The farms were strangely beautiful, too. The desalination filters—so many of them together—resulted in the walls of the buildings being crusted over in salt, making them look like the tip of an iceberg sticking out of the sea, leveled into a plateau and patterned in rows of plants. When she was little and they’d scaled the fences to sneak in, like she did now, Simone had thought it something from a fairy tale. Tonight it looked like a mountain of bone. Beyond the fence, the farm was still laid out as it had been back then. She headed for the borderline, where the potatoes met the corn, and squatted down to touch the dirt. Then she stood, lit a cigarette, and waited.
Peter showed up when the cigarette was half gone, eleven minutes after they’d hung up, even though he lived much farther away.
“Hey,” he said, when he was still far enough away to just be a shadow in the fog.
“Hey,” she said back. He came closer. He was wearing a plaid shirt, open more than he would normally wear it. She stared at the gap in the fabric where his skin and chest hair showed through. He glanced down at where she was looking and buttoned the extra button. She took another drag on her cigarette.
“What did you want to meet about?” She looked up into his eyes. “You sounded upset.”
“There’s a dead body in my office,” she said. He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t put it there.”
“I didn’t say you did,” he said, taking a step back.
“I just didn’t want you to have to ask. It’s Linnea St. Michel. She’s been beat up pretty bad. Cuts, burns… someone wanted something from her.”
“And then they left her for you?” Simone shrugged. “Kluren isn’t going to like this. That’s why you called me, right? To report it. You didn’t want me to… help you hide it, did you? Pitch her in the water?”
“No,” Simone said. “She deserves better than that. But Kluren is going to lock me up as soon as she sees the body.”
“Yeah, but you’ll get out. Caroline can help with that.”
“The body is a warning. Someone wants me to…” She turned around. She didn’t know how much Peter knew.
“You kept digging, didn’t you?”
Simone took a long drag on the cigarette. She could vaguely feel him stepping closer, a faint heat on her shoulders. “Yeah.”
“So who is the body a warning from?”
“Don’t know. I mean, I know the delivery man, but not the guy who sent it.”
“Who’s the delivery man?”
“You’re not going to find him, and if you do, he’s going to be cleaner than a bar of soap.”
“So you’re not going to tell me.”
“It’ll make things more complicated if he thinks cops are sniffing around him.”
“You’re going to have to tell Kluren something.”
“I’ll tell her the body was there when I came in. I don’t need to tell her my guess as to who put it there.” Peter was silent at that, but she heard him kicking the dirt behind her. She turned around and found him closer than she’d thought, almost face to face, except that he was looking down at the ground. She reached a hand out, half the distance between then, but then pulled it back. When he looked up, she focused on his eyes, and how they seemed almost colorless in the dark.
“Okay, soldier. Show me this body.”
HER OFFICE WAS A forensic circus within twenty minutes. Peter had walked back with her, both of them silent. When she unlocked the door and opened it for him, he didn’t say anything but laid a hand on her shoulder and tapped his earpiece. His hand stayed there, almost locking her in place as he talked to other officers on duty. The forensic team showed up with two uniforms who spoke directly to Peter, ignoring Simone, except to occasionally glare at her, as though the dead body was her fault. They took the place over pretty quickly, dusting and shining lights and examining the body while Peter and Simone waited in the hallway outside.
When Kluren showed up, she had two more uniforms with her and was barking orders at them. Simone hoped for a moment she might not even see her, but after Kluren glanced in the room, she came back out, that same water-snake smile on her face.
“Some fish you throw back, but they just don’t learn. They swim right onto the hook again.” She stared at Simone, the gold in her irises twinkling. “I was having a nice dinner, you know.”
“You still could be,” Simone said. “I’m sure the restaurant is saving your table.”
“I’m pretty sure I told you to drop this case.”
“Sometimes, you throw something behind you, you find it on the bottom of your boot later.”
“That would explain the smell.” Kluren looked back into the room. “We have a cause of death?” she called at the sea of blue around her.
“Chief,” said one of the techs, deliberately putting himself with his back to Simone. “She didn’t die from the cuts. It was a heart attack, probably from stress and the drugs in her system. I’ll have to run some tests to confirm, but I’m fairly sure.”
“We know what drugs?” Kluren asked.
“Barb of some kind. We already did a quick blood test. I’m guessing one of the more upmarket truth serums. I’ll know more at the lab.”
“Okay,” Kluren said with a nod. She looked back up, as if suddenly remembering Simone was there. “Weiss, cuff her, take her to Teddy. I’ll do the interview myself.”
“Cuffs?” Simone asked. “You can’t think I did this.”
“You’re a person of interest in two murders now. I don’t think you’re dumb enough to kill her and then keep the body in your office, but you know a hell of a lot more than you’re telling, and for some reason you seem to think that’s your right. It isn’t. I told you you were off the case, you didn’t listen. Now you get the cuffs. If I can make it stick, you’ll get some prison time, too, maybe a year if I’m lucky, and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll realize that we’re the professionals and you’re just the daughter of a dropout cop who left the force when things got tough. You don’t know better, Pierce. We do.”
Simone bit her lower lip and inhaled. She put her hands behind her back and let Peter cuff her. Kluren stared at her, squinting for a moment. Simone wondered what her lenses told her.
“You can take the cuffs off her once she’s in Teddy,” Kluren said, waving them off like they were children.
Peter led Simone out of the building and took the cuffs off her. Simone nodded her thanks.
“That went better than I thought it would,” he said.
“Yeah?” Simone rubbed her wrists.
“I thought she’d be a lot louder, maybe order all your stuff taken away for testing.” Peter walked next to her, his hands in his pockets. He was still out of uniform, and he smelled like leather.
“She could still do that.”
“Nah. She would’ve done it in front of you, hoping you’d throw a fit.”
“I throw fits?”
“I guess not.”
It was a quiet night. The fog seemed to muffle other people’s footsteps and hide their shadows. Simone walked slowly beside Peter. They’d gone a few more blocks before he spoke again.