“Motive unknown, opportunity unlimited, profit none. It makes no sense at all Daniels. Why? Why? Why? Go write your report then you and your crew take the next day off.”
“Thanks Captain, will do.”
Captain Santos sat and thought about the next step. What should my next step be, thought Captain Santos? Not really any information about the Pawassa tribe that indicate participation in the caravan attacks, nothing to do about the dear dead Professor Pierson until or if a concrete connection is found to the outlands. Just supposed seeing two women in jungle dress doesn’t cut it. After some more useless thought she called in Lt. Baker.
“I am going home now and spending a quiet weekend with my daughters. If anything comes up that I need to know before Firstday, comm me on my portable. Let Lt. Owens know also.”
“Will do Captain, you could use some days off.”
“And I hope I get them” she said. To herself she thought, fat chance.
Chapter 5
The house was very quiet when Amanda got home. She knew that the twins were over at Charlie’s house helping him with his senior project, and apparently Marilyn, their housekeeper was out shopping. A message screen reminded Amanda that she had promised to attend the girl’s music concert in two weeks. She had told them she would, but she had missed so many activities because of work that they would always keep asking right up to curtain time.
With the house quiet Amanda took a long swirling bath and threw on a fluffy robe the twins had given to her last Years End. With spare time on her hands, a real luxury, she picked up a reader to continue a story she had to put down weeks ago because of one crisis or another. Her current selection was a murder mystery set in the near past on Terra. Terra was so different than Edge World in their social customs. She still was amazed how regimented the people on Terra were even though she spent four years there. Citizens were not able to carry a pocket knife on their person. As for anything else, such as bow and arrows, crossbows or stunner, no way. On Edge World everyone had bows and even low power stunners. Of course Terra had a population of ten billion compared to a six million on Edge World.
Until Marilyn returned from shopping Amanda decided to start dinner. She cooked on the weekend when Marilyn was gone, but even weekends were taken over by the twins when she had to go back to work. She actually liked cooking. It was during the four years of education on Terra that she increased her education stipend by cooking ‘outland’ foods at her sponsor’s restaurant. Amanda was deep in her reader when Marilyn returned from her shopping. Marilyn insisted on storing the week’s food supply even though it was past the time for her to leave for the weekend. They chatted for a while as they stored food in the autochef, cooler or cabinets as was appropriate. Marilyn finally left to go home to her husband. Amanda had just started to wonder about her girls when they came in the door.
“Did you see our message about the concert?” Kristina said as she came through the door.
“Yes,” their mother replied, “I saw your message and I will be there.”
“Promise?” asked Tamara.
“I promise,” replied Amanda, while thinking to herself, sure, you promise and if a case comes up? “How are you two coming on your homework?”
“We will be finished tomorrow,” said Kristina. “Can we go hunting first with you tomorrow, Mom?”
“What about helping Charlie and his senior project? Won’t he need you tomorrow?”
“No, Charlie is running out of the plants that he is using in his project. It used to be that some of the workers on the river trade route would bring all he needed when they came to town. But for the last month he hasn’t received any so he plans to go get what he needs himself. If he can’t finish his Senior Project I don’t know he will do.”
“Where are the plants he needs coming from?” Amanda asked somewhat concerned.
“Charlie said that they come from a small area in the jungle. He has been there once before. He is going in with a tribesman guide that he knows very well. Even Charlie knows better than to go into the jungle by himself.”
Now Amanda was really concerned. The jungles were not any place that a seventeen-year-old boy not raised in the jungle should be going at any time. Even with a guide it would not be safe, but particularly now when there is concern about the jungle tribes and their behavior.
“Now that is certainly not the place for Charlie to go. Maybe I need to talk to Charlie’s parents.”
“Oh, No, the twins said in unison, please don’t do that.”
Kristina continued, “He had a hard time getting his mother’s approval to do this project in the first place. If he can’t finish it, he will have to spend another quarter at school doing a different project. And besides, it’s just his mother, his dad has been gone several years.”
“It is still not a good idea, girls. I won’t say anything to his mother, but I want you to impress on Charlie that I think it is a bad idea, even with a whole tribe, much less with just one tribesmen. Do not repeat this, but there have been attacks on caravans by what appears to be tribesmen and until we pin down the actual culprits I don’t think that it is very safe to be traveling in the jungle, even with some of the tribesmen as guards.”
“He is so close to finishing his project that he isn’t going to be scared off by rumors,” Kristina said.”
“It isn’t rumor, the two attacks on caravans were all too real. Until we know exactly who is behind these attacks and why it will be dangerous to go anywhere in the jungle areas.”
“Oh mother! You don’t think the Pawassa are causing the trouble, do you,” exclaimed Kristina?
“Normally I would say no, but there have been so many screwy things going on right now I am not sure it couldn’t have been just a group of their kids. They seem to be trying not to hurt anyone: it is possible.”
“We don’t want anything to happen to Charlie cause he has helped us many times. If only Charlie had a little of the plants left he could wait till all this nonsense is over,” put in Tamara, “but he doesn’t.”
“A better ideal would be that if he has enough credits, to hire two guards or maybe he could just use those credits to hired them to go collect the plants while he stays here” Amanda suggested.
“A good idea but it is a little too late,” sighed Tamara, “he left with his guide last night.”
“In that case,” Amanda replied to her twins, “we can just hope he makes it back out.
*****
With no emergencies occurring, and nothing they could do about Charlie but hope he survived his trip, Amanda took the two girls hunting for what was called an antelope, although appearing more the size and shape of a fat greyhound. They were the largest animal native to the continent and were the best of eating. They were spread through-out the planet in large numbers and fed a great many of the initial settlers to Edge World during the first difficult decades of adapting to the land and weather conditions and lack of communications. Until they were able to pay for communication satellites, communication was limited.
After the girls went to sleep that night, Amanda sat by their campfire and reminisced about the girl’s younger days. From early childhood Amanda had taught them self-survival in the variable countryside and jungle until she was satisfied that they could hold their own if they were ever forced to do so. The girls are growing up so fast, Amanda thought to herself. It had been at least a year since they had been out camping and hunting. I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing, going into police work. But I was a single mother, twice over
and law enforcement was the only job I could get that paid enough for us to survive. I really didn’t have a lot of choice.
This line of thought brought up Weldon, the twins father. She had often wondered if they could have ever overcome the differences in their culture and marry. It didn’t matter since he died soon after Amanda knew that she was pregnant. It is all water under the bridge now, she thought, the three of us are doing fine. I just need to spend more time with
them before they get too old to want to be seen with their mother. Yeh, and just where is all the time going to come from? She had vowed before to spend more time with them but it never seemed to happen.
*****
It was early morning of Firstday and Captain Santos was busy reviewing action reports from the weekend when her comm buzzed her attention that Captain Carlos from the Militia was calling.
“You are to work bright and early this morning,” Captain Santos said.
“I see you are already at work so how could I do less,” Captain Carlos replied.
Yah, well, someone has to keep citizens protected. Did you ever find who killed Dr. Pierson?”
“Just the subject I was calling about Amanda. When I got to the office this morning, both the tox screen and forensics report were on my comm unit.”
“And...”
“Dr. Pierson died from a heart attack,” Carlos replied.
“Good that means OSI doesn’t have to be involved in this case,” Amanda said with glee. But wait a minute, if he died from a heart attack, why did anyone stash him in the basement? It makes no sense.”
“Sorry, Amanda, but the tox report solves that. Dr. Pierson died from a heart attack, but the attack was brought on by the injection or drinking of a drug found only, and rarely at that, in the jungle regions.”
“Shit, shit, shit. Just what OSI needs right now, another problem most likely connected with one or more jungle tribes. Well, the fucking crime was committed in the city, so even if can find those two women, we will dump them in your lap.”
”I would expect no less,” Miguel replied. “You find them for me and we will do the rest.”
“We will need everything you have on the two women: apparent age, tribal markings, if any, and statements from everyone who saw or knows something about the two women.”
“My office has already sent the files which include everything we know. They should be in OSI Central by now.”
“Thanks, you have made my morning,” Amanda said sarcastically. “I will get the women’s description out to all of my Sectors. Do you have any leads at all? It would help if we knew the motive behind this murder.”
“I agree here with you, Amanda. This was not a random killing. But I don’t see the tie-in with anything else that’s happening. If you would like, send Sargent Townsead over again to follow along with my crew as she is already familiar with the case.”
“I will do that after the three o’clock staff meeting. I had already planned announcing her promotion today anyway. I will just include several that were recently approved. “
“I am surprised that the Council funded additional money for any raises. They certainly gave nothing extra to our budget,” complained Miguel.
“We have forty new police recruits graduating from the Academy in two weeks. Some of the recruits will not be suitable to life as a police officer, but I have salary for them for the whole year. It will be enough to pay for raises. Even with the new crop of officers, we still need more. I don’t know how the department heads before me ever got the job done with as few officers as they had to use.”
“We will continue to interview staff at the hotel. Maybe we will get better descriptions of the two women,” Miguel added.
“Thanks for the wonderful information, Miguel, but I need to get ready for this week’s scheduling. If we find any about those women we will let you know.”
“Same here,” answer Miguel.
*****
“It is moving too slowly,” she said, “I want you to ramp up your assignments. We don’t have a whole lot of time, and there is a new busy-body apparently studying the tribes or something. We need more incidents. We want the Pawassa removed to eastern areas of the equatorial jungle before the end of the year.
Captain Santos finished her notes for the afternoon meeting, issued schedule changes to supervisors, and ran over open cases OSI was investigating. Looking for two women from some jungle tribe, without any further information is not going to be a high priority with OSI, Amanda thought to herself. In fact, if it wasn’t possible that they were tied to the tribe attacks on the caravans, I probably would not even mention the case during staff today.
Captain Santos’ senior staff strolled into the big conference room next to the Captain’s office. Everyone from sergeants upwards that weren’t out in the field attended. Field officers attended via two-way links when they could, a separate communication system that could only be used by OSI the City Militia and Southport Militia officers. Most of the officers were out in the field tracking down cases, so actual attendance varied from five to thirty officers on any one staff meeting day. Most chatted about cases both hot and cold. “Alright, boys and girls,” Captain Santos said in greeting the group. Let’s see what we have for today. Sargent Lanos what did you find out about the caravan attacks?”
“We could have stayed in the office for all the new information we collected from members of the attacked caravans,” started off Sargent Lanos. No one saw anything out of the ordinary before the attacks; most all saw the attackers but every description is different; and, no one saw anything after. There has been no sign of the young boy that they took with them in the one attack. Apparently he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. His parents didn’t seem too upset over the whole thing, but then they have eight other children. The Wagon Master believed the attackers took him because he was close enough to identify them. I’m not too sold on that theory, Captain, but I would certainly love to interview that boy. The wagoneer that got shot in the arm didn’t see it coming and definitely didn’t see his attacker after he got that arrow in his arm. The team report is in your information packet for all the good it will do you.”
“I have read through the report and I agree there is not much new information in it. I don’t like to do it and we really don’t have the manpower, but if there are any more attacks we are going to have to patrol the area where the attacks took place. I know there hasn’t anything serious happen, but it could escalate at any time. Sgt. Onn is back out in the field today. Her report also is not showing much new information.”
“Do either report suggest the Pawassa could be involved in these incidents,” asked Inspector Tomas?
“Not really. Not any more than any of the other tribes, although they are the largest tribe by far. In fact, some things point away from the Pawassa, such as their having a river trade route and the proceeds from that. But that still doesn’t rule them out,” Captain replied. ‘I hope it is just some crazy kids showing off, but whatever or whoever it is, it has to stop. Sgt. Lanos, pull together six or eight officers and draw up a plan for patrolling. Ideally, I would like to catch one of them and see where they came from and what all they are up to, but you have the most experience with the caravans, so draw some plans on how to catch someone from the next raid if there is one.”
“Certainly, Captain. With only nine officers, counting myself, I wouldn’t hold my breath on catching someone quickly. It would take at least twenty-five or thirty officers to have a real chance of catching anyone. It will be pure luck if the nine of us do any good.”
“I would like to give you more officers, but unless this blows up with lives lost, god forbid that happens, I just can’t spare you more. Also, Officers, you will find a report in your information packet regarding a murder case in Atlanta City. This Militia case has become our case now. There is strong evidence that Dr. Pierson was murdered by two women in jungle dress. Whatever that is. I am not going to assign an officer to this case right now, although there is the possibility that there is a connection to the caravan attacks, but we don’t know yet. Get me some information, officers.”
The staff meeting continued for another hour. Captain Santos declared promotion for five officers, including a promotion for Sargent Townsead to Investigator. Most of the meeting was taken up discussing the caravan attacks. There really wasn’t any new information, but the discussions seemed often to bring a new prospective to an open ca
se. After the meeting Captain Santos went back to work on her paperwork while waiting for Professor Smithe’s arrival that she had scheduled. She had commed him the day before to see if she could pull anything useful out of him. Some twenty minutes later Felicia announced that he had arrived.
As Felicia escorted Professor Smithe into her office, Captain Santos thought to herself, yep, he is as good looking as I remembered. Liam Smithe was dressed today in a dark green one-piece business jump suit with ankle high boots that appeared to be made from leather of some sort.
“Thank you for coming in to see me Professor Smithe. I am afraid that I was a little cool to you the other day, but we were involved in several critical cases and I didn’t think you could be of any help to me.”
“And you think now that I might be of use to you?” asked Professor Smithe.
“I am hoping you have some information that will help us on two of our cases, Professor Smithe, if you do know tribal people as you indicated the other day.” Plus, I really want to see what you looked like again, Amanda thought to herself.
“I haven’t been on the planet long enough to get a really good grasp of the culture of your tribes, but I have studied many uncivilized groups on other planets so I think I can probably give you a little help in understanding these people.”
“I am sorry, Professor Smithe, I thought from the little that we said the other day that you had been on the planet for some time,” replied Captain Santos. “I apologize for my error.”
“No, I don’t think I could spend too much time with the tribes. You have to almost be born with them in order to see the world the way they do. But I do have a lot of experience in primitive cultures so let’s see what information I can give you. But in turn, I have to ask that you call me Liam.”
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