Spider Play

by Lee Killough

  “It took them that long to turn around?”

  No, of course not. “We’d better go see what did delay them.” She pulled on her jacket.

  At Wu’s throne she held out her wrist for him to run his scanner across her scib, then aim the retinal reader end at her eye. A new addition to purchase security since an e-genius managed to counterfeit a handful of scibs last summer.

  With ID confirmed and her account debited for the cost of the meal, Wu smiled and handed her a fortune cookie. “Thank you for assisting in the kitchen. Please come again.”

  While Mama paid, she broke open the fortune cookie. You will touch the sky, the fortune read. She dropped it in her pocket, reflecting that sounded more apt for Mama.

  “What’s yours?” she asked him before letting the inner door slide open.

  “‘Embrace new horizons.’”

  “So travel is in our future.”

  “Most immediately, north up California.”

  “Well, this is the perfect area for using a hearse,” Janna said when they passed Eleventh.

  On the left lay the Topeka Cemetery, stretching from the Interstate behind them to Tenth Avenue ahead. On the right they had the opportunistically-located Boston Floral . . . its store up front, windows displaying grave-ready arrangements, and greenhouses out behind in long plastic tunnels. Then after a side street — without a cam — designated Tenth Street, came the equally appropriate Olympia Monuments and Counter tops. Followed by the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, the Rainbow Bridge Pet Cemetery, and at Tenth Avenue, a large Pulaski’s market.

  Mama pulled into Olympia’s parking area. “Since they headed straight back to Heartland after coming up here, they had a reason for the detour. Though this might explain moving the van so late. At that hour it’s . . .” He grinned. “. . . dead up here.”

  Janna winced. “True. Not a living soul to see them. The question, as always, remains what reason . . . and now, detour to where?”

  Not the monument company. A look around while questioning the staff found nothing suspicious or suggestive.

  Ditto talking to employees in Boston Floral’s shop and greenhouses.

  Climbing back in the car, Janna said, “Can we be sure they didn’t just cut down Tenth Street and garage the hearse over on Republican to put it closer to drive to the scene of whatever?”

  Mama sucked in a breath.

  She stared at him. “What?”

  Behind his visor, his eyes gleamed. “I wonder if they could drive it. Didn’t Quist and Roos say the Nafsingers activated the Sat-care?”

  “Belatedly. After the GPS was deactivated.”

  “It’s harder to block the signal disabling the drive.” His eyes brightened still more. “I think whoever planned the jacking expected it . . . and that’s the reason for the van, to move the hearse where they needed it.”

  She frowned. “That’s brainbent. What use is a vehicle they can’t— what is it?”

  He had stiffened, staring across the street at the cemetery. Now he pointed. “Do you see the building way over there?”

  Mostly its roof at this distance. “It’s the shelter chapel.”

  “There’s something off to the left of it.”

  She squinted at the pale shape. “A pile of snow?”

  “Let’s see.”

  He switched on the Monitor and revved the fans into life. Lifting off the parking rollers with a jerk, he shot out onto California, just clearing a northbound Kansu semi, and gunned up California ahead of it.

  “Mama! What the hell!”

  “I’m a zipwit, Bibi!”

  No argument there!

  He spun the wheel, slewing into the cemetery’s entry drive, then right onto a lane paralleling California. “We’ve been thinking hearse, hearse, hearse. Asking why anyone wants one. All the more inexplicable if the vehicle can’t be driven.”

  She braced herself as he whipped left onto another lane, crossing the cemetery. “Yes.”

  “And we’ve been wrong. The hearse isn’t—” He broke off to halt the car thirty feet from the shelter. “Not a pile of snow, Bibi.”

  No. Not snow sitting across the walk to the shelter’s side. Just almost snow colored and dusted with it. They had found the hearse.

  Chapter Three

  Saturday

  More accurately, they found what remained of the hearse. It had been severely vandalized. After Mama set down the Monitor, Janna climbed out and started her bovi recoding the damage. Windows smashed, starting with the windshield, the side doors wrenched almost off their tracks, access covers ripped from the top of the airfoil skirt, curtains torn down, sexual suggestions sprayed in red below the windows.

  To keep her distance, she waded around the hearse through the snow on the far side of the lane, at the same time calling Com for an SI team and the ME. Wretched working conditions for them, but at least the wind had died down.

  “This wasn’t done in fifteen minutes.”

  “No,” Mama said. “They did it in the van. Some of it had to be noisy. Waiting until they were less likely to be heard must be the real reason they left so late.”

  Janna scowled. “I understand dumping the hearse here, thinking we’d believe the jackers are responsible. I don’t understand why they vandalized it, or why they had it taken in the first place. How have they used it?”

  “I started to tell you. I don’t think the hearse was the reason for the jacking.”

  She stared at him. “No?”

  “A look inside will tell us if I’m right.” He circled toward the rear of the hearse.

  She started to follow, when movement on her left brought her spinning, clawing open her jacket for her Starke . . . only to find the holo of a nude young fem rising from the snow, dancing dreamily in the iridescent coils of a huge snake. Janna relaxed and took a step back. Her proximity to the stone under the snow had triggered the projector set in it.

  “That’s unique,” Mama said.

  Yes. Most grave holos displayed the deceased’s face, usually smiling beatifically at mourners and visitors. She had also seen babies as cherubs — sad and creepy at the same time — and waving flags. A friend of her father’s had a fireworks display that lasted almost five minutes. The fem and her snake, too, must have a long timer. They continued dancing while Janna moved on.

  The hearse’s rear door hung open, dangling by its lower hinge.

  Well behind it, she and Mama aimed flashlights at the interior, beams narrowed to their most intense. The headliner dangled in strips over the stretcher ripped from the floor clamps and overturned. On top of it lay a duffle — presumably containing the dead jon’s effects — slashed open, spilling clothing, some photos, and a slate spindle snapped in half. And on the floor beside the stretcher lay the cocoon of Chenoweth’s cold-wrapped corpse, where a pale gleam of flesh visible through rents in the fabric told her not even it had been spared.

  “There.” Mama focused his beam on the corpse like a pointer. “That’s the reason for the jacking and vandalism.”

  “The corpse?”

  “The Lanour station’s function is research. Some of what they’re working on could be worth a fortune. I’m betting their security requires everyone leaving the station to be thoroughly searched first.”

  Janna sucked in a breath. Son of a bitch. “So you think someone used Chenoweth’s corpse to smuggle out something and are trying to disguise retrieval with the vandalism?”

  “Exactly. The item collected, no doubt, as soon as they had the hearse in the van and the jackers out of the way. That’s why they could risk leaving the van there all that time. If the hearse happened to be found, they lost nothing. Since it wasn’t, they carried out the vandalism when they had less chance of being overheard, and dropped it here in the hope we’d think the jackers brought it straight here that morning.”

  Janna’s cell beeped.

  “Where are you?” Roos asked. “We stormed Heartland and found the van. Though not much else.” She grimaced. “We’re trying
to contact Polo, but depending on whether he’s in South Africa or Australia, it’s either late at night or very early in the morning. SI’s going over the shed now, but the van was clean . . . no prints, no DNA, no trace to tell us who used it or where the hearse is.”

  “The Topeka Cemetery.” Janna turned the cell to let Roos see the hearse and heard her swear. “SI’s on its way.”

  “I’ll be interested to see what the ME thinks of the body,” Mama said after she disconnected. “Was Chenoweth convenient transport, or . . . arranged for.”

  She winced. A grim thought, that if he were right, whatever had been smuggled out was worth murder.

  Half an hour later Quist and Roos arrived. Roos stared at the hearse in disgust. “Fuck.”

  Quist said, “You still think the gangers were hired? Cause this looks like them in berserker mode.”

  “Positive,” Mama said. “Explanation later.”

  Because they had civilian company. Shortly after SI arrived, so had the cemetery manager, Albert Tash . . . Abraham Lincoln-ish in a plaid jacket and hat, unfolding endlessly from his tiny Solari runabout when he drove up from his office/home on the cemetery’s west side.

  The five of them watched SI process the van, Azalea Su and Conan Post looking like snowmen in their footed and hooded shrouds. Muttering curses because gloves could not be both warm and sensitive enough to operate the controls of their equipment. Especially the keypad mixing and matching the menu of the multiscanner’s alternative light sources.

  Su sent envious scowls at the flatbed driver waiting in his heated vehicle to haul the hearse to the police garage once the in situ exam finished, and at Assistant ME Jill Adeyanju and her stretcher attendants, cozy in their van until the corpse could be collected.

  Though when Quist accidentally activated the snake dancer holo, the flatbed driver and stretcher attendants all took turns braving the cold to set it off, too.

  Tash regarded them with a smile. “Ms. Lancer would be pleased. She rarely has the chance to show off. Her family doesn’t visit. Her pre-planning required that holo — her at twenty-two, I believe — much to their displeasure, since they considered her scandalous for most of her hundred-seventy years.”

  When the holo faded, he walked over and activated the dancer again himself.

  It seemed to irritate Su, who now scowled at Janna. “You realize that results here may be less than satisfactory. This isn’t the optimal temperature for our electronics.”

  Her third or fourth mention of that. Janna wiggled numbing toes. “Hard card. We could be firefighters. Wouldn’t that be fun, turning into ice sculptures from freezing spray.”

  Lips tight, Su packed up the holocam . . . which looked like a three liter canister with a bug-eye lens on top that swiveled 360 degrees around and up and down to capture a scene in detail. They had recorded the van from each side and inside. Data to be played back in a holo tank at Headquarters, letting them walk through the scene in warm comfort as often as they liked.

  Maneuvering between the corpse and overturned stretcher, Post crawled backward out of the hearse with the multiscanner. “We have hair, probable skin cells, and a number of prints in there, but it’s easier to collect those at the garage. So we’re done here.”

  Janna waved at AME Adeyanju. “You’re up!”

  Su smirked as the three climbed from of the van — shoulders hunched, blowing out clouds of steam — and waded over with their stretcher.

  The cold-wrap provided handholds that simplified sliding the corpse onto the stretcher, where the detectives had their first good look at it. Janna sighed. Whatever sharp blade sliced the wrap in repeated cross-cuts had not stopped there. It slashed through the corpse and a body suit patterned with red and yellow comets. Effectively disguising whatever cut counted.

  “Christ,” Adeyanju said. “That’s vicious. Other than that, there’s nothing to tell you right now. He’s dead. He arrived on Earth dead, with that death certificate SI found in the hearse giving his COD as asphyxia on Earth-date Tuesday due to decompression. I will confirm COD and document the damage to him once he’s on my table.”

  Quist grunted. “If Fontana was upset at his employee being lost, he’s going to love learning the family has to bury cube steak.”

  “Let’s make sure it’s Chenoweth before we tell him,” Mama said.

  The CAPP detectives frowned. “You think there’s any doubt?”

  “Best to be sure.”

  “I’ll do it,” Janna said.

  She fetched the combo scib scanner/print reader from her field kit. Chenoweth’s right hand, lying over the left on his chest, had been nearly amputated by one slash. She turned it gingerly to press the thumb to her reader. That and scanning the scib in his left wrist confirmed him as Paul Chenoweth.

  She considered using print film but only, she knew, because she secretly still enjoyed rolling a finger on the film and seeing the print appear like magic . . . bright white on the black surface . . . ready for scanning, identification, elimination. It served no purpose here, where Chenoweth could not have contributed to prints in the hearse.

  With the corpse off to the ME facility — and Adeyanju’s promise to call Mama before she started her damage assessment — SI packed up the last of their cases and had the hearse loaded on the flatbed. Tash activated the dancer one last time before folding back into the Solari.

  Watching the vehicle sail off, Roos said, “Back downtown?”

  “How about coffee somewhere warm and close?” Mama said.

  Janna knew just the place.

  They stamped off snow at the Celestial Bistro’s door and trooped in past Wu’s welcoming smile to shed jackets and hats at a table in a corner away from the solitary male customer. Bovis went up on their heads, except for Mama, who continued wearing his like reading glasses. Roos ordered peanut butter caramel pie in addition to coffee.

  Quist went for a burger and double order of onion threads. “We ate lunch at our desks.”

  Pre-packaged sandwiches or soup cups from the Aztec Coffee Bar downstairs. Palatable enough . . . but not compared to Wu’s burger and onions.

  They gulped coffee and thawed out until the food arrived, then Roos pointed her fork at Janna and Mama. “Talk.”

  Mama talked.

  Quist and Roos listened with skepticism until the fifteen minute lapse between the van’s two trips through the Eleventh Street intersection convinced them.

  “Fuck,” Roos said, and called Lieutenant Applegate. She turned away, mumbling into the cell. Turning back around at the end of the conversation, she grinned. “Quist, eat up and let’s dust.” She scooped in the last of her pie. “We’re off the case. Applegate says the desecrated corpse makes it CAPR’s. That means you two get to notify the Nafsingers that their property has been located.”

  Janna said, “May your children divorce you and your spouse cancel your marriage contract renewal in favor of a dog and flock of sheep.”

  Roos grinned. “You’re too kind.” She tapped on her cell. “Nafsinger number coming to you.”

  Mama brought out his slate and opened it. “Send me Markakis’s contact numbers.”

  She nodded. “But you probably don’t have worry about the case for long, either. Smuggling’s bound to send it to the Feds.”

  It would. The thought shot anger through Janna. Last summer the Feds took a double murderer away from her. Yes, through fraud he also killed hundreds on at least one colony ship — for which the Feds quickly tried, convicted, and sentenced him to death — but the murders on Earth had been personal and hands-on, one of them his own business partner. The Feds’ case taking precedence over those deaths prevented him from answering for them.

  She found her hands clenched around her coffee mug. Prying them loose, she turned on her cell and called the Nafsinger number Roos sent her.

  A young fem answered the phone, another face from the TV commercial . . . suitably solemn and solicitous. An expression that went incandescent as she squeaked, “Dad!” when
Janna identified herself.

  Moments later Samuel Nafsinger replaced her. “Have you found our hearse?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nafsinger hesitated, obviously afraid to ask the next question.

  Janna answered it. “And Mr. Chenoweth.”

  Smiling, he let out his breath. “Where can we come after them?”

  She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but not just yet.”

  “Surely we can pick up Mr. Chenoweth’s body?”

  “They’re both evidence in a felony and need to be examined for associative evidence, and damage documented.”

  He frowned. “Damage? They wrecked it?”

  Mama looked up from his slate and mouthed: Tell him.

  “No. They vandalized it, outside and . . . inside.”

  He stared at her, expression turning to horror, voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “You mean the body, too? God! How badly— No . . . don’t tell me.”

  Suddenly a crowd of wife and daughters surrounded Nafsinger, all talking at once and staring in consternation at the screen. Beta’s voice rose above the others. “This is outrageous! How much more does the Chenoweth family have to suffer?”

  Someone murmured, “It’s good the family’s planning cremation.”

  Nafsinger stiffened, his expression promising “a chat” with the speaker later, but his voice remained level. “Do you have any estimation when we can have Mr. Chenoweth?”

  “When I know, I’ll call you. We’ll make it as soon as possible, I promise.” She disconnected in relief.

  Mama sent his slate scrolling back into the spindle.

  “No luck contacting Markakis?” she asked.

  “Probably not until Tuesday. He’s been driving for Nyati Racing this winter and is currently running third overall in the Kalahari Safari Rally in a Nyati Tochi.”

  “As in Kalahari Desert?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “Guess who’s the main sponsor for Team Nyati.”

  “Just tell me.” She hated guessing games.

  He spread his hands in a ta-da gesture. “Uwezo.”