Fantasy in Death

11

Still thinking of friendships, she left her office and stepped into the bullpen. There cops manned desks and cubes, worked the ’links and comps, followed up leads, pecked away at the never-ending paperwork. The familiar sounds, beeps, clatters, voices, Reineke’s off-key whistle, crisscrossed in the air.

There were friendships here, she knew, born out of the badge and nurtured in some cases by other shared interests or copacetic personalities. Competition, too, but she deemed that a good thing, a healthy and productive element of any group. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of easygoing, complacent cops.

Friction, an inevitable by-product, rubbed on personalities who worked long hours, and lived with the stress of the job. Only droids operated without friction, and she preferred men and women who sweated and bled and occasionally pissed each other off.

Her division ran smooth not only because she demanded it, but because-she felt-she trusted her people and didn’t hover over every case or every step of an investigation.

They lived with murder. They didn’t need her to remind them what she, the department, the victim expected of them.

Some were partners, and that ran deeper even than friendship, could be a more intense and more intimate relationship than lovers. A partner had your back, shared the risks, the work, spoke the language, knew your thoughts, kept your secrets.

If you were a cop, a partner trusted his life to you, and you did the same with yours. Every day, every minute.

Trust, she thought, was the foundation and the safety net of any partnership.

She started out-a second trip up to EDD in one day might implode her nervous system, but it had to be done. Before she reached the door, the whistling Reineke hailed her.

“Yo, LT.” He hauled himself up and over. “We’re on that pizza murder.”

“Mugging off Greene.” Just because she didn’t hover didn’t mean her detectives’ caseloads were off her radar.

“Yeah. Guy goes to pick up a veggie pie and gets coshed with a pipe wrench. Mugger took his wallet, and the pie.”

“No point wasting a pie.”

“You got that. Wife’s at home, see, waiting for him to bring it. Gets worried after he’s gone, like, an hour. Tries his ’link, but he can’t answer being dead and all. Tries the pizza joint, but they’re closed by that time. Tries to tag him a couple more times, and finally calls it in. Respondings found him three blocks away, tossed down some steps.”

“Okay. Where are you on it?”

“No prints on the pipe, no wits. He took the hit right in the face, then a second for luck that opened his head up. Take the wallet, kick him down the steps for good measure, and walk away. But how come you take a twenty-dollar pie and leave a seventy-five-dollar pipe wrench? And how come dead husband’s out picking up the pie that time of night when they deliver? It smells.”

She couldn’t argue when she smelled it herself. “You’re looking at the wife.”

“Yeah. Neighbors say they never fought. Never.” He shook his head, his eyes cynical, and all cop. “You know that ain’t normal. And coincidentally, there’s a call on the house ’link, about five minutes before she tried to tag the dead husband. Wrong number, the guy says, sorry about that. And it came from a clone ’link so we can’t trace it back.”

“Yeah, that smells pretty ripe. Insurance?”

“He upped it six months ago. It’s not a bundle, but it’s sweet enough. And for a couple months more than that, she’s been going out two nights a week. Pottery class.”

“With the thing.” Eve made a vague outline of a wheel with her hands. “And the gunk.”

“Yeah. You put the gunk on the thing and shape it up into something and put the something in the cooker. I don’t know why the hell, because if you want a vase or some shit, they’ve got ’em right in the store.”

“Feeney’s wife took pottery classes. Maybe she still does. She makes stuff then gives it away. It’s weird.”

“Yeah, but they got classes for every damn thing. We checked it out, and the wife, she’s registered. Never misses a class. But the thing is, it’s an hour class, and a couple of the neighbors who pay attention say how she leaves those nights before the husband gets home and doesn’t get back until ten, sometimes later. Class runs from seven to eight, but she’s out of the house before six. So you ask yourself, what’s she doing with those extra three hours when the class is a five-minute walk away? Instructor lives in the studio, and that’s pretty handy.”

“Sounds like they’re doing more than making vases. Priors?”

“Both of them clean up to now.”

“What’s your play?”

“We’re trying to track the pipe, and we could bring them in, sweat them, but at this point they gotta figure they got away clean, and she’s used to making those vases a couple times a week, and maybe she’d get a little antsy for a lesson. Seems like she’d want to, you know, get her hands in the gunk again. No classes tonight-we checked. Seems like a good time for some personal instruction, if you get me.”

“I’ve deciphered your complex code, Reineke. Go on and sit on her for a night, see if she’s compelled to take a spin on the pottery wheel. Either way, bring them in tomorrow and work them.”

“Will do.”

She started out again, stopped again. “If he’s got no priors, and he killed for her, he’ll be harder to crack. She’s at home, fully alibied while he does the dirty work. He’s going to start off trying to protect her. She’s the cheat. She’ll roll first.”

Marriage, she thought as she made her way up the glide, was a minefield.

Following hunch and hope she bypassed the chaos of the EDD bullpen and tried the lab. She wondered what compelled e-types to work in glass boxes. Were they innately claustrophobic? Closet exhibitionists? Was it a need to see out, or a need to be seen?

Whatever the reason, Feeney and his team manned the comps and stations inside the glass, movements and voices silenced by the clear barrier. It was a little like watching a strange species in their natural habitat.

Feeney, his hair sticking up in mad tufts, popped one of his favored candied almonds in his mouth. Callendar, hips jiggling, fingers snapping, paced in front of a screen that scrolled incomprehensible codes. Someone she didn’t recognize-who could tell them apart?-rode a wheeled stool up and down a counter, his baggies and skin tank red and orange blurs, his ring-studded fingers flying over keys and controls.

And Roarke.

He’d shed his suit jacket and rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbows. The twist of leather restraining his hair at the nape indicated full work mode. He, too, sat on a stool, but unlike his companions remained almost preternaturally still but for the rapid movements of his fingers on controls.

She knew he was focused, utterly, on whatever task he worked on. If it gave him trouble he’d be thinking in Irish, and muttering curses in the same.

He’d filed away whatever business he’d done that day, whatever he would deal with that evening, or the next. Which would be considerable, she thought. He did that not just for the man-the boy as he thought of him-he’d enjoyed, nor for the pleasure he gained from the work, the puzzle of it. He did it for her.

Whether or not they always agreed on the ways and the means of the work, that single fact shone through the gray between them. In her life no one had ever put her so completely, so absolutely first.

And as she knew him, she knew the moment he sensed her. His fingers paused; he turned his head. Those brilliant eyes locked on hers as they had the very first time at a funeral for another of the dead they’d shared.

Her heart opened, and it lifted, weightless and free.

Marriage was a minefield, she thought again, but she’d risk every sweaty, breathless step for moments like this.

He rose, evading the orange and red blur, skirting around the pacing Callendar, and came out to her.

She didn’t protest when he tilted up her chin and brushed his lips against hers.

“You had such a look in your eyes, a ghrá.”

“I was thinking about people. Friends, lovers, partners. You get a check in the all-of-the-above column.”

He took her hand, a light link of fingers. “Conclusions?”

“Sometimes you get lucky with who you let in your life. Sometimes you don’t. I’m feeling lucky today.”

His lips curved slowly as he brushed hers again.

Feeney shoved open the door. “If that’s all the two of you can think about doing, go up to the crib and get it over with. Some of us are working.”

If she’d been the blushing type, she’d have turned scarlet. Instead mortification hunched her shoulders even as Roarke laughed.

“I’d be up for a break.”

“You’d be up for eternity if you could manage it,” she muttered. “No sappy stuff on duty.”

“You started it.”

She couldn’t argue so she said nothing and went inside the glass box. “Progress?” she said in a crisp cop’s voice.

“We’re peeling the layers off the vic’s holo-system,” Feeney said in the same tone. “Looking for any shadows, echoes, and signs of tampering. So far, it’s coming up a hundred percent on all levels. Same with his droid. No sign of tampering, no breaks in time or programming.”

“Holo-room security’s clean as well,” Roarke told her. “We’re picking it apart, bit by byte, but there’s no indication anyone left or entered that room after Bart and before the droid bypassed the lock the next morning.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say the kid’s head just magically chopped itself off.” Feeney puffed out his cheeks. “I sent a team over there this morning. Had them scan and manually search every inch of that room, looking for another access. It’s tight.”

“I’ve got some semi-good,” Callendar told her. “I’ve done analysis on the logs from the office holo-room and the vic’s. Serious player. He could easily put in ten-twelve hours on a series of games in a day, and pulled a few all-nighters. A lot of solo play in there, too, but he logs in with a variety of partners, home and office.”

She took a swig from a tube of Orange Sweet. It made Eve’s teeth ache.

“He logged in a lot of time on the new game over the last several months, again solo and office. And this isn’t the first time he took a demo disc home to give it a whirl.”

“Is that so? Always logged it before?”

“Always. Like a half-dozen home whirls before the last one. Crossing it with his home unit it was always solo play. The thing is, it’s different stages and versions of the game.”

“Improvements,” Eve concluded. “He’d take it home to test it out with the tweaks, or maybe add some from there.”

“That’s how it reads. Early days, they called it Project Super X.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, seriously. Project Super X, or PSX. Playtimes after five or six on weekdays, and some long multi-player sessions on weekends. Anyone who worked on any section of it had to log in and know the passcode, then had a user code. The four user codes that had full access track back to the four partners, but if any of those who worked sections confabbed with any of the others who worked sections, they’d have most of it.”

“Then it could be duplicated.”

“Close.” Callendar took another swig from the bright orange tube. “It would take a lot of time, trouble, skill, and cooperation, but you could get close.”

“What about the scenario he was playing at TOD?”

“That’s trickier. Passing to you,” she said to Roarke.

“One of the security measures, what I’d call an on-the-fly sort of precaution, was to change user names and codes every few runs.”

“So if anyone tried to hack from outside, or inside, they’d hit a new wall.”

“Theoretically,” Roarke agreed. “Still, even with the firewalls and fail-safes, you’d only have to get lucky once, access from that point. I’ve found some hack attempts, some attempts at infections from outside sources, typical stuff, and none of it successful. And there are several hack attempts from inside, but they coincide with basic security checks. To run the game in its holo form, the player would have to input his current name, code, and ID with thumb- and voiceprint. All of those are possible to bypass, of course.”

Eve aimed a cool look. “Of course.”

“But they had their additional security, which would have sent out alarms at an attempted hack. Assuming the hacker hadn’t already bypassed those. The discs themselves, at least the one in Bart’s home unit and the copy we have here, are imprinted to jam if any of these steps are missed or the ID process fails. An attempt to remove the disc, as we learned, results in self-destruct.”

“I know all of this.”

“Laying the groundwork, Lieutenant. They were careful, clever, vigilant. But certainly not absolutely hackproof as nothing is. In any case, those precautions make it tricky to ascertain absolutely who played what and when. So we have to extrapolate.”

“Meaning guess.”

“A reasoned and educated guess based on probability. Bart used a variety of user names and codes between his home and office, but as with most people, he has a pattern, and he repeats. To simplify, I’ve had the computer cull him out and label him User 1 in both locations.”

He ordered the data on-screen. “Here you see the dates and times he logged in on their PSX, by location, and whether it was solo or multi-player. We’ve crossed that with the other players, going alpha last name, you have Cill Allen as User 2, Var Hoyt as User 3, and Benny Leman as User 4. We have a separate data run on every employee who worked on the game, when, how long, in what capacity. You’ll want to run an analysis on those, I expect.”

“Who’s particular pals with who, sleeping with who, how long they’ve worked there. I know the drill.”

Roarke smiled at her. “It’s taken us this long to get here simply because the log-ins for this game alone are legion, and between the four of them they used several dozen user names and codes. Next problem.”

“Would be?”

“The infinite variety of scenarios. They all have plenty of play on the defaults, but the bulk of the log-ins are off that menu. Some are saved either to play again with exactly the same elements, or discarded, or saved and replayed with alternate elements. Or two scenarios might be merged.”

“Doesn’t it keep a record? What’s the fun of playing if you can’t keep score?”

“It does, and the holo-unit would hard drive it. The problem is the data on Bart’s holo doesn’t match any of the scenario names or codes from prior uses.”

“A new scenario?”

“Possibly. It’s listed as K2BK-BM.”

“Bart Minnock,” Eve concluded. “His particular game? Or did they routinely label them with initials?”

“No, they didn’t. There’s no coordinating listing on the copy U-Play messengered over today. The scenario isn’t on disc under that name or code. There’s nothing on his holo-unit that shows him creating it on the day he was killed, or any other day. He put the other copy in, the one we’re trying to reconstruct, and called for that game, with a request to begin at level four.”

“You don’t start on level four if you’ve never played it before. You want to start at the beginning.”

“Yes, you would. Or certainly the probability is high.”

“So he played it before, but on the copy he used it had been given a name or code not previously used.” She walked and thought. “He had a date, so he had limited time. He didn’t want to waste it on the early stages. He pushed it forward. A section he wanted to work on, or one he particularly enjoyed, or one he had trouble beating before. But he’d played it before. There’s no question it was solo play?”

“None,” Callendar told her.

“The killer might have started the game, logged it that way to cover.”

“Then he should’ve been logged as observer or audience. The room only registered one player, one occupant. If someone else was in there, he found a way around it.”

“Murder takes at least two players,” Eve murmured. “He plays. He gets bruised up some, wrenches his shoulder. How?” She thought of Benny, smooth and graceful with his katas. “He knows how to fight, how to defend. He takes gaming seriously, so he’s studied, practiced, but there’s no sign he put up a fight. No trace, no blood, no fiber, no nothing from the killer in that room. And every reconstruct tells me he just stood there while the sword came down on him.

“Someone else’s scenario,” she considered. “The killer creates the disc, adding defaults or elements or openings, and recodes it. Something that could override the system long enough to pull this off. That’s what these guys do, right? Find new ways. New ways to play the game. What did he play the most?”

“There are four scenarios he favored,” Roarke told her. “He’d mix up and alter elements here and there, but usually stuck with the same basic story line and character grid. He named them Quest-1, Usurper, Crusader, and Showdown.”

“Are they on the copy?”

“They are.”

“Stats?”

“We’re pulling and collating them now.”

“Good. And when you run the games, prioritize anything with swords. It’s pizza and a pipe wrench.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Feeney demanded. “You’re losing it, kid.”

“No point in wasting a good pie. No point bringing a sword to a blaster battle. You want to make use of what you’ve got, and take what’s useful with you. He took the sword, but he left the disc. The disc would be useless to us after self-destruct, and incriminating to him if found in his possession.”

She stuck her hand in her pocket. “A woman says to the husband she wants dead, Hey, honey, I’ve just got to have a pizza. Be a sweetheart and run down and get us a large veggie. Now he’ll probably say, We’ll just have it delivered, but she’s ready for that. Oh, they take too long and I’m just starving for a pizza. Please, baby? I’ll open some wine, and maybe I’ll change into something you’ll like. We’ll have a little pizza party.”

“What the hell does that have to do with this?”

She glanced at Feeney. Cynical and rough-edged he might be, but he was a blusher. “Working it out. The guy goes for pizza-going to get lucky, so hey, it’s worth the walk. The wife who wants him dead has her lover waiting with the pipe wrench. Smack, bang. No need for a divorce and all that bother, no point losing the nice chunk of life insurance-and hey, there’s a nice fresh pizza, too. It’s mean, just a little mean, but efficient and practical, too, to take the pie, leave the wrench.”

“‘Leave the gun, take the cannoli,’” Roarke said, and Feeney grinned.

“Okay, that I get.”

“It’s mean,” Roarke echoed Eve, “just a little mean, but efficient and practical, too, to murder Bart during a game he enjoys, and to do so by means that play into one of his fantasies. Mean, efficient, and practical to do it in his own home-and it’s another game added to that. How will the cops figure it out? He’ll have played that scenario, your killer, tried the elements out until he was confident of the win.”

“I just bet he has,” Eve agreed.

“But a good game always tosses in an unknown, a bigger challenge. That would be you.”

“Crib’s still up there,” Feeney muttered and earned a sour look from Eve.

“Copy the copy. I’m going to want to work at home. They’re not going to give us a search warrant for private residences with what we’ve got. Everybody’s alibied, no clear motive, no physical evidence. Barely any circumstantial at this point. We need more.”

“Whose residence?” Callendar asked her.

“Partnership’s like marriage. It’s a freaking minefield. And one of Bart’s partners decided on that pizza and pipe wrench.”

Back in her office, she deemed it time to dig deeper, a lot deeper on the three remaining partners of U-Play.

She needed something, just a little something she could turn, twist, or tweak to convince the PA to go after a search warrant.

The killer’s home comps would certainly have been doctored by now. She wasn’t dealing with an idiot. But EDD had its ways, as did her expert consultant, civilian.

While her own computer dug, she rearranged her murder board. Studied it, rearranged it again.

She thought she understood, at least partially, the why. It was small and it was shallow, but murder had been done for much, much less. Without Reineke’s nose, a man’s death might very well have been put down to the contents of his wallet and a veggie pizza.

There’d be bigger under the small, and deeper under the shallow, but it was enough for now. Enough to help her create her own scenario.

“I’m back! Did you miss me?” Peabody bounced in, then flopped in the visitor’s chair. “Jeez, do you know what the shuttle’s like this time of day? It’s a zoo-animal ferocity and smells. Plus, the air unit fizzled twenty minutes out of the station. Add jungle heat to that. I want a two-hour shower.”

“You had sex.”

“What? What? Why do you say that? You can’t have sex on the shuttle! You’d die of heat prostration, then be arrested.”

“You had sex before you got on the shuttle. There better not be an expense chip for some cheap by-the-hour flop on my desk tomorrow.”

“We didn’t use some cheap by-the-hour flop. We…” Peabody cleared her throat as Eve simply kept up the long, steady stare. “Played games. As ordered.”

“I don’t want to know what kind of games.”

“Really, really good games. Ones that call for excellent reflexes and superior physical stamina.” She grinned, unrepentant. “We’re going to save up and buy a new, juicy game system for each other for Christmas.”

“Is this your report?”

“No, this is the shuttle-boiled-my-brain babble. Whew.”

“What’s on your tit? What the hell is that?”

“Oh.” Peabody ducked her chin to glance down. “It’s my love dragon. It’s a temp.”

“A love dragon? You’re wearing a love dragon on your tit, most of which is spilling out of whatever that is you’re not covered up with.”

“It’s a look-and it works. Trueheart nearly choked on his tongue when I walked through the bullpen.” Peabody sighed. “It’s pretty satisfying.”

“It may be you confused undercover with undercovered. Either way, I don’t want to see your love dragon tomorrow. Now if you’ve rested and recovered from your arduous assignment, I’d like that report.”

“Sure. The contact, Razor, the King of All Weaponry, hasn’t heard of a sword like we’re after-not a real. Props, toys of a similar and nonlethal nature, but nothing that could decapitate or leave those burns.”

“Could’ve been made custom.”

“We thought of that after… after a little gaming inspired us. We went back, discussed. After a little persuasion he gave us the names of a couple of sources who might be able to make something along the lines, for a price. A really, really whopping-ass price. Out of those, there was maybe one who might do it off the grid, unregistered. But that ups the price to about double whopping-ass. I know we looked at the financials, and nobody on our radar had an expenditure that comes close.”

“I’m doing deeper runs right now. Maybe it’ll pop. Some people game for money,” Eve considered. “Some game for money off the grid. So, we might have somebody who had a double whopping-ass pile of unreported cash.”

“Well, meanwhile, we did some poking around on the underground game sites on the way back. Razor’s already putting out feelers. We left it like we’d be willing to pay, and how we’d heard one of these swords was out there. Now he’s looking, and we’re watching him while he’s looking. McNab’s going to keep tabs. If Razor gets a hit, we’ll get it, too.”

“That’s good thinking. Go home and take that shower. I can smell you from here.”

“It’s not my fault. Plus, with the sweating I think I might’ve lost a pound or two just sitting there trying not to breathe.” She pushed herself up. “Oh, nearly forgot. We got you a present.”

“Why?”

“Because.” She unzipped one of her pockets and pulled out a very small gun.

“What is it?”

“It’s a toy gun. A derringer-like cardsharps and saloon girls carry in western vids. It’s like a clutch piece.”

“Hmmm.”

“And check it.” Peabody cocked it, and a sultry female voice purred out of the barrel. Put those hands where I can see them, cowboy.

“It has all sorts of audio streams-male, female. I figured you’d want the female. Plus-”

She aimed it at Eve, pulled the trigger even as Eve said: “Hey!”

The little gun let out a brave little bang. Next one goes lower, and you won’t be poking a woman with that stick of yours for the rest of your miserable life.

“Isn’t it cute? You could play saloon girl and Roarke could be high-stakes gambler, then… and that’s entirely none of my nevermind.” Peabody offered a big smile.

“Yes, it’s cute, no, it’s none of your nevermind.” Eve took the derringer, recocked it. You’d better hightail it before that tail’s sporting another hole.

“It could use better dialogue, but it’s apt enough. Hightail it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Peabody? Thanks.” Eve studied the gun, shook her head. Unable to resist, she shot her computer, her AutoChef, amused by the lame insults that followed. That was another thing about partners, she decided. They knew what would make you laugh, often before you did.