Security - Keith R. A. DeCandido [23]
“Looks like we’re needed,” Bartholomew said.
“Indeed.” Tev turned to the linguist. “Thank you, Bartholomew, you have given me…a great deal to think about.”
Nodding, Bartholomew said, “I just hope that they’re calling us to the bridge because they found Elizabeth and Dr. Bashir.”
“That is my hope as well.” And with that, they departed the mess hall together.
Chapter
10
Peace Officer Headquarters
Pibroch City, Izar
TEN YEARS AGO
L ieutenant Corsi was still wiping sleep out of her eyes when she entered Officer Vale’s office. “You called me?”
“Yes, I did.” Vale sounded stiffer and more formal than she had over the past three days of their investigation. She was standing behind her desk, leaning forward, her hands flat on the desk’s surface.
It had been a tiring few days, as Corsi and Vale had spent every waking hour—which outnumbered their sleeping hours by a ratio of twenty-one to three— going over the records of the previous homicides and talking over subspace to everyone involved that they could track down. They also determined that the killer was likely to be humanoid—the wound patterns all indicated that the angle of the killing blast was likely to be from someone of average human height standing about a meter away. Since the majority population on all the planets where the homicides took place was humanoid, this was hardly conclusive of anything, and the lack of any kind of trace evidence made it even less so. It was frustrating that, with sensors that could detect a particular grain of sand on a desert planet, they couldn’t figure out who’d killed eleven people.
Izar itself had been all but locked down, with temporary curfews put in place and regular sensor sweeps looking for the phaser in question. All the previous murders had come in threes, so everyone was waiting for the third in this sequence to be completed. In particular, human women with long dark hair were encouraged to stay in their homes until the person was caught.
Corsi couldn’t help but notice that both Vale and Kim fit the bill.
She had managed to steal a few hours’ sleep with Dar—which meant she had gotten very little sleep at all—until the summons came on her combadge. Dar had barely noticed the call, and she told him that she had to go to work and she’d see him later.
Vale stared at her now with a rather intense expression. Corsi wondered if that meant they’d found something.
“Lieutenant Corsi, after I first briefed you three days ago, did Officer Giacoia give you access to one of our comm terminals so you could contact the Roosevelt?”
Not liking the tone in the officer’s voice at all, Corsi asked, “You know I did. You’re treating this like an interrogation—why?”
Vale did not answer the question, instead posing another: “After doing so, did you then make an unauthorized call to a Lieutenant Dar Ableen?”
“It wasn’t unauthorized,” Corsi said tightly. “And if it was—well, I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention to break any regulations. What is this about, Officer?”
“When I summoned you here this morning, did you come from Lieutenant Ableen’s quarters at the Starfleet base in Garthtown?”
Putting her hands on her hips, Corsi said, “I’m not answering any more questions until you answer some of mine, Officer.”
Finally standing upright, Vale ran her hands through her auburn tresses. “I did a search on equipment that could hide all traces of evidence in a manner that would allow these crimes to take place. I found something in the Starfleet database, something that was only just declassified a month ago, so any of the locals investigating the previous homicides wouldn’t even have been allowed to know about it. It’s a stealth suit, one that is to be used for anthropological observation of pre-warp civilizations.”
“Okay.” Corsi had a vague recollection of reading an update about the declassification of that technology. “What does that have to do with this?”
“Only one of the murders had a witness—the second one on Centauri.”
Corsi nodded. “Elra Gren.” The Trill was a computer programmer who was engaged to be married.
“Right.