“Really.” She kept her tone level. She’d figured out years ago that men could gossip as much, if not more, than women if allowed to go at their own speed.
“Fellow on the security squad worked with the Service some time ago, mustered out to work here. Says that this sort of work runs in LeClair’s family. His dad and granddad and all that family tree stuff. All the way out from Earth. Original Texas Rangers heritage, if you believe that.”
“Oh.” She tried to sound bored. “Must be good at what they do.”
Trainer chuckled. “Very good. He’s got a drawer full of citations and awards. Man’s one of the best, which is why they sent him here.”
The butterflies in her stomach settled a little. “I’d expect nothing less of the Service.”
“And the Guild,” he added. “You know they want this solved pronto, slap the cuffs on the guy and drag him off to justice. Just wanted to advise you that LeClair’s a no-nonsense guy who gets his man. Like that old thing with the Mounties.”
She didn’t ask who or what Mounties were, making a mental note to check the history banks. “Good to hear.”
“Word is he’s honest to a fault. Turned in some of his own when a raid went bad and civilians got hurt. The powers that be banished him to patrol duty for the time being,” Trainer added, almost as an afterthought.
“Interesting.” Sam kept her voice as calm as possible. “I’ve got things to do here, Mr. Trainer. So if you’re done gossiping about the marshal I’ll be going.”
“Sure.” The smug bastard had to be smiling; she could practically hear him grinning. “Just don’t beat up too many of my men. Gets them all excited and stuff. Security boys say you gave a better show in the tube than the one you gave in that leather jumpsuit, and between your presentation and the vid of you kicking the crap out of those two fellows, we’re running out of cold water.”
She flipped the switch and cut the connection, a curse on the tip of her tongue.
The miners weren’t the only ones who could use a cold shower.
* * *
Back in the dead courtesan’s quarters, Daniel nodded at the AI’s black box.
“Etts, get to work. Full sweep.”
The small device began to swim around the room, propelling itself with small bursts of air. A blue beam of light came from one side as it scanned the murder scene on a preplanned search pattern, rising and falling. A nozzle popped out of one side and deftly sucked up one floating blood drop for later analysis.
“Right, let’s get this going. Start recording. Subject’s name, Halley Comet.” Daniel walked around the dead body. “Female, twenty-four years old according to her Guild sheets.” He moved closer, studying the deep gash. “Cause of death at first glance is a cut across the throat. Waiting on tox screen from Etts on victim’s blood sample, verification through the base medical officer. Murder weapon appears to be a knife of some sort. A kitchen knife found at the scene, tentatively matching one missing from the ship’s galley. No defensive wounds on her hands or arms.”
Etts paused, then burped out a series of short dashes and beeps.
Daniel nodded. “Confirmed the knife is from the galley. No big shock there. Scan it for prints, please.”
He waited, watching Etts move around the knife. The small blue beam spun around the length of the blade.
Etts blew a raspberry.
“Knife wiped clean of prints. Not surprising but we had to try.” Daniel cleared his throat. “I agree with the captain’s assessment that this is a murder made to look like a suicide. Tox screens to be run for drugs in her system. Full autopsy to be done by the M.O. on base to determine the cause of death.”
Etts beeped a series of different tones before giving off three short bursts of air, moving to hover at Daniel’s eye level. It repeated the sequence and waited.
Daniel shook his head. “I’m willing to bet a sweep of this room for prints and other, ah, specimens, would reveal a thousand hits across half the galaxy. We’ll have to be content with the blood as far as samples go.” His eyes narrowed as he inspected the red dress floating around the corpse. “Two buttons out of three undone on the back. Either she was getting dressed or undressed and she didn’t mind having someone else in the room. Interesting.” He studied the empty walls. “She seems to have been killed here instead of the client room, where she’d be entertaining someone. It doesn’t mean one of the crew killed her but if I was one of her customers I’d have to drag her here from the other room and clean up the blood drops with a vacuum, not worrying if someone would walk in on us. But if it was one of the crew, he or she sure didn’t care about leaving her here in the private area and drawing attention to himself.”
Etts burped.
“I’m not saying it’s one of the crew. Could just as easily be a client. According to the records she was on a break, an open slot.” He pressed his lips together, running possible scenarios in his mind. “Could have been the previous appointment—never went off the ship, came back in and killed her. Or another customer from another suite knocks on her door and she answers it, thinks about taking some work off the books and lets him or her in. Turns her back for a second and it’s on.” He pointed at the small bathroom leading off the bedroom. “She’s getting ready for a shower maybe, gets interrupted before she fully disrobes. Don’t forget to scan the room for any bloodstains.”
Etts made an electronic growly noise.
“Yeah, I know you know what you’re doing. Now let me just talk.”
Working alone had given him this habit of speaking aloud to keep his thoughts in line and on the record.
He looked at the laundry chute, discreetly built into the corner. He knew from his research on Mercy ships that an extraordinary amount was generated by the Belle on each landfall.
New sheets were mandatory with each client, regardless of services provided. You chatted, the sheets were changed. You got down and dirty, sheets were changed. No one wanted to be near someone else’s dirty laundry, literally and figuratively.
After each visit the courtesan would drop the laundry down the chute in his or her private quarters, along with any clothing used for the appointment.
While the ship was in transit the chute would lead to the undercarriage and a tiny room where the mechanic would load the sheets and other clothing into the small washer and dryer in daily batches, in addition to her usual duties. Given the small amount of laundry generated while they were traveling between stops, it wasn’t a big deal.
But when docked, a Mercy ship could go through an obscene amount of washing between sheets and the courtesans’ outfits, not to mention just plain old running out of cleaning supplies. During landfall the chute was rerouted through a special connection to the base laundry room, allowing the Belle to save money and supplies. Carts would fill up quick and be dumped into the industrial washers and dryers before being shipped back within hours to be reused and recycled for new clients—sheets and outfits. All at the base’s expense, part of the payment for the privilege of having a Mercy ship visit their staff.
The Guild never passed up a chance to save money.
“Etts, run through the cleaning cycles for this room—link up with the base computer and see if her recent deposit’s already in the washer. Comet stripped the client bed before she came in here. Maybe there’s some trace left on that of her customer.”
Etts circled back toward him, letting out soft electronic sounds. “I’m ruling out Sam Keller as a possible suspect.” He rubbed his jaw, feeling the first bristles of a five o’clock shadow. “Call it a gut feeling.”
Etts twisted back and forth, beeping again. The translated question held a hint of humor about the human condition, as much as an AI could make.
“Well, yes. I figure when we check the Belle’s cameras we’ll see her sitting in the cockpit or going into her quarters and doin
g a whole lot of nothing. There’s no reason for her to be walking around and if she did someone would notice, even if it was only something like walking through the landing bay and saying hello to the clients. Her job’s basically done once the presentation is over. Unless she hacked the surveillance systems to hide her movements, and I don’t see her having those skills.” He wondered exactly what Sam had in the way of skills that had been kept off her files. After the Hub there was a large gap, an annoying gap, a gap easily filled with secrets.
He hated secrets. Secrets destroyed lives.
Sam Keller had looked—the only word that fit was glorious—when he’d come upon the confrontation between her and the miner in the hallway. It had been like seeing a real Amazon in action, the way she’d begun putting that thug down.
His heart had almost stopped when she looked at him, her face flushed with the heat of battle. Her lips partially open, the ragged breathing—
All he could think about was if she looked like that in bed.
And how he could find out.
Daniel blinked, trying to shake himself out of the remembered fantasy. He wasn’t usually distracted like this. He wasn’t given to flirting with every woman he met. There was something about Sam Keller that called to him, a sadness in her eyes crying out for comfort and solace.
He knew a little about that.
He’d seen it in the eyes of the woman accidentally shot while they scoured the homestead for contraband that was never there. He’d held her until she’d died and then reported it instead of staying silent, earning him a temporary exile from climbing the UNS ladder of command.
Daniel had almost forgotten that look, that plea for someone to touch and hold her even as her life had drained from her broken body.
He’d seen something much like it in Sam Keller’s eyes. The need to be held and stroked, to be touched and caressed as only lovers can do.
He wanted to be the one to bring her back.
That damned woman had broken him with nothing more than a glance and a snarl.
He couldn’t leave the Belle without finding out more about her.
The box chirped, a higher and more urgent pitch to the tone. Daniel stepped toward the corner of the room where the robot assistant was pointed.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
* * *
The small computer screens in the cockpit ran through their preprogrammed routines, switching from the Belle’s internal cameras to the externals and back again. Sam glanced once at the inside shots, still seeing no real activity in the landing bay. The men were playing cards, talking or napping under the stern gaze of the security team.
The back of her own head flashed across the screen as the cockpit view came up. She turned her attention to the externals set on the Belle’s hull and watched the ground crew swarming over the few ships hooked up to the loading docks. Huge boxes slid along conveyer belts to waiting transports while red tentacles sprawled across the floor, running liquid imports and exports. The base might technically be locked down but the ships in port would still be loaded and readied for when the word was given and the shipping lines opened up again.
The ore still flowed, had to flow no matter what. Supplies in, new miners in, ore and broken men out.
Soon Halley Comet’s body would be down in one of those boxes; tagged, bagged and loaded for transport.
She’d seen enough of those deliveries to last a lifetime.
Sam turned her attention away from the belts and to the most recent addition to the spaceport.
Off to one side sat the marshal’s ship, a sweet little teardrop-shaped craft built for speed and painted in UNS red-and-blue. She’d seen the type before—it was a variation on the military’s scout ship without visible gun ports and probably a lower-grade engine. Minimal weaponry but more than the Belle carried. Missiles, some modified projectile weapons.
Definitely no lasers. Those were still a high-level military weapon and too expensive to have on anything but the best military ships. The UNS might deal with the same manufacturers but they wouldn’t get access to all the bells and whistles.
It was still a damned pretty ship. She’d love to get a fast ride on that.
The marshal had tethered it to the same main access tunnel as the Belle, which explained how he’d managed to get to the fight so quickly. Probably heard the fuss and came to her rescue, not that she needed rescuing.
Sam closed her eyes.
She didn’t deserve rescuing.
“Hey.” The male voice jarred her out of her inner thoughts. She turned to see Daniel floating next to her. “We’ve finished our examination and scans. Cabin’s ready to be cleaned.” His eyes met hers. “I’ve officially released the body.”
“Thank you. Hold on a minute, please.” She tapped the console, sending a fast text to Danforth and copying it to Huckness. A fast side note went to Jenny, telling her to clean out the cabin afterward and prepare Halley’s personal items to be shipped to her family.
She’d already gone over how to deal with the body. Two base medics and accompanying security guards would come on board to put Halley in a body bag. She’d be taken to Danforth’s area, where he’d do a full autopsy and determine the actual cause of death. After he finished the report, her body would be moved into the unheated section of the base until transferred to the first departing ship along with her belongings. All of it would be passed down the line, ending on Earth, where her family could collect her.
Outbound in a luxury suite, homebound in a cargo bay.
She’d seen too many people traveling cargo.
The messages sent, she turned her attention to the marshal. “That was fast, if you don’t mind me saying so. Any idea what happened?”
The tall, lanky man settled down next to her, squeezing into the narrow space between chair and wall. “Seems to me like someone killed her and then slit her throat.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Sam couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Any further revelations you can share?” His body pressed against her side, the heat radiating over her skin. A shiver vibrated through her.
She hadn’t realized until that second how damned cold the cockpit was. Goosebumps dotted her skin as she resisted the urge to move closer.
“Knife was wiped clean. No prints but that’s not a big surprise. At least we know it came from the galley. Saves me trying to find out where on the base it was taken from.”
“Hmm,” Sam replied. “Not much but it’s something. Anything else?”
“How about this?” His hand dipped into an inside pocket in his jacket and came back out. He flicked something into the little bit of emptiness left between them.
The small, clear evidence bag floated in the air.
A token. Blood smeared across one side. She recognized it as the same one she’d handed out not so long ago.
Her stomach lurched.
“You said you gave out a token to one of the men. Is this it?” he asked.
“As far as I can tell.” She jabbed the bag with one finger, sending it spinning end over end. “This is only good on Mercy ships and I doubt the last one gave out a token that didn’t get used. You can check on that, call the previous captain.” A pain started in her gut, spiraling around her spine like a boa constrictor. “It’s likely to be mine.”
“I figured as much.” Daniel said. “I’ve got the order out to find Kowalski—he’s the fellow you gave it to, according to Trainer. He’s not down with the other men in the bay, so he must have slipped off before you locked ’er down.”
“You think he’s the killer.”
“I’m not saying that. I want to talk to him and ask how this got into Comet’s suite covered with blood. I’ll send it off for analysis and see if we can get something off it.”
“You’re not going to get a print,�
� Sam choked out. “These tokens, they’re coated with a special Guild varnish. Doesn’t hold a fingerprint.”
Daniel raised one eyebrow. “Holds blood easily enough.”
“But no print. Part of the Guild’s efforts to keep the clients as anonymous as possible. You’ll be able to confirm it’s her blood but not much else, unless he bled on it himself.”
“Maybe we got lucky and he cut himself on the knife. It’s something, better than nothing.” He tilted his head to one side. “You don’t seem too happy. Care to share?”
She poked at the spinning plastic bag again, stopping its rotation. “I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character. He didn’t strike me as being dangerous.”
“You only saw him for a minute or less, from what I heard. You can’t tell anything about a man in that short a time.”
“No. I can. I have. I have to.” The words came out loud and harsh, almost a shout. “I need to be able to tell. I have to protect my squad.” She stumbled, self-correcting. “My crew. I gave the token out. If I gave it to a killer then I’m responsible for letting this madman get to Halley. I handed him the key and held the door open for him to murder her.” She turned away and studied the screen. Her vision blurred but she resisted the urge to wipe her eyes.
She’d be damned if he’d see her cry on the bridge of her ship.
Daniel’s hand landed on her wrist.
“You’ve got good instincts, Sam. Don’t start doubting yourself. You’ve got what it takes to do this job. You’re a good soldier.” There was a note of pride in his voice, twisting the invisible knife in her belly.
“Past tense. I was a good soldier.” Sam wrenched herself free. “I let this creep get to Halley.”
“It doesn’t mean he killed her,” Daniel said. “I’m not stopping the investigation just on this one possibility. A floating token isn’t proof of anything other than that Kowalski might have been in her room. He’s on the short list but I’m not stopping there. Huckness and I are reviewing the men’s statements, trying to see if anyone stood out as especially angry or with some sort of issues. The chief’s a good man. He’ll speak up if something sounds off or out of place.” He looked out toward the cargo bins being moved across the floor. “I already cleared you as a possible suspect,” Daniel added, almost as if it was an afterthought.
In the Black Page 10