Blood Avatar

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Ramsey craned his head back to look at Amanda. “You said the son and drugs, right? So what if Isaiah Schroeder was on to the drugs?” When Amanda only hunched a shoulder, he turned back to Ketchum. “You saw the cat.”

  “Yeah.” Ketchum blew out, twisted the key, and threw the car into reverse. “I’m kind of glad that Kodza woman’s due in. I could use the distraction.”

  “But you saw the cat,” Ramsey persisted. “A white long-haired cat.”

  “Yeah, I saw the damn cat.”

  “There’s something else, Jack.” Amanda, from the backseat, her voice small and a little defeated. “You know why Doc works nights? Remember I told you about Emma, how she had cancer? Well, I remember Doc was talking to the nurses about the cost of live-in nurses, hospice, like that. Doc couldn’t afford a nurse because he’d blown his money on rehabs for his son, Adam. So Doc worked nights while people from his church took turns with Emma, and he’d take care of her during the day. After she died, he never went back to days.”

  “Okay,” Ramsey said, baffled. “But I don’t get—”

  “Shut up and listen, Jack.” Not angry, not even pissed. Just matter-of-fact: Pass the salt, Jack. Shut up and listen, Jack. “Emma Summers had cancer. She had chemotherapy. She lost her hair. She wouldn’t wear a turban or scarf because she said she didn’t want to look like she had cancer.” A pause. “So Doc bought wigs for Emma: a lot of very nice, very white wigs.”

  Ramsey waited a beat, then said, “You only need one. One wig and one white cat.”

  “Yeah,” Ketchum said. “Now shut the fuck up.”

  30

  1830 hours

  They separated at the courthouse: Ketchum and Ramsey to meet Dani Kodza, and Amanda to wait at the hospital since Kodza would want to see the body. That suited Amanda since she had DNA to check. She left without a goodbye for Ramsey. Just couldn’t do it, not right then. The way he’d handled Doc . . . she just couldn’t do it. Instead, she’d headed for her truck, but not so quickly that she missed Boaz standing not ten meters away, leaning against his cruiser and leering. She wanted to smack him.

  Pulling out of the courthouse lot, she turned right and drove south. The sunset off to her right was a spectacular burst of mauve splashed upon aqua, but she didn’t really see it.

  The way Ramsey treated Doc, so harsh. On the other hand, she’d worked with cops. A detective couldn’t afford to get all gooey-eyed over a victim, or treat suspects with much humanity. But Ramsey was not a nice guy. He might be tender, compassionate, giving, tough as armor on a ’Mech—but not nice.

  And she couldn’t wait to see him again.

  * * *

  Amanda was so busy thinking about Jack Ramsey that when a turbocycle peeled out of a lay-by on her left and roared away in the opposite direction, she didn’t notice.

  * * *

  Ramsey couldn’t read Amanda’s eyes, but when she said nothing and turned for her truck, he let her go. Then her head flicked left, and he saw Boaz, leaning against his cruiser, a wolfish grin splitting his lips from ear to pointy, protruding ear. Ramsey took a quick glance around: no one else in the lot, or on the street.

  As Amanda’s truck pulled away, Boaz looked up, saw Ramsey coming, and if he read anything in Ramsey’s expression at all, didn’t show it. If anything, his grin broadened, and Boaz actually ran his pink snake’s tongue over his teeth.

  “So,” Boaz said, his drawl thicker than congealed molasses, “I heard you been seeing our lady doctor. Had dinner the other night, had a bottle of wine, a couple drinks. Real late, too. So tell me”—Boaz leaned in and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper—“she do it as good as she looks? I mean, you know, she get real enthusiastic like those brainy types do? Because once you’re outta here and seeing as how she’s all primed and lubed—”

  And that’s as far as Boaz got. Ramsey’s left leg sliced air in a blur, arcing down and up before Boaz blinked or Ramsey had a chance to think about things like, oh, assault. (Later on, he could admit he had thought about it but didn’t much care.) The blow clipped Boaz at his ankles. Boaz toppled, smacking his face at the angle made by the passenger’s side door and the cruiser’s roof with a loud bam! There was a distinct and very loud crackle and crunch, like splintery glass. Bright red blood sprayed from Boaz’s nose in a geyser, spattering the passenger’s side window. Boaz went down in a heap, his hands cupped over his ruined nose, road grease mingling with blood soaking his uniform jacket.

  “Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, you broke my nose, you broke my nose!” Only Boaz couldn’t breathe out of his nose now, only blubber and blow red bubbles, so it came out: Ohsheeshush, ohsheeshush, ubwomunoth!

  “Aw, jeez, Boaz, be careful, man. I told you to watch out for that oil there and now look.” Ramsey put his left hand on Boaz’s shoulder but kept his right cocked and ready, just in case. “Let me help you up. We got to get you some attention here.” And then, dropping his voice: “You say one more word about Dr. Slade to anyone, you gonna be drinking steak through a fucking straw.”

  “I’m gonna press charges,” Boaz grunted. Blood leaked through his fingers. “This is assault.” Dishis-hasshal.

  “You do that,” Ramsey said. “And then you better grow some eyes out the back of your head.”

  * * *

  By the time Ketchum came running, Boaz swayed to his feet, with Ramsey propping him up against Boaz’s cruiser. The deputy was covered with bloody grit and oil smears from the parking lot, and looked like he’d barely survived assassination.

  “The hell happened?” Ketchum said. “Boaz?”

  “Shipped,” Boaz bubbled.

  “Yeah,” Ramsey said, “I told him, Boaz, man, there’s oil. But he wasn’t looking, and he slipped and . . .” He shook his head. “Boom.”

  Boaz threw Ramsey a poisonous glare as the ambulance crew loaded him on a stretcher and whisked him to the hospital. When the ambulance’s siren faded, Ketchum cleared his throat and said, “You got something to say?”

  “He slipped,” Ramsey said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ketchum’s dark blue eyes narrowed. “Well, I knew Boaz could be stupid, but I never pegged him as clumsy.”

  “People’ll surprise you.”

  “Yes, they will.” Ketchum paused. “Thing is, I was thinking about putting Boaz on surveillance, have him keep an eye on Doc. But now, with a busted nose, I can’t do that. I guess I’ll have to put Bobby on it.” Another pause. “Amazing Boaz didn’t lose a couple teeth, way he slipped and clocked hisself and all.”

  “Yeah. You know, he slips again, he might not be so lucky.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, let’s hope he learned to watch his step.”

  “We live in hope,” Ramsey said.

  * * *

  Summers chain-smoked, knocking ash into a mug. The cat was draped in his lap, its rumble the only sound other than the sizzle of burning paper and tobacco.

  That thing with the teeth, the basal skull fractures, the wrists . . . why hadn’t he foreseen the problems? He’d been so careful with that autopsy. He closed his eyes, bringing up a mental image of Schroeder’s body on the autopsy table: his head a puddle of purple brains, clotted blood, caked mud, and blasted bone. Isaiah’s mouth: the soft palate totally gone, the tissues pulped and rear molars ruined, but the hard palate relatively intact. Why hadn’t he remembered about the fracture lines on the front teeth, why hadn’t he seen the teeth coming?

  Because you wanted to make it go away. Because Schroeder could’ve ruined you, but then he died, and you were safe and didn’t want to ask too many questions.

  Abruptly, Summers stood. The cat tumbled, righted then crouched, belly to the ground, and watched as the old man plucked up a bud, activated his link, and placed a call. When the link connected, he said, “I have to talk to you. Right now.”

  * * *

  Gabriel heard the heavy tread of feet along the ceiling, and then the squeal of hinges, the slam of a door and, a second later, the cru
nch of gravel as someone rounded the gravel path. He opened the door before the man could knock. “What?”

  The third man from Gabriel’s meetings fidgeted. His features were pinched and gray, and he reeked of cigarettes. He swallowed hard and said, “We need to talk.”

  “About what?” Gabriel wasn’t in the mood, and he didn’t understand why the Handler insisted on keeping this relic involved. “I have to go.”

  “Just listen.” The third man held up his hands, palms out, like an ordinary traffic cop. There was cigarette ash on his palms that bore a passing resemblance to stigmata, which, if Gabriel had been superstitious, might have given him pause. “There’s talk. Not only the legate’s office involved now but they’re sniffing around Isaiah Schroeder. If we keep giving them things to look at—if you follow through on the boys right now—that won’t be good for us. For the cause.”

  Gabriel bristled. Always telling me what to do, where to go, how to act, while I take all the risk! “It’s my risk, my operation, while you sit on your fat ass.”

  “Watch your mouth, boy, watch it, you self-righteous little . . . !” The man swung, hard, cracking Gabriel’s right cheek with his open palm hard enough to make Gabriel stagger and nearly fall. “I may not be young anymore, but I’ve been at this longer than you, taken more risks than you! This isn’t like the old days when we could count on being protected. If they catch us, they will crucify us, especially if you kill the children. We might be able to expose Limyanovich, but the children are innocents!”

  “The children are casualties.” Gabriel spat a gobbet of rust-colored saliva. “This is my operation. I call the shots, not you.”

  The third man’s face was purple with rage. He raised his hand again. “You’ll follow orders—”

  “No!” Gabriel caught the third man’s wrist with his left hand then jabbed the man’s stomach with his right. The man doubled over, backpedaled and nearly lost his footing, but Gabriel’s hands shot out, grabbed the man by his throat and squeezed. “Not from you, never from you, never again!”

  The man gawped like a fish, and his eyes bugged, his face blackening with trapped blood. At the last moment, Gabriel opened his hands and let the man fall. The third man sprawled, facedown on the gravel, his hands tearing at his shirt, his breath whistling in and out of his throat in thin shrieks.

  “Touch me again,” Gabriel said, “and I’ll kill you. You got that . . . Dad?” Then Gabriel slammed the door on his father, and threw the lock.

  31

  Sunday, 15 April 3136

  1930 hours

  Even travel-worn, Dani Kodza was better-looking in person than she was on the holovid but smaller than Ramsey expected, barely topping a meter and a half. Her skin was not as pale but a little bronzed, perhaps with makeup, and her nails were square-cut and buffed to a gleam. A thin gold chain trickled along her collarbone before disappearing beneath an ivory camisole edged with lace.

  When she looked at Limyanovich’s remains, she didn’t flinch. The color dribbled from her skin, but she didn’t avert her face, not even when the smell—old charcoal left out during a frost—rolled out of the morgue refrigerator with the body. In fact, she barely blinked. Instead, as Amanda talked, pointing out the damage to the chest versus the skull and detailing the torsion fractures found in the fingers of Limyanovich’s right hand, Kodza bent, her eyes raking the body the way a farmer sifted through chunky soil.

  Amanda was saying, “So, as I said, not a lot left to identify.”

  “But there are the records, yes?” Kodza’s eyes slid from the body to Amanda, and the smaller woman straightened. “The dental records are a precise match. The crowning touch, if you will pardon the pun”—Kodza’s glossy pink lips curled to a half-moon—“is the dental post you extracted. The post is a match, and Limyanovich’s blood type is O positive—very common but the blood is also a match. I would think that we will also find the DNA to be a match. Did you find anything else?”

  Amanda didn’t pause. “No. I’ve made arrangements for a forensic odontologist in New Bonn to consult.”

  “Why is this necessary? A DNA match would not be conclusive?”

  “Well,” Amanda hedged, “I like being thorough.”

  “Something I am sure his family will appreciate,” Kodza said smoothly. “And his personal effects? They were recovered, yes? Certainly, they would be additional evidence.”

  If Amanda was a little surprised by the turn in the conversation, she didn’t show it. Instead, she dragged out the evidence bags containing what they’d found on the body: the charred clothing, the wallet, the red diamond ring and, finally, the half-melted gold necklace. “This is the most interesting piece,” Amanda said. She tapped the bag containing the gold chain. “It looks a lot like a religious medal, don’t you think?”

  “I would not know.” Kodza held the bag to the light. “I am not so religious.”

  “What about Limyanovich?” Ramsey asked. He’d been standing back, watching Kodza. She wasn’t strictly intelligence, he knew, because she hadn’t flinched. Special agents flinched. Cops didn’t.

  Kodza said, “I could certainly ask, but I cannot see how this is germane to an autopsy.” She looked over at Amanda. “Do you?”

  “No, not really,” Amanda said. “DNA would be definitive, not a necklace. I’m just curious. I’m crunching out a reconstruction. Then I’ll cross-reference what I find.”

  “And this DNA?”

  “Just about done.”

  “Very well.” Kodza tossed the evidence bag back with the others. “When will I be able to take possession of the body?”

  “Well, now wait a minute,” Ramsey said. “This is an ongoing investigation. We might find something later on that will make us look at the body again.” When Kodza frowned, he said, “Do you know why Limyanovich was in Farway to begin with? Was it business?”

  “No. Even if true, what is here to interest Poly Tech? We do not know. Perhaps he met someone here.”

  “I can think of places a lot closer to New Bonn,” Amanda said.

  “Yeah, but not as low-tech,” Ketchum said. “Farway’s pretty invisible. That was one of the reasons people used to come here.” He filled Kodza in on Limyanovich’s trek to Cameron Island, though Ramsey noted that Ketchum omitted what he and Amanda had found. Ketchum finished with: “So maybe they met there, and then he killed Limyanovich later, and then left for the city. We know that Limyanovich was set to leave for Slovakia today.”

  “Possible.” Kodza gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “In which case, the killer could be anywhere.”

  Ramsey said, “So let me get this straight. You’re saying Limyanovich’s just this businessman. He comes all the way out here for a meet of some kind, only we figure out he’s carrying something—maybe a gun, maybe a noteputer—something someone wanted badly enough they broke Limyanovich’s fingers to get it once Limyanovich was dead. Limyanovich gets capped with two different weapons and then his car blows up. And that’s your story.”

  “Should there be another?”

  “For starters, why kill Limyanovich so everyone notices? Why not just dump the body in the lake, or the middle of an island for that matter?”

  “I am not a killer, Detective. Explaining all this is your job, not mine.”

  “Fair enough. So let’s talk about your job. You’re in the legate’s office. You’ve got intelligence officers coming out your ears. So what is PolyTech up to? Legates don’t get interested just because it’s a businessman. Governors don’t get excited unless there’s a lot of money involved, or maybe someone’s got the governor’s nuts in a vise because he’s in on the scheme, or both. So what about Poly Tech?”

  Kodza waited a beat when Ramsey stopped talking then said, “I think I am flattered that you believe the legate—or anyone in his office—knows so very much. I will be certain to let our PR department head know that she has done an excellent job. But I am so sorry to disappoint you, Detective. We simply do not know.”

  “Uh-huh.”
Ramsey turned to Ketchum, who just shrugged and shook his head. “Your call, man.”

  “I don’t know.” Ketchum palmed the back of his neck and moved his head from side to side to work out the kinks. “Can’t very well let it go.”

  “What?” Kodza asked. “Let what go?”

  “He’s just trying to figure out how much more crap you’re gonna spew,” Ramsey said. “But I already know. You’ve been lying from the get-go.” For the first time, Ramsey saw a suggestion of color stain Kodza’s jaw. Thought: Gotcha.

  “And why would I do that?” Kodza asked.

  “Aw, man,” Ramsey said, and he laughed. “You just keep putting your foot in it. There’s so much crap coming out your mouth, you can’t keep track.”

  Kodza pulled herself up, and for a small woman, she looked very impressive, almost majestic. “Then I suggest, Detective,” she said, her accent razoring each word into individual syllables, “you stock up on toilet paper. Or consider something for that diarrhea you call speech, or the potty you fancy is your brain at work.”

  “Nice try,” Ramsey said, unfazed. “But here’s the thing. Most people, you accuse them of lying, they get pretty angry. But they don’t ask you why you’d say that. Anyone who asks why is fishing to see if you’ve come up with the right reason. You didn’t even get indignant, not until I kept going to get a rise out of you. Besides, the Bureau says you’re a spy. So, are you a spy?”

  Kodza’s eyes slitted. “You want to have this conversation here?” She inclined her toward Amanda. “In front of her?”

  “Why? Are you ashamed of being a spy?”

  “Uhm, guys,” Amanda said. “I’d say I’d be happy to leave, but this is my office.”

  Kodza cocked her head, as if Ramsey were a species of rare beetle. “Detective Ramsey, I am no more ashamed of who I am than a cop who might very well find himself either in jail, or without a job, or both.”

  Ramsey was impressed. “We can keep up this tit for tat, but let’s trade instead. An information swap. That way, we both win.”