“Hello.” For a brief second all I could hear coming from the other end were sharp panic-filled breaths.
“I’m looking Miss Caprica. The detective.” Whoever was on the other line sounded very distressed. “I—I’m good friends with Kari and Hati. She told me about you and what you’re doing and I just wanted to report something that I had seen.”
She wanted to report something! I scooted out into the hallway with the receiver pressed to my ear. “What did you want to report?”
The caller let out a few sharp breaths. “Well. The day of the robbery, after I had escaped from that place...” By “that place” she must have meant where all of the Martian women were being held and interrogated against their will. “I live on the same housing row that Mima’s does. I saw the head of security going into Mima’s house.”
I pressed my hand against my chest to help hold in the scream that I wanted to let out. “Was he carrying something when you saw him?”
“Yes. He was carrying a black box under his arms. He had a lot of people with him when he went into the house.” The caller paused. “I don’t know if this helps you or if it means anything. But I just thought it looked weird that he was going into Mima’s house with this black box.”
“You’re absolutely fine. I’m glad that you called. Is it okay if I have your name, please?”
The caller drew in a small breath. “My name is Pan.”
“What’s your last name?”
“I have a very complicated and hard-to-pronounce Martian last name.” She chuckled. “I have my grandmother to thank for that.” I absolutely understood what it was like to have a long and hard-to-pronounce name.
“Okay, Pan. I appreciate you calling me. If you remember anything else please let me know. Okay?”
“Okay,” Pan whispered before she ended the call.
This was beyond wonderful! I had a witness that placed Mr. Hayate at the scene with that black box of his. I started to nibble on the end of my fingernails. If my hunch was correct, then this proved that Mr. Hayate planted the ring that he found in Mima’s house. If so, then why? Perhaps since he was under so much pressure to find the rings and an actual culprit, he planted that one ring in Mima’s house. I mean, it kind of made sense, seeing as his little plan to interrogate every Martian woman on this ship had backfired and all of this happened under his watch. He was desperate for a conviction. But I was not going to let him pin this entire thing on Mimas!
* * *
I decided the best thing that I could do was to re-watch the security footage from the day of the robbery. Unlike when I watched it earlier, this time, I had the chance to watch it uninterrupted and without the pressure of knowing that I could get in trouble for doing so. I watched the footage three times; each time, I started the video at 7 a.m. and, each time, I hoped I would maybe see something suspicious or extraordinary. But each viewing was the same; everything was pretty normal until 9 a.m.; that was when the strange purple gas clouds appeared, then that suspicious-looking janitor ran toward the cloud while everyone else was running away from it. At 9:03 a.m., the explosion came at the end of the third hallway, blowing away the door to the room that The Rings of Saturn were held in and, by 9:33 a.m., the smoke had cleared from the hallway. I was about to give up, but I decided to watch the footage one more time, except this time I was going to watch each person in the third hallway one at a time. I had examined almost everyone in the hallway except for this one young man; he had a medium build and short auburn-colored hair that was parted to the side. He kept taking short glances over his shoulder. His right hand was jammed into his left pocket, and occasionally, he would look down at it with this very nervous look on his face. Eventually, the young man tripped; I was not sure what he tripped over, but he fell directly beside a potted plant that was in the hallway. His left hand, which had been in his pocket, was now inside of the potted plant. When the young man got up, he pressed his fingers into the dirt before finally walking away. He looked over at the potted plant one last time before he reached the end of the hallway. God, that was weird. Who was that guy? Just what did he have in his hand and why did he see the need to bury it in a potted plant on the security room floor? I ran the footage back, then I paused it; that potted plant was at the exact spot where that shifty-looking janitor stopped before she ran straight into the purple cloud of smoke. Also, I remembered she bent down to get something before she ran into the cloud; she also threw away a little black bag before she ran into the cloud of purple smoke. I wondered if this guy gave her what she needed to blow the door at the end of the hallway into pieces or if he was passing something else on to her to help her with the robbery. I needed to go check that potted plant out right now!
For a second, I was afraid that I wasn’t going to find the potted plant at all. I thought to myself that surely I couldn’t have been the only one who made the connection between this security officer who tripped and the mysterious janitor. But to my surprise, it was still in the third hallway, untouched. I knelt in front of the pot and started to dig the dirt from out of it. After digging out a third handful of dirt, the tips of my fingers brushed up against a piece of paper. I carefully pulled the piece of paper from out of the dirt; it was neatly folded into four parts. I carefully separated each part; it was a letter. “Dear Phoebe, all of the preparations for today are finished. The only thing I need you to do is to bring me the rings. Contact me after you have everything finished on your end.” Oh my God! This was huge! Could Phoebe be the name of that mysterious-looking janitor who ran straight into the purple cloud of smoke before the explosion took place? Also, I needed to find out who that guy was in the hallway. This could be it. I might have this entire case solved!
I folded the note and raced back to the observation room. My monitor was still paused directly on the security officer right before he tripped into the flowerpot. I turned to Carol. “Hey, Carol, do you know this guy?”
She took a quick glance at the monitor. “Oh, that’s Cole. He’s been working on this ship for a while now.” Okay then, as a security officer, he had access to this floor that the rings were on and he could easily provide Phoebe with any information that she might need so that her robbery could go smoothly.
“Okay, I have a second question. What are the names of the female Martian custodians who specifically clean the security room floor?”
“Oh, there are only two of them. That’s Mimas and Phoebe.” That was just the answer I was hoping she would give me! So there was a custodian by the name of Phoebe who worked here! Cole must have been working with Phoebe. They must have been in cahoots. I mean, they had to be since he asked her to meet him after everything was finished on her end and said that all she needed to do was to bring him the rings. I wondered if he was buying them from her or something. There was really only one way to find out. I was going to have to interview Phoebe and Cole. If they were both employees here, then that meant they lived on this ship; since Phoebe was a Martian, she obviously lived in the Martians-only living quarters below the parking lot! I could start there.
Gary snapped his fingers. “I just remembered that Phoebe busses tables on her day off at that fancy restaurant on floor A, The Loge.” That was a good place to start. It could give me the chance to ask more questions and to learn more about her and her daily routine, which would ultimately help me to narrow down where she could be hiding herself and the rings.
With a name like The Loge, I wasn’t sure what type of restaurant I was going to be walking into. To my surprise, it was a high-end BBQ restaurant. Each table had a small grill planted in the middle of it. Customers could choose from a wide selection of items to place on their BBQ, from shark fin to lean cuts of Kobe beef. This was definitely not the type of place where they served hotdogs on a bun. After standing in the lobby area of the restaurant for a few minutes, I was finally approached by a young black woman in a crimson red sheath dress with shiny black buttons that started at the top of her dress and came to a halt at the bottom. “Hi,
welcome to The Loge. My name is Shelia. How can I help you today?”
I reached into my white purse and I pulled out my notepad, pen, and an official security badge, which I had Mr. Hayate give me. I figured that would make things easier for me and people would be more open to asking any questions I might have in regard to my investigation. I handed the badge over to Shelia. “Hi, Shelia, I’m a part of a special taskforce that’s investigating the missing Rings of Saturn.”
Shelia flipped my badge over in her hands. “Oh, I think it’s an absolute shame that the event had to be canceled!” She handed my badge back to me.
“Yes, it is. I wanted to know if you could answer a few questions for me about one of your fellow employees. A young lady named Phoebe.”
Shelia pressed her hands to her chest, looked over her shoulder, then motioned for me to walk over to the other end of the restaurant. We sat down together in an empty booth. With a giddy look on her face, Shelia hunched her shoulders and, in a low voice, she said, “I knew it! I knew that if anyone stole those rings, it had to be Phoebe!”
“That’s a pretty bold statement. What makes you say that?” I pressed my pen to my little notebook. I was ready to jot down everything that she was getting ready to say. “Well, I’m the hostess and I’m the shift manager, so I know everybody here from the front to the back of the restaurant. And I consider myself to be a good judge of character.” I really wished she would get to the point and stop talking about herself. “Anyway, I always considered Phoebe to be a nice girl. She would always come in on time. I never had any issues with her at all.” She paused to catch her breath. “All of that ended when some of the food went missing.” Okay, good. Finally, some real details that I could write down.
“So Phoebe stole some food from the restaurant?”
“Oh yes! I don’t know if you looked at our menu, but we use the finest ingredients that money can buy. Our Kobe steaks are the most requested item on our menu. We do inventory on our more expensive items every night before we close and some of our Kobe steaks were going missing each night after the restaurant had shut its doors to the customers, so obviously, the culprit had to be one of the workers here.”
“So how did you figure out that Phoebe was the thief?”
Shelia smiled at me as if she were the cat that just ate the canary. “I started doing random purse checks for all of the women at the end of their shift and when I checked Phoebe’s purse one night, I found three Kobe steaks inside! Which didn’t surprise me at all seeing as Phoebe worked in the kitchen.”
“What did Phoebe do in the kitchen?” I asked.
“Nothing special. She just did prep work for the meals. She would slice up the meat into thin slices. Then the waiters bring the meat out to our customers so they can place it on the grill.”
So Phoebe had a history of stealing on the job. Things weren’t looking good for Phoebe right now.
“The thing that hurt me the most is that I found out that Phoebe was being nice to me when she was around me but then she was bad-mouthing me when I wasn’t around,” Shelia continued. “She was saying things about the way I dress and she was only being nice to me so she could work the shifts that she wanted to work. And those were the shifts where she felt like it would make stealing the Kobe steaks easier!” I wrote down everything except how Phoebe talked about the way Shelia dressed.
“I take it that Phoebe is no longer employed here?”
“Oh no! Phoebe was fired immediately after I found those steaks in her purse!”
“How long ago was that?”
“About two weeks ago.” I wrote down that last piece of info before I got out of the booth. “Do you need to know anything else about Phoebe?” Shelia asked with a tone of enthusiasm in her voice.
“Only one thing. Can you give me her home address please?”
Having access to the employee elevators certainly made moving from place to place much easier. I couldn’t image trying to get all of this information while plowing through the crowds on the ship. Things had calmed down a bit; people were still upset over the fact that they couldn’t leave the ship or make any outgoing calls, but the ship’s hospitality committee squashed any upset feelings the passengers might have had. All of the restaurants were offering happy hour prices all day long, and waitresses with plastic smiles were going around offering finger sandwiches and all sorts of cocktails with cute, colorful paper umbrellas stuffed between the ice cubes. Basically, what they were doing was putting a bandage on a wound that was gushing out huge pints of blood. Eventually, they were going to run out of sandwiches and people were going to sober up and start asking questions again about what was happening on this ship. No amount of free things would be able to make them go away or calm down.
There was a security guard stationed outside of the entrance to the Martian living quarters. I flashed my badge at him and he let me through the door. Nothing had changed since I had been down here earlier; the ship’s security was still swarming around, and things still seemed tense. The Martian people were trying to go on about their everyday lives all while tiptoeing around these stiff trigger-happy-looking security guards.
Apparently, Martian houses were identified by their house number, since they were under the ship’s main floors and not on an actual street. Phoebe lived in house number 30. Shelia also told me that she lived with her mother; her name was Helene, but everyone called her Hellen instead. It didn’t take me long to find Phoebe’s home; I followed the house numbers until I found house number 30. Just like every other house here, this one was made out of thick blocks of metal, but instead of an actual door, there was an old dusty quilt. I knocked on the front of the house directly underneath the window. After the fourth knock, a robust Martian woman in a gray housedress with red stripes peeked her head through the side of the quilt. Her round green cheeks were stained with fresh tears. “Yes. How can I help you?” I handed my security badge over to her.
“Hi, is Phoebe home?”
The woman’s eyes became filled with worry. “No. No, she’s not. I’m her mother, Hellen. Is something wrong with her? Has something happened to my Phoebe?” She wiped the edges of her eyes with the thick quilt that was in the doorway.
“No, nothing has happened to her. My name is Cosmo and I’m a part of a special task force that’s investigating the disappearance behind The Rings of Saturn.”
Hellen pulled the quilt back. “Please come in and have a seat.” There wasn’t much inside of the house; just a brown three-legged couch with a matching lumpy love seat, a large bucket filled with dishes, and a tiny circular grill. Over to the right was another room that was separated by a quilt just like the one in the doorway. Hellen sat on the far end of the three-legged couch while I sat on the lumpy love seat.
“If you don’t mind me asking, are you okay, ma’am?”
Hellen’s shoulders started to shake. “It’s my daughter, Phoebe. I’m just so worried about her.”
I reached over and I placed my hand on top of hers. “Why are you worried about her?”
“She’s been acting pretty funny the past few weeks. She just hasn’t been herself.” Hellen dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “She’s been coming home late and, call it a mother’s intuition, but she’s definitely keeping something from me. I can feel it in my bones.” Even Phoebe’s own mother had a hint of suspicion toward her daughter’s actions. The quilt in front of the doorway flew into the front room. “Momma, I’m home.” That must be Phoebe!
Chapter 18
A slender young Martian woman dressed in a white dress with puffy sleeves and a red pleated skirt, identical to the one I purchased at Kyon Orthus boutique, entered the house. Hellen jumped up from the three-legged couch. “By the Goddess, Phoebe, where have you been?”
Phoebe ignored her mother and turned her eyes toward me. “Who are you and what are you doing in our house!”
I handed my badge over to Phoebe. “My name is Cosmo and I’m a part of a special task force that’s investigating
the disappearance behind The Rings of Saturn.” Phoebe looked at Hellen, hoping to get some sort of answer, but Hellen just stood there with her hands pressed to her lips and tears falling from her eyes.
“I didn’t have anything to do with that, so you can just leave!” Phoebe pulled the quilt in the doorway back, then she tossed my badge down at my feet.
“Phoebe, please just answer her questions! That’s all you need to do!”
I picked my badge up from off the floor. “Well, since you had nothing to do with the robbery, then that means you have nothing to hide, which also means that you should have no problem answering any of my questions.” I tapped my fingers on the edge of the three-legged couch. “Have a seat, Phoebe.” Once Phoebe sat down on the couch next to her distraught mother, I noticed how her high-class ensemble clashed with the humble surroundings of her living room. I wondered if she’d already sold the rings to Cole, if that was her intention, and maybe she’d bought herself a fancy new outfit. “I love your dress. Where did you get it?” I asked. Phoebe rolled her eyes and she sucked her teeth in. “I got it as a gift from a friend, okay?”
I didn’t believe her. “Are you sure that you didn’t purchase this dress yourself at Kyon Orthus jewelry shop?”
“I would never set foot in there. It’s a human’s-only store!”
Phoebe fished out a tube of black lipstick and a heart-shaped compact mirror; she reapplied a fresh coat to her lips. “You’re wasting time ’cause I was nowhere near where the robbery took place anyway. I was working the morning shift at my other job. I bus tables at The Loge.” With a smile on her face, she crossed her legs and dropped her belongings back into her purse.
Hellen grabbed hold of Phoebe’s hand. “It’s true. I watched her leave that morning for work. My Phoebe is a good girl. She would never do anything like that.”
“Momma, please.” Phoebe shook her mother’s hand off of her. I flipped through my notebook and scanned over everything I had written while I was at The Loge. “I went to The Loge earlier and I talked to Shelia.”
Cosmic Callisto Caprica & the Missing Rings of Saturn Page 19