Читать книгу The Cold Between - Elizabeth Bonesteel - Страница 16

It was only when he began to see lights before his eyes that Trey realized there was something unusual going on.

In the six months since he had returned to Volhynia he had been arrested a handful of times, albeit on charges far less serious than suspicion of murder. Each time the interrogations had been carefully restrained, designed more to intimidate and demoralize than cause injury. Luvidovich, who could not have known Trey’s experiences as a child, seemed to believe Trey ought to be learning a lesson, and Trey was always surprised at how quickly his stoicism crawled under the officer’s skin. It was petty, but he took a grim pleasure in that small, useless act of defiance.

This interrogation was different, though, and Trey began to wonder if his innocence mattered at all.

Trey had been escorted to one of the dark basement interview rooms and shoved into a hard chair. Luvidovich had spent the first hour of the interrogation doing nothing but hitting Trey, who knew enough of Volhynia’s authoritarian rules to refrain from hitting back, even when his vision tunneled and he began to feel nauseated. The questions, when they finally arrived, included predefined answers, and Trey realized Luvidovich was dictating his confession. After attempting to assert the truth—no, he did not know the victim; yes, he had been home all night—he had stopped answering and started to listen. His head was alarmingly foggy, but even so he could see how thin the story was: Luvidovich was suggesting that he had, for unknown reasons, followed the soldier into the alley behind his own workplace and killed him for an unknown sum of money that had not been found.

“Do you know,” Trey said at last, unable to restrain himself, “that is a remarkably foolish story. If you have the need to frame me, you had best come up with something more substantive. Not even the courts in Novanadyr would believe this nonsense.”

That had earned him a further beating, but he had minded less.

When Luvidovich finally left, Trey seriously considered putting his head down on the table and surrendering to unconsciousness. He tried and failed to remember anything about Volhynian criminal law. He might be entitled to a lawyer, and a trial, but he was not sure. Certainly the court of public opinion would not be on his side. Most of them believed he was an off-worlder, and after forty-four years, he was in all meaningful ways. They would desperately want to believe that this had nothing to do with their friends and neighbors. He would likely be railroaded, with or without a trial, and no one would ever find out what had really happened to that poor boy.

The thought of what Katya might believe nearly drove him to despair.

The lock turned, and he tensed, lifting his head; but it was not Luvidovich who came through the door, it was Chief Stoya. Trey sat back, knowing better than to be relieved. Stoya was more observant than Luvidovich, and far more ruthless. He understood people where Luvidovich did not, and never had to resort to physical abuse. Even Trey was careful of him.

Stoya stood before the open door, frowning at Trey, his gaze thoughtful. “A woman has come here,” he said, “who claims you have not committed this crime.”

There was no way, he realized, that Stoya could miss his surprise. She should have trusted him to look after himself, should have left Volhynia to its own business. He thought of that dead boy in the alley, thought of her passion, her empathy: I know what people say. There is truth and lie in all of it.

Of course she had come back.

Deliberately, he straightened his shoulders, shifting in his chair as if he were stiff from sitting still instead of having been beaten. “Excellent,” he said. “When can I go?”

Stoya’s jaw twitched—a rare betrayal of emotion. “Luvidovich has taken her statement. We will be releasing you. For now.”

Luvidovich. Good God. Had it only been the night before that he had reminded himself he would kill Luvidovich one day? “There was no need for Luvidovich to speak to her, Stoya. She is a soldier. She knows how to make a report.”

“And now you are worried for her. This is curious, given that she says you did not meet until last night.”

Damn. He must have been more exhausted than he thought. He dropped all pretense. “Luvidovich is a thug,” he said seriously, “and she came here only to help. You know I am innocent of this.”

Stoya was younger than Trey by fifteen years, but even so Trey was taken aback by the man’s quickness. He was abruptly in front of the table, leaning toward Trey, his face so close Trey could see the shadow of stubble on his chin. “I know you are a killer, Captain Zajec,” he hissed. “That woman may absolve you this time, but she does not know what you are. She does not even know your real name, the name you gave up when you fled this place. You cannot become something else so easily. You may not have committed this crime, but we will have you. Whether it is today or tomorrow makes no difference to me.”

Trey kept his expression mild, and when he moved he was slow and careful. He pushed his chair back from the table and stood, the ache of his legs keeping him focused. Standing, he was taller than Stoya, and he allowed himself to lean forward, just a little, to look steadily into the police chief’s eyes. “But you do not have me today, Stoya.” He straightened, then walked around the table, avoiding Stoya’s eyes, and headed through the cell’s open door.

She was still beautiful, Trey thought, tall and elegant and patrician, waiting for him by the main office door. But if the night before she had seemed self-conscious, here she stood with an unconcerned composure that suggested she had no expectation of being thwarted. A performance, almost certainly, but an effective one; he supposed it was an indispensable skill for a soldier. When he caught her eyes he saw her blush faintly, and he remembered standing with her in the moonlight and thought perhaps he had not been beaten so badly after all.

He stepped up to the desk, where Reya Keller had his paperwork ready. “Just here,” she told him, gesturing at the thumbprint square. When he moved to approve it, she spoke more quietly. “There are reporters outside,” she whispered. “A lot of them.”

He looked at her. Reya was a girl of about twenty, and considered a good police officer, if inexperienced. Unlike many of the others, though, she treated him with respect every time Luvidovich dragged him in. Once she had slipped him a small bottle of analgesic on his way out; he had plenty of the stuff back in his flat, but the gesture had touched him.

“Thank you,” he said, and she nodded, a smile flickering across her face before she backed away.

Trey turned, and took a step toward the woman. She looked guarded, and a little hesitant; he supposed he looked the same. He wanted to tell her he was pleased to see her again. He wanted to tell her to go home. Instead he said, “You did not have to wait for me.”

She looked away, and he wished he had been more welcoming. “I did, actually,” she told him. “It seems your police department has no intention of investigating properly.”

He was surprised Stoya had tipped his hand in front of her. “You believe you can make up for their deficit?”

“That’s my intent, yes. Does this place have a back door?”

“You wish to avoid the press.”

Her face warmed again. “I already have their attention. I’d just as soon avoid entertaining them again.”

He had missed more, it seemed, than just her arrival. “There is a rear exit,” he told her. “But we will need someone to let us out.”

In the end it was Reya who helped them, escorting them down a poorly lit back stairway. He fell into step next to the woman—the soldier, he realized. She moved differently here, confident and unhesitating. She was a good deal more forbidding than she had been the night before, and he wondered once again exactly who she was on her starship. At thirty-two, she was young for command, but she carried herself as someone accustomed to being obeyed.

Valeria’s voice echoed in his head. It is not women you like; it is power. He had laughed at her and told her it was powerful women. That exchange had been decades ago. It seemed his tastes had not changed.

Reya left them briefly at the back of the building to retrieve the woman’s weapon from the desk sergeant. She released the door’s voice lock, and Trey stepped through into an alley. He began walking toward the street, the woman next to him, the afternoon sunlight a balm against his face.

They had taken no more than two steps on the main sidewalk before he heard footsteps running behind them. “Hey, Chief!” a man’s voice called. Not all of the press had missed their surreptitious exit, apparently. Trey glanced at the woman; she neither slowed nor reacted, and he followed suit.

After a moment the man caught up, falling into step next to Trey. Tall, slim, with vid-ready good looks, he wore a perpetual manic grin that was almost absurd enough to distract from the shrewd gleam in his eyes. He held his hand out to Trey.

“You’re Treiko Zajec,” the man said. “Cholan Ancher, Corps press corps.” He laughed at his own joke.

Trey considered, then took the offered hand. “How do you do, Mr. Ancher?”

Ancher’s grin widened. “Better now. You’re a legend, you know. It’ll be something, telling people you shook my hand.”

“What do you want, Ancher?” the woman finally said.

Trey looked at her again. Her demeanor had not changed, but he thought he detected a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“You’re always so suspicious,” Ancher said cheerfully.

“That’s because I know you.”

“Are you still holding a grudge?” She said nothing, and this time the reporter didn’t laugh. “I was doing my job, Chief.”

“So was I.”

And damned if Ancher didn’t look uncomfortable.

“Well, maybe I can make it up to you,” he told her.

“How would you do that?”

“I have an ID on your dead man.”

And that stopped her. Trey watched her look over to the reporter, and wondered if she had the authority to back up the murder in her eyes.

But Ancher did not back off, or stand down. Instead, his face softened into something almost human. “I know who he was, Chief,” he repeated. “And I know who he was to you.”

Trey saw her turn ashen, then go red; she looked away for a moment. When she turned back she met Trey’s eyes, and she was the woman he had known the night before: vulnerable and transparent. The sadness he saw in her told him all of it. That boy, he thought, remembering what he had found just a few hours before. Alive, he would have been tall, young, handsome.

The boy she had loved.

“My dear lady,” he said gently, “I am so sorry.”

Her eyes brightened for a moment, and then she shook her head. “He was not mine,” she told him. “Not anymore. He’s not for me to grieve. But if it gets out …”

“… the alibi you have given me will look quite different.”

“Wait,” Ancher said. “She’s your alibi?”

PSI did not have journalists who followed them, like Central did, but Trey recognized the tone of a reporter who had landed on a story. How to best handle the situation depended on the reporter, and he did not know this one. This woman—Chief, Ancher had called her—seemed to have some sway over him, though. Trey opted to give the man a chance.

“If you would give us a moment, Mr. Ancher,” he said.

The reporter looked suspicious, but when Trey stepped aside, the woman following him, Ancher let them be.

“What will your crew say when the police talk to them?” he asked her.

She grasped her elbows. “Depends on who they talk to. The Galileo crew won’t be inclined to share, but we have some loaners on board that we borrowed to deliver cargo. Danny … he was tight with them, and they don’t like me much.”

“So it will come out.” When she nodded, he said, “Would your friend Mr. Ancher spin the story for you?”

“Would it matter if he did?”

“No,” he admitted. “They will use it as an excuse to detain me again, and possibly you as well.”

“That excuse or another, they’ll find a reason.” Her eyebrows drew together. “We’ve got to find out what happened before they come after you again.”

“My dear, I think we had best rid ourselves of your reporter before we discuss this more deeply.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ancher called over. “My ears aren’t that good.”

She gave Ancher a look, then turned toward him, pulling him into their conversation. “Why haven’t you gone public with this?”

“I told you,” he said. “I figure maybe I owe you one. But I can’t sit on it forever, Chief. Someone else will find out, and they’ll broadcast.”

“How much time can you get me?”

“Five hours, maybe six.” He began to sound like a reporter again. “What do I get for it?”

“What do you want?”

“An interview.” His gaze took in Trey. “With both of you. And Captain Foster.”

“No deal. Leak it, and I’ll take my chances.” She turned and began to walk away, and Trey moved to follow her.

“Wait, wait!” Ancher scurried to catch up. “Just you, Chief. But an exclusive. Nothing for those streamer scavengers, okay? Not a word.”

Her reply was just as prompt. “Done,” she said. “But if I hear so much as a rumor anywhere on comms in the next six hours, Ancher, you are shut out for good. Not just on this, but on everything. You understand?”

That, Trey knew, was a serious threat for a reporter, and she delivered it sincerely. But Ancher just gave her that cocky smile again. “Loud and clear, Chief.” He winked at Trey. “You kids have a nice day.” He turned, and walked off the way he had come.

They both watched him until he was well out of earshot, and then Trey turned to her. He could see the shadows under her eyes, and her expression held a hint of desperation. Closer to the edge than she was letting on. “What of Central?” he asked. “Will they get involved?”

She paused before answering, and he wondered if that was good or bad. “Not in a way that will help,” she said at last. “Central’s rigid when it comes to troops on Volhynia, and I didn’t do myself any favors by losing my temper in front of the press. There’s a good chance they’ll demand I leave, which means we need to—”

Her comm chimed, and she muted it, but almost immediately the tone was repeated. This time she frowned, resigned. “I apologize,” she said to him.

“For what?”

“For this,” she replied, and completed the connection.

“You have fifteen seconds,” a man’s voice said, low and menacing, “to explain why you cut me off. Twice.”

Her response was terse. “I was busy.”

There was a pause before the man replied. “You were busy?” His incredulity was palpable. “Was this five seconds ago, or while you were having a tantrum in front of the fucking chief of police, not to mention every goddamned streamer in this sector? You realize your entire chain of command is watching that right now?”

She swore, looking chagrined.

“Yeah, now you’re thinking about it, after it’s out on the public fucking stream! Now how about you answer the question, Chief, before I bust you back to ensign for insubordination?”

This, Trey realized, had to be her captain, and he was using a tone Trey, who’d had to use it on occasion, recognized very well. What was curious was her complete lack of deference. “How about this?” she snapped in return. “How about I knew all you were going to do was shriek at me, and I had better things to do than listen?”

“You—are you forgetting my direct order? The one where you give that pirate his alibi, and get your ass back to the ship? The one that did not include threatening the local cops with authority you don’t have before you snuck out the back door?”

Trey’s stomach turned. She did not know the people she was dealing with. “What did you say to the police?”

She looked away. “I told them Central would take over the investigation if they didn’t do it properly.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Captain Zajec, sir.”

Another pause on the line. “Captain,” the man said formally, as if he had not been threatening his officer a moment before, “we haven’t been introduced. I’m Captain Greg Foster, CCSS Galileo.”

Trey knew his name, of course, and a little of his reputation, but he did not think the circumstances were shedding the best light on the man. “A pleasure, Captain,” Trey told him, “but I do not use my title any longer. May I express my condolences on the loss of your officer.”

This time Trey heard him sigh. “Thank you, Mr. Zajec,” Foster said, and he sounded old and tired. “And may I say, I am sorry you’ve become tangled in all of this. Our only goal is to see the killer brought to justice.”

Glib and practiced, Trey thought, but not necessarily insincere. “Thank you, Captain. Although I do not think our police are yet convinced they should look elsewhere.”

“Why did they suspect you to begin with?” Foster asked.

Trey closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face; he did not want to have this conversation now, but he could not see Foster allowing him to put it off. “A number of reasons, actually,” he told the captain, feeling the woman’s eyes on him. “One is because I was PSI, and Volhynia has an uneasy relationship with us. Stoya was appointed, in part, due to the tension between PSI and some of the local Syndicates who are moving to become legitimate traders. Another is simply because I am a stranger, and this is a small colony.” He took a breath. “Mostly, though, it is because I committed a crime here when I was a child, and they cannot prosecute me for it.”

“What did you do?”

Ah, well. It’s not like I’m ashamed of it. “I killed a man,” he said.

Trey felt rather than saw her grow still.

“If they know it, why can’t they arrest you?” Foster asked him.

They could, of course. They could arrest him, and he could confess, and even on Volhynia—even in Novanadyr, where he had so few friends—no jury would convict him. “They cannot make a case,” he said simply.

“So instead, you’re just the guy they arrest whenever they need a warm body?”

Trey risked a glance at the woman; her eyes had gone wary, and he was surprised how much that stung. “In this case they were not without reason. I found your officer outside the kitchen of the restaurant where I work. And yes, Captain, it would be a remarkable coincidence, except that the body was moved there.” He had wanted to tell her earlier, when Ancher was still there, but something had told him this was as important a detail to keep secret as her relationship to the dead man.

“How do you know?”

Trey chose as few words as he could. “There was not enough blood.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I know death.” And he thought, captain to captain, that he would not have to say anything more.

“I think Luvidovich knows it as well,” the woman said. “Stoya is keeping him from investigating properly. I don’t know why, but Luvidovich isn’t happy about it.”

“I doubt that matters,” Foster said. “After your impromptu press conference, they’re going to start asking about you as well as Danny, and they’re going to spin it as a very neat setup. I can protect the chief, Mr. Zajec, but I have no influence over the treatment of Volhynian citizens. If you’d consent to visit Galileo, we could offer you protection.”

Her expression had changed, grown wary again. This time, however, Trey did not think she was being wary of him. There was more to this conversation than he was seeing. “Thank you, Captain,” he said formally, “but I prefer to take my chances. My family is here.”

“We could protect them, too, if it comes down to it. This whole thing should be cleared up in a few days, and it’d be one less thing for us all to worry about.”

Odd, Trey thought. First an offer of help, then manipulation. The woman was looking away, squinting into the afternoon sun, her lips thin. “I will consider your offer,” he said at last. It was the truth, at least. “But for now, I would like to remain home.”

“The offer stands if you change your mind. Chief, I’ll expect you back here in—”

“I’m staying, Greg.” She said it quietly, and with complete conviction.

There was a long pause. Based on Foster’s behavior so far, Trey would have expected the captain to start shouting again. Instead, when he spoke, his voice was immeasurably more gentle, and Trey began to wonder at the relationship between the captain and his subordinate. “We’ve discussed this already, Chief.”

“We haven’t,” she told him. Her voice was tight, as if she had swallowed something thick. “I owe him.”