by Troy Denning
Veta crouched down and began to examine the stone pad. She still saw no sign of blood, but there were a couple of faint smears that suggested shoes spinning around. She turned away from the missing bench, then used her handlamp to follow a faint trail of footprints off the pad. The trail was easier to follow over the packed mud floor, and Veta could see that it had been made by two different pairs of shoes. The trail split twenty paces later, with the larger set of tracks turning down the length of the gallery and the smaller set continuing toward the wall.
Veta followed the second trail by the wall. In this area, the stalactites hung so low that many joined with stalagmites to create a cage of thin-waisted columns. In front of this cage lay a large circle of disturbed mud. There were no obvious bloodstains in the mud or on the formation itself. But several columns had been snapped off to punch a hole into the cage.
Veta shined her lamp through the gap and found a stony gray floor marked by eight pale scratch marks. She knew better than to jump to conclusions, but the suggestion was obvious: someone had been clawing at the ground as they were dragged back into the gallery. Scattered across the stone were a few dark dots that resembled blood spatter.
A crisp, speaker-modulated voice sounded behind Veta. “Something wrong, Inspector?”
“Yes,” Veta said. Though she hadn’t heard the Spartan coming up behind her, she managed to avoid drawing the sidearm that her hand was now grasping. “You might want to announce yourself before sneaking up on me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Fred-104 replied. If the Spartan noticed the hand on her pistol grip, it was impossible to tell—as usual, his expression remained hidden behind the faceplate of his helmet. He simply waved back toward the toppled bench, where Halal stood looking in their direction. “Wendell and the major are waiting to continue the briefing.”
“Of course they are.” Veta activated her headset, then pointed her handlamp upward and spoke into her throat mic. “Cirilo, do you see where I am?”
“Yeah, Veta, I see you.”
“I’m dropping a card. Take a casting of the print next to it.” Veta shined her lamp on the Spartan’s boots. “We’ll need it to identify which tracks belong to Fred-104.”
There was a short pause as Cirilo considered the instruction, then he said, “Got it.”
“Good.” Veta pulled a numbered evidence card from her cargo pants and placed it next to the Spartan’s boot. “Make sure the spiders give this area a careful sweep, the works.”
“You know it, mama.”
Veta deactivated her mic and started back toward Halal.
“Mama?” Fred asked, catching up to her. “You don’t look old enough to be his mother.”
Veta smiled. “As in ‘hot mama,’ ” she explained. “Cirilo can be a flirt.”
“I see.” Fred was silent for a moment, then asked, “And it doesn’t bother you?”
Veta shrugged. “He knows who the boss is.” It occurred to her that there was only one way Fred could have heard Cirilo’s side of the conversation. She glanced up at the Spartan, then tapped her ear. “You’re monitoring our network?”
“Wendell is patching in your signal,” Fred confirmed. “It’s for your own security, of course.”
“Your AI is very thoughtful,” Veta said. “I feel safer already.”
Fred dipped his helmet. “Glad to hear it, ma’am.”
They reached the toppled bench and joined Halal, who was looking back toward the evidence card Veta had left standing on the cavern floor. “Find something over there?”
“Maybe,” Veta said. “We’ll know more after Cirilo and his people work their magic. If there’s anything to find, they will.”
“Inspector Lopis, may I suggest you reconsider the allocation of resources?” Wendell asked, speaking from the tacpad strapped to Halal’s arm. “The patrol found Charlie Victim on the opposite side of the gallery, exactly sixteen meters from the toppled bench. The evidence supports Sergeant Boyle’s notation quite clearly.”
“I’m sure it does,” Veta said. “But I’m looking for more than evidence of the murder. I’m looking for clues—and mistakes.”
“Mistakes?” Halal asked. “I thought I made it clear that these sites haven’t been processed as crime scenes. Until my arrival, Battalion wasn’t even classifying—”
“You misunderstand me, Major,” Veta said. “It’s not your mistakes I’m looking for. It’s the killer’s—and this is where we’ll find them.”
Halal looked skeptical. “You sound very certain of that.”
“I am. From what I’m seeing, this is where the first murder occurred. And that means the killer slipped up here.” Veta glanced in Fred’s direction, then added, “They always do, the first time.”
“There’s no support for that hypothesis,” Wendell objected. “You haven’t even begun to collect—”
“Stand by, Wendell.” Halal muted the tacpad speaker, then turned back to Veta. “This was the third death we discovered. What makes you think this was the first killing?”
“Because the killer made rookie mistakes.” Veta pointed to the bench lying at their feet. “First, he didn’t plan his approach. That bench was an obstacle to pursuit. Second, he wasn’t careful to control the situation. He attacked two victims at once.”
“Two victims?” Halal shook his head. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but the patrol only recovered one body. As for the bench, he could have grabbed the victim with one hand and pulled the bench over with the other.”
“Sir, that’s not what the tracks indicate,” Fred said. “The inspector is right. It appears that two people were facing this bench as someone approached. They turned and fled the attacker together, then split up about twenty meters from the vent. One person—probably female, judging by the size of her footwear—took cover near the gallery wall and saw the first victim die. Then the attacker returned and pulled her from hiding.”
Veta turned to the Spartan. Whether he was reading the tracks better than she had or just remembering how it had happened, she could not say. But there was no arguing with his analysis.
“Not a bad read,” she said. “It’s almost like you were there.”
Fred tapped the side of his faceplate. “Enhanced optics, ma’am. And tracking is a basic component of any Spartan MOS.”
“MOS?”
“Military Occupational Specialty,” Halal said. “But it’s not forensic science, Inspector. There might be another interpretation of those tracks.”
“Such as?”
“Maybe they don’t belong to a second victim,” Halal said. “Maybe they belong to the murderer.”
“Interesting idea,” Veta said. That was not the way she read the scene, but Halal was right—she was making assumptions. “Let’s see how it plays. Show me around.”
Halal tapped his tacpad, and they crossed the gallery with Wendell droning on.
“The death site lies sixteen-point-two meters from the overturned bench. While the scene is more expansive and complicated than the others we have identified so far, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a second victim.”
They came to a circle of damp, dark mud, and Wendell announced, “Charlie Victim suffered the primary attack here.”
The smell of decay left no doubt that Wendell was correct. Veta ran the beam of her handlamp over the surrounding ground, eliminating the shadows cast by the powerful work lamps, and located a spray trail leading toward the cavern wall.
“Describe the body position,” Veta said. “And the orientation.”
“Charlie Victim was found on his back with his legs resting against the cavern wall, seven meters from here at bearing South 103 degrees East,” Wendell reported. “His head was pointing in bearing North 42 degrees West.”
Veta looked to Halal. “Translation?”
Halal smiled. “His body came to rest over there.” He pointed at another stain, this one on the cavern wall. “And his head was pointing back toward us.”
“Injurie
s?”
“Worse than anything else we’ve found,” Halal reported. “It took the corpsman a while to decide he was male.”
“So the first kill was the most brutal,” Veta said. “And the first victim was male.”
“You find that significant?” Halal asked.
“Of course.” Veta started toward the cavern wall. “It’s unusual for this kind of serial killer to mix victims of different genders, so knowing that he started with—”
“Excuse me, Inspector,” Fred said. “But Linda says Deputy Inspector Lurone found something you need to see.”
“Linda?” Veta asked.
“Linda-058,” Fred answered. “The escort I sent along to protect your deputy inspector.”
The Spartan turned about three-quarters around and looked into the darkness between two work lamps. A pale crescent of light appeared on the wall of one of the small passages that adjoined the cavern, and a moment later, a scratchy voice came over Veta’s headset.
“. . . hear me yet, boss?” Senola asked. “We’ve got another dead body . . . it’s weird.”
“On my way.” Veta touched Halal’s arm, then deactivated her throat mic and pointed toward the growing crescent of light. “Senola found another body.”
“Your second victim?” Halal asked.
“Maybe. We’ll see.” Knowing the rest of her team would be monitoring the conversation on their own headsets, Veta activated her throat mic again. “Cirilo, keep working the primary scene for now. Be sure the spiders make it to all the blood sites. Use an extra pod if you need to.”
“On it,” Cirilo said. “Stay in touch.”
With Fred leading the way, Veta and Halal crossed the area illuminated by the work lamps and started up a gentle slope. About fifty meters ahead, Linda-058 stood silhouetted by a circle of light, probably Senola’s handlamp shining from the mouth of an intersecting passage. Standing well over two meters tall, Linda wore a full suit of Mjolnir, the same as Fred and the third Spartan escorting Veta’s team. But the outer shell had more of a feminine, hourglass shape, and its color was pale copper rather than bluish. And Linda’s helmet was kind of awkward-looking, with a goggle-like visor and an external apparatus box mounted on each side over the temple.
As Veta and her companions climbed, they began to smell the odor of a decomposing body, and Halal said, “I’ll admit it, Inspector. I’m impressed. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look for a second victim.”
Normally, Veta would have been tempted to offer a lecture on the importance of letting the scene tell its own story, but that would have been a waste of breath. From what she had seen so far, Halal had been sent here to manage the problem first and solve a crime second, so the best way to win his cooperation would be to let him know she had no interest in making his job difficult.
“The Ministry sent its best, Major,” Veta said. “President Aponte just wants the killer stopped. He has no interest in blaming the UNSC. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’s under tremendous pressure to end your occupation of the Montero Vitality Center, and naming a UNSC suspect would force his hand.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s better for everyone to catch this person as soon as possible,” Veta replied. “The longer this goes on, the worse it is for everyone.”
Halal was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I can see that,” he said. “But if the killer turns out to be UNSC, it would still be a political nightmare for us. The trial would make headlines all the way to Earth.”
“Trial?” Veta asked. “You need to do your research, Major Halal. I’m not a big fan of trials.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Inspector.”
Veta flashed a knowing smile. “Sure you do,” she said. “Just think about it.”
Halal’s brow shot up, but he said nothing and looked away. As they drew close to the passage where the body had been found, he put a hand over his nose and stopped a few steps short. Clearly, he was not accustomed to murder scenes.
The Spartan, Linda-058, was standing next to the mouth of the passage, her waist about level with the top. Senola stood on the opposite side of the opening, her knees, gloves, and hair smeared with dirt.
“The DB is fifty meters back,” Senola said, still breathing hard from the crawl. She raised a round, hand-size device that appeared to be mostly lens surrounded by a ring of lamps—an Alternate Light Source Imager that recorded crime scenes across a wide spectrum of visible and nonvisible light. “I have some good shots, so you don’t need to go in there if you don’t want to. It gets pretty tight.”
“Female?” Veta asked. “You’re sure?”
“No doubt,” Senola said. “She’s in third-stage decomp, but she’s still recognizable.”
“Good,” Veta said. “Any insect colonization? It would be nice to get a date of death on this one.”
Senola nodded. “There are a bunch of different bugs,” she said. “But I don’t know if we’ll have files on the larva. They’re all troglobites—white and blind, antennae as long as my finger . . . stuff like that.”
“We’ll figure out something,” Veta said. “There has to be a quainto somewhere who’s made a career out of studying cave insects.”
Veta stooped down and shined her handlamp into the crawlway, then forced herself to look. It was not easy. As a teenager, she had spent three weeks in hell, held captive in a stone cellar the size of a coat closet. She had finally managed to escape by scratching the mortar from around a rock and smashing her abductor’s skull into porridge, but killing him had not freed her entirely—not in the ways that really counted. She still feared tight spaces and breath that smelled of tobacco gum and a man’s fingers running through her hair. She still feared a lot of things.
Veta chased away the memory and forced herself to concentrate. In the center of the crawlway, she could see Senola’s hand- and knee-prints straddling a shallow furrow on the floor. The furrow was perhaps thirty centimeters wide and so faint it was almost unrecognizable.
“Drag mark?” she asked.
“That’s right, all the way back to the DB,” Senola confirmed. “But no sign of who did the dragging.”
Veta continued to study the passage. Only a meter in diameter, it was too small for a Spartan in full armor. Of course, armor could be removed.
About three meters in, Veta spotted the gray, thumb-size lozenge of a motion sensor stuck to the passage wall. A single set of hand- and knee-prints overlaid the drag marks, running back to the motion sensor and no farther. It was hard to imagine someone missing the smell of the dead woman, so either someone had planted the sensor before the smell grew too bad, or they were outfitted with breathing filters.
“No knee or hand tracks past the body?” Veta asked, just confirming what Senola had already told her. “No prints or scuffs on the walls?”
“Nothing, boss,” Senola said. “I can’t explain it, but I checked with an alternate light source, mag lens, UV, infra—everything I had with me.”
“Then I’d better let Cirilo have the scene first.”
Hoping her relief would not be too obvious, Veta backed away from the passage and stood. Everyone on her own team knew of her abduction and her problem with confined spaces, but that was hardly something she wanted to share with her UNSC counterparts—particularly not when one of them might be the serial killer she was hunting. She turned to Senola.
“Why don’t you show us the shots?”
“Sure.” Senola began to tap the ALSI controls, then raised the viewfinder so Veta and Halal could see. “This one is probably the most interesting.”
The display showed the decomposing figure of a female corpse dressed in torn black slacks and a bloodstained blouse embroidered with flowers. While the cause of death was not immediately apparent, her bloody clothes and smashed nose indicated a violent death. But her body had been laid out on its back as though she were resting, with her hands clasped across her chest and her eyelids held shut by a pair of small pebbles.
“
Now, that is interesting,” Veta said.
“Yeah?” Linda-058 asked over her shoulder. “You don’t see a lot of people beaten to death on Gao?”
“I’m afraid we do,” Veta said. “But this time, it looks like the killer felt remorse.”
CHAPTER 2
* * *
* * *
0908 hours, July 2, 2553 (military calendar)
Crime Scene Charlie, 104 meters belowground,
Montero Cave System,
Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System
The green digits of the heads-up display inside Fred’s helmet showed an elapsed time of ten minutes and thirty-two seconds. That was how long it had been since Inspector Lopis had last climbed the slope to peer into the cramped passage—technically a crawlway—where the decomposed body had been found. And now Lopis was back again for the seventh time in eighty-seven minutes, crouching beside him to check on the progress of subordinates who clearly did not need supervision. Under different circumstances, he might have thought she was fond of his company.
But Fred had watched enough soldiers fight their demons to recognize what he was seeing. Inspector Lopis had a fear of confined spaces, and it was a weakness she hated in herself. He could tell that by the general tension of her body and the way she always forced herself to stare into the crawlway for a full sixty seconds before backing away. Most telling, though, was her loss of focus. She had stopped trying to provoke him—and Fred didn’t think it was because she had ruled him out as a suspect.
Inside the crawlway, the deputy inspector and trace evidence specialist were preparing to remove the body. Having already inspected, photographed, and collected samples and evidence from every meter of passage between the entrance and the victim, they were now spreading the body bag over the corpse, open side down, with the deputy inspector at the feet and the trace evidence specialist at the head. The pair appeared to have a surprising amount of experience in tight spaces, for they were working in near silence and seemed untroubled by the smell.