Читать книгу The Cold Between - Elizabeth Bonesteel - Страница 15

I forget,” Doctor Hastings said as they glided back down toward the planet, “do you deal with this sort of thing head-on, or are you the type to swallow your feelings?”

“You know exactly what type I am,” she told him. Bob, as it happened, was one of the few people who would know for certain.

“You’ve been swallowing a lot lately.”

Not now, she thought, shoving a bubble of grief back down her throat. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to if my friends weren’t being such assholes.”

“Did it ever occur to you that he’s even worse at dealing with loss than you are?”

“Did it ever occur to you that that’s no excuse for his behavior?”

“Didn’t say it was an excuse.” Bob always spoke mildly, as if nothing he ever said was of any import. “I’m just suggesting that when someone who copes poorly makes the mistake of getting intoxicated in public, he’s not going to handle it well.”

Annoyance began to blunt grief, and she clung to the topic. “He’s a grown man,” she said. “He has a tantrum, and I’m supposed to shrug it off and forgive him?”

“It’s really that bad between you?”

“You were there,” she reminded him. “What do you think?”

Everyone had been there. Bob had been at the bar right next to her, talking with Emily Broadmoor until Greg’s yelling drew their attention. She had retorted, for all the good it did—there was no real comeback to what he had said. His outburst had crossed a line she had thought long crossed. He had hurt her, when she had thought there was no more room for hurt in her life. At least she wasn’t spending any more time trying to figure out how to forgive him.

Bob had known Greg for years; knew his father, his sister, his wife; had known his mother before she died. Duty notwithstanding, Elena knew where his loyalties lay.

“If I asked you, as a personal favor, not to close the door on him,” Bob asked, “would you do it?”

For a moment she thought quite seriously of screaming at him. Instead she bit her tongue, and took a mental step back. Underneath her irritation, her guilt, her grief, there was bone-deep exhaustion. She had not slept, she had not eaten, she had too much left to do, and none of that was the fault of the physician. “I didn’t close anything,” she said, with more civility than she felt. “But he sure as hell did.”

Novanadyr’s traffic control guided them through the atmosphere and onto the spaceport’s tarmac, keeping them hovering until they were waved into the hangar. The deck coordinator assigned them a spot right by the back door. She appreciated the placement—she always preferred to be close to the exit, even on a developed colony—but she suspected they were simply hoping that Central wouldn’t leave their representatives on the surface for long.

They took one of the public trams to the police station. Elena was aware of stares. She kept her face expressionless and her eyes forward; both of her hands gripped the railing, but she was conscious of her handgun at her hip. Next to her Bob leaned into the wind, a half smile on his face. At one point he turned to a woman standing behind them and said hello. The woman looked startled and moved away; Bob gave a low chuckle.

“We need to be efficient,” she told Bob as the tram slowed in front of the station. “Once we walk in there, the press will descend like vultures.” She hopped off, Bob at her heels.

“A proper postmortem is going to take me at least an hour,” he warned her.

“You do what you need,” she said. “If we get separated, you can go ahead and take the shuttle back up.”

“He’ll skin me alive if I do that, Chief.”

“He’ll skin me alive, too. But I’m not sticking around here if it means dealing with stringers.” If she had to choose between Greg’s anger and the full force of the press corps, she would face her captain’s rage.

His lips thinned, and he shook his head. “Stubborn,” he murmured, and she knew she’d won this one.

As they were walking up to the station’s entrance, a wide gap open to the building’s lobby, she caught sight of a man halfway up the block, slouching against the wall, eyes looking ahead at nothing, as if he were listening to a comm. He was absurdly thin, absurdly tall, and absurdly handsome.

She cursed.

“Bloody Ancher,” she said to Bob’s look. Ancher was a stringer: a professional journalist who had covered the Corps for years. He was tenacious, good-natured, and entirely without ethics. “Someone’s leaked that the dead man is a soldier.”

“Then we’d better get it done,” Bob said wearily, and opened the door.

The desk officer, a young man with disapproving eyes, checked her weapon and directed them upstairs to the main office, a wide, airy room spanning the width of the building. Behind the reception desk stood a young woman, pale and petite, like Jessica; but her hair was dark, her skin was free of freckles, and she lacked Jess’s palpable exuberance. She watched them patiently, and Elena stood back, allowing Bob to handle the social aspects. “Good afternoon,” he said to the officer. “We’re here to see Chief Stoya.”

He flashed her a smile that Elena had long ago noted many women—even as young as this one—found charming. Elena saw the pale cheeks color a little, and her dark eyes warmed. “Of course,” she replied easily, giving Elena a perfunctory glance. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” She walked off toward the private offices that lined the room’s interior walls.

One of the office doors opened, and the weary-eyed Chief Stoya emerged. In person he seemed smaller, although he was easily Elena’s height. She thought the illusion came from the way he moved, compact and efficient, threading himself between the desks with ease. He scanned the room with wary intelligence, and despite his cold expression she wondered if he would prove more flexible than she had assumed.

She did not have to wonder long. He shot her a look of open dislike, then let his gaze settle on Bob. “You are Doctor Hastings,” he said. His rigid mouth thinned. “Doctor Velikovsky is waiting for you downstairs in the morgue,” he said. “Officer Keller will escort you.”

That accent again, different from that of the locals she had heard in the city, and still vaguely familiar. He sounded like some of the traders she knew, and she wondered if he had spent time in the Fourth Sector. Cygnus, maybe, or Osaka Prime. Someplace with money.

Bob favored Keller, the young woman at the desk, with a pleased smile. “That’s very kind of you, Chief,” he said, and Elena thought his warmth was sincere.

As Keller made her way around the desk, Stoya locked his eyes on Elena. They were cold, those weary eyes; ice-blue and clear, but barren of any emotion at all.

“Captain Foster says you are a material witness,” he said. “You will make a statement, on the record?”

She nodded, and caught a flicker of emotion in his face, too quick to identify.

“Very well. Luvidovich!” he shouted.

Another office door opened, and Luvidovich emerged. She saw him hesitate, his confident expression wavering, and then his face darkened as he realized she was about to ruin his day. She had wondered if he would remember her.

It was still not payback enough.

He kept his eyes on her as he approached. “Yes, sir,” he said to Stoya when he was close enough.

“This woman,” Stoya said, “claims she can provide Zajec with an alibi. Set up the polygraph and take her statement.”

Luvidovich flushed, and she saw his teeth clench. “That is not possible.”

Stoya gave an impatient sigh. “If it is not possible, she will fail the polygraph. And then, if you wish, you may charge her with obstruction of justice. But until that happens, do as you are told.” He added a phrase in the local dialect; Elena, despite her passing familiarity with the language, missed it entirely.

Luvidovich, however, did not miss it at all. He colored more deeply, but straightened up, composing himself. He glanced back at Elena, then looked away as quickly as he could. “Follow me,” he told her.

Elena turned and met Bob’s eyes; he nodded at her, and she followed Luvidovich out of the room.

Luvidovich took her statement in a small, dank, and poorly lit basement room, with the help of an ancient polygraph. At times he seemed to believe he was interrogating her, challenging the sequence of events and accusing her of saying things she had not said; but after a quarter of an hour it struck her that however hostile his delivery, Luvidovich was doing his job, and fairly well. She thought she might have misjudged him, at least a little. No professional police officer would release a suspect lightly.

But it was not until they had left the polygraph behind and were heading up the stairs to the lobby that he asked her anything about Danny himself.

“Did you know the dead man well?”

She could not see his face, but his tone was overcasual, and she tensed. “There are just over two hundred and fifty people on board right now,” she told him. “We all know each other well.” It was only a slight exaggeration.

“Did you speak to him about Volhynia before you came?”

The question threw her, and she felt a glimmer of relief; she had been expecting something more personal. “He was talking to people about the planet’s history—its stability, agriculture, how the population dealt with the pulsar. Not much else, though.” He had sounded like a tourist the first time away from home; they had all teased him. Something rolled over in her stomach, and she bit her tongue to quiet it.

“It was the pulsar that interested him?” Luvidovich’s tone had sharpened.

“He mentioned it,” she repeated. “But he spoke of a lot of things.” He has found something. Despite his earlier hostility, she could not keep from pressing him. “What is it?”

He was silent as he climbed the last few steps, and when he turned as the door opened, she thought he was going to answer her. But she became abruptly aware of the audience that stood beyond the doorway: a dozen members of the press, gathered in a polite crowd in the station’s foyer. Before them, his hands behind his back like a field admiral, stood Chief Stoya. Luvidovich’s expression went flat.

“I must ask you to wait, Commander Shaw.” The police chief’s voice was even as he stepped forward to face her down. Elena watched him warily; next to her, Luvidovich did not move. Stoya had not acknowledged his subordinate at all. “Are you aware of our laws governing obstruction of justice? I should like to know why Central is choosing to champion a known criminal.”

He had listened in as she made her statement, of course—she had expected nothing less—but his response to it was puzzling. Hadn’t she just advanced his case by eliminating a suspect? Why would he try to discredit her? Especially in front of the press? Beside her Luvidovich shifted, his eyes quickly scanning the reporters before resting unhappily on the open entryway beyond. She did not really expect him to challenge his superior in public, but he seemed reluctant to engage Stoya at all. She was missing something.

Whatever Stoya’s reasoning, if he thought the presence of reporters would make her back off and leave, he was going to be disappointed. “It has nothing to do with championing anyone,” she said. “We wish the criminal to be brought to justice, and Captain Zajec is not responsible for this murder. You’re not going to find the one who killed my crewmate by pursuing some personal vendetta against one of your own.”

That caught Luvidovich’s attention. He turned on her, face reddening, his stiff discomfort erupting suddenly into rage. “He is not one of our own!” That same quick temper from the night before; she wondered if his problem was with Captain Zajec, or if he disliked all foreigners. She found her curiosity becoming an annoyance; when had this stopped being about Danny?

Deliberately, she took a step toward Luvidovich. “And what is your standard for that? Because he grew up somewhere else? So did your own police chief, and that doesn’t seem to bother you at all.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stoya’s face flicker with surprise, and she felt a moment’s satisfaction. He had not expected her to know.

“You make me wonder if this is typical on Volhynia,” Elena continued. The anger that had been building since she had learned of Danny’s death began to rise in the back of her throat. Luvidovich knew something, dammit, and she couldn’t understand why he was stonewalling her. “That you would fabricate evidence against someone simply because you dislike him, and then try to discredit someone who points out your error. Perhaps your department hasn’t the skills to do the job properly. Is that the problem? Or is it just that the case has been botched by your off-worlder police chief?”

She knew she was deliberately provoking Luvidovich, but she was utterly unprepared for his response to the remark. His face went purple, and his hands were shaking, but he was not looking at her anymore. He was staring over her shoulder at Stoya, and she thought what she saw in his eyes was desperation.

For the first time that day, since Greg had told her of Danny’s death, everything came abruptly into focus. She thought of Zajec’s bloodied face, of the look of resignation in his eyes, of Luvidovich mentioning Danny only where Stoya would not overhear. Something hot and sharp began to grow in her stomach. “You’re not going to investigate this at all, are you?”

Luvidovich turned to her and opened his mouth to retort, but she shook her head. “No, that’s why you didn’t ask me about Danny in the interrogation. None of this is about him at all. This is about someone you don’t like.” She turned to Stoya; his stony expression had not changed. A wave of revulsion overcame her, and suddenly she didn’t care that the press was there, that the whole conversation would get back to Greg, who would almost certainly yell at her again. “What kind of people are you?”

“Let me assure you, Commander Shaw,” Stoya said with infuriating calm, “we have no intention of abandoning our investigation.”

“You are a liar, Stoya.” Behind her she heard the reporters murmuring, but she was done with tact. “You’ve got an off-worlder corpse and an off-worlder suspect, and the only reason anyone is focusing on your manufactured case instead of an incompetent off-worlder police chief is that PSI makes an easy target. What in the hell is wrong with this place?”

Stoya stood back, his expression stoic, but Luvidovich was furious. “Chief Stoya has done more for Volhynia than you and your useless soldiers have done in five hundred years!” he shouted. “Who do you think you are, coming to our world and accusing an honest man?”

“You started it,” she snapped.

At that Luvidovich lunged, but before he could reach her, Stoya held out an arm, and the younger officer stumbled against it. She had not even had time to flinch. “It is Stoya who has been fighting for this city, for this world,” Luvidovich continued, fists still clenched. “You are the one who is letting a murderer go free!”

“Perhaps we should all calm down,” Stoya said. He fixed his cold gaze on Elena, still holding off Luvidovich. “As far as our case against Captain Zajec is concerned, there is still the possibility of conspiracy—”

“Oh, bullshit,” she said. “If you had anything on him, you wouldn’t have cared what I had to say. He’s innocent, and you know it, and all of those people”—she gestured toward the reporters—“know it, too. While you’re idly persecuting an innocent man, there’s a killer wandering around. Is that your way of ‘fighting for this city’? Do you really think Central Corps is going to sit on their hands while you waste time fucking this up?”

It was a baseless threat, and she suspected Stoya knew it. At the same time … whatever her arguments with Greg, however angry he would be with her for losing her temper, she could not believe he would sit by and watch the police do nothing. Greg had been Danny’s captain. In the end, Danny had belonged to Greg more than he had to her.

Stoya raised his eyebrows at her mention of Central. “The citizens here chose me,” he said. “They have not chosen Central. What kind of goodwill do you suppose you would gain by trying to take over?”

Goodwill. She almost laughed. “I rather imagine the Corps will take justice over goodwill, especially when it comes to the death of one of their own. Are you going to release Captain Zajec, or not?”

He stared at her a moment without moving: one last gesture of control. But in the end he shrugged, and nodded. “There is no need for a Central invasion, Commander Shaw,” he said. “We will release Captain Zajec. Our investigation will continue.”

She didn’t believe him. Danny meant nothing to him. The murderer meant nothing to him. She didn’t know why, but Stoya was hell-bent on pinning the crime on Zajec. And Luvidovich, for all his doubts, couldn’t get far enough past his own biases to listen to his instincts. If she were not angry enough to choke the pair of them, she might have felt sorry for the young man.

Stoya, on the other hand, could go straight to hell.

With some effort, she controlled her temper. That she no longer believed that Zajec’s innocence would make a difference to the police did not change the fact that she needed to get him out of prison. As far as justice for Danny was concerned … it seemed possible, she had to admit, that Stoya’s insistence on framing the PSI captain was not coincidence. Greg was wrong about what Captain Zajec had wanted from her, but she was beginning to share his fear that PSI was a piece of this somehow.

“Excellent,” was all she said aloud. “I look forward to the successful resolution of this case.” Her eyes flicked dismissively to Luvidovich, still vibrating with anger; despite herself, she could not resist a parting shot. “But you may want to call off your dog before somebody puts him down.”

She turned away from the two men, ignoring the silent stares of the press and the open-mouthed gape of the desk officer. Her comm chimed insistently as she headed up the stairs.

She did not answer it.