by Piers Platt
“I’m ready,” Beauceron told him.
“Okay … let’s take it from the start. Time of death was about seven hours ago. As best as I can tell, the scene was undisturbed from that time until the surveillance drone discovered it during a routine air patrol this morning. Three main wounds on the body, as you can see – this stab wound at the collarbone was the first, pre-mortem. A disabling blow, most likely. The cut across the neck was next – loss of blood is your official cause of death. I did check toxicology and took a sample of stomach contents, just to be sure, but there’s nothing unusual there: he was on some stimulants – illegal, but fairly mild – and had a few beers in him, but that’s it.
“… and that brings us to the third wound. Here’s where this whole scene just goes off the rails for me, honestly. I mean, I’ve seen ritualized gang killings, and even a psychopath who was into some nasty body mutilation, but this is … neither of those. The victim was dead over at the wall. Our killer laid him down, then dragged him across the alley, laying him out flat.” The tech pantomimed the killer’s actions, demonstrating how he had moved the body.
“Fingerprints from the killer when they dragged the body?” Beauceron asked.
“No – bloody handprints on the collar, but it looks like our perpetrator was wearing gloves.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Yeah, so … body lying here … kneels over him, and starts cutting at the neck, or back of the throat, really. Then basically opens him up all the way down to the esophagus, breaking open the rib cage along the way. Then our killer stops,” the tech shrugged.
Beauceron wrote: Interrupted during a post-kill ritual? “Is he missing any organs?”
“No, it’s all still in there. It’s like a … what do you call it? V-something?”
“Vivisection,” Beauceron said.
“Yeah, that. Anyway, he stops, stands, and walks over to the dumpster – that’s where the footprint trail ends. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the shoes will be in the dumpster, but I wouldn’t put money on it. Footprints are a size eleven, stride length indicates someone just under six feet in height. So suspect is most likely male, in decent physical health to be able to cause these wounds. Probably some military training or combat experience – the killing wound was well-placed, looks like he knew what he was doing. That knife over there is not the murder weapon, if you were wondering – has the deceased’s fingerprints on it.”
Beauceron noted the suspect’s presumed size in his book. “Anything else?”
The tech shook his head. “Not right now.”
Beauceron put his notepad away. “Send me an update once you finish inventorying the dumpster?”
“Okay,” the tech agreed.
Beauceron took a last look at the body, and then pulled open the fire exit door, which led into a small storeroom. He poked around for a minute amongst the crates of liquor and cleaning supplies, then made his way into the bar itself. Aside from a single man mopping the floor, it was empty. The man looked up at Beauceron, who opened his jacket to show his badge.
“Are you the owner?”
“Nope. I do clean-up and tend bar during the morning shift. Need me to get the owner down here?”
“Not yet,” Beauceron said. He pointed to the security cameras mounted around the outside walls of the room. “Are those on?”
“Should be,” the bartender told him. He propped the mop against the side of the bar and made his way around behind the counter, activating the bar’s computer monitor with a tap of his finger. He twisted the monitor so that Beauceron could see from his side of the bar. The screen showed several different angles of the two of them at the bar.
“Can you go back to eleven fifteen last night?” Beauceron asked.
“Sure thing,” the man replied. He dragged his finger around a clock icon on the display, and the view changed to show the room full of patrons. It took Beauceron less than a minute to find the victim, sitting at a table alone.
“May I?” he asked.
The bartender shrugged. Beauceron sped the footage up, and watched as the victim finished a beer, and ordered another. Then everyone’s attention was drawn to the bartender, who seemed to make some kind of announcement. Beauceron saw the victim glance around the bar, then hurriedly stand and make his way to the back of the bar. A man at the bar stood immediately afterwards, and followed.
Hello.
Beauceron backed up the footage. The man at the bar had arrived soon after the victim, sat down, and appeared to largely ignore the victim. He had talked to the bartender briefly, though, before the bartender made the announcement. Beauceron beamed the footage to his datascroll and then sent a still shot of the man’s face to the identification database. He tapped his finger on the bar while he waited.
“Mind if I keep mopping while you work?” the bartender asked.
“No, not at all,” Beauceron said, distracted.
The program was taking longer than normal, Beauceron realized. Then it pinged a response: No Match Found. Beauceron frowned and went back to the footage, where he took a different screen shot and uploaded that to the database, trying again. The result was the same.
“Do you know this man?” Beauceron asked, pointing at the screen.
The bartender walked back over. “No … he’s not one of my regulars, at least.”
“Who was tending bar last night?”
“Sussman,” the bartender told him, then squinted at the screen to confirm. “Yeah, that’s him. Andy Sussman. Fucker never cleans his glassware before he hands the bar over.”
Beauceron checked the map on his holophone: the other bartender’s apartment was only a few blocks away, so he decided to walk rather than bother with the growing early morning air traffic. I don’t get much exercise anymore. Katarina would chide me, if she saw how fat I have become. He smiled to himself. Katarina would kick me out.
As he walked, his thoughts turned back to the case. Nearly three percent of the galaxy’s residents are not in the identification database, he told himself. It’s not that unusual. Still, he couldn’t help remembering the last time he had seen the program return that error.
The guildsman I caught, eleven years ago …
Sussman was asleep, and answered the door only after Beauceron buzzed the button for the fifth time. Seeing Beauceron’s badge did little to erase the scowl on his face, but he invited the detective in, grumbling and pulling a dirty sweatshirt on over his boxer shorts.
“Man, I just went to bed an hour ago,” he complained.
“Apologies,” Beauceron said. “I won’t take much of your time.” He pulled out his datascroll and queued up the footage from the bar.
“This man – do you know him?”
Sussman sighed. “Yeah, he’s been around the bar pretty often lately. Forget his name, though – he’s a lousy tipper. Likes an off-world import beer, I think … Orbital IPA, maybe? Why?”
“How about this man?” Beauceron continued.
“Umm … yeah, I think he was at the bar last night. Not a regular, though. Oh, wait – yeah, he was an odd one, I remember now. He ordered a water with lime, nursed it for a while, and then gave me a big tip. He’s the data drive guy.”
Beauceron looked up, questioning.
“Guy tips me a fifty, and then tells me he found a data drive on the floor, can I make an announcement and see who lost it. So I did, then he up and left – went to take a piss, I think.”
Beauceron played the footage again. Sussman watched closely.
“Yeah, there we are talking. Here he’s telling me about the drive, so I go make the announcement, and then he asks for the bathrooms. But he never left the drive with me. Did someone report it as stolen or something?”
“No,” Beauceron said, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He rewound the footage again, this time focusing on the victim. Gets his second beer. Takes a sip. Bartender makes announcement. Stands up, heading for the exit … leaving his beer largely untouched. Man at the bar follows. No,
that wasn’t quite right. Beauceron rewound it again. Gets his second beer. Takes a sip. Bartender makes announcement. Man at bar watches victim. Victim pats his coat pocket. Beauceron stopped the footage. The data drive. He checked his watch.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Sussman. I am sorry to have woken you.”
“You’re not even going to tell me what’s going on?” Sussman asked, nonplussed. But Beauceron was already out the door.
* * *
The two men stood over the grave in silence. It was a simple headstone, grey granite, with Katarina Beauceron in carved block letters. Beauceron placed a small bouquet of roses on the grass, kissed two fingers, and laid them lightly on top of the granite marker. The tall man next to him, whose uniform proclaimed him a major in the Interstellar Police, saluted the grave awkwardly with a sterling silver flask, and then took a swig of vodka from it. He offered it to Beauceron, who shook his head.
“Ready?” the major asked, after a time.
Beauceron took a deep breath. “Yes.” Their feet crunched through the frozen grass as they walked back to the air cars.
“She always liked the winter, she used to say it made her feel like cuddling up in a warm wool sweater,” Beauceron said.
Major Rozhkov grunted. “We could never get her to wear sweaters as a girl – too itchy.” He cleared his throat. “Hard to believe it’s been eight years since she passed. It feels like I was walking her down the aisle just yesterday.”
Beauceron said nothing.
Rozhkov decided to change the subject. “No luck at the spaceport?”
“No,” Beauceron said. “The victim had been dead eight hours by the time I got word to airport security. Plenty of time for the killer to catch a shuttle off-world.”
Rozhkov’s piercing blue eyes peered at him from under bushy grey eyebrows. “That assumes he did go off-world.”
“He did,” Beauceron said.
Rozhkov sighed.
“It is another Guild kill,” Beauceron insisted. “The second in as many years. Whatever happened to that triple homicide above the restaurant, by the way?”
Rozhkov snorted. “After I pulled you off it, nothing happened. It remains open. You’re sure that was the Guild?”
Beauceron shrugged. “Pretty sure.”
“Your hunches are usually right,” Rozhkov allowed.
“Mm. Papa taught me to trust them.”
“How is he?” Rozhkov asked.
“Papa? He’s well. Grumpy, but well. I think he’s seeing two of the ladies in his nursing home.”
Rozhkov chortled. “Two at once? That ought to be an interesting scene when they find out.”
“He’ll probably tell them himself. He likes the drama.” Beauceron stuck his hands in his pockets to warm them up. “He keeps begging me to take him on a ride-along, for old time’s sake.”
“You should do it.”
Beauceron glanced sideways at the older man. “No. He’d want to go to the station to swap war stories with the old-timers.” And then he would get to see firsthand the black sheep I’ve become. “He asks me every month if I’m going to the next promotion board.”
“Martin, you know that I would send you if I could, but … it was all I could do to save your job.”
Beauceron held up his hands. “No, no … I know. And I’m grateful. It’s only fair, after what I did. It’s my penance.” He shrugged.
“It was an honest mistake,” Rozhkov told him.
“I was sure the door was locked,” Beauceron sighed. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that six of our brothers are dead.”
They walked in silence for a time. “Elisaveta asks after you – she keeps nagging me to ask you over for Sunday dinner sometime,” Rozhkov told him.
Beauceron smiled. “No, thank you. I do miss her Sunday dinners, please tell her that.”
A young corporal stood at the door to Rozhkov’s police interceptor, holding it open for the major. Rozhkov nodded to the young man, but paused before getting in. “Keep me updated if you find anything more on this alley killing.”
“I will,” Beauceron promised. He turned to walk to his own car.
“Martin?”
Beauceron turned. “Sir?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, even if you’d caught him at the spaceport. Catching another guildsman won’t erase the past.”
“I know.”
14
Even with his thermal suit turned up all the way, the wind cut through both the camouflage netting and Rath’s protective clothing, and drove the chill deep into his bones. His training back on the island had largely inured him to the discomforts of prolonged cold, but the previous seventy hours spent lying in the hide site sorely tested Rath’s ability to ignore the pain. His hemobots had engaged an emergency warming procedure a few hours ago, generating kinetic heat by rapidly vibrating. The hemobot procedure effectively staved off frostbite, but also created a sensation not unlike pins-and-needles in all of Rath’s extremities. Rath put an end to the tingling when his amplified high-pitch hearing sent him a notification: an air car was approaching.
He checked his rail rifle reflexively, verifying the round in the chamber and locking in the cabin’s range with the laser designator one more time. He considered engaging the air car briefly, but decided to stick with his plan – the air car might be armored, or it might have early warning systems that would detect the laser on his rangefinder. Instead, he left the rifle pointed at the log cabin, and watched the air car as it approached swiftly, making two full orbits of the cabin’s area before hovering in for a landing, whiting out the cabin with blown snow.
There were four security personnel out of the car when the snow had settled again – two heading for the cabin itself, the other pair making a wide circle of the cabin’s exterior. Rath saw that the pair outside used a handheld sensor array, which was easily powerful enough to pick up his signature at nearly two miles’ distance. They completed their circuit of the cabin without incident, however, and Rath let out a slow sigh of relief – in addition to hiding him from sight, his camouflage netting was designed to disguise his thermal signature, and even disguise the sound of his heartbeat and body odors.
The air car’s engines throttled down, shutting off, and the first pair of men exited the cabin, heading for the car. Rath settled the rifle into place on his shoulder, tucking his cheek into the cold plastic of the stock and slaving his eye sensors to the weapon’s more capable sight. He centered the crosshairs on the air car’s door, and watched as a figure emerged, flanked by two of the security guards. The target moved slowly, laboring in the deep snow, but Rath could not make out his face under the thick scarf and goggles the man wore. Rath caught movement in the scope’s periphery, and panned back: a second figure exited the air car, dressed similarly to the first, and accompanied by the second set of guards. Rath shifted his aim rapidly between the two, trying to positively identify one of them as the target. They were both inside the cabin before he could do so.
“Shit,” Rath whispered, settling down to wait again.
One of the security guards remained outside, pulling a piece of equipment out of the air car’s cargo hold. As Rath watched, the man set up a tripod, then mounted the handheld sensor on top of it, before taking up position on the cabin’s porch. Rath frowned: that was a wrinkle he had not anticipated. The rail rifle was designed to be completely noiseless in operation, aside from the sound of the weapon recoiling into Rath’s shoulder. His camo net would hide that sound from the sensor array, but the sensor worried him nonetheless; Rath could not shake the feeling that he was missing something. He shifted his aim to one of the cabin’s curtained windows and switched to thermal vision on the scope.
The sight was powerful enough to see through the curtains, but not the cabin’s thick wooden walls. Rath saw several people pass by the window, but it took him several minutes of observing both of the windows in his line of sight to be able to form a clear picture of the cabin’s interior. The window
on the left was clearly the master bedroom: two of the car’s occupants had moved into there soon after entering the cabin, and Rath assumed they were the target and his companion. The three security guards stayed in the room on the right, which appeared to be a kitchen and general living space. Rath focused his attention on the left window, trying to distinguish the target from his companion. He gave up after twenty minutes, frustrated.
The sun set soon afterwards, but the planet’s nearby twin, looming large in the night sky, was still partially illuminated by the sun; its reflected light cast an eerie, twilight pall across the snowy landscape. Rath slid an energy bar out of his shoulder pouch and ate it slowly, watching as the guard outside was replaced – after exactly one hour, Rath noted – and as the target and his companion moved to the living area and sat for a while with the guards. Rath assumed they, too, were eating.
When they finished dinner, only one of the two potential targets returned to the master bedroom, while the other remained seated with the security guards. Rath tracked the figure in the bedroom closely, until it disappeared out of the window frame for some time. Rath switched back to the kitchen window. One man was working in the kitchen, apparently cleaning dishes, while two others sat at a couch. The last – the potential target – was still sitting at the table. As he watched, the man at the table lifted his hand to his mouth, appeared to take a deep breath, and then set his hand down on the table again. Rath zoomed in on him and several seconds later, the man repeated the movement.
He’s not smoking; I would see the heat of the cigarette on the scope.
Rath was about to pull up the mission brief in his heads-up display, but as usual, his photographic memory was quicker – the brief had contained a video of the man using a vaporizer pen, he remembered.
Good, but not good enough to confirm that he’s the target.
He switched back to the bedroom, where the other person had reappeared in the window frame. The figure turned sideways to the window, presenting their profile, and Rath watched as the person lifted both hands to their head, apparently smoothing their hair back in repeated movements before attaching something to the back of their head. Rath frowned, and then suddenly realized what he had seen.
