The Freezer Page 10

  Now our link to the Jupiter relays was severed, and even the jumpship’s communit was useless.

  Could we access the dish itself and send a signal from there?

  I marched to the transparent bulkhead and stared out toward the smoldering jumpship and the landing pad. The dish was in large pieces. Either the exploding jumpship had done it or someone had caused a separate explosion. Whatever the case, we would not be contacting anyone soon.

  * * *

  In the mess hall, Sato and I found the others. They turned to me, and I noted a curious mix of emotions on their features.

  Lefave’s face was flushed and he had been yelling only seconds earlier during our approach.

  Dinova and Marius, my companions from Ceres, were quiet and seemed nervous. Lefave had been intimidating them, perhaps accusing them of this.

  Dyson was there, his vacsuit still on, though he had thrown his helmet back on his shoulders, and he was clearly agitated.

  Robert Cray, his dark eyebrows furrowed as he glowered at me, was in a chair but hunched forward with his hands on his knees.

  The beautiful physician-scientist Janice Snow seemed upset and nervous. Her tension was clear as well—fingers twisted and working as if to unwind a pretzel.

  But someone was missing.

  “Where’s Aoki Tali?” I asked immediately.

  Lefave threw his arms in the air. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

  He had broadcast a facility-wide message a few minutes earlier. He had sounded angry as he relayed my command to the personnel. For some reason, Aoki had not obeyed the order.

  “Did you try to contact her separately?”

  “No,” he snapped, and then he began to pace around the seating area. His head was bowed and his rage growing.

  “Sit down, right now, Commander,” I growled. I pointed to a chair. “You need to get control of yourself.”

  “This is my facility! These people from Ceres—and you—have interrupted our work! And now this!”

  “I’m here because of a crime—two murders—and you need to cooperate.”

  “Or what?” he sneered. He took several steps toward me.

  I reached for the pistol on my thigh. “Stop right there, Director.”

  He glanced at my weapon. He had one as well—it was a standard part of every CCF officer’s uniform—but he was not wearing it. He was still in the white lab coat I’d seen earlier.

  “You’d shoot me?” he snarled. “A superior officer?”

  The others were watching the confrontation. No one said a thing. They had to learn that I was in charge here.

  “Yes,” I said in a soft tone. “Maybe I’d be killing the killer. It could solve everything.”

  He seemed startled. “You’d execute an innocent man?”

  “I’d be totally within my rights, and you know that, Lefave. I’m a homicide investigator. Now shut up and sit down.”

  The tension between us crackled. Only the ventilation fans were audible.

  And then Lefave deflated. He said nothing, but he moved slowly to a chair. It wasn’t the one I’d indicated earlier, but at least he was sitting now. And, I hoped, he’d calm down a bit.

  I turned to the others. “Where is Aoki? Did anyone see her?”

  No one said a word.

  “Where were you, Lieutenant?” I asked Snow.

  She blinked at being singled out. “I was in my cabin. Director Lefave had told us that we were having a dinner to welcome you.”

  “My attempt at apologizing for my earlier rudeness,” he muttered, eyes on the deck.

  Interesting. On one hand he was contrite for telling me to get the fuck out of here. But now he was back to being angry. The new developments must have put stress on the man. This was his project, after all.

  It was now 2000 hours. Sato and I had been out for quite a while, during which the others had been waiting for dinner. “Doctors?” I asked Dinova and Marius.

  “We were here, in this module, waiting,” Marius responded. “Wondering where you and Sato had gone. Talking.” He glanced at Lefave and stopped. No one yet knew where Sato and I had been.

  “Where were you, Director?”

  “Working in my lab,” he said finally in a subdued tone.

  Cray and Dyson were the only other ones. Cray claimed to have been in his lab on level two of Module A. Dyson had been doing regular maintenance on the facility.

  I keyed the communit on a nearby console and triggered a station-wide broadcast. “Private Tali, report to the mess immediately.” My voice echoed through the dome around us.

  We waited for ten more minutes.

  There was no sign of her.

  * * *

  “What do we do now?” Lefave asked. He was calmer now, thankfully.

  “We search.” I divided the others into four teams of two to cover as much area as possible in a short period of time. I kept Sato with me. I assigned Lefave and his partner Snow to explore the largest module, A. Dyson and Cray were to quickly search outdoors if they couldn’t find her in the vehicle berth. I kept Dinova and Marius together and had them search Modules E and C.

  Sato and I would take Module B. I wanted to search their cabins anyway.

  * * *

  Most of the domes, like the rec module or the vehicle berth module, were simply large expanses that had no bulkheads separating them into different rooms. Module B, however, was broken into different cabins with a corridor running between them. There were ten, five of them clearly labeled. The other five were normally empty, but four were now in use for myself, Sato, Marius and Dinova.

  I started at Aoki Tali’s cabin, and the search didn’t have to go very far.

  She was inside, her tangled body on the deck. Her neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, for while her front was on the deck, her eyes gazed unseeingly to the ceiling. One arm was also behind her back, and the broken bone there had pierced her skin and protruded from the fabric of her sleeve. Her left foot was also wrenched around abnormally.

  Sato stifled a gasp and took a step back. Then he spun and staggered two steps up the corridor, where he retched onto the deck.

  It was a disgusting scene, and I hated to admit it to myself, but my work had completely desensitized me to gore like this.

  I knelt beside the corpse and studied it intently. A weapon had not caused any of the wounds. Brute force had killed her. She had been thin and weak and hadn’t put up a struggle at all. There were no defensive wounds on her. No blood under her nails. They weren’t even broken and there were no cuts on her palms.

  It didn’t make sense. A simple twist of her neck had killed her. She hadn’t fought back. Why, then, had someone brutalized her so? The broken ankle and arm. I examined her torso closer and felt several snapped ribs under her skin. Her stomach seemed bloated...

  Sure enough, there was a massive hemorrhage in her abdomen. I had pulled her shirt up to examine it. The purple splotches were unmistakable. Pooled blood from a ruptured artery perhaps, at least until her heart stopped beating.

  And her cabin was a shambles. Papers and books everywhere. Sheets strewn across the deck. Personal items smashed.

  Aoki Tali had been viciously assaulted and endured mortal injury to multiple areas of her body. And then, in her final few moments of life, while she lay in the center of the cabin, facedown on the deck, her killer had grabbed her head and twisted it around.

  Ending her pain.

  Who could have been this angry at the woman?

  She had contacted me and requested a meeting. I had arranged to speak with her later that evening, after the others had gone to sleep. She had wanted privacy.

  And the killer had savagely removed her from the equation.

  The only person who knew about our meeting was
Crewman Lenn Dyson, who had overheard her call to me earlier in the day.

  * * *

  Sato had returned to the hatch and was staring inward, face pale and mouth hanging open. Then his eyes turned to me. “How can you deal with it so well?”

  “Seen it before. Many times.”

  “I don’t think I could handle what you do.”

  “Someone wanted her to suffer, Ed,” I whispered as I stared at the body.

  * * *

  I signaled over the station communit for everyone to return to Module E. They filed back into the mess in their assigned pairs, looking bewildered.

  “We weren’t done searching the modules yet,” Dinova said to me.

  “Doesn’t matter. We found Tali. She’s been murdered.”

  The announcement hit like a bomb. Everyone stopped in their tracks and stared at me as if I were a ghost. I studied their reactions carefully.

  “Where is she?” Lefave eventually asked.

  “In her quarters. Beaten badly. Broken neck.”

  “This is insane.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s no coincidence that you four arrived and then this happened.”

  I considered that for a heartbeat. “You think one of us did it.” I glanced at Dinova and Marius. The accusation had stunned them too.

  “Now just a second!” Marius shouted. It was the most emotion I’d seen from him yet. “This man shanghaied us here from Ceres! We didn’t want to come back here. I was happy to be out of this place!”

  The others shot looks at me, which I absorbed slowly.

  “It is odd,” Janice Snow said. “Everything has been fine here until you arrived, Tanner.”

  I bristled at how she addressed me. “So you also think it’s one of us.”

  She shrugged. “What other explanation is there?”

  “And who killed Bojdl and...and the other woman?”

  “One of them, obviously.” She pointed at Marius and Dinova.

  Dinova snarled, “You were happy to get rid of us, weren’t you! And it wasn’t enough for you that we left. Instead you pursued Bojdl and killed him!”

  Snow laughed. It was short and sharp, more like a bark. “And why would I want to do that?”

  “You hated us because of our opinions. You’re CCF. Military.”

  “So are you, Dinova. You are such a hypocrite it’s not funny.”

  Dinova was in the CCF, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have negative feelings about the Council. I didn’t think there was anything odd about that.

  “It still doesn’t explain why someone killed Tali,” Lefave said.

  “I know why,” I said.

  Lefave’s brow furrowed and he stared at me expectantly.

  “She contacted me earlier, wanted to speak with me about something.”

  The director’s features twitched. “But why would someone kill her?”

  I shrugged. “To keep her from telling me her secrets.”

  He snorted. “Secrets. Which ones, exactly?”

  “What matters is that someone thinks it warranted murder.”

  He threw his arms up. “I have no idea what it could be. We’re just a research facility.”

  I watched him in silence. And then, “Dyson knew she wanted to tell me something.”

  As one, they turned to the crewman. He looked instantly worried.

  “What do you mean, Lieutenant?”

  “You overheard our conversation while we were outside. You were the only one.”

  “But—but—”

  “My comm was on your frequency when she called. I neglected to switch it off.”

  “That’s crazy.” His voice was a whisper. “Why would I kill Aoki? She was my only real friend here.”

  “Explain.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “We’re both NOMs. We talked a lot about the officers, how we disliked their orders. How we’re just slaves for them, basically.” He locked his eyes to mine. “It just doesn’t make sense that I’d kill the only person who I related to here!”

  He seemed genuine, I had to give him that. “Is it true?” I asked the others.

  Snow grunted. “They did eat together at mess. Spent free time with one another.”

  “Were you having a relationship with her?”

  He sighed. “No. I wanted to, I admit that. She is—was—beautiful.”

  “She turned you down.”

  “Yes. I asked her first though. I didn’t force myself on her or anything.”

  “When?”

  “A few months ago. She said no, that was it. End of story.”

  “What was her reason?”

  He shrugged. “Just said that I wasn’t her type.”

  Snow said, “That’s true. She told me about it.”

  I frowned. He admitted to being interested, but she had rejected him. And it had happened a while ago. Could he have let his anger smolder for that long until he finally acted? He did seem to be volatile, though it was perhaps just his distaste for officers. Or stress, as he had claimed earlier. Then again, if he had been responsible for the earlier murders on Ceres, he might have killed Aoki to keep his motivations a secret, whatever they might be.

  “And what about the conversation you overheard?”

  He deflated further. “All right, I did hear it. But I didn’t kill her because of it! That’s craziness.”

  “It leaves the question as to why she’s dead, crewman.”

  His eyes flicked to Cray, and I followed the look. It was something hidden, I was sure of it.

  “You told the lieutenant?”

  Cray spoke up in an angry tone. “Yes. Earlier this afternoon.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything while I was questioning Dyson?”

  He shrugged. “It’s obvious that you think someone murdered Aoki to prevent her from telling you...something. Whatever it was. If you were aware that I knew...”

  “If you didn’t kill her, you have nothing to worry about.”

  I studied them all for a long minute. The silence was overwhelming. Some shared glances. Dyson seemed withdrawn and sullen at being singled out. Lefave was angry about what had happened at his facility.

  “There’s more,” Janice Snow said suddenly. “When Aoki told Crewman Dyson that he wasn’t her type.”

  “What about it?”

  “He’s not her type, but I am.”

  Six sets of eyes widened slightly. The two had been lovers. “Did you know that she wanted to talk to me later?”

  She nodded. “But I didn’t know what it was about.”

  “Did you tell anyone else?”

  “No.”

  So Dyson, Cray and Snow had known about the meeting. But still it didn’t mean a whole lot. Others might have clued into it, or even overhead the conversation from Aoki’s end.

  I turned to Dyson. “How did the jumpship explode?”

  He grunted. “I have no idea. Just happened, all of a sudden.”

  “Anyone else go outside?”

  “Other than you and Mr. Sato, not that I know of.”

  “Could someone have gotten past you?”

  He nodded. “I was doing odd jobs, finishing with the lavatory pump in Module B. Anyone could have left from Module D or F, or even from an emergency air lock if they wanted. There’s one in every module.”

  “And the communications console?”

  “I’m not a specialist in forensics, Tanner!” He caught himself a second later and whispered, “Lieutenant. Sorry.”

  Another long silence as I pondered the situation. “What about surveillance. Cameras in the facility?”

  Lefave shook his head. “Nothing. The Freezer isn’t large enough with only eight personnel ori
ginally here, and it’s only temporary anyway.”

  I exhaled. Hard to believe I was involved in another murder at another isolated base. One of the people facing me was a cold-blooded killer. He had left Aoki bleeding and broken on the deck of her cabin, planted a micro-bomb in Bojdl, and had also murdered Shaheen, hoping to get me instead.

  But why? I still had no motive, and until I found one, the killer was most likely going to try again. I had to keep the innocent people alive until I could figure it out, but it was going to be hard. I couldn’t investigate with everyone by my side. Also, I reminded myself, I had to continue getting medical treatment to work on my own problem.

  I only had until Saturday, and if we couldn’t figure out a way to destroy the micro-bomb, none of this would matter anyway.

  Chapter Ten

  Someone had trapped us here until help arrived. Without the ability to transmit, however, it was impossible to say when that would be. In the meantime I had to figure out what exactly was going on, and I had to do so before my aorta ruptured.

  I imagined sometimes that I could feel the bomb working on the arterial lining. There was an itch there that no scratching could relieve. The thinning was inexorable. The rupture would occur by Saturday, unless we could halt its progress. I also had to make sure that I didn’t need an injection of priority nanos anytime soon. That would serve as the trigger, and it would be lights out for me within just a few minutes.

  I had seen a lot of Home System in my time in the CCF. Some incredible sights and more notably, some interesting people. Scientists, admirals, doctors, engineers. Amazing places and projects that the average person would never see. And I had never gone to another system. Not that I didn’t want to. It’s just that a case hadn’t yet taken me to a nearby colony. But it might one day happen. A contact could get orders to send me out to Alpha Centauri or some other place.

  If I could make it through this, that is.

  My mind flashed back to that case on Earth, all those years ago. The dissidents and the woman I’d fallen for. Her name had been Angela Shikovsky, a Russian living near Star City. Zvyozdny, as the locals called it. It was traditionally their main space-launch facility. A large number of people had migrated there to service the industrial workforce and their families, and along with a population of several million, there was a great deal of crime.