by Pam Uphoff
Ox rubbed his nose. I haven't the slightest evidence . . .
But the car that drove around and stopped in front of him was small and gray. A bit of road grime, but clean enough inside. Ox sat behind the wheel and looked over the dash. Standard autodrive, it would have parked itself and driven around to the portico under the control of the building's internal guidance system. Nothing in any of the bins or the glove compartment . . . nothing under the driver's seat. Nothing in or under the skinny shelf that passed as a back seat. He walked around to the far side. Nothing under the passenger . . . no, there was something against the side, a pen or something . . .
An epinephrine autoinjector. In a sealed package.
He set it down gently and reached for his comm.
"Don't touch anything," he told the salesman, as he punched in the office number. "Puppy, I need a search warrant for . . . "
Chapter Twenty-six
Friday, 5 Rabi 1398
"So they can take most of the money, but since he inherited the house long before he started blackmailing people, you're going to inherit what's left of it? The land alone ought to be worth millions." Rael had her back to the windows, and it was still too bright. She closed her eyes.
"Well, to say there are going to be lawsuits, is to understate the situation. My lawyer is already getting letters from claimants. There's even a boy who claims to be Ogto's son. But all he wants is money for college, so if the DNA test comes back positive, I may not fight that one."
An odd flapping sound she couldn't identify. Rael opened one eye a slit, leaned forward to look. Arno, who seemed to be determined to figure out this crawling thing, had reached the edge of the blanket and was slapping his hands on the tile floor, apparently enjoying the noise. "You know, the babies make me aware of how fast my rehab is going. I took about nine months to get mobile, too."
Raod, down on the floor, snickered. "And then there was a murder, which kept your mind off of your situation, and suddenly you're running up stairs, and dancing with possible murderers."
"It really did distract me, didn't it? I'm almost sorry Mr. Zip has pronounced me as flexible as I'm likely to ever get. That man gives the most incredible deep massages. Pity he's married, I'd snap him up."
"Rael! Really, a Servaone?" Raod scooped up Arno and cuddled him. "Hmm, little cutie. Don't you want one—or two—of your own?"
"Err, frankly, no. You are an excellent Mom. I am much better suited to the role of aunt."
"I guess I still think you ought to want everything I want." Raod smiled ruefully. "And you never did. And now I've apparently been a bad influence on my friends. Pudge just called to say that she and Jude are both pregnant."
"Oh." Rael swallowed a curse. Or possibly a giggle. "They did both want children, but I thought they'd get married first."
Raod laughed. "So did they. Pudge isn't all that surprised, she's a Neartuone, after all. She said the embarrassing part was that she went to a bar and there was an orgy. More fun than she'd ever dreamed . . . but she has no idea who the father of her child is. She said she did it with Bruno! And so did Joud! Can you imagine?"
"Hey! Bruno's a hunk! Even if I did outgrow him." Rael flopped limply back in the chair. I'll just lie here and recuperate. No need to climb stairs . . . although a shower would probably make me better company.
"I saw how he looked at you, at the club. You could land him easily—although why you'd want to is beyond me."
"I'll leave him to Joud."
"Once he gets over you. Did you even notice how many of my targets took one look at you and dropped me?"
"Eww! I had a couple of calls from nasty old men . . . what I wouldn't give to get those now! Just for the ego boost, mind you."
"You hooked Ufdy, even though he was really only interested in raping you. And the Investigator . . . notices you."
Snort. "Yeah, like he'd notice a poisonous snake in the same room with him. No. It's about time for me to get back to Paris and find out what sort of job I can do." Rael looked down at her immaculate sister, in her designer dress and silk stockings. Rolling around on the floor. "You appear to have found something that you think is fun, and that you are very good at. I'm only sorry that I probably got half your prospects arrested."
Raod's turn to snort. "I think I'll just drop out of the game and find someone I like."
Rael shook her head. "Don't get too cynical. I highly recommend falling in love."
"Like you fell for someone totally unsuitable, that you shouldn't even think about dating, let alone marrying?"
Which is about as close to that wretched spy as I want this conversation to go. I don't love him, he doesn't love me. Our governments are enemies. It's all over. Done. Finished. I'll never see him again.
Probably . . .
"You always were the more practical sister. I suspect you'll start out more sensibly that I ever did. But really, Raod, mad, passionate love ought to be the goal you're aiming for."
***
"Well, Princess, I had no idea anyone could slice that far, that hard, or go through that much metal." Investigator Ahxe looked around the clean elegant living room. The princess was slumped ungracefully in a big comfortable chair, back to the view, eyes closed. A skinny redhead, looking perfectly ordinary.
"Umm, I wonder if it was the Dream? Maybe just adrenaline. I assure you, I've never cut an engine block in half before." She twitched slightly. "Nor a person, let alone two."
"Heh. Well, we've got what Paris assures me is at least a quarter of all the Dream that exists in the whole world. They've got a team here, to study the manufacturing process. Magic, as you apparently deduced while hallucinating."
"That was fast."
"Not really. The hospital kept you anesthetized for three days. Standard for Dream ODs. And you weren't standard. You were beyond scary. Puppy still pales over the things you did in those two panic episodes, before the medics arrived. And they waited to be sure you were in a happy phase before they'd get near you." He shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, we police know about slicing. In theory. All those stories I read about the Warriors of the One . . . I always thought they were gross exaggerations, even when I was a kid. Even watching the recordings of the fight during the assassination attempt, the distance Endi Dewulfe could slice was impressive, but there was no metal, rock, or concrete involved. The One has purchased the police car, for examination. Our budget thanks you."
Rael shrugged. "Princess school teaches slice. I was always good at the larger manipulations. Nothing like that, mind you. But I always had to work harder to get the small stuff . . . rock and concrete?"
"The seawall and roadway will be needing repairs."
She squinted at him. "Oh. Well. So . . . I'm not quite sure why Epru wanted to kill me. I mean, I was just looking at Ogto's house. And then I wandered by his factory, but I didn't know it was his, didn't know what it was."
"He was a buddy of the Mayor's. Mayor Eglo thought he was the only one who knew where the dream was manufactured. He'd get it from Epru, and drop it off with Jorge, who had connections to organized drug smugglers. They took it, mostly to Paris. After Jorge was arrested, even though he was released, they needed a new way to export it. The Dream in the chip padding was a trial. Pretty stupid, in my opinion. It led straight back to the magifactory. Almost as stupid as trying to kill you. But then he was addicted to his own stuff, as is his staff. They all deny it because they don't hallucinate any more. But that's because they were getting tiny amounts all day. They . . . are all undergoing withdrawal under supervision."
The woman just scrunched up her nose. "So his judgment wasn't top notch? And both Jorge and Eglo were about to get cut out of the chain? That could have gotten nasty."
"When the mayor found out you'd been all over his office and even in his home, he called Epru and said you had to go. Then you showed up on Epru's doorstep. So he invited you in to see if you were utterly and completely insane." Ox gritted his teeth and got his temper back under control.
"Huh. Well, I'm pretty sure Epru killed Ogto."
"Oh yes, I'm sure you're convinced." He paused to glare. A wasted effort. Her eyes were closed again. Photosensitivity, a common side effect. She'll be fine in a few days. And very well protected from any more harm—else Director Urfa will have my hide. Can't believe he called me personally about that!
He cleared his throat. "Using proper police methods, we determined, through interviews, where everyone was, as everything came to a head the night of the reunion. As Ubno stepped out for a smoke, the gate swung closed, as if someone had just left."
"Humph! Bruno might have mentioned that to me!"
"I asked him to not mention that to anyone."
She pried open an eye. "And you didn't mention it to me. Was I still a suspect? Am I still a suspect?"
"It was only logical. Hell, it's still logical. When I first told you about the bee stings and the plastic egg, you asked how long two bees could survive in one. Why did you say two?"
Rael squinted at him. "You said Ogto had two stings. Bees only sting one time, then they die. I suppose there could have been more, but it's hard to imagine a bee not stinging, trapped under someone's shirt."
Ogto cleared his throat in irritation. Did I say two? One dammit, I may well have. "You need to make up your mind, and either be a giggling ditz with no fashion sense or an intelligent, observant agent. I suspect the later is the artificial construct."
She grinned.
"Do you know about the walkway between the orchard and the side of the building, leading out to the broader walk across the front? He joined the group under the portico from that side. Got in the small grey car—a loaner from the garage while his regular car was in the shop—and drove away. Seconds before Ogto staggered out to die. No one saw him exit through the doors, none of the security cameras caught him going through the doors, and he left shortly before the medics arrived."
"The man Kitchen saw?"
"Yep. Uzke Withione Rioja."
"Ruskie? One bloody Hell. All the cute ones . . ."
Ox glared. "I do thank you for digging up that bit of evidence. We found two other people who identified him as 'that man at the back who drove away just before it all happened.' We tracked down the small grey car—a loaner from the shop while his regular car was being repaired. The epinephrine injector he'd taken from Ogto apparently fell out of the pocket of his jacket and rolled under a seat. I suspect that by the time he calmed down and realized he needed to get rid of it, he couldn't find it, and the loaner car was gone. He probably decided it was better to not call attention to it by asking about it. Although from the panicked way he watched us search, he may not have realized he lost it in the car, not after he got home. The injector had both his and Ogto’s fingerprints on it."
"Oh."
"Oh, indeed. We'll hang him on that." Ox shrugged. "And a few other things; he was one of four people with DNA on the plastic egg that was used, for one."
"Umm, if he keeps his head, says he saw it on the ground and picked it up to throw away, he may skate."
Ox nodded. "And so far all he's said is that he wants a lawyer."
She wrinkled her nose. "What about the actinicide?"
"Oh, did I forget to mention that I've arrested the Chief of Police for aiding and abetting attempted murder? He removed some actinicide from the police evidence room here, during the reunion. He was missing from all pictures and vids of the reunion for a bit over an hour. So I checked the evidence room records. And had a rather . . . interesting discussion with the officers who ought to have been minding the room. He's been in, off the record, much more often than there's any possible excuse for. And he's not the only cop we'll be investigating. But for now, we're tracing all his com calls, and trying to track his car. It would be nice if we could find a witness to his actually using the actinicide, or possibly handing it off to someone else. We should be able to stitch together enough evidence to get him out of office. And probably put him in prison. Our first fast check of our evidence room was painful. We'll have to inventory every evidence room in the district to determine how much heroin is missing. I have a nasty suspicion the answer is going to be 'a whole bunch.' Probably enough to have been used in manufacturing all the Dream that's been flooding the black market."
He sighed. "I've arrested Mayor Eglo, on drug charges, and I wouldn't be surprised to find he did the actual poisoning. He was rather subdued about it all. Something to do with rescuing him from his new princess, and he seemed to blame you for her . . . umm, I think I'm safe in calling it a looming presence. Apparently prison is much to be preferred to the possibility of a sudden death. We're still trying to figure out whether the mayor was controlling the chief, or the other way around.
"In either case, the chief took the actinicide and either used it himself, or passed it on to someone else. Or both. Ogto got a pretty hefty dose, after all. Either Mayor Eglo or Governor Itsu could have swiped some from their Princesses.
"Ymti, on the other hand, acted on a sudden impulse, when the man appeared right there, practically begging to be run over. If your young friend hadn't had his foot on the brake, it would have worked too. And I'm still wondering about the governor. Among others. The, umm, number of lawyers acting for anonymous clients and seeking to, umm, protect the privacy of their clients is truly amazing."
"Heh. I was still having sinking feelings about my sister, right up until I realized I'd been drugged."
He hesitated. None of my business, and the idea of this very dangerous breezy ditz in charge of two babies is scary. I hope Madam Raod really is still protecting a lover. "No, she obviously doesn't care enough about money to murder anyone over it. So unless one of the living suspects confesses to the murder, and tells me how he framed Uzke, Uzke's going to get the blame."
"Or credit."
He wasted another glare, and got to his feet. He could hear voices coming from below. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have more work to do, based on all of Ogto's blackmail files."
"Have fun with the politicians . . . did it really just start with Raod's backup files?"
"Yes, four years ago. Basically, by searching through his wife's documents from her previous marriages, he was able to find a pattern in the passwords used by her former spouses. It made it easy to crack their most private files and correspondence.
"He found Eglo, the Mayor of Montevideo, had been a member of several illegal gangs in his youth, and was still in touch with some active members. Ogto blackmailed him. And Epru. We haven't pinned down how Ogto got the dirt on him. Possibly through the Mayor. They both paid hush money. The Mayor, through his police contacts, possibly the Chief, may have been able to get heroin from the evidence room, after a big crackdown on the opium trade a year ago.
"And Ogto got into the governor's files, and found that Governor Itsu was taking gifts in excess of legal limits, on a pretty regular basis. Ufdy—we think he may be the man who torched the mansion—he wasn't at the reunion. Your nightclub encounter was the first he'd heard about Raod's backup drives. And that his old school chum Ogto was the man who'd been blackmailing him."
"And there are several names on the list who work, or used to work for Raod's third husband. Who will be answering some stiff questions. Because keeping a record of his underling's peccadillos wasn't all Ogto had on him."
"One! What did he have on Uzke?" The princess opened her eyes, winced and closed them again.
"He was raking in kickbacks on contracts."
Rael opened her eyes, squinted. Shut them. "Huh. Probably the least criminal of all the blackmail victims. Well, other than the governor. Governor Itsu admitted to me that he wasn't as careful as he ought to have been with his total gifts received, and that he just couldn't cope with a public kerfluffle on top of his personal crisis. Very different sort of relationship with his princess than Eglo's." She hesitated. "Umm?"
"Last I've heard she's in the hospital, not expected to recover."
She grimaced. "I suspect he'll come clean soo
n enough."
He glanced to the side. Raod was leaning on the wall, listening. "We will be investigating a total of thirty-two men, however that's not relevant to the murder charge."
"I hope you can find something on that slimeball with fancy club. Burning down that beautiful old house!" Road snorted.
"We can but hope." Ox looked back at Rael. "Of course, your aging athlete boyfriend is on the list too. Dream user."
Rael shrugged. "What about Ymti? Was he being blackmailed?"
"Ymti is on the blackmail list. Another drug user. I find the boy's account quite credible, but I doubt we can prove that Ymti's foot on the gas was no accident."
"Good. Nice kid, if he survives long enough to outgrow his teenage angst and male hormone induced stupidity."
Ox boggled for a moment. "Well, with you setting such an excellent example of common sense and rationality for him, I suspect he'll be fine."
Snicker. "I have to go back to Paris, I'm obviously not suited to police work. And after that fine bit of detection, I'm not sure I'm suited to analysis, either. But Urfa says he wants me in the directorate, so . . ." She shrugged. Not quite evenly.
I could ask her if she was sent to investigate our dream problem . . . but I wouldn't believe the answer. I think I'll just firmly and definitely decide that she came to recuperate, and was just accidentally a force of chaos breaking everything wide open. Because surely no one would do all of that on purpose.
"I will let you know when our investigation is through and you may leave the District, Princess." He cleared his throat. "Not that your boss couldn't override that."
"I probably need at least another two months of strength training, so don't worry about my running off. Yet."
