several vengeance killings. First, the location: Disty in this neighborhood, so close the old bomb site and near a Disappearance Service, would have been noticed.

Disty with a human woman would definitely have been noticed.

Second, early reports indicated that Costard hadn't been seen with any Disty since she had arrived in Armstrong. The records from her hotel showed her in the company of a few humans, but no aliens at all.

Third and most important, many of the Disappearance Services had alarms that went off whenever aliens were in the vicinity. Most of the alarms were sophisticated: They didn't just set off a warning at police headquarters (or some other designated place), they also brought down small cells that imprisoned the aliens, or the alarms activated locks and clamps that made the office impossible to enter.

None of that had happened here.

Small things but important ones, especially for a vengeance killing. Vengeance killings were usually for show, designed to act as warnings for others who had violated or thought of violating Disty law.

This almost felt too secretive. In the wrong location, no Disty spotted nearby, and no immediate Disty claims of responsibility.

Something was wrong here, but it wasn't what the media thought. There were thousands of people like Costard in Armstrong, but Costard's death was a new twist, something DeRicci didn't like.

Nyquist had stood silently, waiting for DeRicci to speak first. She had liked him from the moment she met him. He was broad shouldered and dark skinned, his thinning hair bluish-black. He obviously didn't go for cosmetic enhancements, although she wondered if his muscular frame came through artificial means as well as hard work.

"How many vengeance killings have you worked?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe a dozen, maybe a few more."

"Tell me about this one."

He glanced at the closed door, then over at the rookies who still stood near DeRicci's car. They were street officers. DeRicci would talk to them later and find out who had discovered the body, if the owners of the business hadn't been the ones.

"It's not a vengeance killing," he said. "I'd stake my entire career on it."

"Why?" she asked.

"Details," he said. "You didn't go all the way in."

He looked pointedly at her shoes, which she had covered with borrowed evidence-collection bags. Then he let his gaze rise up her clothing until his look reached her face.

He obviously understood why she hadn't stepped into the gore.

"No, I didn't," she said, careful not to sound defensive.

"The Disty are precise. If they hang an entrail on the wall, it's a certain distance from the floor. The next piece hanging alongside is a slightly different distance. There's a pattern to the whole thing."

"As well as a pattern to the hanging," DeRicci said. So that was what bothered her. The pattern looked off.

"There is no pattern here," he said. "It's as if someone described a vengeance killing to a person who had never seen one, and that person tried to imitate it."

"You're sure of this?" DeRicci asked.

"If you doubt me, go look at the sides of the original incision. Whoever it was didn't use a Disty blade. This thing had ridges. The wound's edges are jagged."

DeRicci didn't like the implications of this. "Has everything about Costard gone to the media?"

"Everything we know at the moment, which isn't a lot," he said. "I haven't had time to do much more than call for backup, establish perimeters, and examine the crime scene."

"Where's your partner?" DeRicci asked.

"I'm between partners." His tone carried a familiar bitterness. DeRicci had often used that tone herself, when she was between partners. "I caught this case on the way home."

She nodded. "Have you contacted the Disty?"

"I sent word to headquarters," he said. "They've got some specialist now who contacts alien groups. I'm told not to expect too much. There's some kind of crisis on Mars. I haven't seen the feeds, but I guess it's got all the diplomats and Disty experts in some kind of tizzy."

"Great," DeRicci muttered.

"Honestly," he said, "I didn't expect you here. You missing the old detective work?"

She was missing it, more now that she was at the crime scene. She certainly enjoyed this kind of work more than position papers and incredibly optimistic resumes.

"The media is hounding me on this," she said. "I thought I'd come see the scene for myself."

"Hounding you?" He seemed surprised. "Why?"

"They seem to believe that Costard was a criminal who was a threat to the Dome."

His eyebrows went up, giving his entire face a comical look. "Aisha Costard? She's a well-respected crime scene a.n.a.lyst who specializes in human bones. Didn't you look her up?"

"I looked up the media reports and came right down here," DeRicci said. "I figured I needed some information about the vengeance killing before I looked at the victim."

"I don't get it," he said. "Why would they think she's a criminal?"

"The warrant from the Disty. Technically, she is a criminal."

"Technically," he said. "All she did was consult on some long-ago murder. It caused some kind of foo-fah that I haven't had time to look into. But she went to Mars to do it, and somehow angered the Disty. But they're the ones who let her come here."

"I saw that," DeRicci said. "This isn't making sense."

"Well, it would have made sense if this were a true vengeance killing," Nyquist said. "They let her here on a short leash, she tried to disappear, they're sending a signal to the others involved in the case back at Sahara Dome not to do this. Plus they'd done her a favor and she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with it."

"Do you think she actually tried to disappear?"

He shrugged again. "Your guess is as good as mine right now. We don't have evidence of much. All we have is an incident that would have made sense if it had been committed by the people who had the legal right to dish out the punishment. But this isn't Disty. No Disty would make the errors I saw in there. This is something else."

"Which makes it a crime," DeRicci said. "Where it wouldn't have been otherwise."

"You got it," Nyquist said.

"This has nothing to do with Moon Security." DeRicci couldn't keep the disappointment from her voice.

"I wish it did," Nyquist said. "You're the first person I've talked to in months whom I haven't had to explain each and every little thing to."

"I noticed that before I left the force," she said. "They're getting dumber, aren't they?"

"And less trusting," he said. "They simply don't believe that I have experiences that are of value."

"I don't miss that." But she missed the rest of it.

"You want to consult?" he asked.

She looked at him. "People are going to wonder. The media will follow my every step."

"But they're already on this case," he said. "So why not? I can use someone intelligent to bounce theories off of."

She grinned. "I'll do anything for a man who recognizes that I'm smart."

"Any man who doesn't," Nyquist said with an answering grin, "isn't smart himself."

27.

Iona Gennefort stood in the control room high above the northern entrance to the Dome. Wells City had once been Mars' premiere destination, named for an Earthman who had popularized Mars in the human imagination. Wells had been as human as human could be.

Then the Disty took over.

They changed everything-the architecture, the street layouts-everything except the dome itself. Gennefort wrapped a sweater around her shoulders and stared at the various monitors. Across her vision, warnings ran from a dozen different agencies. Around the periphery of her left eye's vision, she had five tiny images going, monitoring the crisis in the other cities closest to Sahara Dome.

The news reports were circ.u.mspect, the tone dire. Humans didn't want to offend the Disty, even now.

But the Disty were fleeing Sahara Dome in droves, and when she had contacted the head of the Disty government here in Wells, no one had responded. Finally, she reached a good friend, a male Disty whom she had known since childhood.

It's a mess, he said. he said. Our amba.s.sadors are trying to contact the Alliance government. We need an immediate meeting. No one can talk to you. Our amba.s.sadors are trying to contact the Alliance government. We need an immediate meeting. No one can talk to you.

They have to, she said. she said. The bullet trains will arrive here within fifteen minutes. I need to know what to do with the pa.s.sengers. The bullet trains will arrive here within fifteen minutes. I need to know what to do with the pa.s.sengers.

He told her he would get back to her.

He never did. Instead, she found herself talking to the entire Disty Council. All fifteen of them were yelling at her in both Disty and English, reminding her that she had an obligation to them.

I don't know what the obligation is in this case, she had said. she had said.

Don't let them in! the Disty screamed. the Disty screamed. They're tainted. But the trains, They're tainted. But the trains, she said, she said, they have to go through the Dome. they have to go through the Dome. They had to go through the Dome. No tracks skirted the city. They had to go through the Dome. No tracks skirted the city.

The control room was in the center of the tracks and had a 360-degree view. The city was behind her, in Dome Twilight, and half a dozen tracks extended in front of her before the Dome wall ended and the Martian outdoors began.

On her right and left were the tracks, heading north and south, taking people away from her little universe.

Or bringing them into it.

She stood with two engineers and the Wells head of the train station. He kept telling her how many minutes she had left to make a decision, if she wanted to stop the trains.

The last number he had muttered was eight.