Marked (7 page)

She looked at me.

I looked back at her. “Seriously, Why it is urgent all of a sudden? You've been working on the project for years now.”

She sighed and pulled a huge stack of papers out of a drawer and plopped it on the desk, on top of an even taller pile. “This is this list of crimes Fiske is suspected of orchestrating.”

“It's three inches thick. At least.”

“Someone is observant today. Yes, it's three inches thick. Murder, extortion, human trafficking, drug trafficking, felony assault, illegal prostitution and gambling rings—sometimes in the same facility—car theft rings, oh, and I don't know, what's your favorite crime these days? He's got his guys doing all of it. Of course I can't prove any of it's tied to him. I can't prove he gave the orders, not in front of a jury anyway.

“The places shut down as soon as we find them. The evidence disappears—twice out of police lockup!—and the people involved leave town. When we can get something to stick, we have judges throwing things out left and right—he has a few of them on payroll—and we have witnesses disappearing. Those, by the way, are always the ones that can connect the crime to Fiske himself. The rest, he lets go.”

She reached back in the drawer and pulled out another, much thinner file and set it on top of the first. “This. This is the new evidence. Ruffins—remember him, guy from the Tech Control Organization who hates you? Well, he's brought his network of informants in, and it turns out since Fiske is up to his ears in technology smuggling, Ruffins has stuff we can actually use. A lot of it. I don't care if the bastard goes away for taxes at this point, and nobody else on the task force cares either. We're going to take him down on technology smuggling and a couple of murders that happened along the way. Hell, taxes too if we can call the right guys. But we need to move in the next couple of weeks to be sure of getting the judge we know isn't bought.”

“We need to go. We're going to be late,” Michael said.

Cherabino sighed and put the paper back in the drawer with two hands. “It's always something, isn't it?”

She stood up and grabbed her suit jacket. “It's the lab now, isn't it?”

“That's right,” Michael said. He led the way and I trotted to catch up.

“What do I need to know about this Cardinal Laboratories?” I asked as Cherabino followed, making notes to herself on a notebook with a pen.

Michael glanced back, slowing his pace a little to give Cherabino a chance to catch up. “It's the Wright case. Remember how he was fired from his official job?”

“I . . . think so,” I said cautiously.

“It's the ax murder case,” he prompted, which did it for me.

“Um, did you ever find the missing pieces?” I asked.

“No, actually,” Michael said. “My trophy theory is all we've got, and it's not much other than conjecture. Based on the angles of the cuts and the focus on the head and arm, it's pretty clear the killer did the damage there on purpose, to take pieces with him.”

“Are there similar cases in the database?” I asked.

“Nothing like this,” he said. “There was the van Gogh murders with the ears missing five years ago, but the perp is still in jail.”

“And we got him on DNA evidence,” Cherabino put in, catching up. “That was one of mine. I'm sure it's the guy. Still, it doesn't hurt to cross-check.” She said hello to a few detectives who were passing through the main walkway in front of the elevator where we were.

Michael pressed the elevator button.

“I assume you're already looking at perps who were recently released from jail?” I asked. “If there's a weird trophy thing going on, it could be someone who was doing the same thing a decade or more ago and got caught.”

Cherabino sighed. “Unless you have time to go through all the files indiscriminately, we're going to have to keep moving. I'm not authorized for any more computer time this month, even for somebody else's database.”

I blinked. I hadn't noticed that missing. “They took the computer back?”

I felt a small, suppressed twinge of hurt through the Link as the elevator
ding
ed
its arrival.

We stepped on, and Michael pressed the button for the ground floor.

“I just let go of my last Electronic Crimes commitment, and the machine can be better used by somebody who's doing it full-time.” Cherabino shook her head and put the notebook away. “My time's better spent on the Fiske task force anyway. If we can get the bastard, the whole city will be a better place.”

“You still have the tablet?” I asked. She went through a deep background check every six months or so to let her have the technology, and I'd gotten a little used to its processing power, even if it wasn't linked up to anything else; I wasn't cleared for access to anything that hadn't already been Quarantined six ways ‘til Sunday. Still, sixty years after the Tech Wars, with the public still scared of any computer technology more powerful than an oven timer, I was lucky to have access to even that much. Cherabino, of course, had access to far more.

“I'm sharing the tablet with another detective,” Cherabino said. “He has it this week.”

Michael prompted, “You wanted to know about the victim, Noah Wright, correct?”

“Probably,” I said. “If I'm interviewing coworkers I need to know whatever's going to come up. And what we're not saying.” The cops held back key details of the crime on purpose to weed out false confessions.

“The missing ear and arm section are being held back,” Cherabino said flatly. The elevator door opened as we arrived and she pushed through, nervous energy making her move quickly.

Michael and I followed.

“Wright lost his job about six months ago. He was working on a government contract for technology applications and was fired ‘for improper use of sensitive information.' There was a lawsuit filed from the state using the same language—it's odd, I had to look it up—but nothing's been done with it.”

“You mean another lawyer filed an injunction or it got tossed out of court?” I dodged a few cops pulling suspects over from Booking, as Michael moved out of the way of one of the secretaries from the pool. Cherabino just cut through, and I ended up following in her wake. The main floor of the cop building was a madhouse, as usual.

Michael walked a little faster to keep up. “No, I mean literally nothing's been done with it. It's like the paperwork got lost somewhere. It hasn't been extended, it hasn't been dismissed, it hasn't had a court date assigned. It's like it literally got lost.”

“That's strange,” I said.

Cherabino pushed through the reception area toward the glass double doors, frosted with the cold outside. “Yeah, the information wasn't classified because it's a private company and it's not considered a national security issue. Still. We need to ask his coworkers about that. Sounds like something somebody would kill for.”

“Information?” Michael asked.

“Sensitive information?” she replied. “Secrets? People kill for secrets all the time.
Especially
in the government.”

•   •   •

Cardinal Laboratories was a low, industrial-boxy building in South DeKalb not far from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation offices. It had been constructed with a double-paned roof with a filtered drainage system; according to the sign out front, the rainfall and dust particles landing on the roof were monitored for fallout levels from the dirty bomb that had wiped out neighborhoods to the east years ago. According to the sign, government intervention and monitoring had led to a fifty percent decrease in the level of radioactive pollution in the last ten years. I didn't know which idea was more disturbing, the fact that there had been so much radioactive pollution they felt the need to monitor it, or that they were trumpeting its decrease. Could the government really impact pollution? And if so, did they have huge weather turbines or something? Should I be more nervous than I already was?

The parking lot was huge and cracking; employee aircars and flyers lined the rows along with the infrequent classic car and some too old or too broken to fly. The occasional tree planted in medians among the parking lot looked withered, a few steps from death. It wasn't a cheery place, despite the attempt at bioengineered flowers planted in pots by the front door. The flowers were mostly dead, shriveled with the winter cold, and frost covered the pots.

The main foyer was tiled in an echoing flat material that hit the bottom of your shoe with a texture I'd never felt before. Considering this was a science and materials research company, it could be some grand experiment or a new product in the early stages of testing, but I hated it. Not grippy enough on your feet and too grippy all at once.

Cherabino had a warrant, and split the list of interviews with me, her and Michael taking one room, me taking the other to make us get through the list faster.

I was set up in a room with two glass walls, soda machines, coffee carafes, a refrigerator, and a table and chairs. Break room. I seemed to spend my life in break rooms. Still, there was food if I got hungry.

CHAPTER 6

Wright's supervisor
was
Susan Cornell, a mousy woman with very messy hair, mismatched clothes, and a distressing tendency not to meet your eyes. Despite this, she had one of the most focused and interesting minds I'd come across in a long time. If science was a betting sport, with scientists lined up for a race to a breakthrough and money placed on all sides, I'd put my money on her, and that before she'd done no more than say hello. Her mind kept going off in odd directions not immediately called for.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello.” Even after nearly a minute in the same room, she hadn't met my eyes.

“How old are you?” I asked point-blank, a question that normally offended any woman over twenty-five, which she'd passed a while ago.

“Forty-four years and seven months,” she said, absolutely without emotional reaction. She was still looking at the table. After a moment: “How old are you?”

“I'm thirty-nine,” I said.

“I am older than you.”

“That's true,” I said, still watching her mind. Huh. I was starting to think the avoidance of eye contact didn't necessarily mean she was hiding something. Her brain just seemed to process the “social” information differently than the norm. She did a good job of compensating, enough that she'd been promoted to management, but body language just wasn't there. She'd responded to my question with a repeating question out of socialization and habit, not interest.

That, plus the sideways thought patterns occasionally, made her a very interesting mind. Combined with the order I'd felt immediately, I was betting she was genius level or better in her field, and far more creative than the average in odd directions. I wished I had more time to watch that mind work in her element.

“I have a schedule today,” she said, looking at the clock. “What do you need to know?”

Well, normally I'd ask if she liked Wright, but I had the feeling that wasn't the best question right now. “Why did Wright get fired?” I asked instead.

Now she glanced at me, then away. A few thoughts like fishes darted across her mind, some in odd directions. “Noah Wright, pay level four, was let go from his job for sharing sensitive information with noncleared sources.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I can't tell you the information.”

“I didn't ask you to. What did he do with it?”

“He posted it on the WorldNet without password protection or quarantine allowances. He then posted several messages in forums to advertise the information. By the time he was discovered, the sensitive information was effectively worldwide. The government found the information. They are not happy.”

“Is it still there?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said. “Several of our key employees worked to remove it. But once the information is out there, it is hard to erase completely.”

“Several of your key employees?” I asked. “Let's talk to them first.”

•   •   •

Over the course of the next hours, I talked to perhaps twenty people, most of whom had worked with Wright on a regular basis. A picture slowly emerged of a quiet man who treated his coworkers well, who made steady progress on his goals and steady contributions to his teammates, but was otherwise unexceptional.

The next person I talked to had a different story.

“Wright was a bastard,” she said, a Nicole Sagara. She was a small, fragile-looking woman in a lab coat with a huge surge of anger going off in Mindspace.

“Why was Wright a bastard?” I asked calmly.

Sagara looked at Cornell, who was studying the file. Then she looked back at me. “It's no secret that I reported him for suggestive comments in the workplace. They weren't even at me. But I got tired of hearing dismissive terms for women. I got tired of him taking credit for my work—and Johanna's work—and Laila's work—without so much as an acknowledgment that we were on the team. I got tired of him being an asshole, and telling me to get him coffee. I requested a transfer. Three times. But I didn't get it.”

Cornell's mind changed shape then, and she looked up. “Nicole. I told you that I knew about his exaggerations. He was not getting any extra credit for his falsehoods. Your work was good work. His work complemented your work. The final projects were stronger than any individual on the team could do alone. Teamwork is stressful. But good results happen.”

“He threatened to take a laser pistol and stick it up my ass,” Sagara said. “HR backed me up on the transfer. And the punch. They said it was justified, even if I did break his nose.”

“He got a permanent mark on his record. He is fired now. Your work on both the Galen Project and the laser pistol technology is exemplary. I don't understand why we continue to have this conversation.”

Traitor,
Sagara thought so hard I could hear it despite her low numbers in Ability. Her anger was truly a thing to behold. “Just because he was a Free Data Campaigner doesn't mean he should get away with all of this!”

“The paperwork was submitted for prosecution. What causes Mr. Wright campaigned for on his free time are none of our business. When he released sensitive information without authorization, he was fired.”

The third time,
she thought.
And for all we know he was doing it all along.
“Can I go now?” Sagara asked resentfully.

“Don't forget your status report is due this afternoon,” Cornell said. “You may go.”

When Sagara left, I asked Cornell, “What's a Free Data Campaigner?”

She rearranged papers, then answered, “In the twentieth century in the early days of Internet networking, many scientists and engineers believed that sharing information freely would benefit humanity. The majority of information was scientific in nature. Some people still think research should be available to all. This lab appreciates the idea, but we have government contracts for various military applications. There are national security concerns we have that simple science operations do not.” She recited this as if reading from a book.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Now she looked at me. “Wright did good work. But Wright should have followed the rules.”

Then the next employee knocked on the door and I was off to the races again.

•   •   •

After it was all over, Cornell took me back down the carpeted hallway toward the lobby. I hadn't said I was a telepath, to her or to any of the interviewees. Perhaps this was a technical breach of privacy, but legally, I was okay. None of them had asked.

The dribs and drabs I'd gotten of the secret information they kept talking about had been sobering. This particular facility handled a lot of weapons, and a lot of Tech-level projects the government was moving forward with for one reason or another despite the bans. It sounded to me like the gun-control arguments they'd had before the Tech Wars: the government wanted the citizens to be gun free, even starting legislation to take away their rifles, while the government held stockpiles of automatic weapons all over the country.

It didn't strike me like the Tech laws were doing much better. Maybe the Guild was right to do their own research. Maybe not. Both sides were breaking treaties to do it, and it made me very, very sad. Cooper, my personal hero of all the Guild founders, was very much a fan of honesty and integrity in dealing with people and organizations. Hard choices meant hard answers, he'd said. That, and stand for what you stand for.

I think Swartz and Cooper would have gotten along okay.

When we arrived at the front lobby, the receptionist was gone somewhere and Cherabino was seated quietly in one of the comfortable chairs, Michael standing next to her.

“Thank you for showing me around,” I told Cornell.

“I can't leave you unattended,” she said.

“We're about to leave,” I promised. There was a forthrightness about Cornell that I appreciated, though I still missed the occasional eye contact or social body-language mirroring; the lack was like a discordant note in a symphony. I'd been around normals too long, clearly, if physical cues were overriding my sense of Mindspace. Either that or the injury I'd had until recently had changed me.

She seemed hesitant but spoke anyway. “Noah Wright broke the rules, but he did not deserve to die. If there is something we can do to help you without breaking our promises to the government, it is the right thing to do so.”

Cherabino moved us to the parking lot. “We're running late,” she told me and Michael. “And when I called in, Paulsen was on the warpath.”

“You asked me to remind you to stop for food,” Michael said, once we were in the car.

“Yeah,” she said. “You willing to be the one to go in and get it?”

“No problem.”

•   •   •

“He's been in there ten minutes,” I said.

“There's a line. You can see it through the door. And besides, you were the one who didn't want fried tofu again,” Cherabino said. “It takes longer.”

She sighed, and time passed.

“You're brooding again,” Cherabino said.

“Am I?” I looked up, and noticed the shields between us had thinned. “I'll try to do it quieter.”

“You can't let all of this stuff eat at you. It's not healthy. Plus I have to listen to it through that Link of yours. I'm not a telepath. Normal people shouldn't have to listen to people brooding. They shouldn't, damn it.”

“It'll fade,” I said, a quick, habitual protest.

“It's fading already, maybe,” she said. “But it's not gone yet. Anyway, try to cheer up, okay?”

She sighed, moved some papers around, and pointed to the glove box. “Here, open that.” A picture flashed between us, a picture of a nice pair of black men's gloves set in a box. She was nervous, somehow.

I had to force myself not to comment on the image or the emotion; she hated it when I jumped ahead. So I pulled open the compartment she'd requested.

A wrapped package in garish paper sat self-consciously, just the size of the box of gloves I'd seen in her mind. I picked it up. What did she want me to do with it?

The thought must have leaked across the Link, because she said, “Open it.” She swallowed the added “idiot.” I felt it go by but said nothing. Apparently I was the only one here who wasn't allowed to jump ahead.

It was a truly hideous wrapping paper. Her niece's school sales project, her mind supplied. Twelve ROCs a roll. I opened the paper, pulling the bow off and ripping into the paper, which did not deserve reuse.

Inside was a linen-paper box, the expensive kind, with a pressed seal on its top outlined in ink. Some logo I didn't understand. I sat there for a minute trying to figure out what the lines were trying to represent.

She pulled the box out of my hands and lifted the lid, offering it to me. “They're gloves.”

“I see that.”

She pushed the box back into my hands. I took it, cautiously, in case she wanted it back.

“For you. They're for your birthday, Adam. I looked it up. Your birthday is tomorrow, right?”

I stared at the gloves, uncertain. I mean, they were just gloves, right? “Yeah, my birthday is tomorrow.” She'd never given me anything before. Crap, I'd never given her anything either. I'd thought we weren't birthday people. To be honest, the only person in the world right now who cared about my birthday was Swartz, or that's what I'd thought.

She pulled one out of the box. “See, they're hydropolimat. They maintain body temperature better than wool, but they don't get too hot, and if you get blood on them at a crime scene, they'll wash clean. They also have a built-in protective layer, so as long as you don't leave the gloves in a puddle or anything they'll keep the blood and mud and ickies away from your hands. They're nice gloves.” She paused then, glove in hand. “I'm hogging your present, aren't I?”

“Um, yes?”

She plopped the glove back in the box, and it settled half in, half out, on top of its brother. Then she settled back in the seat. “Sorry.” Thoughts buzzed around her head like bees, none settling into permanency, and she'd remembered enough shielding that I didn't get them by accident.

The sun was falling into the car through her window, puddling on her face and behind her head like a halo. She looked away for a moment, and her profile was illuminated, as was the skin beneath the button on her shirt still unbuttoned near her neck. She had a beautiful neck, and those breasts—

I clamped down on my thoughts and looked away before I embarrassed myself. Back at the gloves. They were just gloves. But that almost made it worse. She cared, maybe. She cared. And what I felt, the deep things I felt and what I wanted, well, they were all about birthdays and Christmases, Thanksgivings, and New Year's and Valentine's Day, year after year, gifts and promises and—and things I couldn't have, I told myself sternly.

Swartz said I couldn't have a relationship until I could keep a plant alive, and I had twelve dead plants lined up in a row in my apartment.

“Aren't you going to say thank you?” she demanded.

“What?”

“Say thank you, damn it. It's customary when receiving a gift. You know what, never mind. Idiot.”

I looked back over, and if anything she was more beautiful than ever. Her mind, open, if I would dare to touch it.

Michael tapped on the back window, and it was suddenly a flurry of dealing with food and napkins and paper.

I tucked the gloves away in my coat, carefully. Happy birthday, Adam. Happy birthday.