“That’s not how I remember it,” Egg-cruisOVO said.
Marshal Harry fast forwarded through the encrypted date and time stamps. The scene changed and we were mostly back in the marshal’s office. Freshly painted walls and ceiling, with a large restaurant table and holo-people laughing and chatting in the middle of the floor. There were couches arranged around the table. Holo-cruisOVO was seated next to mapoTHER, 221B and her boyfriend sat opposite. Parts of the waiting staff came in and out of existence, showing all this was captured by one camera, perched somewhere above the table. A hand put a glass in front of cruisOVO and then disappeared. I always find that kind of thing unsettling because the holo-pieces look so lifelike. The tablecloth was beautifully decorated in a scene from the homeworld: big trees, bushes covered in fruit, that kind of thing.
Holo-cruisOVO and mapoTHER bent their long necks over to one side of the table, and their heads disappeared. From the background noise, there was a good crowd in.
“Damn,” LB said. “I hate holo-recs taken from one camera. Makes me feel ill.”
“Wimp,” I said.
“The servobot had arrived with the food,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “It is customary to give the food a good sniff and compliment the chef.”
“That was quick,” Marshal Harry said. “In human restaurants, you have to wait half an hour or more for the food to be prepared and served.”
“This was Nice Big Chop’s house specialty,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “It takes twenty-four hours to cook, so it is ordered in advance.”
A salver of steamed greens was placed in front of the Tooyr and he buried his snout right in. There was a large dob of butter on top that made my mouth water.
“What is his name?” I asked, since it hadn’t been mentioned.
“He calls himself Charlie,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “I gather it’s an Earth name?”
“Yes,” Marshal Harry said. “I wonder why he uses it.”
“No idea,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “Perhaps he is trying to appear more interesting than is in fact the case?”
“I heard this is the most expensive Qoh Mode restaurant on the planet,” Marshal Harry said as she walked around the table.
“This,” I corrected, “is the most expensive restaurant in our star system. You have to send in your credit rating and book two years in advance just to get a table by the kitchen.”
“What are you having?” Harry asked Egg-cruisOVO.
“The dish is called Egg Noodle—"
“We have that on Earth,” Harry said.
“Really?” Egg-cruisOVO sounded surprised. “You have slow roasted Qoh Mode tail in a roovillo glaze on Earth?”
“Erm, maybe not.”
“There are only so many words to go round,” I reminded Harry. “Familiar words to you mean something completely different on another planet.”
“Isn’t that cannibalism?” Marshal Harry said, pointing at where the servobot must be. She came from a small backwater place. Even most other humans hadn’t heard of Earth. The three Qoh Mode heads disappeared and their throats bulged as they swallowed.
“It’s not my kind of thing either,” LB admitted. “But Qoh Mode tails break off in moments of panic, so lesser status people sell their tails to the restaurant. A nice fat one brings in a good price.”
“I own shares in the restaurant, so I can eat here whenever I want,” Egg-cruisOVO said. The three holo-diners sat in silence while the Tooyr troughed noisily. I couldn’t blame him for being pissed; he was probably the only non-Qoh Mode in the room.
“It is our custom to masticate in silence,” Egg-cruisOVO explained to the marshal. “It takes a few minutes for the crop to begin mastication and release the flavours of the food.”
“Says in the report the waiting staff pre-chewed the food?” Marshal Harry asked. “Is that right?”
“Yes, which is what made my poisoning so interesting to the investigation team,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “The poison capsules in the food dissolved when the server masticated, and it entered my system very quickly. Oh, there I go.”
Holo-cruisOVO leaned back so far on his couch that his head disappeared. The bit of neck we could see bulged as food passed down it.
“Of course, the Nice Big Chop no longer accepts my calls,” Egg-cruisOVO said in a hoarse whisper. “Since I ate the poisoned food.”
Holo-cruisOVO coughed once and dropped muzzle down onto the table.
“After the shame of being poisoned in public, the restaurant insisted on buying out my shares and barring me for life.”
Marshal Harry stared at the shiny egg.
“Are you telling me there is shame in being murdered?”
“In being poisoned, yes,” cruisOVO said. “It is considered the most shameful way to die by my species. Our judiciary used to condemn the worst criminals to death by public poisoning. Not now, of course, but centuries ago.”
“At least it was quick,” I pointed out.
“Not from my side,” cruisOVO said.
Harry paused the projection, rewound five minutes, and watched it again.
“This is so frustrating. We can witness the actual murder, but the context is missing.”
“How much context do you need?” Egg-cruisOVO asked.
“How long is a piece of string?” Marshal Harry retorted. “We can’t see the servobot. We can’t see the position of the servers. The investigation report says there were three more people sitting near the table.”
“Our personal assistants,” Egg-cruisOVO supplied. “No one of my class would dream of going anywhere without their personal assistant. Which doesn’t feel as important as it once did.”
“Okay,” Marshal Harry said. “How did they get to the restaurant?”
“They followed behind my car in a small vehicle.”
“And they were sitting at another table nearby?”
cruisOVO sounded shocked: “Of course not, this is an exclusive restaurant,” he said. “Their class is only allowed in on sufferance. They sat on a bench next to our table, within easy reach.”
“Did they eat the food?”
“They are provided with snacks by the restaurant, I believe.”
“It’s no good,” Marshal Harry said. “I still can’t picture the scene fully. We’re going to have to visit the restaurant.”
“Can you get me a table?” I asked Egg-cruisOVO. Well, if you don’t ask you don’t get. “I’ve been wanting to try this place for years.”
cruisOVO looked down on me. I hate that.
“No one has that much influence.”
“Not even for a holy relic?” I said.
“Well, as I said, the restaurant bought me out.”
Holo-cruisOVO dropped face down on the table again. I tried not to look happy, I really did.
“Chunglie, a little decorum,” the marshal said. She would notice my tush brush wagging.
“Someone programmed the food transporter to sprinkle ogram salts in my groush sauce and then wiped its memory of the programming,” cruisOVO said. “Did a thorough job of the log wipe, my investigator said.”
“The report says only your food was poisoned.”
“Yes, I have a very careful murderer, apparently.”
“They disqualified everyone on the planet Smuds,” I pointed out, having downloaded the report to memory. “Your investigators were thorough.”
“I think they were just showing off,” cruisOVO admitted. “People tend to do that in the presence of huge sums of money.”
“So how are you going to solve this, Marshal?”
“Either we find some new suspects or…” Marshal Harry said thoughtfully. “No, that’s our only chance.”
“But they—"
The wife galloped through our broken door and grabbed the floating egg in both arms. Another Qoh Mode followed her and stood, looking awkward.
“Here you are! I was so worried I thought—” She looked around the hologram restaurant. “Not this again, please.”
Harry turned the proje
ctor off, fetched a lounger from a cupboard, and unfolded it.
“Is this some kind of law office?” mapoTHER asked. You’d think the Marshal Service sign above the door would be a giveaway.
“I am Detective Marshal Harry Ward the 23rd, and this is Detective Deputy Marshals Long Barnacle and Chunglie.”
“The holy relic,” I said.
mapoTHER looked us over and said to Harry: “Are you ill, dear?”
“Me? No, why do you ask?”
“Well, most of your fur has fallen out and you appear to be wrapped in bandages.”
“My species doesn’t have fur, and we call these clothes.” Harry tweaked her uniform.
“Oh, sorry. Husband, we must leave this world,” mapoTHER said. “There are a million other worlds where you would be safe.”
“But will I?” cruisOVO asked. “Or will I keep being murdered? I mean, the doctors are planning to decant me into a freshly printed body next week, and I am dreading it in case I get murdered again.”
“My poor boy, I won’t let them kill you again,” she said. “I’ll protect you.”
She was rather small for a female Qoh Mode; they are usually a head and neck longer than the males, but you couldn’t fault her spirit.
“You know it’s love when there’s just a brain left and she still wants to hang on to you,” I said.
“Who is this?” Marshal Harry asked, pointing at the Qoh Mode in the room no one was talking about.
“That is just leaCHER, my personal assistant.”
“I knew the CHER family well,” I said, having a flashback. Beautiful summer day, flowering shrubs, body parts scattered around a field. Not my best day. “I didn’t know anyone survived Tuesday.”
“My grandfather was a child when that happened,” leaCHER said. “He kept the family name alive.”
“What do you remember of the meal?” Marshal Harry asked. Mind always on business. “Did you notice anything odd about the servobot?”
“I wish I could help you,” leaCHER said, “but I was not mapoTHER’s personal assistant then. That assistant wrote a roleplay game based on the first two murders and was let go after the car accident.”
“Must we drag all this up again?” mapoTHER asked, holding her tail. A sign of nerves in a Qoh Mode. “I am sure if we left the planet, the murderer would not be able to follow.”
“Perhaps you would prefer to leave before we examine the other two murders?” Marshal Harry asked.
“No, no, I can be brave,” mapoTHER said. “I will stay and lend my strength to my man.”
“Okay. On with the motley,” Marshal Harry said.
CHAPTER 3
“There’s motley?” I asked, looking around.
“It’s just a saying,” Harry said. “Let’s have a look at the next murder.”
“Prepare to have your senses ‘mazed by the next tragic end of cruisOVO,” the Egg declared. I opened my mouth.
“Not one word,” Harry warned.
The hologram flickered and we were back in the luxury ground car. The door opened and Holo-cruisOVO climbed in. He looked every bit the successful Qoh Mode about town that he had before.
“You don’t look any different,” I said. “From before you were murdered.”
“No, the doctors completely restored me once the poison left my system. I was once again the pilot of my own destiny, or so I thought. The drugs they gave me even enhanced my memory. I can remember times from my childhood as if they happened yesterday.” He shuddered.
“The report says you were going to a party?” Marshal Harry asked. While everyone was looking around the car, I sidled over to leaCHER. I had never met such a small, thin Qoh Mode man. With the small brow ridges and hunched back, I thought him a sad end to a once proud family line.
“I’m sorry about Tuesday,” I said. “We were only away polishing that damn phlong for an hour. We never found out what happened to the rest of the CHER.”
“We don’t talk about it,” leaCHER looked uncomfortable. “It was centuries ago.”
“He munches anti-aging meds like candy.”
“People,” Marshal Harry said. “Can we keep this professional?”
221B climbed in and sprawled along the bench seat opposite Holo-cruisOVO. We had a good look at her belly scales and the paintings there-on.
“How can an android be such a slut?” mapoTHER asked the room in general.
“Looks like she’s had a lot of practice,” I said.
“Dear, you know I have never been interested in machinery that way,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “I had been working, so mapoTHER was meeting me at the party.”
“You have a style and sophistication,” leaCHER murmured to mapoTHER, “a mere machine can only dream of.”
“Are you after a pay rise?” I asked.
“I’ve received the first part of cruisOVO’s company records,” LB told the marshal. “I’ll start looking through them now.”
The floor of the ground car didn’t quite match the floor of our office, so we were ankle deep in luxurious red spalbeck as it drew away. Harry rewound the holo-rec to the start, and as Holo-cruisOVO entered the ground car, she looked out the car door.
“It’s blank. Pity.”
“Why? What did you hope to see?” Egg-cruisOVO asked.
“It would help to have some context here, too,” Marshal Harry said. “The only recording in the file is from this car’s security system, and it doesn’t tell us much.”
I brought up my cyber dashboard and sent messages to Port City Maintenance Department. Then I looked up the address of cruisOVO’s office and checked it through municipal services.
“Your office is on Onep Ark Avenue?” I said. “There are no cameras on that street, the people insisted on their privacy.”
“Pity. I want to know who he was with before he got in the car, what was said, that kind of thing.”
“I am right here. I was picked up at 221B’s office, at 221B Onep Ark Avenue,” cruisOVO said. “She had found one distant family member still living and I agreed to send him some of the family money. I am sure 221B’s building has security, but the investigating officers already looked through all this. How can you hope to learn something new?”
“To be honest, I don’t know yet,” Marshal Harry said. “I’m just looking round the corners to see what’s there.”
“Oh,” cruisOVO said. “I would shrug if I had shoulders.”
“So you were on your way to a party?” Marshal Harry said, starting the recording again. Holo-cruisOVO took a lounger and poured a drink from the bar.
“I was on my way to a party at the Pingshaw mansion, Marshal,” cruisOVO said. “The Queen of Shaws was celebrating her new skin. It is usually a good night and, as you can see, I was in a cheerful mood.”
“I was at that one,” I said. “Good night. Lots of onions. I copped off with a Scoprolite.”
The marshal winced. “That’s not a picture I want in my head, Chunglie.”
“Yuck, imagine all those hairy insect legs winding around each other,” mapoTHER said, looking down her muzzle at me.
“I am,” I said, wagging my tush brush.
“How did you get an invite to the most important party of the social season?” cruisOVO asked.
“Me and the Queen of Shaws go way back. I’m her preferred dance partner. She likes her males long and lithe, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m happy to say that I don’t. Look how well that tail moved, and the way the hand handled the glass,” Egg-cruisOVO sighed. “They say my new body will be just as good, but I doubt it. That body was one of the best.”
A drone shipper came through the car and crushed the much-admired body to paste.
“Did 221B’s android body survive?” Harry asked.
“No,” cruisOVO answered. “But as soon as the feed was cut to her mainframe, she called emergency services and reported the accident.”
“She had a new Qoh Mode body built before the month was out,” mapoTHER said. “One sc
ale is now painted with a hologram of the accident.”
“So, once again, only cruisOVO was at risk of being killed,” Marshal Harry pointed out.
“Nice to have a considerate murderer,” LB said. “Remember last week when that shlongflunger gassed everyone on that ship?”
“It was only five days ago,” I pointed out. “I am capable of remembering that far back.”
What really upset me about that case was the guy hadn’t meant to kill his crew. He was pissed off at the cook and sabotaged the noonial intake, thinking to mess up the kitchen. Didn’t seem to realise that meant they would all have to give up breathing for an hour.
“There really was no warning,” Marshal Harry said thoughtfully.
“How could there be,” I pointed out. “There are no windows in this thing.”
“But these limousines have a full range of sensors,” leaCHER pointed out. “Top of the line technology.”
mapoTHER drew him a look and he shuffled back.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled.
“But…” Harry rewound the hologram and played it again in slow-mo. This time we saw the side of the car bulge as the drone hauler struck, and as I mentioned, it was a sturdy old car. “There are no sounds of braking. The drone was going full speed when it struck.”
“The investigators found the operating system of the drone had been erased,” Egg-cruisOVO said. “They concluded I am being murdered by a first-class hacker.”
I was depressed. These murders had already been investigated and I couldn’t see us finding any new clues from these recordings.
“Then why not hack your car instead? Run it off the road and done? Doing it this way takes more planning,” Marshal Harry said, watching the bulging wall bounce Holo-cruisOVO across the narrowing space. “Right, I’m going to rewind this one more time. I have thoughts I want to share.”
That perked me up. I trusted Harry’s detective abilities.
“The timing of this crash is interesting,” Harry said
“How can they be?” LB asked. “The private security people investigated this thoroughly and looked at the timing of the accident.”
The marshal turned on the hologram, cruisOVO entered the car, sprawled onto a lounger, and poured himself a drink as before. Harry held out her hand and projected a holo-map, with two moving red dots.
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 20