by Alex Hughes
This was Cherabino. I pushed away my burger, as Cherabino and Kubrick talked shop, comfortable enough with each other to smile, to joke, to flirt.
I talked just enough not to draw attention, my stomach curling in jealous anger. And I left, reminding myself that hating someone for having what you couldn’t wasn’t a good idea.
I’d have a lot to talk about to my sponsor tomorrow.
* * *
Cherabino had other cases, so she had me call in to see if Bellury could come pick me up while she went to talk to victims’ families in cases she didn’t want me there for. I told myself it wasn’t personal and she just wanted space. But part of me wondered jealously if she was just wanting to spend more time with Kubrick.
The phone rang, and I got transferred.
“Hello?” Bellury answered.
“It’s me. Listen, is there any way you can drive out to—”
“You just got a telephone call from a judge,” Bellury said. “Judge Datini. He wants you and Cherabino in his office right away. Is this something I need to be there for?” His tone was a mixture of support and suspicion. “I can bring the drug testing history if that’s the issue. We’ve got years of it. We can do another one today.”
I could feel my cheeks heating. “No, that’s not what this is about.” Though really, at its core, maybe it was. I needed to pay off the debt I had to the judge—now. “What did he say exactly?” I asked.
* * *
Judge Datini answered the door stooped over, looking very frail. “I have twenty minutes before court starts. Come in.”
He led us back to his office again and settled down behind his desk, rummaging through drawers. The window shades were drawn and it was darker today than usual. The little bonsai bush on his desk gave off a faint glow, the light changing slowly over several minutes to a different color, and then another. Had to be a very expensive genetic splice—something with a deep-water fish, maybe.
Cherabino waited to speak until the judge was seated, until he had fished out a brand-new unlabeled file and settled back in the chair. “You wanted to see us, Judge.” She was thinking she didn’t have time for this. Her boss was already up in arms about the time she was spending on this case.
“Have you made any progress on the case with my grandson?” the judge asked me, specifically. He held my eyes.
I nodded as seriously and competently as I could, and did my best impression of Cherabino’s competency. “We’ve got several promising leads we’re pursuing.”
“None promising enough to tell me about.” A heaviness settled over the judge. The mammoth desk and rows of ancient leather-bound books in bookshelves filled nearly the entire space, so that he looked small in comparison. Small in a way he hadn’t before. “And why is that?”
“I . . . it’s only been a day,” I said.
“These things take time,” Cherabino said, cautiously. “Give us a chance to do our jobs.”
“It’s not you that I asked to find my grandson,” he said.
“Even so. Was there a reason you asked us to come in?” she asked.
The judge visibly shook himself, like walling off a part of his reaction he wasn’t ready to look at. “I received a letter from Raymond this afternoon. He’d put it through the system without an office number. Anything without an office number gets routed around for at least a week before they can find who it belongs to. He knows this.”
He pierced me with a look.
I owed this guy. I owed him a lot—and since Raymond had been found dead, my only option was to pay him off with the truth about what happened. For all of Cherabino’s suspicions, I couldn’t see him doing the deed—why would he request our services if he’d known what happened already?
“What is in the letter?” I asked him.
He pushed a file forward. When Cherabino was just about to take it, he put his hand over hers and took a breath. “These are, well, it is to say that they are pictures, explicit pictures of a young woman—a very young woman—and an older man engaging in, shall we say, acts of a sexual nature. I received them an hour ago. I have no idea why he would send me something like this. Well, you can read the letter for yourself. He says he needed me to keep them, and needed me to help him figure out what to do.” He lifted his hand, and let her have the file.
Frowning, Cherabino visibly braced herself, and opened the file. I looked over her shoulder, and saw what had been described, various sex acts between a young girl and an older man. Unfortunately, they weren’t the worst thing I’d seen in this job, since there was no apparent injury involved, but the pictures were disturbing enough in their own right. She was so very young. . . .
Cherabino’s finger settled on a spot in front of the photo, and her shoulders slumped, just a little. “This is Billy Oden. The older man.”
“You sure?” It occurred to me he was married. “An affair?” I hoped it was an affair. . . .
My eyes went back to the faintly-glowing bonsai, for something to look at.
She cleared her throat. “My gut says prostitute, Adam, and illegal one at that. Otherwise why send these? We’ll ask the forensic age specialist to give us a better view, but I’d be surprised if this girl is eighteen. If she’s not, this is—”
“A very sensitive situation,” the judge said. “Something that could destroy a man with a very notable career.”
“And Raymond sent the pictures to you,” I said.
He looked very old, and very tired. “And now he’s dead. I’d suggest you find out why, and soon. Otherwise I can—and will—reexamine my ruling in your case.”
I swallowed.
“He’s my grandson,” the judge said, voice like steel.
“I understand,” I said in a small voice. “I understand.”
* * *
Cherabino made us walk back through the square. Her sensei said she was spending too much time at her desk, she was thinking. She needed to walk more, try to do a little better. She could feel her muscles tensing up, she thought, especially the long ones in her legs. Her sensei was probably right. The fattening lunch had nothing to do with anything.
I pulled back from her mind, fuzzily thinking I shouldn’t be listening in so much. I’d promised, but my attention was starting to go as it entered the two to three o’clock range where my brain didn’t like to work as well. That and I wanted to think about something—anything—other than the judge’s ultimatum.
We passed a block of restaurants near the old subway station; this whole area had survived the Tech Wars well, and so the original brick architecture still stood with only minor renovations. A very faded mural of what might once have been a rainbow and a burrito beneath a moonscape adorned the wall. A neon sign advertised a special at the oxygen bar across the street; the air quality was relatively good today, hardly making me cough at all even with the wind blowing directly at me, and as a result their business was probably suffering. The laser tattoo shop next door to them actually had a line, though.
We waited at a crosswalk as a flyer came in to land on the roof of the mechanic’s shop on the corner of Church Street. Then, when the signal turned green, Cherabino started across. I trotted after her.
When I caught up, I forced myself to confront the thing I feared. To think about the case, and actually try to solve it rather than running away like I wanted to.
“This is about a sex scandal with a state senator?” I asked Cherabino. “Nothing to do with the drugs?”
“It’s looking like it,” Cherabino said. “I can’t spend any more time on this today—I’m a couple hours late as it is—but I’ll have a uniform go get the senator for you to interview. If you catch him in a lie or get a confession, maybe we won’t need the forensics at all.”
“But no pressure,” I said, nervously, as we passed a few old houses with law firms inside. Even if she couldn’t work more, I had to. I knew I had to.
She stopped to look at me. “Adam, you have a judge asking a personal favor of you. And his grandson is dead.
Whatever you owe him, unless you can bring him a head on a platter in the next week, you’re out of luck—you might have your future in the department blocked, and that’s assuming he doesn’t actually follow through on the threat. The pressure doesn’t get any higher than this, and if you think otherwise, you’re kidding yourself.”
I shivered a little as the wind blew out of the south.
* * *
I’d managed to grab a quick nap in the crash room—consoling myself with the idea that lunch had been work today—and was feeling a little better. I was having trouble reading, but I could force it, and I could focus if I used up a lot of energy. This would probably be my last useful interview of the day; I’d either have to switch to easier suspects (God willing, there were some in the queue), or find something else useful to do. Maybe Paulsen was right. Maybe working on cases right now wasn’t all that great of an idea. Not that I had a choice.
“Was it really necessary to have uniformed police officers drag me out of my office like a common criminal?”
“State Senator Oden,” I said, and stood. I’d missed the door opening, somehow. A uniformed officer smirked from the door, then closed it. Great. Now I’d have to spend a lot of time soothing the senator before I could do anything else useful. “Thank you so much for coming,” I said on autopilot. “Please come in.”
Billy Oden was a wiry man, all teeth, with a very good hairpiece and a pale, too-smooth face that spoke of subtle plastic surgery, a lifetime indoors, or very expensive health treatments. Something about the way he moved made me think of a tennis player, whap to return the ball, whap to hit it back at you. His cheeks were ruddy with anger.
Behind him was the pompous campaign manager from this morning, Mantega, in an even more expensive suit. He was a lawyer by trade, and I vaguely remembered Cherabino had found his record otherwise to be clean. She’d made some comment about his previous clients, something about defending the scum of the earth.
“I’m surprised you people didn’t drag me down in handcuffs,” Oden said. “It’s a disgrace to our system of government. I’m a state senator, for the love of God.”
I pasted on the most natural smile I could manage, relaxed my shoulders, and held out a hand. “I’m sorry for the rough treatment. The officers must have gotten a little overzealous. Please, sit. Can we get you guys some coffee?” I did my best to project hail-fellow-well-met, not because I thought I could actually manage the feeling in Mindspace, not now, but because my micro-facial expressions and body language would at least project it some. Politicians were good at reading people, and I’d have to be careful. Very careful, this late in the day, so I wouldn’t miss anything. I’d do this. I’d do it if it killed me. They sat, Mantega finding a seat very close, arranging his cuff links carefully before placing them on the table.
With as tense as they were, I’d have to softpedal it. “I’d like to ask you some questions. Namely, about your intern, a Raymond Datini? He was reported missing a few days ago.” I forced myself to focus on strategy, where I was going with this.
Oden shifted in his chair, seeming to relax. “Yes, Raymond works for us. If that’s all this was about you could have made an appointment. I would have talked to you.”
I completely ignored the implication that he wouldn’t talk otherwise, and reinforced my pleasant body language.
Just then, Bellury appeared in the doorway with two coffees in hand. Thank you, I mouthed at him. He frowned at me in return, probably unsure why the words hadn’t just appeared in his head, but I stood up and took the coffee to overrule the moment.
“Ah, here we go,” I said, and put the coffee in front of the two men. Mantega sniffed at it and pushed it away; Oden held it in his hands.
I pulled the chair around and sat down on the side of the table, perpendicular to Oden, as to seem more friendly. He blinked when I got into his personal space, but settled down nicely when I backed up a half-foot. Apparently we weren’t that friendly yet, but that was okay.
Bellury settled in his chair in the corner and held the files I’d asked him to bring.
“Senator Oden,” I began, and paused for him to correct me.
As expected, he put in, “Billy, please.”
“Thank you,” I smiled the expected smile. “Now, let’s start with the legal disclosures. I’m a Level Eight telepath.” I paused. It was technically true, even if I wasn’t operating right now, and the disclosure intimidated most people. “I’m required by law to tell you that skin-to-skin physical contact can increase my ability to read your mind, so for most people it’s considered wise to avoid all physical contact with telepaths. The Guild recommends that if you have something to hide from a telepath, you think about something else.” That part usually got me a flash of a secret, a flash I was sorely missing now. “Do you have any questions?”
“Am I under arrest?” Senator Oden squirmed a little in the chair.
“No,” I said soothingly. “Nothing like that. Even so you’re entitled to a lawyer if you want one. You should also know you’re being recorded. It’s just standard procedure, to make sure I’m doing my job correctly.” I smiled again, and shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “Do we need to wait for anyone for you? Are you comfortable?”
He drank a little of the coffee and made a face. Bellury had likely given him the department standard stuff, which was swill, even if most of it was actually beans, not simcoffee. It was still vile. “Yeah, enough, I guess. Let’s get this over with.”
“When was the last time you saw Raymond?”
He thought. “It must have been two weeks ago. At first I thought he was working on a special project for Rafael here, but later he told me Raymond hadn’t been into work in days. He’s the grandson of a judge, you understand. I was willing to be flexible, especially with the health issues he’d talked about, but he should have called. I haven’t seen him since. Have you heard anything?”
“Health issues?” I asked.
Oden shrugged and dared another sip of the coffee. “He’d lost a lot of weight and was looking pretty sick. He was late to work, more than usual for a college student, but he said he hadn’t been feeling well and I didn’t pry. He didn’t give me any details.”
Huh. The judge hadn’t mentioned health issues, and with the roommate’s and Kubrick’s information, I was leaning toward the beginning of a serious drug habit. Or, I supposed, trying to be generous, it could just have been the overbooked hours the roommate said he was keeping. Those could make your body complain after a while.
Back to the interview. Um, okay, standard alibi type question.
“Where were you on Friday morning between the hours of eight and eleven at night?” I asked. The medical examiner’s report had finally come back, and that’s when she estimated Raymond had been killed. As I’d thought, execution-style shot at close range from a .38, one of the most common guns on the street.
“At home, with my wife and children,” Oden said.
I looked at him, trying to get a read off body language since I couldn’t do it with telepathy. He was nervous, twitchy, but I couldn’t tell why, and the alibi wasn’t much of one. Better than being alone, but barely. Spouses lied for each other all the time. I tried to picture Oden killing Raymond over pictures, and couldn’t. Maybe it was Mantega; he looked slimy enough to manage anything.
“Why do you ask?” Oden said, into the silence I’d let sit too long.
I reached over as Bellury handed me the files he’d brought. From the top one I placed three pictures in front of Oden—the first, of Raymond alive, and the next two of the murder scene—the third with a very explicit close-up shot.
Oden scooted back suddenly, the metal feet of the chair scraping against the floor. The shock on his face seemed real to me, but without my telepathy I felt deaf and dumb. It didn’t matter, I told myself. Most people want to tell the truth; they’re just looking for an excuse.
Mantega’s reaction was less extreme, but he still seemed surprised, even a few seconds late
r. Either I’d missed something or . . .
I kept my voice soft and matter-of-fact. “Raymond Datini was found dead on his college campus yesterday.” Then I placed the three pictures we’d gotten from the judge on top of those pictures. The senator on top of of a very, very young woman. “These photos were sent to Raymond’s grandfather—the judge—just before Raymond was murdered.”
I kept leaning forward, interested, and watched their reactions again.
Oden’s face fell, something like shame coming over it before being replaced by panic. Mantega looked angry and resigned.
Mantega leaned forward. “The girl in those photos is nineteen, and licensed for those activities in the state of Georgia. The senator has paid all proper taxes.”
I took a breath, and pushed at the fracture point. “That’s a good try. It is. But I have a college student, an intern of yours, who was murdered just days after he put these pictures in the mail to a judge.” I paused. “My only question is whether the senator did it himself or got you to do it. I’m betting he got you to do it. You seem like the type.”
“Raymond was blackmailing the senator,” Mantega hissed.
Here we went. “And you killed him for it,” I said.
A look passed between them, and Mantega frowned. Oden looked resigned. He turned back to me.
“No,” he said. “No, we didn’t. All I wanted was for us to get someone to follow the guy. Figure out what he really needed all that money for. He was a judge’s grandson. Whatever was going on had to be bigger.”
“But it wasn’t. That piece of shit was involved in the drug trade,” Mantega said. “I saw him meet with some dealers. They were screaming about money. The stupid kid stole money from them. Their money. He had another two days to pay up, they said.”
“So I gave him the money,” Oden put in. “I gave him the money and I told him to burn the pictures, and not to step foot back in the office. That was the last time I saw him. That was Wednesday night. When I didn’t see the pictures the next day in the paper, I figured he’d done exactly that. I guess it wasn’t enough.”