The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (16 page)

Talia would understand.

She would have to.

EIGHTEEN

THE BULL PEN was full of detectives. Nyquist hated the nickname of this part of the First Detective Division, but it was accurate. It was a large meeting area in Armstrong Police Headquarters reserved for times like this, when all detectives needed to be briefed on something.

The ceiling was high, the walls curved, and floor was littered with built-in platforms that could rise at the touch of a button. The platforms were there for a variety of reasons. The Chief of Detectives before Gumiela liked to play with the buttons, so if anyone raised a hand to talk, that person would rise above the group, whether he liked it or not.

Gumiela liked to be the most important person in the room, so she never used that feature. Instead, she used the platforms the way they were intended, to confuse someone who wanted to spy on the proceedings. There would be no way to know—until she arrived—where she’d stand or how she would conduct business.

Like he always did at these things, Nyquist leaned against a back wall, near an exit. He used to arrive early and watch the techs sweep the room for foreign equipment. He stopped doing that when he started seeing holes in their procedures.

The inefficiencies bugged him enough that he would either have to say something, which would then get him involved in the search for outside taps, or he would have to stop watching what happened before everyone else arrived.

He opted to stop watching.

He couldn’t fix what he didn’t know.

He crossed his arms and tilted his head back, feeling the exhaustion from the night before filling him. He loved his time with DeRicci, even when she was stressed beyond belief, but the lack of sleep, combined with the tension of his job, made him feel worse than usual this morning.

“C’mon,” a female voice said beside him. “Don’t tell me you of all people aren’t sleeping these days. I figured you had balls of steel and could sleep through anything if need be.”

Nyquist opened his eyes and looked down. Savita Romey stood beside him, smiling. Her dark eyes met his, and he felt that familiar catch in his heart.

Right after he had spent the night with DeRicci, he would have to see Romey. Spending time with DeRicci didn’t stop the attraction from flowing between Nyquist and Romey, deep and fine.

She wore pants so faded he couldn’t tell if they had originally been blue or gray. Her shirt was loose, and it took him a moment to realize it had one of the local high school’s logos on it. She had sons, and one of them had to be in high school now. The fact she was wearing his shirt meant that the state of her laundry was the same as his.

They had all been worked ragged. She just didn’t look it, unless he looked closely.

“Rumor is that they’re going to pair us up for interrogations. Want to be my partner, handsome?” she asked.

He wished she hadn’t added the “handsome.” He would have said yes automatically if she hadn’t. They had partnered up twice before, the first time on the Whitford case just before Nyquist nearly died in a Bixian assassins’ attack, and the second was on Anniversary Day, when they were both supposed to investigate Arek Soseki’s murder, before everyone realized that the death wasn’t isolated.

“Maybe our partnerships are cursed,” he said.

“Or maybe we’re in an extraordinary period in Armstrong history, and we need to accept that.” She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms, mirroring his position. “I really want someone I can trust, not some of these idiots out there, who think they can do a job, and really can’t.”

In spite of himself, Nyquist smiled. He liked this woman. He liked her humor, he liked her personality, and he liked her thoroughness. She was the best partner he’d ever had.

Before Anniversary Day, in fact, he’d asked her to partner with him twice. After, everything got screwed up, and he barely saw her.

He barely saw anyone.

“We make a good team,” she said, scanning the room. It had filled with detectives—all human, he noted. Half were dressed up, and the other half looked like unmade beds.

He knew, right then, he would only work with an unmade bed. If someone had enough time to dress up for a meeting with the boss—a
group
meeting with the boss—then that person was not busy enough. If someone wasn’t busy enough, they simply weren’t doing the job.

“You think they’ll let us pick who we partner with?” he asked.

“I think they would like anything that makes their lives easier,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”

He would love an easier life, at least in theory. Back to the days when criminals were dumb and easy to find. Back when his biggest problem was some ethical dilemma caused by the conflict between some other culture’s laws and his own. Back when a Disty Vengeance Killing seemed like a problem instead of something normal.

“I don’t think ‘easier’ is on the menu these days.” Nyquist couldn’t see where Gumiela was setting up. She hadn’t come into the room yet.

But it was getting hotter in here and stuffier. Detectives kept entering, pressing against him as they passed.

Romey bumped him, probably because someone bumped her, and then she did not move away. He probably should have moved away, but he didn’t.

“I don’t think pre-choosing partners is something they’ll disagree with,” she said. “Unless you’re talking about a different kind of easier?”

He sighed softly. His thoughts had been pretty much the same all morning. That was one of the reasons he was dreading today’s meeting.

“I don’t care what the brass says,” he said softly, thinking as he did so that he should probably have spoken to her on his links. “We’re not going to be able to successfully interrogate a bunch of Peyti lawyers.”

Romey’s entire body was pressed against his. He looked around her, saw that several other detectives pushed against her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a grin. “It depends on the rules you choose to follow.”

Nyquist frowned at her.

What do you mean?
he asked, going with his gut. The rest of this conversation had to be on their private links.

We can interrogate Peyti lawyers,
she sent, her grin widening.
Or we can interrogate a bunch of clones.

He felt a chill. He didn’t have to ask her what she meant. He knew.

But she started to explain anyway.
There are no rules for ‘interrogating’ property. Hell, as long as the property is logged in, we can break it or discard it. We just need to file documentation on what happened to the property.

His heart was beating hard. He glanced around the room, feeling worried that someone else had heard, and knowing that no one had.

That might be the letter of the law,
he sent,
but that’s not the
spirit
of the law.

Oh, God,
she sent.
Not that old saw about justice versus legality, right? We don’t owe these bastards any kind of justice. Under the law, they have no rights at all.

She was correct. He knew that, and it scared him. Because if she had thought of it, then dozens of others in the room had as well. Maybe that was what this meeting was about. Maybe it wasn’t about picking partners at all.

Or maybe it was.

The chill he felt grew more powerful. Those who objected to the “property” definition would be paired with others who objected, and those who preferred the “property” definition would be paired with like-minded detectives. Those in charge would know, and success would be measured by results.

He leaned his head against the wall.

He also knew which group would get the best results and it wouldn’t be the ones who followed the spirit of the law.

You disapprove
, Romey sent.
You were there on Anniversary Day. One of these clones tried to kill you—someone you’ve known for years. And you still disapprove of following the law.

Nyquist wasn’t certain what part of her comment to respond to. He found that he couldn’t look at her.

He had respected her. He was attracted to her. He
liked
her.

She was suggesting something wholly repugnant to him. He was having trouble wrapping his mind around her words. Not because of
what
she said—he hadn’t thought of what she said, but it didn’t surprise him that
someone
in this room had come up with it—but he was surprised at
who
said it to him.

And he was surprised at himself. How could he have misjudged her so badly?

He had to respond. He couldn’t keep silent. So he sent,
You’re right. Someone I had known for years tried to kill me during the Peyti Crisis. Some
one
. A person.

She elbowed him, probably trying to get him to look at her. He didn’t want to. He felt childish about it, but he wasn’t sure he could face her right now. So he shifted just a bit to his right, moving a little closer to another detective who gave him an odd look.

Nyquist shrugged. He mentally debated moving across the room, when a door opened a few meters from him, and Gumiela’s team entered.

The meeting had officially begun.

NINETEEN

WITHOUT THE ELABORATE environmental programs, Salehi’s office was distressingly normal. Gray walls, black furniture, whitish-grayish carpet. He had forgotten what the place looked like without the magical, make-believe overlay.

He had designed it this way, so that when he concentrated on work, he would have to
concentrate
on work, and be willing to leave the comfort of his own sanctuary to do whatever needed to be done.

Unfortunately for his potential clients, he had been unwilling to leave his sanctuary these last few years. He had taken less and less work. He hadn’t exercised his mind enough. And he’d made stupid pronouncements to the new hires.

His standard speech went something like this:
You’ll hit a point
when you’ll wonder what’s the point of defense. You’ll feel tainted. You’ll think you’ve sold your soul for a bit of wealth and privilege. That’s why you do pro bono work. Or you volunteer for a quarter back at the Impossibles. You’ll see the need for defense then. You’ll remember it’s not just about the guilty. It’s also about what’s right.

And then, when half of the hires moved on (and blamed him for their shattered idealism) and the other half 3/8ths became money-grubbing whores, he would say fatuously that no one ever listened to him.

Hell, he didn’t even listen to himself.

It’s not just about the guilty. It’s also about what’s right
.

Wasn’t that what Shishani had just said to him? So what if the Peyti clones had tried to destroy most of the domes on the Moon? They would be treated like
property
, not like Peyti, and that could mean all kinds of disastrous things—for them.

A lesser man would say too damn bad. Or might even decide that they deserved those things. (They probably did.) An even lesser man would take the case for the money. (Screw you, Schnabbie, you bastard.
You
defend them if all you want is money.)

But Shishani was right: Salehi could make a difference. A major difference in clone law. Clone law was inherently unfair. Salehi could change it all. Yes, he’d have to go to bed with mass murderers, but he would improve life in the Alliance for millions of very good citizens.

Sometimes good things were built on the backs of very bad events.

Besides, dealing with bad people for good reasons was what he had signed on for, back at the Impossibles. With his pedigree, he could have stepped into a prosecutorial role or he could have gotten on a judgeship track instead of going to the Impossibles. He didn’t have school loans, so he didn’t have to work them off in the public defender’s office.

But he had worked in the worst, most notorious part of the Alliance’s judicial system. Not because he was altruistic (okay, he was), but because someone had bet him he couldn’t survive that place. Everyone, from his professors to his parents, believed that his delicate upper class upbringing hadn’t prepared him for life in the Impossibles—and it hadn’t.

But that upbringing had given him a certain invincibility, a certain sense of what was right. He had needed it in the Impossibles. He was often dealing with clients who had broken a law that they hadn’t even realized existed, a law that made no sense to a human being.

The Earth Alliance was built on the idea that local trumped the Alliance—at least when it came to events that happened within a culture. If a human smashed a gold cup on Ostii, the human would be forced to lose an eye for shaming some Ostii God, because the aliens who governed the planet believed that crap, and anyone who went to the planet had to abide by Ostii law.

He always thought of that example because it had been the basis of the first case he lost in the Impossibles. The prosecuting attorney—as green as Salehi was—said after the thirty-second gavel down was over,
Asshole, didn’t you take Alien Cultures first year? You should know this stuff.