Up Against It - M. J. Locke [131]
“I promise you,” she whispered. I’ll catch the people who did this, and I will destroy them.
Jane left Aaron talking with the chief of police and headed back down to Bottomsville. She told Sarah what had happened. Sarah stared at Jane, gravely. “Give me an hour to wrap some things up,” Sarah said, “and I’ll take you to dinner.”
There, in private, while she waited, she got to work.
Jonesy had the Uraniaville results. Most were junk info, of no particular interest—arts and entertainment news, neighborhood events, notices of public meetings for land use reallocation, and editorials about proposed use of structures in reassembly, and so on. But one stood out:
22 April 2397 (Phocaea Free Press)—
Uraniaville resident Ivan Kovak implicated
in destruction of cluster ice stores. More >>
She scanned the article. It contained no new information, but the fact that Ivan was a Uraniaville resident told her all she needed to know. Whoever had broken into their computer systems last night had been trying to suppress a video of something that had happened in Uraniaville about five weeks ago, shortly before Kovak’s marriage supposedly fell apart and his partners left with the kids. She was now sure that the video was of someone meeting with, or having access to the residence of, Ivan Kovak.
She called Sean. “Have you heard about Marty?”
She could already tell he had, from his expression. “Aaron just called me. Goddamned evil fuckwads. Tell me who did it. I’ll shoot him myself.”
“I think I know who did it,” Jane said. “I’m trying to get proof.”
He rubbed at his eyes. “Why is it that the young die and we old people are left to soldier on, Commissioner?”
“Just Jane,” she said. “Please.”
“Hell, you’ll always be Commissioner to me. But all right. Jane. Things are going to shit.”
“I know, Sean. I know.” She sighed and rubbed at her eyes, which burned with fatigue. The meds Marty had given her had long since worn off. When had she last gotten a good night’s sleep? “Did the police have any evidence that Kovak accepted a bribe? Any unusual deposits into his bank account, or anything like that?”
“Nope. If there was a bribe, the spouses took it with them.”
“Or maybe the bribe was his family’s lives.”
He made a disgruntled noise. “I’d rather go on thinking of him as a loss to humanity.”
Jane looked askance. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, my friend.”
He made a noise. “Incidentally, I’m assuming that bastard Benavidez pulled the plug on your Zekeston housing allowance.”
“Actually, I’m supposed to get a shitload of money, but not till I leave. In the meantime … you guessed correctly.”
“Well, you and Xuan are welcome to our spare room while you’re in town, for as long as you like.”
Good to know who your friends were. “That’s kind of you. Xuan’s friends put us up last night, but I’m not sure if their invitation extended beyond the night. Do you need to talk it over with Lisa?”
“Nope. It was her idea.”
“We may take you up on it, then. I’ll have to talk to Xuan, but it’ll be a while before I can reach him. He’s off somewhere on a sugar-rock claim and I’m not sure where he is.”
“Ah? I can help you there. I saw him a while ago, out here at the docks as he was loading his equipment for the run. It’s the rock that belongs to the Agre kid—you probably heard about that.”
“Geoff Agre owns a rock? That kid is full of surprises.”
“You’re telling me.” Sean shook his head. “Apparently some old miner gave him a tapped-out claim a while back, and it has some ice in it. It’s what got him in trouble with the black marketers last night.”
“Black marketers? I am so out of the loop! Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? Never mind—things have been hectic. I get it. But what happened? Do his parents know?”
“It wasn’t him, supposedly; his friend Ian Carmichael, the kid who had his arm removed, remember him?”
“Of course.”
“Shortly before the feral sapient attack, Ian apparently got Geoff and his friends tangled up with