by Alex P. Berg
The entrance to my apartment blinked open. The guy looked up, a dull gleam in his eyes. “Rich Weed?”
“That’s me,” I said. “You are…?”
“Dirk Kriggler, PI,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Without another word, the man pushed past me into my apartment, making a bee line for my living room. The move caught me so off guard I didn’t have time to react with a roundhouse kick to his head. Then again, the man hadn’t attacked me outright. It would be imprudent to respond to his intrusion with violence, but a response of some form was necessary. I just wasn’t sure of what kind.
16
I followed the guy into my home, joining him by the couches. He hadn’t taken a seat, choosing instead to mill about with his arms still crossed, peering at my decorations and wall art and casting his gaze down hallways.
“You said your name was Kriggler?”
The man glanced at me and nodded. “That’s right. Dirk Kriggler. PI.”
“And I’m assuming that stands for private investigator?”
He gave me a sidelong look. “What else would it stand for?”
“I’ve been burned on the acronym before.” Then, to Paige: Mind looking that up for me? I thought I was the only private detective on Cetie.
So did I, she said. Give me a second.
“So, Dirk,” I continued. “What brings you here?”
“A case.” He shot a finger at me and leveled me with a sharp eye. “A big case. Big.”
“And you’re investigating it,” I said. “Because you’re a private eye.”
He ignored my sarcasm and began to pace back and forth across the living room. “Three weeks ago, a woman by the name of Sanika Gupta approached me in my office. Lovely woman. Talkative. Intelligent. Attractive. She presented to me what seemed like a simple case. Her husband, one Hari Gupta, who she’d long since divorced for his growing sloth and interpersonal problems, had stopped making payments for child and spousal support.
“Now Miss Gupta to me seemed quite capable, and in fact, she presented herself as a lawyer. I imagine her earnings were such that she had no real need of her husband’s contributions, but if I’m being honest, I detected a hint of animosity in her toward him. Can’t blame her. But I’m getting off track. The point is, after their divorce, Sanika obtained a court order to have Hari’s government work stipend garnished for the support payments, just in case he refused to get a job, which she claimed was likely. The payments had come in, regular as afternoon rain, until recently, when they’d disappeared entirely.”
“Regular as afternoon rain?” I said.
“They’re regular where I come from,” said Dirk. “Not like this sweltering hellhole.”
“And where are you from exactly?” I asked.
“Lots of rain, lots of Guptas,” said Dirk. “Come on. I thought you were a private eye.”
I figured it out with the help of his nudge. Cetif, the other large inhabited planet in the Tau Ceti system. First settled by religious refugees of the Hindu variety, which explained the preponderance of last names of Earthen Indian origin. Unlike Cetie, which had required substantial terraforming to cool its surface to habitable levels, Cetif had required quite the opposite. The planet circled Tau Ceti at the outer edge of the star’s habitable zone, and its atmosphere had needed quite a buildup of greenhouse gasses to bring its surface temperature to something acceptable for skin. Now, thick clouds shrouded the planet day and night, making it a damp, chill, dreary place only barely fit for the living—literally. Plants struggled to grow there due to the low insolation.
I couldn’t imagine residing there, but I suppose I should’ve been grateful for the planet’s presence. Without Cetif, Cetie never would’ve been populated. I wasn’t an expert on terraforming, but apparently it was much easier to heat a planet up than cool it down. Twentieth century cultures figured that out the hard way.
Dirk snapped his fingers at me. “You still with me, pal?”
“More or less,” I said. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re here, though.”
“Because of Hari, of course,” said Dirk, still pacing. “You see, I figured he wouldn’t be too hard to track down. But Sanika? She thought otherwise. She already contacted Cetif’s Department of Social Services to ask about the garnished stipend payments. They gave her the rigmarole, eventually referring her to their own internal fraud department that told her they couldn’t send her portion of the payments until they confirmed Hari’s physical location, seeing as his residence permit had lapsed.
“That’s where I came in, of course. I tracked Hari down, or at least I tried. Wasn’t too hard, but when I arrived at his place, after a bit of digging, I discovered he wasn’t there. So I talked to some people. Turned some screws. Put some feet to the fire. Long story short, I learned Hari had emigrated. Can’t blame him, really. I can see how he’d be upset, having to share his stipend payment with a disgruntled ex-wife with a well paying job, never mind how pleasant she seemed to me. So he skipped town. Skipped the whole planet, coming here instead.”
“And you followed him,” I said.
“Darn right I did,” said Dirk.
For what it’s worth, said Paige, I think this guy might be telling the truth. I found evidence of a Kriggler Investigations in the most recent servenet stream from Cetif, and I also found that—shockingly—you’re not the only private investigator on Cetie any more. A Dirk Kriggler applied for and received a private investigator’s license two days ago.
Guess I don’t have a monopoly anymore, I said. “This still doesn’t explain why you’re here though.”
“Of course it does,” said Kriggler. “I have an obligation to my client to track down Hari. To make him pay up. If I couldn’t do it through the garnishing of his Cetif government stipend, then I was sure as heck going to try to do the same with his Cetie work subsidy. So I came here to Cetie to do just that.
“Problem was, my Cetif PI license didn’t do me a whole lot of good here. Had to apply for and gain a new one, and even once I had that, my options were limited. Oh, I was able to track Hari down, of course. Looked him up in the public listings, but when he refused to answer my calls, physical or digital, I didn’t have many options. Whatever rights I had in Cetif due to Sanika’s court order didn’t transfer across planets, you understand.
“But I didn’t let that stop me. Although Hari and Sanika’s legal status didn’t give me any real legal authority, it did provide me with a moral one. So I went on the warpath. Found Hari’s bank, the one who’d been accepting his Cetie work stipend payments since he arrived. I talked to a sweet lady there, real sweet, and gave her the sob story. Divorced mother of four, on the ropes. A deadbeat dad who’d do anything to get away, even skip the planet. She bought right in. Though she couldn’t help me with my wage garnishing situation, she was able to, or at the very least willing to, provide me with a copy of Hari’s bank records.
“And that’s when things got interesting, because as it turns out, much to my chagrin, Hari’s account was empty. Worse than empty. In the red. He had past due payments for rent, food, and a gaming subscription. You’d think his work stipend check would cover it, but that was being rerouted. Subtracted from his account before it even got there. Even if I had the legal authority to do so, there was nothing left to garnish. The whole thing reeked of corruption and malfeasance, so of course I couldn’t leave it alone. I had to keep digging.”
I held up a hand. “Look. Kriggler. I’ve tried to be patient and understanding, letting you into my apartment after being woken up half-way through my sleep cycle. And this is all very interesting, or at least it could be to someone who cared. But despite asking you over and over again, you still haven’t told me why you’re here. Not on Cetie. Not in my suburb of Pylon Alpha. Right here, in my apartment, in my living room. Seriously. Why are you here?”
Kriggler stopped pacing and stared at me. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m here because Hari is dead.�
�
17
I blinked slowly. Perhaps I still hadn’t fully woken up. Either that or I was still dreaming and it would only be a matter of time before Kriggler transformed into a hideous, multi-tentacled beast with a thoroughly unintimidating door chime scream. “Come again?”
“The cops were a little stunned when I called them,” said Dirk. “To be fair, I was too when I found him. Emaciated. Disheveled. And the smell? Well, I don’t want to bring it back to mind. And it wasn’t just him. It was all that food on his counters and floor, spoiled beyond belief.”
My ears perked. “So he’d been dead for a while, then?”
“At least three weeks, I’d say,” said Kriggler. “Could be more. I’m no coroner, but there appeared to be about a month’s worth of pizza on his counter, so take that how you will. Anyway, when the police arrived they questioned me thoroughly, seeing as I’d been the one to call it in. They were pretty tight lipped about everything, but I could tell something was off, and I’m not talking about the smell. More like they’d seen something similar and not that long ago. I overheard one of them mention another private eye, and then they dropped your name. Weed. I asked about you, of course, but I probably shouldn’t have. The officer who name-dropped you got a good glaring from her supervisor, and I didn’t get anything more. They kicked me out after taking note of my investigator’s license and telling me not to wander off, if you catch my drift.”
“Where did you find Hari?” I asked. “His body, I mean?”
“In his apartment,” said Kriggler. “A place called the Chesapeake Arms. Real run down joint. Small apartments, packed in tight. Not a lot of attention paid to ambience, if you catch my drift. A gamer haven. From what Sanika told me, I knew he’d retreated into that world to get away, but I didn’t realize how far he’d fallen.”
I wasn’t surprised. “I was looking for a more specific answer, as in where within his apartment. In a gaming chair? Still plugged in?”
“That’s right.”
“A Princess Gaming unit?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. They’re the company he had a subscription to, I think, and they’re the main gaming company on Cetie, right?”
I nodded, stroking my chin.
“You want to share with me what you know?” said Kriggler. “As I said, the cops weren’t terribly forthcoming, but I take it from the look on your face and the questions you’re firing my way that you’ve been through a similar experience.”
“Strikingly similar.”
I gave him a brief run down, from Helena’s appearance and hire of me to track down her estranged son to our investigation into Lars and the discovery of his death all the way through our online foray into his virtual existence. As I wrapped up my tale, I heard the puff of the front door. Carl stood there with a pair of reusable bags in his hands, one overflowing with leafy beet greens and the other sagging under the weight of assorted groceries.
“There you are,” I said. “You didn’t forget the buttermilk, did you?”
Carl walked in and paused near the sofas. “Joke all you want. You don’t know how good you have it. I tried to get back as quickly as I could after Paige informed me about Mr. Kriggler, here.”
Dirk shot a thumb at my old pal. “Who’s this?”
“Carl,” I said. “My partner slash caretaker slash best friend. Don’t judge.”
Kriggler shrugged. “Hey, no business of mine what happens behind closed doors.”
I refrained from making a comment about him respecting the privacy of closed doors yet forcing his way though open ones. “You make it sound creepy. It’s a platonic relationship.”
“Rich,” said Carl as he hefted the bags. “You want to help me put these away?”
“As if I’d know where everything goes,” I said. “That’s your job.”
Carl shot a highly arched eyebrow my way. I got his drift.
“Right. Kriggler? Can I grab you something to drink while I’m up?”
The private eye removed his hat and set it down next to him on the couch, smoothing his disheveled hair with his fingers. I considered offering him a hot shave in addition to the drink, but he might take it the wrong way.
He leaned back and gave me a nod. “Yeah. Coffee. Black.”
Of course. How else would a guy like Kriggler take it?
I followed Carl into the kitchen, where he indeed began unbagging groceries. I let him take care of that while I pulled a pair of mugs from a cabinet and set one of them under a shiny, copper spout. Despite my own self-deprecating jokes about my relationship with technology, I could operate the coffee machine on my own. I punched the start button and waited for the magic to happen.
“So,” I said as Carl put the last of the milk in the fridge. “You wanted to talk?”
Carl closed the refrigerator door and cast a glance toward the living room. “How much do you know about this guy?”
“Kriggler?” I said. “Paige sent you the feeds, right?”
Carl nodded.
“Well then you know as much as I do,” I said. “Claims to be a detective, which Paige confirmed, at least in terms of his official documentation. He’s brash and forward and looks like he pulled his wardrobe straight from a historical vid doc on pre-millennial private investigators, something that might work on Cetif but makes him look stubborn and clueless here, but the story he’s told about his client and current investigation are timely.”
Carl frowned. “Exceedingly so.”
The coffee spout sputtered and finished its business. I swapped out the full mug for the empty and started the process back up. “Are you saying he’s lying?”
“No,” said Carl. “Merely that his presence here is surprisingly coincidental. I think if you intend to work with the man, you owe it to yourself to be cautious.”
I snorted. “I don’t work in a team. We all know how well I fared during the last case.”
“And yet you haven’t kicked the man out,” said Carl.
“Point taken. I’ll keep my guard up.”
When the coffee machine finished, I grabbed the pair of mugs and headed back out to the living room, Carl at my back. Kriggler sat where I’d left him, choosing to rest his backside rather than poke around in my medicine drawer. One point in his favor.
Kriggler accepted a mug as I held it in his direction. “Thanks, pal. So I was thinking about your yarn. This Busk guy, his death, his gaming habits, his online friends. The way I see it, there are two likely possibilities. Either the guy you found dead in his chair wasn’t Busk, and Busk’s out there living the dream, or you did find Busk, and someone’s been impersonating him from the get go. At least for a period of years, if what you said is true.”
I’d shared the details of my real life and digital investigations with Kriggler, but I hadn’t primed him on my theories. “You came up with that by yourself?”
Kriggler looked at me like I might’ve lost a step in between the living room and the kitchen. “They’re the only logical reasons why Busk, or the man impersonating Busk, could’ve been active online after his death.”
I sat and took a sip of my brew, an espresso instead of Dirk’s black. “So your victim Hari was a gamer. A heavy one, or at least he’d become one. Do you know what his online handle was?”
“Sure,” said Kriggler. “DeadBeatdown13, which I’m sure he thought was either extremely clever given his family situation or was an expression of latent angst over the same. And before you ask, I checked while you were in the kitchen with your droid. He was last seen online about four hours ago. That matches closely to the moment his body was pulled from his gaming chair.”
Perhaps it was Carl’s cautious reminder, but I wanted to make sure of that tidbit myself.
Already on it, said Paige. Looks like Kriggler’s right. According to Princess’s servenets, DeadBeatdown13 logged off a hair over four hours ago. Hasn’t been on since. I also found the police report about the discovery of
Hari’s body. Not a lot of details available to the public, but it was at the Chesapeake Arms. No idea if Hari is DeadBeatdown, but Kriggler’s story seems solid otherwise.
I turned toward Carl. “So, let’s look at the big picture. Two men die, apparently while gaming, apparently from similar causes. Malnourishment or dehydration or general lack of care of some degree. Both men seem to have passed away while maintaining virtual presences, and at least in the case of Lars, we know he was active and not merely online due to some glitch in the Princess servenets. If Dirk here tracked down the real Hari Gupta, then we have to assume the man we found in Lars’s apartment is the real Lars Busk. Yet someone is out there impersonating both of them. Why? To what end? What do these two men have in common? What do they have worth taking?”
Carl didn’t get a chance to respond, as Kriggler spoke right over him. “Did you check Busk’s financials?”
I turned back to Dirk. “No. Why?”
The private dick gave me another condescending look. “I told you. My guy Hari had more debits than credits, and not just regular stuff like rent, food, and bills. His stipend check was being siphoned off. If our two marks are alike, than maybe you’ll find a similar situation with your Busk boy. And if it so happens they’re making payments to the same entity? Bang. That’s your culprit. Bet you a thousand SEUs.”
I felt sheepish. I should’ve made that connection. “Right. So where were his stipend payments going if not to his account?”
Kriggler cleared his throat. If it wasn’t my imagination, his cheeks darkened ever so slightly. “Well…about that. I’m not sure, exactly.”
I narrowed an eye. “Can’t you check the bank records you obtained for Hari?”
Kriggler shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I may have overstated that. I didn’t actually get any records. The lady I talked to was kind enough to relay some information to me, but she wouldn’t give me the files. A breach of some information privacy act or other, she said. So I don’t know where the money went.”
“Wonderful…” I said.
