Dominance (Fox Meridian Book 8)

by Niall Teasdale

  Fox gave the officer a smile. ‘Good thinking, and you seem to have done a thorough job.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I figure you’ll want to run a swarm over the place and–’

  ‘That’s right, and since you seem to know what needs doing, and you started anyway, why don’t you interface through to Pythia and get started on that. I’ll do a walkthrough of the rest of the house.’

  Nebbs’s brown eyes widened behind her mask. ‘Me, sir? I’ve never–’

  ‘Neither had I, the first time. Pythia will do most of the work. You just need to give her directions and keep an eye on things in case she misses something. You can contact me if you’re unsure. Give me a yell before you turn the body and I’ll come in to help. You’ve had the training, Officer Nebbs. You can do this.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Nebbs replied. ‘I’ll get right on it.’

  ~~~

  It was a pretty big house for one man. Lounge, dining room for ten, games room, morning room, and kitchen occupied the ground floor. Upstairs there was an office with an attached smaller office for Kelly, two separate bathrooms, and six bedrooms, two of those with en-suites.

  In the master bedroom, the one which appeared to have been used recently, there was evidence that Ashburton had been there when he had first been attacked. The black silk sheets – and how clichéd was that – had been dragged half off the bed. Edge detection and contrast enhancement showed signs that a body had been dragged off the bed with the sheets and showed the marks of heels in the thick carpet. The drag marks stopped after a few metres: the killer had lifted Ashburton to carry him downstairs.

  Ashburton’s bedside cabinet contained an impressive array of sex toys: three different cock rings, four different sizes of vibrator, a couple of butt plugs, one of which was silver and had a gem mounted in the base, and a couple of things Fox was not entirely sure of the purpose of.

  ‘This one,’ Kit said, appearing and pointing at a cylindrical plastic device with something vaguely like a bottle top mounted on one end, ‘is a suction device designed for use on nipples.’

  Fox looked at her. ‘You looked that up, right? This isn’t something Vali’s used on you or something?’

  ‘Vali does perfectly well with his lips. This is not exactly a vanilla collection, but Mister Ashburton does not seem to have the predilections of Mister Winsford.’

  ‘No, true, but I haven’t finished looking.’ Straightening, Fox set off to examine the rest of the room.

  Ashburton had liked his comfort. The bed was big, California King, and the attached bathroom had a multi-head shower with drying system and a whirlpool bath big enough to hold a party in. Holding a party in there was, Fox suspected, the point. The fittings in the bathroom were gold, but there was a rather odd feature in there, with gold trim to draw Fox’s attention to it.

  ‘What sort of man puts a portrait photograph of himself, in a gold frame, on the wall of his personal bathroom?’ Fox asked.

  ‘A vain one?’ Kit suggested. ‘Mister Ashburton would seem to fit the bill.’

  ‘He would…’ Fox walked over to the picture and felt down the side of it. She smiled. ‘But in this case, he was just being kind of stupid.’ She pressed and then pulled the frame away from the wall. It hinged on the right and revealed a safe with an electronic lock. ‘Score one for the good guys, but that’s a pretty good model. Get a team on order to go through the entire house. Uh, better put through a request for a warrant for the secured electronics and this safe. I’m going to check over the office again, but I’m betting anything good is in this.’

  ‘Requests made. The forensics team will be here in fifteen minutes. As for the bet…’ Kit shook her head slowly. ‘No, I’m quite sure I won’t bet against you on that one.’

  ~~~

  ‘I’m going through the preliminary reports now, Helen,’ Fox said as she walked out of her virtual lounge. ‘I think she’s got a talent for it.’

  ‘She did do pretty well in the chapter house that time,’ Helen replied from the window Fox had pushed her portrait into. ‘I’ll take a look over the reports from today. I guess I should be checking them over anyway.’

  ‘Well, these murders may have politics plastered all over them, but they’re nothing to do with terrorism and politics isn’t the motive. The only reason I’m keeping at them is that I started.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Anyway, I’ll take a look at Nebbs’s reports and see what I think.’ Helen shrugged. ‘Mostly for form’s sake. I mean, we’re all new in these jobs, right? Have to do the dots and crosses.’

  ‘Sounds about right.’ Fox paused, looking up at a sign which had appeared on the door of the elevator to the murder rooms.

  Beware! Icky stuff ahead! Unauthorised persons entering here may be subject to sudden vomiting.

  ‘You okay, Fox?’ Helen asked.

  Fox shook her head and grinned. ‘Fine. My gorgeous assistant is having a little joke. You’ll see it if you come in here for the murder room.’ The door slid aside and Fox stepped into the elevator, selecting the only live room in the viron at the moment.

  ‘I’ll pop in and take a look when the full forensic data comes in on Ashburton’s place.’

  ‘Okay.’ Fox stepped out into the darkness of the room and scanned around. ‘Kit’s been busy in here. You’ll have some catching up to do. Later.’

  ‘Bye, Fox.’ And Helen’s image vanished, leaving Fox to take in the changes to the Winsford/Ashburton connection tree.

  There were new acquaintances, many of them female, linked to Ashburton’s ID image. A few of those were not new, having crosslinks to Winsford, but the majority were. There were also three new links, all of them women, attached directly to Winsford and Fox made an educated guess.

  ‘We’ve got some identification from the DNA at Winsford’s place?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kit replied, turning from her own examination of the room’s contents. ‘Three have been identified from genetic simulation. I have already managed to eliminate all of them as potential suspects, however.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘If the pattern here continues, Mister Winsford was in the habit of picking up tourists for his little games. All three identified so far are from Europe. Single women, traveling alone, and all of them back in their own countries at the time of Mister Winsford’s murder.’

  ‘Right…’ Fox scanned over them anyway. ‘Germany, Norway, Sweden. He liked blondes. See if Baum has time to talk to them. See if they remember anything about Winsford.’ Johann Baum was the Palladium detective handling things in Europe, though Kit was in the process of getting him help out there since the number of contracts in the Nordeuropäische Union was growing.

  ‘How high a priority?’ Kit asked. ‘He has two murders of his own to deal with currently.’

  ‘Huh. When he can get to it. I don’t think any of them are going to be our killer. How’s help for Baum coming along?’

  ‘I have a new resource starting in Oslo at the end of the month and we are in final negotiation with a detective from Brussels, but she will not be able to start until April.’

  Nodding, Fox turned back to the links. ‘Okay, who is Steven Deloit and why didn’t I notice him before?’

  ‘Mister Deloit is a vote broker from Detroit. Was a vote broker. He was murdered on the twenty-fourth of December last year. I have only just got the case file through from Wayden Executive Services.’

  ‘Huh. Are we keeping track of things like that? How long it takes for us to respond to requests. How long it takes for our requests to be processed. Seems like those could be useful statistics to keep.’

  ‘We have full records of every transaction. Reports can be compiled quite rapidly. Mister Deloit’s name came up in connection with Mister Winsford purely because of a few newsfeed reports I found. It seems that Mister Winsford was part of a fact-finding mission to the Fargo Agri-Zone in May last year. When I noticed that Mister Deloit was deceased, I requested the case file to see whether there was any connection. Interestingly, Mister
Ashburton was also part of that mission to Fargo.’

  Fox had pulled out the autopsy report from Deloit’s case file and was rapidly skimming it. ‘It’s not definitely the same killer…’

  ‘Mister Deloit was murdered in his apartment. Security was bypassed to gain entry, as with Mister Ashburton. The torture applied to Mister Deloit prior to his death is not identical to what was done to Mister Winsford and Mister Ashburton, but the killer appears to have improvised in all three cases. While there is no anal penetration in Mister Deloit’s case, he was beaten severely about the genitals. That seems to continue the sexual revenge motif, and the later use of a more obvious sexual element may be escalation.’

  ‘Uh-huh…’ Fox traced the linkages to the members of the fact-finding tour. ‘Ashburton, Winsford, and Deloit. Then we have Walker Burrage, David Neiman, Sherman Wayden…’

  ‘Wayden Executive Services hosted the event,’ Kit said. ‘They got the policing contract for the Fargo Agri-Zone, at least partially thanks to the last name on the list, Kent Killian.’

  ‘Who, I note, is dead.’

  ‘Yes. Murdered. I have a request outstanding for the case files.’

  ‘That could be interesting. And what’s an adult-film producer doing on a fact-finding mission to Fargo? See what you can dig up about that. I’ll go through everything on everything else and try to come up with a strategy.’

  ‘The thought has occurred that someone may be killing people associated with pushing through privatised policing,’ Kit said. ‘Mister Deloit was heavily involved and pushed for Wayden to get the Detroit contract.’

  Fox frowned at the displays around her. ‘Maybe. It’s another direction to look in, I guess…’

  14th January.

  David Neiman looked just as much of a dilettante as he had the first time Fox had seen him, but now he was lying beside the pool, dressed in swimming briefs, with five women in various states of undress in the near neighbourhood. Only one had all of her bikini on, and there was relatively little of that. Two had dispensed with clothing altogether, though they were both swimming.

  If Neiman thought the display of breasts might put her off her stride, he was disappointed. ‘I’m looking at a new angle on the deaths of Thomas Winsford and Barrymore Ashburton,’ Fox said, absently watching one of the swimmers who seemed to have very good form. Bubbles, Fox still refused to think of her as Piper, had shown Fox in; today she was topless and she settled on a lounger as soon as Fox was engaged with Neiman. ‘You went on a “fact-finding” tour of the Fargo Agri-Zone in May, Mister Neiman?’

  ‘Fargo?’ Neiman asked in reply.

  ‘You remember, Davy,’ Bubbles said. ‘That place out west. You said you had a project you wanted to research.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Fargo. Right. Barry said he had this thing going on there about private policing. Sherm runs the cops out there, see? I tagged along because I had this, uh, thing I was thinking of doing. Straight vid. Thriller. Cops tracking down a serial rapist.’

  ‘And you wanted to research how policing worked now?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Yeah. Nothing much came of it… Why don’t you sit down, babe? You’re making me nervous.’

  ‘Four of the men on that visit to Fargo are dead, Mister Neiman. I’m linking three of them to the same killer for sure, and I suspect I’ll discover the fourth, Kent Killian, died under similar circumstances. If I were you, I might be nervous too. Did anything happen on that trip which might have been cause for someone to start murdering your friends?’

  A thin bead of sweat rolled down over Neiman’s right temple. ‘We went to see a lot of boring shit. Visited a few cop houses. Talked to boring people. It was boring.’

  Fox stared at the man for a second and another bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. ‘If you think of anything, any odd little occurrence that might have happened, you have my contact details. I should consider reviewing your security, if I were you.’

  ‘Yeah. Right. Piper, would you please show the lady out?’

  Bubbles bounced to her feet. ‘Okay,’ she said, all bright and cheery. Fox followed her back through the glass house and they were almost to the door before Bubbles said, ‘It’s kinda funny that Davy thought Fargo was boring.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah, he came back really jazzed. I figured there must be some really hot girls in Fargo, y’know?’

  ‘It’s all the fresh air and lifting bales of hay. You figure he got laid?’

  ‘Must’ve. Davy can’t go a whole day without it.’ The blonde giggled. ‘He doesn’t normally have trouble getting some. Girls can’t resist his charm, y’know?’ The weird thing was, Fox suspected that Bubbles really believed what she was saying.

  ‘He’s a real charmer,’ Fox replied as the door opened in front of her.

  ‘Oh yeah. Have a nice trip back. Hope to see you again.’

  Fox nodded and started for the gate. ‘I have a feeling I’ll be back.’

  ~~~

  Compared to Walker Burrage, Neiman was a real charmer. Burrage was a thickset man with a lot of, probably natural, muscle and no neck to speak of. He was not unattractive, though he had a rather flat nose and kept his dark hair buzzed close to his skull, and it was not a look Fox found attractive. He also had dark eyes, almost black, which seemed a little small for his head. Dressed in an ivory turtleneck sweater and cream slacks, he looked like a thug trying to appear casual, except that he had no real desire to talk to Fox and was not bothering to hide it.

  He lived in the Martin Luther King Jr. Tower, which sat just to the north of the road which carried the same name. It was not actually inside the Manhattan Conservation District, but if you tossed a stone out the window on the south side, it was likely to hit an MCD resident. People in the MLK Tower were MCD residents too poor to live inside it, but rich enough to afford an apartment in an arcology, which sometimes made them more entitled than the true MCD population.

  ‘Selling guns pays well, Mister Burrage,’ Fox said as she looked out of his window. Eight hundred metres up, the view was not really that spectacular, not on a typical day in January anyway. On a clear day, you could probably see the park.

  ‘What did you want, Captain Meridian?’ Burrage asked, taking a seat without offering one. At least he got the title right.

  ‘I’m looking into the deaths of Thomas Winsford and Barrymore Ashburton.’

  ‘I heard about it, of course. It’s all over the news feeds.’

  ‘They were friends of yours.’

  Burrage shrugged. ‘Business acquaintances is more accurate. I met them through the Blackburn Club. Sherman Wayden got me a membership and he hangs with them there when he’s in town. Did, I guess.’

  This was not a man to sweat, Fox decided. She turned her attention back to the window and activated her olfactory and auditory analysis packages. ‘You joined them all on a trip to Fargo in May.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘A salesman for a weapons company on a political tour of an agricultural zone?’

  Burrage sighed. ‘I’m the principal account manager for the Rossouw Arms Works. I represent the company’s interests across North America and most of that is politics. That includes going out with the son of Wayden’s chairman to see the area he’s running. One of the areas Wayden are using our weapons. I talked to a few cops to see whether they were happy with their pistols, made nice with the local politicos, and generally smiled a lot. What’s that got to do with two dead vote brokers?’

  ‘Four.’

  There was a very slight pause before he said, ‘What?’

  ‘Four of the people involved with that tour are dead. The two here, Kent Killian in Fargo, and Steven Deloit in Detroit. Among other avenues, I’m examining the possibility that someone is killing your tour group. Can you think of any reason someone would want to do that?’

  ‘No.’ The hesitation was gone now, but there was an edge of anger behind the single-word answer.

  ‘Can you think of any reason someone wo
uld want to kill Thomas Winsford and Barrymore Ashburton?’

  ‘I didn’t know them all that well, Captain. Aside from the club, we didn’t really move in the same circles.’

  ‘Right.’ Fox flashed him a thin smile. Burrage was not the kind of man to sweat, but he was sweating. ‘I’ll give the same advice to you as I gave to David Neiman. Make sure your security is tight, Mister Burrage.’

  ‘The security here is excellent.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ~~~

  MLK Tower was not exactly well-situated for transport. Most of the people who lived there also worked there, so they tended to employ autocabs when they needed to go elsewhere. Fox decided that the day was not too bad – it was not raining and there was even a little sun on occasions – so she walked down to 123rd Street and started walking west toward the southbound BQ-line. The route would take her through Marcus Garvey Park and past Morningside Park, and then it would be a straight run down the line to home.

  ‘I am getting the feeling that we need to dig into that Fargo thing,’ Fox said silently. ‘Neiman was nervous as Hell and Burrage was hiding something. Have you got anywhere with Wayden?’

  ‘The company or the person?’ Kit asked.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘I have still not had the case files for Mister Kent. I have managed to get an appointment to see Sherman Wayden on Monday at eleven thirty.’

  Fox paused at the gate to the Marcus Garvey Park, glancing at the large stone heads on either side. People came up with the strangest things to memorialise other people. She looked up at the huge uprising of rock ahead of her, wondered why that was not enough, shrugged, and moved on.

  ‘Now, that’s interesting,’ she said.

  ‘What is?’ Kit asked.

  ‘The guy following along behind us. He looks kind of like someone stuffed a gorilla into a suit.’

  ‘Aside from the aesthetic quality of that image, what about him?’

  ‘He was on the train on the way out to Neiman’s place.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like a spook, but it could be NIX keeping tabs on me.’