Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey [60]
“We know which kids?”
“Some punks from upstairs,” she said. “Booked, fined, released into the wild.”
“We should round ’em back up,” Miller said. “It’d be interesting to know whether someone paid them to take out these particular cameras.”
“I’d bet against it.”
“Then whoever did this had to know that these cameras were busted.”
“Someone in maintenance?”
“Or a cop.”
Muss smacked her lips and shrugged. She’d come from three generations in the Belt. She had family on ships like the one the Scipio had killed. The skin and bone and gristle hanging in front of them were no surprise to her. You dropped a hammer under thrust, and it fell to the deck. Your government slaughtered six families of ethnic Chinese prospectors, someone pinned you to the living rock of Ceres with a three-foot titanium alloy spike. Same same.
“There’s going to be consequences,” Miller said, meaning This isn’t a corpse, it’s a billboard. It’s a call to war.
“There ain’t,” Muss said. The war is here anyway, banner or no.
“Yeah,” Miller said. “You’re right. There ain’t.”
“You want to do next of kin? I’ll go take a look at outlying video. They didn’t burn his fingers off here in the corridor, so they had to haul him in from somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Miller said. “I’ve got a sympathy form letter I can fire off. Wife?”
“Don’t know,” she said. “Haven’t looked.”
Back at the station house, Miller sat alone at his desk. Muss already had her own desk, two cubicles over and customized the way she liked it. Havelock’s desk was empty and cleaned twice over, as if the custodial services had wanted the smell of Earth off their good Belter chair. Miller pulled up the dead man’s file, found the next of kin. Jun-Yee Dos Santos, working on Ganymede. Married six years. No kids. Well, there was something to be glad of, at least. If you were going to die, at least you shouldn’t leave a mark.
He navigated to the form letter, dropped in the new widow’s name and contact address. Dear Mrs. Dos Santos, I am very sorry to have to tell you blah blah blah. Your [he spun through the menu] husband was a valued and respected member of the Ceres community, and I assure you that everything possible will be done to see that her [Miller toggled that] his killer or killers will be brought to answer for this. Yours…
It was inhuman. It was impersonal and cold and as empty as vacuum. The hunk of flesh on that corridor wall had been a real man with passions and fears, just like anyone else. Miller wanted to wonder what it said about him that he could ignore that fact so easily, but the truth was he knew. He sent the message and tried not to dwell on the pain it was about to cause.
The board was thick. The incident count was twice what it should have been. This is what it looks like, he thought. No riots. No hole-by-hole military action or marines in the corridors. Just a lot of unsolved homicides.
Then he corrected himself: This is what it looks like so far.
It didn’t make his next task any easier.
Shaddid was in her office.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“I need to make some requisitions for interrogation transcripts,” he said. “But it’s a little irregular. I was thinking it might be better if it came through you.”
Shaddid sat back in her chair.
“I’ll look at it,” she said. “What are we trying to get?”
Miller nodded, as if by signaling yes himself, he could get her to say the same.
“Jim Holden. The Earther from the Canterbury. Mars should be picking his people up around now, and I need to petition for the debriefing transcripts.”
“You have a case that goes back to the Canterbury?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Seems like I do.”
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me now.”
“It’s the side job. Julie Mao. I’ve been looking into it… ”
“I saw your report.”
“So you know she’s associated with the OPA. From what I’ve found,