The Domino Pattern

EIGHTEEN

Kennrick was right where I’d expected to find him: sitting in the bar in earnest conversation with Asantra Muzzfor. Both of them looked up as Bayta and I approached, and neither looked especially happy to see us. “Compton,” Kennrick greeted me perfunctorily as we got within conversation distance. “Sorry, but this is a private meeting.”

“This’ll only take a minute,” I promised. “I just want to know why you lied to me.”

That got his full attention. “What?” he asked, frowning. “When?”

“Perhaps we should step out into the corridor for a moment?” I suggested, inclining my head microscopically toward Muzzfor.

“No,” Muzzfor said firmly. “I wish to hear this. Bring a chair for yourself and your companion, Mr. Compton.”

I raised my eyebrows at Kennrick. “Kennrick?”

“Go ahead,” he said firmly. “Whatever you think you’ve found, I can already tell you there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

I pulled over a pair of chairs from an unoccupied table nearby. Kennrick shifted his seat toward Muzzfor to give us room, and Bayta and I crowded in across from them. “I’ve been told you had a meeting with Master Colix the night he died,” I said without preamble. “I was wondering why you never mentioned that.”

“I did,” Kennrick said. “I told you I was there that afternoon to—”

“Not the afternoon meeting,” I interrupted him. “Later, after dinner, when you swapped out his keepsake blanket and his lozenges.”

A muscle in Kennrick’s cheek tightened. “Oh,” he said. “That meeting.”

“Yes, that meeting,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell us about it?”

Kennrick seemed to wilt a little in his seat. “Because I’d been ordered to stay away from him and the other Shorshians.”

I flicked a glance at Muzzfor. He was watching Kennrick, his expression set in that neutral mask so beloved by prosecutors eyeing potential witnesses, or lions checking out a herd of elk. “Ordered by whom?” I asked.

“Usantra Givvrac,” Kennrick said. “He thought I was spending too much time back in third and told me to give it a rest.”

“Were you?” I asked. “Spending too much time back there, I mean?”

Kennrick looked sideways at Muzzfor. “I didn’t think so,” he said. “Others obviously had different opinions.”

“You also spent a great deal of time with them aboard the torchliner from Earth,” Muzzfor said.

“But not because I was trying to influence their votes,” Kennrick insisted. “I just happen to like Shorshians, that’s all. And Shorshic food, too. It was just natural that the five of us liked to spend time together.”

“Especially on the torchliner, where there aren’t any travel-class barriers between passengers?” I asked.

“Exactly,” Kennrick said, looking back at me. “I was just trying to keep up those friendships here, that’s all.”

“To the point of defying Usantra Givvrac’s orders about staying away from them?”

Kennrick grimaced. “The only reason I went back there was to tell Master Colix why I wouldn’t be able to share the halfway-celebration meal with them,” he said. “It didn’t seem right to just disappear without explanation.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing, because I didn’t tell him,” Kennrick said. “When I got there he wasn’t feeling well, and I decided it wasn’t the time to drop this on him, too.” He winced. “If I’d realized he was dying …anyway, I got his blanket down for him and put his lozenge bag in its place, and said good night.”

“Did you lock the upper compartment before you returned his ticket to him?” I asked.

“Of course.” Abruptly, Kennrick’s eyes widened. “I’ll be damned. Logra Emikai!”

“What about him?” I asked.

“His locksmith’s bypass mimic,” Kennrick said, his eyes darkening with anger. “He’s the one who sneaked in and stole Master Colix’s lozenges.”

“Interesting thought,” I said. “Why would he do that?”

“How should I know?” Kennrick growled. “The point is that no one had to have Master Colix’s ticket to get in there.”

I looked at Bayta, eyebrows raised. “Bayta?” I said.

“Logra Emikai’s device doesn’t work on Quadrail locks,” she said. “The Spiders have tried it on several, and it won’t even read them, let alone duplicate the trip codes.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Kennrick said. “Do you have it?”

“At the moment, yes,” I told him. “Why?”

“I’d like to take a look at it,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Why?” I repeated, making no move toward my pocket. “You heard her—the Spiders have already concluded it’s useless here.”

“That assumes the Spiders actually know the mimic’s whole potential,” Kennrick countered, his hand still outstretched. “But there could very well be another tech layer below the surface that you can’t reach unless you punch in an access code.”

“And you know what Logra Emikai’s code might be?”

“I already told you, I know a little about these gadgets,” Kennrick replied. “Give me an hour, and I’ll bet I can find the next level down.”

“Interesting thought,” I said again. “I’ll ask the Spiders to have another go at it.”

For a moment Kennrick and I locked eyes. Then, reluctantly, he withdrew his hand. “Fine,” he said. “Whatever. But if you want my opinion, you’ve got the thief and the killer already tied up.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” I said. “Thanks for clearing that up. We’ll let you get back to your meeting now. Good day, Asantra Muzzfor.”

“And to you, Mr. Compton,” Muzzfor said, inclining his head. His face, I noted, still had that lion/elk expression.

Bayta waited until we were out in the corridor before speaking again. “Do you believe him about Usantra Givvrac’s order?”

I shrugged. “It’s plausible enough, I suppose, especially if Givvrac thought Kennrick was trying to unduly influence the three Shorshians back there.”

“I wonder if Mr. Kennrick really does like Shorshians and their food that much,” Bayta murmured.

“That part does seem a little thin,” I agreed. “And of course, with Givvrac now inconveniently dead, there’s no way to confirm any of it.”

“I also find it strange that he disobeyed Usantra Givvrac and then didn’t even tell Master Colix what he’d supposedly gone back there to say.” Bayta hunched her shoulders. “You think we should ask the Modhri what they actually did talk about?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I told her. “Besides, there’s also the possibility Kennrick thought he might be able to change Givvrac’s mind enough to at least let him host the halfway celebration they were planning. In that case, he also wouldn’t mention his new marching orders.” I glanced behind us to make sure no one was within earshot. “Personally, I’m more interested in Kennrick’s ideas about Emikai’s mimic. Could it have another programming layer to it?”

“I suppose that’s possible,” she said. “I’ll have the twitters look into it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, it sounded earlier like you were having doubts about Aronobal starting that rumor about us clobbering Emikai and throwing him off the train. That still true?”

She looked suspiciously at me. “Why?”

“Because I agree with you,” I said. “More intriguing is the fact that Kennrick’s IQ seems to have dropped a few points today.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s being remarkably slow at picking up on the obvious,” I said. “First there was your suggestion that Aronobal should be trying to find out what we know instead of starting a rumor to keep us away from her. The obvious counterargument is that Aronobal is the amateur part of the team—amateur in the skullduggery aspects, anyway—and hasn’t got the chops to brazen out a role like that. That should also have occurred to Kennrick, only apparently it never did.”

I nodded back over my shoulder. “And now it only just occurs to him, after a whole bunch of hours, that Emikai’s mimic is the perfect solution to the mystery of Colix’s vanishing lozenges.”

“Maybe he’s just not as good at this as you are,” Bayta suggested.

“Or maybe there are other reasons,” I said. “Such as hoping we’ll think of the mimic ourselves so he doesn’t have to look like he’s grabbing on to the first diversion that comes along.”

Bayta pursed her lips. “So if Dr. Aronobal didn’t start the rumor, who did? And why?”

“Not sure about that,” I admitted. “On the surface, I can’t see what sense it makes.”

“Maybe it doesn’t make sense because there’s no sense to be made,” Bayta said hesitantly. “Maybe Usantra Givvrac was right, that the killer is just insane.”

“He’s not insane, and it does make sense,” I said firmly. “We just have to find the right way to put the pieces together.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry I’m not being more help,” she said. “Putting people’s motives and thoughts under a microscope—that’s not something I’m good at.”

I stared at her, my stomach tightening as a memory abruptly popped into my mind: Emikai, still twitching from the aftereffects of the kwi, studying my luggage as if he could see through it to the spectral analysis equipment he assumed was inside.

There it was, the nagging feeling I’d been wrestling with. And with it, the clue I hadn’t even known I’d been missing. Not what had been done, but what hadn’t been done.

And suddenly, I had it. I had it all.

“Too bad Korak Fayr isn’t here—” Bayta broke off with a muffled gasp as I grabbed her arm and picked up my pace, dragging her forward. “Frank?”

“Come on,” I told her grimly. “We’ve got work to do.”

“You’ve figured it out?” she asked, a flicker of hope in her voice.

“I think so,” I said, my mind flashing back to the very beginning of our journey. Bayta had called it, all the way back then. She’d called it exactly.

My past had indeed come back to haunt me.

“It’s the Modhri?” she asked, her arm tensing inside my grip.

“No,” I said. “Actually, it’s worse.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the case, and laying out the facts to test against my new theory. By the time we broke for dinner, I was ninety percent convinced I was right.

With luck, I would get that final ten percent tonight.

I waited until two in the morning by the train’s clocks, when even the most dedicated night owls among the passengers were probably thinking about turning in. Bayta offered to come with me, but I told her to go back to bed. There was nothing that could put the damper on a heart-to-heart, off-the-record conversation like having a third party present.

And so I made my solitary way back through first, through second, and through third, until I was in the baggage car by the dead bodies, standing in front of Logra Emikai.

I’d left the Filly in a fairly awkward and uncomfortable position when I’d retied his bonds, mainly because with my limited resources I hadn’t had a lot of alternatives. To my mild surprise, I found he’d risen to the challenge of his situation. With strategic repositioning of the chair, toilet, and table, he’d been able to stretch out instead of having to sleep sitting upright. His head was pillowed, hammock-style, on one of his pinioned arms, while the other hung free. It looked tolerable, even marginally comfortable.

Of course, if he turned over in his sleep he would instantly roll off his makeshift three-point bed and land on the floor, which would snap him fully awake as well as possibly giving one or both of his arms a nasty sprain. Still, it was an ingenious use of resources. One more indication, I reminded myself, of the kind of person I was dealing with.

“Are you here to watch me sleep?”

Mentally, I tipped him a salute. His eyes still appeared closed, but I could see now the small slits he was watching me through. Professional, indeed. “Sorry—-just me,” I said. “I gather you were hoping for someone else?”

“Indeed,” he said, opening his eyes all the way and shifting back up to a sitting position on the chair. “Still, a clever perpetrator seldom tries the same trick twice on the same person.”

“You know something about perpetrators, do you?” I suggested, pulling out my multitool and flicking out the small knife blade as I walked toward him. “I thought you probably did.”

He drew back as he watched me approach, his eyes on the knife. “What do you do?” he asked cautiously.

“Not what you’re thinking,” I assured him. Setting the blade against the safety webbing tying his left wrist to the crate stack, I carefully sliced through it. “I think I know what’s going on,” I said as I stepped to his other side and cut his right arm free, too. “But I need your help and expertise to prove it.”

“What expertise is that?” he asked suspiciously as he massaged his wrists.

“The kind I’d expect,” I said, “from a fellow cop.”

He stiffened, just enough to show I’d hit the mark. “You misread,” he said. “I am not an enforcement officer.”

“Former cop, then,” I said. “Come on—we both know I’m right. Back in my compartment you talked about not believing something until you had evidence of its existence, and of needing to reach the required legal bar for action. Those are both phrases I’ve heard before from Filiaelian security officers.”

“That hardly constitutes compelling evidence.”

“We Humans are pretty good with hunches,” I said. “And of course, your current evasiveness just adds weight to my conclusion.”

For a moment he eyed me. “Very well,” he said. “I was indeed once an enforcement officer. But no longer. I am retired, with no official authority from any Filiaelian governmental body.”

“Close enough,” I said. “Let me try another hunch on you. Before your retirement, you were a forensic investigator.”

His nose blaze darkened with surprise. “That was indeed my specialty. Remarkable. May I ask how you reached that conclusion?”

“It was a combination of things,” I said. “You seemed very interested in my technique as I was taking samples from the air filter in Terese German’s car. You also didn’t fall for that ‘congenital disease after-elements’ soap bubble I spun for the rest of the passengers, either. More interestingly, you knew roughly how big a standard spectroscopic analyzer was, which was why you were studying my luggage last night in my compartment. You were trying to figure out if I’d lied about that, too.”

I gestured behind me. “But mostly because Bayta and I nearly caught you snooping around back here a couple of days ago. My first thought was that you were returning Master Colix’s ticket to him after having used it to steal the lozenges from his storage compartment.”

“The tablets were medicine?” Emikai asked, looking surprised again. “Ms. German said they were foodstuffs.”

“Ms. German is not the most observant person in the galaxy,” I said dryly. “Though to be fair, Master Colix wasn’t exactly advertising it, either. Speaking of Ms. German, what exactly is going on with her, anyway?”

He shook his head. “I cannot tell you.”

“Come on, Logra Emikai,” I cajoled. “This is just between two ex-cops, remember? By the way, what kind of title is logra? It obviously doesn’t come from lomagra, as my partner thought.”

“It is a new rank, a title given me by my current employers,” he said. “It refers to the ancient Filiaelian name for a bulwark, or a protector of the people.”

“Ancient Filiaelian, eh?” I commented. “We have people who like mining old languages, too. Anyway, the point is that I already know Ms. German is pregnant, which is why you were concerned enough about the air quality in her car to try to break into my compartment to see what I’d found out about that. I also know that you and Dr. Aronobal are escorting her from Earth to Filiaelian space. I just want to know why.”

He gazed at me for a long moment. I waited, keeping my best encouraging expression in place. Finally, he shrugged. “I suppose it cannot hurt. Several weeks ago Ms. German was assaulted near her home in the Western Alliance and impregnated by her attacker. Dr. Aronobal and I were already on Earth, seeking Human subjects for genetic testing, and we received orders to offer her our assistance and invite her to accompany us back to the Filiaelian Assembly for medical treatment and study.”

“Who exactly did these orders come from?” I asked.

“One of Dr. Aronobal’s superiors, I presume,” he said. “I was never shown the actual message. We offered Ms. German our assistance, which was accepted, and we are now returning to the Filiaelian Assembly with her.”

“Interesting timing, you being right there in the vicinity of this attack and all,” I commented. Actually, the timing struck me as more suspicious than interesting, but this wasn’t the time to go into that. “Dr. Aronobal’s part I understand, kindly physician and all that. Where exactly do you come into it?”

“To be honest, I am not entirely certain,” he said hesitantly. “I was asked to come out of retirement and accompany Dr. Aronobal to Earth as assistant and protector.”

“Someone thought she needed protecting?”

“Apparently so.” Emikai smiled suddenly. “It was apparently thought that I had the necessary skills for the position.”

“And correctly so,” I assured him, rubbing my throat. “So what kind of genetic testing are they planning for Ms. German?”

“That I also do not know,” he said. “But it must be highly urgent for us to have been hired to bring her all the way across the galaxy.”

“So it would seem,” I agreed. And that, I sensed, was all I was going to get out of him on this subject. Time to move on. “But as I was saying, my first assumption was that you were returning Master Colix’s ticket. But I know now that you stole neither the ticket nor the lozenges. Ergo, you must have come here for some other purpose.” I raised my eyebrows. “You were examining the bodies, weren’t you?”

He inclined his head. “I was attempting to do so,” he said. “You interrupted me before I could complete my investigation.”

“I presume you got far enough to notice the needle marks on the three Shorshians,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers. Ninety percent sure …“Anything interesting about them?”

He smiled tightly. “You would not ask unless you already knew,” he said. “Your unstated hunch is correct: the needle marks were made after the victims’ deaths.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “You’re absolutely sure about that?”

“I am,” he said. “I also suspect the tip of the needle is still buried within di-Master Strinni’s skin.”

“Not anymore, but it was,” I said. There it was, the last ten percent of doubt. “Thank you, Logra Emikai. I believe you’ve just helped me identify a killer.”

His eyes locked hard into mine. “Who?”

I reached into my pocket and tossed him his first-class pass. “Come to the first-class dining car tomorrow at ten o’clock,” I told him. “I’ll introduce you.”

“Thank you,” he said softly as he slid the pass into a pocket. “I will be there.”

“Good.” I gestured in the direction of the bodies. “In the meantime, I have a couple of final tests to run on the bodies. I was hoping you would assist me.”

He inclined his head. “I would be honored.”

An hour later, our tests completed, we left the baggage car. I dropped Emikai off at his seat among the sea of privacy-shielded sleepers and continued on forward. I hoped he would get a good night’s rest.

I hoped I would, too. But I still had one more task to perform.

I found Osantra Qiddicoj sleeping in the open, without his sleep canopy deployed. Qiddicoj himself was sound asleep, but the Modhri inside him was awake and alert and obviously waiting up for me. Our conversation took another hour, and when I finally dragged myself back to my own bed I had the whole, bloody story.

Back when I worked for Westali, the hours leading up to a high-profile arrest were generally cluttered with a million last-minute details. There were warrants to get, backup to arrange, logistics to plan, loopholes to anticipate, and bolt-holes to plug. If you did everything right, the arrest itself was almost anticlimactic. If you did anything wrong, the whole event was likely to blow up in your face.

But here on the Quadrail, where Spider authority was absolute and bureaucratic red tape nonexistent, none of those details was relevant. As a result, I got to spend eight of those final hours asleep. A more restful sleep than I’d had since Bayta and I had first been summoned to the second/third dispensary to watch Master Colix die. It was finally almost over.

I really should have known better.

It was ten minutes to ten, and Bayta and I were just finishing a light breakfast, when Emikai arrived. “I trust I’m not overly early?” he asked, glancing around the dining car as if he expected the killer to be wearing a sign announcing his identity.

“Not at all,” I told him, standing up and offering Bayta my hand. She didn’t need my help, of course, but Filly cops were genetically engineered toward courtesy, and my show of politeness toward my partner might buy me a few points when it came time to shake him down for more information. “The rest of the group should be assembled,” I added as I gestured to the entryway. “Shall we go?”

I led the way four cars to the rear. Kennrick and the three remaining contract-team Fillies were indeed there, sitting in a circle and talking earnestly. For once, there were no dealt cards sitting in front of the group. “Greetings to you, Esantra Worrbin,” I greeted the head of the group. “And to you, Asantra Muzzfor, and you, Asantra Dallilo,” I continued, nodding to each in turn. “I appreciate your giving me a few moments of your time.”

“What’s he doing here?” Kennrick growled, eyeing Emikai darkly.

“I asked him to join us,” I said.

“And he got free how?”

“It was actually pretty easy once I’d cut his ropes,” I said. “The reason I asked you all here—”

“Without consulting any of us first?” Kennrick interrupted. “Our opinions and concerns don’t matter?”

“Actually, no, they don’t,” I said. “The reason I asked you all here was so that you could bear witness to the end of the ordeal. I finally know the identity of the murderer.”

Muzzfor sat up a little straighter. “You’ve found him?” he asked, an edge to his voice. “Why did you not say so earlier?”

“Because until last night I wasn’t a hundred percent sure,” I told him. “I thought—”

“Last night?” Muzzfor echoed. “And yet you waited until now to speak? How many more of us might have died in the dark hours because of your lack of haste?”

“You aren’t in any danger,” I assured him. “Not anymore. The contract team was indeed the target, but not for the reasons we all thought.”

“A moment,” Worrbin spoke up. “If this matter concerns the contract team, all members should be present. Master Tririn and Dr. Witherspoon must be summoned.”

“He’s right,” Kennrick seconded. “And as long as you’re going to get them passed up from third, you might as well go the whole dit rec mystery route and have the rest of the suspects join us, too.”

“Which suspects are those?” I asked.

“All of his friends,” Kennrick said, nodding toward Emikai. “Dr. Aronobal and that Human girl, Terese whatever.”

“Terese German,” I said. “Actually, she’s not a suspect. Never was, really, if you think about it.”

“Why not?” Dallilo asked, gazing down his long Filly nose at Emikai.

“Because di-Master Strinni and Usantra Givvrac were killed here in first class,” I said. “Ms. German didn’t have access to this part of the train.”

“Dr. Aronobal did, though,” Kennrick persisted. “She and Dr. Witherspoon were making the rounds between here and third all the time.”

“True,” I agreed. “Still, I think we can dispense with their company for the present.” I raised my eyebrows at him. “So, Kennrick. You want to tell everyone why you killed them? Or shall I?”