Remmell glanced at her briefly, before turning his eyes back to the room. “Probably one of the Serenes when they were cleaning in here,” he said. “They must’ve knocked the wires.”
She stared at Remmell for a moment, before folding her arms and settling in to watch Mitch’s interrogation of Subjugate-46.
Salvi watched as Mitch stared at the Subjugate sitting before him. The young man’s face was even, placid. The memory of the Subjugate’s mugshow, complete with tattoos and piercings, compared to the image of the man before her now was, she had to admit, intriguing. Could the treatment here really, permanently, change them? Or did the monster still linger beneath their neutral façade? Were they just going through the motions, pretending to be healed to escape the Complex’s treatments? Would these criminals simply do what they had to, to get on the outside again? The chemical castrations were obviously not permanent if they required twice daily shots. So how stable were they really? And what would happen if they missed one of those injections? Would their overall treatment collapse?
“Do you know who I am?” Mitch asked the Subjugate.
“No. I do not,” he replied in a voice sounding like that of a boy’s. The only thing hinting that it wasn’t was the depth of sound. Something changed by puberty that not even the treatments of the Solme Complex could erase.
“I’m Detective Grenville,” he said. “I’m investigating the death of–”
“He’s here to ask you questions about Sharon Gleamer,” Bander cut him off.
The Subjugate marked a sign of the cross over himself as Bander stepped toward Mitch. He leaned down and whispered into her partner’s ear, but Salvi heard it just fine through her connected iPort’s earpiece.
“I told you before, you are not to mention any words that may incite or remind them of their prior criminal activity. Death is one of them.” Bander pulled back and gave Mitch a warning stare.
“We’ve taught them to protect themselves from evil words,” Remmell told Salvi. “When they hear an evil word, they mark a sign of the cross upon themselves to protect them from the evil.”
“Death isn’t always evil,” Salvi said. “Death is a part of life.”
“According to our Subjugates, people don’t die. They simply pass into heaven.”
Inside the interview room, Mitch stared at the caretaker for a moment before turning his eyes back to the Subjugate. Dolles sat there as calm and serene as before. Salvi could sense an unease in Mitch as he eyed the silver device that crowned the man’s skull. She wondered what it looked like when a Subjugate flashed a code blue.
“Did you know Sharon Gleamer?” Mitch asked.
The Subjugate stared at him but did not answer. Salvi darted her eyes to Remmell’s monitor, which captured the Subjugate’s face in close-up. His eyes moved, his mind thinking, recalling. Mitch held his arm out and projected a hologram of her from his iPort. “This is Sharon Gleamer. You seen her before?”
Dolles looked at the hologram of the pretty blonde Sharon, beaming a broad smile. He turned his pear-green eyes back to Mitch. “Yes. I saw her at the Children of Christ.”
“How often?”
“Every Sunday for mass. Sometimes during the week also.”
“You ever speak to her?”
The Subjugate paused a moment, thinking again. Recalling. Salvi wondered if the delay in his response had anything to do with the brain tweaks. She noticed a dark spot flecked the white of his left eye. “Yes,” he finally said. “I helped her once in the hall. We were preparing the material to be sewn into clothes.”
“Preparing the material. You mean cutting it?”
Bander threw Mitch a glance of warning. Obviously “cutting” was another banned word. The Subjugate marked another sign of the cross over himself. Mitch looked back at the Subjugate. “Who did that? You or her?”
“She did. I held the roll for her. It was heavy.”
“Did you ever see her outside of the church and hall? Ever see her around town?”
Again, the Subjugate thought this over. “I have seen her walking along the road. Sometimes riding her bicycle.”
“Did you ever speak to her then? When you saw her outside the Children of Christ facilities?”
“No. She would wave. I would wave back.”
“Did you ever go to her house?”
“No.”
“Did you know where she lived?”
“Yes.”
Mitch paused, studying him carefully. “So, she was friendly to you, but you never went to visit her at home?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We have work to do. When we are in town we must work.”
Salvi analyzed the Subjugate for a moment. The guy was of decent height, a little on the lean side, but even in his subjugated state he probably could still have overpowered Sharon Gleamer.
If there were cracks in his treatment, that is.
“When did you last see her?” Mitch asked.
Again the Subjugate thought. “At Church. Last Sunday.”
Mitch pulled his iPort back toward him and looked at the hologram again.
“Sharon was pretty, huh?” he said.
Bander cleared his throat loudly, gave Mitch another glare.
The Subjugate paused, tilted his head to the side like a curious child. “Why do you ask about her?” he asked.
Mitch eyed him. Dolles stared back with flatline eyes and a flatline face.
Even. Steady. Serene.
Neutral. Just like the walls around him.
“Because something bad happened to her,” Mitch said, flicking his eyes to Bander’s. “Someone sent her to heaven earlier than she was meant to go.”
“She’s in heaven now?”
Mitch nodded. “We’re trying to find that person. They need to pay.” He flicked his eyes to Bander again. “They need to repent for what they’ve done.”
“Yes,” Dolles said, signing the cross over his body again. “They must. We all must.”
“Do you know who might’ve hurt Sharon?”
Bander cleared his throat again. ‘Hurt’ was obviously another word.
The Subjugate made another sign of the cross. “No. I do not,” he said.
“It wasn’t you?”
Dolles body stilled, just slightly, as he stared back at Mitch. “Did I send Sharon to heaven?”
“Yes.”
“No.” Dolles glanced at Bander, then back to Mitch. “I held the roll while she scissored it. I did what my Serene Supreme told me to do.”
“You didn’t feel strange, standing that close to her? That pretty college-aged girl?”
Bander stepped forward, right up to the table between them, and stared down at Mitch.
“Last warning,” he said.
Mitch glanced down to see the caretaker’s hand resting on the baton attached to his belt.
“Understand?” Bander said.
“I’m not one of your Subjugates,” Mitch said. He turned his eyes back to Dolles. The Subjugate sat there with his eyes fixed on the table in front of him, the close proximity of Bander’s dark cloud forcing him into submission. Mitch looked back at Bander and gave him a serene smile.
“I think I’m ready for the next Subjugate, please.”
Salvi eyed the motel they pulled up in front of. The strip of five units with pale blue walls and white window frames looked like something from an old movie but she couldn’t think which one. The sign out front read: “Bountiful Beds” and was framed with a border of yellow globes. The air was cool, Salvi could smell freshly cut lawn, and she thought she heard the SlingShot whizzing by in the distance.
Mitch had only made it through interviewing four of the Subjugates that afternoon, and they decided it was more time efficient to put a call into Ford for approval to stay put overnight, as there were three more interviews to get through tomorrow.
“This’ll do,” Mitch said, eyeing the motel as he turned the Raider off, then popped their doors with a hydraulic
hiss.
“It’s probably the only one in town anyway,” she said, getting out. She followed him to the reception window. Behind it sat a wrinkled old man about forty pounds overweight, who glanced up at them, then darted his eyes to the Raider.
“I’m sorry, I don’t charge by the hour,” he said in an uppity voice, as he looked down his capillary-flecked nose. “You need to find another town.”
“Excuse me?” Mitch said.
“I don’t charge by the hour if that’s what you’re looking for,” he said, moving his eyes to Salvi, then back to Mitch.
Mitch glanced around at Salvi, a slight look of humor on his face. “Well that’s good because we want all night,” he said, turning back to the man. “Two rooms, all night.”
The man eyed Salvi again. “Your sister then? Colleague?”
“Irrelevant,” Mitch said with a firm look.
Salvi stepped forward. “Do you often have people wanting to rent your rooms out by the hour in a town like this?”
The man looked up at her briefly. “Not on my watch. Bountiful Beds is a reputable establishment. The sinners can stay on the SlingShot. And I’ll send you there too if I catch any funny business.” He looked back at Mitch. “That’ll be eighty, please. Each room.”
Mitch muttered something under his breath and pulled out his wallet.
“Cash only,” the man said.
Mitch stared at him. “I don’t carry cash. No one does any more.”
“In this town, we do,” the man said firmly.
Mitch sighed and tapped his badge. “We’d like two rooms, please, and we’d like them charged to Hub 9 in the city.”
The man leaned back from the holo projection, eyeing it like a snake about to strike. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
Salvi stepped forward and tapped hers too. “You can’t forge these. That’s the point of them.” She showed him her iPort, and sent her lenses silver briefly, before turning them off again. “We’re SFPD. Trust me.”
“Stop that now! We don’t like that technology here,” he said.
They both stared at him as Salvi turned the holo off.
“Aren’t you worried that stuff will rot your brains?” the man asked, then shrugged upon receiving no response. “You can never be too sure of people. We’ve got reason to be wary of strangers. Some bad things have been happening here of late, and I don’t plan to enable any more of it.”
“What’s been happening of late?” Mitch asked.
“Sin,” he said leaning forward. “Evil has been trying to invade our town. It started with the Solme Complex, then Attis went and got the SlingShot station built, now the doors have opened and non-believers are being allowed to live here. It’s the start of the end, I tell you. You let the sinners and non-believers live here, they’ll corrupt the whole town. Just look at what happened to that young Gleamer girl.”
“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Mitch said. “We’re investigating her murder. So, if you would just give us a place to stay, we can help you fight the sinners.”
The man studied them both again, then reluctantly took some old-fashioned brass keys and handed them over. “I’ll be watching you.”
Mitch gave a nod. “And we’ll be watching you.” He turned to Salvi and they moved to find their rooms. She suppressed a smile upon learning the gentleman had placed them at opposite ends of the small strip of units. Just in case temptation overtook them during the night. Mitch gave Salvi the key to the room closest to reception, while he took the farthest.
“You hungry?” Mitch asked. “Wanna grab a bite to eat?”
“Yeah.” Salvi nodded. “I’m starving.”
“Meet back at the Raider in fifteen.”
After freshening up, they looked for a place to eat and eventually settled on a rustic-looking Italian joint opposite their motel. The restaurant, like much of Bountiful, appeared to have been left in another decade with its exposed brick walls and red and white chequered tablecloths. Salvi didn’t care though. She needed food, and fast, and pasta would do just fine.
As they entered she heard what she thought was the music of some crooner from the 1950s, but she soon realized that the crooner was singing an ode to God. They took a booth by the window and ordered a drink from the waitress who scribbled it down on a small pad of paper, then left.
“Drinking on the job, Salvi?” Mitch teased. “That’s not like you.”
She shrugged. “Just following my senior officer’s lead.”
A slight smile curled the corner of Mitch’s mouth as the candle on the table reflected in his dark green eyes.
“Besides,” Salvi said, leaning back against the booth seat, “it’s been a long day.”
“Yeah,” Mitch agreed, face falling serious. “So, what’s your take on the Subjugates I interviewed today?”
Salvi thought for a moment, looking out the window to the quiet street beyond. “Subjugate-46 is a possibility.”
“Lucius Dolles?”
“Yeah.” She turned her eyes back to him, flashbacks of the interview playing in her mind. Dolles had appeared very serene, but prior to his transformation he was a serial rapist of college-aged girls. Girls similar in age to Sharon. “I’m not liking any of the others you spoke to though.”
“Why?” he questioned. Salvi sensed it was more of a test than a question – to see what she’d picked up.
“Subjugate-57, Felix Gomes, he ran with gangs, and only had one count of date rape against him. The crime doesn’t fit his MO.”
“And Subjugate-48?”
“Alexander Neuben,” she said, pausing to turn her thoughts around in her mind. “He did commit multiple rapes, but he drugged them. This wasn’t a man who liked the sight of blood and gore. He was lazy. He was a coward. He didn’t want to have to fight them for it, that’s why he drugged them. I don’t see him putting in the effort to do what Sharon Gleamer’s killer did, do you?”
Mitch shook his head in agreement, accepting his scotch from the waitress and taking a sip.
“And Kenton Poole?” he asked.
“Poole liked little boys. Women weren’t his thing.” She took a sip of her drink, a gin and soda, eyeing the slice of lime that danced around in the glass. “Your thoughts?”
“I agree. But I don’t really like Dolles for it either. Of all four Subjugates, he was the one who seemed most like a choir boy. Whatever they did to him, they did it good. And he was younger than the others, so he got his treatment earlier in life than the others did.” He shrugged. “Maybe that counts for something.”
“Does that mean you’re a believer in the program now?” She smiled.
“No.” Mitch stared back at her. “I just don’t think it was him. Yet.”
“Well, we still have the other three to interview,” Salvi said.
“Yeah. The mob murderer, what’s his name, Margola? Junior Malcolm and Edward Moses.”
“While you were interviewing, I read through the criminal files that Remmell submitted,” Salvi told him. “Margola was charged with three counts of murder, and they liked him for killing a lot of people and very violently, a little sickeningly actually, but he didn’t have one charge of rape against him. Nothing sexual at all.”
“So?” Mitch asked.
“So, I think he’s capable of carving ‘pure’ into our vic, but rape wasn’t his thing. According to witness statements on his character, he was actually a ladies’ man. He was a little old-fashioned and believed in treating a lady like a lady.”
“Maybe he got carried away in the moment. It would’ve been a while since he had some and she was an attractive woman.”
“Not one of his victims was female. Not even the ones he was suspected of but never convicted for.”
Mitch shrugged. “Junior Malcolm only ever assaulted his girlfriend. He never touched another woman outside of her. Why would he do so now?”
Salvi shrugged back. “His girlfriend’s not around. It would’ve been a while since he had some,” s
he repeated Mitch’s words. “Maybe he got caught up in the moment.”
His eyes shone a little at her challenge. “But he never killed anyone before. Just roughed them up.”
Salvi shrugged indifferently.
Mitch stared at her. “You and I both know of all the Subjugates, the one that fits this most is Edward Moses.”
“Yeah.” Salvi exhaled heavily, tiredly. “The Subjugate they’re most proud of.”
Mitch nodded. “The one they saved from death row. The one they turned around for the greater good.” He sipped his drink. “The one that would make a hell of a story and garner them all kinds of golden PR if his treatment was successful. Imagine the kudos Attis Solme would receive.”
Salvi nodded. “And imagine what would happen if Moses reoffended after all that treatment.”
“Imagine what would happen if he reoffended after all that treatment,” Mitch repeated her words. “And did that to such a good, holy, innocent, pure girl… The monster they thought they’d turned back into a man, was actually still a monster all along. They’d be ruined.”
Salvi considered things for a moment. “Did you pick up Solme saying that he and Ford went way back?”
Mitch nodded. “Yeah. I want to ask Ford about that. You think that’s why she wanted us to deal with this quickly and quietly? Why she was pulling strings to get the forensics processed so fast? Is Solme an acquaintance or a buddy?”
“Don’t know.”
Mitch paused a moment, his eyes narrowing in thought. “You don’t think Ford would help Solme cover things up, do you?”
“Cover what up?” Salvi asked. “We don’t know who the perp is yet. It could be someone from the Solme Complex, but I’m not prepared to rule out any of our friends from the town or the Children of Christ just yet.”
“Still stuck on the preacher, huh?” Mitch said.
“Looks can be deceiving, Mitch,” she said, taking another sip of her drink. “All that glitters is not gold. You forget that most religions are built on punishment and control of human freedoms.”
He sat staring back at her, like he was trying to figure something out.
The Subjugate Page 14
