Blood Avatar

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “Hey, Craig,” Amanda said. She dropped into a vacant chair and accessed the hospital computer to check on her day’s admissions. “You’re here early. Putting in some overtime?”

  Craig Dickert said, “Hunh. They’d never pay overtime.” His blue eyes were set a little too close together over a thin nose, a lantern-jaw and a thin wisp of a sand-colored mustache that covered a bad cleft lip repair. His voice was always a little nasal and wet because of the lip. “Getting a jump on this evening.” Thish evening. “I heard it was kind of a mess out there.” Mesh.

  “Mmmm.” Amanda squinted at her patient list. She’d have to hump it through her rounds plus move her late afternoon surgery—a gut reanastomosis—to the morning if she wanted to get to the cut on the corpse that afternoon. She dug out her noteputer, jotted down a few agenda changes then synced the information with the hospital computer. “Getting the body out of the car was hard—that and not falling off those rocks.”

  Another voice, male: “That’ll teach you to be such a smart-ass know-it-all.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes as Fred Carruthers, the hospital’s intensivist, blew in on a swirl of flapping white coattails. “As smart-ass as some fleas I know?”

  Carruthers sniffed. He was reed-thin, with mussed dark brown hair and button-black eyes. Carruthers was smart, permanently harried, and his wife was expecting twins. The only drawback was they were separated. “You know, Manny, if you’d stop all that surgery crap and apply your talents to real medicine, we could get married.”

  “You’ve got a wife,” the nurse with one brow said with a note of disapproval.

  “Not for much longer.” Carruthers was downright perky. “Four more weeks and then we are finito.”

  The two nurses and Dickert exchanged looks. “You’re kidding,” Amanda said.

  “I kid you not. Good riddance, too.”

  “Mmmm.” Amanda was uncomfortable. Getting a divorce was bad enough, but divorcing your pregnant wife? Talking about it in the ER? She changed the subject. “Fred, what’re you doing here? You were just on. Get some sleep.”

  “But then I’d be far away from you, Manny,” Carruthers said as he slid before a terminal and began calling up lab data. “Besides, I’m jacked. Drank a liter of coffee, so might as well work.” He paused. “I heard Hank got a city cop.”

  “Jack Ramsey,” Dickert said, wetly. “He’s the one did McFaine.”

  “Whoa. That Jack Ramsey?” Now Carruthers was interested. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s okay.” Amanda shrugged then stood and tucked her noteputer into her hip pocket. She wandered to the coffeepot, studied the amoeboid scum oiling the surface, then poured a cup. “You know . . . just a cop.”

  “Listen to Miss La-Dee-Dah. Oh, just a cop. Just a bat-shit nutcase.”

  “Don’t blaspheme,” One-Brow said. “And can you blame the man? After his son . . . Lord.” She shook her head. “Happened to me I’d’ve done the same thing.”

  “Well.” Amanda sipped her coffee. The stuff tasted like it was brewed in the Terran early Paleozoic era. She dumped the cup in the trash. “He seems all right.”

  “Hey, Craig.” Another nurse, not One-Brow, waved Dickert over. “My computer’s messed up again.”

  “That’s because you keep messing with it. Stop messing with it, it won’t get messed up.” Dickert sighed. “Nurses.” Nurtheth.

  One-Brow said, “You’re a nurse.”

  “I’m a nurse anesthetist.” Dickert had to work to get out the last word. He swiped at his bottom lip with the back of one hand. “There’s a serious difference.”

  The nurse rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m getting old over here, Prince Charming.”

  As Dickert scuffed over, Carruthers leaned in. “Seriously, Manny, this Ramsey guy? Be careful.”

  “What?” Amanda didn’t know whether to be offended, flattered, amused, or all three. “Why?”

  “I was one of the guys who hired you, remember? I know all about this dark side thing you got going.”

  “I do not.” She was getting mad now. “I just like my work.”

  “Correction, you love the work. It’s okay. Look at me: work, work, work. The picture of mental health,” he said, but the gaiety was forced now, like he’d been riding a high and coming crashing down. “This Ramsey, he might seem okay, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  Carruthers’ button-black eyes locked on hers. “What he did to McFaine? I think this Ramsey guy liked it.”

  She held his gaze for another five seconds then blinked and said, “Okay. I . . . appreciate the concern.” She backhanded a wave. “I gotta get ready for the cut.”

  As she left, she heard Dickert say to the nurse with the computer problem, “Jesus, not like that.”

  And One-Brow: “Don’t blaspheme.”

  * * *

  Hunh. Amanda cut a right out of the ER down a T-corridor. Well, now that was interesting. She puzzled over Carruthers as she passed radiology on her right, then hung a left and took the stairs to her basement-level office. (That was the only thing she hated about being ME. Morgues were always in the basement.)

  She pushed Carruthers from her mind and focused on the case again. Autopsy probably would be succinct. Crispy critter. But that ring, and the necklace, now that was intriguing. She slid into a chair, swiveled, booted up her computer. Then she tweezed out her noteputer, tapped in a command and brought up an image file. She’d been so intrigued by the pendant she’d gotten a good holographic recording. She beamed the information to her work computer then accessed a VRML program. The program, a virtual reality modeling language, was used by forensic anthropologists for 3-D facial reconstructions. She wasn’t qualified for that kind of work, but the program had many similarities to VRML programs she used in planning facial surgeries. If she tinkered with the parameters, she might be able to reconstruct the image on the medal. She might ask Craig Dickert to lend a hand; he was a geek computer guy. Yeah, if she could figure out a way that didn’t sound like a come-on. Craig, she knew, was interested. A nice enough guy, but . . . She sighed. First, Carruthers, and now she worried about Dickert. On the other hand, Ramsey . . .

  Just what are you thinking, girlfriend? You thinking about that there Ramsey?

  Answer: Well, duh.

  9

  The news people took Ketchum about twenty minutes. The sheriff did pretty well, and if Ramsey hadn’t known better, he could’ve sworn that Ketchum’s aw-shucks drawl got a little thicker. Ramsey lurked in the background. A few reporters from New Bonn affiliates of the major Neurasian networks spotted him, and if anyone hadn’t known who he was before—say, someone living under a rock—they knew now.

  The news conference had just broken up when a deputy called over Ramsey and Ketchum. The deputy pointed at an orange suit struggling the last few meters up the hill. “Crime scene guys found something.”

  Blowing from the effort, the tech handed over a clear evidence bag. Inside the bag was a charred twist of metal, and the tech pointed out the series of numbers etched into the metal. “Probably part of a serial number. Must a blown clear.”

  Ramsey looked at Ketchum. “Now we’re cooking. Even with a partial, you can get a probable ID on the car. Then we start backtracking to either an owner or rental agency.” Then, another thought: “Anyone find a sat-link?”

  “Haven’t found one yet,” said the tech. “We’ll keep looking, but there might be nothing left. Fire heats up the batteries and then the things just explode.”

  * * *

  As he and Ketchum headed back for Ketchum’s car, Ramsey asked, “Hank, any possibility that this guy came from one of the islands? Or maybe took a ferry to one?”

  “The only one we keep going as long as we can is to Cameron Island, that big island about three klicks offshore, and that ferry opened up again last week. The island’s got a winter population of about two hundred permanent residents. The ferry runs until there’s too much ice, and then we open up an ice highway, or fol
ks take ice sleds across. We have a ferry goes clear across the lake that runs mid-May to November. Why?”

  “Just a thought. If he was a tourist, then maybe he went to Cameron Island. You could talk to the ferry people, see if anyone saw or spoke to him.”

  They dropped into Ketchum’s patrol car, and Ramsey said, “So Pearl offer you money to adopt?”

  “Not quite.” Ketchum cranked the engine. “Just about.”

  “Okay. But in what capacity?”

  Ketchum backed the car, did a three-point turn and settled into the straightaway back to town before answering. “Whatever you want. You can call all the shots, you can be chief of the task force, if you want.”

  “Hunh.” Ramsey thought about it. “I like consultant better. You need to be out front, in full view. These are your people, and they’re going to be watching. Or don’t they elect sheriffs anymore?”

  “They elect. I’m up again in a year and a half.”

  “So I’ll do my thing, we work together, but you need to be the one to make assignments. Pick the people you want on this thing. Then we got to get moving if we want to crack this before the Bureau sweeps in if this guy turns out to be somebody.”

  “Suits me.” Ketchum gave him a glance askance. “Got anything particular in mind to do next?”

  “Yeah. Breakfast.”

  * * *

  Breakfast was at Ida’s, a combination bakery and diner that sat halfway down a boardwalk edging the harbor. The boardwalk fronted a jumble of eateries, knickknack shops and empty slips for charter fishing rigs that advertised rates for a half or full day’s excursion. Except for Ida’s, the shops were all closed until the start of the tourist season.

  Ida’s smelled of coffee, cinnamon and fried eggs. Something retro played from a wheezy audiobox. Ketchum nodded to a trio of deputies—Ramsey saw the one named Bobby again and two fresh-faced, apple-pie twenty-somethings—and he and Ketchum took chairs at a corner table overlooking the water. A formidable woman came with a pot of coffee and two white porcelain mugs.

  “So, Hank,” the woman said as she poured coffee. She had a whiskey burr that reminded Ramsey of a brief visit he’d made to Tikonov. “Who is this?”

  “Ida, Jack Ramsey. Ramsey, meet Ida Kant, best cook and finest gossip in town.”

  “I do not gossip. I merely relate what I have heard.” Kant did not smile. She had sharp coal-colored eyes set above a hatchet nose that lent her an imperious air. She had a stiff, formal way of speaking that Ramsey normally associated with nobles but might be because of the accent. She wore jeans, a black scooped-neck tee that showed the lines in her throat and a hint of gold. She turned her attention back to Ketchum. “With a deputy like Boaz, you do not need a gossip.”

  “Well, besides Boaz, you heard anything? Any strangers?”

  “Do you mean besides all the reporters? No one except the regulars,” Ida said, and then turned on her heel.

  Ramsey looked after her. “Don’t we get to order?”

  Ketchum was stirring sugar into his coffee. “Nope. Ida decides what you get and that’s what you get.”

  “What kind of restaurant is that?”

  “Ida’s,” Ketchum said, and blew on his coffee.

  * * *

  Whatever Ida thought of Ramsey, her food was delicious: fried eggs, Javan warty sausages, flaky biscuits and sweet cream Maxwell tarise butter. “This is fabulous,” Ramsey said when Ida came by with her coffeepot. “I haven’t eaten this well in years.”

  “Yes.” Ida gave Ramsey a hard look. “Cities are for barbarians.”

  When she was gone, Ramsey said, “I don’t think she likes me.”

  Ketchum sucked at his teeth then hefted his mug. “That’s just Ida. She’s old country folk. Descended from one of the first settler families that came out of Slovakia. Ida still has a place way the heck out toward the mountains. She goes there every now and again, when she’s had it with the rest of us.”

  They sipped coffee and swapped cop talk, sniffing around each other like dogs. Then Ramsey said, “On the way out, I saw farms, a lot of fields, tarises, Terran cows. But no AgroMechs. No hovers. Just trucks and cars and bicycles. You and your deputies only carry slugthrowers. I don’t have anything against guns; I like them. But everything is so . . .”

  “Backward?”

  “Retro was the word I had in mind.” Actually, prehistoric. “Your people against tech?”

  “No. We could carry lasers same as city cops, but gun’ll kill you just as dead, and I hate the smell of burned meat. Just because something’s modern doesn’t mean it’s any better. Look at The Republic. Soon as those HPGs went down, whole thing fell apart.”

  “That’s kind of harsh.”

  Ketchum’s bushy eyebrows arched. “When was the last time you heard from or saw our beloved exarch, huh? Here’s what matters”—he slapped the table—“stuff right in front of you. Here, you walk in a field, grub around, get some dirt under your nails and then take a good smell of something clean and natural. Keeps you rooted.” A pause, and then Ketchum rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen to the old man jawing.”

  “It’s okay. I never really think about things like that.”

  “You ought to,” said Ketchum. “You might live longer.”

  “Yeah?” Ramsey said. “What’s so good about that?”

  * * *

  Driving to the county courthouse, Ramsey said, “You mentioned something about a killing a few years back.”

  “Well,” Ketchum drawled, “I think I said hunting accident, more like. They happen.” A pause. “Truth is I hate thinking about it. If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be sheriff.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because the guy who died was the sheriff, Isaiah Schroeder. Practically a fixture in the community. Awful thing. Out hunting, tripped, rifle discharged . . .” Ketchum shook his head. “Heck of a thing.”

  “They’re sure it was an accident?”

  “Pretty sure. A darned shame, though. Born and raised in Clovis, about forty klicks south, and then came up here after he did his tour with the Planetary Militia. He wasn’t one of those Triarii Protector poster boys or anything. Just a decent, God-fearing, larger than life kind of guy. Worst of it was that the whole thing was a dumb accident. Not the way Isaiah planned on going out. He’d been talking retirement soon.”

  “He was that old?”

  “No, no, I just think he was sick of the politics, especially if it’s got something to do with some darned noble playing tourist. Those nobles got sticks up their butts most the time. Usually, a bunch of us deputies and Isaiah, we’d hunt together. But Isaiah said he wanted to be alone, and he had been kind of down. I figured, you know, problems at home and such. Anyway, Isaiah got into his truck, stopped at Ida’s for doughnuts, and that’s the last anyone saw of him alive. When he didn’t show by dark, Hannah—that’s his wife—got worried, called it in. I got to be the one to find him.” Ketchum paused. “Heck of a mess. Blast busted his face like a melon on ferrocrete.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. Now the two youngest—that’s Noah and Sarah—they live at home. Isaiah had an older boy, Scott, from another marriage. Scott was a little wild, but Isaiah worked hard with the boy, go off hunting, just man to man. The boy started doing better, grades going up, looking happier. Then Isaiah died and Scott . . . you couldn’t talk to the boy. Finally, Scott just up and left.”

  “Left his family?”

  “Yup. Only came back about three months ago. Now he works a bar outside of town and lives with some girl he met. You can bet Hannah’s not happy about that.”

  “Hunh.” Ramsey paused then said casually, “So was Slade the ME? On Schroeder?”

  “Amanda? Naw, she wasn’t here yet. Old Doc Summers ruled the death an accident.” Ketchum’s eyes slid to Ramsey. “So you like our lady doctor, huh?”

  “I was just asking . . .”

  “Yeah, she’s a fine-looking woman.” Ketchum threw Ramsey a wink. “Fine-looki
ng.”

  * * *

  They pulled into a parking lot behind the county courthouse, a blocky three-story building of native Neurasian sandstone faced with arched windows accented with white stucco. As they clambered out of the patrol car, Ketchum said, “You know what everyone’s thinking? They’re thinking, maybe, the killer’s one of us. Maybe he’s my neighbor down the road, or that ornery farmer that my Aunt Gert picked a feud with years back, or maybe my wife, or maybe it’s my husband.”

  Ramsey looked at Ketchum across the roof of the patrol car. “That’s the hell of it, Hank. It probably is.”

  10

  Hannah Schroeder left the house at nine-fifteen, though she’d been up all night, brooding. God was punishing her. First Isaiah keeping secrets, then Isaiah’s death, then Scott’s disappearance, and now Noah . . . Her vision blurred with tears. She was crying too much. Maybe she should see Old Doc Summers, or maybe Dr. Slade. Or maybe Father Gillis could help. Better yet, maybe call Father Gillis first then bring Noah in. Noah might talk to a man. Oh, why did Isaiah have to die?

  She drove into Farway’s downtown: seven blocks of brick and sandstone fronted buildings standing cheek by jowl, with the tumbledown look of a typical tourist town going to seed. Main cut the town east and west and Lake Drive was the north-south thoroughfare, edging the lake. There were three hotels (two closed); a swank bed and breakfast; a post office; a Comstar office (closed); a hardware store; an everything store selling, well, everything from women’s clothing to pickling jars. Her chocolate and taffy shop, A Taste of Heaven, stood near dead center on the left and next door to a defunct gift shop. When she came on her shop, she pulled nose-in and then just sat there, her cheeks wet, the engine idling. Her eyes picked out every flaw: the sign’s faded pink lettering, the sagging steps, the spatter of green-white bird droppings speckling the eaves over a bay window display she hadn’t changed in four months.