Cyber Way

by Alan Dean Foster

  Every year when the regular examinations came round he always managed to shed just enough poundage to scrape by, subsequent to which profuse ingestion of beer rapidly returned him to the rotund form to which his colleagues had become accustomed.

  Another reason for his early move to Florida had been a misplaced desire for excitement and sophistication. What a letdown to discover that in a highly charged urban environment those were only euphemisms for more degenerate forms of crime. He stayed anyway.

  He could have joined a Mississippi department but without ever enjoying the prospect of rapid and regular promotion, simply because there weren’t as many people to police. Nevertheless, he was surprised when he’d made detective. His background and lack of personality worked against him, not to mention the fact that he was no ass-kisser like half the kids in the department.

  What he did have was a dogged, pit-bull persistence that insisted no case was unsolvable, no mystery too convoluted to crack. When others gave up, he persevered. Turn out to be right a few times in such matters and even disinterested higher-ups take notice. Apparently one or two had done just that. His was an attitude that would have been a hindrance on a SWAT team but which in a detective was a positive attribute.

  Even after his unexpected promotion they rarely threw any of the glamour jobs his way. That suited Moody just fine. He didn’t like seeing his picture on the vid, because he took a lousy picture. If someone stuck a vocup in his face he became helplessly inarticulate. When not assigned to the street he actually enjoyed being stuck at a desk, accessing the mollys with his desk spinner, doing the tedious, boring, dirty bits of police work that never made the evening news. He abhorred publicity. If a vidwit showed up at the station asking questions about a case he happened to be involved with, Moody always managed to find a colleague willing to usurp his place in the spotlight. No wonder his fellow officers loved him.

  An officer who actually enjoyed mollywork was an invaluable component of whatever police department happened to be fortunate enough to have the use of his services. Moody knew he could have hooked on with any department in the country. Maybe that was why he’d received the unexpected promotion. No matter. He was comfortable enough in Greater Tampa, just a good ol’ Southern boy with maybe a few more brains than his buddies back home and a few less than some of the men and women he worked with daily.

  Whatever they thought of him privately, none of them ever called him out in public. Because if you were caught making fun of Vernon Moody, why then when you needed his services he might decline to sit down and do the weeks of tedious research vital to your case. Moody’s work had probably been responsible for more promotions than any other single factor in the department. So if any of his fellow cops laughed at his background or his girth, they did so well behind his back.

  Only the insecure were guilty of that. The majority respected Moody and his abilities. He socialized readily if quietly, and had made a few casual friends—easygoing types like himself. He wasn’t the only one in the department content to parlay his off-time into a few beers, a ball game, fishing trips to the Glades, or the company of women not too much younger than himself. In a department aswarm with ambitious hares, the presence of a happy tortoise or two was more than welcome.

  It helped too that Moody’s appearance was not threatening. He looked fat, slow, and stupid. Striders and ninlocos had discovered to their dismay that in the detective’s case, appearances were more than slightly deceiving.

  Despite his usefulness on the street, he much preferred spending his time at his desk, sieving the departmental molly spheres, researching and preparing reports. You didn’t have to be smart to use a spinner. Just persistent and good at following directions. The ability to follow directions had extracted him from a dirt-poor existence in Mississippi, had made him a detective on the largest police force in Florida. He enjoyed the respect of his peers, the admiration of the folks back home, a decent income, and the prospect of a comfortable retirement if some nameless crazyboy didn’t someday expunge his guts on a filthy downtown back street.

  None of that could help him now. No vehicles were allowed on Steel Key, not even those representing municipal authorities. The call which had come in demanded that he leave his office. Now he was forced to abandon his beloved cruiser as well.

  Was a time when there’d been no barrier islands between Honeymoon Key and the Anclote Refuge. Then the gulf waters had been forced to make way for Steel, Steadman, Briarwood, and Cypress Keys. Artificial islets all, built of fill dredged from the gulf bottom and fortified with vitamins and minerals. Not to mention polycrete and titanium. Rich imported soil from the mainland provided regular employment for a small army of gardeners, and Bahamanian sand fringed each island like vanilla cream on a wedding cake.

  There were no bridges to the artificial keys. Instead they were connected to the mainland and to one another by a tube which ran from Steel to just south of Tarpon Springs. Though fragile in appearance, the tube was in fact far more stable and secure than any roadway. Come a hurricane, Moody would much rather be trapped on artificial Briarwood than organic Caladesi. The latter was composed solely of natural materials, and no matter what the ecoengineers said, he’d take titanium over pulverized coral any day.

  It was unusually hot and humid for March and Moody was sweating as soon as he stepped out of the cruiser. One of the pleasures of being a detective was that he was allowed to wear plainclothes on the job, but the special light fabrics he wore could evaporate only so much of a body’s moisture. Bad enough to be doomed to a physique like the Graf Zeppelin’s but why did the Good Lord have to add to the tribulations of the plump by making them sweat three times as much as everyone else?

  He knew he was luckier than some. Beer gut aside, he didn’t look obese, just big. He’d been told that if he gave up beer he could lose the gut. But giving up beer would’ve meant giving up a large chunk of whatever it was that comprised Vernon Moody. Shoot, he’d even miss being the butt of familiar jokes around the station. Besides which, it would mean an end to his fishing. A man could sooner fish without tackle than without beer.

  He controlled his irritation while he waited for the tube system’s web to process his police ID. From a security standpoint it was far from perfect—anyone could still land a boat on one of the perfect, groomed key beaches. But it kept the small-time thieves from having easy access to the respected, wealthy ones.

  He stepped up into the air-conditioned tube car gratefully, punched in the address, and settled back in the padded seat as the maglide accelerated over the intracoastal waterway. As it neared Steel Key it began to slow, shunting onto an alley lane, to finally deposit him outside one of the contemporary mansions that faced the sea. Since none of the artificial keys was more than two lots wide, builders had the choice of facing the Gulf or the mainland. Of course “lot” was a relative term when speaking of property on the artificial islets.

  The tube shunt and a quaint, meandering walkway ran down the center of the key. There was also a paved, lightly banked road for the use of those who might want to bicycle or powerskate. No motorized vehicles allowed, lest they disturb the tranquillity of those who had paid immense sums to leave such noises behind on the mainland.

  Gonna be a hot summer, he thought to himself as he stepped clear of the maglide car and headed for the gate opposite, resenting even brief exposure to the climate of Central Florida.

  Though cars were absent, there was no dearth of activity. Scavengers from the Coroner’s office were working the vine-scribed walls and flower beds. One was intently scrutinizing the trunk of a transplanted coconut palm which grew hard by the opaque blue-green glass barrier that surrounded the Kettrick compound. They were looking for heel marks, or indications of forced entry. Likely was a forced entry, he mused. Usually was, when murder was involved, though you could never be certain. Perhaps the killer had arrived by parachute or hanglider, or had scubaed onto the beach. Or burrowed through the soil like a gopher.

  They
must be pretty sure it was homicide, though, or they wouldn’t have called him in.

  The patrolman on duty at the gate recognized him and let him through. He found himself walking through an immaculately maintained tropical garden, following a crushed coral path toward the house. An airborne mist-maker drifted past on its appointed rounds, moistening a dense clump of bright purple orchids and pungent bougainvillea. Moody was unimpressed. Downtown Tampa stank of the tropics. The unique, self-propelled aerial spray was present only because of the existence of expensive, private desalinization facilities.

  As he walked he studied the scroll-up on his pocket spinner. It was standard department issue, gunmetal-gray with a four-inch-square screen, the controls well-worn and slick with skin oil. There was plenty of background on Kettrick, and Moody hadn’t been given enough time to peruse all of it back at the office. So far, the most interesting piece of information to come up on the screen was the fact that Kettrick’s son-in-law played for the Bucs. The team was cool and dry in the Northwest this week, getting ready to play the Portland Axe. The instrument informed him that Kettrick’s daughter was with her husband. No doubt she’d already been notified of her father’s demise.

  There was nothing in the hastily compiled domestic dossier to suggest that this might be a family affair, something for which Moody was grateful. He was a big Bucs fan and they were short of good defensive linemen as it was.

  Though the web was full of info on Kettrick, it had little to say about the killing beyond an estimated time of death. The coroner team was still plaiting. Moody knew that in the not too distant past cops had been forced to wait hours, even days for updated information. That was back before police weavers had learned how to build good webs, before the advent of pocket spinners able to access them. Wonderful devices. Not only could they keep your information up to the minute, but if you got bored with the daily grind you could surreptitiously switch over to a network or ESPN.

  The house was full of professionals, a few of whom recognized Moody and paused in their endeavors long enough to acknowledge his presence with a glance or grunt. Their number was a reflection of the dead man’s importance, not the department’s desire for thoroughness. Off to his right several were orbiting a crying woman. Moody angled in their direction.

  There was something about very rich people which enabled them to bawl like the Flood without disrupting their poise. Mrs. Leona Kettrick was having a composed breakdown, mopping regularly at her eyes with an absorbent yet exquisitely crafted handkerchief. She was in her mid to late forties, well-dressed, handsome rather than pretty. No doubt she was more attractive when she wasn’t crying. She had the look of someone who’d been teetering on the verge of collapse for too many hours and was keeping herself going on dignity and pills.

  Moody stood quietly, able to see over everyone’s head, letting Berkowitz ask the questions. The other detective was much better at interviews of this type than his colleague. Asking no questions of his own while sorting substance from sobs, Moody determined that Mrs. Kettrick had been participating in some social function at Jekyll Island up on the south Georgia coast and had returned only this morning to discover her husband’s body, whereupon she had immediately called the police.

  From the tone of Berkowitz’s questions Moody surmised that at this point she was no more than a secondary suspect as far as the department was concerned. If that supposition turned out upon further investigation to be wrong and she was in some way responsible for what had happened, then she was doing a superb job of feigning grief. She was having a difficult time controlling herself long enough to supply coherent answers to the detective’s queries. In his nearly twenty years of police work Moody had actually run across a few marrieds who’d stayed in love with their original partners. Hers might be no more than a good performance. He hoped not.

  The two techs from the Coroner’s office didn’t have to make room for Moody. He made his own room. Big as he was, it was easy for him to nudge his way into the circle surrounding the distraught widow. It allowed him to study her close up, take note of the details. Moody was very good with details. It was a hallmark of his work.

  He noted them mentally for later inclusion in a formal file: expensive faux jewelry, designer travel-wear, no overt evidence of pharmacutie use, telltale signs of collagen injections at the neck and forehead. She must have been a very attractive young woman and she was fighting middle age with all the tenacity of a last-place team making a goal-line stand against the Superbowl bound. Why was it, he wondered not for the first time, that it was the genetically blessed who chose to employ cosmetic surgery so extensively? Having been recognized as beautiful in their youth, perhaps they felt its loss more keenly than those who had never been subject to the admiring stares of the herd.

  Moody now, having never been much for looks, didn’t particularly care how he aged. He observed the good-looking guys on the force, the handsome ones with the sculpted faces and athletic bodies, as they fought losing battles with receding hairlines and sagging waists, and he found he didn’t envy them. It was not a bad thing to be content within oneself, he’d decided.

  He adopted his most compassionate expression, a halfmoon smile that gave him the look of a tranquil Buddha, or a beardless Santa Claus. It made him resemble a big, sloppy, overgrown hound dog and took away from his bulk, which he knew some people found intimidating. Mrs. Kettrick took notice of him but did not cease her crying.

  The coroner techs melted away. Berkowitz gave him a standard cop “Hope-you-have-better-luck-than-I-did” grimace and went off to put the make on a pretty worker from forensics.

  “I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Kettrick.”

  She didn’t try to reply.

  “I’m Detective Moody. I know y’all have been through hell this morning, but I have to ask you some questions. It ain’t quite the way I’m supposed to work it, but if y’all don’t feel you can manage any more right now we can do this later. I’m sure you understand, though, that the more information we have and the sooner we can stick it into the web for analysis, the faster we can start following up potential leads.”

  Still not looking up at him, she nodded, blew her nose softly. Moody watched in fascination. It was the first time he’d ever seen anyone blow their nose in sixty-dollar-a-foot linen.

  “You’ve been away from home for how long?”

  “Two weeks. Some family friends—their daughter was getting married at the Jekyll Island Club. I was helping with the arrangements. I’m supposed—I was supposed to go back next week for the ceremony.” As she spoke she waved the handkerchief around indifferently.

  She was keeping herself under control. Enough control to have hired a husband killer? The speculation on his part was as inevitable as it was premature.

  Motive? None visible yet. Certainly not money. Why kill to obtain what she already possessed? Still, people could weave webs as complex as anything the spingeneers could imagine.

  “Mrs. Kettrick, would you know of any reason why someone might want to kill your husband?”

  “Kill him?” She chose a fresh handkerchief from the endless supply in her purse. “I know of a few dozen competitors who probably wished he’d drop dead, but not who’d have him murdered. Of course, you can’t tell about people anymore, can you?”

  No you couldn’t, he thought silently. Aloud he was consoling. “I expect someone in your husband’s position must have made his share of enemies. What we need to know is if you’re aware of anyone threatening him overtly.”

  “If so, he never mentioned it to me. Elroy didn’t bring his business home with him. He was very good about that. I know it was hard for him, and I always respected and admired him for it. He let us have a real family life. He was such a good man, detective. He worked hard and he took care of his people. Do you know that last Christmas he called in every one of his district managers and their wives? They thought it was for business.” Her expression was tight as she fought the emotions within.

  “He�
��d chartered a plane. He flew all of them down to Havana. For a week, in the best hotel, at company expense. In addition to their regular vacations.”

  Moody smiled gently. “Sounds like a man I wouldn’t have minded working for myself.”

  “Elroy was no saint, mind. That man could be hard. But he was honest and fair. What I’m tryin’ to say, I guess, is that I don’t think he had any more or less enemies than any other man in his position.”

  “What about outside the business?”

  As he listened to her replies he would glance occasionally at his spinner. Not to make sure it was recording: that function was practically fail-safe. He was studying the shifting readout on the voice analyzer. The little telltale stayed solid cool green, indicating she was continuing to tell the truth. Though not admissible in a court of law, it was a useful little tool for on-site analysis. There were times when a little ambivalence on the part of a suspect could be highly informative.

  Moody wasn’t one of those old-fashioned cops who relied on instinct and personal observation. He was a ready convert to whatever new equipment police R&D managed to chum out. Anything that made his job easier made life easier, and God knew he was all for easy. Experienced cops claimed to have a sixth sense about crime. Moody preferred to use the web.

  His spinner told him that he was talking to a truly agonized, distraught widow and not some West Florida version of Lady Mac. It confirmed his initial impressions. Despite that, he would not rule her out as a suspect. Moody never ruled anyone out as a suspect until a case was declared closed. And even then, there were times when he was reluctant.