by Piers Platt
“Okay,” Weaver said, cautiously.
“Let’s get inside,” Falken said, eager to change the subject. He dropped the tools through the hatch and then climbed down the ladder. “It’s okay,” he said, looking up at Weaver, who stood, hesitating, outside the hatch. “It’s just a little dark down here.”
Weaver climbed down and stood blinking in the dim light of the airlock. “Feels like a tomb,” he said, in a hushed whisper.
“It is,” Falken said, pointing at the body of the Khonsu’s captain, sprawled on the floor through the airlock door. Weaver caught sight of it and jumped, sucking in his breath in surprise.
“The ship must have been buried here for ages,” Weaver said, eyeing the decaying skeleton with distaste.
“Over two hundred years,” Falken agreed. “According to the ship’s log. This way.”
They left the tools in the airlock, and Falken led Weaver past the captain and down the corridor, into the ship’s lounge.
“What’s in the aft part of the ship?” Weaver asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
“There’s a hydroponics garden full of dead plants,” Falken said. “Another room with some big machines, I’m not sure what they’re for … and then the cargo hold. But the lights are out back there. You can’t see much.”
“I bet there’s a ton of electronics equipment in here,” Weaver said, wistfully, looking around the lounge. “Oh! Manuals!” He crossed to the shelf lining the lounge’s outer wall, and ran his finger along a stack of binders. “Some of these might be really useful for building my transmitter. The facility’s library is mostly stuff about prisoner psychology and filling out administrative documents. They have very few technical publications.”
Falken smiled. “Archos said you’ve made a lot of progress on that transmitter, given you’re teaching yourself electrical engineering as you build it.”
Weaver nodded. “Lesson number one: unplug everything before you start messing with it. I lost count of how many times I gave myself a shock,” he said.
“Come and see the bridge,” Falken said.
He walked past the escape pod – still hidden behind its wall panels – and pulled a spare chair over to the computer terminal in the bridge. He took a seat, and Weaver sat next to him. Falken touched the computer’s screen, and it lit up.
“It works,” Weaver breathed. “The main computer … access to all the ship’s systems.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Falken warned him. “A lot of stuff is offline, and the long-range transmitter was destroyed when the … uh, when the ship crashed, or whatever happened to it.”
“It can’t send any signals?” Weaver asked, disappointment creasing his face.
“No,” Falken said. He typed into the computer, and pulled up the newsnet application. “But it’s still receiving data. This is an up-to-date newsnet feed. Look.”
Weaver skimmed over the articles, then frowned. “We’ve been here so long, I don’t know what the date is anymore. I don’t even know what year it is.”
“That’s the right date,” Falken said, touching an article headline. “At least, I think it must be.” He typed Elize Weaver into the search bar. Then he stopped, holding his finger over the Enter key. “Are you ready?” Falken asked, studying Weaver.
Weaver nodded silently.
Chapter 22
Vina set her datapad on the kitchen counter, arranging it carefully in its stand so that it was facing her.
Wonder how Falken’s doing? she thought. He said he would call, and keep me updated, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard from him. I’m not sure whether that’s good news, or bad news.
She took a final sip of coffee, and put the mug to one side.
Okay, lots of calls to make today, she thought. Here goes.
She tapped on the screen, and the dialing icon appeared. A moment later, an older man’s face appeared.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Gillanon? It’s Vina Weaver.”
“Good morning,” the doctor said, smiling at her. “Vina, was it? I’m sorry, you’ll have to remind me – is this a therapy session, or an interview?”
“Uh, an interview,” Vina said. “But I’m not from a newsnet agency or anything. I was just hoping to ask you some questions about my father’s case.”
“Oh, right,” Gillanon said. “The murder case. My assistant shared some of the, ah, details you sent over. Are you asking for a second opinion on your father’s diagnosis?”
“I guess?” Vina said. “I’m mostly trying to understand his mental health, and how it all fits into the case.”
The doctor frowned. “Well, without actually examining him, I’m afraid I can’t say much about your father’s, ah, health. This whole discussion would just be theoretical.”
“Theoretical is fine,” Vina said.
“Then, ah, then fire away,” the doctor said, waving his hand at her on the screen.
“So, let’s assume for a moment that my father is innocent, as he claims to be. Is there any way to prove that he’s telling the truth?”
Gillanon exhaled loudly. “From a psychological perspective? Not really. You’d have to speak with a biometrics expert, or perhaps a defense attorney, but my, ah, my understanding is that the science of lie detection is still not well-accepted, either among academics, or by courts of law. Those machines can tell if you’re emotionally aroused, and what emotion you might be feeling, but just because someone is happy or fearful when they say something doesn’t mean they are being honest.”
“Hm,” Vina said. “Okay.”
“Was that all?”
“No,” Vina said. “My father never admitted any guilt. If he did commit the murder, why might he still deny it, even after he was tried and convicted?”
“Lots of reasons,” Gillanon said. “Let’s see.” He held up his fingers in the air, counting on them one at a time. “He could feel guilty about it, and be reluctant to face what he has done. He could be worried that confessing would, ah, change how you and your family feel about him, or that it would lead to additional punishment for him in jail. He could just be a pathological liar, accustomed to lying about his behavior.”
None of those sound like things Dad would do. “His attorney argued that he was temporarily insane when he killed Tevka,” Vina said. “Could it be that hasn’t confessed because he’s still … sick? Insane?”
“Certainly,” Gillanon agreed. “A massive traumatic event like this can sometimes cause people to lose their grip on reality.”
“Could you prove that that’s the case, if you could examine him?” Vina asked.
“Possibly,” Gillanon said, shrugging. “But the brain’s a funny thing. It’s not like there’s some kind of marker in there that flips over to ‘insane’ when someone, ah, loses their mind. We’re talking about shades of gray here, it’s not a binary. Proving mental illness in court can be quite tricky.”
“Oh,” Vina said. She rubbed her forehead, thinking.
“It would help if he was delusional about other things, too,” Gillanon continued. “If the only thing that indicates he might be insane is that he continues to deny his guilt in the case, that wouldn’t really support a definitive diagnosis. But if he also believed the sky was green, for instance, then you’ve got a bit more evidence.”
He wasn’t delusional about anything else, Vina thought. At least that I know of.
“Are you hoping to appeal his conviction on the grounds that he was truly insane, and should be in a mental hospital?” Gillanon asked. “Or are you trying to prove his innocence?”
“I don’t know,” Vina admitted. “I think I’m just confusing myself.”
“Ah,” Gillanon said. “Well, I’m sorry if I’ve added to your confusion.”
“No,” Vina said shaking her head. “This has been helpful, I think. Thanks for your time, Doctor.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll be happy to examine your father if you are able to convince the courts to allow it.”
Fat chance of that, Vina thought. “Thanks, Doctor. I’ll let you know.”
“Of course,” he said. “Good day.”
The screen went dark. Vina checked the time, and then placed a second call.
“Professor Dunn’s office?” a robotic voice answered.
“I have a ten a.m. appointment,” Vina said. “But I’m a little early.”
“Let me see if she’s available now, Miss Weaver,” the virtual assistant told her.
The screen lit up again, and Vina saw a middle-aged woman sitting behind a desk, typing at a separate computer.
“Miss Weaver, you’re early,” Dunn said.
“I can call back later,” Vina offered.
“No,” the professor shook her head, causing a set of gold hoop earrings to wave back and forth. “I prefer to stay ahead of my schedule if I can. So this time works fine.” She turned away from the screen and faced Vina. “My virtual assistant reports that you are not a student here, but you were nevertheless quite persistent in requesting to meet with me during office hours this week …?”
“Both true,” Vina said. “Thank you for giving me a bit of your time. I’ll try to be brief.”
“Okay,” the professor said. “So … what’s up?”
“I’d like to discuss a hypothetical situation with you,” Vina started.
Dunn held up a hand. “Stop there. If you’re thinking about committing a crime, or if you already did commit a crime, attorney-client privilege does not apply here. I’m not your attorney, you’re not my client. Anything you tell me, I have an obligation to go tell the police, if it’s something illegal.”
Vina laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Okay, good,” Dunn said. “I get a lot of stupid questions from students that often start out that way, and they’re never really hypothetical. Please, continue.”
“Well, it’s not really a hypothetical situation, to be honest,” Vina admitted. “It really happened, though I wasn’t involved. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of it.”
“Fair enough,” Dunn said. “Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of it.”
“Right. Here’s the situation,” Vina said. “If a sheriff had a history of unnecessary violence when dealing with the people he arrested, would that be enough cause for someone to appeal their sentence, if this sheriff was the arresting officer?”
“Not necessarily,” the professor said, shaking her head. “What kind of history are we talking about?”
“An official reprimand for excessive force six years before the arrest,” Vina said, reading from her notes.
“Yeah, that’s only one instance, that’s not really a ‘history,’ per se. Is there any evidence that such force was used during this later arrest?”
“… no,” Vina said. Dad never told anyone Buckniel hurt him, and Buckniel’s certainly not going to admit it if he did.
“Sounds like you’re grasping at straws, then,” Dunn said. “If a lab tech routinely ignored proper procedures when testing blood samples, then you could argue that all of the cases involving that lab tech’s work could be thrown out. But a police officer who let his temper get the best of him one time doesn’t have any impact on the rest of his cases.”
“Okay, let’s put the excessive force stuff aside,” Vina said. “What about a situation where the officer that made the arrest is directly related to the attorney defending the accused. Is that legal?”
“Directly related – like, father and son, husband and wife?” the professor asked. “Actually, I don’t think it matters. That situation would be unusual, but I don’t believe there’s anything inherently illegal about it,” she decided, frowning.
“It’s okay to have two brothers on opposite sides of the law like that?” Vina asked.
“It’s not optimal,” Dunn replied. “There’s certainly potential for abuse there. But in the eyes of the law, it’s permissible. We have to assume both of these men are professional, and maintaining the proper separation between their official responsibilities and their personal lives or feelings. So long as there’s no pattern of impropriety … again, I think you don’t have much of an argument for an appeal here.”
“What would a ‘pattern of impropriety’ look like?” Vina asked, hastily jotting notes on her datapad.
“Let’s see,” Dunn tapped her chin in thought. “If the sheriff had a habit of arresting people who had personal conflicts with the attorney, for instance. Or if the attorney had a very poor track record of defending cases his brother had arrested. Some evidence of collusion between the two of them, when their cases overlapped.” Dunn looked up from her desk and muted the microphone for a second. Then she turned back to face Vina. “Miss Weaver? I’m sorry, but I have a student here now.”
“Okay, thanks again for your time,” Vina said.
“Mm,” Dunn told her. “Good luck.”
She hung up; Vina had already opened a search query.
>>>Access Lawson County courthouse database. Cross reference cases where Sheriff Buckniel was arresting officer, and Tarpon Buckniel was defense attorney. Show conviction rate of accused.
On the screen, a progress icon spun in place for a moment, then the query result appeared.
>>>65.2% conviction rate.
Woah, Vina thought. Tarpon Buckniel lost almost two thirds of the cases that went to court due to his brother’s arrests. That seems like a pretty high losing percentage. But let’s make sure. She typed in a new query.
>>>Overall conviction rate of all cases in Lawson County, past twenty years, regardless of arresting officer or defense attorney.
>>>48.3%
Vina sat back on the kitchen stool. Yeah, that’s a big difference. Anyone who got arrested by the sheriff and then had Tarpon as his or her attorney was much more likely to see jail time.
Vina called up the newsnet footage of the press conference on the town hall steps again. Her father stood behind the microphones, gripping the podium for support.
“Please help me find my family,” Sef Weaver pleaded.
Vina watched Buckniel closely, as he walked forward, laying a hand on her father’s back.
“Thank you, Sef. We have the hotline, and we’re also setting up a website for anonymous tips,” Buckniel said. Her father stepped back, retreating to the steps next to her grandfather. Vina frowned at Buckniel.
How did you know my father?
She paused the video and opened the dialer app on her datapad, but this time, she called her mother.
“Hi, Vee,” Elize said, smiling at her on the screen. Vina could see bookshelves behind her – her mother was at the store again.
“Mom, did you and Dad know the Buckniels back in the day? Before we were kidnapped?”
Elize screwed up her face, thinking. “Perhaps?” she guessed. “I can’t remember anything specific, but maybe.”
“Seems like the sheriff and Dad were on a first-name basis,” Vina said. “And the sheriff said they were ‘acquaintances.’ ”
“You talked to the sheriff?” Elize sighed. “Vina …”
“I’m not ready to let it go yet, Mom,” Vina replied.
“Just don’t go causing trouble,” Elize said. “I don’t want to have to come bail you out of jail for harassing the police.”
“You won’t,” Vina said. Although I kind of already did harass them. “Can you remember how they knew each other?”
Elize sighed. “Honestly, no. I don’t remember the sheriff being a part of our social circles at the time.”
“What about his brother, Tarpon?”
“No,” Elize said. “Your father was always something of an introvert. About the only socializing we did was around the store, or as part of that little yacht club he helped start, down at the lake.”
Vina typed a note on her screen. Yacht club. Buckniel brothers liked to fish. Connection?
“One more thing, Mom,” Vina said. “Did Dad win some kind of award the year before he was arrested?”
/> “Yes, he did,” her mother confirmed. “He was named the Independent Bookseller of the Year at one of the big trade conferences. Why?”
“Was it a big deal?” Vina asked.
“It depends on who you ask,” Elize replied. “A lot of booksellers would kill for that award – they spend their lives working toward it. Your father felt honored, but the award didn’t really mean much to him. He loved the discovery aspect, how it felt to find a rare book … and then get it into the hands of someone that truly loved reading it, and share that moment of discovery with them.”
Vina heard the shop’s doorbell chime.
“Gotta go, honey,” Elize said.
“‘Kay, bye,” Vina said.
Vina opened her browser, and spent some time paging through the yacht club’s site. She found plenty of references to her father, but as far as she could tell, neither of the Buckniel brothers had been members there – neither of their names appeared on the member list, nor were they in any of the photo archives she found. She ran another search query next, searching for Tarpon Buckniel + Sef Weaver. A pile of results appeared, but as she scrolled through them, all of them appeared to be related to the court case. On a whim, she deleted her father’s name, and searched solely on Tarpon’s name.
His obituary appeared again, and a number of articles about different cases he had defended, some successfully. His practice’s website was still up – Vina looked through it, but it was just bland marketing materials and some client testimonials. Then, on the fourth page of search results, a link caught her eye.
>>>Lawson County Crime Blotter: Tarpon Buckniel Arrested for Criminal Possession.
Vina clicked on it. It was a brief article, barely more than a mention, nestled among several other minor crimes being reported.
>>>Tarpon Buckniel, 29, was sentenced to treatment at a government drug rehabilitation program followed by six months’ community service, after pleading guilty to possession of an illegal narcotic and related Drifting paraphernalia.
Vina crossed her arms across her chest, thinking. So before he became an attorney, Tarpon was busted for drugs. And not just any drugs: he was Drifting.