The Camelot Gambit

by A. J. Scudiere

  “You should wear it tomorrow," Emersyn said.

  "He tried to teach me how the human heart beats," Cage added, "Though he had only just learned that himself, so I don't know if he really did a good job. He did teach me how to make a robot that rolls and knows when to stop and when to push."

  "Now," Joule said, and Donovan had no idea what she was referring to, until she reached up and turned the knob on the oven down another twenty-five degrees. All four heads peered into the window on the oven again, watching the cookies as per Joule's instruction.

  "I don't know who would have miscalibrated this oven," Cage said, "But it looks like it's just off. Like the knob is off." He pulled it from its pin and began fiddling with it. Within a moment, he’d found the altered dial face, peeled it, and asked if Donovan had super glue.

  “I don’t. I just moved in.” At least that much was true.

  “Well, it should stick when I put it back on–but clearly it can be bumped out of alignment.” Cage then went on to explain how to put the knob back on and line up the numbers.

  Ten minutes later, the kids had continued reminiscing about Marat and Johanna, about them coming for dinners. About Marat giving them small motherboards one holiday season and then robot housings to put them in the next.

  Then, finally they pulled the cookies out of the oven and set them up on top of the stove top with perfectly crackled tops. Donovan handed over most of the cookies to the group as they seemed anxious to get back to LeDonRic's next door and he didn't want to hold them any longer. The art of finding out what they knew was about not letting them know that he was finding it out, and he was afraid he'd already pushed several boundaries in that regard.

  They thanked him and promised to return the plate he'd sent, given that he and Eleri had very few dishes. Donovan watched as they headed back across the lawn before he went upstairs into his office and returned with the things he'd removed from the table earlier, so they wouldn't see. He sat down and began taking notes on everything the kids had told him.

  22

  Eleri had spent the afternoon out, leaving the house in hopes that Donovan could carry out what he’d dubbed “the cookie plan.”

  She'd considered going back to the Up N Atom but thought she might have run the course there. Only so many different people came through the place, and she was concerned about being too obvious. So, while it was only next door to the coffee shop, she'd gone to The Atomic Diner this time. She figured that, since it was later in the day, the restaurant might be more heavily populated than the coffee shop now.

  She perused the menu until she knew what she was going to order. Still, she had to ask the server, “Why are the burgers filed under ‘Theory of Gravity’?”

  The redhead with a tag that said Wendy smiled at her. “That’s because they are so good you can’t resist the pull. Also, I think, because if you eat enough of them, you’ll experience gravity more fully. Now what I haven’t figured out is why the alternate burgers are under ‘Electric Universe’.”

  Eleri found that the names of the burgers now made more sense. The basic burger was an Aristotle, and the chain of physicists worked their way up to a Hawking—which was fully loaded. She ordered a Newton with a milkshake, thinking that eating her feelings was more than plausible, and perfectly acceptable, given the circumstances. No one would question her here.

  She handed the menu back without explaining that the turkey, portobello and meat substitute burgers were under “Electric Universe” because only about ten percent of people believed in the alternate theory to gravity. She was proud of herself for knowing that one. She would have to bring Donovan back here.

  Just like her first time at the Up N Atom, she chose a table in the corner and tried to position her back and her laptop to where no one would be able to see what she was viewing. It wasn't quite as easy to put herself against the wall in the diner, as the booths tended to sit orthogonal to the walls. But the backs of the cushioned seats were high and she did a decent job of blocking the sides of her laptop screen.

  While she set up, she tried to watch the comings and goings from the diner. Greg Whitlow came in and sat at a table facing the front door. In just a few moments he was joined by another man, one with a face Eleri didn't recognize.

  Quickly, she tapped on her laptop keys and traded the video she was pulling up for the information Bennett had originally sent to them. She had backgrounds on almost every citizen, if she could just face-match them. She also had locations for their work and homes, and Bennett had set it up to link people and show her their DMV pictures so she could more easily place who she was following, chatting with, or in this case, surreptitiously watching across a diner.

  In addition to the full dossier on everyone, they’d had Bennett sorting through all the citizens in town—all thirty-plus-thousand of them. His goal was to try to remember whom he had specifically let in and which ones he didn't remember why he’d granted permission to live in his town. Marshall Bennett had already given them several infusions of files, each containing all his information on the people he did not specifically remember letting into his town. Eleri and Donovan had spent time vetting each of them, but had come up cold so far.

  It took Eleri a moment to recognize that the man with Greg Whitlow was Keyoor Vergheese, another physicist in town, as the think tank was full of them. Vergheese held a double PhD in physics and theoretical mathematics, and Eleri, even as nerdy as she’d always thought she was, felt her brain twist.

  Though she was unable to hear what the two were discussing from this side of the restaurant, the conversation appeared both animated and cordial. Vergheese was not on the list of names that Bennett didn't recognize—at least, not yet. Bennett had been clear he wasn’t done going through all of them. So she had nos and yeses, and still a good chunk of ‘unknown’s. However, Keyoor Vergheese had made Bennett's top cut: He was one of the people Bennet specifically remembered bringing into Curie.

  The work of sorting the files was time-consuming, both for the mayor and for them, but Bennett had been writing the occasional note and he remembered Vergheese’s resume and that he had wanted him in the local think tank.

  What Eleri, and even Donovan, had not been able to decide yet was how far Bennett's memory went toward clearing the person as a suspect. Her concern—which she'd expressed to Donovan—was that people might be sneaking into town, undercutting Bennett’s full vetting system. The place was big enough now that Bennett didn’t recognize every face, as he had in the early days. So, while she suspected that people had, in fact, either hacked the system or worked their way around it, or possibly even bribed someone for their entry—whether or not it pertained to the murders of Marat Rychenkov and Johanna Schmitt—she was not yet sure.

  Keeping an eye on the two men, but also looking around the diner as best she could, Eleri placed as many faces as possible. She was unable to vet the vast majority of staff. Ultimately, she came to the conclusion that they were likely not residents, but “day-trippers,” as Bennett often referred to them. They did not have files, and that presented a major problem.

  They might live in Lincoln and drive in daily for the job. Or they might be from south of Curie, where there was a small town called Beatrice. It was spelled like Beatrice, but the accent came on the second syllable, making it “Bea-AH-trice,” which Eleri found to be wonderfully Nebraskan.

  The day-trippers would commute in for the day, work their jobs, and turn around and leave. It tended to be about a thirty-minute drive either way, though there were several other smaller townships and even some of the kids from local farming families working in Curie.

  Though Bennett allowed them in to work in his perfect little community, he did not seem to hold them in high regard, something Eleri wondered about. Bennett had even said many were U Nebraska graduates coming in to “pump gas and maintain the facilities.” He'd scoffed as he said the words. When Donovan pushed him about the fact that these were college graduates, Bennett quickly snarked, "The N
is for knowledge."

  Eleri had both laughed and been appalled, and she again found herself wondering. Here was a whole group of people who had reason to possibly hold a grudge. Were any of the day-trippers at fault in the murders? Had they decided Bennett's rules were elitist and discriminatory? Had they decided to get in on some of the action in Curie? She didn't know.

  She did know she and Donovan had checked out all the workers who had come to the Rychenkov-Schmitt home in the past month. Johanna had listed what she knew and had quickly pulled out a house log that she kept so they could keep track of repairs, upgrades, and what they had paid for each. Eleri would have been in complete awe of the woman if she had not seen the jumble of shoes she kept under her bed.

  With her list in place, Eleri now covered it with another page. She didn’t need anyone passing by or asking if she needed a refill on her Atomic Tea to see that she was listing the names of the patrons, their professions, and whether or not they had Marshall Bennett's seal of approval. When Whitlow and Vergheese left, she went back to watching the video footage from the Schmitt home.

  Even watching four different camera feeds simultaneously wasn't getting her through the hours quickly enough. She watched much of it on super-fast forward and found herself tripping over movements that went by too quickly. She would then have to back up the footage only to see that a few random creatures had strayed into the backyard. Once she was caught when a dog had come up to the front porch in the middle of the night, sniffing for something.

  Eleri paused at each hint of intrusion and watched carefully. She wondered if the dog belonged to someone who had stopped in front of the house and was maybe eyeing it a little too carefully. She watched it again, but in the end, she couldn’t conclude there was anything other than a dog having been let out to wander the neighborhood on his own. For a moment, she wondered if the dogs here were not also intellectually exceptional.

  She watched the video from all through the night, four camera feeds at a time, and found no one had broken into the Rychenkov-Schmitt home. It was not until she was watching the daytime feeds that she caught it. In fact, as she rewound the video, she realized it came up right as the footage butted up to the live feed.

  Someone was at Johanna Schmitt’s home now.

  The time stamp showed Eleri he’d been at the back door all of five minutes earlier. She watched as he entered the code and walked right into the home.

  Shit! She wanted to scream it loud and long. Someone was actively committing a crime and she was stuck at the diner, with half her burger left. She raised her hand for the check and began closing her laptop and gathering materials.

  She didn't want to call Donovan—and per their own paranoid protocol, she couldn’t. They were worried about their communications being hacked. Even texting him would be too risky. She'd screwed up by not developing a signal phrase, like texting him to ask him if the cookies tasted good, but she'd not expected to catch a break-in right in the act.

  The server, though one Eleri would have called fast and prompt earlier, now seemed to take forever to bring the check and to-go box to her, though Eleri was sure that was her own impatience speaking. As soon as she was packed up, she left cash on the table rather than paying by credit card and headed right out the door.

  Her main problem was trying to appear calm. People anywhere might wonder about someone jumping up and dashing out of the diner. The last thing she needed was to be remembered when she was out and about. Once in her car though, she blazed through town, debating whether to get Donovan or to head directly to the Rychenkov-Schmitt home.

  Given that the break-in was already in progress, and though there was nothing she could do, or probably would do, she headed toward C’thulhu Heights. Maybe she could see someone driving away from the home, or just pass by as they were leaving. Maybe—even if she couldn’t ID the person—she could find some characteristic about them that would help narrow down their hunt.

  Instead, when she pulled up, the house was dark and quiet. Turning the corner, she opened the laptop and logged into the feed again. If she was hacked, she’d give something away, but the chance to catch their killer in action was too tempting, and she had taken it.

  The footage booted up and revealed the house and yard were both empty.

  She’d missed her chance.

  23

  Though Eleri was frustrated and exhausted, there was nothing she could do now. She’d missed the intruder, and as her case was not going to magically be solved tonight, she had to maintain her cover.

  On top of that, despite the darkness creeping into the sky, she wasn’t done for the day. She and Donovan quickly changed clothes and headed out into the evening.

  As they headed into the city of Lincoln, she recounted what she’d seen. “I did see several cars leaving the C’thulhu Heights neighborhood on my way in. At the time, I had no idea if any of them was my perp or if the perp was still in the home.”

  “Makes sense,” Donovan replied as they wound through Copernicus Circle. She took a moment to look at the dynamic sculpture of the solar system. At least the planets were pretty. The lights at night made them glow, something she’d not seen before. Still, she pulled her focus away from the shiny, nerdy things and worked to get her information to her partner. It was one of the most important things she could do in the case.

  “I’m pretty sure none of the drivers I saw were the person breaking into the Rychenkov-Schmitt house.” The intruder seemed to be long gone by the time she arrived and was likely driving carefully around the neighborhood as though he was just out for a stroll, a cruise, or whatever. “The murderer has made it clear that he—or she, or both of them—can get in and out of the house with relative ease. No one has reported any suspicious activity. And I would think the past three days, with Johanna now murdered, too, would make people actually pick up the phone and call if they saw something sketchy.”

  “I want to believe you’re right.” The car left the city limits and she found herself out of the lights and buffeted by cornfields on either side. They drove casually into Lincoln and she thought of her own frantic exodus from C’thulhu Heights, and how she’d been trying to case the whole neighborhood and catch an intruder as he left. But she’d come up spectacularly empty-handed.

  The problem was, she wasn't even sure their perp was a male. From the footage, they could see the body was an average size, the shoulders not terribly broad, the outfits never revealing enough to determine a shape that would indicate a gender. She didn't have the normal things to help her rule out suspects either, like skin tone, tattoos, hair color, anything. She’d been close to screaming and smacking her steering wheel in frustration, but she couldn't even do that, because what if somebody saw her?

  Instead, she’d pasted on a smile and waved as she passed other drivers or the occasional person walking on the street. Whether or not she knew them, she lifted her hand in a friendly gesture. Just being a friendly neighborhood newbie on the outside, while on the inside, she grew ever more frustrated with missing her suspect.

  Once she’d gotten back to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, she'd sat down, almost thumping her laptop too hard onto the table as she popped it open for Donovan. Pulling up the appropriate footage, she pointed.

  "Oh, wow! They were just there!" He’d leaned in close.

  "Yes," she said, "and I missed them. I raced over, but they were gone before I got there."

  He sighed and tried to console her. “We have to head out to do the autopsy in Lincoln. I was hoping you’d be back sooner.”

  She’d shaken her head. “This was why I wasn’t.”

  “It was a good call. They just don’t all pan out.”

  His consolation hadn’t fully sunken in, and Eleri wasn’t sure it would. Still, she’d changed and hopped into the car within just a few minutes. Too irritated to take care with her cover, she figured it was good they were getting out of town while she cooled down. She continued trying to tell him who she saw on her botched mission.
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  "One of the drivers I saw was Wade. One was a mother in a minivan. Though the windows were a bit tinted, I think I saw three young children inside. I have a really hard time believing that she put on coveralls and broke into this house while leaving three small kids in her car."

  "That is hard to swallow," Donovan said. "I don't put anything past the residents of Curie, though."

  "The third was a teenage girl, about Emersyn and Madisyn's age, somewhere in there, so I don't think she was our break-in either. It wasn’t Joule though. Also, she was driving a very flashy sports car, not the kind of thing you would drive around to break into a home."

  "Or exactly the kind of thing you would drive around to break into a home," Donovan countered. "I mean, it's Curie. If someone's smart, they'll do the exact opposite of what we would expect."

  "Like leave their fingerprints all over the place," Eleri thought, getting into the game, "Or they might leave hair and DNA, and then say, 'But that couldn't possibly be me. I'm too smart to have done that.'"

  Donovan nodded.

  "Shit," she said. "That means most of our rule-outs aren't even really rule-outs. We're so fucked." She said it with as much of a wry smile as she could muster, though inside, she just twisted up a little further.

  But then, Donovan aimed her back toward what needed to be done. The body of Johanna Schmitt was now waiting at the CDC offices. Unlike her husband, there was no spouse to complain about the long wait time. Also unlike her husband, there was no hiding that this had been a murder.

  "Let’s go do an autopsy!" Donovan tried to throw a little glee into it, although he fell short. It was hardest when it was someone you’d known.