Spider Play

by Lee Killough

  “See who used it,” Janna finished.

  “Right.” Doubrava eyed the autopsy images. “What if the data stick was planted before Chenoweth died? Maybe the smuggler knew about his implant, through medical records or overheard bar bragging. Give construction crews a few drinks and they start comparing injuries. Maybe our smuggler offered Chenoweth generous digidough to take the data stick to Earth.”

  The possibility she and Mama considered before. “They’d want him going as soon as possible after planting it. Was he scheduled for leave?”

  “Construction crews don’t have leave. They work a specified term, usually a year, and go back to Earth.” Doubrava typed on his desktop and read resulting text on the built-in screen. “Chenoweth still had three months to go. A supposed family emergency or physical injury too severe to let him continue working could send him back early, though.”

  “Dying guaranteed that.”

  Doubrava turned to eye the two of them. “Is this new look at Chenoweth’s death because Fontana thinks it wasn’t an accident?”

  “That’s our belief,” Mama said, “and we’ve given him reasons for wanting to determine if it’s true.”

  The turquoise eyes gleamed. “Really. What reasons . . . other than guaranteeing when he left the station.”

  “Our best evidence is that on Monday, the day before Chenoweth died, the agents who recovered the data stick knew it would be in a body coming down to Forbes, and arranged to jack the hearse picking it up from the shuttle.”

  Doubrava blew out his breath. “Son of a bitch. But . . .” He frown ed. “. . . I don’t know how his death could have been arranged. What have you been told about it?”

  “Only that it was a construction accident resulting in explosive decompression,” Janna said. “Did the suit tear . . . maybe sabotaged so it would?”

  “VE suits don’t tear. That’s VE for vacuum environment. They’re layered with the same arachnid mesh in your body armor. The seal failed and the suit blew wide open. The techs who examined it couldn’t find any reason why.” He turned back to the autopsy images, eyes narrowing. “But our forensics section didn’t check it. We thought we were dealing with an accidental malfunction. Excuse me.”

  He disappeared through the portal.

  Loud cursing erupted out in the office. Seconds later two officers passed up the hall with the combatants from the bar. Towing them by a grip under the arm, the prisoners’ bodies — wrap straps around wrists and ankles — floating parallel to the floor. Struggling accompanied the profanity but seemed mostly token, the invective aimed at each other rather than the officers.

  Doubrava returned shortly, adjusting his headset. “That was entertaining. The prisoners didn’t want to enter the sally port down to the cells and I nearly lost my headset lending assistance.”

  “The cells are under us?”

  “Yes. Well sound-proofed, happily.”

  Janna asked, “What’s the process for them now?”

  Doubrava shrugged. “A night in detention. Probably a fine and release tomorrow. Unless we discover they’re habitually disorderly, then depending on their work performance and whether they’re essential personnel, a decision will be made whether to keep or boot them.” He grinned. “Who knows. You might be sharing your ride back to Earth with them.”

  Wonderful. “Forensics is examining Chenoweth’s suit?”

  “Shortly. Where were we here?”

  “About to check surveillance on the morgue,” Mama said.

  “Right.” Doubrava tapped on his keyboard, replacing the autopsy images with a new series. “Though you realize if Chenoweth already had the data stick planted, who visits doesn’t matter.”

  “The autopsy scan didn’t find any evidence of it.”

  “Neither did our exit scan.”

  “But,” Janna said, “if the stick were already planted, wouldn’t the smuggler want reassurance it hadn’t been discovered at the autopsy or affected by the suit blowing?”

  “Good point.”

  Janna read the time code on the images. Tuesday, 09:00 hours. “I’m assuming you have access to all station surveillance.”

  “Naturally. So does Geyer and whoever’s on the Com desk. Ditto Fontana, and probably the ambitious Ms. Nakashima. All surveillance, that is, except in the labs. They’re guaranteed privacy. Only Athena monitors them. That’s in case an emergency situation arises. There’s no surveillance in our living quarters, either.” Dragging images into a line, he enlarged them, frowning. “Damn. There’s no surveillance in the morgue itself. I wonder if that will change, too. We do have it in the hallway outside the morgue, and at the four entry points into the hallway. One at the far end for the passage to the ward module, these two on the right from the office and conference room area under Receiving and Examination, and one covering the rabbit hole between the morgue and ICU levels.”

  “Rabbit hole?” Mama said.

  “That’s what we call a hatch opening — minus a hatch covering — through a deck. We don’t have stairs of course. In horizontally divided modules like this one and the hospitals’ the two halves share the deck between them, like twins conjoined belly to belly. So we cross between the two through a rabbit hole.” Doubrava pointed at an image showing a hallway ending in a large rectangle of darkness. “Let me find someone using this. Hallways with no steady traffic go on motion-sensitive lighting.” He played with his keyboard, the time code running backward, until something flashed across the image, bringing up light in the dark rectangle. Now it showed what appeared to be a reflection of the hallway, the two divided by a thick edge. “Okay. We’re looking across the rabbit hole . . . the hall to the receiving area and ICU above, and one to the hall outside to the autopsy room and morgue below. Now watch.”

  He backscanned until the hole went dark again, then let the recording run forward. A female in a yellow paisley top with a drawstring waist over matching pants glided their direction to the thick edge. There she bent forward and stepped down onto the edge. Two steps later the hole lighted and she hung head down in the “reflection”, where she glided away.

  Not feeling upside down, of course, however dizzy it left Janna watching her.

  Doubrava frowned at the image. “I’m thinking that instead of trolling through forty-eight plus hours of hospital surveillance, let’s make it easy on ourselves.” He touched his desktop. “Athena, show all instances, sequentially, as we finish with each, of entry into the autopsy/morgue hallway between . . . eight hundred fifteen a week ago Tuesday and seven hundred thirty that Thursday.”

  A hallway image bloomed on the screen wall, time code reading 08:33 Tuesday. In it Fontana stood outside a portal near them on the left.

  “That’s the autopsy observation room.”

  Doubrava touched a lower corner of the image and set it in motion. Fontana moved clear of the portal. Geyer followed him out. Farther along the hall, double doors opened and two figures glided out floating a body bag between them. Both wore protective pale green shrouds. Pushing back their hoods revealed them as a Nordic blonde female and muscular mixed-blood male.

  “I see the body isn’t cold-wrapped,” Mama said.

  Doubrava nodded. “No need yet with it going on a freezer shelf.”

  Giving the smuggler easy access to plant the data stick, Janna reflected. Brows Mama lifted her direction told her he thought the same thing.

  Two more shrouded individuals left the autopsy room pulling back their hoods. A stocky male in his fifties, salt and pepper hair — Dr. Waller, Janna presumed — and Doubrava, with a second body bag slung over his shoulder . . . too floppy to contain a body.

  “What did you have in there?” Mama asked.

  “Chenoweth’s VE suit, removed in the autopsy room. The air pack and helmet made it too bulky for even our largest evidence bag.”

  All four proceeded down the hall through another set of double doors on the left. And emerged shortly minus Chenoweth’s body bag and their shrouds. The male and female le
ft through a portal directly across the hall. The older male punched a code into the morgue’s keypad, then accompanied by Doubrava with the bagged VE suit, came back toward Fontana and Geyer. Where they began a discussion.

  Mama asked, “What was that about?”

  “Who should examine Chenoweth’s suit to determine why the seal failed. Our own suit maintenance techs, or someone from the manufacturer Seever-Coates. We decided on our own techs.”

  “Why? Surely the manufacturer knows the suit best.”

  “For safety, Fontana wanted all the suits tested before proceeding with any further construction requiring them. Only a few emergency replacement suits belong to the station — none of them Seevers. The others are the property of individual construction personnel, custom-fitted for them. So construction would have to be delayed for days waiting for techs from three or four different manufacturers.”

  News that the opposition could present at the stockholders’ meeting as evidence of a major station safety issue.

  “How much has that delayed construction?” Mama said.

  “Negligible. Using our techs, they were all vetted by the end of Wednesday.”

  On the screen wall, the discussion ended and the group left through the portal on the right near the cam. After it closed behind them, lighting in the hallway dimmed out, leaving only a faint green glow at the edges of the deck and around all the portals.

  Doubrava tapped an upper corner of the hall image. A new one replaced it, time code 10:29. Fontana and a female wearing drawstring-waist scrubs crossed the corridor from the portal opposite the morgue, and after Fontana tapped in the code, entered the morgue. Three minutes later they left, Fontana frowning and touching his headset.

  “Interesting,” Mama said.

  “But probably not significant, no longer than he stayed,” Doubrava said.

  “We still ought to learn why he went.”

  Doubrava stabbed the corner of the image.

  The time code advanced to 12:03, the image revealing a male figure in scrubs in the near portal on the right. Who then burst through the portal, propelled by a husky, rusty-haired male in a body suit with cargo pockets and diagonal pattern of green and yellow stripes almost bright enough to satisfy Mama. The second male pushed the medical staffer down the hall ahead of him, lifting the staffer off the deck when he tried to resist.

  “Who’s Mister Furious?” Janna asked.

  “Clell Titus, one of Chenoweth’s construction crewmates. And maybe more than a crewmate.”

  “Very cranked,” Mama said.

  Reaching the morgue, Titus pointed at the keypad. No need for sound to know he demanded the door be opened.

  “By a mega dose of guilt.”

  A buzz shot down Janna’s spine. “Guilt?”

  Doubrava shook his head. “Not that kind.”

  “What—” Janna began.

  Interrupted by Doubrava. “Ah . . . the cavalry.”

  Two male officers in Security uniforms sailed into the hall, one from the near right-hand portal and the other farther down — literally flew, feet clear of the floor. Before Janna finished catching her breath at the dramatic entrance, they stopped their flight by catching themselves on the walls of the autopsy room and morgue and lowered their feet to the deck, Ninjas drawn.

  Titus saw them and froze. A moment later, mouth moving rapidly, he released the medical staffer. Who promptly fled.

  The Ninjas went back in their holsters and one of the officers, sporting hair styled in a bright orange Mohawk longer than gravity would support, reached for Titus’s arm.

  Titus pointed at the keypad again, still talking . . . expression pleading.

  “He’s saying: ‘Is it my fault? Did I kill him?’ He told them he’d been asleep when a crewmate woke him with the news about Chenoweth. He didn’t believe it and came to the hospital asking to see Chenoweth. When he was refused and became agitated enough to force his way toward the morgue, Athena alerted us. He says he knew the morgue’s location because another crewmate who spent some time in ICU heard it was over the morgue.”

  “Why did he think he’d killed Chenoweth?” Janna said.

  “Might have killed him. Thinking maybe he damaged the suit when he wore it on Sunday.”

  Mama’s scalp furrowed. “You said the suits are custom fitted. Why was he wearing Chenoweth’s?”

  “Because they’re the same size and his own suit got damaged. A crewmate using a heat saw to trim a wall panel Titus was holding for him — heat trimming leaves no debris — left his finger on the switch a moment too long and the blade continued from the panel into Titus’s sleeve. It only cut the surface, but in the interest of safety, the crew chief, Indira Pazin, sent Titus to the lockers for a backup suit to finish the shift. That’s verified by Pazin. Titus borrowed Chenoweth’s instead since it fit better.”

  “Which he knew how?” Mama asked.

  “He’s worn it before. Once, according to his testimony at the inquest.” Rolled eyes indicated Doubrava’s opinion of that testimony. “He said Chenoweth’s fuse got lit by this fem on Titus’s shift and he wanted a chance to honey her, so they traded shifts and suits.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Janna said.

  Doubrava snorted. “Not for a nano, whether or not fems lit Chenoweth’s fuse. There’s no time or tolerance for cozying on the job site. Communication among the crew is also wide open. Everyone hears everything. I suspect the real reason he knew the suit fitted is because they were in the habit of switching when one or the other wasn’t going to make it to his shift for some reason. You don’t earn the construction bonuses without a clean work record.”

  “The foremen didn’t notice the switch?”

  Doubrava snorted again. “Crew chiefs, and of course they noticed. Ditto the rest of their crewmates. The helmet doesn’t render anonymity, no matter the name on it. But if the job’s being safely covered — emphasis on safety, which Fontana insists counts more than schedules — the crew chief probably just let them know he or she wasn’t fooled and made a mental note to keep track of how often they switched, in case it affected bonus awards.”

  “Chenoweth and Titus might not be the only ones switching,” Mama said.

  “Of course not. Even if others can’t switch actual suits. Not that anyone will admit it. These crews stick together.”

  A band of brothers, given their potentially hazardous job. “So Titus wore Chenoweth’s suit.”

  “Right.” Doubrava nodded. “But he swears he had no problem with it on his shift and cleaned it up and wiped the seal on returning it to Chenoweth’s locker.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Doubrava frowned at the continuing discussion outside the morgue. “I don’t believe wearing the suit damaged it. Chenoweth wore it on his shift Monday with no problem. Did Titus do something to the suit between then and Chenoweth’s next shift is the question, I suppose, but Titus appeared genuinely distressed about Chenoweth. I don’t see him wanting to harm a friend, especially if they were lovers. But if so, he’d be following orders. While he’s no zipwit, some uberQ organized this.”

  “His distress could be remorse,” Janna said. “I’ve seen it in killers before.”

  “The other problem: if he did sabotage the suit . . . how?”

  “Maybe Forensics can find the answer.”

  On the screen, the two officers put their heads together.

  “They’re asking Geyer about letting Titus see Chenoweth. She okayed it.”

  Sure enough, one of the officers tapped a code on the keypad. When the doors opened, the three entered. A few moments later, the officers returned to the hall and stood with backs to the doors.

  “Why did they leave him alone with the body?” Mama asked.

  Janna knew that tone. Mama just put Titus at the top of his suspect list.

  Doubrava frowned. “A legitimate question in hindsight, but he asked for a private minute and my officers had no reason not to give it to him. He started crying and mum
bling. Either talking to Chenoweth or praying.”

  “That could cover the sound of a mini-drill Titus brought in one of his cargo pockets,” Mama said.

  “And his private ‘minute’ is going on eight.” Janna pointed at the time code. “How long do you think it would take to rout a groove, plant the data stick, and seal the incision?”

  “Crap.” Doubrava blew out his breath as Titus emerged scowling. “He’s complaining that Chenoweth should be dressed, that leaving him naked is disrespectful. Retorto — that’s the officer without the Mohawk — opened the end of the body bag to let Titus see Chenoweth’s face. It could have been enough to show him bare shoulders. But it’d be no trouble opening the bag the rest of the way. The shelves are lateral with flip-up doors.”

  “Which side of the body faced out on the shelf?” Mama asked.

  Doubrava closed his eyes for a moment. “The . . . right side.”

  Making the leg with the implant readily accessible.

  The officer’s faces suddenly set and Mohawk stabbed a finger toward the portal on the right.

  “What happened there?” Janna asked.

  “Titus suggested the rest of the now idle construction crews would also find leaving Chenoweth naked disrespectful.”

  Mama’s brows rose. “That sounds like a threat.”

  “Which is why they moved the discussion to an interview room for Geyer to continue. Titus also demanded permission for crewmates to take turns staying with Chenoweth until his body left for Earth. Geyer vetoed that, but okayed dressing him.”

  “Good strategy,” Janna said. “Ask for something you’re sure is going to be denied and you’re more likely to be granted a more minor request.”

  Doubrava cocked a brow. “Unless you assume it will be and while you wait in the interview room for Geyer, you link with a crewmate who has entry to your quarters and ask him to bring one of your suits, and he shows up in our sally port with said suit before the end of Geyer’s chat with Titus.”

  Janna imagined her own annoyance in that situation. Not enough to make her boot Titus, probably, but would Geyer? “So, permission or not?”