Monica joined in saying, “But you have no evidence of jealousy. Juan and Rosie, at least in public, were always best buds.”
“Besides,” I added, “if he was jealous of Rosie, it stands to reason that he would take out Rosie, not the two women he was enamored of.
“But,” I continued, “my biggest issue with Rodriguez is that he doesn’t match the personality profile I have in my head for this particular serial killer.”
“And what profile is that?”
“This guy is a loner, serious introvert, the type who held up the wall at the high school prom. Watched and coveted beautiful women. Always afraid to approach them. Maybe he did once back in his distant past but he botched it and was humiliated. Hence, he goes for the ultimate act of control. He steals that which made them passionate—their blood. The Renfield Syndrome looks like a close fit. If you recall from the vampire movies, when Dracula subdues his victim it’s always a lustful act of ultimate control. He forces the act but the woman plays the willing victim. I’m not saying these gals were willing—he did kill them before draining them. But who knows what’s going on in this perp’s head when he’s committing his crimes?”
“Speaking of Dracula, what about pumping Rodriguez’ stomach for blood?” the captain asked.
“He’s scheduled for that this afternoon. But I remind you, finding Patty’s blood in his stomach or GI tract may prove his guilt, but not finding any blood does not prove his innocence.”
“How’s that?”
“He may have collected the blood but planned to consume it later. Or for all we know, this killer is not a Renfield type at all. He just drains the victim’s blood and throws it away. Serials are always nutters in some way, shape, or form.
“And my last concern is that our best suspect, Simon Crowne, seems to have disappeared. We don’t know why. We found what we think are a couple of his alternate hideouts, but we can’t prove they were specifically his hideouts. It’s entirely possible Mr. Crowne may have changed his identity.”
“Changed it how?”
“Adopted a new name, a new disguise, a new role somewhere else on the station. Or he may have snuck onto an interstation shuttle and he’s no longer on Einstein at all.”
She fixed me with another one of her long unblinking stares. “Your reasoning, Mr. Stone, reminds me of a plate of spaghetti that stayed in the pot too long.”
“Welcome to my world.”
She rose, indicating the meeting was over.
“You have thirty days. If you don’t find anything to either clear Rodriguez or convict someone else, I’m going to execute him.”
Chapter Thirteen
War Room
“We have bugs, or had them anyway,” Mak said.
“Where are they now?”
Mak held up a jar with nothing in it.
“You trying to be funny?”
“No, boss. This jar is RF-opaque. The bugs are down there in the bottom—microscale. You have to look real close.”
I did and sure enough, in the bottom were maybe a dozen tiny little black beads.
“How’d you find them?”
He held up a gadget that looked like scanner of some sort. “I had Electrical build me one of these down in their shop. It’s super sensitive, even picks up frequency-hopping, spread spectrum signals.”
“Impressive.”
“We scanned your room and Monica’s lab and the interrogation room and the captain’s office—they all came up nil.”
“Great work, Mak.” He beamed at my compliment.
“Lijuan, now that we can talk, what about viruses?”
“We have viruses all over the net, and while I was able to eliminate a bunch of them, there are about a dozen of them that auto-replicate every time I destroy them. Those are the ones I’m most suspicious of.”
“What do they do?”
“Some of them intercept message traffic—I call those daemons. Each one seems to be designed to intercept just one target. It sends the message to a drop box that gets emptied now and again, but I can’t actually look inside the drop box—it’s behind some kind of firewall.”
“Nasty. I can guess who the targets are.”
She smiled. “You seem to be pretty popular, plus Monica, Rogers, me, and Mak. And get this, every time one of us sends a message to someone, it manufactures a new daemon to sit and watch for back-traffic from the new recipient.”
I leaned back in my chair and ran my fingers through my hair giving my head a nice scratch in the process. “You said some of them. Are there more?”
“Yeah, there’s standard viruses for turning on and off corridor security cameras and another neat one that jimmies with door codes. And last but not least, there’s a neat one that grants the hacker access to personnel files on board the station.”
“You think that’s how he’s changing his ID?”
“Yes, I do.”
The captain’s office
“How long you been up here, Stone?”
The captain looked like she could chew through steel bolts.
“I dunno, few weeks maybe. Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Yeah, tell that to the two dead bodies!”
“Yeah, well I would, but they’re not listening much these days.”
“Don’t get flippant with me, Stone!”
I leaned forward a bit. “And don’t you play holier than thou with me, Captain.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s hard to catch a bad guy when he, she, or it can see your every move. Your fucking station is about as secure as… well, let’s just say it’s not secure. The guy scatters micro-bugs anywhere he pleases. And how does he get in? Easy, he has a virus on your net that lets him jimmy the door codes whenever and wherever he wants. He walks the halls with impunity because he has another virus that lets him turn off the security cameras whenever he feels like it. He changes his electronic identity at will with yet another virus that lets him into your personnel registry, not to mention eating in any cafeteria he wants under any identity he wants. Shall I go on?”
The captain was spared having to answer when Mak stuck his head in the door without knocking.
“There has been another murder.”
“Oh, Christ!” I shook my head in dismay and got up to leave. “Take me to it.”
“I can’t. It’s on Borucki.”
Part II
Chapter Fourteen
Hangar Bay, SSS William Borucki
Once we were secure onboard Borucki, I sent Monica and the team on ahead to play meet-and-greet with the captain, James Nation. I’d heard he was big on protocol. I needed time to have a look around the hangar bay. Something told me I might find a clue as to how the bastard got here without Einstein knowing he left or Borucki knowing he arrived.
The little interstation shuttles don’t use nuclear thermal rockets so it’s safe to poke around their ass ends where the nasties come out. Instead they rely on plutonium heaters to superheat LH2 which then gets squirted in whatever direction you want to make thrust. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual looking on the outer hull of the shuttle—not that I could tell the difference between usual and unusual anyway. So, I picked my way back into the shadows.
Stashed behind some large metal-looking boxes—I lacked the expertise to tell what they were—I found a large box that could only be described as a coffin. I tried to pick it up and found that it moved easily. I thumped the lid with my knuckles and it felt very solid, like heavy gauge sheet metal. I figured it must be made of carbon fiber. It was heavier than anything a woman could pick up—except for maybe Monica—but not so heavy that a strong man couldn’t pick it up. The lid was secured with a pair of latches that could be opened from the inside or the outside. It had no locking mechanism and opened easily. The inside was padded and had LOX bottles secured in various places. And what looked like dirt, some kind of organic soil, lay in the bottom.
“The crazy bastard really does think he�
�s a vampire.”
Captain James Allen Nation’s office
The sign on the door said, ‘James Allen Nation, Captain, SSS William Borucki.’ I could hear someone ranting inside. This must be the place. I didn’t knock, just turned the handle and walked in.
“Are you Stone?” the captain asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, if your tardiness is any indication of your inability to follow simple orders, I’m not surprised you’ve allowed this Crowne person to stow away on my station. And now see what’s happened! A valuable crew member, part of the Borucki family, has been murdered in a most horrendous way! What have you to say for yourself, Mr. Stone?”
“The murderer’s name isn’t Crowne anymore.”
“So what is his new name, Mr. Stone?”
“We don’t know yet, but whatever it is, you won’t find it on the manifest of any recent flights that arrived here.”
“Mr. Stone, I already know I have an intruder on my station—I have a dead body to prove it. That you walk in here and tell me you don’t know his name does me little good.”
“I know how he got onto your station.”
War Room on the Borucki
The new digs were the same form factor as our war room on Einstein, only this one hadn’t been used as a design center. Borucki, as I’d learned, was where the Lunar surface crews deadheaded when they weren’t working on the surface. Due to the low one-sixth gravity on the moon, crews could only take about a month at a time down there before their bones started to crap out. So, they hauled them back up for two month’s recuperation in Borucki’s full gee.
“So spill, Stone.” Monica said. “What the fuck made you decide to look around the hangar bay?”
I shrugged. So, it’s ‘Stone’ now.
“This sort of thing happens sometimes in homicide after you’ve been on a case for a while, especially if you’ve been coming up dry. After we got off the shuttle, I just got a hunch, like I could feel the bastard watching us right there in the hangar bay. Only a really dumb cop ignores his hunches in this business. Besides, if it was fruitless, I’d just get yelled at for being late to some captain’s meeting.” I flashed her my cavalier grin. “Hell, I’ve been yelled at before!”
Everybody seemed to think that was pretty funny.
“Okay, where’s the coffin now?” Lijuan asked.
“Still there, but I emptied the LOX bottles that were full. If he tries to get away again, he won’t survive the trip.”
“What if he checks the bottles?” Lijuan asked.
“Yeah, don’t they have gauges?” Mak asked.
“I scattered them around, so it should be pretty obvious somebody’s been messing with his equipment. Besides, he’s probably rigged some kind of telltale to warn him if somebody’s been fooling with his ride. Anyway, I probably tripped it.”
“So then what?” Monica asked.
“So then we complicated his departure a little—he’ll have to make arrangements to get more LOX. Even so, I put an RFID under the padding—a little cheap insurance. If he goes back and moves the coffin, say, attaches it to another shuttle, we’ll know about it.”
“So you figure to recall the shuttle if it takes off with the coffin attached?” Mak asked.
Monica brightened, “Or maybe you could not recall the shuttle, just have a welcoming committee waiting for him at the other end. And if he failed to check his bottles, we’d be done with him.”
I nodded, “We could do that. But what if it’s not our boy? Say, he’s somebody just decided to joyride between stations. I don’t know… has a girlfriend or something. Listen, team. I want this guy as bad as you do. But I want the right guy.”
Everyone looked glum after my morality lecture.
“Jessica and Patty were crew,” Lijuan said. “Jessica was nice to me. She didn’t have to be. I mean I’m not much to look at, but she was still nice to me.” Her eyes got wet and she rubbed the tears away with one of those nanocellulose tissues she always carried in her sleeve. “I wouldn’t mind if her killer suffocated between stations.”
“I feel you, but I’m a cop, not an executioner.”
I gave them a second to process that one, while I feigned setting up my computer.
“Okay, team, let’s get down to business. Marty, Monica—I need autopsy results as soon as you can. I’m heading off to search the victim’s room. By the way, do we have a name for the victim?”
Martin looked at his screen, “Melody Marks, age 29. She was a flight nurse.”
I shook my head, “No wonder the local medics didn’t want to raise their hand for this one. Okay, Lijuan, I need you to get busy filtering the personnel files to determine if there is anyone on the station who shouldn’t be here—extant crewmembers with no valid arrival record, that sort of thing. What’s the one thing that you absolutely have to have an ID for to function on a space station?”
Lijuan shrugged, “I can think of two things.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Eating in the cafeteria and occupying a room.”
“What if he’s not using a room? Just found himself a hideout?”
“Then just the cafeteria.”
“Could he be coopting somebody’s ID, temporarily like? Just for one meal at a time? I’m figuring he’s hacked the personnel system… he seems to be good at that.”
“Yeah, I’ll look for someone who’s double feeding. But what do I do if I find them? Wouldn’t he be hopping around from one ID to the next?”
I nodded, “Maybe. Meanwhile, can you find out who the victim’s close acquaintances were and get them in here so I can grill them. But I don’t want to see anybody till after the autopsy.”
“Sure.”
“Okay, Mak, it might be nice to debug this room before we get too comfortable. Lijuan, likewise check the local network for eavesdropping viruses. By the way, this goes for everybody, try to keep your communiques private. Don’t use the network any more than you absolutely have to. Spoken words are safer than written words. And whispered words are even better. At least they will be when Mak gives us the thumbs up.”
Everyone laughed. That was good. Morale was picking up.
“Mak, once we get your blessing on the bug situation, I need you to organize the local security folks into a brute force search of the whole station. I’m guessing our boy may be living in a regular room, but he’s keeping his gear somewhere in the bowels of the station. These stations are all cookie cutters of one another, so start with the equivalent location from Einstein.”
Mak grinned, “Yeah, boss!”
“Oh, and Mak, use extreme caution. Assume the perp has whatever room he’s coopted rigged with cameras, microphones, and maybe even explosives. We’ve been putting pressure on him, so he may be tempted to fire a shot across our bow. Get an engineer to remote probe any suspicious room before you go in. And use a robot to gain access. Got that?”
The grin fell from Mak’s face, “Yes, boss.”
* * *
I settled into my new room on Borucki and set up a two-way text conversation with Chief Ciccolella. Since he was Earthside there was a barely perceptible lag in the communications.
Stone: I’m worried about the captain on Borucki. Name: James Nation. He may be more than a nuisance, i.e., he may become a body-count multiplier.
Ciccolella: SpaceCorp HQ grants you full authority to remove any obstacles that get in the way of apprehending the killer.
Stone: Explain ‘remove.’
Ciccolella: ‘Exercise own volition’ is the precise phrase they gave me. I would say that means if Captain Nation is an obstacle, arrest him. If arresting won’t work, shoot him.
Stone: One problem with that, Chief. No gun. Confiscated at Edwards per CisLuna policy.
Ciccolella: You have no weapons at all up there???
Stone: Just the widow maker. And my sap,
Ciccolella: Oh, Christ! I’ll see if I can get something up to you.
Stone: Thanks. Meanwhile, it mi
ght be helpful if you could get word to the Chief of Security up here. Fellow named Rogers. Seems like an all right guy, but I’d like to know he’s on my side if it comes to that.
Ciccolella: Does Rogers have any weapons?
Stone: Not that I know of. His guys mainly do routine candy-ass stuff. Looking after passengers, lost and found, etc. They look like ex-football linemen though.
Ciccolella: How do they handle crime?
Stone: Until now there hasn’t been much. None that I’ve seen. Professional bunch as far as I can tell. This serial killer is way off nominal for them. I think that’s why Nation is running around with his asshole retainer nut over-torqued.
Ciccolella: Off nominal?
Stone: I’m picking up the lingo up here.
Ciccolella: Anything we can use down here?
Stone: Nothing really colorful yet. I’ll keep you posted.
Ciccolella: Okay, it sounds like we’re done for now. Repeat: If Nation is an obstacle, remove him.
Chapter Fifteen
Autopsy room in the morgue of Borucki
Melody Marks, flight nurse, age 29, was attractive, blond, and a virgin.
The staff of Borucki had deigned not to leave the corpse lay until I had a look at her. I asked if the people who retrieved her body had worn bunny suits. No they had not. I asked if they had worn slippers. No they had not. I did not bother asking if they had worn gloves. The crime scene was fucked, pure and simple.
Instead my first look at her was when she was laid out under a sheet in the morgue. That pissed me off, and not because I was developing a thing for upside-down dead women. No, a major, major peeve of mine—it always has been—is non-professionals fucking with my crime scene before I get there, and that includes moving the body.
I was glad Martin had offered to come along for the autopsy. The flight surgical staff here was really broken up about losing one of their own. Not that I blamed them. Monica was gowned and gloved, assisting. I was wandering around observing. Mak was taking pictures. Lijuan begged off citing squeamishness, so I put her on rounding up the close acquaintances she’d identified. I was eager to interview them after the autopsy. Who does a 29-year-old virgin have for close acquaintances anyway?
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