Sharp: A Mindspace Investigations Novel

by Alex Hughes

  Swartz was not going to be happy with that answer. But what could I do?

  * * *

  “You’re brooding,” Bellury said in a disapproving tone.

  I sat up straight. We were in the interview rooms, waiting for one last interviewee who probably wasn’t going to show up now. I’d gotten so in my own head I’d almost forgotten he was there. I must trust him, at least in the parts of me looking for telepathic threats. “What do you care?”

  He folded up the crossword book and set it in his lap. “Thus far the checks are coming up clean. You seem to be telling the truth. And maybe I like watching the waves you make when you’re bothering to use that brain of yours. Like now, for example. You’ve got at least two cases I can count and you’re not doing anything on either one.”

  I straightened, trying to focus. “Is there an obvious answer I’m missing?”

  He shrugged. “Above my pay grade. I’m just saying, with your job at stake, you probably don’t want to sit around pouting. You only get one chance with most lieutenants, you know. Paulsen’s given you at least three. You might want to give back.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re sitting there and brooding.” He sighed and fished a sheaf of papers out of the bag next to him, on the floor. He plopped the papers over on the table in front of me, and I caught them, barely, from escaping my lap.

  “What is this?” I asked, papers erupting from my hands like cotton candy from a machine.

  “I’d hoped you’d come up with something useful on your own, but here you go. The driver’s paperwork.” He pulled out a slim leather book. “And the manifest with all his travels in the last year.”

  I stared at the book. “Where’d you get that?”

  “The cab of the truck from that big wreck on 285. I kept waiting for Morris—or better, you—to ask. Nobody did.”

  A long silence while Bellury waited and I processed.

  “Thank you,” I said finally.

  “No problem.” He set the book on the hutch between the seats and pulled his crosswords back out.

  “Did you look at this stuff?”

  He looked up from his crossword. “Above my pay grade.”

  * * *

  I fanned out the papers in front of me, on the full length of the table. Then I started reading. Morris and the rest were hip-deep in the physical evidence—and the feds—for the hijackings, and Michael and Cherabino were doing research and on-site interviews on Emily’s case while I was stuck in the interview rooms making up hours. But the next guy was late, and this at least I could do. A boring, stupid job, but I could do it. It was early enough in the day that I could even do it well.

  Endless figures and long lines of the driver’s cramped handwriting blew past my eyes. Alabama. Florida. South Carolina, Tennessee, even Texas and Long Island. This guy got around. He was an independent—some of the papers were his records of truck ownership, indemnity, etc., for his own personal business, his own personal piece of the American way. He was ten thousand ROCs in debt for the truck, down from almost two hundred thousand. He’d paid it off, a couple of hundred, a few thousand at a time over years. Next April was his big day to make the final payment and finally, finally own the truck outright.

  That day in April had three exclamation marks by it—three. From a grown man. Now I was glad I hadn’t seen his body in the truck, in the shattered remnants of what he’d worked so hard to build, all ruined in a single day. For Tech parts he might not even have known he was carrying.

  I paused. Was there any way he really couldn’t have known he was carrying something sensitive? Especially since he ran so hard from the hijackers? The fee . . . well, it was high, but not out of the ordinary.

  Part of me felt like I knew him from this information; the further I got in, the clearer picture I got of this guy, this normal guy trying to prove himself and pay off debt. I could understand this guy. But he was running illegal shipments.

  “You’re brooding again,” Bellury said.

  “You sure you’re not a telepath?”

  “If that’s your poker face, you should play poker with me. A lot,” he said, from the crosswords.

  I shrugged, and tried to focus again on the papers. Something about the routes was nagging at me. Charleston to Augusta to here, Montgomery to Columbus to here, but the cargo was different. Chattanooga to Savannah. St. Louis to Charlotte, over and over. And back to Charleston to Augusta to Atlanta, Montgomery to Columbus and the same.

  Guild routes. Guild courier routes. The Guild had way stations for teleporter couriers in Charleston and Augusta on the way to Atlanta, same with Montgomery. A place to take a rest stop inside the two-hundred-mile Jump window, get your breath and some food before you had to Jump again. This trucker had hopped, skipped, and followed both the Guild’s short – and the long-haul courier routes, over and over again. This had to be coincidence.

  I went back through the last few papers and found a requisition order with a small, imprinted seal on the bottom. An IOU, effectively, guaranteeing payment with the hard-to-duplicate raised stamp in the shape of a stylized bird. I knew that symbol. Guild courier department, not the public face dealing with the public, but the private, Guild-only stuff. I guess it could have been planted there, forged, or gotten mixed in by accident. But what would be the point? What use would a trucker (a businessman paying off his truck, an American dreamer, my mind echoed)—what use would a trucker have with that symbol unless it was legitimate?

  I went back to the scheduling. Some of the routes were all the way back to Canada, back to the less strict border crossings and lighter Tech laws. I knew for a fact that the Guild was still experimenting with machines and Tech—I’d been friends with Dane, the man who’d been doing the research, the man who’d designed the gadget in my apartment, before he died.

  But if this was the Guild’s Tech . . . Especially that load of biologicals, that had to be the Guild’s. That wasn’t something that you’d be able to get just anywhere. No hijacker would have found it by accident. And we had a strangled ex-Guild woman found, in her house, working for a shipping company. This couldn’t all be coincidence—could it?

  Even if it was, this Tech shouldn’t be. It was another round of nasty Guild secrets. Part of me felt like I should cover it up, like I should paper over the cracks of their failure or dangerous habits and move on. I’d grown up in the Guild, I’d been so close with Dane, who’d done research on this kind of thing despite all illegalities. But Swartz said, when it came to people, you didn’t cover things up. And moreover, the Guild’s way measurably wasn’t working. For Emily. For the Bradleys and abusers of the world. For whatever system had gotten ahold of the truck routes for the Guild’s Tech experiments and decided to take them. For the other trucker, the one to whom I’d promised safety—and who’d ended up dead.

  I decided then and there I’d do whatever it took to get the truth out, come hell or high water, with the Guild or against them.

  A sudden movement caught my eye—like a fading shadow in Mindspace, a shadow that had moved. A shadow that tasted like Stone, like the watcher who’d sworn to see everything.

  And who had just seen me decide to side with the normals, with the Tech laws. Against the Guild.

  * * *

  Cherabino had asked me to show up to the last-minute “team huddle” over the case late that afternoon.

  “I said I would catch this cop-killer strangler, and I meant it. But we’ve got a stack of new cases hitting my desk every other day, and I can’t afford to neglect them forever. We need results now. Let’s assume for a second that the strangler is our guy. He doesn’t work for free—we saw that in the other case. Andrew’s doing his best to work the money, but the real question we need to ask is, who hired him to kill Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “What about the boss?” Michael said. “Her job was really on the line after the sexual harassment complaint.”

  “She banks at the same credit union our victim does,”
Cherabino said. “If the money’s there, unless Andrew pulls out a miracle, we’ll never find it. We also need to consider Fiske. He’s the usual employer.”

  I thought about suggesting the shipping angle, with the Guild Tech. But this was a major deal and I didn’t have any proof. . . . And this was Emily we were talking about. Emily, who’d been as straight as a board, as unflinching about right and wrong as any human being in the world. Seeing her involved with illegal Tech . . . I literally couldn’t see it. But she had been abused—maybe she was doing something to help her get out of this. Maybe she needed the money to get away. That sounded like the Emily I knew.

  Michael jumped in while I was dithering. “We’ve interviewed three of Dan’s friends. They’re heavy gamblers and none will talk about the poker game that night. Maybe the stakes were higher that night. Maybe Dan owes bigger money. Maybe this is a warning shot, to the other guys. They seem scared.”

  “With Dan likely dead at this point?” Cherabino asked.

  “He could just be really good at hiding. With a loan shark on his tail, he’d have every reason to get good, and quick.”

  “Hell,” I said. “For all we know, this is a Guild hit. It’s not their style, but if . . .”

  They both were staring at me.

  “What?”

  Cherabino read it right off the top of my mind. “Our victim used to be Guild and you know her?” Shock radiated down the Link, shock and anger.

  “It was a long time ago,” I said, realizing I hadn’t told her. Crap. For all my work . . . the Link went both ways. “We haven’t talked in over a decade.”

  “You need to tell me these things, damn it!”

  “It was a long time ago!” But guilt ate at me like a hairy caterpillar eating on a leaf, implacable, determined, and steady.

  “Stop,” Michael’s voice cracked like a whip. “Stop. We’re on limited time here, right? Let’s figure this out.”

  “What about Fiske?” I asked, in desperation. “He’s holding our strangler’s reins, supposedly.”

  “Maybe he told Dan to do something to pay off the debt and he didn’t do it.”

  “Not his style,” Cherabino said, her mind leaking contempt and mistrust. She was also picturing hitting me clean across the face, knocking me over, and tap-dancing on my kidneys.

  I winced and added a suit of chain mail to the picture. “Who knows? Maybe he has a new style.”

  “Maybe it was Emily. She has connections to both the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport—her father owns a major share—and works in a shipping company. A major shipping company. Maybe there was something there that Fiske wanted,” Michael put in.

  Both of us turned to look at him, me uncomfortable that his thoughts were so close to mine.

  “You’re thinking smuggling?” Cherabino asked. “Or hijacking? There’s been a rush of odd items on the black market lately, according to scuttlebutt, and there’s all those hijackings . . .”

  I went for it. “I have reason to believe the last shipment, with those illegal biologicals they found, was the Guild’s.”

  Michael gasped.

  I met Cherabino’s eyes. “This is not to be included in a report. Neither you nor I nor the whole department can take on the Guild, not with something this flimsy, not with them after me anyway. No one here will survive it. And I don’t have proof, not proof that rides on anything but my word.” Which, with my felonies, we all knew was useless. “For all we know, it was a shipment from Canada to Mexico, or something destined for bioengineering or medical healing. My life is on the line if something gets out. Maybe even if it doesn’t. But—I thought you should know. If Emily was involved in a transport operation, they could have killed her to shut her up. To cover their tracks. Hell, this wouldn’t be the first—or the last—time the Guild took somebody out.” I kept the same intensity to my voice. “Legally, she’s still Koshna, damage to her brain or not. Once you’re inducted on the rolls of the Guild—after sixty days of you not fighting it—legally, you belong to them. Forever, or close enough. I’ve had Kara look it up. She’s still on the rolls. She’s still the Guild’s. Which means if they killed her it’s not a crime.”

  This is why Jacob can’t join the Guild, Cherabino thought.

  Michael shuttered. “They can’t be everywhere. And why leave her body out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Fiske can’t have his fingers in every pie. I say it’s an independent player. Somebody who knew the victim. It’s always somebody who knows the victim, and adding a killer-for-hire to the mix doesn’t change that.”

  Cherabino frowned. “Fiske is involved in a hell of a lot, and a lot of his enemies have ended up dead in the last few years. If there’s a major operation going on, you can be sure he at least knows about it and is taking his cut. But you’re right. Just because he or the Guild is connected doesn’t mean a minor player didn’t do this. There’s something funny going on with that boss of hers, and her dodging our calls isn’t helping. Tell me about the company again.”

  Michael looked down at his notes, but there was a leashed tension to him. “Fine. Dymani Systems. Emily worked for their sales division, one of the top earners. They did ten million in sales last year, mostly awkward loads and large cargo, and she sold almost two million of that directly, some through deals with her father’s airport. But the company is barely breaking even, at least in this office in the US; the parent office in India seems to be giving them a lot of grief as the lowest profit margins worldwide. As of yet, they haven’t figured out why.”

  “Maybe somebody’s skimming,” I said.

  “They’re based out of India?” Cherabino sat up, shock reverberating down the Link. “Are their Tech inspections up to date? Do we know they’re legit?”

  Michael put down his notebook and leaned forward. “They’re a registered business here in Atlanta and have been for thirty years. All their taxes are current. All their permits are filed on time—early, even. Just because they’re foreigners—”

  “They’re from India,” Cherabino interrupted. “India.”

  “Just because they’re from India doesn’t make them Tech smugglers,” Michael said. “Frankly, it’s insulting that you’d make that jump so quickly. And me? Because my grandparents are from Korea, that makes me a Communist? This kind of cruel prejudice is what puts a gun in the hand of a black kid and makes him shoot the white one, and both of them turn and shoot the innocent Asian one.” He stood up, looked at her with this disappointment and anger, and I saw suddenly the strong emotional memory this was coming from.

  Michael’s little brother had been shot, in front of him, when they were both kids, a stray bullet in a gang fight. It never left him. It never would. Now, after seeing his brother’s lifeblood seeping out onto the street, it would never leave me either. There was tragedy, real, earth-shattering tragedy, under Michael’s cheerful exterior.

  He paused, like he’d caught me reading him. Then he looked away. “I’m getting myself some coffee.”

  I stared at him walking away, shock and sorrow blooming inside me.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Thursday night NA meeting was at a church, but the basement was flooded. They sent us up to the huge sanctuary instead. Our circle of chairs was set up in the back of the huge room, curled around the last pew, some solid wooden thing with a seat arched to fit the curve of your butt. Its seat was worn enough from the pressure of a hundred thousand butts to make me think it was actually used. A lot. Well, Swartz said God gave a lot of people comfort, especially in hard times. And for all the God-talk in this group, I suppose the church wasn’t going to make or break anything.

  Someone had set up a folding table in the back of the room for snacks. Raquel had brought two pans of her carob chip loaf, slices of lumpy carob heaven. I took two. And, of course, a cup of coffee. Plus Norman had figured out some kind of thick barbecue sauce for bacterial-protein cubes that made them taste like chewy old-fashioned cocktail weenies. I took a double spoonful and a pile
of toothpicks to eat them with.

  “You outdid yourself, Norman,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  Swartz came behind me at the table to get his own snacks. He was still quiet, his mind . . . Off. Likely he was worried about one of his kids. At least, I hoped that was what it was. He wasn’t talking, and I respected him too much to go rummaging around in his head for the answer, but I was still worried a little.

  I handed him the soy-powder canister without being told to. He opened and closed his hand once with a frown on his face before he took it and doctored his coffee.

  He picked up the cup and took a few steps toward the waiting pew. “Why don’t you . . .” He stopped talking then, and got a strange look on his face. A strange feeling from him in Mindspace.

  Suddenly the coffee cup was on the floor, liquid splashing everywhere. Swartz was on his knees, gasping.

  Pain, sudden pain, was in the air, my pain, his pain, shock, dismay, as he clutched his chest and I stared, unable to move.

  Raquel was on the floor next to him. Heart attack, she mouthed. “Call the ambulance.”

  And behind me, a tall, skinny guy, a new guy, turned and started to blubber. My legs felt like concrete blocks; I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move! Swartz was on the floor, while all around me people rushed in and out. Colors blurred, lights and sound turning into whispering nothingness, as on the floor Swartz gasped like a fish in air and panicked.

  My heart beat, far too fast, fast like a bongo drum hit with someone’s hard hand over and over, as Swartz stopped breathing. I couldn’t move. I still couldn’t move as the ambulance crew arrived and swarmed over him with cold efficiency and hard plastic tubes.

  * * *

  We pulled up to the hospital. A huge red-and-blue sign proclaimed EMERGENCY ENTRANCE; a central sliding door opened and shut, feeding into the hospital from the circular drive we were on.

  Raquel put the car in park. “Go on, go. I’ll take care of the car and meet you in there.”