by K. C. Finn
“You better hope it isn’t,” says Kendra. “‘Cause you’re being arrested in connection to a double homicide.’
She picks him up roughly by the arm and throws him into the wall, snatching the handcuffs hanging from Cae’s belt. He teeters as she takes them, lost in thought.
“Shall we take him in ourselves?” Kendra asks.
Cae watches the boy, conflicted. “No,” he replies. “I’ll call the Pandas to detain him overnight. I’ll interview him in the morning.”
“Please detective,” says the boy, but Kendra puts pressure on his back.
“I’d use that right to remain silent if I were you,” she warns.
And so he does. For almost fifteen minutes the boy says nothing else, looking down at his feet as Kendra paces around him like a lioness. Cae watches from a distance, standing next to the grumpy caretaker who is yawning frequently, until the panda car arrives with two officers to take the suspect away.
After making some more apologies to the ballroom’s caretaker, Cae piles into Kendra’s car, his mind and body thoroughly exhausted. Kendra revs up the ignition.
“So am I on the couch or are you gonna be a gentleman about this?” She says.
“What?” Cae says hazily.
Starting to drive, Kendra wears her lopsided grin. “Well you’re not sending me home to sleep in the smog are you?”
“Oh,” he replies. “I’d forgotten about your breakdown.” He pauses for a moment, then adds ruefully. “I’ll take the sofa.”
9.
With Kendra at home having her air filters repaired, Caecilius Rex sits alone in his office the next morning, wondering what to do about the GRAVITY boy. He’d been so sure that the man from the camera stills was guilty, but now that said man is someone he knows, Cae isn’t quite so confident.
The boy had helped them, after all. He’d assisted both Kendra and Angelica when they were in danger, and helped them to find Cae when he was being held at gunpoint by Damian Jobe, the former chief of police. The boy had even waited with Damian’s body until the officers came to take him away.
But then he’d disappeared.
And without ever giving them his name.
Whether he’s actually involved in the current stranglings or not, Cae is confident that the GRAVITY boy has plenty of answers to provide. He was involved in Damian’s corrupted plot at some point, that much is certain, so Cae supposes his record won’t be clean.
But a serial strangler he is not, at least not in Cae’s opinion.
The detective is about to set off to interrogate him when there is a knock at his door.
“Come in,” he says.
A senior detective by the name of Smyth steps into the office. He smiles from underneath his bristly moustache. “Can I have a word Rex?” He enquires.
“Have several,” Cae answers, offering Smyth a seat.
The older man presses his fingers together and furrows his greying brow.
“This is a delicate subject, son,” he says slowly. “Do I have your utmost confidence?”
“Of course,” Cae says politely.
The other detectives do not usually speak to Caecilius Rex; he knows that they only come to him when there’s no one else they can talk to, or when they are at their wit’s end with their own cases.
“It’s about those stranglings yesterday,” Smyth says. Cae makes a motion to protest, but he carries on talking. “I know we’re not supposed to know about them yet, but you can’t murder people in the middle of a herd of policemen and expect them not to notice.” Smyth pauses for a moment, eyeing the younger man carefully. “I just wanted to point something out to you about the case.”
Cae scoffs at that inwardly, keeping an expression of polite interest on his face. As if an ordinary detective like Smyth could have noticed something that he has missed.
“Have you considered that your, ahem, friend, might be behind this?” Smyth asks.
He almost asks “What friend?” before he realises that he has only one real friend. And then Cae knows what Smyth is insinuating.
“Get out,” he says immediately.
“Now Rex…” Smyth begins, but Cae cuts him off.
“Yes she’s ex-army,” Cae says, rising from his desk. “Yes, she is dangerous, but NO, she is not a murderer.”
He comes face to face with Smyth, who is backing towards the door.
“What would possess you to even suggest Kendra could have anything to do with these killings?” Cae demands.
“Circumstantial evidence,” says Smyth, trying to keep the tremble from his voice. “She was in close proximity to the crime scene, she found both bodies, she’d had arguments with both men before their untimely deaths and I’m sure she’s had her fair share of violent endeavours in the forces. Experiences like that can leave a body somewhat unhinged. Need I go on?”
“You needn’t,” Cae spits. With a violent motion he swings open his door and leaves Smyth standing in his office.
“A good detective considers all the options, Rex!” Smyth shouts after him.
Cae storms into the interview room ten minutes later, still fuming at the older man’s suggestion. He knows full-well that they don’t like the force being led by a woman, and that they think a military mind is no good for police business. But they are out of their minds.
Kendra is no more likely to have killed Ewan and Spinner than Caecilius himself. She has put her life in jeopardy for him several times and there is no way he will turn his back on her now.
And yet.
A small, highly irritating thought crosses Cae’s mind.
He trusted Damian Jobe once too. And that trust had almost seen him split apart by spinning ceiling blades and shot through the head at point blank range.
It is terribly bad luck to be interrogated by a cop in a bad mood. When the GRAVITY boy is brought in to be interviewed by Detective Rex, he knows immediately that his plea of innocence is not likely to be a success. The boy takes in a deep breath nevertheless, and faces the irate interviewer with a calm and patient look.
“Good morning detective,” he begins.
10.
Dartley Police Department Audio-Transcription
Statement of: Thomas Watt
Status: Held under suspicion of involvement in double homicide
Case of: L. Ewan and M. Spinner
Interview Conducted By: C Rex, SPD
R: Never mind good morning. I want to know what you were doing trespassing in that ballroom. And in this very station too, for that matter.
W: I won’t deny that I was at both venues yesterday. I was following someone.
R: Who?
W: I can’t tell you.
R: Wrong answer, son. I’m going to let you in on something: I’m having a really bad week so far. Don’t make it any worse for me. Just tell me how you ended up in the same quarters as two dead men in the same day.
W: Your pathology doctor was dead when I got there.
R: And why should I believe that?
W: He was sitting down as though he’d slumped from a standing position.
R: You could know that from how you left him after the attack. What proves that you arrived after the event?
W: The smell.
R: Pardon?
W: Spilt blood doesn’t smell right away. It has to sit a little while in the open air. And the stench was unbelievable in that lab. All those blood vials smashed up everywhere. He’d been dead quite a while when I got there, I’d say half an hour at least.
R: So what absolves you from Spinner, at the ballroom? I suppose you have a story for that too?
W: You saw it for yourself. I’d been knocked unconscious.
R: By whom?
W: I can’t say.
R: Because you don’t know, or because you won’t say?
W: Forgive me. I won’t say.
R: It won’t do you any good to keep secrets from me, young man. We both know I can have you arrested for trespassing and locked away until you tell
me the truth.
W: You’re wrong about that, detective. I don’t give away my family’s secrets.
R: Your family? I don’t recall you calling them up for bail money this morning?
W: They have much more important things to do. One of them will have to replace me, for a start.
R: Replace you for what?
W: The following. If we don’t complete the following, more people will die.
R: There are more targets?
W: Of course. We have a big problem on our hands.
R: You’re telling me. Listen kid, you helped me out once before. If you tell me who these targets are, I can help you to protect them.
W: Wrong again, detective.
R: What makes you say that?
W: These killings aren’t your business.
R: Not my business indeed. In case it’s slipped your notice, Mr Watt, I’m pretty damn good at catching bad guys.
W: And that’s where you’re wrong yet again. We’re not the bad guys, Detective Rex. You are.
One Bad Guy Deserves Another
11.
You know who your friends are when you suddenly become homeless. Kendra had all too cheerfully informed Cae that her repairman would not be back to fix the filtration system in her house until Monday, which meant six more nights on the couch for the young detective. At the breakfast table on Wednesday morning Cae nurses his aching back while Kendra paws through the forensic reports from both crime scenes.
“Clear finger - marks, but no finger - prints on the necks of the deceased,” she reads. “So whoever did it was wearing gloves.”
At the last word she can’t help but glance at Cae’s hands, or more specifically the one hand that is currently un-gloved. His right hand still bears the faint marks where the stitches along his fingers have dissolved, but other than a rough line here and there, the skin is relatively smooth. It almost looks like a normal hand now. More natural lines have formed around his knuckles and fingers; it is only his cuticles that bear the tell-tale signs of the shiny, red acid marks that still reside across the rest of his top half.
Cae puts his hand under the table, starting to use his cereal spoon clumsily from his left instead. Kendra takes this as a sign to read on.
“There’s an inventory of what was destroyed at the lab…No traces of DNA found anywhere near either body. These kills were completely clean.” Kendra looks up from the papers. “Remind me why we’re not doing this at the station?” She asks.
Cae scowls. “Because the other DI’s are poking their noses into my case,” he replies. “Yours is the only nose I want involved.”
Kendra gives him a small smirk. She returns her gaze to the papers, scanning with her dark brown eyes, and a few minutes pass.
“Oh no,” she says quietly.
“What?” Asks Cae, his spoon slipping out of his grasp. It lands in his bowl with a clang.
Kendra holds up one piece of paper. “This inventory’s not just about destroyed items. Some things are missing.”
“Some things like what?” Cae questions, forgetting about his right hand as he uses it to take the paper.
“Third block down,” Kendra guides.
He finds the place, blue eyes widening. “Two blood samples unaccounted for,” he says as he reads the longwinded paragraph. “No evidence to suggest they were smashed in the attack.” Cae pauses to look up at Kendra. “Wonder whose they were?” He muses.
“Read on,” she says in a serious tone.
And after a moment, Cae echoes her “Oh no” with one of his own.
“They’re our blood samples,” Kendra says. “Just yours and mine are missing. That kid must’ve taken them.”
“Well I won’t get another word out of him,” Cae sighs. “He just keeps saying he can’t betray his family’s secrets.” Cae puts down the paper and rubs his face with the un-gloved hand, ruffling his black hair. “You know what this means, don’t you?” He questions.
Kendra raises a dark brow.
“Somebody’s trying to kill us again,” Cae completes.
“Oh, how I’ve missed that,” sneers Kendra. “But if it’s us they want, why are the people around us getting choked instead?”
Cae bites his lip. “A very good question,” he replies. “I wish I knew where to look for the answer.”
The detective considers what they have to go on. Li Ewan had been doing important testing of blood samples, and now both Cae’s and Kendra’s own vials of blood are missing. Somebody had called him for some results just before he died, but he hadn’t completed the tests. The only thing that connects Spinner to the same case is the identical killing method. And Kendra. She’d spoken to both men just before they died, which doesn’t help Cae to disconnect her from the crime, even though he very much wants to.
And then there’s the not-so-helpful testimony of Thomas Watt, the GRAVITY boy. Aside from his admittance to being at both crime-scenes, all they know is that Redd Richmond saw him wearing a mechanic’s uniform, and that he may or may not have been responsible for tampering with security cameras and robots at Dartley Station. If he’s going to avoid looking into the victims’ connections to Kendra for now, then Watt is the only place left to look for leads.
“We need to dig up the dirt on Thomas Watt,” Cae begins, “Find this family of his that he’s so keen to honour and protect.”
“Well he was mixed up with the crims at the Atomic Circus,” Kendra suggests. “So he probably has other criminal connections.”
A flash of inspiration hits Cae, and he rather wishes it hadn’t.
“We need an informant,” he says unhappily.
“A snitch,” Kendra adds, catching his train of thought. “Someone who might owe one of us a favour? Maybe one who just got paroled, for example?”
Cae groans at her. “I really hate that guy,” he says, but he knows there’s no better way to proceed.
“Should I come with you?” Kendra inquires, but Cae shakes his head.
“Nobody needs to see the chief of police walking into a criminal’s mansion,” Cae reasons. “There’s been quite enough of that going on lately.”
The ex-sergeant nods in agreement. “It’s better not to be seen following in Damian’s footsteps, I guess,” she says.
Cae thinks of the glee the other detectives would have if they thought Kendra was doing just that.
“Do you remember the address?” She asks.
The young detective pulls a hopeless face.
“How could I forget?” Says Caecilius Rex.
12.
It is not every day that Cae gets to ring the doorbell of a criminal. Usually he spends his time smashing through their windows and pointing guns at their heads. He doesn’t really know what to expect as he stands in the clean-air porch of Redd Richmond’s mansion-like home, so he doesn’t remove his mask until someone comes to open the door.
“Yes?” Says a woman dressed as a maid. The woman is on the far side of forty, and has cropped blonde hair and a snooty expression. She looks Cae up and down curiously.
“I’d like to see Mr Richmond,” Cae says, ashamed of his own bashful tone.
“Who shall I say is calling?” The woman asks.
Thinking better of giving his profession, Cae just says “Rex”.
The woman disappears for a moment, leaving the door open. Cae peers inside the grand mansion’s heavily embellished entrance hall, taking in the massive chandelier. The place is even grander than he remembers. The mature maid returns, but now her smarmy look has been replaced with a courteous smile.
“Please come this way sir,” she says with a sweep of her arm. “Mr Richmond is at the driving range.”
As he walks through the Richmond Mansion, Cae finds it hard to remember the eerie, silent place it had been on his last visit. There are people everywhere now, cleaners and butlers and footmen, dashing to and fro as though they’re serving some honoured monarch. Cae wonders viciously to himself where they go when their king is locked up in Dartle
y Prison.
The driving range turns out to be indoors, in a huge hall at the rear of the mansion. When the old maid first leads the detective into the room, he squints his cool blue eyes at the fluorescent floodlights reflecting the bright green lawns ahead of him. They are synthetic lawns, of course; real lawns do not exist in the toxic outer climate of Europa any more.
Laying eyes on Redd Richmond at home is a strange experience. He is sleek in stature as he lines up for a shot with his golf club, sporting a thin shirt and flannel trousers in an impossibly bright shade of white. His olive skin glows in the floodlights, and his greying hair is waved perfectly underneath a little hat.
Redd makes a swing for the ball and it flies off onto the lawns, veering a long way to the left.
“Damn it!” He shouts, dropping his club. With his back to Cae and his servants, Redd says “Prison does absolutely nothing for my swing. I’m totally out of practice.”
“Perhaps the key is not getting arrested quite so often,” Cae observes.
“Detective Rex for you sir,” says the maid suddenly, and Cae wonders who has told her that he is from the police.
Redd Richmond turns, taking a cocktail from a tray that a nearby waiter has brought for him. He takes a sip before flashing Cae a monumental smile.
“C. Rex,” he says. “An unparalleled delight to have you here. To what do I owe your visit to my humble abode?” Redd laughs at his own sarcasm for a brief moment, his green eyes tracing Cae’s face with further amusement.
“I’ve come to make a deal with you,” Cae says. “Shorten your parole; make you a free man again. Sound any good?”
Redd quirks a dark eyebrow. “I’m listening,” he says.
“I need an informant with criminal contacts to help me get the skinny on a kid I’ve got in custody,” Cae explains. “You work under my supervision only. If you can deliver the information, the chief of police puts a nice word in with the parole board.”
Redd gives him a quizzical look as he picks up his club. “Do you play golf, Rex?” He asks suddenly.
Cae looks the petty criminal over in his bright white sportswear. “No,” he says with a smirk. “Golf’s a rich man’s game.”
“Shame,” the petty conman replies, setting down his drink. Richmond turns and takes up his position for another swing. “I quite like the idea of you needing my help, Rex,” he muses, adjusting his little hat.
