Dominance (Fox Meridian Book 8)

by Niall Teasdale

‘Detective Guthrie said they didn’t want to cause a public panic,’ Sandra Tailor replied, but when she said it, she sounded less than convinced.

  ‘Yeah,’ Fox said. ‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

  ~~~

  ‘Detective Guthrie was covering up the disappearances,’ Kit suggested as Fox drove back to the hotel.

  ‘That’s what it looks like,’ Fox replied. ‘Technically, the evidence is circumstantial, but that’s certainly what it looks like from what we have.’

  ‘Might I hypothesise?’

  Fox smirked. ‘Hypothesise away.’

  ‘Patricia Lomax, Amelia Lomax’s sister, came here to attempt to find her sister. She would likely have realised that Detective Guthrie was working to hide the missing women and avoid solving the cases. She may have decided that the best way to handle the situation, from her viewpoint, was to torture Detective Guthrie for information. If the detective knew who the perpetrators were and told Miss Lomax, she may then have decided to seek revenge upon the men who killed her sister.’

  ‘I think that’s a pretty good hypothesis. Request whatever data we can get on Patricia Lomax. If she was with NAPA, we should have prints, DNA, psych profiles, the works.’

  ‘I’ll put the requests through immediately. It’s NAPA so we should get a fairly fast response.’

  ‘Hopefully.’ Fox had the Q-bug’s lights on and could see quite well in the usual human spectrum, but she had the advantage of being able to sense things others could not and figured that using an expanded spectrum while driving in the dark was a matter of safety. Car engines, even the electric motors in some cars, glowed in the far infrared, so did people. It made it easier to spot vehicles and pedestrians, or lone men sitting in a car with a warm engine outside her hotel. Thermal imaging was not good enough to pick up details, the wavelength was too long, but he was definitely there, definitely just sitting… Until he raised his hand to his ear as she turned into the car park. Interesting.

  Pulling the bug to a stop in the parking area, Fox swung her leg over the saddle and heard the sound of something striking metal. The parking area was lit, of course, and she had no trouble identifying the sound as that of a baseball bat against a metal pipe. The owner of the bat was dressed in black and wearing a ski mask, and he had three similarly dressed friends armed with bats and a length of heavy chain.

  ‘They do not look like they want to invite you out for tea,’ Kit commented. ‘Should I call the police?’

  ‘Not yet. Let’s see what they want.’

  ‘You are not in your combat frame.’

  ‘I’m aware.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘It’s a little cold for baseball practice, guys.’

  ‘You’re opening old wounds for families who’ve lost their daughters,’ one of the men said. He seemed to be the leader, the one who had drawn attention to the group. Fox examined him a little more carefully and decided there was probably a ballistic vest under the heavy jacket the man was wearing. ‘We’re not going to let you do that.’

  Fox gave a shrug as they closed in. ‘I’d argue, but we both know bullshit when we hear it.’ Her eyes fixed on the man’s brown ones. ‘You’re full of it.’

  The thug lunged forward, raising his bat, but Fox was already moving. She drove her booted foot into the solar plexus of the man with the chain and he let out a grunt of pain before falling back and away. He was down, but there was no way he was out and she still had three others to deal with. Ducking and weaving, she avoided the three bats swinging her way, jabbed at the leader’s face and watched him jerk away, and dance, and strike, and swing, and miss…

  The leader landed a blow against Fox’s ribs as she dodged away from another of the bats. He grinned in triumph and Fox punched him in the face. His feet went out from under him and he dropped his bat as he fell. ‘You know,’ Fox said, ‘that you’re basically fighting a robot. I can do this all night and you idiots are going to start to get tired.’

  A wild swing from one of the thugs resulted in his bat splintering against one of the metal rails around the Q-bug park. Chain Guy was back on his feet and swinging, but he had no idea what he was doing. The third bat-wielder got in a really good hit on Fox’s back, which she appeared to entirely ignore as she slammed her fist into Chain Guy’s stomach.

  ‘Fuck this,’ the man with the splintered bad said, and he reached into his jacket.

  Knowing what was coming, Fox dropped back toward her Q-bug, leaving the chain swinging wildly through the air where she had been, and reached behind her for her pistol. The butt of a fairly big automatic was emerging from the cover of the jacket when Fox put three rounds in his chest. He fell, his weapon clattering on the concrete raft floor and blood already speckling his lips; she would find out whether he was alive when the others were contained.

  ‘Alright, fun’s over,’ Fox said. ‘When the guns come out, that’s the end of it.’ Inside her mind, Fox said, ‘Kit, we need cops and medics now.’

  ‘Making the call,’ Kit responded.

  There was a clatter as the remaining man still holding a bat dropped it. His eyes rolled back and he sank onto the concrete in a dead faint. Chain Guy dropped his weapon and stood there looking scared. The leader, still on the ground after Fox’s punch, shook his head like he was trying to figure out what was going on. ‘You k-killed Eddie,’ he stammered.

  Fox’s gaze scanned over the man on the floor. There was blood beginning to pool under him, but thermal imaging suggested he was still alive. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘You’d better hope the EMTs get here before that becomes true.’

  ~~~

  There were, of course, questions. The cops arrived several minutes before the EMTs, which could have been accounted for by proximity to the police station, but Fox was not entirely buying that. They just about had to leave before the call went through.

  As the clock ticked toward eleven p.m., Fox sat in an interview room watching, again, the video playback of the fight from her point of view. The fact that she could simply dump the entire thing out for viewing had seemed to annoy the captain handling the case. They had assigned Captain Ryan Anacostia, the man in charge of Wayden’s detectives in Fargo, to handle the case. Supposedly this was a courtesy, but the man was antagonistic to say the least.

  ‘And then you shot him,’ Anacostia said as three holes appeared in Eddie’s chest on the screen.

  ‘You can see the weapon there, Anacostia,’ Fox replied. ‘A little analysis suggests a RAW six-three-nine close-quarters assault pistol. Ten-millimetre caseless. Selective fire with a three-round-burst option. That’s practically a military firearm. He wasn’t pulling that to play nice, though if he handled it as well as he did the bat, he probably couldn’t have hit me. Someone sent those men after me to stop me looking further into the leads I’m following.’

  ‘You’ve no proof of–’

  The video stopped and then restarted from the beginning, and then paused on the infrared-enhanced image of a man holding something to his ear. ‘That’s the guy who set this up,’ Fox said. ‘That’s him telling his goons that I’m arriving at the hotel. Did the one I shot make it?’

  ‘He’s stable. They think he’ll pull through. My understanding was that you used baton rounds. Baton rounds and stun guns.’ The tone suggested strongly that Anacostia thought of that as soft, more or less contemptable.

  ‘I’ve discovered that when I need to draw my weapon, we’re past the point of being nice. I usually have a baton-round magazine available if I need it.’

  ‘Huh.’ He pointed up at the screen. ‘That’s not proof, that’s… hearsay. Circumstantial.’

  Fox stared at the captain for a second and then waved the comment away. ‘Whatever. You’ve got the video. You can see that they attacked me, whatever the reason. You can also see that I only drew my weapon when threatened with one. I’d like to get out of here before the date changes.’

  Anacostia frowned, hard. ‘We’d all like you out of here,’ he muttered.

  ‘Give me the damn case files
I asked for and I’ll be back in New York in the morning. I’ve no idea why you’re blocking it. Your reasons are bullshit.’

  ‘Maurice Guthrie was one of ours. A good cop who–’

  ‘Great,’ Fox broke in. ‘Guthrie was a good cop, so you want to know who killed him. Well, I think that person is currently in New York Metro and if I had his files, I might be able to make that case stick too. Protecting your good cop is an explanation for why you’re fucking about, not an excuse. Even then, it doesn’t cover the two floaters.’

  ‘What could they possibly have to do with the deaths of two vote brokers on the East Coast?’

  ‘Guthrie died while looking into their deaths. The person who killed them was trying to get him off the case? Maybe. Maybe it was something else, but it’s obvious that their cases are connected with Guthrie’s, and from what I’ve heard about his death, there’s a link to the deaths of four vote brokers, including Kent Killian right here in Fargo. Do us both a favour and release the files. Otherwise, I have to go to the trouble of complaining to NAPA Judicial, and you get your wrist slapped, and neither of us really gets what we want.’

  Anacostia glared at her; Fox had been glared at by professionals. ‘You’ll have the files first thing in the morning,’ the captain said.

  ‘Thank you, Captain,’ Fox replied with a smile. ‘And in return, I’ll be out of your hair soon after. I’d like to get back to New York just as much as I’m sure you’d like me to do just that.’

  Part Three: It’s a Dirty Job, But…

  Fargo Agri-Zone, 22nd January 2062.

  Fox was already reading the case files Anacostia had sent to her as she drove to the airport. Well, she was sitting on her bug and letting the AI handle the driving, but the destination was the airfield where her vertol was fuelled and ready to lift off.

  ‘There are DNA profiles for both women in the autopsy files,’ Kit said.

  ‘Okay,’ Fox replied. ‘When we get Patricia Lomax’s profile from NAPA, we can run a comparison. If they’re siblings, it should show up.’

  ‘Yes. It does make me wonder why they did not confirm the identity of the other victim using her DNA.’

  ‘Because they’d have to admit they had clean DNA samples and could likely determine the identity of both victims. There’s something rotten in this town, but we don’t have time to look at it directly. Check up on the audit in Topeka. I’d like to know how that’s going.’ Fox paused briefly. ‘Guthrie was tortured, but the damage is less sexually oriented.’

  ‘You don’t think it was the same person?’

  ‘We need to do a fuller analysis. I think it was, but they were looking for something different out of it. She was after information from Guthrie, not revenge.’

  ‘Do you think she got it?’

  ‘Well, there are four people dead since Guthrie. I’m going to say yes.’

  New York Metro.

  Kit waited for Fox to finish the landing manoeuvre before speaking; she knew that Fox could multitask and that Pythia was monitoring and could adjust the aircraft’s flightpath if needed, but… safety first. ‘We have received the data from NAPA on Patricia Lomax. One of my copies has been integrating it into the murder room and I have one of the forensics AIs comparing the DNA profiles.’

  Fox finished shutting down the engines and checked that the brakes were on. ‘Good. Highlights?’

  ‘Miss Lomax is twenty-four and held the rank of detective in NAPA. She specialised in electronic crime.’

  ‘Oh did she?’

  ‘Noted skills in computer intrusion and security electronics. Not especially physical, but there is a note in her record that she received basic training in the use of electrolasers. She was part of a team who tried them out within NAPA Detroit. Nothing indicates a knowledge of pharmacology, but–’

  ‘It doesn’t take great skill to use a pressure syringe. Especially on someone who’s stunned. How long on that DNA analysis?’

  ‘It shouldn’t take a lot of time. The sequencing is already done, so it’s just a matter of data crunching. It would seem that Patricia Lomax is a very likely suspect for our murders.’

  Climbing out of the pilot’s seat, Fox nodded. ‘Start getting a BOLO ready, Kit. Even if Pat Lomax isn’t our killer, I’m starting to think she knows a lot more about this case than we do and I want to find her.’

  ~~~

  Kit looked around as Fox walked into the murder room. She had looked away from a new pair of identity images; Fox recognised one of them as Patricia Lomax from the NAPA files she had skimmed on the way home from tower three.

  ‘The results are in,’ Kit said, ‘and the previously unknown body from Lake Lida is Amelia Lomax. Uh, within the usual error percentages, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Fox replied, ‘but those aren’t big for a match between direct siblings. That’s Amy?’

  ‘Yes. Taken from her student ID. It may be a little out of date. The image of Patricia came from her NAPA files and is definitely up to date as of last year.’

  You could see the resemblance. The two women were clearly sisters, but Amy was far younger than her sister, and not just chronologically. The Tailors had said that both had been forced to grow up quickly, but Patricia seemed to have taken the worst of it. They were both pretty women with brown hair and eyes, but Patricia was a little paler. Amy had lustrous brown hair while Patricia was lighter, a short bob instead of long waves. Patricia’s eyes were hazel while Amy’s were deep, dark pools. They had the same nose, small and upturned, and the same mouth with quite full lips. The biggest difference was that Amy looked happy in her photograph while Patricia looked stoic.

  ‘Okay,’ Fox said. ‘The timing is bad. Patricia quit her job and the murders don’t take too long to start. We know her sister was one of the victims and she may have managed to get her hands on those autopsy files. We know she was looking into the deaths, and who could blame her. If she got half the run-around we did, I figure she’s fairly sure someone’s covering things up. I think someone’s covering things up.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Kit replied. ‘I have the data for that Be On The Lookout. Should I activate it?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve enough here to definitely place her as a person of interest. In fact, for now, mark her as a PoI rather than a suspect, but indicate that she’s to be considered potentially dangerous. If she’s located, I want it flagged to me for response.’

  Kit gave a short nod. ‘Done. If she becomes visible within the metro, or trying to leave it, you’ll know.’

  ‘Great. And now comes the hard part.’

  ‘Oh?’ The pixie-elf-fox-girl’s frown of confusion was adorable.

  ‘Yeah, now we have to try to put the three survivors of that “fact-finding” mission under police protection.’

  ~~~

  Fox had arrived back in the metro at thirteen hundred, local, and by fifteen hundred, Sam was installed at Neiman’s house to act as his official bodyguard. Sam fitted into the scene better and, if Lomax did have any plans to attack in broad daylight, he was well able to handle himself. Using an ‘outside contractor’ for this kind of work was unorthodox, but Sam knew what he was doing. Also, Sam was not going to be put off by the horde of naked and semi-naked women who were still hanging around Neiman’s place, security risk or not.

  Kit had been trying to reach Burrage for two hours with no luck. Calls went to voicemail. Emails were not answered. Direct messaging through various services failed. This was why Fox was on the way to Walker Burrage’s apartment to check on him. She was half-expecting to find him missing, and half-expecting to find him dead.

  Sherman Wayden had, of course, declined any form of protection from Palladium.

  ‘You’ve tried reaching him through the internal comms?’ Fox asked inside her mind. The closer she got to Burrage’s apartment, the more she thought that dead was the most likely outcome.

  ‘The building computers believe that Mister Burrage is in residence,’ Kit replied, ‘but a “do not disturb” indicator has
been placed on his communications system. They are unwilling to bypass that with us in the building anyway.’

  ‘Helpful of them.’ Fox stepped out of the elevator and made her way down the corridor to Burrage’s apartment door. Sure enough, an indicator outside the door was showing ‘Do Not Disturb’ in bright-red letters and a similar indicator was transmitted back when Fox requested entry. ‘Huh. Okay, Kit, please note that, fearing for Walker Burrage’s safety, I am utilising police override procedures to access his apartment.’

  ‘So noted,’ Kit replied, just as the notice turned off and the door opened. The first thing Fox noticed, before she even stepped through the door, was the smell. Kit noticed it too and she added, ‘I do not think there will be any questions regarding probable cause for this one.’

  Fox slipped her pistol from behind her back, though she was sure it was unnecessary, and advanced down the short hallway and into the lounge where she had interviewed Burrage previously. That was where she found him, tied firmly to a glass-and-chrome coffee table which had been dragged out into the middle of the floor. He was naked, tied with his legs spread, and there was enough blood to suggest the killer had done to him what she had done to the others, in some manner. Fox was fairly sure she would find some sort of insertable object lying around where it had been dropped. There was also blood at the other end of the scene, below Burrage’s head which was dangling limply over the edge of the table. Fox lowered herself far enough down to get a look at his face and winced: Lomax, and Fox was almost certain it was Patricia Lomax now, had drilled fourteen holes into Walker Burrage’s forehead.

  ‘There were fourteen girls missing or dead in Fargo,’ Kit commented.

  ‘Yes. I think this confirms the connection between all of the cases,’ Fox replied. ‘What I’m not clear on is why she drilled holes in his head. And why him, and not the others? Get a full team in here to go over this apartment, Kit. I want this place turned inside out. And change the BOLO for Pat Lomax. She’s now wanted in connection with multiple murders.’

  ~~~