“All due respect, Captain, but I really do need to get in there.”
She smiled from behind her desk. “Detective, this is a space station and I am her captain. This ain’t no democracy. You want to go into Rodriguez’ room, then I am authorizing you to go ahead and go. Turn the place upside down and inside out. The wing super should be able to let you in. Anything else?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it. I was told Rodriguez is thousands of klicks away on a supply run of some kind. How do I apprehend him for questioning?”
“Depends. Do you want to go get him, or do you want him to come back here?”
“I guess that depends. Which way is quicker without him becoming a flight risk?”
“Is he a suspect?” she asked.
“Not exactly. More like the only person on my most-likely-to-become-a-suspect list.”
“Do you think he’s a flight risk?”
“Only if he did it.”
“Well, I can call the station captain at his next stop and have him apprehended and sent back on a scooter.”
“Is that like a shuttle?”
“Smaller, a lot faster. One pilot, no copilot. Holds six passengers and a like amount of cargo. Every station captain has a couple of them at their disposal. While he’s on his way back, you can search his room and talk to his colleagues—see if he has an alibi.”
“You don’t think he’ll try to cut and run?” I asked.
“Not with the shuttle he’s currently driving. It’s not capable of Earth return.”
“Then let’s scoot his fanny back here!”
* * *
I spent six hours in Rodriguez’ room. He had a big monitor on his desk. No computer—probably had it with him. No communicator either, same reason. No personal clutter. More like a crash pad than a place where somebody lived. If he was out for a month at a time when he had missions, maybe he had other crash pads. I wondered if he had a home at all. Surely he had some place to keep his personals. Maybe he just lived out of his duffel bag, like Patty.
Interrogation Room
I had left instructions with Lijuan to get Rodriguez’ colleagues rounded up while I scrubbed his room. When I walked into the war room, there they were—well, two of them anyway. CisLuna maintained a stable of thirty or so shuttle pilots. Each one was home-based on a station.
I asked Mak to sit in to record and act as a witness.
* * *
Colleague #1 was Roosevelt ‘Rosie’ Jones, a tall, medium-colored black guy. Handsome, broad nose, lantern jaw, thick neck, broad shoulders and really long arms. I put him at 2 meters and change and maybe a bit over 100 kg. He moved like a boxer. Yeah, definitely a boxer. Unmistakable the way he moved his head from side to side on top of his shoulders like he was dodging a punch.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Jones.” I extended my hand. His grip was warm, dry, and very firm. I bet he could have squeezed water out of a cue ball.
“What’s this about?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, but your cooperation is extremely important. I can get Captain King to back me up if you like.”
His eyes shifted back and forth to Mak and me. “We need that camera?”
“I’m afraid so.”
More silence, then he finally sat down, leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced across his midsection.
“Where were you two nights ago?”
He looked at the ceiling a few seconds, “Let’s see… that’d be the gym.”
“Anybody with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Names, please?”
“Juan Rodriguez and some white girl.”
“She have a name?”
“Most folks do.”
Okay, I deserved that. “She share it with you?”
“Nope.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Fit, medium build, like she worked out a lot.”
“Hair color?”
He looked at the ceiling again. “She was a redhead. Yeah, lotsa freckles too. Had ‘em everywhere.”
“And you didn’t try to talk to her?”
“Nah, man. Rodriguez did. I think he was trying to score.”
“How long did you all stay at the gym?”
“They left after a couple of hours. I spent another hour in the lap tank.”
“Where did you go after that?”
“Albert’s for one a them no-cal beers.”
“Did you meet anybody there?”
“Yeah. Jessica Maloney. She was at the bar. Joe was trying to get her to taste some new wine he got in.”
“Who’s Joe?”
“The bartender.”
“How well did you know Jessica?”
He hesitated, shifting his gaze toward Mak and his camera.
“We fucked.”
“You were lovers?”
“No, we just fucked.”
“Did you go to her room that night?”
“No, she came with me to mine, stayed about an hour, then left.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Nope.”
“That was it? Just got up and left?”
“She said, ‘Thank you.’”
“Okay, Mr. Jones, I’m sorry to have to ask you something so personal, but can you describe the sex act?”
“I figure that’s between me and Jessica.”
“Jessica’s not with us anymore.”
That shook him. After he took a second to do the math, he said, “She the dead girl?”
“Yeah.”
“You think I did it?”
“Right now I’m just trying to put two and two and two together. Can you help us out? Did you use a condom?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of sex did you have?”
“What? The fuckin’ kind! What do you mean?”
“Was it vaginal?”
“Oh. Yeah, it was vaginal. Then we did the other kind. She wanted it in her ass. Said I had to use a new condom.”
“No embellishments of any kind? Like bondage, say?”
“You mean did I tie her up? No. We fucked twice, then she left.”
“After saying ‘thank you.’”
“Yeah, after saying ‘thank you.’ We finished? Can I go now?”
“One more question, Mr. Jones. The wine that Joe gave her… did she finish it at the bar?”
“Yeah.”
“She didn’t take a half full glass with her back to your room?”
“Nope, no glass. She put it on a table as we were walking out.”
* * *
Colleague #2 was Patty Eisenhower – yes, the same Patty assigned to babysit me on my ride out to CisLuna. She was cute and friendly as ever, nonplussed by the fact that I had recently seen her wiping her ass the other day and that today a stranger was holding a camera on her. We made chit-chat for a bit, then I got down to business.
“I suppose by now you know about the murder… Jessica Maloney?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Fair enough. Did you also know we’re looking for Juan Rodriguez?”
“What, John-boy? You think he killed her? No way!”
“How do you figure?”
“He was nuts about her.”
“Was he aware that she was two-timing him?”
“Two-timing him? More like five or six-timing! But yeah, he was aware.”
“How do you know?”
“That he was aware? He used to talk to me about it in bed.”
Statements like that made me wish I’d spent more time in vice. It was slowly dawning on me that space people were different than Earth people. Patty read the surprise on my face.
“Don’t look so shocked, Roy. There’s not much to do up here apart from working and eating and sleeping. We have to seek our own entertainment, so to speak.”
She punctuated that last statement with a shameless come-hither smile. By now I was sure I was blushing.
“Are you suggesting I should forget the j
ealousy motive?”
“Who would he have been jealous of?”
“Rosie?”
“Nah, they were best buds.”
“Buds enough to share Jessica?”
“Oh yeah. Besides when Jessica was flying Bravo, there were plenty of backups.”
“Flying Bravo?”
“Huh? Oh, pilot talk. Uh… dripping crimson?”
I raised my brows. “Menstruating.”
She winked her eye and pointed her index finger at me. “Yeah!”
“Do you have any names for these ‘backups?’”
“Well, me when I’m not flying a circuit. Thing is, it’s unusual for the three of us to be on the same station at the same time. Einstein is home station for each of us. But we mostly just live out of our flight bags. It’s pretty much the same with all the shuttle pilots.
“So what about you and Jessica, were you friends… enemies… didn’t give a shit?”
“That’s a good question. Frenemies? Is that a word?”
“Used to be, I think.”
“Put me down for ‘don’t give a shit.’ She could be a bit superior at times. You know, her being a flight doc and me being just a shuttle jockey.”
“Was she your flight surgeon?”
“No! Thank god.”
“So there was some animosity?”
“No.”
“You sure? Maybe you didn’t like being the backup?”
“Please! I get plenty of action.”
“You didn’t give Rodriguez the idea to off Jessica while you were on Earth?”
“Fuck off, Roy!”
She laughed when she said that, so I knew there was no way to rattle her. I’d heard that it was almost impossible to manually dock a shuttle with a station if the flight control computer was out. It had only been done once… and that was by Patty. She was a very ballsy little gal.
“Can I go now?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
I hesitated a moment. “Yes, you can go. Just don’t divulge any part of this conversation to anyone.”
She rose from her chair abruptly and stomped toward the door saying, “Yeah, right.”
“Oh, and Patty…”
She stopped, her hand on the doorknob looking back over her shoulder. I hesitated, wondering if she should dye her hair to something besides blond.
“C’mon, Roy. I got a date.”
I shrugged. “Sorry, go ahead then.”
She turned and left, shutting the door behind her.
* * *
The next day Rodriguez was in the interrogation room wearing plastic bracelets to secure his wrists to a D-ring newly added to the top of the table. He didn’t look happy, and I can’t say I blamed him. The plastic bracelets were a bit much given we only wanted him for questioning. Have to remember to counsel the amateur cops on the other stations.
Meanwhile, we’d added some chairs around the table, making sure the suspect had one side of the table to himself. Lijuan, Monica, and I were in the other three chairs on the opposite side of the table. Lijuan was there to witness and video-record Rodriguez’ statement. Monica was there in an apprentice capacity. I might need her to do preliminary interrogations if we started getting gobs of witnesses, but I didn’t tell her that for fear she’d bolt.
Rodriguez scowled at us from across the table. I think he might have been there over an hour waiting. Even so, the last thing I wanted was to let Rodriguez think I was afraid of him. On the other hand, if he was afraid of me, that was okay. I reached across and put my left hand on top of his hands, holding them to the table, then pulled out my stiletto and snapped the blade open. I hesitated a couple of seconds fixing him with my beadiest detective stare, then slipped the blade into the plastic cuff on his right hand and cut it, freeing both his hands from the D-ring.
He looked down at the other cuff and asked, “You’re not going to cut this one off?”
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Rodriguez.”
He leaned back in his chair, cocky little bastard.
“Yeah, like I had a choice.”
I gave him a snarky half-smile. “Let’s start with my all-time favorite. Where were you two nights ago, Mr. Rodriguez?”
He thought a second, “In my rack.”
“Did you go anywhere before you turned in?”
“Yeah, Rosie and I went to the gym.”
“How long were you there?”
“Couple hours.”
“Then what?”
“I went to my room.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t meet anybody at the gym? A little redhead, maybe?”
“Penny?”
“Yeah, she have a last name?”
“Probably.”
I glared at him, saying nothing.
“She just said her name was Penny.”
“Did you and Penny leave together?”
“Yeah.”
“Whose room did you go to?”
“She went to her room. I went to mine. I was starting a shuttle circuit the next day.”
“Did anybody see you enter your room?”
“What, you mean like my mommy came up to read me a story and tuck me in?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“No.”
“What kind of wine do you drink?”
“What the… You drag me off my shuttle run to see what kind of fucking wine I drink?”
“Humor me.”
“Fuck you! What’s this about anyway?”
“Do you know Jessica Maloney?”
“Yeah.”
“How well do you know her?”
“Pretty well, I guess.”
“You ever drink in her room?”
“Yeah, sometimes. Loosen things up a little.”
“Drugs?”
“I’m a shuttle jock. I gotta pass my whiz quiz, man.”
I sat there staring at him to see if he’d sweat out something interesting. He came through.
“We…” he looked at Lijuan and Monica, then back at me. “Sex. We have sex once in a while.”
“Just sex?”
“Yeah, just sex. What’s with Jessica? She turn me in for some kind of sexual harassment? Let me tell you, man, she’s the one invites me into her room! I don’t force myself on her.”
“When was the last time you had sex with her?”
He squirmed. “I don’t know. Maybe a day before my flight.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Six months. A year maybe. We usually hook up whenever I’m deadheading on Einstein.”
Lijuan adjusted herself in her chair but kept her recorder going. Monica just stared, flat affect—she showed real potential.
“What kind of sex?”
“What?”
“What kind of sex?”
“What the fuck kind of question is that?”
I leaned forward, keeping my voice very even. “I’ve had a very long day, Mr. Rodriguez. Please don’t make me ask you again. What… kind… of… sex?”
He was squirming a lot by now. Couldn’t tell if it was because of the two women in the room, or the line of questioning, or both.
“I don’t know. The fun kind. What do you mean?”
“Describe it.”
“You mean like what position?”
“Did you use protection?”
“Yeah.”
“Were the two of you alone? No third parties?”
“No, just us.”
“You’re sure.”
“Hell yes, I’m sure! What kind of kinky fuck you think I am?”
“I’m trying to find out, Mr. Rodriguez.”
“We talked about maybe doing a three-way. We never did it though.”
“Why not?”
“She was afraid of her reputation. Being a flight surgeon and all.”
“Whose idea was it? The three-way.”
“I don’t know. Hers, I guess. Maybe I brought it up the first time, but she woul
dn’t let it go. She wasn’t ready to go through with it, but she wouldn’t let it go. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“Did you ever tie her up?”
“Tie her… Look, I’m done playing games, Detective. I don’t answer no more questions until you tell me what this is all about.”
“Okay. Jessica Maloney has been murdered and we are trying to figure out if you did it.”
That stopped him. Stopped him cold. His face turned white as a week-old stiff.
“Jessica… murdered? Who would do such a thing?”
“My money’s on you, Mr. Rodriguez.”
“Well, it wasn’t me! I mean she was getting a little kinky I guess. But still nominal.”
He bent his head down into his hands and wiped his eyes.
“She was a nice girl. I mean fuck… lotsa girls like to get tied up!”
“How did you tie her?”
“Her hands to the headboard. But I kept the knots real loose so she wouldn’t bruise.”
His eyes were soaked with tears. Not sure if it was more from stress or remorse.
“You maybe try to suspend her from the ceiling, say?”
“I didn’t kill her, man!”
About then, Monica passed me her communicator with a text message on it:
Partial print and DNA results in from wine glass. Neither are from Rodriguez.
“Mr. Rodriguez, you are free to go, but please keep your whereabouts known to us at all times. Do not leave the station, and above all, do not divulge any part of this interrogation to anyone.”
He got up and stalked toward the door, then came back.
“Can I get this fucking strap off my wrist?”
I opened my blade again and cut the strap. He glared at me one last time, then left and slammed the door.
I gave my partners a cool-down moment, then turned the conversation toward Lijuan and Monica. “Thoughts?”
Both women were silent.
“Is he really a suspect?” Monica asked.
“No. He’s more like what we call a ‘person of interest.’”
“Explain?”
“Well, we can place him with the victim the night she was killed. We can also postulate a motive—jealousy that she was sleeping with Rosie. Patty’s statement doesn’t back that one up though. But the biggest reason to eliminate him from the suspect list is that he and the victim appear to have had regular and vigorous sex.”
“How does that eliminate him?” Monica asked.
“I do not believe our killer—if he’s a serial killer—is capable of regular sex. Many serial killers are impotent. They ejaculate by stabbing the victim numerous times, the knife blade acting as a surrogate for an erect penis. I have an alternate theory that this killer may be so consumed by his Renfield’s Syndrome that he is simply not interested in sex—all he wants is the victim’s blood. He may think he requires it the way a vampire would, or he believes that if he consumes enough of it he will turn into a true vampire.”
CisLuna_Hard-boiled Police Procedural_Murder Mystery Page 5