As Flint climbed the unremarkable concrete stairs, he worried about the Armstrong Police’s involvement. Had Costard done something wrong? Had the Disty rescinded her special pass to be in Armstrong in the first place?
The guards still hadn’t caught up with Flint when he reached the door that opened onto Costard’s floor. As Flint stepped into the hallway, he saw another open door at the other end, with a warning barrier sealing it off.
A warning barrier, made up of thin motion-detecting equipment and red light beams, letting anyone who tried to pass know that their presence was being monitored and would probably be recorded.
Something bad had happened.
Flint walked down the hall. No one stood guard outside the room, so his initial hunch had been correct. Nyquist was here alone.
The guards reached the floor just as Flint stopped outside Costard’s door. The room was smaller than he expected, and he didn’t see anyone inside.
“Detective Nyquist?” Flint said to the empty room. “May I enter?”
Nyquist came out of the bathroom. He was square, with broad shoulders and a trim frame. He was shorter than Flint and probably older. His bluish-black hair was thinning on top, and he had real wrinkles in the corners of his eyes.
“Funny we never met,” Nyquist said. “You hear how big the Armstrong P.D. is, but you never quite realize it, not until you run into someone who worked in the same department you did at the exact same time, and not only have you never met him, you’ve never heard of him.”
Which pretty much summed up Flint’s reaction to Nyquist as well.
“I’ve been off the force for a few years now,” Flint said, determined not to establish a rapport.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been on it too long.” Nyquist beckoned with his right hand, as if the room had been rented to him instead of Aisha Costard. “Come on in.”
The lights went off for a moment and Flint stepped inside the room. The room smelled of dust and cleanser, as if no one had been inside for quite a while. The bed was made. A familiar bag sat on the suitcase stand. Costard had brought that bag to Flint’s office on that first day.
On one wall, a waterfall cascaded down some rocks. The sound had been muted, but otherwise the scene looked real enough. Flint wondered if Costard had set that program or if it was standard in the hotel.
The security guards arrived just then, and stopped.
“Thanks, guys,” Nyquist said. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
The guards glanced at each other, then shrugged. They left.
“Where’s your partner?” Flint asked.
“I’m between partners.” Nyquist’s voice had a familiar tone. It took Flint a moment to identify that tone. It was a bitterness that reminded Flint of DeRicci.
“Yet they gave this case to you,” Flint said.
“Lucky me.” Nyquist shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants. He leaned forward ever so slightly as he paced around the small room.
“You gonna tell me where Aisha Costard is?” Flint asked.
“You gonna tell me you haven’t linked up all day?” Nyquist asked.
Flint’s stomach twisted. “I don’t always follow the news,” he said, taking a guess at what Nyquist meant.
“Must be the luxury of the unemployed,” Nyquist said.
“Self-employed.” Flint let himself step into that. He recognized Nyquist’s technique—a little brash, a little tough, a little blunt. DeRicci liked that method as well.
“Right. You Retrieval Artists get to pick and choose your jobs. Lucky you.”
Flint didn’t respond to that. He clasped his hands behind his back so that he wouldn’t touch anything. “Where’s Ms. Costard?”
“Strange thing,” Nyquist said. “Disty vengeance killing in a Disappearance Services office, if you can believe that.”
Flint didn’t move. He knew his expression hadn’t changed because he had practiced keeping a straight face long ago. But the surprise had nearly knocked him over. He had to concentrate on the conversation. If he let himself feel anything, he would reveal too much to Nyquist.
“When?” Flint asked.
Nyquist shrugged. His shrugs were elegant. The one he’d used earlier had been larger than this one; this one was a slight movement that said timing was less important than the event.
“A day or so ago.”
“Has departmental policy changed?” Flint asked. “I thought vengeance killings are open and shut.”
“Usually,” Nyquist said. “We have to confirm the Disty’s involvement with the target and all that. You have anything to add on that?”
Flint wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say. Technically, Costard wasn’t a client any longer, but Flint didn’t like to give away any information. Yet here he was, in her hotel, trying to locate her.
“Shouldn’t be hard,” Flint said, taking a gamble, “considering she’d just come in from Mars.”
“So you do know her,” Nyquist said.
“We met briefly.”
“Did she hire you?” Nyquist asked.
“For what?”
Nyquist blinked. Maybe no one had ever questioned one of his questions before—and in the same tone, too.
“I don’t know,” Nyquist said. “To do whatever it is you people do.”
For the first time, his banter seemed a little forced. Flint had thrown him off his rhythm.
“Retrieval Artists find Disappeareds,” he said. “We’re not Trackers. We don’t always bring the Disappeared to face justice—if I can use that term for what passes for the law in some places.”
Nyquist stopped pacing and looked at him sideways. “That’s right. You people don’t believe in the law.”
“If that were the case,” Flint said, “I’d never have joined the police force.”
“But you left.”
Flint nodded.
“Richer than when you arrived.”
So Nyquist had done more than a cursory background check. That was interesting. Had he been surprised by Flint’s appearance, or had he already marked Flint on his witness list?
“Actually, no,” Flint said. “I made the money after I left the force.”
Hours after, but after nonetheless.
“Always heard rumors about that,” Nyquist said, contradicting his original banter about not even hearing of Flint. That didn’t surprise Flint either. “Always heard you’d done something illegal. Decided the money was better than following the law.”
“People always say things like that about Retrieval Artists,” Flint said. “We’re not very well liked.”
Nyquist smiled sideways again. “Ever wonder why?”
“Nope. I understand it completely.” Flint looked at the waterfall. The loop varied. Sometimes the water splashed and the droplets shone in the light. Sometimes the splashes were smaller and didn’t reflect anything.
“This is really an interesting case,” Nyquist said. “I have a woman who is considered a felon by the Disty, yet they let her come to the Moon on business. She dies in a Disappearance Service office, and the only person she has contact with, besides the hotel staff, is a Retrieval Artist.”
Flint said nothing.
“I mean, she should know that the service isn’t going to tell her if they disappeared a friend of hers, right?” Nyquist looked at the waterfall as if it could answer his question.
When Flint still said nothing, Nyquist turned. The technique was effective but familiar. Flint knew how this game was played. If Nyquist wanted to unsettle Flint, he was going about it wrong.
“If I understand how these things work,” Nyquist said, “she wouldn’t have gone to the Disappearance Service to ask questions on her own unless you turned her job down. But if you turned her down, what are you doing here?”
Flint could suggest reasons. They might have been friends in a previous life, coworkers, or maybe she was the Disappeared herself. But he said nothing. He wanted to hear Nyquist’s theories.
“Then we have
the Disty vengeance killing in the front office of the Disappearance Service. The Disty like to send messages. If I miss my guess, that message would be that people who try to disappear—or disappear and get caught—deserve this fate. Isn’t that what you would think?”
“I haven’t seen the crime scene,” Flint said.
“Dismantled,” Nyquist said. “The techs have been through it, the body’s going through processing, we’re investigating whether or not there’s next of kin. Do you know if there is?”
Such a humane question, and one that most people would answer. But Flint resumed his policy of silence.
Nyquist raised his eyebrows and smiled again, only this time the smile was real. “You know, I noted in your files that you used to be Noelle DeRicci’s partner.”
“She’s a good woman,” Flint said.
“She is.” Nyquist glanced at the bag, sitting forlornly on its stand, as if to say that Costard had been a good woman too. “Yet I noticed that on one of Noelle’s recent cases, you refused to work with her too. You were even a suspect in that case.”
Cleared suspect. Flint knew that much. And he knew better than to be defensive.
“You’d think you’d work with your ex-partner.”
“You’d think,” Flint said.
“And yet…” Nyquist shook his head. “Were you always this uncooperative, or is that part of your new job too?”
Time to take some control of the interview. “You wanted me up here,” Flint said. “You’ve told me that Aisha Costard is dead, something that I’m very sorry to hear. But I’m not going to dance any more. I met her, I talked with her, I was coming to see her, and that’s all you need to know.”
Nyquist’s playful smile faded. “I’ll decide what I need to know. Why were you coming to see her?”
“I had a question for her,” Flint said.
“And it was?”
“Personal,” Flint said. “And, unfortunately, now it’s unanswerable.”
“Maybe we can help.”
“The police don’t help Retrieval Artists,” Flint said. “Try that technique on someone a little more naïve.”
“You should be more polite,” Nyquist said. “You might be a suspect, you know.”
“In a Disty vengeance killing? I don’t think so,” Flint said. “Unless it’s not a vengeance killing.”
“I didn’t say that.” Nyquist turned away.
“Yet you’re investigating.”
“You know the routine. Confirm before closing the case.”
“Are you that unimportant in the department?” Flint asked. “Seems to me that a seasoned investigator wouldn’t get perfunctory cases.”
Nyquist’s spine stiffened ever so slightly. Finally, Flint scored against him.
“There’re a few questions about the case,” Nyquist said.
“The Disappearance Service?” Flint asked.
“The sloppiness.”
Flint couldn’t tell if Nyquist inadvertently let that information out or if he intended it.
“The Disty aren’t sloppy,” Flint said. “It’s a ritual.”
“You see, that’s my theory,” Nyquist said. “But Andrea Gumiela—you remember her, right? The head of the detectives?—she seems to believe that some Disty here on the Moon don’t get the same training as their Martian cousins. So she thinks they might have just been careless.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Flint said, deciding he could say that much.
“Me either. Which makes me wonder why someone would fake a vengeance killing. Got a theory?”
Flint sighed. He had a theory, but it required him to get involved. Still, he wasn’t sure how much of Costard’s recent history was public record. He didn’t want to reveal too much, but he did want Nyquist, who seemed savvy enough, out of his way.
“If I were you,” Flint said, “I’d see what Costard did to make the Disty angry in the first place. Maybe you’ll find your answer there.”
Nyquist peered at him. “You think so?”
It was Flint’s turn to shrug. He made it a casual little shrug, as eloquent as Nyquist’s were.
“I have no idea,” Flint said. “Glad it’s not my case.”
He turned around and stopped in front of the lights that still flashed in front of the door.
“You know,” Nyquist said to his back, “you don’t seem overly concerned that she’s dead.”
“I’m sorry that she’s dead,” Flint said. “She was a nice woman.”
“But?” Nyquist was still fishing.
Flint was going to end it.
“But I only met her a few days ago and only for a short time. It’s sad, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know her well enough to grieve.”
Nyquist didn’t answer for a moment. Flint didn’t turn around, nor did he ask for the warning light to go out.
“You’re right,” Nyquist finally said. “It is sad. I’m beginning to think no one knew her well enough to grieve.”
Then the warning lights in front of Flint blinked off. He stepped through the doorway and into the hall.
“I may have more questions,” Nyquist said to Flint’s back.
“I doubt I’ll have more answers,” Flint said as he walked away.
Thirty-one
The situation in Sahara Dome was getting worse.
Scott-Olson had returned to her lab. She saw no point in staying in the conference, watching the disaster unfold. She could see it a variety of ways—on a wall screen, through her links, or on one of the screens mounted on her main desk.
She kept the wall screen on—she had to stay informed: information had suddenly become a lifeline to her—but she shut down the news portion of her links. Having the information come through the links made it too personal. She didn’t want to think about the disaster that was befalling the city in which she had spent most of her life.
The lab wasn’t making her much calmer. Six of the mummified bodies were in her cooler. The skeleton of Lagrima Jørgen had its own table, the orange bones glowing in the lab’s bright light.
Soon this place would fill with more bodies—some human from attempting to stop the fleeing Disty, and a whole lot of Disty. She doubted the local Death Squad even existed any more, so she was gearing up her team to handle the Disty bodies as they got brought in.
She had already made up a bed for herself in the small side office, and told her assistants to do the same. Even if it were possible to get home—and at the moment, it wasn’t; no one could safely step outside in Sahara Dome—she wouldn’t leave. Not with so many corpses on the way.
Every time she looked at the wall screen, she saw a massacre. In some ways, it was as hideous as the one she’d found buried in the Disty section. Disty climbed over each other to get out of the Dome. They shoved each other aside, trampled each other, and some—abandoning the principles of Disty life—punched each other.
The train station was the worst. No new trains had entered the Dome, and no more were coming. Someone had ordered train travel to Sahara Dome to end.
The trains that originated here had gone, probably with Disty engineers at the helm. Even engines that had been in storage sheds for maintenance were put into service, probably causing disasters farther along the tracks.
But no one had told the Disty that more trains wouldn’t arrive. The Disty crowded the edge of the tracks, pushing and shoving and arguing. More filled the station, and even more filled the streets outside the station, all of them trying to get out of the Dome.
They wouldn’t, and Scott-Olson wasn’t sure what would happen when they realized that. Would they pry open the Dome exits and flee? She’d already seen trains leaving with Disty clinging to the outside. Those Disty had to know they were going to die.
She had heard, but fortunately hadn’t seen, that the Disty were taking enclosed dune vehicles outside the Dome. Those vehicles wouldn’t get the Disty far—maybe to Wells, if they were lucky. Real lucky. She had even seen a report that a few Disty were driving aircars out of
the Dome, something astonishing not just because aircars weren’t designed for travel outside of a Domed environment, but also because the Disty hated aircars. They hated the wide openness of human-designed vehicles, moving in human-designed areas.
It had to be hell for the Disty just to be outside the Dome. But to be outside the Dome in an aircar was as extreme as clinging to the outside of a train.
Scott-Olson washed her hands and started to scrub down her lab tables. It was all make-work. At this point, she didn’t want to start an autopsy of the human remains. She wanted to keep the tables clear for the incoming disaster.
She hadn’t felt this helpless in a long time. In some ways, she felt responsible. If she hadn’t asked how to dig up the buried dead, the Disty might not have panicked. They might never have found out.
But as soon as she had that thought, she knew it was wrong. She had done the best she could with the knowledge she had. She had had no idea that this entire incident would, essentially, drive the Disty insane.
She glanced up at the wall screen. Some human reporter had managed to get video of Sahara Dome’s port. It didn’t even look like the building Scott-Olson knew. The Disty were shoved against the doors, trying to get in.
From what she could tell, a trickle was getting inside, but that would create its own problems. The Disty section of the port was separate from the human section, just like the interior of the Dome itself. The Disty had their own space traffic-control monitors and their own regulations. They let humans work their side (following Disty rules) because so many alien groups were used to dealing with humans. It facilitated what little space traffic Sahara Dome got.
But Scott-Olson was certain the Disty in space traffic control and the port authority and space security weren’t at their jobs. She had a hunch they had fled at the very first chance.
So a group of human controllers were trying to make sense of this mess, trying to make sure that ships didn’t collide with each other as they took off, that the exodus from Mars was as orderly as possible.
Scott-Olson made herself focus on the lab. A lot of things could be moved to make extra space. She could even rearrange some samples so she could use part of her wall lockers for even more bodies.
Buried Deep Page 18