“You won’t punish him?” Salvi asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “It is not for me to punish. That is for the Lord to do. God is our witness.”
Tobias bowed his head and marked a sign of the cross.
“So, you didn’t find out that Sharon had succumbed to sin and then punish her?”
Kevin stared at her as the realization of her words fells upon him. “No. I did not.”
“You sent Sharon and Tobias in, to help bring people back. Then you feared they were instead drawn into sin. That didn’t anger you at all?”
Kevin looked at Tobias, who hung his head and began to cry. “I won’t lie, I am very disappointed to hear this.” He looked back at Salvi. “But I have only just heard this. I did not kill Sharon. I am a missionary of God. It is my mission to save people. Not hurt them.” He stood from his seat and moved for the door opening it. “If you wish to speak with me further, it shall be with Mayor Solme’s lawyer present.”
“He prepared you, didn’t he?” Salvi asked. “He told you we might come.”
Kevin didn’t answer but held his body strong in resolve.
“You’re very close with Mr Solme, aren’t you?” Mitch said.
Kevin stared at them both with firm eyes. “I am a religious man, but I am no fool, Detectives. Mayor Solme is a smart man and he mentors me. He believes I have what it takes to follow in his footsteps. And that I shall. Now, you have outstayed your welcome. Please leave.”
Salvi and Mitch exchanged a look, then moved to the door.
“Tell me something,” Salvi said, stopping in front of him, “seeing how you’re so smart. Is the Solme Complex really fixing those Subjugates?”
“No,” he said. “Religion is. It is saving mankind, one sinner at a time. Good day.”
The drive back to the hub was long and undertaken in a heavy silence, their minds racing over the morning’s events. As the Raider finally pulled up, Mitch kept the motor running.
“I gotta do something,” he said, darting his eyes briefly to hers. “I’ll meet you here later.”
Salvi looked at him. “What do you have to do?”
Mitch glances at her again. “I just got to check something out. Go start on Carson. See what you can find, see whether she was pure as she made out. I’ll be back soon.”
“Did Riverton say how long it would take to get the warrants to access the U-Stasis accounts?”
“A day or so.”
Salvi nodded and got out of the car. Then she watched him drive away, wondering whether letting him out of her sight had been the right thing to do.
Chapter Fourteen
Smoke and Fire
Salvi checked her iPort. Several hours had now passed and Mitch still hadn’t returned. She’d read over the data on their second vic, Rebecca Carson, and still wasn’t any the wiser. Carson had attended church groups, worked at the local hairdresser and played in a unisex softball team. Nothing stood out as unusual. But then again, on face value, nothing had stood out as unusual about Sharon Gleamer either.
Salvi considered the church groups Carson took part in, knew that Subjugates and Serenes would’ve been present. Then she made a call to Carson’s friend, Loretta Sine, the one who had found her, and they had a chat. She’d read Holt’s notes but wanted to go over things one more time. Salvi found out the names of those in Carson’s softball team. The only name she recognized was Ben Holt, the Bountiful sheriff.
Salvi pictured Holt in her mind; saw him at every crime scene, the way he handled the bodies, remembered his car driving past right after Mitch had left with Fresner. Curious, Salvi did a search on him, wanting to rule him out more than anything. He was single, thirty-nine years old and had lived in Bountiful for several years. She remembered their first meeting. Holt wasn’t backward about his dislike for the Complex’s residents. Did the sheriff dislike them that much? Would he go to these extreme lengths to set them up for a fall? The sheriff would, she had to admit, have a good understanding of how to get away with murder. She checked Riverton’s records to see whether Holt’s house was on the grid or whether he maybe used BioLume. It was on the electrical grid.
Her iPort signaled an incoming call, disrupting her thoughts. She didn’t recognize the number but engaged her lenses.
“Hello?” she answered tentatively, eyeing the middle-aged guy with a three-day growth who stared back at her.
“Is this Salvi Brentt?”
“Who is this?”
“My name’s Gus. I work for Solid State, the company that handles security for Sky Tower 4.” He tapped a button and his credentials appeared on screen. “Your apartment alarm registered on our system a short while ago. We’d like to confirm if that was you or whether you’d like us to check in with the auto-concierge and ascertain if there’s a problem?”
Salvi paused a moment. “How long did the alarm register for?”
“Only a few seconds, but it’s standard procedure for us to put a call into you. According to our records you haven’t had any problems with it in the past.”
“No,” Salvi said. “Please check for unauthorized visitors and scan the apartment’s security. Let me know if there are any abnormalities. Call me back.”
“Will do.”
She ended the call and jumped in fright as she suddenly noticed Mitch standing beside her desk.
“Jesus!” she said. “Don’t creep up on people.”
“Something wrong?” he motioned to the iPort, his eyes narrowed.
“No.” She shook her head.
“You find anything?” he said, taking a seat at his desk.
“Not really.” She eyed him curiously. “You?”
He didn’t seem to hear her, eyes fixed on his console screen.
“Mitch? You said you went to check on something?” she asked.
He looked back at her. “Riverton found no links to the prostitute in the city, so I put in a few calls, spoke with the neighbor and eventually found an associate of hers. I spoke to them about getting the names of her clients.”
“And?” She stared at him.
“They’re pulling together a list and sending it over to me.”
She nodded, mind ticking over. “Why the hell would Preacher Vowker allow a prostitute to live in the community?”
“I wondered the same thing, gave the preacher a call.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I thought it best not to have you take part, given your interaction at the wake.”
Salvi ignored the comment. “What did Vowker say?”
“He said he was helping Fresner change her life. Said she wanted to get her boy out of the city, so he gave her somewhere to stay, on the proviso she turned her life around, turned her face to God.”
“But she hadn’t.”
“Not yet, but she was working on it. She had a debt to pay with a pimp before she could pull out entirely.”
“A debt to the pimp and a debt to Vowker. Ain’t that dancing between two devils?”
Mitch shrugged. “She was getting her boy out of the city and away from that life. It was always going to cost her, no matter where she lived.”
Salvi nodded. “It cost her, alright. But the question is, did her killer follow her to Bountiful from the city, or did her killer live in Bountiful all along?”
“You found no city links with Carson?”
Salvi shook her head. “Nothing obvious.”
“Hey, Grenville.” Beggs came up and slapped his shoulder. “You up for a drink with me tonight?”
Mitch shook his head, eyes fixed back on the screen.
“No?” Bronte smiled from across the bullpen. “You feeling alright?”
“We got a third vic,” Salvi told them.
“We heard,” Beggs said, dropping his smile, then looked at Mitch, “that’s why we thought you might like a drink.”
Mitch glanced at Beggs and shook his head again, then looked back to his screen. Beggs gave a shrug then walked off.
Mitch sudde
nly stood. “I need a coffee. You want one?”
Salvi studied him. His face was less pale, but he still seemed edgy. His dark green eyes stared into hers.
“No,” she said. “I’m good.”
He nodded and headed for the door.
“Mitch?” she called.
He stopped and looked around at her.
“You alright?” she asked.
He nodded, averting his eyes, then left.
Salvi sighed heavily and looked back at her screen. A photo of Rebecca Carson in her softball uniform stared back at her.
Her iPort signaled another call. She answered it.
“Miss Brentt? It’s Gus from Solid State again. Auto-concierge scan looks fine. There’s nothing suspicious on the security feed. Several other apartments have registered their alarms too. Must’ve just been a glitch.”
“Thank you.” She hung up the call and sighed.
A shadow crossed her face as Hernandez sat down on the desk beside her. She looked up at him.
“A third vic, huh?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Mitch looks a little jumpy,” he said. “You talk to Stan?”
Again, she didn’t answer, just stared at him. Well, now it was more of a glare.
Hernandez put his hands in the air in surrender. “I know, I know. You can take care of yourself.” He lowered his hands again and sighed. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Salv. They were Stan’s parting words to me when he retired. ‘Keep an eye on Mia’.”
“Stan wouldn’t say that,” she countered. “He trained me. He knows I can handle myself.”
Hernandez raised his hands again, then leaned off her desk and walked away.
Mitch never returned with the coffee. She waited and waited but he didn’t show. Her stomach was in knots. Where had he gone? Was he just somewhere trying to get his head around what happened and the mess he was in? Or was it something else?
Why hadn’t he come to her for help? Had she been such a closed book that he didn’t think he could?
Why was he hiding his contact with Fresner? He had no reason to. He was in the Raider with Salvi that morning. She was his alibi. Wasn’t she?
Or could Mitch have caught the SlingShot to Bountiful, killed Fresner, and then come back to the city to pick her up at the precinct? The SlingShot was a twenty-minute ride either way. He could’ve gone out there, killed Fresner around 7am, then been back in time to pick Salvi up at 8.30am.
He could have…
But did he? She couldn’t ask Riverton to check the security footage for that morning, she would need to do it herself. Even then, there would be a log of her activity and Riverton may question why. Although the AI worked to serve its detectives, it also served Internal Affairs, clamping down on corruption. Every day, the AI would run through the case files, looking for any clues missed or anything unusual. This was a time bomb ticking.
Salvi recalled the AI telling her that Hernandez had been reviewing their files. She quickly accessed the log and checked. He’d been in again. So had Ford.
“Shit,” she muttered. She had Hernandez and Ford checking up on her, Holt possibly doing his own surveillance in Bountiful, and an AI that was designed to be thorough and check facts and faces. It was only a matter of time before Mitch was called out. Salvi just had to hope that she had not been spotted by Holt the night she followed Mitch. If he had, and Mitch turned out to be a killer, she would be found to be sitting on evidence. Her career could be at stake.
So why the hell was she stalling?
Because she wasn’t ready to finger Mitch as the Bountiful Killer. All she had was circumstantial evidence. Right now, she had no motive. And that was the real killer when it came to tanking a case.
The faces of all the suspects flashed through her mind. There were so many possibilities. Was it one of the Subjugates or Serenes? She pictured Edward Moses staring at her, thought of his heinous previous crimes, his intellect. Could he have outsmarted the Solme Complex’s treatments? She saw Lucius Dolles watching the dog pissing on the tree, thought of his hatred for women he thought acted like they were better than him. She saw Fontan Pragge approach her, telling her he was a bad man, thought of how he would never graduate to a Serene due to his mental capacity – something brought upon him by the Complex’s torture. She saw Serene-41 talking proudly of his Complex access pass and his status as Serene-Supreme, of how he had the trust of Attis and Remmell and could move freely about the Complex and the town. And she pictured him getting onto the SlingShot with Remmell.
And then there was Doctor Remmell himself, the way he grabbed her arm, yanking her back and eyeing her with disgust, telling her she ought to be ashamed of herself. She recalled him saying that he’d spent too much time with the Subjugates, indicating that he had forgotten how to talk to normal people. But was it just the speech aspect? How much more like the Subjugates had he become?
She saw Levan Bander beat that inmate, thought about his double life as religious caretaker by day and “normal man” by night.
She saw Sheriff Holt drive past after Mitch and Fresner, roaming the streets at night. Thought of when they first met and how from the start he tried to subtly finger someone at the Solme Complex.
She recalled Attis defending his facility, practically threatening her if she tried to find one of his residents guilty. All his talk of God and forgiveness, and yet he authorized the violent and sadistic torture the inmates were put through. Just how far would Solme go to protect his empire? The man led a duplicitous life with the Children of Christ and the Church of Connectivity, sending young missionaries out into sin to do his bidding. Was he saving souls or corrupting them? He was brainwashing the Subjugates, and from what Salvi could tell, he was doing the same to Kevin Craydon, his little protégé.
Then she thought of the neighboring survivalist colony, Garner Town. Had they just made empty threats, or had they followed through? She’d read the data Riverton had supplied on them. The community was small, only one hundred and fifty-six residents. There were no prior arrests or criminal records among them. Nothing serious anyway. According to Holt’s notes, he’d paid them a visit and interviewed a bunch along with one of his officers. They’d provided sufficient alibis each substantiated by several witnesses, and because it was a pullaway, there was little Riverton could do to seek further information.
Despite being cleared of the DNA, she still pictured the preacher talking to her of forgiveness, of his guidance to those who strayed from the way of chastity. Did he know Sharon had broken her vows? Did he know something about Rebecca Carson who also attended his church? Had she confessed her sins to him? Was Carly Fresner taking too long to extract herself from her sinful life? Was it causing problems for him in his clean and holy town, letting her live there? And did he know what Attis was up to in the city? Did the preacher know that he was luring his star Children of Christ into a world of sin, all the while he was trying to pull others back from it? What would he do to protect the sanctity of his community?
Despite the cleared DNA, she saw Sharon Gleamer’s neighbor spying on her through his window. A non-believer living in Bountiful only for the free ride, with no intention to follow God. Then she saw Tobias’ innocent face cry tears of sorrow at what he’d done…
Salvi sighed and closed her eyes, tried to clear her mind. “Go back to the basics,” she told herself. “Go back to the first crime scene.”
She thought again of the BioLume footprint at the first scene. Of the BioLume smear on Rebecca Carson’s back. And her mind came back to the Solme Complex. She heard Attis Solme talk about the factory, saw one of the workers with BioLume spills on their coveralls. Remembered the BioLume lights in Mitch’s apartment and the hardware store in which Tobias worked, selling the globes. Saw the BioLume cross adorning the Children of Christ church and the Church of Connectivity.
And still she had no answers. She was going in circles.
Her head was drowning in thoughts. She needed some air
. She needed a break to let her mind breathe.
And strangely enough, for the first time in a long time, she didn’t want to be alone.
She thought of Beggs mentioning drinks, then decided to try to find him.
She went to McClusky’s, the same bar around the corner from the hub that she’d picked Mitch up from the other night. But she couldn’t find any of the guys there, nor anyone from narcotics or cyber.
She did, however, pause upon seeing Ben Holt eating dinner in one of the booths.
She pictured Rebecca Carson in her softball uniform again, saw Ben eating his fries and sucking the salt off his fingers. She went to the bar, ordered a bottle of vodka and made her way to his booth.
“Do you mind if I join you?” she asked.
Sheriff Holt looked up, surprised. He finished licking his fingers then shook his head and motioned for her to sit.
“Sorry to interrupt your dinner,” she said with a smile.
“That’s alright,” he said.
“You here on business?”
He looked down at his plate. “I had an errand to run here in the city. Decided to stop for dinner.”
She studied him a moment. “It’s funny, our hub is just around the corner.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, but any surprise he may have felt was lacking from his face. He glanced at her again, then dipped some of his fries in the sauce smeared across his plate. “So, what brings you here, then?”
“Pleasure,” she said, pouring the vodka into a glass. She offered to pour him a drink but he waved a “no”.
“You got a whole bottle there,” he said. “Planning on a big night?”
“Who knows?” she said. “We’ll see.” She sipped her drink, felt it heat her body all the way down from her throat to her belly.
He eyed her for a moment. “Well, just make sure you don’t go drinking and driving or I’m going to have to arrest you.”
Salvi laughed and threw back the rest of the drink, then poured another. “Would you like that?” she said. “To see me in cuffs?”
Holt paused, looking at her, but then continued eating without responding to the comment. “What are you celebrating?” He motioned to her bottle of vodka. “You caught the killer?” He looked at her eagerly for her response.
The Subjugate Page 27
