by Paula Guran
And as she looked at Gumiela’s office, which took up much of the upper floor, DeRicci knew she would never achieve privacy like this. She wasn’t political enough. Some days she felt like she was one infraction away from being terminated.
Most days, she didn’t entirely care.
Andrea Gumiela, on the other hand, was the most political person DeRicci had ever met. Her office was designed so that it wouldn’t offend anyone. It didn’t have artwork on the walls, nor did it have floating imagery. The décor shifted colors when someone from outside the department entered.
When someone was as unimportant as DeRicci, the walls were a neutral beige, and the desk a dark woodlike color. The couch and chairs at the far end of the room matched the desk.
But DeRicci had been here when the Governor-General arrived shortly after her election, and the entire room shifted to vibrant colors—the purples and whites associated with the Governor-General herself.
The shift, which happened as the Governor-General was announced, had disturbed DeRicci, but Gumiela managed it as a matter of course. She was going to get promoted some day, and she clearly hoped the Governor-General would do it.
“Make it fast,” Gumiela said as DeRicci entered. “I have meetings all afternoon.”
Gumiela was tall and heavyset, but her black suit made her look thinner than she was—probably with some kind of tech that DeRicci didn’t want to think about. Gumiela’s red hair was piled on top of her head, making her long face seem even longer.
“I wanted to talk with you in person about that woman we found in the Ansel Management crate,” DeRicci said.
Gumiela, for all her annoying traits, did keep up on the investigations.
“I thought Rayvon Lake was in charge of that case,” Gumiela said.
DeRicci shrugged. “He’s not in charge of anything, sir. Honestly, when it comes to cases like this, I don’t even like to consult him.”
Gumiela studied her. “He’s your partner, Detective.”
“Maybe,” DeRicci said, “but he doesn’t investigate crimes. He takes advantage of them.”
“That’s quite a charge,” Gumiela said.
“I can back it with evidence,” DeRicci said.
“Do so,” Gumiela said, to DeRicci’s surprise. DeRicci frowned. Had Gumiela paired them so that DeRicci would bring actual evidence against Lake to the Chief’s office? It made an odd kind of sense. No one could control Lake, and no one could control DeRicci, but for different reasons. Lake had his own tiny fiefdom, and DeRicci was just plain contrary.
“All right,” DeRicci said, feeling a little off balance. She hadn’t expected anything positive from Gumiela.
And then Gumiela reverted to type. “I’m in a hurry, remember?”
“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” DeRicci said. This woman always set her teeth on edge. “The woman in the crate, she was killed with a hardening poison. For a while, Broduer thought she might have been put there to contaminate the food supply, but it was the wrong kind of poison. We’re okay on that.”
Gumiela raised her eyebrows slightly. Apparently she hadn’t heard about the possible contamination. DeRicci had been worried that she had.
“Good . . . ” Gumiela said in a tone that implied . . . and . . . ?
“But, I got a list from him, and sir, someone is dumping bodies in those crates all over the city, and has been for at least a year, maybe more.”
“No one saw this pattern?” Gumiela asked.
“The coroner’s office noticed it,” DeRicci said, making sure she kept her voice calm. “Ansel Management noticed it, but the owner, Najib Ansel, tells me that over the decades his family has owned the business, they’ve seen all kinds of things dumped in the crates.”
“Bodies, though, bodies should have caught our attention,” Gumiela said. Clearly, DeRicci had Gumiela’s attention now.
“No,” DeRicci said. “The coroner got called in, but no one called us.”
“Well, I’ll have to change this,” Gumiela said. “I’ll—”
“Wait, sir,” DeRicci said. “They didn’t call us for the correct legal reasons.”
Gumiela turned her head slightly, as if she couldn’t believe she had heard DeRicci right. “What reasons could those possibly be?”
“The dead are all clones, sir.” DeRicci made sure none of her anger showed up in the tone of her voice.
“Clones? Including this one?”
“Yes, sir,” DeRicci said. “And they were all apparently slow-grow. If they had been considered human under the law, we would have said they were murdered.”
Gumiela let out an exasperated breath. “This woman, this poisoned woman, she’s a clone?”
“Yes, sir.” DeRicci knew she only had a moment here to convince Gumiela to let her continue on this case. “But I’d like to continue my investigation, sir, because—”
“We’ll send it down to property crimes,” Gumiela said.
“Sir,” DeRicci said. “This pattern suggests a practicing serial killer. At some point, he’ll find legal humans, and then he’ll be experienced—”
“What is Ansel Management doing to protect its crates?” Gumiela said.
DeRicci felt a small surge of hope. Was Gumiela actually considering this? “They have sensors that locate things by weight and size. They believe they’ve reported all the bodies that have come through their system in the last several years.”
“They believe?” Gumiela asked.
“There’s no way to know without checking every crate,” DeRicci said.
“Well, this is a health and safety matter. I’ll contact the Armstrong City Inspectors and have them investigate all of the recycling/compost plants.”
DeRicci tried not to sigh. This wasn’t going her way after all. “I think that’s a good idea, sir, but—”
“Tell me, Detective,” Gumiela said. “Did you have any leads at all on this potential serial before you found out that the bodies belonged to clones?”
DeRicci felt her emotions shift again. She wasn’t sure why she was so emotionally involved here. Maybe because she knew no one would investigate, which meant no one would stop this killer, if she couldn’t convince Gumiela to keep the investigation in the department.
“She worked as a nanny for Luc Deshin,” DeRicci said. “He fired her this morning.”
“I thought this was that case,” Gumiela said. “His people probably killed her.”
“I considered that,” DeRicci said. “But he wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of firing her if he was just going to kill her.”
Gumiela harrumphed. Then she walked around the furniture, trailing her hand over the back of the couch. She was actually considering DeRicci’s proposal—and she knew DeRicci had a point.
“Do you know who the original was?” Gumiela asked.
DeRicci’s heart sank. She hadn’t wanted Gumiela to ask this question. DeRicci hadn’t recognized the name, but Lake had. He had left a message on DeRicci’s desk—a message that rose up when she touched the desk’s surface (the bastard)—which said, Why do we care that the daughter of an off-Moon crime lord got murdered?
DeRicci then looked up the Mycenae family. They were a crime family and had been for generations, but Sonja herself didn’t seem to be part of the criminal side. She had attended the best schools on Earth, and actually had a nanny certificate. She had renounced her family both visibly and legally, and was trying to live her own life.
“The original’s name is Sonja Mycenae,” DeRicci said.
“The Mycenae crime family.” Gumiela let out a sigh. “There’s a pattern here, and one we don’t need to be involved in. Obviously there’s some kind of winnowing going on in the Earth-Moon crime families. I’ll notify the Alliance to watch for something bigger, but I don’t think you need to investigate this.”
“Sir, I know Luc Deshin thought she was Sonja Mycenae,” DeRicci said. “He didn’t know she was a clone. That means this isn’t a crime family war—”
“We don�
��t know what it is, Detective,” Gumiela said. “And despite your obvious interest in the case, I’m moving you off it. I have better things for you to do. I’ll send this and the other cases down to Property, and let them handle the investigation.”
“Sir, please—”
“Detective, you have plenty to do. I want that report on Rayvon Lake by morning.” Gumiela nodded at her.
DeRicci’s breath caught. Gumiela was letting her know that if she dropped this case, she might get a new partner. And maybe, she would guarantee that Lake stopped polluting the department.
There was nothing DeRicci could do. This battle was lost.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, not quite able to keep the disappointment from her voice.
Gumiela had already returned to her desk.
DeRicci headed for the door. As it opened, Gumiela said, “Detective, one last thing.”
DeRicci closed the door and faced Gumiela, expecting some kind of reprimand or so type of admonition.
“Have you done the clone notification?” Gumiela asked.
Earth Alliance law required any official organization that learned of a clone to notify the original, if at all possible.
“Not yet, sir,” DeRicci said. She had held off, hoping that she would keep the case. If she had, she could have gone to the Mycenae family, and maybe learned something that had relevance to the case.
“Don’t,” Gumiela said. “I’ll take care of that too.”
“I don’t mind, sir,” DeRicci said.
“The Mycenae require a delicate touch,” Gumiela said. “It’s better if the notification goes through the most official of channels.”
DeRicci nodded. She couldn’t quite bring herself to thank Gumiela. Or even to say anything else. So she let herself out of the office.
And stopped in the hallway.
For a moment, she considered going back in and arguing with Gumiela. Because Gumiela wasn’t going to notify anyone about the clone. Gumiela probably believed crime families should fight amongst themselves, so the police didn’t have to deal with them.
DeRicci paused for a half second.
If she went back in, she would probably lose her job. Because she would tell Gumiela exactly what she thought of the clone laws, and the way that Property would screw up the investigation, and the fact that people were actually dying and being placed in crates.
But, if DeRicci lost her job, she wouldn’t be able to investigate anything.
The next time, she got a clone case, she’d sit on that information for as long as she could, finish the investigation, and maybe make an arrest. Sure, it might not hold up, but she could get one of the other divisions to search the perpetrator’s home and business, maybe catch him with something else.
This time, she had screwed up. She’d followed the rules too closely. She shouldn’t have gone to Gumiela so soon.
DeRicci would know better next time.
And she’d play dumb when Gumiela challenged her over it.
Better to lose a job after solving a case, instead of in the middle of a failed one.
DeRicci sighed. She didn’t feel better, but at least she had a plan.
Even if it was a plan she didn’t like at all.
The place that the clone frequented near the Port was a one-person office, run by a man named Cade Faulke. Ostensibly, Faulke ran an employment consulting office, one that helped people find jobs or training for jobs. But it didn’t take a lot of digging to discover that was a cover for a position with Earth Alliance Security.
From what little Deshin could find, it seemed that Faulke worked alone, with an android guard—the kind that usually monitored prisons. Clearly, no one expected Faulke to be investigated: the android alone would have been a tip-off to anyone who looked deeper than the thin cover that Faulke had over his name.
Deshin wondered how many other Earth Alliance operatives worked like that inside of Armstrong. He supposed there were quite a few, monitoring various Earth Alliance projects. Projects like, apparently, his family.
Deshin let out a sigh. He wandered around his office, feeling like it had become a cage. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Sometimes he hated the way he had restrained himself to build his business and his family. Sometimes he just wanted to go after someone on his own, squeeze the life out of that person, and then leave the corpse, the way someone had left that clone.
Spying on Deshin’s family. Gerda and five-month-old Paavo had done nothing except get involved with him.
And, he would wager, that Sonja Mycenae’s family would say the same thing about her.
He stopped. He hadn’t spoken to the Mycenae family in a long time, but he owed them for an ancient debt.
He sent an encoded message through his links to Aurla Mycenae, the head of the Mycenae and Sonja’s mother, asking for a quick audience.
Then Deshin got a contact from Cumija: Five low-level employees have the marker. None of them have access to your family or to anything important inside Deshin Enterprises. How do you want me to proceed?
Send me a list, he sent back.
At that moment, his links chirruped, announcing a massive holomessage so encoded that it nearly overloaded his system. He accepted the message, only to find out it was live.
Aurla Mycenae appeared, full-sized, in the center of his floor. She wore a flowing black gown that accented her dark eyebrows and thick black hair. She had faint lines around her black eyes. Otherwise she looked no older than she had the last time he saw her, at least a decade ago.
“Luc,” she said in a throaty voice that hadn’t suited her as a young woman, but suited her now. “I get this sense this isn’t pleasure.”
“No,” he said. “I thought I should warn you. I encountered a slow-grow clone of your daughter Sonja.”
He decided not to mention that he had hired that clone or that she had been murdered.
Mycenae exhaled audibly. “Damn Earth Alliance. Did they try to embed her in your organization?”
“They succeeded for a time,” he said.
“And then?”
So much for keeping the information back. “She turned up dead this morning.”
“Typical,” Mycenae said. “They’ve got some kind of operation going, and they’ve been using clones of my family. You’re not the first to tell me this.”
“All slow-grow?” Deshin asked.
“Yes,” Mycenae said. “We’ve been letting everyone know that anyone applying for work from our family isn’t really from our family. I never thought of contacting you because I thought you went legit.”
“I have,” Deshin lied. He had gone legit on most things. He definitely no longer had his fingers in the kinds of deals that the Mycenae family was famous for.
“Amazing they tried to embed with you, then,” Mycenae said.
“She was nanny to my infant son,” he said, and he couldn’t quite keep the fury from his voice.
“Oh.” Mycenae sighed. “They want to use your family like they’re using mine. We’re setting something up, Luc. We’ve got the Alliance division doing this crap tracked, and we’re going to shut it down. You want to join us?”
Take on an actual Earth Alliance Division? As a young man, he would have considered it. As a man with a family and a half-legitimate business, he didn’t dare take the risk.
“I trust you to handle it, Aurla,” he said.
“They have your family’s DNA now,” she said, clearly as a way of enticement.
“It’s of no use to them in the short term,” he said, “and by the time we reach the long term, you’ll have taken care of everything.”
“It’s not like you to trust anyone, Luc.”
And, back when she had known him well, that had been true. But now, he had to balance security for himself and his business associates with security for his family.
“I’m not trusting you per se, Aurla,” he said. “I just know how you operate.”
She grinned at him. “I’ll let you know when we’re
done.”
“No need,” he said. “Good luck.”
And then he signed off. The last thing he wanted was to be associated in any way with whatever operation Aurla ran. She was right: it wasn’t like him to trust anyone. And while he trusted her to destroy the division that was hurting her family, he didn’t trust her to keep him out of it. Too much contact with Aurla Mycenae, and Deshin might find himself arrested as the perpetrator of whatever she was planning. Mycenae was notorious for betraying colleagues when her back was against the wall.
The list came through his links from Cumija. She was right: the employees were low-level. He didn’t recognize any of the names and had to look them up. None of them had even met Deshin.
Getting the clone of Sonja embedded into his family was some kind of coup.
He wouldn’t fire anyone yet. He wanted to see if Koos came up with the same list. If he did, then Deshin would move forward.
But these employees were tagged, just like Sonja’s clone had been. He decided to see if they had been visiting Faulke as well.
And if they had, Faulke would regret ever crossing paths with Deshin Enterprises.
Detective DeRicci left Andrea Gumiela’s office. Gumiela felt herself relax. DeRicci was trouble. She hated rules and she had a sense of righteousness that often made it difficult for her to do her job well. There wasn’t a lot of righteousness in the law, particularly when Earth Alliance law trumped Armstrong law.
Gumiela had to balance both.
She resisted the urge to run a hand through her hair. It had taken a lot of work to pile it just so on top of her head, and she didn’t like wasting time on her appearance, as important as it was to her job. Of course, the days when it was important were either days when a major disaster hit Armstrong or when someone in her department screwed up.
She certainly hoped this clone case wouldn’t become a screw-up.
She put a hand over her stomach, feeling slightly ill. She had felt ill from the moment DeRicci mentioned Mycenae and Deshin. At that moment, Gumiela knew who had made the clone and who was handling it.
She also knew who was killing the clones—or at least, authorizing the deaths.
DeRicci was right. Those deaths presaged a serial killer (or, in Gumiela’s unofficial opinion, already proved one existed). Or worse, the deaths suggested a policy of targeted killings that Gumiela couldn’t countenance in her city.
