by C. J. Box
“What would you like to hear?” she asked, unpacking the instrument.
“Surprise me,” he said hoarsely.
She played “Autumn Leaves” and watched the smile on his gaunt face as he listened with eyes closed.
“Beautiful,” he said.
* * *
“You’ve advised Ms. Moore she does not have to testify, correct, Mr. Cervantez?” asked O’Connor from the bench the next morning.
“Yes, Your Honor,” said Cervantez. “She insists.”
“Very well,” said the judge. “Swear her in.”
Ammie, dressed in the same blue pantsuit as the day before, took the witness stand. As the bailiff hooked her up to the polygraph interface, Cassandra sent her a tight smile of encouragement.
On direct, Cervantez led Ammie through a clear account of how it was C-Jack who’d murdered Russell Lipke. The girl surprised Cassandra with her self-possession. She was controlled when she told how Lipke started slapping her, splitting her lip.
“That must have hurt,” said Cervantez.
Ammie shrugged. “It ain’t the first time I was hit by a man. I been hit harder.”
She only struggled with her composure when she recalled C-Jack attacking Lipke and hearing the man shout for help as she ran away.
“And you haven’t seen C-Jack since?”
“No,” said Ammie. “He’s probably took off to Florida. He has family down there.”
On cross, Blick appeared almost carnivorous in her eagerness to question Ammie. She asked Ammie to tell her story once more “to clarify a few details,” but despite aggressive attacks and sly feints, Blick failed to snare Ammie in a contradiction or to uncover a crack in the story that the prosecution could exploit. Ammie followed Cervantez’s instructions explicitly and offered no more details than necessary to answer Blick’s question.
Blick’s relentless interrogation came to a close two hours later, and Cassandra could tell from the pallor of frustration on the prosecutor’s face that the Firecracker was displeased with not having exposed holes in Ammie’s account.
Cassandra had prepared Cervantez for the speed with which the Surrogate jury would reach its verdict following closing arguments. Hours or days of deliberation were unnecessary. The program simply calculated the aggregate of the Surrogates’ reasonable doubt total to determine the jury’s decision.
Still, Cervantez grabbed Cassandra’s hand in a startled reaction when, within seconds of O’Connor transmitting the jury instructions explaining the rules of law to the Surrogates, the judge received a response. O’Connor too seemed nonplussed by the swiftness of the determination.
He recovered by shooting a grin directly at a vid-drone and cracking to viewers, “Gives new meaning to ‘rush to judgment,’ doesn’t it?” Then he cleared his throat and read from his bench screen, “In the case of the State of Michigan versus Ammie Moore, we the jury find Ammie Moore—” O’Connor paused for an appropriate dramatic beat before declaring, “Not guilty.”
Cervantez sat upright and muttered an expletive of surprise. A hand covering her mouth, Ammie appeared uncertain whether to believe what she’d heard and looked with hesitant hope to Cervantez for confirmation.
“Ms. Moore,” said O’Connor, “you have no further business with this court.”
Cervantez smiled at Ammie. “You’re a free woman,” he said.
Cassandra stayed with Cervantez as he walked Ammie through the process of her release. Deputies scanned the recorded verdict, removed her tracking bracelet, and returned her I-AM tokens. Cervantez told her she could keep the pantsuit. In a side hall, away from the gaggle of vid-porters hoping to score an interview, the defense attorney shook Ammie’s hand and wished her luck.
“I can just go?” asked Ammie.
“You can just go,” said Cervantez. “It’s over.”
From the wariness in Ammie’s eyes, Cassandra wasn’t sure the girl believed that anything was ever over.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Cassandra.
“I don’t know,” said Ammie. “But I can tell you no man’s ever going to hit me again.”
She turned and headed to the door to the street. With evident doubt, she passed an I-AM token over the security scanner and exhaled relief when the door unlocked with a quiet click. She eased the door open and peered outside. She looked back at Cervantez and Cassandra, mumbled a quick “Thanks,” and then slipped through the door, which snapped closed behind her.
“That,” said Cervantez, “is real gratitude.”
“She said thanks,” said Cassandra.
“Oh, no, I know,” said Cervantez. “It’s the heartfelt appreciation from clients that keeps me in this job.”
Cassandra laughed.
“I hear O’Connor has called a press conference,” said Cervantez, turning to head back toward the lobby. “I hope he enjoys the attention while he can.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cassandra.
“It’s juries we’re digitizing now,” said Cervantez, “but don’t kid yourself. It’ll be judges next. And probably defense attorneys not long after.”
Before Cassandra could voice a response, she was distracted by the sight of Blick and Forrest hurrying toward them. Blick walked with urgent short steps and Cassandra read concern on Forrest’s face when he didn’t smile at her as they neared.
“I just got a call that they found Charles Jackson,” said Blick.
“Really?” said Cervantez. “They get a confession out of him?”
“They’re good, but they’re not that good,” said Blick. “The man’s dead.”
“Dead? How?”
“Based on the knife they found still stuck in his ribs, they’re guessing he was stabbed to death,” said Blick. “They found him in a burned-out khem house over by the river. Looks like he may have been there a month or two.”
“Huh,” said Cervantez.
“Exactly,” said Blick. “Where’s Moore?”
Cervantez waved at the door. “Gone,” he said.
Blick was unfazed. “Better get ready for round two,” she told Cervantez as she turned away back down the hall. “It isn’t going to go as well for you.”
“Probably not,” muttered Cervantez.
Cassandra’s mind spun. She realized the implications of Blick’s news immediately and understood now the serious tenor in Forrest’s eyes.
“They believed her,” she said, a hint of wonder in her voice.
Forrest nodded. “We better hope the problem was with the polygraph interface and not our calculations, or Powell is going to fry a circuit.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Cervantez.
“Ammie lied,” said Cassandra.
“No,” said Cervantez. “I’m shocked.”
“You don’t understand,” said Forrest. “The Surrogates believed her. They’re supposed to be able to accurately assess degrees of veracity, but they thought she was telling the truth.”
“Maybe they aren’t actually soulless then,” said Cervantez. “Or she’s one hell of a liar.”
“This is no joke,” snapped Forrest. “This could undermine confidence in the entire program and mean the end of our careers.” He turned to Cassandra. “I’m going to test the polygraph equipment first if you’ll start looking at the data points—”
Cassandra received a pulse. It was the hospice nurse.
“I have to go,” she said.
* * *
The room seemed larger without the hospital bed. Otherwise nothing had been moved. Jarius’s books were still stacked on every available surface. A reproduction of Edmonia Lewis’s famous sculpture Forever Free remained on its shelf below a Horace Pippin print of an African American family saying grace before a meal. One entire wall was covered in framed black-and-white photographs Jarius had taken of the city’s neighborhoods over the decades. Despite being surrounded by her father’s belongings, Cassandra felt the room swollen with absence.
The funeral was well attended, and she had been g
ratified to see so many of her father’s colleagues and former students. She now sat in the quiet of the room, letting her thoughts whirl and settle. She had a conference call with Forrest and Powell scheduled in an hour to discuss Forrest’s report that the polygraph readings had been distorted by unanticipated high levels of khem in the witness’s system. Powell was furious with the oversight and was threatening to reassign Cassandra and Forrest if they couldn’t come up with a work-around.
Nothing had been heard or seen of Ammie Moore since she walked out of the courthouse, and Cassandra was able to admit she hoped the girl had gone somewhere far away where she could live low and stay safe. There had been a flare of defiance in the girl’s eyes at the end that led Cassandra to believe it was possible, though she knew Ammie’s khem addiction gave her only an outside chance.
The silence of the house gathered around Cassandra as the shadows of evening lengthened. Baedeker wandered the upstairs rooms, unsettled and mewing questioningly. If Cassandra had felt isolated and apart at times as a child after her mother’s death and later away from home as a Black student at Carnegie Mellon, she now experienced loneliness deeper even than she had dreaded since her father’s diagnosis.
She couldn’t abide it.
As Cassandra opened her iGlass to launch the Surrogate program, the home security system bell rang before announcing, “Forrest Latham is at the door.”
Cassandra exhaled her frustration at the interruption. Forrest had attended her father’s funeral, and she appreciated his concern and sympathy, but now his presence was just getting in the way.
“Doorman,” she said, calling up the security system’s audio. “Forrest, what is it?”
“I wanted to see you.” Forrest’s voice came from speakers wired into the room’s molding.
“Our meeting with Powell isn’t for another hour,” said Cassandra.
“I wanted to see you before the meeting.”
“I’m busy right now.”
“Cassandra, please. It’s important.”
Cassandra sighed and snapped shut the iGlass. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Even looking as if he hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours, Cassandra couldn’t deny Forrest carried a rumpled attractiveness. His tired eyes took in the living room as he unbuttoned his coat.
“So this is where you grew up,” he said.
“This is it,” said Cassandra. “What do you want?”
“How are you doing?” He studied her face with an incisive concern that made her uncomfortable.
“I’m fine, Forrest,” she said. “What do you want? I have things to do.”
He gave a short, rueful grin. “Ever the inscrutable Cassandra,” he said. “Never letting anyone get too close.”
“Forrest, I don’t have time—”
“I know.” He held up a hand. “I’m sorry. Listen, I know what you’re doing, Cassandra, and you do not want to do it.”
“Really? And what am I doing?”
“Come on, Cassie. This is serious.”
“No, Forrest, what am I supposed to be doing? Tell me.” Cassandra crossed her arms, waiting, presenting challenge and defiance, but she knew she was exposed and her mind was whirling to find plausible cover.
“I know you’re running Surrogate off your home cluster, okay? I found the download time stamps when I was checking the analytics on the polygraph interface.”
Cassandra started to protest, but Forrest cut her off.
“Don’t,” he said. “You covered your tracks pretty well, but if I found them in the audit logs, it’s only a matter of time before Powell finds them. And he’s going to trace the hack back to either you or me . . . and it wasn’t me.”
Cassandra stared at Forrest. She’d known the audit logs were a risk, but she took the chance, thinking no one would have cause to look. She saw only one out now.
“No one would have to know if you helped me scrub the audit file,” she said.
Forrest shook his head. “I’d do a lot of things for you, Cassandra, but not that. You’re jeopardizing everything. Your entire career.”
“No one would know.”
“Someone would eventually. And I’m not risking my career for you.”
Cassandra turned away. “You should go then, Forrest.”
“Look, I know you hacked Surrogate around the time of your father’s diagnosis, and I understand why you did it, but your father wouldn’t want this. You know that.”
“You didn’t know my father.” She refused to cry, but she felt her throat constrict and it made her voice sound harsh. “You have no idea what he’d want.”
“No, you’re right. I didn’t. But I do know he wouldn’t want you to throw away everything you’ve worked so hard for. And you know it, too.”
“I want you to go.” She placed a hand on his shoulder to move him toward the door.
“Cassandra, please,” begged Forrest. “Wipe Surrogate from your home cluster. You still have time to not completely ruin your life.”
Cassandra’s face was closed off, her mouth set firmly as she reached to open the door.
“It won’t be him,” said Forrest in a desperate rush. “It’ll look like him and talk like him and think like him, but it won’t be your father. You can’t bring him back.”
Cassandra inhaled sharply.
“I can try,” she said.
“But at what cost?”
Cassandra closed her eyes and clenched her jaw to fight tears. “I would give anything to have him back,” she said.
“I know,” said Forrest softly. “But he wouldn’t want you to.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
Forrest reached for her hand. “You don’t have to be,” he said.
* * *
Cassandra switched on the hologram projector in her father’s room and linked it to the lone identity profile on her personal drive. Forrest watched from the doorway, his brow wrinkled in concentration and concern.
“One time,” he’d agreed. “And then you wipe it.”
Cassandra launched Surrogate and slowly a healthy-looking Jarius resolved in the center of the room. He smiled at Cassandra.
“How’s my Chickpea?” he asked.
She dialed down the volume of his voice.
“I miss you, Daddy,” she said.
Jarius laughed. “Aw, Chickpea,” he said, “I’m right here.”
And it seemed to Cassandra that he was there. The tenor of his voice. The cordy muscles in his arms. The slope of his shoulders. The way his brown eyes gazed at her with such tenderness. How his mouth was shaped as if he were ready to smile at any time. He was there. He was. She wanted to hug him, press her face into his shoulder and smell laundry soap in his shirt. But she knew, deeper than her perception of reality, that Forrest was right. The surrogate before her was only a remarkable representation of her father. It could not love her as Jarius had. She felt comforted by the sound of his voice and foolish for her willingness to be deluded.
“I have to say goodbye,” she said.
Jarius nodded. “I know, Chickpea,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“I love you so much,” she said, and with the click of a key terminated the program before the surrogate could respond. Jarius blinked out.
“It’s okay to cry,” said Forrest gently from the doorway. “It’s only human.”
DOUG CRANDELL
Shanty Falls
FROM Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
The walk to the water was his usual routine, the waterfalls and the smooth limestone his sanctuary and confession. As the morning sun rose, no matter the season or weather, for the last six years David Holzer made the trek. It started with his usual 4 a.m. waking up, two cups of coffee, black and sweet, at the kitchen table, slugged back quickly, boots laced in the mudroom, and on to the porch for a perfunctory review of the skies, measuring which trees could be seen, poplars towering behind the barn, walnuts massive at the center of the yard, the fence l
ine visible too if the morning didn’t offer a swell of fog. It wasn’t his farm, only the house, bought outright after an early retirement at fifty-five. It’d been a house he’d lived in as a kid, but only briefly; his parents had moved all over the county, sharecropping and barely making ends meet. The landlord at the time was a man and his two college-aged sons, who laughed when David and his parents had to pack up and move during a sunny fall afternoon. One of the sons took a check from David’s dad and pretended to be dribbling it like a basketball. “This thing’s bouncing just like the last two.” More laughter, although the father tried to act as if the boys should hush. David bought the house out of spite, to prove to himself that he was safe, that money was no longer an issue. His parents died in nursing homes with debt, and at night, lying in bed, he could admit in the dark that he’d not let go of the shame, that he took too much pleasure in knowing the landlord had died early from a heart attack and that both sons were rich but stupid, alone and addicted to painkillers, their reputations, if not their actual lives, besmirched. On his morning walks, David said a kind of prayer, to nature mostly, that he be forgiven his own reckless stupidity.
David took a step off the porch and into the cool morning, dew instantly wetting the cuffs of his pants. No one ever thought he was past sixty, and on the morning walks he could privately accept why that was the case. He took long strides and didn’t have to think about breathing. He ate well, always had, never thinking about anything sweeter than the two teaspoons in his coffee each morning. Food bored him, or at least his interest in it was mainly connected to energy, proper health, daily seeing the pyramid in his mind from an elementary-school health textbook. He could do that still, see something on a page and recall it easily. He stepped over the hard maple trunk that had fallen during a storm last fall, then cut across the flat field where soybean stubble spread out like a million matchsticks over the two hundred acres that edged up to the forest. They’d be in the fields soon, within weeks. The river valley started here, the dark loam slipping toward the lowlands, where some of the richest soil had settled, coal black, and so fragrant David inhaled a few quick sniffs and smiled.