Six Shadows

by Nicole Grotepas

  She looked around. “In Utopia, a game in Holo-R. I was building a house and he came up to me and asked if I wanted anything to set it up.”

  “Building a house? How does that work?” I tried to imagine her doing that.

  “You’ve never played Holo-R, I guess?” She stopped at a booth selling drinks.

  “What would you like?” the vendor asked.

  I took a step into the space between the drink vendor and a native Druiviin vegetable vendor, to remove myself from the stream of people.

  “Just sparkling water, please. Anything else makes me feel queasy.” She exchanged a handful of marks for the bottle.

  “Kasé for me, please,” I said, getting the vendor’s attention from my odd spot outside the fray. “White, nothing else in it.” I fished for some Syndicate Marks in my jacket to pay for my drink.

  “I wish I could have a cup of kasé. Or coffee,” Trixie said. “But that stuff just makes me sick right now.” She said it like I knew how pregnancy worked.

  I nodded at her—Meg had been a beast while pregnant, but I didn’t like the small talk. It was veering away from the investigation and I didn’t have a lot of time. So I steered it back. “I haven’t.”

  “What?” she sipped her water.

  “Played Holo-R. I don’t have time for hobbies. Too many murders to solve. City of Jade Spires, you know? It’s a beautiful morass of many questionable activities.”

  “Yeah, OK.”

  “So tell me about it.” The vendor handed me my drink and I sipped it. “Also, can we find a table somewhere? I need some space.”

  Trixie looked around as though to say, what do you call all this? I call it a crowd, I thought, pushing against me, breathing my air, stealing my air, closing in on me.

  She sighed and led the way toward what I hoped would be a table with space around it.

  “Well, I was just putting it together, my house. The game gives you the basic tools. Walls. Windows. Doors. A yard. But if you want better things or to get really elaborate, you have to make it using code and skins. But there are other options. Like buying things from other coders. Some of them have set up stores within the world. You can walk into them and pick stuff and buy it and put it in your house. But I wasn’t there yet. Lennox approached people and asked if they wanted to buy things. He did it in the social areas. That’s how we met. My avatar is an eggplant girl,” her gaze jerked up to my face, “er, I mean, a Druiviin girl. Sorry. Anyway, that’s probably why he picked me out of the crowd. He sold me things really cheap. Really complex things. Things that other places sold for quite a bit more.”

  “And you built a very nice house?” I took a breath, calming down as we came to a table in a space between two booths. I found an empty chair at a table and sat down in it.

  “Better than my shit real-life place,” she said.

  “Then what?”

  “Well, he helped me outfit my VR place. We talked a lot. Found out we both lived on Kota. He wanted to take me out, meet me in real-life. Then we dated a bit.”

  “Even though you’re not Druiviin? Was he decent to you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Did he ever treat you badly?”

  “Oh, no. Not really. Are Druiviin ever mean? I don’t think they can be. But he was competitive, just not in a cruel way. He didn’t treat everyone perfectly, of course, because he wanted to make money and drive out the competition. A few other gamers got wind of how cheaply he was selling his product. They had a . . . bit of a war. I mean, he was Lennox. Willing to do anything to become first. Just nothing too cruel. Which I liked about him. You know?”

  “What more can you tell me?”

  “Well, he almost put the biggest shop in the game out of business. That guy really didn’t like it. And I know there were gamers who sometimes felt cheated by Lennox and Lennox didn’t really have the best customer service.”

  “What happened to the two of you? I mean, did you break up with Lennox or . . .”

  “Did Lennox break up with me?” she finished for me.

  “Right.”

  “I broke up with him. He was too focused. Too driven to build his game empire. It made him . . . kind of unavailable emotionally, just in the end, I discovered that he was better than other guys. I miss him.”

  I caught what she didn’t say. At least, I thought I did. “Do you remember the name of the store he almost put out of business.”

  She shook her head. “No, I haven’t played it in almost five months. Pregnancy. I just don’t feel like playing. Oh, I need to head home. I’ve got to get dinner going.”

  She stood up and before she turned, said, “Please, if you’re going to come by, could you call first? My boyfriend doesn’t know.”

  “Know what?” I asked, thinking how outrageous it would be if he didn’t know she was pregnant.

  “That I went to Lennox’s that day.”

  ***

  “He’s here,” Meg said when I walked into the precinct the next morning. She was adding a photo of a man to the suspect board. “This guy Gabe, he’s here. Pierre Brock. Resides on Joopa. Considered Lennox Fogg his direct competition in their Holo-R game.”

  I studied the photo. A twenty-something male, pale face, and dark hair clipped short. His weak chin suggested maybe an inferiority complex—the kind where a man resents other guys for looking more classically masculine. Together with his puggish nose, I got a sense of what kind of man we’d be dealing with. The quietly seething type. Chip on his shoulder. Suspicious of everyone because he knew that his own motives were suspect.

  But. For the sake of the case, I shoved all that aside. I would approach him as I did any person while working a case: with a blank slate, to see to what conclusions their behavior and answers led me. That was the fairest thing to do.

  I started, just registering what Meg had said. “What? Here, here? On Kota?”

  “Yes. He’s one of our suspects, or should be. And he’s here in our city, the City of Jade Spires. The convention capitol of the 6-moons?” She laughed. “That city—you know the one. Remember it? There’s a convention going on and he came over for it.”

  “If that’s a coincidence—” I didn’t finish. I sat down and began going over the notes from my interview with the ex-girlfriend. There was something . . . nagging at me . . . something. I felt I’d missed an important element, but I couldn’t latch onto it. I just needed time and focus.

  “What are you doing?” Meg asked, leaning over my desk.

  I looked up at her. “I don’t know, actually. I did that interview with the ex-girlfriend last night, but I feel like I missed something. It’s not settling right, you know?”

  “Can I look through your notes? Maybe a second set of eyes will help.”

  I handed them over. I was used to Meg as a sidekick. She was comfortable, like a favorite coat or something better, something with a little more dazzle, a bit more spark. A sequined scarf? I laughed in my head. I knew her well enough to realize that if I ever dared to call her my sidekick, that she would resist it with the assertion that it was me who was the sidekick.

  She put my notepad in her blazer pocket. “Great. Let’s look them over while we head to Brock’s hotel.”

  I stood up. “Right. Alright,” I said, looking around. Miko was at her desk, leaning close to her computer monitor. In our little wing in the precinct building, our desks were close together and the air was stuffy, because as the Centau had often reminded us, we didn’t need a big, spacious and nicely outfitted station because there should be no need for police. It was an age old misunderstanding between the races—Centau and Druiviins had reached some moral acme hundreds of years ago, while the Constellations and us humans continued to drift in the swamp of our self-serving, destructive behaviors.

  “Miko,” the young detective looked at me sharply. “While I’m gone, please try finishing your look through Fogg’s financial records. Oh, and follow up with me or Meg if you get any more details about flight r
ecords. Still no word on that?”

  “Not yet. Currently looking. Daxan’s helping,” Miko said. I looked around but the three of us were the only ones in our wing.

  “How is Daxan helping?”

  “Oh, he went out for kasé and coffee,” Miko said, rubbing her eyes then squinting as she swiped at her screen. “We need the energy injection.”

  “Too bad we won’t be here to get ours,” Meg said as the two of us headed out of our wing into the hive of noise that characterized the rest of the station.

  “Yes. I wonder if they were Daxan’s treat or if he would have been requesting a payment for mine.”

  We were in luck. Daxan was just walking up the stairs in the main entrance as Meg and I skipped down the stairs.

  “Hey Daxan,” I said. “Did you happen to get me a drink?”

  He pulled a cup out of the carrier. “Totally naked kasé, just the way you like it, DI Bach.” He flashed a bright smile that contrasted with his soft violet skin. Daxan kept his silver-colored hair cut short—some kind of rebellion against the traditional style of most Druiviins. He was breaking all their cultural rules by becoming a detective, which was why I liked the boy in the first place—he knew that some rules were worth breaking, while others were too important to slight.

  “Sounds like someone already knows you too well,” Meg observed. Her remark, of course, wasn’t reserved for how I liked my drink.

  “And for you, DI Wolfe,” Daxan said, handing another cup to Meg. “Espresso with milk and sugar.”

  “Kasé be damned,” Meg said. “Thank you, Daxan.”

  “Glad we caught you on our way out,” I said, heading out the door. “Stick with Miko on those files and get in touch with us if you find something out.”

  “Of course,” he said as the door swung shut behind Meg.

  ***

  “I was here. At the convention. I’m on a panel you see.” Pierre Brock’s smooth grin was all in his mouth. Nothing touched his dark blue eyes.

  “So, at 9:30 AM yesterday,” I said, checking the time of death in my notes from the autopsy with Cassandra. “You were sitting before a crowd of people?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Check the schedule.”

  “I will. Which panel?”

  “‘VR Currencies and How Game Economies Influence Real-Life Economy.’”

  “Sounds gripping,” Meg said.

  Crowds moved through the lobby of the hotel. Raucous laughter and the sounds of a jazz band, tinkering as though warming up, spilled out from the hotel bar. As we sat around a sleek knee-height table, a woman came up to the suspect and touched him lightly on the arm. “I have a question for you. About how to handle an in-game competitor.”

  “And I’m happy to answer it,” he said, blinking and forcing a smile. “When I’m done here.”

  “What is that?” I asked as the girl wandered off.

  “What?” he asked, shaking his head like he was trying to clear his mind.

  Meg glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “Did her question bother you?”

  “No, not at all,” he answered, recovering.

  “But you’ve heard of Lennox Fogg?” Meg asked directly.

  “Of course. He owned Fogg’s Toggs, a purveyor of cheaply coded and skinned in-game items,” he sneered.

  “Owned?” I repeated. “Or owns?”

  Pierre shook his head. “I assume that since you are here, something has happened to him. I noticed that his shop hasn’t been open since I’ve been on Kota.”

  “Ah, right, right. Fogg’s Toggs was your competition. And what is it your game-store sells?”

  “Same kind of stuff. But built entirely better.”

  “Can we ask what that means?” Meg said. “Isn’t it all the same? Ones and zeroes with a pretty face stuck on?”

  “Look, Fogg just took all my codes and reskinned everything. Then he sold it for more money. At first it cost less, then he raised his prices. He didn’t design anything. He was an eggplant-colored piranha and I hated him.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Meg scrawling into her black notebook. Uses racist terms. Not necessarily something that would implicate someone in murder—we all used them. Eggplant just rolled off the tongue. But still. I should probably make sure I stopped saying it. Especially now that Daxan was on our team. I didn’t really have anything against Druiviins—it was hard to not like them. They weren’t quite the same level of smug as the Centau and their stately inability to grasp the pettiness of humans.

  My communicator rang. “Excuse me,” I said, rising and ducking away to answer it. “Miko?”

  “Hey Gabe,” she said in greeting. And then dove straight into business. “We found a few leads going through customer service-related emails. A lot of them are from other moons. But one of them is from a gentleman who’s here, at the same convention where you are. And he was kind of threatening. So Daxan and I are checking it out.”

  “Great. Keep me updated.”

  “Yep,” Miko hung up and I returned to my chair.

  “Everything ok?” Meg asked looking up at me.

  I nodded, then asked Pierre, “Did you know Lennox? Personally? Had you ever met in real life?”

  “How could I? I live on Joopa. Meeting Lennox wasn’t worth the flight. Or the cost.”

  I grinned. “But this convention is?”

  “This convention is the biggest of its kind. The contacts and networking and coverage for my brand are worth it. Let me put it this way: the earning potential from an event like this is almost too high to estimate. Meeting Lennox would net me nothing.”

  Meg cleared her throat and stood up. “Well, Mr. Brock, thank you for your time. You’re busy and we’re busy and you have fans that want to speak with you. So you know, you’re a suspect in a murder case. Please don’t leave Kota until we’ve cleared you to go.”

  “What? I can’t stay here. I have a job to return to,” he protested, rising.

  “And you can’t—” Meg began, looking at him with a bemused expression, “conduct that business from here? It’s online. I should think—”

  “Yes . . . yes,” he said, looking irritated.

  “Good,” I said. “Then stay here. We don’t want to have to arrest you because it seems like you might flee our moon.”

  ***

  Outside the hotel, I filled Meg in on the communicator call from Miko. Then we coordinated meeting her and Daxan. I knew Miko hoped she’d be able to do his interview alone, but I was already there and I needed to get a feel for this suspect. The case was slippery and something about it threatened to get away from me. Our suspect list was short and so far I had no read on motive for either. Both seemed too flimsy to stick. Jealousy. And money. Age-old tales but neither suspect had given me a sufficiently strong indication that they were angry enough to punch a hole in a man’s skull.

  We found Miko at a ramen shop. She was standing outside with Daxan as the city darkened. Ixion’s reflected light was always bright enough that a more complete darkness only came every two weeks, but after the brilliance of day, it was a relief.

  “He’s inside. Eating dinner with a group of Holo-R gamers. He knows we’re here,” Miko said.

  “Looks nervous, if you ask me,” Daxan volunteered, running a hand through his silver hair.

  “Good. Thanks for tracking him down,” I said. Daxan’s rank was even lower than Miko’s. I usually kept him doing the grunt work, at the same time hoping he’d push to holster more responsibility. So far he seemed happy with the status quo.

  “We can’t all interview him. That’ll make him too nervous,” Meg observed.

  “Right. Well, I’m not sitting the sidelines on this one. Meg, you and Miko fight it out. Whoever wins, come inside.” I pushed the door open, then asked over my shoulder, “Which one?”

  “Black guy at the table next to the window. Harry. He’s wearing a Marines shirt,” Daxan explained.

  I went up to the table and introduced myself. “Can
we talk somewhere more private?” I asked. The people at his table looked up at me with eyes that ran the gamut from suspicious and annoyed to scared and surprised. “This should only take a few minutes.”

  Harry followed me out onto the street where Meg was waiting. “You?” I teased. “You won?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Harry Akhtar, you already met our junior detectives. This is Detective Wolfe, and I’m Detective Gabriel Bach, lead detective on a case we’re investigating,” I said, flipping to an empty page in my notebook.

  Harry lowered his head, then lifted his gaze and glanced between Meg and I. “Apologies, sir. What’s this about?”

  “We’ll get to that. But first, can you tell me where you were yesterday morning around 9:30?”

  “I was here, sir. At the convention,” he said, swallowing.

  “Were you with anyone? Are there people who can corroborate that?” Meg asked.

  “Yes. I was with some friends from the Holo-R world. Utopia. That’s where we met and we all came here to do the convention.”

  “Does the name Lennox Fogg ring any bells?”

  “Yes sir, it does. But something tells me you know it does or you wouldn’t be here. What’s happened? Is this about the emails?” The ex-soldier looked nervous and licked his lips. “I mean, Fogg, well he, he just sold me some in-game items that I felt didn’t live up to his promises. I asked for my money back and never heard from him.”

  “And you asked him—how many times?”

  “Four or five, I think.”

  “Or maybe ten?”

  He shrugged and laughed nervously. “OK, ten. Is that against the law? If it is, I didn’t know. Fogg never responded. What should I have done? Let it go?”

  “Well he was found dead,” I said, carefully watching him for a reaction. Harry didn’t flinch. “So, as you might guess. Ten emails, six of them full of threats, looks rather . . . bad.”

  “Fuck. Dead. Really? It wasn’t me. I’d never kill someone over a little dispute like that. Did you read the emails? I mean you, personally, sir?” Harry asked, looking between me and Meg.