“I only wanted to scare you,” said Blair.
“Okay, I’m scared,” I said. “Now what?”
“I didn’t kill Mglais. I want you to know that.”
“Fine. Who did?”
“First we have to talk.”
“Suits me,” I said. “I’m a good listener.”
“Can you put the burner down?” he said. “It makes me very nervous.”
I held the laser pistol steady. “Putting it down makes me very nervous.”
He stared at it for a long moment, then sighed. “All right. I’m the one you want.”
“You’re one of them,” I replied.
“You want to know why?”
“I’ve got all night.”
“Most people don’t even know Odysseus is at war. The Tjantis never got through our defenses to attack the planet, not once in three years.”
His face looked like he was fighting off some devil only he could see. I wanted patiently for him to continue.
“We had a scientific outpost on Achilles”—the seventh planet in the Iliad system—”and that’s where the first sneak attack took place. I don’t know what precipitated it; I heard it had something to do with a trade embargo because of some new tariff—typical governmental claptrap that didn’t have anything to do with a peaceful outpost. The hit probably wasn’t big enough to even make headlines on Odysseus. Only twenty-seven people were killed—but two of them were my brother and my sister.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said.
“And now the government wants to make peace with the bastards who attacked Achilles without any warning!” he half-yelled. “We’ve never even retaliated against Tjanti, just a couple of their colonies! What the hell kind of payback is that?”
“The kind that keeps a minor skirmish from becoming a major war,” I said.
“It may be a minor skirmish to you,” he said heatedly. “It was a little more than that to my brother and sister.”
“So you killed Mglais just to keep the war going?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said.
“Same thing.”
He stared at me. “If I admit my complicity, what kind of sentence am I looking at?”
“That depends,” I said.
“On what?”
“On whether you name the killer.”
“If I don’t?”
I shrugged. “Thirty to life with no parole.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I can’t be confined. I’m claustrophobic. I’d go crazy. I even need tranquilizers to work in this goddamned basement.” He paused. “What if I name the killer?”
“Probably fifteen to thirty,” I said. “It depends on the judge.”
“That’s not acceptable.”
“With good behavior, you’re out in eight or nine.”
“You weren’t listening!” he said desperately. “I can’t do jail time!”
“If you’d asked him, Mglais would probably have told you he couldn’t do cemetery time,” I replied.
“I keep telling you: I didn’t kill him!”
“And I keep telling you that an accomplice is just as guilty as the perpetrator.”
“Can’t we make some kind of deal?”
“Give me the name, and I’ll do what I can to limit your sentence.”
“I don’t want it limited! I want it commuted!”
“I don’t have that kind of clout. I wouldn’t even have it in a traffic court back on Homer. This case is going to be tried by the Democracy, and five’ll get you twenty it won’t be on Odysseus.”
His gaze kept moving around the room desperately. It reminded me of a caged animal—except that this animal wasn’t caged yet.
“When does your mind reader get here?”
“My telepath?” I said. “Two or three days.”
“I can’t be here then,” he said. “This is big, this murder. The news organizations will get hold of it, won’t they?”
“They’ve already reported the murder,” I said, though I had no idea if it was true. My own guess was that Ruskin and the Tjantis would keep a lid on it until we could present the press with the killer.
“There’s never been a criminal in my family,” he said. “No one’s ever done time.”
“View it as breaking new ground, not as disgracing your family,” I said easily.
I half-expected him to say that his family would disown him and neighborhood kids would stone his nephews and nieces, but he just sat there like a statue, staring at the floor.
He didn’t move for almost five minutes, so I finally spoke up. I figured my little ruse had gotten him this far, so why not all the way?
“Blair,” I said, “you might as well tell me who the killer is. My Korbellian is going to find out as soon as he arrives anyway.”
He looked up at me with tortured eyes.
“I can’t beat the charges, can I?” he said at last.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “But you can cut your sentence in half. If the Korbellian has to extract it from you, however painlessly, that’s not the same as volunteering it.”
“I can’t do jail time.”
“We’ve been over this already.”
His body tensed. “I can’t do jail time!” he snapped.
And before I could stop him, he grabbed the knife from the nightstand—and slit his own throat.
“Shit!“ I muttered. I jumped up out of my chair and rushed across the room to him, to try and stop the bleeding. But he had done a good job of it. I think he was dead by the time I reached him. He was certainly dead when I laid him out on the cot and checked his heart and pulse for a sign of life. The cot was soaked in blood, and so was I. I wrapped him in a blood-drenched blanket, then called Jimbo and Blaish on my communicator. “This is Jake,” I said. “Get down to Security fast!” I snapped. “I’m in Storage Room 7. Don’t let anyone come in with you—and Jimbo, stop by my room and bring me a fresh set of clothes.”
I went to a sink in the corner and started washing the blood off. Blaish arrived in less than two minutes. Jimbo showed up maybe ninety seconds later, and I started climbing into a clean outfit.
“What happened?” asked Blaish, staring at the corpse as Jimbo entered and I ordered the door to shut behind him.
I described the past half hour to them.
“And he never said who the killer was?” asked Jimbo.
I shook my head.
“You’re sure there wasn’t even a hint?”
“My computer recorded everything we said,” I told him. “We can listen to it later, but you’re not going to learn anything.”
“Shall I arrange for the body to be taken to our forensics lab for examination?” asked Blaish.
“Not right away,” I said. “Let’s leave him where he is for awhile.”
“Why?”
“He’s dead,” I said. “He won’t mind.”
Actually, I couldn’t come up with a reason, not one I could put into words. But something was bothering me, and I had a feeling that Blair’s dead body might have something to do with it, might even be the key. I couldn’t have told you why, but any detective who makes it for more than a decade in this business learns to trust his hunches.
“So we’re right back where we started,” said Jimbo.
“Worse,” I replied.
“Worse?” he repeated, curious.
“When this evening started, there was a chance we could pressure the accomplice into naming the killer,” I said. “Now we can’t. I’d say we’re back to Square One, but we’re not. We’re sitting on Square Zero.”
The three of us listened to my conversation with Blair, then listened to it again. There was nothing to indicate who the killer was.
“Could he have done it himself?” asked Jimbo.
“Not if he used Robert’s scenario,” I said, “and it’s likely that he did.”
“Why couldn’t he anyway?”
“Because security in Mglais’ room and the corridor wa
s down for only a couple of minutes. He wouldn’t have had time to get there from security.”
“But if he was on the second floor, and uttered the command…” said Jimbo.
I shook my head. “If he was on the second floor, the system would have spotted him, and if he voiced the command, it would have heard him. Security has gone over the holos of the second floor a dozen times, and Blair wasn’t there. Which makes sense. Saying something like ‘So-and-so is a gorgeous woman’ is just passing the time of day if he says it to his colleagues in the basement—but if he’s alone on the second floor and he says it, it’s a dead giveaway that it’s a coded command.”
“What did precipitate the attack on Achilles?” asked Blaish.
“They attacked a convoy of our cargo ships first,” replied Jimbo.
“That’s not the way I heard it,” I said.
“That’s because you’re a Man,” answered Jimbo. “If the Droons were involved, they’d have heard that Men and Tjantis attacked them first. You have to convince your people that you have right on your side if you’re going to go to war. I imagine that three-quarters of all the military actions in galactic and even planetary history are based on lies.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
“Maybe that is why Mglais agreed to negotiate at this peace conference,” offered Blaish. “Perhaps he felt guilty about leading his people into war against the Zantees.”
“I doubt it,” said Jimbo. “He had a lot to feel guilty about, but guilt wasn’t in his character. There’s a story, perhaps apocryphal though I believe it, that the Zantees sued for peace and he conveniently lost their transmission for an extra three days while he pounded positions that had already surrendered.”
“Based on what we know of him, I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said.
“He was a brutal warrior,” agreed Blaish, “but perhaps that is what is needed in a war.”
“Ask the soldiers he sacrificed or the females he abused if they agree,” said Jimbo.
“If you disliked him so much, why did you come here?” asked Blaish.
“I came because I believed in the peace process, not in its primary negotiator,” answered Jimbo.
“I think it’s just as well he didn’t have time to socialize with you,” I said dryly.
“He didn’t socialize with underlings,” replied Jimbo.
“No, he didn’t sound like the type.”
Blaish walked over to Blair’s body. “How long do you want to leave him here?”
“A little longer,” I said.
“Sooner or later we must report it,” he said.
“Later.”
His face couldn’t register disapproval, but I was sure if it could have it would have.
“How long do you think they’re going to keep everyone confined to the embassy?” asked Jimbo.
“Until we’ve caught the killer.”
“Forensics couldn’t turn up a clue, security couldn’t come up with anything, and the one guy who knew is dead,” said Jimbo. “I know it’s early in the case, but I’d wager this one’s not going to get solved.”
“It’s a possibility,” I agreed. “I don’t suppose anyone who knew him will weep bitter tears over him.”
“Still, it was a terrible way to die,” said Blaish.
“Sitting there listening to his favorite music?” said Jimbo. “There are worse ways. He probably never knew what hit him.”
“But to be struck down in your prime…” began Blaish.
“His prime was thirty years ago,” replied Jimbo.
Blaish decided not to argue the point and fell silent. So did Jimbo, and so did I. I don’t know what the other two were thinking, but I went over everything I’d seen and heard, looking for what didn’t belong, and after a few minutes I found it.
“I don’t know how long I want to keep this secret,” I said, indicating Blair’s body. “There’s no sense all three of us staying here and getting no sleep. Blaish, why don’t you go grab a few hours, and then Jimbo or I will take a nap.”
“I’m wide awake,” protested the Droon.
“You’ll feel differently once you get to your room.”
“I don’t know…” he began.
“We can’t all stay here,” I repeated.
He undulated to the door. “All right,” he said. “I will instruct my computer to awaken me in three hours.”
“Make it four,” I said. “This could be a long vigil.”
“Four,” he said, and walked out of the room.
I waited for the door to close, then ordered it to lock and release only on my voice command. Then I turned to Jimbo.
“You want to tell me about it?”
He stared at me, his bulldog face not giving anything away.
Finally he answered. “How long have you known?” he said.
“Three, four minutes,” I said. “I had my suspicions, but there was nothing I could put my finger on until just now.”
“What gave it away?” he asked.
“Early on, you told me you’d never seen Mglais before you joined his security staff here a week ago,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“But later you mentioned you saw him give a poorly-received speech at a political rally,” I continued.
“That wasn’t meeting him,” protested Jimbo.
“You knew too much about him.”
“He’s a famous warrior and citizen.”
“I know. I got the distinct feeling you’d seen him a lot more than that. It was just a word here, a word there. It felt wrong, but I let it go. But then you blew it a few minutes ago.”
“How?”
“You told me he was sitting in his chair, listening to his favorite music, when he was killed,” I said. “How did you know that?”
“You and I saw the same holo,” he said. “We saw him sit down.”
I shook my head. “You saw him sit down, and we saw him unwinding by watching that kaleidoscopic display on the screen,” I said. “But how did you know he was listening to music?”
He just stared at me.
“It wasn’t playing when the security system went down,” I said. “Like you said, we both saw the same holo. And since you weren’t on duty, you didn’t see the holo when the system came on right after the murder. There’s only one way you could know that, Jimbo.”
He looked stunned. “Something as trivial as that…”
“Something as trivial as that.”
He paused thoughtfully. “I’m sorry you found out,” he said at last. “I’m not sorry I did it.”
“Let me make a guess,” I said. “Was it the female he served time for in the brig?”
He shook his head. “Most of his abuses never saw the light of day, never made it to court.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“My life mate was Kjareen. He saw her. That was enough.”
“Enough?” I repeated, puzzled.
“I was just a lowly recruit in the military, and he was still the highest-ranking officer in the service. Suddenly I was transferred to the other end of the continent. Kjareen contacted me, told me he was harassing her. Then I didn’t hear from her again. I flew home the next week. There was no trace of her. Two months later they found her body floating in a stream near military headquarters. It was clear she had been sexually abused and tortured. The military wouldn’t allow the police to investigate, claiming that it was their responsibility. They never solved the case, never even tried. He used his power to call them off.”
“From everything I know, he probably did it,” I said. “But what you told me is circumstantial. It wouldn’t hold up in court.”
“Of course it’s circumstantial!” he snapped. “I tried to put together a case, to hunt down leads and collect proof—but if there were any witnesses, they were killed or terrorized. If there was anyone who could testify that she had been taken to his quarters, they were shipped to another planet!”
“You waited a long time to take your
revenge,” I said.
“You have no idea how well-protected he was,” said Jimbo. “I began following him, waiting for an opportunity. He had too much protection, too many bodyguards to get close to him—but in the process, I acquired proof that he had killed at least six other females.”
“Did they prosecute?”
“The first prosecutor was transferred. The second was murdered. The third still hasn’t been found. After that, no one would even consider going after him. So I bided my time, and when I learned that he was representing Tjant in the peace negotiations, I bribed my way onto his security staff.”
“How did you make contact with Blair?” I asked.
“The security teams ate together and spent our free time together. It took less than a day to learn Blair was fiercely opposed to the negotiations. He hated my race, and felt we were responsible for the war.”
“Including you?”
“Including me,” said Jimbo. “But he hated Mglais and the thought of a peace settlement even more.”
“He rigged the system the way McKay suggested?”
Jimbo nodded. “I don’t know what the code words were, of course, but I knew to within five seconds when he would utter them and how long I would have.”
“Weren’t you afraid he’d turn you in?” I said. “After Mglais was dead, you were a pretty easy target—and he hated Tjantis.”
“Didn’t you observe him?” asked Jimbo. “Put him in anything smaller than the ballroom or the dining room and he started sweating and itching. He couldn’t stand to be confined. He told me that even closing the door to his bedroom made him uneasy. He couldn’t expose me without admitting his complicity, and I knew he’d never do that, because he could never go to jail.” He paused. “I wanted to warn him that your methane-breathers were a bluff, but I couldn’t get him alone.”
“They were half a bluff,” I replied. “I’d have used one if I had to.” I reached into my pocket for a cigar, but I was all out. “He really killed all those women?”
“Females,” said Jimbo. “We do not call them women in our race.”
“But he killed them?” I persisted.
“Slowly and painfully. And to borrow from the human vernacular, they were just the tip of the iceberg.”
“There were more?”
“For everyone I have explicit information about, there were others,” he assured me. “Many others.”
Masters of the Galaxy Page 24
