Investigating Deceit

by Michael Anderle

  Jia’s eyes widened, and her breath caught. “Does Marianne Karton still work in your lab?”

  “Dr. Karton?” Dr. Chen blinked a few times. “No, actually, she doesn’t. You think she’s behind this?” He sounded genuinely shocked.

  “I’m not sure. She mentioned switching jobs when we were there. She said she was annoyed with the pressure. The timing is too convenient to ignore.”

  Erik scoffed. “Definitely.”

  Dr. Chen sighed. “I see. She did recently switch companies, but I thought she just wanted to run her own lab.” He swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. “She certainly would have the technical ability to remove the watermarks. I’ll admit I’m surprised. She was paid well, and she was excellent at helping me manage things. I even made sure she got a bonus last quarter. Leaving to run her own lab made sense, but stealing data? Shame on her.”

  Erik stood and grabbed his duster. “I think, Doc, you should stick around the station while my partner and I go chat with Dr. Karton. It might not be her, but if it was, she might have been involved in sending Tomlinson after you.”

  “Now I regret recommending she get a bonus,” grumbled Dr. Chen.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Erik’s Taxútnta zoomed toward a residential tower, his lights and emergency transponder letting them blast through the flocks of vehicles. If they were wrong about Dr. Karton, they could apologize to the captain later for their aggressive flying.

  “You’re sure about this, Emma?” Erik asked, his hands tight on the yoke. “If not, we need to hit her new company. We don’t have enough for a warrant to trace her yet, based on the circumstantial evidence. Don’t try to hack her home systems yet. We need to do this by the book if we’re going to get the charges to stick.”

  “She’s definitely there,” she replied. “She has a huge exterior view, and she has the window tint off. I can see her at this moment with multiple drones. She’s currently eating some rice crackers. Given her head-bobbing, I believe she’s listening to music, but none of the drones I’m using have the appropriate equipment to confirm that. She’s given no indication of tension.”

  “Kill the emergency lights,” Erik ordered. He slowed. “I don’t know if we’re coming in where she can see us, but I don’t want her to figure out something’s up. She’s probably like Chen. She probably thinks we’re idiots who can’t understand any of her science. We can use that against her.

  “We can bring her in for questioning, but like you said, we don’t have a good case against her yet,” Jia noted. “Switching jobs and being good at what you do aren’t criminal acts, and I doubt she’ll agree to let us search her PNIU and apartment.”

  Erik grinned. “Then we’ll just talk. Cops can talk to people without warrants, and if she happens to let something slip, that’s on her. I won’t even bring in the TR-7.”

  Jia rolled her eyes. “She’s a scientist, not a Tin Man. We won’t have to fight a pitched battle. It’s not like every time we deal with problems, we end up having to shoot someone.”

  “Not every time, but a lot of the time. But you’re right. She’ll want to answer our questions and look helpful, just like she did with Tomlinson. If she’s not the person responsible for stealing the data that ended up in the yaoguai, she might be able to help us figure out who did. Chen’s already admitted he wouldn’t know, and he barely knew about Tomlinson.” Erik chanced a quick glance at Jia. “Let me ask you something else. Ignore evidence. Ignore logic. What does your gut tell you? It’s been right about a lot on this case.”

  “My gut tells me she’s guilty,” Jia admitted. “It’s yelling at me and shaking me from the inside to tell me that.”

  Erik nodded. “Then, whatever happens, we need to make sure she doesn’t get away.”

  He slowed as they closed in on the tower and dove toward a parking level.

  It was time to do their job.

  Erik almost felt guilty as his boots clomped on the elaborately embroidered carpet leading from the elevator to Dr. Karton’s apartment. The paintings and artwork might be fakes for all he knew, but management was going out of their way to exude luxury and class in the residential tower compared to his place, which wasn’t all that cheap.

  Apparently, being a high-level scientist for a major biotech company was lucrative. Or maybe creating black market genetically engineered monsters had helped her move into a nicer place?

  Erik approached the door and frowned. “You want to do it, or should I?”

  “Let me.” Jia knocked lightly on the door.

  “Detectives Blackwell and Lin?” asked Dr. Karton over the intercom. Most Uptowners didn’t need to rely on someone identifying themselves. There wasn’t a resident in the area who lacked access to cameras, even if a few people had ideological objections.

  Jia offered a bland, pleasant smile. “Sorry to bother you, Doctor. We’re glad you happened to be home. We were in the area checking on other things when some evidence was sent to us from the station. We had a few questions about it, and you’re an expert, so we wanted your opinion.”

  “How did you know where I lived?” Dr. Karton sounded suspicious.

  Jia laughed. “We’re the police, but among other things, we have the addresses for everyone who worked in the lab from our initial investigation, and I remembered it. It shouldn’t take long. Please, this is a time-sensitive matter. I hate to put this kind of pressure on you, but lives might be the line. Even a small clue would help our investigation.”

  Erik looked off-camera, stopping himself from laughing. If Jia gave up being a cop, she might make a good con artist. She possessed a natural talent for combining just enough truth with lies to sound convincing.

  “Oh, I suppose if it’s not going to take long.” Dr. Karton sighed. “I don’t have time to go with you to the station.” The door opened after about thirty seconds. She stood on the other side in a long, dark coat, her face slightly flushed.

  “Were you getting ready to go somewhere?” Erik asked. He gestured to the coat.

  “I just got back from some errands.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You were lucky I was here.”

  Emma had been watching her since they had left the station. Unlike future Con Artist of the Year Jia, Dr. Karton didn’t do well under pressure to come up with a believable lie.

  “She ran into the bedroom and emerged in a coat after you arrived,” Emma transmitted to Erik and Jia. “I didn’t have line of sight at that time. It was shortly after she agreed to let you in.”

  Why would she put on a coat? Erik couldn’t ignore the possibility she’d grabbed a gun or even a grenade. They didn’t know if she helped create the yaoguai, but if she had, her motivation might be ideological. A suicide that took two cops with her might fit into that ideology.

  Dr. Karton backed into her spacious living room, which was bigger than Erik’s entire apartment. The pristine white furniture made him want to track dirt all over it.

  Unlike prior to their arrival, she tinted the windows black and illuminated the room with soft lighting. Two almost pitch-black halls led away from the living room on opposite sides. She’d gone from enjoying the nice day to turning her apartment into a dimly lit cave.

  Erik pointed to a corner table that held a tray with a well-trimmed squat penjing tree perched atop well-selected rocks. The rocks collectively resembled a cliff, complete with a waterfall. He headed toward the arrangement.

  “Is that actual water or a hologram?” he asked with genuine interest in his voice. Just because he was using it as an interrogation opening didn’t mean he couldn’t care.

  Dr. Karton blinked. “Actual water. It’s called pen—”

  “Penjing, I know.” Erik grinned. “I’m an amateur, but I do all right. Been thinking about a water feature for this nice mini-elm arrangement I’ve been working on for a while.”

  Dr. Karton stared at him, her mouth agape. From the look on her face, she would have only been more surprised if an alien ship had crashed into
her apartment.

  She cleared her throat. “Excuse me. I don’t mean to be rude, and I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that we share a talent.” She looked from Erik to Jia. “But you said there was a time-sensitive matter we need to discuss. Perhaps we could hurry this along?”

  Jia walked around a glass table in the center of the room. Erik thought she was heading toward one of the three huge couches before realizing she was moving to Dr. Karton’s side. With the detectives on opposite sides, the suspect wouldn’t be able to focus on both at the same time, and it’d be distracting. Erik had seen Jia employ the tactic before.

  “Are you familiar with yaoguai, Dr. Karton?” Jia asked. Her tone was casual and curious.

  Dr. Karton shuddered. “Disgusting. As a biotech researcher, I find the concept even more disturbing than a layperson. The kind of twisted traitors to science and industry who make such creatures are not just making monsters, they’re sowing distrust of our field as a whole. I feel about them the same way I suppose you would feel about bad cops.”

  “I can imagine. I have a rather extreme dislike of bad cops,” Jia agreed.

  Dr. Karton sat on her couch, crossed her legs, and stuck her hands in her pockets. Unless her gun was tiny, it wasn’t in there, but a small grenade remained a possibility.

  “Why are you asking about yaoguai?” The scientist’s expression was confused. “No one would be stupid enough to try to make a yaoguai on Earth. There’s too much regulation here. Too much law enforcement. We can barely sneeze at a biotech company without the government and Purists looking over our shoulders.”

  Jia gave Erik a shallow nod. It was her way of handing him the baton. She leaned over, placing her hands on a white armchair for support, and waited for him to make his move.

  “You familiar with the economics of contraband?” Erik injected a jolly flavor into his voice.

  “Contraband?” Dr. Karton chuckled. “I’m sorry, Detective. I’m afraid you have me at a loss. I know that for someone in your line of work, that sort of thing must seem commonplace, but I’m a scientist, not a police officer. It’s all foreign to me.”

  Erik plastered his most disarming smile on his face. “I actually learned most of what I know about smuggling in my military days. Terrorists and insurrectionists spend a lot of time smuggling for obvious reasons. That results in them having a lot of contact with the criminal underworld and syndicates. It doesn’t matter what planet or the population; when you get more than two people, there will be a third guy trying to sell them something illegal. Some people say violence is what defines human nature. I think trying to make a quick buck is true human nature.”

  Dr. Karton tilted her head, confusion clear on her face. “That’s both fascinating and depressing, Detective, but it’s also unclear how it’s relevant to yaoguai. Could you explain that for me?”

  “I was just telling you why someone might want to make them on Earth. Make something illegal, and you immediately restrict its supply. That makes it more expensive to buy, and it generates a lot more profit when you’re selling. Basic economics, supply and demand. Even an old infantry officer like me understands that.” Erik’s smile transformed into a hungry lupine grin. “The law and society are against yaoguai. That makes them inherently valuable. You throw enough money around, people are willing to take big risks, including prison. There doesn’t have to be a huge demand for the product, just some.”

  “Ah. I understand better now. Are you saying that someone is making yaoguai on Earth? I’m disappointed, but many terrible things have come to light in recent months, so I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  Erik nodded. “Yeah. Someone’s making them on Earth right here in Neo SoCal.”

  Dr. Karton let out a quiet, bitter chuckle. “If they’re willing to risk doing it in Neo SoCal, I would hope they are being paid enough so that they never have to work again.”

  “That’d make the most sense,” Jia interjected, her eyes narrowed. She’d have to avoid the future con artist job until she managed a little more control over her face. “But a lot of people do things because they’re arrogant. They stop thinking through all the possible implications. You’d be surprised how often someone ends up doing something illegal for only a little more money than they already have. Sometimes it’s because they’re desperate, and sometimes it’s because they have something to prove.”

  “I’m sure. Again, I’m a scientist, not a police officer. I bow to your expertise in these areas. Is there something you wanted to ask me about yaoguai? We seem to be going round and round about everything except the actual case.”

  Erik nodded. “We recovered yaoguai DNA recently from a murder site.”

  Dr. Karton chuckled. “Oh? No offense, Detective, but how do you know it’s yaoguai DNA?”

  Erik frowned. “Forensics said it was.”

  “And how do they know? It’s not like a police technician has much experience with yaoguai DNA.”

  “They don’t have to have experience if they know what to look for,” Jia insisted.

  Dr. Karton gave her a pitying look. “I doubt they know what to look for.”

  “They do. It’s easy, actually.”

  “Easy? Please, Detective. This is genetic engineering, not asking a few questions.”

  Jia’s chuckle sounded almost evil. “Yaoguai DNA sequences might use the same base pairs as natural sequences, but they also have obvious exogenous genes added to the baseline genomic sequence. It’s trivial to examine the DNA and know when genes have been mixed. That’s almost enough on its own, but yaoguai also display unnatural codon usage, along with unnatural tRNA. And that’s before you get into things like regulatory elements you never see in natural organisms at those frequencies or locations. Honestly, if someone has a decent DNA database and knows anything about molecular biology, recognizing a yaoguai genome is about as hard as spotting a flare in the middle of a pitch-black room. And those are just some of the more obvious methods of noting it.”

  Dr. Karton stared at Jia, her eyes wide. “You’re rather well-informed…for a police officer. You missed your calling, Detective Lin.”

  Erik turned to the side so Karton didn’t spot the smirk on his face. She’d thought she could twist them up with technobabble, but she hadn’t counted on his partner.

  “Back to the yaoguai,” he suggested. “Yaoguai killed someone, and we’re close to tracking down who did it.”

  “Are you now?” Dr. Karton asked, her expression blank.

  “I’m sure someone like you is familiar with genetic watermarking. It’s pretty easy to trace it back to 46 Helix data with the help of those.”

  The smugness crept back into her face. “You’re telling me someone was stupid enough to make yaoguai, but they left genetic watermarks in? I find that hard to believe, Detective Blackwell.”

  Erik shrugged. “You want to take the next part, Jia? You’ve earned it.”

  Jia nodded. “Thanks, Erik. Dr. Karton, you might be right. It sounds kind of stupid at first, but the problem was, in this case, you didn’t know about the second set of watermarks. Your plan might have worked if it weren’t for Dr. Chen’s ego. That’s a certain irony to that.”

  “Me?” Dr. Karton shook her head. “No, no, no. That’s insane. I’m a respected scientist, and I’m working for a major company. My previous employers had nothing negative to say about me. Dr. Chen could actually remember my name. He even helped me get a bonus.”

  Jia stepped away from the chair. “Money makes people stupid. Or maybe it had nothing to do with money. Maybe you just got tired of being in the shadow of an egotistical man who, like you just implied, couldn’t even remember people around him. How long did it take him to remember your name? Days? Weeks? Months? Even years? That would make me angry.”

  Erik nodded. “Me, too.”

  “I don’t have to stand for this,” seethed Dr. Karton. “I had nothing to do with any of the murders in the Shadow Zone. Maybe Chen did it. If he didn’t tell anyone else about these a
lleged second watermarks, he might have thought he wouldn’t be caught.” She licked her lips, her eyes darting around. “You should be questioning him about all the different yaoguai killing people rather than hurling ridiculous accusations at me.”

  Jia laughed. “Can you believe her, Erik?”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, pretty sad. It’s almost easier to catch the smarter ones because they think they’re too intelligent for us to figure things out.”

  “I’m innocent,” Dr. Karton shouted. Her pockets ruffled, and her hands remained inside. She took a deep breath, her face visibly calming.

  “We didn’t say anything about the murder we were investigating being in the Shadow Zone,” Erik explained. “That’s been kept from the media. We also never said anything about multiple murders. We haven’t confirmed that part yet ourselves. We also didn’t mention anything about different types of yaoguai. But you just mentioned all that. You have to admit that comes off as a little suspicious, Doc.”

  “I just assumed…” sputtered Dr. Karton.

  “And,” Jia interjected, “we know it’s not Dr. Chen because he’s the one who told us about the second set of watermarks. We would never have known about them if he hadn’t told us.” Her hand drifted toward the holster under her jacket. “I think you need to come with us to the station, Dr. Karton. We have a few more questions we want to ask in a more formal setting.”

  The scientist barked a laugh, a crazed look in her eyes. “I think very soon, that won’t be a problem.”

  A loud hiss sounded from a nearby hallway. Something scraped the wall. Overlapping chitters joined the other noises.

  Erik yanked out his pistol. “Too bad I don’t have my new gear because I doubt it’s a couple of corgi clones coming at us.”

  Jia yanked out her stun pistol and fired twice into Dr. Karton. The woman let out a strangled yelp and pitched forward, slamming her head on the table before hitting the floor.