“Frau Rijn was leaving after her cleaning, and she thought she saw an intruder from the lane. She wired from her house, but by the time we got here, he got away. Smashed the panes in the glass door in back good, he did. Since Frau Rijn said you’d be back this afternoon, the chief had me wait.”
“I hope you didn’t have to wait too long.”
“Less than an hour. Could I wire the chief that vou’re here?”
“Be my guest.” I unlocked the door and let Llysette and the constable enter before me.
The kitchen seemed untouched, the white windowsills clean and gleaming in the late-afternoon light, the floor dust-free, and the faint odor of a meat pie from the warmer filling the room.
“There.” I pointed to the wireset on the corner of the counter, the one I seldom used.
The constable dialed something. “Chief, they’re here.” Gerhardt waited, then said, “Yes, sir.” He hung up the handset and turned. “He’ll be right up. He asked that you not touch anything.”
“I assume we can look?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Upstairs, I will check.” Llysette scurried up the steps even before she finished speaking.
Gerhardt and I went out into the study. My desk was disarrayed, with the desk drawers pulled out. My custom-designed SII difference engine was on, but only to the directory.
“He ran out the back, we guessed—across the wall,” offered Gerhardt. “The Benjamin boy said there was a steamer on the back road there, but he didn’t see it very well. He said it was dark-colored.”
I walked around the study. Outside of the papers strewn across the Farsi carpet my grandfather had brought back from the Desert Wars and the switched-on difference engine, the room looked as it had when we had left.
The French door to the terrace had a large hole in the double panes next to the lock and glass fragments on the floor and on the stones of the terrace. Print powder lay dusted across the knob and the stones and bare wooden floor just inside the door before where the carpet began.
“Can I?”
“No prints,” Gerhardt said. “Not on the glass or knob.”
I pushed the door, already ajar, open and stepped onto the terrace, and into the light and cold wind.
The rear yard seemed unchanged—from the compost pile below the garden to the brown grass carpet. The frost-killed tan stalks of the raspberries remained erect, although that would change with the next heavy snow. The only remnant of raspberries until spring would be the frozen pies, freezer jam, and whole frozen berries, more than enough to last through until the next summer.
The second Watch steamer whistled into the drive, and the gray-haired chief piled out, barely pausing at the door long enough for me to open it.
“Doktor Eschbach, you present a problem.” Waetjen glared, and I suspected he still didn’t care much for me. “When you are here, people get killed and zombied, and when you are not, the same occurs, with thefts as well.”
I shrugged. This time, I had done nothing. I tried not to swallow. The last time, when Miranda had been murdered, I hadn’t done anything either. Was life trying to tell me that I could not continue being a turtle?
“Is there anything missing?”
“Not down here.” I turned to Llysette, who stood in the archway between the sitting room and the study.
“Nothing has moved … upstairs.” She finished with a gesture.
“Nothing?”
I eased around the chief and let everyone follow me to the study. I pointed toward the desk and the papers scattered across the green Farsi carpet. “I couldn’t say that they might have gotten some papers or loose coins or something like that, but there’s nothing obviously missing.”
“Doktor … would there be papers of value here that anyone would know about?” asked the chief.
“Most of the files on the difference engine deal with my writings or my lectures and class notes. I can’t imagine any value to anyone but me. I have records for taxes, but why would anyone else care?”
“No valuable manuscripts, anything like that?”
I nodded toward the bookcase. “There are some moderately valuable books there, but it would take a collector to know which.”
Waetjen surveyed the long wall of floor-to-ceiling cases. “Are they all there?”
My smile was half-apologetic, half-embarrassed. “I wouldn’t know for sure. None seem to be gone, but I couldn’t say if a single volume might not be missing.”
The square-faced chief touched his gray goatee. “Do you have cash or other valuables in the house?”
“Some of Llysette’s jewelry, a few books, some antiques, the silver, some crystal that couldn’t be replaced.” I tried to think. “The carpet here, the painting in the piano room. But they’re all still here.”
“You should thank Frau Rijn, then, Doktors. Apparently, we got here before anything of consequence was removed.”
“I think so,” I answered. “We’ll take a closer look to make sure. Did you find any idea who it might have been?”
“The intruder wore gloves, leather gloves. Midheight.” The chief shrugged. “Size forty-eight boot—that was in the mud on the far side of the field. Late-model Reo steamer, probably midnight gray.”
Constable Gerhardt shifted his weight and looked at Llysette, who boldly returned the look. Gerhardt blushed at being caught and glanced away.
“Let me know if you find anything gone—or added.” Chief Waetjen bowed to Llysette, then to me.
After the Watch officers left, I taped cardboard over the broken pane and cleaned up the glass. By then it was dark, and we straggled into the kitchen.
I was getting a good idea what someone was after—but it didn’t make sense unless there were two groups involved, because the theft effort came after the attempted de-ghosting/murder.
So … someone wanted us removed, but very indirectly, with no connection. That meant it couldn’t be the Spazi. Minister Jerome and his minions had ways to remove us without going to low-class thugs. That pointed toward an outside power—someone like the Austro-Hungarians, or the New French, or even Chung Kuo. Quebec could have brought in someone who could pass scrutiny in New Bruges, and Deseret wouldn’t go to all the trouble of inviting Llysette, not when such invitations had to be cleared by the Council of Twelve, and then killing her. The Japanese had helped get Llysette released from Ferdinand’s prisons and torture … and had never called in that favor—or tried.
Someone wanted to steal something I had—that meant they knew or suspected I had ghost-removal technology. That also had to be an outside power, because both the president’s office and the Spazi already had such equipment. That bothered me a great deal … because no one knew I had that technology, for sure. Jerome and his analysts might suspect—but there wasn’t any hard evidence, except in the compartment behind the mirror and in my insurance packages. The file protocols on the difference engine that could capture or create ghosts would have been meaningless, and they were hidden, and the intruder hadn’t tripped the counter. But Bruce could have gotten the file without tripping it; so the untripped counter meant only that no amateur had tried.
“How about a salad with the meat pie?”
“Bien… .” Llysette sat at the kitchen table. “Johan? This is not the same as the zombie, est-ce que?”
“Non,” I admitted.
“Who are they? What do they want?” She paused.
I continued to shred lettuce into the salad bowl—romaine, not iceberg.
“The creating and destroying of ghosts—is that what they desire? Your knowledge about such?”
I set aside the lettuce and began to work on a cucumber. “I’m not sure. I think we’re seeing two different groups. The first wants us out of the way, and the second wants knowledge, but I’d thought it was more about de-ghosting.” The Spazi couldn’t have known about the ghost-creation gadgetry, nor could Ferdinand’s people. Still, the furor that I’d created before and the latest incident pointed out, a
gain, how ghosts were a real phenomenon in our world, with an impact that couldn’t be ignored. Ghosts had certainly made a historical difference in our world—from those that had turned William the Unfortunate’s conquest of England from a triumph to near-disaster to all those of women who had died in childbirth and thus prevented early remarriages and slowed the world birthrate.
“Ferdinand … could it be?”
“What do you think?”
“Je ne sais pas … the puppets of that devil Heisler. I know nothing, and they must know more than we do.”
I nodded. That was my feeling. Why would Ferdinand or his mad scientist Heisler bother? But who else would even care? The Spazi could have us imprisoned or eliminated with less fuss.
I set the salads on the table and retrieved the meat pie from the warmer. “It is a puzzle, and we aren’t going to solve it tonight, and it is time to eat. Wine?”
“S’il vous plaît.…”
“That I can do.” I could manage wine, just not the spreading web of intrigue that seemed bound to snare us both.
CHAPTER SIX
On Thursday morning I was looking at the latest pile of ungraded tests on my desk—these from the Environmental Politics 2A class. I’d persuaded Regner Grimaldi to give it for me while we’d been in Asten. That meant I’d have to return the favor at some point, but I had to admit my schedule was lighter than his. That was always the case with younger faculty. I could afford to tell our honored chair what he could do with an ill-considered idea. Poor Regner couldn’t. Nor had Llysette much leverage, and that was another reason why she couldn’t afford not to perform in Deseret … or in the Federal District—especially when performing might lead to her obtaining such leverage.
I put those thoughts aside, picked up the first test, and began to read: “… Speaker Aspinwaald liked mines and lumbermen so he got the excise taxes passed to help them… .” I winced at the spelling of the former Speaker’s name and the answer, which quickly got worse. I had said that Speaker Aspinall never met a tree or a mine he didn’t like, but he pushed through the excise taxes despite that. Somehow, about a third of the students never heard the whole story. I picked up the next test, wondering if they had the same problem with whatever else they read, like novels, but before I could concentrate, the wireset chimed.
“It’s Watch Chief Waetjen for you, Doktor,” said Gilda in the formal tone that indicated David was standing by her elbow.
“Thank you.” I waited, then answered, “Yes, Chief?”
“Professor Eschbach, was anything missing?” asked Waetjen.
“Llysette and I have looked, Chief, but neither of us has discovered anything that was missing.” I juggled the handset to the other ear and restacked the tests I’d already graded. “There was even a twenty-dollar bill on the corner of the desk—I guess I’d left it half tucked under some papers and the thief fumbled through the papers and uncovered it but left it.”
“No thief I ever heard of.”
“It could be that was when your officers arrived,” I pointed out. “You said that he left in a hurry.”
“I have my doubts, Herr Doktor Professor.”
“Doubts or not, Chief, we haven’t found anything missing yet, and we’ve looked.” Like the chief, I wasn’t exactly happy about the missing burglar or what he’d been rummaging through the house to find. I was afraid I knew—he wanted the information and technologies on de-ghosting—and that meant very big problems, especially with our upcoming trip to the Federal District.
“Do you have any idea what he sought?” pressed the chief.
I tried not to pause in answering. “It could have been a number of things, Chief, but he didn’t leave any clues.”
“You didn’t leave your difference engine on while you were gone, did you?”
“No. He must have turned it on, but none of the files were altered, and it didn’t look like he’d copied anything. I can’t imagine what he’d want with all those academic records.”
“Do you keep your financial records there?” pressed the chief.
“No—nothing like that. I don’t need anything elaborate. I get a salary and some consulting income and a modest pension. We’re comfortable, but hardly wealthy.”
“Let me know if you happen to discover anything else.”
I promised that I would, which was a safe promise, because I doubted that I’d find out anything more.
Then it was a dash down the stairs and out to Natural Resources 1 A, the previously graded quizzes under my arm.
Gertrude and Hector were turning the flower beds in front of Smythe, spreading bark mulch along the base of the hedges by the walk. The two zombies were turned the other way, and I didn’t say anything.
The classroom wasn’t too hot, probably because the day was gray and cool, not cold … not yet, despite the dark clouds looming to the northeast.
Unfortunately, Mister Ferris was waiting. “Professor Eschbach, you said that we should know all of the material on the water cycle on the test. Does that include the stuff on aquifer and recharge zones? And what about radionuclides in water?”
“All of it.” I forced a smile as I continued handing out the quizzes and ignoring the groans.
“Oh… .”
“It won’t all be on the test, Mister Ferris, as I told you the last time. I’m just not telling you what will be.” After shuffling away the three quizzes belonging to absentees, I looked at the black-haired sleeping student in the last row. “Miss Gemert!”
“Sir?”
“Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell the class about upland wetlands.”
“Upland wetlands?”
I nodded pleasantly.
“Ah … sir … I’m on the soccer team … and we had an away game yesterday …”
“Those caravan rides are a good time to read, Miss Gemert. And Coach Haarken isn’t the one who takes your tests.” I kept a smile on my face. “Mister Andervaal?”
“Uh … are those the ones … the intermittent wetlands … with maples and stuff like that?”
“That’s a start. What else can you tell us?”
Young Andervaal glanced desperately around, but no one would meet his eyes. It was going to be one of those classes. I repressed a sigh.
Getting an answer to each discussion question took about three students, and I was sweating under my cravat by the time the bell chimed.
Llysette had a faculty meeting at noon so she wouldn’t get lunch, and I wouldn’t get to see her. I picked up a nearly inedible sandwich from the student center and, after gulping it down, headed out for the post centre, passing Hector on the green.
The zombie nodded without pausing from his raking, and I returned the gesture.
Another unmarked manila envelope rested in our postbox, and it went into my inside jacket pocket. While I didn’t want to open it—more trouble—I did, but only after I got back to the office and closed my door.
Again, only clippings were in the envelope, and there were two.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, DESERET (RPI). An unannounced series of police raids in the warehouse district near the Deseret and Western rail yards early this morning resulted in no arrests but the confiscation of “material of a pornographic and objectionable nature,” according to police spokesman Jared Bishopp.
Calls to several foreign legations alleged that the raids were designed to harass businesses whose owners had expressed reservations about recent “revelations” made by President Wilford W. Taylor before the Council of Twelve. Among those revelations were language suggesting that multiple conjugal relationships were a matter of individual choice, not an absolute tenet of the first prophet, for those able to support additional familial units.
Of greater concern was the “clarification” referring to the trade language in the Doctrine and Covenants laid out by first president Taylor more than a century earlier. Taylor had revealed that “the people of God should trade only with those who neither threaten nor revile them, who accept the kingdom of Zi
on, and not with Gentiles who would seek to undo our kingdom… .” Although this trade proscription has often been honored in the breach for nearly half a century, the clarification language was seen by some observers as easing the way to permit significant synthetic diesel and kerosene exports to Columbia. New France has never been classified as a “Gentile” or an unfriendly nation, possibly because it supported Deseret against Columbia in the Utah War and again in the Caribbean Wars … and because it harbors the Colonia Juarez and Dublan enclaves… .
Bishopp denied that the raids were of a political nature.
HEBER CITY, DESERET (DNS). “The ideals of the first Prophet must not fall to the Lamanites of the spirit,” cautioned First Counselor Cannon in opening the annual Latter-Day Saints conference. “Nor must we cease in bringing light to a darkened continent or in our efforts to return those of Laman into the fold of God. Our kingdom is of God, and it shall stand forever.” Cannon went on to praise the role of the arts in opening man to understanding the need for the coming of Zion to the entire world… .
Cannon’s language turned more practical in his assessment of the state of Deseret. “Energy and technology are the keys to the next century, and the wise use of water facilitates both. We will continue with the headwaters project.” The First Speaker went on to pledge additional funding for the advanced natural gas liquification plants, for water reuse technology, and for additional support of the cotton mission initiatives.
I folded the clippings back into the envelope and slipped them into my case. Great—Deseret was building up its liquid hydrocarbon production industry, which certainly needed more water, I suspected, and trying to ease into more normal relations with Columbia despite nearly a century of unease, a century preceded by thirty years of near-war and border skirmishes where Deseret’s independence had only been established through the willingness of New France to provide capital and a trade conduit for technology.
That didn’t bother me so much as the fact that someone wanted me to know it—and I still didn’t know if that someone was the same someone who’d sent me the earlier clips about Llysette and the arts in Deseret. It had the marks of the Spazi, but the lack of cover address continued to worry at me.
Ghosts of Columbia Page 42
