He sounded annoyed that she had questioned him.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“I’m telling you that,” he said.
“In her throat and lungs,” DeRicci said, wishing she could just grab his notes from him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Exactly what you’d expect if she were an airlock or spaceship and someone shut off the oxygen. No fibers, no little pieces of suit. She thrashed and struggled and bit her tongue, but she didn’t do any of that in a suit. In fact, she had the bruises to prove she wasn’t wearing a suit.”
DeRicci cursed to herself. She had already thought that part of this death had been staged. In order for the body to have rigor, someone else in the same suit had to pick up the singlet—probably the murderer. But she hadn’t realized that Zweig hadn’t even been wearing a suit when she died.
“So,” Broduer said, “this was staged and planned to the last detail. If whoever did it had a few more minutes, they would have been able to burst that visor and the body would have destroyed most of the evidence. We probably wouldn’t have even caught the staging.”
DeRicci thought of the clean boots, the lack of dirtfall pattern. “We might have,” she said.
He shook his head, but he clearly didn’t want to argue with her. “The staged part of this was important, but not the most important reason for busting that visor.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the body had depressurized, it would have swollen to three times its normal size and then leaked fluids. Most trace evidence would have been ruined. And that’s if we found her after the swelling had gone down and the body had mummified.”
“Yeah,” DeRicci said. She’d seen more of those than he had.
“We would never have done an ID.”
“Why ID her?” DeRicci asked. “We know who she was.”
“We know who someone wanted us to think she was,” Broduer said. “I actually got an expedited warrant. I had the goods for it. First time ever, in fifteen years.”
DeRicci gripped her coffee mug so hard the plastic groaned in protest. She set the mug down on the floor. “What do you mean an expedited warrant?”
“For a DNA ID. The fingerprints and retinal scan did not match Jane Zweig’s. I thought maybe we had bad information, but the death was so suspicious and so high-profile, I knew I could get a judge to hurry a DNA. And I was right.”
He sounded pleased with that. She might have been too, if she weren’t reeling from the thought that the body didn’t belong to Jane Zweig.
“What did the DNA show?” DeRicci asked.
“Well, a couple of interesting things. First, we learned that we had no DNA for Jane Zweig. It wasn’t on file anywhere. There wasn’t even anything with any of the medical units in the city, and that’s just plain weird. I’ve never encountered that before.”
DeRicci had, but only with people who later turned out to be Disappeareds. She didn’t say that, though, wanting to hear his analysis.
“But that was only a minor setback,” he said, “because we know now that the body didn’t belong to Zweig.”
“For certain?” DeRicci asked.
“For certain,” he said.
That changed everything. Time of death had already screwed DeRicci around, but changing the victim changed motivation and everything else.
She hoped that Broduer had the dead woman’s name. If he didn’t, DeRicci’s investigation had just gotten more difficult.
“Who is she, then?” DeRicci asked.
“Eve Mayoux,” he said. “Long time resident of Armstrong. Reported missing by her employer just this morning.”
“Eve Mayoux?” DeRicci asked. “Should I know that name?”
He shook his head. “Lived alone. Hardly any friends. Never missed a day of work until today.”
“What did she do?”
“She worked in the Growing Pits,” he said.
The Growing Pits were what the residents of Armstrong called the greenhouses that clustered on the east side of the dome.
“She worked Outside?” DeRicci asked.
“Every day,” he said. “She was a master gardener. She knew more about oxygen deprivation and one-sixth gravity than most people learn in their lifetime.”
“So she would never have died that way,” DeRicci said. “Not by accident.”
“That’s right, sweetheart,” he said, and she didn’t even get irritated at him for the endearment. “Eve Mayoux may just be the secret to your entire investigation.”
TWENTY-FOUR
TOKAGAWA LAUGHED. “Jane Zweig? Of Extreme Enterprises? The woman who likes to court the media? You think she’s a Disappeared?”
Oliviari’s legs ached. It was getting harder to lean against this wall. She pushed herself against it, making certain that she kept her balance.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe Jane Zweig is Frieda Tey. She has the right build and similar features. Her voice sounds right.”
“That’s not enough.” His smile faded. He levered himself off the desk. “You’re wasting my time.”
“No, I’m not,” Oliviari said. “I had five different appointments with Zweig. She cancelled all of them.”
“She probably didn’t want a Tracker coming to her office,” Tokagawa said.
“I didn’t use my real name. I had valid reasons for seeing her. None of them worked out. The marathon was my backup.”
“Backup for what?” He crossed his arms. He hadn’t moved away from the desk.
“There are a few things I need to prove that she’s Frieda Tey. Exactly what you mentioned. Fingerprints. Retinal scans. DNA, with her permission. I figured I’d be able to get at least one of those if I saw her face-to-face.”
He frowned. “You think this woman was a Disappeared, and you were just going to ask her for some DNA? No Disappeared would do that.”
Oliviari felt the tension in her shoulders grow. Why was he using past tense? It seemed odd.
“Of course not,” Oliviari said. “But fingerprints aren’t hard to get. And a refusal on any one of those things would take me one step closer to proving she’s a Disappeared.”
“Anyone might refuse you. People who know the law would refuse you. I would refuse you.”
Oliviari smiled at him. She made sure the smile was a cold one. “Maybe you’re a Disappeared, Dr. Tokagawa.”
He did not smile in return. “Is that how you people do your jobs? You accuse innocent people?”
She shook her head. “I’ve spent years on Frieda Tey’s trail and it has led to this marathon. The virus is a confirmation, as I said. If you look at it and compare it to the Tey virus that’s in the medical files, you’ll see that I’m right.”
“How would you have confirmed Tey’s identity here? You expected to get fingerprints?”
Time to be honest. It was the only way he would believe her. “I hoped to be on the medical teams. I’d have access to all the medical records from the participants, and it would give me a legal way to compare the DNA.”
“But I took that away from you.” His eyebrows rose, as if her comment suddenly explained her behavior.
“So I came in here and started working with the runners who’d left the field.”
“Taking their suits and their diagnostics.” He tilted his head, looking at her sideways. “Would you have taken illegal DNA then, Ms. Oliviari?”
She wasn’t going to admit that she already had. “When I encountered Zweig, I planned to take her suit to the closet myself. Whatever the suit revealed would help me.”
It wasn’t quite an admission, but it was close enough.
“But you didn’t encounter Zweig, did you?”
Oliviari shook her head. “I don’t know why, either. I thought she always finished in the top ten percent.”
“She used to.” He paused, studying her. No one had ever examined her this closely before. She wondered if this was how the people she tracked felt when she found them.
“But?” Oliviari a
sked.
“But,” he said slowly, “she didn’t finish the race today.”
Another chill ran through Oliviari. She rubbed her hands over her bare arms. The skin was covered in gooseflesh.
“Why not?” she asked, although she knew why. It was obvious now. It was the reason he used past tense, the reason that Team Two’s transmissions were cut off.
“Jane Zweig died between miles five and six today,” he said. “She couldn’t have planted any virus here.”
Oliviari stopped rubbing her arms. “Jane Zweig is your murder victim?”
He straightened his shoulders. “Not my victim,” he said. “But maybe yours?”
Oliviari stared at him. Why would he suspect her? And then her sluggish mind kicked into gear. Of course, she had known Zweig. She believed Zweig was Tey.
Tokagawa stood up. “I believe I’ll let the police know that we have a Tracker here, and the Tracker thought the dead woman was a mass murderer. Trackers occasionally kill their prey, don’t they? Especially when they believe that the prey might not get the right punishment?”
A shudder ran through Oliviari. “It’s not legal for us to do that.”
“You’re already operating illegally,” he said. “You’re not registered with the city, and you’re here under false pretenses. Seems like the perfect setup for murder.”
“I was on the staging area the entire time. I never got near her and I certainly didn’t go near miles five and six.” Oliviari shuddered again. “Check the information if you have to.”
“I won’t,” he said, “but I’m sure the police will.”
He started for the door. She stepped in front of him.
“Move,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You’re going to look at the virus first.”
“I asked you to give me a good reason to believe you,” he said. “You haven’t. Instead, you gave me a good reason why one of my friends died out there today. You killed her.”
“You were friends with Frieda Tey?”
“I was friends with Jane Zweig. I’ve known her for years. We used to make trial runs together on this very course.”
“And you talked about what? Medicine?”
“My practice.” He looked pointedly at the door.
“And the wonderful power of the human body? How it can and cannot compete against all those aliens out there?”
His eyes narrowed. “Sometimes.”
“She used to say that it would take a lot of work to find out the limits of human potential, but now was the time to discover it. We had to learn it before they did, so that we could defend ourselves against them. We’re so vulnerable in space, partly because we’re outgoing. We colonize and that scares some of the aliens. That puts them at risk, and she felt it was only a matter of time before they put us at risk.”
“You did talk to Jane,” he said.
Oliviari shook her head. “I’ve read all of Frieda Tey’s writings, and I saw all the recorded versions of her speeches. I’ve also spoken to her friends, relatives, and colleagues. They said she wanted to know what it was that made us human, how extreme situations changed us, and whether or not we could adapt to dangerous environments.”
He bit his lower lip, as if he were trying not to speak. She tried not to feel time passing, how each minute, each second might cost a life. If she didn’t convince him, she might lose more than a few minutes. She might lose hours to police and interviews and possible arrest.
“Frieda Tey couched all of these things in scientific terms. She believed that scientific methods would tell her more about people than people could. She used biology and psychology as well as the hard sciences to test people’s limits. She felt that if scientific rigor were applied to alien-human relations, maybe, just maybe, humans would stand a better chance in this universe.”
He swallowed so hard that Oliviari saw his Adam’s Apple bob. “I don’t understand,” he said. “If she cared about all of that, why would she kill so many people?”
“Her research assistants claimed it was accidental, and that’s always been her defense.” Another shudder ran through Oliviari. “But I believe that the experiment was purposeful. Tey knew that people would die. She expected that. She just didn’t expect all of them to.”
He shook his head. “That makes no sense.”
“There was a decon unit in the dome,” Oliviari said. “Supposedly it was there for entering and exiting. The decon unit malfunctioned early—its makers say it was tampered with, since it had been designed to cope with a variety of viruses and should have been able to handle the mutating Tey. The colonists tried to use it to get rid of the virus, but it didn’t work.”
“So?” he asked.
“So,” she said. “I think Tey wanted to see how ingenious they all were. The tools needed to fix the decon unit were inside the dome, but the colonists lacked the expertise. Tey figured they would rise to the occasion, but they never did. Once they figured out that the units didn’t work, and people were getting sicker, the colonists begged her to let them out of the dome. She didn’t.”
“Why would anyone do that?” he asked.
“I think she believed that if she hadn’t been there, they would have found the solution.” Oliviari had read her papers. “She thought that they relied on her as a crutch instead of doing the work themselves.”
He nodded, just once, and then seemed to catch himself. He was beginning to understand. Oliviari hoped she could hold him. She needed him to understand.
“Was she right?” he asked.
“No,” Oliviari said. “People have different skills. We think differently. And just because we’re in a bad situation, we don’t all respond smartly or heroically. It’s a mistake to believe that we will. Frieda Tey never really studied human interaction. She read a lot of psychological theory, but that’s not the same as observing people.”
“You observe people.” His comment was dry.
“It’s my job.” Oliviari tried not to sound panicked. The chills were gone now, and she was getting hot.
“Which means you know more than scientists.”
“In this one area,” she said. “I know that in desperate situations, you need a leader, someone who is willing to take risks, someone who is willing to try.”
“You don’t believe one will rise up?”
“Sure,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean the one who rises up will be capable. Tey was right about one thing. Her sample size was too small.”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t. Jane wasn’t that way. She valued human life.”
“I’m not saying she didn’t,” Oliviari said. “Frieda Tey did too.”
“She couldn’t,” he said. “Not and kill people like that.”
“You’ve done triage, haven’t you, Dr. Tokagawa?”
He swallowed again. The sound echoed in the tiny room.
“It’s the same principle,” Oliviari said. “You can’t save everyone, so you sacrifice the ones who have no real chance, to do what you can for the ones who have a chance.”
“It’s not at all the same,” he said. “Triage is for the injured. You’re talking about healthy people dying of a disease someone gave them, and then watched them die.”
“She gave them the disease,” Oliviari said, “and she gave them the tools to save themselves.”
His mouth opened slightly. If she didn’t push too hard, she might convince him. The key was finding the right words, which would be hard, because her mind was becoming sluggish.
She said, “I’m pretty sure Frieda Tey thought that she would be able to use what she had learned to prove that humans could react well under stress, that we could save ourselves no matter what the problem.”
“It’s not the same,” he said again.
“You and I don’t think so,” Oliviari said. “But you should have read some of her work published before she Disappeared. She believed that sacrifices and failures were necessary for learning. She had good, logical arguments. She even
used the laws we have with some of the aliens. We sacrifice each other all the time for the right to trade and to keep the peace.”
“But to do this.” He shook his head again. “No one sane could do this.”
A trickle of sweat ran down Oliviari’s temple. “We’d like to believe that.”
He frowned at her.
“But Frieda Tey always seemed sane. Everyone said so. You say the same thing about Jane Zweig, even though you’ve had some of these same conversations.”
He moved his head slightly from side to side, a head shake, even though he probably didn’t realize he was doing it.
Oliviari winced. She was losing strength, and she didn’t dare. She had to be able to keep arguing to get him on her side.
Then he closed his mouth. “Let me compare the viruses.”
“I have them on a handheld.”
He shook his head. “I have to do it myself.”
She wanted to argue, but she understood why he wanted to. She would have done the same. “All right.”
“And I have to tell the police about you,” he said.
“I know.” Another bead of sweat ran down her face. “But do it after you check on the viruses. Because I’m probably the only one here who has studied this virus extensively, and I think I know how to stop it.”
“We can learn.”
Oliviari nodded. “Of course you can. But here’s the other mistake that Frieda Tey made. This virus moves quickly, and it’s already infected this tent. Your time is limited.”
“You’re saying they didn’t have time to figure out how to save themselves?”
“Yes,” she said. “And if we’re not careful, we might not have time either.”
“I don’t scare easily, Ms. Oliviari.”
She gave him a small smile. “Neither do I,” she said. “And right now, I’m about as scared as I can get.”
TWENTY-FIVE
THE MOMENT WAGNER LEFT, Flint pulled up another screen. He scanned for news reports about the Moon Marathon. Most told him who the winner was (as if he cared) and the time in which she completed the course. Only one link led him to the death story, and it wasn’t very big.
Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel Page 21
