EMPIRE: Imperial Police

by Stephanie Osborn

  “Well, that’s what I thought, too,” Ashton admitted, “but I wasn’t for sure, so I figured...” He shrugged.

  “And that was well done in any case,” Peterson commended. “If he was also dosed, but hadn’t reacted yet due to his larger frame, we’d need to know.”

  “Right.”

  As the younger investigators laid out the bagged evidence, Gorski and Demetrius moved along the tables, systematically opening a bag and puffing a considerable quantity of the viral detection reagent into the bag, before quickly sealing it, then moving to the next bag. According to the instructions that came with the puff testers, it would take this particular reagent a few minutes to react to the G.A.S RNA snippet, so they would add the reagent to all of the evidence bags, then go back around and see if any had reacted.

  Two had.

  “The black coffee and the cup it was in?!” Gorski exclaimed in surprise. “That was hers! So it was somebody in her office!”

  “Who did she have under her?” Demetrius asked. “And don’t forget that her boss had coffee with her! He may well be the Sandman!”

  “True,” Ashton said then, as the others clustered around. “But there’s something off about that, Mr. Demetrius...”

  “Gene, son, call me Gene,” Demetrius said with a smile. “Everybody else does. And as well as you’ve done on this case so far, you’ve certainly earned the right.”

  Ashton gave him an appreciative smile, but his brain was still working on the scenario Demetrius had suggested, which seemed off. Finally it hit him.

  “That’s it! It can’t be Witte, ‘cause Witte is the vice president,” he told the others. “He might get his own coffee, but he isn’t gonna fetch coffee for a subordinate, too. And I don’t see them leaving the review to go down to the break room themselves.”

  “He’s right,” Gorski said, one eyebrow going up. “They’d have an underling do it.”

  “One of the junior marketers?” Peterson suggested. “What did you say their names were...?”

  “Surnames Glenn and Wall,” Demetrius noted. “They’re rather young to be the original murderer, though. Neither of ‘em has been out of university more than about three years.”

  “Could be the kid of the Sandman,” Weyand suggested.

  “Hey, Cally?” Ashton called. “You get anything on the list of decisions by the medical treatment approval board? Any hits?”

  Ames sat at the desk, staring straight ahead, and did not respond.

  “She’s still in full VR,” Compton observed.

  “Yeah. I’ll go in and see what she’s doing,” Ashton said. “If she’s got anything at all, it might help us narrow down who’s our perp, out of all our suspects.”

  Ashton popped into channel 111 again. Ames’ avatar was now seated at a desk, poring over a sheaf of “printed” papers. She glanced up when his avatar appeared.

  “Hey, Cal,” he said, moving to the other chair and sitting down, across the desk from her. “Damn, girl, your eyes are getting bloodshot. I didn’t know avatars could do that.”

  They laughed.

  “Hey, Nick,” she murmured. “You come in to see how I’m getting on?”

  “Yup. We got a hit on the victim’s coffee mug, so we know the virulosin was administered in the office coffee. We just don’t know who did it,” Ashton said, as Gorski joined them, remaining silent. “You got anything that might help us narrow things down?”

  “Maybe. I have a few possibles, here.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, there’s Michael and Ridge Blackmoor,” she said, as the avatars of Demetrius, Peterson, and Weyand appeared. Gorski’s avatar shushed them quickly with a finger to the lips, and they moved silently to his side, to watch the pair hard at work. Seconds later, Smith, Weaver, and Compton had joined the impromptu peanut gallery, just as Demetrius, Peterson, and Gorski exchanged meaningful, and duly impressed, glances. Ames continued, not noticing the onlookers, so deep into the research was she.

  “Michael is Ridge’s father,” she explained. “Michael died about twelve years ago of a rare form of cancer, when the board refused to provide the appropriate treatment. Something about him being a miner – which also means they didn’t have the money to pay off the board – and they could get rid of the cancer, but it would only come back when he resumed mining. Never mind that Michael Blackmoor had retired from his profession by that time.”

  “Right. So, okay, how old was Ridge Blackmoor at that time?”

  “Mm. About, say...” she paused, searching the files, “say thirty-eight?”

  “Any kids?”

  “No. Not married. Let me check...” More papers appeared on the desk, and she dug through them. “No, he never married, and there were no children.”

  “Twelve years is a bit too early for the Sandman, but not impossible, if he had to figure out a way to do it, I guess,” Ashton mused. “That would put him at fifty now, though.”

  “Right.”

  “Coloration?”

  “Um...sandy hair, kind of what used to be called strawberry blond, with green eyes. Short, kind of, of thick-set, you know, muscular.”

  “And Witte was a tall, slim brunet, with brown eyes,” Ashton recalled, as the ‘peanut gallery’ watched, but remained silent. “You can change hair color, and you can wear colored lenses to change eye color, but you can’t change the body type that drastically. So that wouldn’t be Witte. Keep going.”

  “Mmm,” Ames hummed, then fell silent for long moments. Finally she responded.

  “Okay, here’s a family,” she said. “Sydney and Kaleb Denholm, and their son Luther. Luther died in his teens of Melsbach Syndrome. The parents were not happy.”

  “Why didn’t the board approve the virulosin?”

  “Said it was an incorrect diagnosis, and the treatment wouldn’t help. It turned out to be a correct diagnosis. The boy died at age 17.” She shook her head. “Judging by the description, it wasn’t pretty.”

  Ashton smeared a hand across his face.

  “Right. How old were the parents at the time?”

  “Twenty-eight and thirty.”

  “And how long ago did that happen?”

  “Uh...oh. Only seven years ago.”

  “Oh, that’s no good. The first Sandman murder happened, uh...” Ashton paused to recall.

  “About ten years ago,” Peterson offered in a soft tone, meant to answer without disrupting thought trains. “The last of the murders – at least in the first wave – was about four or five years back.”

  “Yeah, so they’re out,” Ames agreed, still studying the files. “Oh. I got one more, I think. Ooo, and the time frame is right, too – ten years ago, almost on the nose. Raymond Appleton and his wife, Beryl Ellis. He was in an industrial accident. Got himself irradiated bad. Sad situation. There really wasn’t anything anybody could do on this one, but she had to watch him die slowly. She swore up and down that they could have cured him if the medical treatment approval board had only ruled in his favor.”

  “Wow. A case where they actually did the right thing?”

  “A case where, if I’m reading all this right,” Ames looked up at him, and her eyes glistened a bit, “there wasn’t a ‘right thing’ to be done, Nick. She watched her husband die a slow, lingering, horrible, painful death as his body slowly...” She broke off, eyes going wide in shocked realization. “As his body slowly shut down.”

  “Just like the virulosin,” Smith whispered. “Damn.”

  Ashton pressed his lips together, face grim. “Any kids?”

  “None.”

  “We got it,” Ashton declared then. “The Sandman isn’t a he, it’s a she. What did you say her name was?”

  “Beryl Ellis. Of course she’d be going by a fake name for all this, though...” She bit her lip, still scanning records. “Nick, there’s one more former board member who hasn’t lost anybody to the Sandman yet. Rasheed Singh has a son, Aarav, about to graduate from the Imperial University of Sintar...”


  “Shit. How old was Ellis at the time?”

  Ames scrabbled through the file, finally looking up at him. “It doesn’t say.”

  “Any imagery of her?”

  “Just one photo.” Ames pulled the image out of the sheaf of papers and tossed it across the desk to him.

  “Mmph,” he murmured, studying it. “She looks familiar. Where have I seen...?” He glanced up. Then he spoke into the air. “Enhance image. Age ten years.”

  A printer appeared on the far corner of the desk, and after a few moments of humming, it spat out an image.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Ashton murmured in shock, and held up the altered photo so that Demetrius and Gorski could see it.

  It was Lana Rounder’s executive assistant, Joyce Abelard.

  The team quickly exited VR, except for Demetrius, who switched channels and contacted the receptionist at the restaurant chain’s headquarters.

  “Ms. Hayden,” he told her avatar, “is Ms. Abelard still there? You know, Ms. Rounder’s executive assistant?”

  “Oh! No, sir,” Hayden told the inspector, “she left about an hour ago. She was so upset! She said she just couldn’t stand to look at that office any longer, knowing what was happening to ‘her poor Lana.’”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “Home, I think,” the little receptionist replied. “Mumbled something about having to get ready for her nephew’s graduation this weekend...”

  “Oh damnation,” Demetrius exclaimed. “Thank you, Ms. Hayden! You’ve been a great help. But I need to move quickly now.”

  “She’s gone,” Demetrius announced as soon as he came out of VR. “She left work an hour ago, to ‘get ready for her nephew’s graduation.’ She’s on the way to the university. Right now, I expect.”

  “Contact the provost and have him get Aarav Singh out of class and into his office immediately,” Peterson barked. “I’ll get with Charlie and have him set up a cordon of beat cops around the university. We’ll know if she enters the campus buildings.”

  “But how are we ever gonna round her up?” Compton wondered.

  “Send out the image that Nick and Cally ginned up,” Gorski said.

  “I’d think that would make her more apt to flee, to try again another time,” Weaver noted.

  “Guys?” Ashton interjected. Everyone stopped and turned to look at him.

  “If you’ve got an idea, Nick, let’s hear it,” Gorski decreed. “You’ve done great so far.”

  “Okay. She worked her way in at the restaurant headquarters,” Ashton pointed out. “According to the stuff Cally’s been feeding me in VR, for each murder, Beryl Ellis took her time and got in close to her victims, either by working directly with them or by hacking their VR feed and tapping into it to follow them. Given she’d have a hard time getting onto the faculty – according to the dossier Cal compiled, she doesn’t have any advanced degrees – and she’s really too old to be a student in such an elite school, ‘cause the student body is pretty much either Imperial scholarships or wealthy bureaucrats’ kids – she’s probably hacked the university’s feed. And we can use that. Especially if we put out word that Ms. Rounder has already died. It’ll speed up her timetable.”

  “Keep talking,” Demetrius said. Ashton turned to Peterson.

  “Chief, is Adrian Mott available?”

  “I think so,” Peterson said. “You want me to get him here?”

  “As fast as possible, please. And Cal?”

  “I’m already on it, Nick,” Ames replied. “Annnd...got it.”

  “What do you have planned?” Gorski asked.

  Two hours later, Aarav Singh left the provost’s office in the University’s Office Tower, and instead of heading across to the student housing building, he got in the elevator and went up to the rooftop, where a small lounge with bar gave views across the city. Only faculty, graduate students, and the occasional senior about to graduate were permitted to frequent the lounge, and Singh apparently thought he might be safe here, given it was on the Office Tower rather than the Residence Tower. He went to the bar and ordered a brew and some fries, then headed to the one empty table by himself; most of the tables already had their full complement of occupants, but he preferred a certain anonymity, under the circumstances.

  He was halfway through his fries, and had ordered another beer, when an older woman with salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes, presumably a faculty member, came up to him with a tray containing fish and chips and a mixed drink, as well as a bottle of water and a mug of beer.

  “Hello there, young man. I’m Professor Steiner. Would you mind if I joined you? The tables are full...”

  “Um,” Singh began, uncertain, and the woman sat down without waiting for further confirmation.

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile. “Between my class schedule and my appointments, I had no chance to eat lunch today, and I’m rather hungry.” She reached for her fork, then stopped and put it down. “Oh, and the bartender asked me to bring you your beer; with the crowd here today, his wait staff is terribly busy.” She picked up the beer mug and set it beside his plate of fries.

  “I...see,” Singh murmured, and returned to eating his fries.

  “It’s a warm day today,” Steiner declared, “especially to be sitting in the sun, like this. I do wish they would add some awnings up here. It would be much more pleasant.” She picked up her bottle of water, removed the cap, and took several swallows, then gestured to his beer. “I’m surprised you aren’t fairly chugging that.”

  “Already had one,” Singh noted. “Fries are good, though.”

  “You should be careful not to get dehydrated.” Steiner waved a hand. “Go on, drink. I won’t mind, just because you’re a student. I’ll work on this lovely margarita, here, and sip some water so it doesn’t dehydrate me.”

  “Perhaps you would like some of my beer?”

  “Oh no, I don’t care for beer, dear. You go ahead.”

  Singh reached into his pocket and produced a small cylinder with a nozzle and a squeeze bulb. Steiner watched in some puzzlement as he aimed it at the mug of beer and squeezed the bulb. A puff of some dusty substance emerged, hit the surface of the beer...

  ...And turned it bright pink.

  “Singh” jumped up, ripping off a wig to reveal a shaved head.

  “ICPD!” Adrian Mott cried, as the “staff and patrons” of the lounge leaped to their feet and drew weapons. “You’re under arrest for murder!”

  “What?!” Steiner exclaimed, rising to her own feet, shoving the chair back, and taking a step to the side. “I have no idea what you’re talking about! I’m Professor Emma Steiner, and I teach VR coding!”

  “There’s no such person,” a young man with golden-brown eyes and dark hair heavily streaked with blond said, stepping forward, weapon raised. “We’ve already verified. You’re Beryl Ellis, the serial killer known as the Sandman, and you’re responsible for eight deaths, one pending death, and one,” he gestured at the stein of beer, “attempted murder.”

  Abruptly Beryl Ellis shoved the nearest officer aside and sprinted for the parapet, diving over it as she reached it.

  “DAMN!” Ames cried, shocked. “She’d rather die than be caught?”

  “She’d get to be with her husband, finally,” Demetrius said softly. “According to all the information you dug up, the two of them were deeply in love. It must have been excruciating to watch him die such an agonizing death, knowing there was nothing to be done but watch.”

  “It sure wouldn’t do me any favors,” Gorski agreed. “But she’s not dead.”

  “Do you know how many stories up we are?” Smith pointed out, astonished at the comment. “She’ll be a bug splat on the pavement!”

  “No, she won’t,” Demetrius confirmed, “because early on, two students and a professor died that very way, after a small commencement celebration up here, and much too much to drink. So this lounge has something of a security system against inebriated professors and students fal
ling off the side.”

  He led them over to the parapet, and they peered over.

  Beryl Ellis was tangled in a net, strung around the building’s perimeter, ten feet down.

  Recuperation and Other TLC

  That night, Cally accompanied Nick home to his apartment for the first time. Nobody at ICPD headquarters was about to let him head home alone after the events of the day, and even so, Cally suspected they had friendly shadows accompanying. Which, she considered, didn’t bother her in the least.

  They only made one small detour, to pick up a shopping bag of ingredients at the grocer where Nick usually shopped; Cally planned to cook dinner for him. As they came out, Cally noticed a man across the street at the café who looked suspiciously like Adrian Mott with a black moustache. She smiled to herself, and the pair continued to Nick’s apartment building, walking hand in hand.

  “I haven’t cleaned yet this week,” Nick admitted, as he let them both into his apartment. “But I try to keep it…not too messy.”

  “It looks fine,” Cally said, glancing around. “I like your taste in décor.”

  “Thanks. The furniture came with the apartment, but I did the pictures and lamps and junk.”

  “Okay, now you sit down while I see about fixing us some dinner, then I want to have a look at that bullet bruise.”

  “Aw. Lemme help, Cal.”

  “No, you need to get off your feet,” Cally insisted. “While we were doing all that prep today, I pinged my personal physician and told her what happened and asked some stuff, and she said that you needed to just rest as soon as you could, around the case. Because the nanites can focus all your resources on healing you up, if you aren’t doing anything else.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. And I plan on putting ice on that bruise, and using a special cream she told me about years ago, when I was at the police academy and in the hand-to-hand training. It’ll help heal the bruise.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to rub it…” Nick offered, hesitant. “Something about dislodging clots?”