The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries)

by Martin L Shoemaker

  On the whole, it felt good to have something going right. Maybe the political side of the job was a burden. Maybe the diplomatic side too. But at least the actual police work was starting to come together.

  I changed my mind about that when we learned that Philippe Trudeau was dead.

  22. ANOTHER CORPSE

  The comm call came in just after 0500. Once again I was alone in bed. Nick and I had not fought—more of a cooling-off truce—but he took his responsibility seriously. He had insisted that as Gale was in his custody, he would have to spend his nights in the embassy, planning strategies and making sure Gale did not escape.

  I had not laughed at that. A capable spacer like Gale could escape if he really tried. The door lock was more symbolic than anything.

  So when the comm sounded, Nick was not there to answer it. I picked up the unit from my desk, answered it, and got the word of Trudeau’s death. After that I wasted no time on a shower.

  The scene was a side tunnel off Foxtrot Tube on level 2, a district that was mostly filled with light industrial shops. I was on the site in eight minutes. I was pleased with the time I had made; but when I got there, I found that Marcus and his team had already beaten me to it. Vile had patrol officers blocking the area, keeping out journos and other curious people. We had yellow investigation tape up, of course, but Vile was too smart to rely on that. Journos only respect the tape if there is someone around to witness a transgression. Sometimes not even then.

  As soon as Vile saw me, she came over. “Sorry to wake you up, ma’am,” she said.

  I pointed toward where Trudeau lay facedown in a service corridor. “Tell me the story, Vile.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We don’t know much yet. A cleaning bot found the body approximately twenty-seven minutes ago. Those things aren’t very smart, but they’ve got excellent image recognition built in, so they know what to clean and what to leave alone. Apparently that includes recognizing bodies in distress, and it signaled an alert right away. Public Safety dispatched aid immediately, but it didn’t matter. His neck had been broken. He had been too far gone for resuscitation.”

  “Broken?”

  “That’s the opinion of the Public Safety officers who found him, ma’am. A couple of guys I’ve worked with before. They’re no doctors, but pretty decent medics. They saw the twist, they found no pulse. Based on the images, they’d already sent for a doctor.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Karen Knowles. Ammon’s interviewing her now. She certified him as DOA. Cause of death is assumed the neck, until Dr. Costello files his report. My guess is he’ll confirm it.”

  Reflexively I said, “Do not guess, investigate.” Vile deserved better. She had this investigation well underway.

  But she did not seem to take my comment as a rebuke. “Yes, ma’am. Public Safety blocked off traffic and summoned us. We got here as fast as we could, and we started investigating.”

  “Sorry, Vile. You have had less sleep than me, and I certainly have not had enough. You are doing a good job. I am just . . . irritated that we had this happen now. With everything else we have, the last thing we need is a sixth murder in two months.”

  “Assuming it’s murder,” Vile answered.

  “Assuming. But it fits the indicators. Look around.” I pointed up and down Foxtrot Tube, and then down the access tunnel. “This is just a simple throughway. Nothing to trip over, unless it was his own feet. And even then . . . healthy people do not break their necks just from tripping, not in our gravity. There are a lot of injuries he could have, but not that.”

  Vile nodded. “Dr. Costello said pretty much the same thing. He wouldn’t rule out an accident, but he said not to bet on it.”

  “All right, Vile,” I said. “Look at the scene. Costello and his team will put together a report, but I want your observations too. Tell the patrol officers I am going to expect reports from all of them. But from you, I want more. Speculate. Tell me what happened here.”

  “What happened to not guessing?”

  “There is guessing, and then there is coming up with a theory to test. Give me a theory.”

  Vile paused. “It’s a quiet district,” she said. “Light industrial, not a lot of traffic overnight. No idea yet why Trudeau would be in an area like this—if he wasn’t brought here.”

  “Costello’s team should have an answer on that. For now, work it both ways.”

  “Well,” Vile continued, “if he came here voluntarily, he had business here. It’s nowhere near a main traffic area, and no one cuts through this district to get someplace.”

  I shook my head. “I could. There are access ways. Those are not used much now, but they have been there since early construction of the city. Someone might have come through here for that.”

  Vile shook her head. “You’re not making this easy, ma’am. I’m trying to eliminate possibilities, and you’re throwing them right back into the mix.”

  “Easy has nothing to do with it. Go on.”

  “All right. So one possibility is he was meeting someone and things went bad and there was a dispute that ended in his death. Another possibility is he was cutting through here to get somewhere else—I’m going to want to see a map, ma’am, so you can show me what we’re talking about—and he ran into someone who killed him.”

  “Any other scenarios?”

  “Sure. We’re back to the possibility he was killed elsewhere and dumped here.”

  “So that makes three. Any more?”

  “There’s a slim chance of an accident. But that’s all I have.”

  I nodded. “Pretty good. We might have minor variations on those, but let us accept those as what we have to work with. Now tell me what your theory is for each of them.”

  “The accident is easiest,” Vile said. “If that’s Dr. Costello’s conclusion, then we document and store all of his evidence, get his personal effects to his next of kin, and stamp the death certificate. Easy work for us.”

  “Go on.”

  “If he met someone, or if he was coming through and got mugged, neither one speaks well for his purposes.”

  “How so?”

  “If he met someone here, this far out of the way at that time of the overnight, he wanted not to be seen. That doesn’t automatically prove wrongdoing, but it’s suspicious. And if he was crossing through here to get to someplace else, the same suspicions are raised. I’ll take your word for it that there’s a path here; but it’s not an easy path. There are more straightforward ways to get through the city. You only come through here if you don’t want someone seeing where you’re going.”

  “And what else, Vile?”

  “Um . . . I’m missing it, ma’am.”

  “So he takes an out-of-the-way path because no one is likely to spot him there and yet he runs into someone who spots him and kills him. What are the odds of that?”

  “Ah,” Vile said. “I see. Too much of a coincidence. If he was passing through, it still wasn’t a mugging is what you’re saying.”

  “What I am suggesting. A theory. We cannot rule out a random mugging, but it is a low probability. So for either of those scenarios, someone he was connected to in some way committed the murder.”

  “I agree,” Vile said. “That leaves us with our last theory, someone left him here.”

  “Dr. Costello will have some light to shed on that,” I said. “But I do not like it. It is a stupid place to dispose of a body. Getting it here would be conspicuous. And any local would know it would be found by a cleaning bot soon enough. If you wanted to hide a body, this would not be the way to do it. There are lots of places in the city where you can hide one for a long time. Possibly forever. Dr. Costello will give us the final word, but I am not ready to buy the disposal hypothesis.”

  Vile rubbed her chin. “It’s the same the other way, though, ma’am,” she said. “If you killed somebody here, you’d have to know he would be found quickly. Why would you leave him out here for the first cleaning bot or passerby that came alo
ng to report him? You would want time to get away, make your alibi.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. If you planned it ahead of time, maybe you also planned an alibi. But maybe . . . I think you have a point, but it will take some thought. Maybe this hypothetical killer panicked and just ran away. Or maybe not panic, maybe just saw someone coming and did not have time to dispose of Trudeau properly.”

  “We’re getting a lot of maybes, ma’am.”

  “Too many questions,” I agreed. “We are getting into guessing now. Let us see what Dr. Costello has to say. Vile, I relieve you. Get some sleep. At home this time.”

  “I’m all right, ma’am.”

  “Sleep, Vile! And I do not want to see you back on duty for eight solid hours.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She crossed under the tape and walked away. She weaved a bit, and I knew I was right in sending her to get some rest.

  I made sure the patrol officers knew their responsibilities for the traffic block. While I was busy with them, Ammon finished her interview, and I put her in charge. Then I tracked down Marcus.

  “My people have their orders, Doctor,” I said. “They are to keep everyone out of the area until your team is done. You just let them know.”

  “I will, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Anything to report yet?”

  Marcus shook his head. “No. But we’re being very thorough. If there’s evidence here, we’ll find it, ma’am.” He gave me a slight grin. “This job is busier than I expected. I should have asked for more money.”

  “You and me both,” I said, and he laughed as I walked away.

  So early in the day—before I would normally even be at my desk—and already I was off to a miserable start. I was heading back to my office when Anthony’s line sounded on my comm. “Yes, Mr. Mayor?”

  “Tell me they got the story wrong,” he said.

  “The story? Trudeau?” He nodded. “Who are ‘they’?”

  But I knew the answer before he said it. “The journos. Tara Rockford. Does that woman ever sleep? She’s already filed a report, and she said she and her crew are on the way to the scene.”

  I shook my head. “She will not get near it, Mr. Mayor. We have it all cordoned off.”

  Anthony stared out of the screen with big, red eyes. “The next best thing to a dead body for a journo is a police line with a police officer blocking their access. That will be the top image on this morning’s news streams, I can guarantee it.”

  “What am I supposed to do about that, Mr. Mayor?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s out of your control. It’s out of my control. It is what it is. At least allow me a little stress relief by complaining about it.”

  And where was my stress relief? But I was polite enough not to ask.

  Later in the day, when Vile came in, it had been only six hours; but I decided not to quibble over it. Particularly because she found me in a good mood, laughing as she knocked on my door. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “It’s . . .” I caught my breath. “It should not be funny, but . . . Wagner just filed a report of a drunken brawl in Port Shannon, including a couple of pockets picked while people were watching.”

  “And that’s funny?”

  “No, what is funny is . . .” I felt laughter building again. “I was so relieved to have a simple crime reported finally.”

  Vile laughed briefly as well. “Simple crime. Yeah, that’s what I expected when I took this job.”

  “I thought we would work our way up to the more serious crimes,” I said. “You know, riots. Parking violations. Do you know what it would take to get a parking violation in the tubes?”

  “I suppose on the surface, maybe, landing a hopper too close to the tubes.”

  “Granted. So we would start with the simple stuff, and then work into . . .”

  But suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. Vile continued, “Fraud, arson.”

  “Murder,” I said. I tried to smile. “But no, we have jumped straight into the deep end of the pool.”

  “We’re learning how to swim, ma’am. The hard way.”

  “I know. We had a rough start, but we are starting. Building. I think this crush of responsibility is getting through to people, making them take the job more seriously.”

  “I think so,” Vile answered. “I . . .” She stepped inside and closed the door. “I think they’re getting better. They see a duty, not a job. It’s bringing some of your lessons home.”

  I shook my head. “Do not get complacent, Vile. This is all happening too fast. If it changes the culture, great, but it will not be a lasting change unless we build on it. I know everybody is exhausted, but we have to get some additional training in, fast. Reinforce what they have learned in the field. Get them to teach us from their observations. When it is their idea, the idea will stick.”

  “How do we do that?”

  I checked my comm. Nothing major was on for a while. “Sit down, Vile. Let us throw some plans together.”

  We spent about ninety minutes finding time in the schedule for meetings, squad level and one-on-one. We developed a loose list of topics to walk the force through, but it really did make sense to let their observations and experiences be the agenda.

  Then I noticed the time. “Sorry, Vile, I need you in the worry seat now. I need to go out and show my face in the squad rooms, so the troops know we are behind them. I have a city to inspect.”

  “Have at it, ma’am. I’ve got things here.”

  So I worked my way from squad room to squad room, checking in, making pointers, issuing praises and corrections as appropriate. Eventually this would become routine for them. Some had enough experience either with the Initiative or DPS to know the drill already. The rest would learn.

  Toward the end of the day, my circuit brought me back to Foxtrot Tube; and I figured I had better check in on the crime scene.

  When I arrived, the tape was still up, and fresh officers were manning it. Ammon was still there, though, so I went over to relieve her. “Good work,” I said, and she left with a smile.

  I inspected the troops and their checkpoints, and I found nothing to critique. I made a mental note to congratulate Ammon on that next time I saw her.

  Finally I checked on Marcus and his team. I was surprised how long they were taking. It was not like MMC, where they had had an entire building to investigate. All they had here was one isolated crime scene: a body on the ground and its surroundings. But they seemed to be examining that scene in minutest detail.

  I walked up beside Marcus. “A challenging scene?”

  He knelt beside the corner where the access tunnel met the side tunnel. “Surprisingly, yes. We’re presented with a very important question here: Is this where the murder took place?”

  “And you are sure it is a murder?”

  He held a holographic caliper up against a scratch in the corner as he snapped an image with his comm. “I’m not sure, but sure enough. There was too much damage to the neck for any sort of fall. I’ll confirm that with X-rays, but you’re looking at a homicide, ma’am.”

  “So where the killing took place is a pretty important clue.”

  Marcus nodded. “And I don’t want to get that fact wrong, because your future case could fall apart if we don’t do our job correctly.”

  “What is your opinion?”

  Again he shook his head. “I don’t have one yet. It’s premature. I can’t rule out either hypothesis. There are scrapes in his clothing that match edges of the panel seams here, like there was a fight, and he banged against them. But someone really clever might have made those postmortem. There are matching bruises underneath those clothes, I’ll bet. And tests may tell me if those bruises were pre- or postmortem. I think they were post, they had to be deliberate, and my bet is someone chose this spot deliberately. If pre, then this was a meeting place.”

  “That is how Vile and I worked it out as well,” I said.

  “I don’t think dropping him here makes
a lot of sense. Too risky. But I can’t rule it out yet. You’ll have to wait, Ms. Morais.”

  “I see.” It was frustrating, but it was right. We had to follow procedure. “What about personal effects?”

  “We’ve done a scanner inventory, but not a physical one yet. First we had to get every piece of evidence we could with the body in place. Then once we bagged him, we sent him off to the morgue. He should be under lock and key there—metaphorically, of course—while my team works here. We’ve got no one else to run the inventory. But it looks like what you’d expect: his comp, an earpiece, his clothes, shoes, and a belt. All of it ordinary.”

  “Ordinary?”

  “Off the rack. Clothes you’d find in any shop in the Concourse. Or for heavy markup at the port.”

  “That does not sound like Trudeau,” I said. “He fancied himself an important man. Important men do not shop off the rack.”

  “Now who’s making assumptions, Rosalia?” Marcus frowned. “Sorry, ma’am. Rich people can buy plain clothes, but plain people can’t buy rich clothes. It’s not transitive.”

  “Sensible as always, Dr. Costello.” I sighed. “I was just looking for some anomaly to latch on to.”

  “Besides the anomaly of a dead body in the tube, you mean?”

  That earned him a grim smile. “Besides that.”

  I let Marcus continue working while I watched for a while. Then I circulated around the barricades again. At the north end of the main tunnel, the journos were piled up. Of course Tara Rockford was at the front, with her cameraman shooting video.

  Rockford glanced up, saw me, and got a look like a hunting cat ready to pounce on a bird. “Ms. Morais,” she called, “do you have any comment?”

  Reluctantly, I walked up to the line. “We will issue a statement as soon as we know something,” I said, addressing it to the crowd, not just to Rockford.

  “But your team’s been working all day,” Rockford persisted. “You must have some answers by now.”

  I shook my head. “Ms. Rockford, real life is not some vid drama. Real evidence takes longer to gather than the time between segments, and far more time to analyze. We shall issue a report as soon as we have something concrete to report.”