“He’s running back to his Shurpali masters,” guessed Sanchez.
“Shurpali might just be a middleman. The money may be coming from someone else and simply being funneled through the company. Then again, it could be that Banks isn’t running back here to anyone.”
Sanchez looked puzzled.
“Maybe he’s running away from somebody. In any case, he’s somewhere on Tezrina, I’m certain of it.”
* * * *
The next morning, Ellis Dorham was not so certain. “Sister, maybe coming to Tezrina was a mistake,” he groaned, lingering over a plate of griddle cakes.
“Calm yourself,” she said between sips of coffee. “We’ve only been here for one day. Of course, I’ll grant you that yesterday wasn’t exactly the most productive day ever. Look, eat some breakfast and you will feel better.”
‘Not a productive day’ was an understatement—yesterday had been a disaster. Arriving at the Twelve Palms SSB office, one would have thought that Dorham and Sanchez were plague carriers. Dorham got a few grunts of recognition from his former colleagues, but nothing more. His supposed friend Inspector Cascadden curtly explained that the word had come down—no one was to help Dorham with anything. As to where those orders came from, Cascadden wasn’t saying. It was clear there would be no cooperation from local State Security. When it came to the business of finding Auric Banks, they were completely on their own.
And so, on their own, they stumbled around town for the remainder of the day hitting one dead end after another. Most of the street contacts Dorham had back when he was posted in Twelve Palms were long gone. To top it off, when they returned to the hotel, Dorham discovered that he couldn’t tap into the Tezrina SSB computer net like he had on Quijano. A perfect ending to a perfect day.
“Is everything all right here?” asked their server while passing by.
“Guess I’m not hungry this morning,” said Dorham, who had only eaten a few bites. “Just take this away and bring me another juice.”
The young man looked to Sanchez. “Just a warm up for me,” she said lifting her cup. “And my breakfast was delicious, thank you.” As the server withdrew, Sanchez tried to brighten Dorham’s mood. “We’ve already struck out with the local State Security and half the taxi drivers in town,” she said winking at him. “Let’s try to keep the good folks here at the Harvest Hut on our side, shall we? At least they are on speaking terms with us, unlike your SSB buddies.” The Harvest Hut Diner was a small greasy spoon around the corner from their hotel, a convenient place to grab breakfast and plan their next move.
Dorham sighed. “The SSB folks here were never exactly my buddies, but the cold shoulder we got yesterday was a bit much.”
“Curious about that,” said Sanchez, her hands wrapped around the coffee cup as they soaked in its warmth. “Cascadden said the word to not cooperate with us came down from above, but he didn’t say how high. It sounded like he meant somewhere in Esterkeep. Superintendent Preiss himself maybe?”
“Or the Directorate. Or the Empress herself—after all, I am investigating the possibility that her husband ordered an assassination. I know Cascadden was only following orders, but he didn’t have to be such a jerk about it.”
“Yeah, he reminded me of a character I used to know when I was in the Space Force. We were both stationed on Presidio Station. The guy was a real prick—Cascadden even looks like him. Anyway, it wasn’t what this guy did, it was the way he did it, always with a sneer on his face. Man, I wanted to break that jerk’s face more than once. I had the same feeling with Cascadden yesterday as he was not so politely telling us to get lost.”
“Well, if you’re into bone breaking—faces or otherwise—this is the place to do it,” said Dorham, sipping at his juice. Sanchez didn’t get the reference, tilting her head in curiosity.
“Most of the doctors on Tezrina are in orthopedics,” Dorham explained. “Because of the heavy gravity. A minor fall on Quijano or Sarissa could be life-threatening here. So if you want to break bones there are a lot of people around to fix the damage. There’s also a lot of docs in internal medicine. The heavy gees play hell with human organs. That’s my wife’s thing, internal medicine. She’s a paraphysician over in Cape Trinity.”
“You mean your ex-wife. How long have you two been divorced?”
Dorham looked sheepishly at her. “Well, we’re not exactly divorced, just separated.”
“Oh, I just assumed…” Her voice trailed off and she took another sip of coffee to cover her embarrassment. “So, how long have you been apart?”
“Just over a year now. We still speak on a regular basis, but—I don’t know… It’s complicated.”
“It always is. Kids?”
Dorham shook his head and silence fell between them. Gazing out the window, Sanchez suddenly became aware of how dark it was outside. Even though it was already mid-morning, street lights glowed to combat a blackness that would last for ninety more standard hours.
“So we are both in limbo,” said Sanchez finally.
“Limbo?”
“With our marriages.” Forcing a smile, she lifted one hand and ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know where Frank is, and you and your wife still love each other but can’t make it work.”
“Why do you say we still love each other?”
“Either of you involved with anyone else?”
“No. She’s busy with her work and—”
“So neither of you is involved with anyone else and you keep in touch on a regular basis, but you still haven’t gotten divorced. What’s holding things up?”
“Well, we… That is to say, I…” Finding no words, Dorham simply shrugged.
“You ought to visit her,” she said looking around for the server. Time to pay up and do something with the day. Neither Carr nor Auric Banks were likely to walk into the Harvest Hut anytime soon. “Cape Trinity is not that far away, and since you are already on the planet anyway, you should stop in. She might like a chance to talk.”
“And she might… not…” Dorham had a funny look on his face, and Sanchez was sure his brain had shifted gears. “Sanchez, what did you say?”
“You ought to drop by and see your wife.”
“No, no—before that. Back, something about being stationed somewhere in the Space Force.”
Sanchez closed her eyes to try and think. When she opened them, Dorham was pulling his personal pad out of its carrying bag.
“I said I was stationed on Presidio Station at one time. What is it? What have you got?”
“I remember something I saw in Auric Banks’ file, about somewhere he was stationed,” said the Inspector as his eyes raced across the datapad screen. “It was here. Banks was stationed here in Twelve Palms when he was a junior officer. As a young lieutenant he pulled a stint at Camp Bellefontaine, just outside of town.”
“That’s a desert training facility. Lots of Marines go through there. What are you driving at?”
“This business of dropping in to see my wife,” said Dorham as he scrolled the screen.
Suddenly, Sanchez saw where he was going. “See if he had an off-duty address.”
“Here it is—Banks lived off base when he was stationed here, at seventeen Nestor Lane. That’s over in the Deepwell District. It says in the public database that the house is owned by someone named Marcia Kincaid. Wow, she’s lived there for the past twenty-four years.” Dorham laid the datapad down on the table. “Banks didn’t run back to Shurpali Corp—he ran back to an old lover.”
“We don’t know that,” said Sanchez. “I mean, we are really grasping at straws here.”
“There’s only one way to find out. Besides, what do we have to lose?”
“Quite a lot if someone tries to kill us again.” The attack at Dorham’s apartment had been made to retrieve the polydrive from Leo Sanchez’s home computer console. Before the excursion to Tezrina, Sanchez sent the item in question to friends on Earth via a commercial courier. The bad guys didn’t know t
hat however, and when they failed to find Leo’s polydrive after tossing their hotel room, she and Dorham would again be in the crosshairs.
“Sister, nobody’s going to kill us—you won’t let that happen. Besides, there’s an old saying around these parts: ‘Only the worthy survive Tezrina.’”
* * * *
“How can anyone drink so much coffee?” asked Dorham as they walked through the Deepwell District.
“It’s cold out here.” Sanchez tossed the empty cup in a street-side trash receptacle. “By the way, thanks for buying me the coat.”
“I wanted to keep you warm,” said Dorham. Even in the dim illumination of the street lighting, Sanchez was certain she saw him blush. “You know what I mean,” he added quickly.
His flustered state amused her, something she badly needed on this black afternoon. This morning Dorham had been melancholy, but by the afternoon the blues had shifted to Sanchez. She hadn’t seen Carr now for almost six months and could sense that time was running out. What if she never saw him again? Even worse, what if she never knew what happened to him? That would be a despair stronger than she could endure, and the thought of it was an unwelcome distraction as they got closer to Marcia Kincaid’s place at 17 Nestor Lane.
Twelve Palms was a sprawling mining town with few upscale neighborhoods—Deepwell wasn’t one of them. It looked to be mostly temporary housing which had become permanent over time. Flimsy two-story prefab apartment units had been mixed in with some more attractive single family dwellings. Also scattered about were convenience stores, bars, and a brothel or two. Clearly, zoning wasn’t high on the city government’s priorities.
“Rough neighborhood,” she quietly commented to Dorham as they strolled past a group of men sitting on a stoop having an afternoon beer. Even in the cool of the midday darkness, many of the building windows were open, allowing inside sounds to cascade onto the sidewalk. Music blasted from media consoles. One couple was having an argument while another noisily made love for all to hear.
“It’s not actually as bad as it looks,” Dorham said. “Now the Palatine District over on the western edge of town—that’s really nasty.”
“There are a lot of people on the street.”
“Well, it’s the middle of the afternoon. I know it’s weird to an off-worlder, but spending time outside in the dark days is a lot more comfortable than when the Bonnies are burning bright.” They were coming to the end of Candish Street. “Up here at the corner we take a left.”
The sight of two strangers getting out of a taxi right in front of Marcia Kincaid’s house might have spooked whoever was inside, so Sanchez had the driver drop them a few blocks away. As they turned onto Nestor Lane, the rowdiness of Candish Street abruptly vanished. Nestor Lane was quiet and nearly deserted. It was like night and day, or in this case, night and—night. Other than their own footsteps and the occasional burst of noise from one block over, Nestor was disarmingly serene.
Sanchez pushed her hands deep into her coat pockets. She wanted to keep warm and also be ready with her pistol in case it was needed. Dorham halted one house short to make sure they had located the correct address. The Kincaid residence was a modest brick veneer house, the kind you saw everywhere in Twelve Palms. “Does that say seventeen next to the door?” he asked. “It’s a little hard to see.”
“Pretty sure it does,” said Sanchez. The house numbers were small, and it didn’t help that half the streetlights on Nestor Lane were dark. The light from Tezrina’s two moons provided some help, but not much.
As they stood on the sidewalk peering into the darkness, a nearby door opened and a lady came out of her house being pulled along by a dog on a leash. The canine led her to a nearby bush, and as the pooch did its business, the woman gawked intently at the two strangers.
“Uh oh,” muttered Dorham under his breath. “Nosey neighbor. I know how these people are—never met a Tezrinan who didn’t want to talk. She’s gonna come over here.”
When the dog finished its business, the woman tugged at the leash and turned in their direction. As she came closer, Sanchez grabbed the front of Dorham’s jacket.
“Kiss me.”
Dorham gave her a startled look. “Huh?”
“Kiss me, dammit.” Sanchez pulled him close and crashed her lips into his. He tried to pull back, but he didn’t try very hard. Wrapping his arms around her, the two of them found unexpected warmth in the cold, shadowy afternoon as the neighbor lady and her dog passed by.
The truth was, it felt good in Dorham’s arms. Sanchez’s mouth was pressed against his, but her heart and mind were with Frank. The warmth of his lips, the comfort of his arms. For a few precious moments, Sanchez escaped the purgatory of the past six months and was back where she wanted to be—or at least that’s what she pretended.
Dorham was pretending pretty good himself. He held her tightly as he kissed her mouth, then her cheek, and finally nuzzled at her neck. The neighbor with the dog must have long since passed by.
“I think she’s gone,” whispered Sanchez. Gently, and with what seemed to be some hesitation, Dorham released her. The two of them just stood there for a moment.
“Sorry about that,” said Sanchez. “It’s an old trick to…”
“Yeah, people won’t interrupt a kissing couple, I get it.” Dorham took another step back and put his hands inside his coat pockets. “Sorry, guess I got a little carried away.”
“No problem. It was… nice.” Sanchez nodded toward 17 Nestor Lane. “Come on. We should go knock on that door.”
They had already decided that Sanchez would take the front while Dorham covered the back of the house—and any attempt by Auric Banks to flee. It was all still the longest of shots that he was even here. After giving Dorham a minute to get into position, she knocked at the door.
“Hello! Ms. Kincaid? Hello!”
Pulling her pistol out of her coat pocket and standing to one side, Sanchez reached with her free hand to see if she could turn the door handle. It was unlocked. As she twisted the handle and pushed open the door, she heard a faint sound—a click.
Bomb!
Swiftly, she turned, took a quick step, and dove as far away from the door as possible, landing close to the sidewalk. Covering her head with her hands she waited for the explosion, but nothing happened. Still on the ground, she glanced up and down the street. In the distance she heard a barking dog and noticed it was the neighbor lady, far down the street but returning at a fast clip. The woman must have made a short loop up to the corner and back.
Rising, Sanchez quickly moved into the dark house. Kneeling just inside the doorway with both hands on her raised pistol, she saw nothing except the dim glow of a wall mounted home control box on the far wall.
“House, lights to fifty percent.”
The lights came up slowly, revealing two bodies lying on the living room floor—a man and a woman. Before she moved to them, Sanchez turned back to close the door and then froze in place—there was a snare mine attached to the wall behind the door. So I did hear a click—it just didn’t detonate.
“Etta,” a man’s voice called out.
She whipped around and pointed her gun.
“Whoa! Whoa! It’s me, Dorham!” he said raising his hands in the air. “Easy, Sis, easy.”
Taking a deep breath, she said the words as calmly as she could. “Gotta bomb over here.” Turning back to examine the booby trap, straight away she understood why the explosive had malfunctioned. The opening of the door was supposed to trigger the device, but someone had taken a kitchen knife and used it to detach the detonator spring. Both the spring and knife were lying on the floor.
“Again with the guardian angel,” said a relieved Dorham, hovering over her shoulder.
“That’s the second time he’s helped us out.”
“He?”
Sanchez made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Let’s look around. House, lights up full.”
“What a mess,” said Dorham, who for the first time turned
his attention to the two bodies on the floor.
Sanchez moved to kneel over the dead man. “Inspector Dorham, meet Auric Banks.” He had been shot in the back of the head, as had the woman lying three meters from him. She was almost certainly the house owner, Marcia Kincaid. “And now we know why he came to Twelve Palms.”
“I don’t follow,” said Dorham.
“Ellis, I think you were right before. Banks fled Quijano to return to his friends here on Tezrina, and then realized he had made a mistake—they weren’t his friends anymore. So he turned to the only other person in town that he knew.” Sanchez stared at the woman’s body. “And he got her killed too.”
The Inspector shook his head. In their work, Dorham and Sanchez had both seen innocent people die, poor bastards in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was never fair. “I’ll have a look in the back.”
Sanchez stood and looked around the room, trying to piece it all together. All of this has to tie in with Carr somehow. Whoever killed Uncle Leo didn’t just pick Frank Carr’s DNA at random to leave behind at the ranch. Why would they try to implicate him? Is it a plot to embarrass the OMI? What the hell is going on? Staring down at the two bodies, a shiver up her spine. Whoever they are, they play for keeps…
Dorham called out. “Sanchez! Got another one in the bedroom!”
She quickly moved to the back of the small house and found the Inspector crouched over a body lying face up on the floor.
“This one’s alive—barely,” said Dorham. The man’s face had been pummeled and was covered with fresh cuts and bruises. Blood was soaking through his shirt from a wound in his side. “Whoever did it probably left him for dead.”
As she looked down at the man, her face took on an odd expression.
“You recognize him?” asked Dorham.
“I do,” she said, kneeling beside the man and reaching out to him with trembling hands. “This is my husband. This is Frank Carr.”
Keeper of the Sun (Starhold Series Book 3) Page 19