Paloma

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “I’m Justinian Wagner,” the man said as he shook Nyquist’s hand. “I’m a lawyer in town.”

  Not just a lawyer, but one of the best lawyers in this section of the galaxy. Word was if you had a problem that wouldn’t go away, you went to Justinian Wagner.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Nyquist said.

  Wagner smiled. His teeth were a shade too white. His eyes also sparkled like a glass of water in Dome Daylight. If Nyquist had to guess, he would wager that the sparkle and the teeth were part of the same enhancement.

  “Well, good, then,” Wagner said. “I don’t have to do many preliminaries.”

  Preliminaries. This could take forever. Nyquist took his hand back, resisting the urge to wipe it off.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time for any preliminaries,” he said. “I am late for a meeting.”

  “A meeting when you have a murder to investigate?”

  Nyquist made certain his expression remained the same. Still, he felt a little jolt run through him. The department had been careful not to leak too many details to the media. One of the details it held back was the name of the investigating detective.

  “There’s always a murder to investigate,” Nyquist said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Yes, there’s always a murder.” Wagner blocked his way. “But this is the first time the deceased is related to me. I insist you give me some time.”

  Nyquist didn’t say anything. Sometimes lawyers used tricks like this to find out information from police officers. Still, Nyquist would have expected more from The Wagner of Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor, Ltd.

  Wagner’s smile was gone and so was his sparkle. Now he seemed powerful and somehow dangerous. Nyquist wondered if the enhancements actually changed his features slightly with his moods. Nyquist had heard of such things, mostly on lower-level actors who couldn’t make the changes themselves.

  He supposed it made sense for attorneys to do the same thing.

  “You’re not saying anything.” Wagner crossed his arms. “Have I surprised you?”

  “I’m waiting for you to move, so that I can leave,” Nyquist said.

  “You’re investigating the death of Paloma. Her real name is Lucianna Stuart.” Wagner’s mouth was a thin line. “She’s my mother.”

  “Very effective,” Nyquist said. “Very dramatic. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “You still don’t want to talk to me?” Wagner asked.

  Nyquist did, but he also felt like he was being manipulated. He loathed being manipulated. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to Wagner, then find out the man had lied to get some version of the truth.

  “If you’d like to discuss something with me,” Nyquist said, “make an appointment. Otherwise, I have nothing to say to you at this moment. Excuse me.”

  He pushed past, but Wagner caught his arm. “I have all the documentation. I also have sources that told me the moment my mother died. I have information that you might want, things that she did, things that she knew, cases she worked on, and enemies she made.”

  Nyquist shook his arm free. He was getting angry. “I’m sorry,” he said, not feeling sorry at all. “We can discuss this at your appointment. I must get to my meeting.”

  “It’s more important than a grieving citizen?”

  In no way did Justinian Wagner look like a man who was grieving. He looked like a man with an agenda, a man who was used to getting his own way.

  “Mr. Wagner,” Nyquist said. “I’m sorry to hear about your loss—” he hoped that was good enough to cover himself, so that he wouldn’t get blamed for telling Wagner Paloma was dead if, indeed, Wagner was lying to him “—but this meeting is critical for a variety of reasons that I can’t go into. So if you would like to have a discussion with me, make an appointment. Otherwise, I will find you when I have a chance.”

  “I need to talk with you now. There are important legal matters—”

  “I’ve explained my position,” Nyquist said.

  “And if you do not make me a priority, I’ll go to the mayor,” Wagner said. “And if he won’t listen, then I’ll go to the governor-general.”

  Nyquist would have called that bluff if Wagner had stopped with the mayor. Nyquist was convinced DeRicci would have protected him against the mayor. But she wouldn’t go against the governor-general who was, ostensibly, DeRicci’s boss.

  Nyquist sighed. “I’m not going to use your information. Give me a minute. If what you say checks out, then we’ll talk briefly.”

  Wagner’s lips turned upwards slightly, just enough to make him seem self-satisfied. If he truly had emotion enhancers, he needed to have them calibrated to have the smarminess removed.

  Or maybe Nyquist just didn’t like self-important rich men, no matter who they were.

  “Thank you,” Wagner said, trying and failing to sound grateful. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Yeah, you will,” Nyquist said. In no way was he letting that man into his office, at least not until the information checked out.

  Nyquist threaded his way around the desks, then went to the office next to his. He wasn’t going to use his: he’d heard too many stories of information getting tampered with even within the department. If Justinian Wagner could manipulate his eyes so that they had just the right amount of sparkle, he could manipulate information on such a fine level that it only appeared on Nyquist’s system.

  Nyquist smiled to himself. He was being paranoid. But he still didn’t go into his office. He sat behind the desk of the other office, activated the desktop screen, and searched for Justinian Wagner’s birth records.

  They were easy to find. Wagner had been born only a few blocks from here. His arrival into this universe had been recorded—date stamped, time stamped, image stamped, and DNA stamped—and the exhausted mother in the background, a woman who had clearly gone through normal childbirth although other options existed, looked nothing like the body Nyquist had found in Paloma’s apartment.

  That meant nothing, of course. Decades had gone by. Enhancements made people look different from moment to moment. There was no way to identify people based on a simple glance any more.

  The birth record listed the mother as Lucianna Stuart, and the father as Claudius Wagner, both of Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor. Nyquist felt a shiver run through him. Affairs between lawyers left him unsettled. The fact that these two who, according to the preliminary bios that came with the birth records, were the founding partners of WSX, had created the galaxy’s best (or perhaps best-known) attorney, unsettled Nyquist even farther.

  He couldn’t find a DNA comparison that showed him Lucianna Stuart and Paloma were the same woman. He supposed he could run a comparison between the DNA of Wagner’s birth record and DNA taken from Paloma’s death scene, but that would simply put too much information in a not-well-protected system.

  For all Nyquist knew, that kind of information was precisely what Wagner wanted.

  Instead, Nyquist looked for evidence that Lucianna Stuart had changed her name. And he found it more quickly than he would have expected—a court record from forty years ago, making the name change legal, and transferring all of Lucianna Stuart’s assets to her new identity.

  Wagner wasn’t lying, at least about his parentage.

  Nyquist sighed. He sent a message to DeRicci on his links: Surprise interview subject just walked into the office. Can we reschedule in two hours?

  Instantly, a reply flashed under his left eye. Trouble?.

  Don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I see you.

  Okay. I’ll be here.

  He signed off, set an internal timer for ninety minutes in the off chance that he got involved in the discussion with Wagner, and went back into the mass of desks.

  Wagner was where Nyquist had left him, standing in the same position, as if he expected to get sued if he moved. Of course, Wagner knew that the department had a high level of surveillance and probably knew that any move he made would be suspect.

  Which ma
de Nyquist think of a question he hadn’t asked. “How did you get in here?”

  “Didn’t my information check out?” Wagner asked.

  “You need a code to enter—” That was a lie. The door was actually primed to the various detectives’ DNA. “—And I know you don’t have one.”

  “I’m an officer of the court,” Wagner said with a smile. “I can get in anywhere.”

  “With the help of the right judge,” Nyquist said, letting the bitterness he felt fill his voice. He hated the way that people like Wagner manipulated the system. He felt it endemic of the way that the entire Earth Alliance catered to money and power instead of valuing human life.

  The rise of corporations, Nyquist’s old history professor had said, was the death of compassion in the law.

  If there ever had been compassion in the law. Nyquist had studied enough Earth history to know that the law used to vary from human culture to human culture, and often didn’t have compassion for anyone.

  But he liked to imagine a time when it had been incorruptible, when judges didn’t open doors for famous lawyers, when Disappearance Services didn’t exist, when people took priority over aliens.

  He surprised himself. He had thought the job had beat the idealism out of him. He could hardly believe that it hadn’t.

  “A person has to take advantage of every opportunity,” Wagner said with a shrug, responding to Nyquist’s bitterness as if he hadn’t even heard it.

  “You mean create those opportunities.”

  Wagner smiled, but this time his eyes didn’t sparkle. That made the look seem slightly terrifying. “A man does what he has to do to get results.”

  Nyquist didn’t like to be called a “result,” but he didn’t argue any longer. Instead, he led Wagner to the office he’d used before. For some reason, he didn’t want the man anywhere near his personal space.

  Nyquist shoved a chair toward Wagner and waited for him to sit in it before taking the chair behind the desk. Even then, with a desk between them, Nyquist felt as if he were at a disadvantage. Wagner wanted something, and he wanted it from Nyquist.

  Nyquist wasn’t sure if the blunt approach was best or if he should dance his way around the subject.

  He finally decided that Wagner was better at the dance than he was. Nyquist would be better off being blunt.

  “You seem to believe there’s some kind of time crunch,” Nyquist said. “I have a hunch that crunch has to do with your interests, not your mother’s. So tell me what you want.”

  Wagner raised his eyebrows. The look was theatrical and had an edge of contempt, but like his other looks, it was effective. “Is this how you treat all grieving children of murdered parents?”

  Maybe that comment would have shamed Nyquist when he was a young cop. But he had seen enough misery to know that a lot of children didn’t grieve when their parents died. And so far, Wagner had shown no sign of grief.

  Nyquist was also smart enough not to comment on it. He valued his job too much to hand Wagner something that potentially dangerous.

  “Forgive me,” he said, mimicking Wagner’s smooth tones. “I was being insensitive. It’s just that time is of the essence here, and I need to get to the point.”

  “You don’t think that I know something about my mother’s death?”

  Nyquist suppressed a sigh. By not dancing, he’d ceded control of the interview to Wagner. Wagner was going to play this for all he could, no matter what.

  “I think you’ve already given us valuable information. All of the information pertaining to the name change had been filed under Lucianna Stuart, not Paloma. By giving us next of kin, you’ve enabled us to announce what happened, which might help us gather more information. You’ve already helped us by saving me countless hours. I appreciate that. Now I want to know what brought you here when you could easily have sent that information through the links.”

  The bite was in his last sentence. Wagner caught it, and acknowledged it with a nod.

  “My parents were estranged,” he said.

  Not divorced, which Nyquist found interesting in and of itself. Since they had kept their names, there was no easy way to tell if they had been officially married or just had a legal partnership.

  Either way, the investigation had just gotten tangled because of Paloma’s involvement with one of the best legal minds of his generation.

  “My mother took many of the files pertaining to her clients in the law firm,” Wagner said.

  “When?” Nyquist asked.

  Wagner sighed. He clearly didn’t want to discuss this part in detail. “After my brother was born, my parents separated. My mother took her legal files and left. She changed her name. She began a new profession which, oddly, led her back to our firm in a new capacity. But we never did get those legal files back. And when my parents became completely estranged, my mother went into business for herself and took the remaining files from her work with us.”

  “You want the files back,” Nyquist said, astonished by Wagner’s coldness.

  “Of course I do,” Wagner said. “But that’s not what interests me the most. My mother knew a lot of secrets. She hinted at many things.”

  Blackmail? Nyquist wondered, but didn’t ask. Not yet.

  “If you believe knowledge is power, then you must know that my mother was one of the most powerful people on the Moon.”

  Another shiver ran through Nyquist. If she had that kind of information—the kind that gave her a great deal of personal power—then it stood to reason that she had a lot of enemies, too.

  “You want her power,” Nyquist said.

  Irritation flashed through Wagner’s eyes, but didn’t reflect on his face. Nyquist had a hunch that was the first real emotion he’d seen from Wagner since this conversation began.

  “I’m sure we’d all like that kind of power,” Wagner said. “But I was thinking that my mother’s murderer might be profiled in those files.”

  “You think someone had cause to hate her that much? Someone she worked with?” Nyquist asked.

  Wagner’s face became completely smooth, no emotion reflected on it at all. “We all hated her that much, detective. Everyone who knew her.”

  “Even Miles Flint?” Nyquist asked.

  Wagner shrugged. “I have no idea. But I suspect he is as big an opportunist as my mother was. He was the only person I know who could manipulate her. Or maybe she was ready for a young, exotic lover. I’m not sure and I don’t want to speculate. Would you want to speculate about your mother and her lovers?”

  Nyquist tried not to let the image penetrate, although it did for just a moment. His mother still lived in the house he grew up in, not far from the center of Glenn Station, and to his knowledge, she hadn’t had a lover since his father died.

  But then, Nyquist hadn’t asked. As Wagner said, he didn’t want to know.

  “I thought Flint’s relationship with your mother was purely professional,” Nyquist said.

  “Then why does he inherit everything?” Wagner asked.

  “You’ve looked at the will?” Nyquist asked.

  “Of course I did. Legal matters are usually the last thing taken care of, and they should always be one of the first.”

  Especially when you stood to inherit a large estate. Nyquist didn’t say that, however. Instead, he asked, “So you’re sure Flint inherits everything?”

  “I haven’t seen the most recent draft. Mother’s lawyer has yet to contact us. But the copy she placed into safety storage a year ago names Flint as her primary beneficiary.

  “Not the sole beneficiary?” Nyquist asked.

  “A few charities.” Wagner shrugged, as if charities didn’t matter. “A couple of smaller heirlooms to me and Ignatius. Nothing more.”

  His face was still smooth, as if he didn’t know what emotion to plug into it so he didn’t plug in any.

  “Does Flint know this?” Nyquist asked, doubly glad now that he had brought the man to the crime scene. Flint had just become the main suspect
, and Nyquist knew his reaction to finding the scene.

  “How should I know what he knows?” Wagner asked. “I’ve never spoken to the man.”

  That reaction sounded genuine, as well. Wagner’s irritation was growing, even though he kept his face controlled. Nyquist resisted the urge to smile.

  Somewhere along the way, he had retaken control of this interview.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, pretending more deference than he felt. “I still don’t understand the time crunch.”

  “My mother had a ship. It’s called the Lost Seas. It’s still registered to Lucianna Stuart.”

  “It doesn’t matter what name it’s under,” Nyquist said. “It’ll still be part of your mother’s estate. It’ll go to Miles Flint.”

  “No, it won’t,” Wagner said. “At least, not for a while, anyway. You see, the Space Port confiscated that ship.”

  “You want us to find it,” Nyquist said.

  “I know where it is,” Wagner said. “The port confiscated it, but never turned it over to any authorities. It still sits in its dock in Terminal 35. It has space-port locks and warning lights all around it, but anyone with authority can go in and out.”

  “You want me to go in,” Nyquist said.

  “You need to get the port to turn the ship over to the police.”

  “I’m sure you’re doing this to aid in the investigation,” Nyquist said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

  “My mother kept everything in that ship,” Wagner said. “I’ll help you go through the files. I’ll help you understand them. I won’t take a document from it—”

  “So long as you can look at them,” Nyquist said.

  Wagner smiled. “You’re quite bright, you know that?”

  He left off “for a police officer,” but it was implied. Nyquist tried not to bristle. He wasn’t being that successful at it.

  “All right,” Nyquist said. “The moment the ship’s in police custody, I’ll contact you. We’ll go in it together.”

  Wagner nodded. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, detective.”