Final Inquiries (34 page)

"The ambassador wouldn't even take Singh's call until several hours after the lockdown had started. Singh thinks that the ambassador was sleeping during that time, with his phone off--and kind of hinted that maybe the ambassador was just a teeny bit drunk--or maybe blind stinking drunk--when Singh finally got through.

"But, as Singh pointed out, probably it doesn't matter. We have full video coverage for the time before the death was discovered. That's the good news. The bad news is I just did a fast scan of the video records of the joint ops center, starting four hours before the murder, going until the recording media ran out. I saw nothing at all besides everyone quitting and going home for the day, then Milkowski returning as per his testimony, and everyone milling around as reported in all the statements we have."

"Does that mean the ambassador knew he was going to have something to hide after the recording media ran out?" Hannah asked. "Or that he's a pompous ass who pays no attention to technical problems because subordinates are supposed to do that? Or just that all hell was breaking loose and he made some mistakes, and maybe didn't behave perfectly?"

"Zero data on that point," said Jamie. "New topic." He picked up a paper notepad that he had been using. "Aside from going through the statements, I've been compiling lists of this and that--such as people like Agent Farrell and Zhen Chi who have hands small enough to make that handprint."

"But the handprint couldn't have been made until hours after the murder, by which time they were both confined to quarters," Hannah protested.

"And it couldn't have been made then, either, because the joint ops center was under seal and
everyone
was locked down. No one could get in there and either someone's very slick at manipulating temper-detecting strips, or nobody left his or her compartment. And then you need someone who's about on the Houdini level of getting past locks and seals who makes a beeline for a crime scene, does something as blindingly stupid as planting a handprint on a corpse, and then gets him-or herself locked up again without being caught. You'd have to be a genius and an idiot at the same time to do all that. What all that tells me is that something's wrong. Remdex got the times wrong, or something else made that print, or something. There's a piece missing, or a piece that doesn't fit the way we think it does."

"Okay, I can buy that," said Hannah. "But you're leading up to something else."

"Yeah. Planting that handprint makes no sense--but neither does the murder. Not if a human does it." He turned around the notepad to show the page to Hannah. "This is what all my lists and notes came down to," he said. There were crossed-out lists and scribbled-out queries--and one word written in big bold letters, all capitalized, and underlined with a box around it.

MOTIVE

"Why would anyone working at this embassy kill a Kendari
this
way? It was either Milkowski being incredibly stupid and clumsy, or someone doing an incredibly stupid and clumsy job of trying to frame Milkowski, or someone doing an utterly brilliant job of making the crime scene look like a stupid and clumsy attempt at a frame-up."

"Yeah, so?"

"So it's like our idiot genius who gets past all that tamper-indicator tape and the locks on the joint ops center to poke the corpse. If the motive was simply to kill Emelza, there had to be plenty of other ways to do that. Put a bullet in her head. Strangle her. Bundle her into an aircar and drop her into a large body of water filled with hungry predators. Smother her with a pillow--or whatever Kendari use instead of pillows. This wasn't murder for the sake of killing the victim. This murder was done the way it was to stir up trouble. It
had
to have been chosen expressly for that purpose. Anyone who killed a Kendari
this way
would have to know it would threaten, maybe even wreck, the human bargaining position. They had to know it might easily cost the human race its shot at the Pentam System. This wasn't just murder. This was close to treason."

"If a human being did it."

"Bingo. Exactly. Right," said Jamie eagerly. "If a Kendari did it--either someone on that side killing for himself, or someone acting on orders--then none of my objections matter anymore."

"Okay. But there's a flaw. You're forgetting that this embassy is not the only source of human beings on the planet. There are all those crazies on file up the street. And some of those groups could easily have an objection to our nabbing Pentam. And, while we're at it, there are plenty of Kendari who don't work for the embassy, right on up the same road on the other side. Let's not forget our buddy Tancredo Zamprohna. Maybe he figured it would be a good idea to throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings--and he wouldn't exactly have our qualms about offing a Kendari. He hops the wall, diddles the lock codes to the joint ops center, and kills Emelza, then escapes in the confusion. Maybe he came and went from the Kendari side, while they were all at dinner, and that's why no one saw him. Or if not him, any of his friends or enemies. Or any of the Kendari crazies."

"I thought we were trying to limit the number of suspects. You've just wheeled in a few hundred more!"

"Sorry about that," said Hannah. "Sometimes reality intrudes. But if it's any help, I agree with your basic premise. We all like to pretend otherwise as hard as we can, but every police investigator knows that, given the exactly right--or maybe exactly wrong--circumstances, anyone is capable of some murder. Push someone hard enough, far enough, and they can snap. Fact of life."

Hannah stood up and went to the window, and looked out at the joint ops center. "But look at the way
this
murder was done," she said. "Then look at the alibi witness information. Look at the physical evidence of the surveillance video that shows no one coming or going through the human-side entrance of the joint ops center at the critical times. And, for whatever it's worth, remember that everyone at this embassy was supposedly vetted and checked and indoctrinated and so on to want to win the Pentam decision. It seems wildly implausible that anyone working at this embassy would have committed this crime this way--and there is strong physical and alibi evidence to suggest that none of them
could
have."

"Let me hang one more angle on it," said Jamie. "From what I know, right now, this feels a lot like a political crime--an effort to sabotage the human claim to Pentam--disguised as a personal crime."

"In other words, trying to frame Milkowski. I don't quite see how that's different from what we were saying."

"On the surface, anyway, what was this crime supposed to look like? What were we supposed to think happened?"

"That Emelza picked up Frank Milkowski's big old cup of hot black coffee from off his desk, stood in the center of the joint ops center, drank it, and died on the spot."

"That's not a murder," Jamie said, "that's a suicide."

"Plus she didn't swallow, plus Milkowski didn't keep his cup in the ops center, plus that's such a horribly painful way to die that I don't see why a Kendari would choose it." Hannah nodded to the big sealed box on her desk. "Plus the physical evidence I'm hoping to develop from that collection. There's
lots
of holes in that first-glance theory."

"Okay, so were we supposed to think that's what happened--or were we
supposed
to see all of the holes?" Jamie asked. "Or just see
some
of them? Or
any
of them? Because neither our people or their people believed the suicide theory for a second. To the point that no one has even considered the implications of someone trying to stage this as a suicide. The killer had to assume there would be some reaction. The murder was done specifically to
cause
a reaction. Are we doing what the killer expected--or have things gone off script? What does the killer think we're supposed to do next? What will the
killer
do next?"

Jamie turned and stared out the window at the embassy personnel outside. Their day had turned into a weird sort of post-incarceration half holiday. Had one of the people he was watching done this thing, because they hated Kendari, or hated humans, or had some morbid reason for opposing human expansion?

"If we agree it was no suicide," said Hannah, "then I think we can't really buy that the killer was seriously trying to
make
it look like suicide. I think we're
supposed
to read the crime scene as an attempt to disguise a murder as suicide. We're supposed to think Milkowski killed Emelza 401 by somehow forcing her to drink from his coffee mug, and
Milkowski
was trying to make it look like suicide."

Jamie laughed, but there wasn't anything all that funny about the situation. "You've got us up to about three layers of deception right there. Mystery Killer X frames Milkowski so it looks like Milkowski was setting up Emelza to look like a suicide. You're not going to hang anything else on that, are you?"

"I hope not," said Hannah. "I agree that it's damned complicated, but unless we're both missing something, it's the
least
complicated theory that actually fits the known facts."

"In that case," said Jamie, "I hope we're both missing something." He turned to the desk and picked up the box. "Come on," he said. "Let's go find Zhen Chi and Remdex, and get started on ruining their day."

EIGHTEEN

DIRTY MUGS

Fifteen minutes later, Zhen Chi, Brox, and Remdex 290 were gathered in the same side conference room of the joint ops center. Jamie had instructed all three to bring safe-handling gloves, masks, and gowns, but not to put them on.

"Thank you for coming," said Hannah. "Let me start by apologizing to Remdex and Zhen Chi, because this is going to seem like my inventing work for them--but I honestly believe this will get us to the truth faster, and with less effort, than any other procedure I can think of."

"I be worked already very hard," said Remdex in his clumsy Lesser Trade Speech.

"I appreciate that," said Hannah. "But if my idea is right, we can move very quickly to put a great number of current potential suspects all but completely in the clear."

"Those be
human
potential suspects?" Remdex asked sourly. "Limit the field to Kendari only?"

"I'll answer that with 'yes and no,' and leave it at that," said Hannah. She reached out and patted the box. "In here, very carefully sealed and labeled, are coffee mugs, coffee cups, tea cups, and cola beverage containers--at least one from every member of the human embassy staff. A couple of people had more than one cup, and I took all of them. They're used and dirty. I am certain they all have caffeine residue on them. Some people drank decaffeinated coffee or herbal tea or whatever, but even those can have significant trace amounts of caffeine, so please be careful."

Hannah pulled a Kendari data wafer and a human datapad out of her pocket. "Here are the recordings of all the interrogations we performed. Although they provided some useful information to us, the interrogations themselves were in large part deceptions on our part to allow us to sit down and get people talking over a nice cup of tea or coffee. You are welcome to view the recordings in detail. There were one or two instances where the subjects unintentionally discussed human-ears-only information. We have blurred the speakers' mouths and scrambled their voices in those passages, but we have left the sequences in, because the primary goal was to provide a visual record of each person selecting and preparing his or her own beverage. The recordings also show Special Agent Mendez and me packing and sealing the mugs, and putting tamper-proofing on the seals. The records thus provide a chain of evidence to show that the subjects were unaware of our intent to collect the cups and mugs, that they prepared or selected their own drinks, and that the cups or mugs have not been tampered with in any way."

"And what we to do?" Remdex demanded. "Humans have those finger marks, or prints that you make fuss over for identifying. Have you caffeine marks as well? Do you expect me to compare residue each cup against crime scene mug find a match and culprit?"

Hannah grinned. "If you can find the culprit that way, I will be delighted, and astonished. No. What I ask is that you take a sample of two or three of the cups--or five, or six, or all of them if you see fit, and do two things. First, scan the exterior surface for fingerprints, residue of the beverage, and so on. Then take a swab sample of the interior, and analyze the compounds you find. Do whatever other tests, whatever comparisons you like. I won't try to guide you in that. If, if, you have the facilities, and if your first results intrigue you enough, you might try to get readings of the carbon-isotope ratios."

"And what this all nonsense tell us?" Remdex demanded.

"The best way to find out is to do the tests," Hannah said. "Special Agent Mendez and I were brought into this case without even being told what planet we were going to. We were not told who the victim was, or how or where she died--or if in fact there was a murder--
until we were at the crime scene.
We were kept in ignorance to prevent our preconceptions from misleading us, because the case was so delicate, so important, and the evidence so potentially misleading."

That might not be one hundred percent accurate, but close enough for a rhetorical argument. She decided to hit him from another angle and play on his ego. "I ask you to work by that same principle, on a much smaller scale. And there is also the question of politics, and your reputation. It would be best if you found the truth without being told what to find. If
I
tell you what to look for, and you find it, you might easily spend the rest of your life being pointed at as the medical technist who did the human spy's dirty work for her. Do you want that?"

Remdex made an odd little strangling noise and gestured vaguely. Perhaps a Kendari could have read his emotions, but Hannah certainly couldn't. "I'll take that as a no," she said sweetly. "I look forward to your cooperation. Dr. Zhen Chi. You will assist and cooperate, yes?"