by Peter David
The questioning would be the most challenging part of it. Going to one suspect after another, grilling each one, trying to determine who was telling the truth and who was lying.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out exactly that way for Kebron.
As it turned out, the only individual he spoke to who refused to speak under the monitoring of a bioscan was the lead suspect. Everyone else was willing to submit themselves to computer monitoring of their vital signs. Monitoring that guaranteed to an absolute certainty that they were speaking the truth at all times.
Kebron was truly disappointed, because each and every person he spoke to had some sort of grudge or disagreement or frustration with Gleau. Every one of them would have been an ideal suspect. Motive was all over the place, even though he didn’t have a reasonable means of explaining the nature of Gleau’s death as being the responsibility of someone other than Janos, or explaining how Janos’s DNA was all over the corpse.
From the top officers on down, everyone was cooperative. He didn’t even have to go to them. One by one, at his request, they came down to his temporary headquarters and willingly spoke under bioscan. No one held anything back. Captain Shelby spoke of her going head-to-head with Gleau over his oath of celibacy. Commander Mueller was brutally honest over her concerns that Gleau posed a threat and her rather violent encounter with him. Arex had practically been ready to beat Gleau up over his alleged harassment of Lieutenant M’Ress. The more Kebron heard, the more he began to think that Gleau’s murder wasn’t the shocking development others believed it to be. Instead what was shocking was that he had managed to live as long as he had.
And when he’d asked each of the interviewees the most obvious question—“Did you have anything to do with the death of Lieutenant Commander Gleau?”—the response was immediate and unhesitating and in the negative. Each time, the bioscan did not hesitate to confirm that they were telling the truth.
Sam Spade would have been bored out of his mind.
He expected the conversation with M’Ress to be the most revealing, however. She, after all, had voiced the loudest complaints about him. She had accused him of taking advantage of her, of badgering her after she’d filed her initial complaints, of—and Kebron had to double-check his notes upon hearing this one—threatening her in her dreams. This despite the fact that Selelvians had no known history of that sort of psychic power. But according to Mueller, M’Ress had been so strident on the subject that she’d begun to wonder whether there wasn’t something to the accusation.
M’Ress, however, was late for their appointment. She had promised she would be there at 1400 hours, but as time stretched, there was no sign of her. Kebron sat there, drumming his three thick fingers on the table, which shook under the tapping. When it reached 1430 hours, he informed Arex that M’Ress had missed her appointment.
“That’s odd,” Arex’s voice came over the combadge. “She’s usually quite punctual.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the case here,” replied Kebron. “I’ll look for her.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Arex assured him. “I can—”
“No, it’s all right,” said Kebron, and when he spoke there was a gravely, noir-ish cadence to his voice. “I’ll check out every back hallway, every hangout, every possible hidey-hole she could have stowed herself in. I’ll turn this town upside down if I have to, and I guarantee that by the end of the—”
The door chimed and slid open. M’Ress walked in. “Sorry I’m late,” she said.
“Never mind, Arex. Kebron out,” said Kebron, feeling deflated. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Just had business to attend to.”
“Really. And here I thought you might just be reluctant to talk to me.”
She tilted her head, her green eyes narrowing. “Why would that be the case?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“You want me to explain to you the reasons for why you believe something?”
Kebron paused. That was actually more or less the case, but it sounded kind of stupid the way she put it. “No,” he said.
She shrugged. “All right, then.” She moved toward the chair in a sleek and graceful manner. Then she easily vaulted onto it, and crouched on it a moment as if trying to make herself comfortable, before easing down into it. “So. You wanted to see me.”
“That’s right. But did you want to see me?” he asked challengingly.
M’Ress tilted her head in the other direction. “Are you ill?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you suffering from some sort of—I don’t know—mental deficiency? I mean, I thought this was to be an interrogation, but you’re going about it in a very strange way.”
“This is my investigation, Lieutenant, and I will conduct it as I see fit.”
She blew air impatiently through her lips.
He waited for her to say something.
She idly picked some stray fur off her uniform.
“I have fish,” he said abruptly.
M’Ress stared at him. “Pardon?”
“Fish. In a tank. Back on the Excalibur. I keep them as pets.”
“All right.” She clearly didn’t know what to make of it, which was exactly what Kebron wanted: to keep her off balance.
“Does that interest you?” he asked.
“In what sense?”
“If you were confronted with them, would you feel a genetic imperative to eat them?”
She hopped off the chair. “This is asinine. I have no idea what you’re going on about, but I’m not going to waste time with this idiocy…”
“Sit down, Lieutenant,” he rumbled. She glared at him a moment, then sat once more. “What I’m trying to determine,” he continued, “is how much of your actions is governed by conscious control…and how much by irresistible instinct.”
“Considering that my instinct is to walk out the door whether you tell me to sit down or not, I’d say conscious control.”
“Good,” he said, sounding reasonable. “I’m about to activate the bioscan to measure veracity. Do you have a problem with that?”
She hesitated ever so slightly, and that pause spoke volumes to Kebron. “No,” she said after a moment. “Not at all.”
“Good. Computer.”
“Working.”
“Activate bioscan.”
“Bioscan activated,” the voice told him with its customary serenity.
“Would you care to sit?” he said expansively. “Can I get you something? Saucer of milk?”
“You must find yourself endlessly amusing,” said M’Ress, shifting in the chair.
“Yes. So…did you kill Lieutenant Commander Gleau?”
“No,” she said immediately.
The bioscan had an automatic default built into it. If the speaker spoke an untruth, the computer would react. Anything else and the computer remained silent.
“Did you want him dead?”
“No.”
“Incorrect,” the computer said immediately.
She bared her teeth and growled low in her throat. “The computer doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”
“Incorrect,” came the voice once more, perhaps even a hair faster.
“This is stupid and I don’t want to be a part of this.”
“‘This is stupid’ is a subjective statement. Unable to evaluate,” said the computer.
“Thank you, that was very helpful,” Kebron assured the computer. “M’Ress, I think you’ll find this takes a lot less time if you choose to cooperate.”
“I am cooperating. I’m here. Isn’t that enough?”
“You seem very testy.”
“I’m not testy. I’m annoyed. And I resent your implication that I know who killed Gleau!”
He stared at her for a long time then, so long that he might have been a statue. “What is it?” M’Ress finally demanded impatiently.
“At no point,” Kebron noted, “did I claim or imply that you know who killed him. Bu
t since you bring it up: Do you know who killed him?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea.”
“Incorrect,” the computer said instantly.
She glowered, but there was less of the brittle edge to it than there was before. She seemed a bit nervous, which was exactly what Kebron was seeking.
“I…don’t know for sure,” M’Ress slowly admitted.
“But you have a good idea.”
“Yes.”
He rose from behind the desk, looming over her. No one loomed quite like Kebron, although Si Cwan, the Thallonian ambassador, came close. “You overspoke before,” he said with faint reproof. “If you’d simply said ‘I don’t know’ to the previous question, the bioscan would never have picked up on it. As it is, I’m now constrained to ask you just who, precisely, you think killed Lieutenant Commander Gleau.”
She took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Ensign Janos,” she said.
His face twitched. “Well, that was certainly the obvious answer, wasn’t it?”
“You asked me, I answered.”
Well, she was certainly right about that, but Kebron wasn’t about to just let it go that easily. “All right,” he said. “So you think he might have done it.”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I just do.”
“Why?”
“I already told you.”
“No,” said Kebron. “You simply reiterated what you think, not why you think it.”
“We’re going around in circles, Lieutenant,” said M’Ress with obvious irritation.
“All right then. Let me draw you a straight line.” Kebron’s mind was racing. He was stitching together in his mind an assortment of scenarios that he’d read in various novels, and he didn’t entirely know what he was going to say before it came spilling out of his mouth. He only wished he had a slouch hat and a trench coat…which admittedly would have looked odd, since such accoutrements were designed for inclement weather, which was a rarity on starships. But it would have fit the mood for what he was about to say. “You were terrified of Gleau. You hated him. You wanted him out of the way. But you didn’t have the stomach for it yourself. You knew that suspicion would point at you, and that the inevitable DNA evidence would seal the deal. So you found a sap. Someone whom you could cozy up to. Janos. Furred, like you. His animal aspects on the outside, like you. You figured he’d be an easy mark. You played him, took him as a lover, and then you dropped the bomb on him. You told him you wanted him to kill Gleau for you. But he wouldn’t do it. You misjudged him. But it didn’t matter. You’re a science officer. While you were busy ‘entertaining’ him, you had equipment up and running that was analyzing his DNA, replicating it so that when you murdered Gleau—shredded him with your very own claws—you would be able to use scientific techniques to cover your tracks with Janos’s. He takes the fall and you walk away clean. Isn’t that right!”
Her lower jaw had dropped to somewhere below her collarbone. It was with effort that she managed to close it. She looked completely shocked.
Kebron waited for a reply.
Then she looked down.
“How did you figure out we were lovers? What gave it away?”
Kebron was rocked back on his heels. He couldn’t believe it. But he recovered quickly, not wanting to be too obvious about the fact that he was utterly stunned. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you learn to figure things out,” he said while still managing to sound nonchalant. “So it’s true then. You admit it.”
“We were lovers, yes…but…I wasn’t using him!” she said desperately, her façade of annoyance evaporated. “We became involved, and one night I woke up trembling, and he asked why, and the whole thing just…just spilled out of me. And he got so angry, Kebron, so very angry. He wanted to confront Gleau, but I told him not to. I told him that I didn’t think he could trust himself, he was so worked up about it. I made him promise he wouldn’t. He swore he wouldn’t. But now I don’t know. I don’t know what he might have done.”
Kebron regarded her thoughtfully and then said, “Computer? Status of subject?”
“Subject shows no physiological changes.”
Which was the computer’s way of saying that she wasn’t lying.
Kebron had been bluffing. It had been one colossal bluff, and yet he had inadvertently stumbled upon a huge chunk of the truth. Or at least a truth.
“How…why did you get involved with Janos, then? If it wasn’t to set him up?”
Her green eyes narrowed. “Why do you think?”
“I don’t—”
“He…” She frowned then, as if being asked to articulate things that she hadn’t actually given any thought to. “There’s…something about him. He’s not my race. I don’t know what he is, actually. Nevertheless, I was drawn to him, as if I recognized something of my own Caitian background in him. When I asked him what actual race he was, he said ‘One of a kind.’ ” She looked up at Kebron. “Do you know?”
“Not really. His file is classified on the matter.”
“Classified?” She was obviously surprised by that. “Why would it be classified?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, perhaps you ought to find out.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said M’Ress, “you don’t know. And anything having to do with Janos that you don’t know in regard to this…this predicament…might be important.”
She was right, of course. He was slightly annoyed with himself that she’d had to point it out to him. He nodded—which, as always, meant inclining his body at the waist—and said, “Yes. I believe I will be looking into that. Thank you, Lieutenant.”
M’Ress was startled. “Thank you? You mean…I can go?”
“You can go.”
She didn’t need a second invitation to depart as quickly as she could, leaving Kebron alone and frustrated. “Computer, discontinue bioscan,” he said.
“Discontinued.”
And then Kebron was alone in the room, alone with his thoughts. Thoughts that were going in a singularly unpleasant direction.
Unless Lieutenant M’Ress was a pathological liar, then everything she’d said was the truth. Which meant that not only had Kebron come no closer to clearing Janos, but he’d actually gone in the other direction.
He’d provided Janos with what had been lacking before: motive.
He wondered if Philip Marlowe ever made things worse than they were when he started. He thought yes, sometimes that did happen, even to the most hard-boiled of detectives. But in such cases, they were merely setbacks. Creative obstacles along the way that only delayed the inevitable moment when the detective would come through for his client and the true guilty party would be revealed.
Kebron didn’t like what was being revealed. Not only was Janos’s situation becoming bleaker, but Kebron was now stuck with an image in his head of Janos and M’Ress copulating. No amount of detection would make that one go away anytime soon.
Then
i.
Calhoun was busy packing his bags. He didn’t expect it to take long. He did expect that it would be necessary.
Wexler was watching him do so, and was having no luck in convincing him to cease his activities. “The investigation is still pending, Calhoun!” he said. “They haven’t even spoken to you yet!”
“Then this will save them the bother,” Calhoun replied, never ceasing or slowing his movements.
“You don’t know how this will come out!”
“Yes. Yes, I do. It will come out the only way it could have come out.”
“Oh, Calhoun, don’t be a git.”
Calhoun stopped what he was doing and stared at Wexler. “I assume that’s some sort of insult.”
“A mild one, yes.”
“Wexler…I was never going to fit in here. I knew it from the beginning.”
“Really,” said Wexler. He was leaning against a chest of drawers, shaking h
is head. “And this doesn’t strike you, then, as some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?”
“It would have been fulfilled with or without myself.”
“Well, I have to say, Calhoun, that for someone who was so convinced he wouldn’t succeed, you did a hell of a lot of work to prepare for it. Not exactly typical for someone who’s certain he’ll fail.”
“I was simply trying to prepare myself.”
“For failure? It’s rot, Calhoun. You weren’t afraid of failure. You were afraid of success.”
“Success?” snorted Calhoun. “And why would I be afraid of success?”
“Because,” Wexler said, stabbing a finger at him, “Xenex was the entirety of your existence, and you’re terrified of the thought of outgrowing it. If you go back, carrying tales of how you kicked the asses of Starfleet cadets and were exiled for it, then you get to be a hero all over again. And that’s all you care about being, isn’t it. Not a Starfleet officer. Not a man. Just a hero. Well, heroes end up dead, sooner or later, Calhoun, and if that’s really where your priorities are, then it’s bloody lucky that you’re taking off now, before you take down a starship with you.”
There was a chilled silence, and then Calhoun said quietly, “You don’t know me. So don’t pretend to.”
“I don’t have to pretend anything, mate, thanks. And what about Betty, eh?”
“What about her?”
“Well,” Wexler pointed out, “did you give one moment of thought to the fact that she jumped in to try and save your ass? And because of that, she’s at much at risk of discipline as you? And unlike you, she isn’t willing to just cut and run when things are looking difficult. This place is her dream, her be-all and end-all. She was there for you. You’re not going to be there for her?”