“Nothing. It was an accident.”
“If an officer is responsible, you can file a complaint with KOP, you know.” She was softballing him. She'd be turning up the heat soon.
“I don't want any trouble.”
“Can I take a closer look at your face?”
“If you want.”
“Come over here so I can see in the light… Okay, now hold still.”
I made a barefooted scamper past the open doorway, not bothering to look. I scurried through the kitchen and past a bathroom, then stopped at a bedroom that had been converted into an office. The room hummed with computer equipment that covered two walls. I couldn't hear Yuri and Maggie anymore, which was good. It meant they couldn't hear me either.
I didn't waste any time. I snatched up a tripod and studied its round feet, looking for bloodstains. I gave them a squirt of Luminol and turned off the lights, looking for the telltale blue glow of blood. Nope. I grabbed for another tripod but stopped when I saw that its feet were square. No other tripods. Damn.
I ejected the disc from a vid camera on the floor and held it up for my portable to make a bit-level copy of the data by beaming the ones and zeroes to a data chip in my pocket. Noises in the kitchen made me uneasy, but I kept working, knowing that Maggie was probably just stalling by getting him to make her some tea. I found three more cameras and repeated the process, each copy taking a nerve-wracking two minutes. I hoped Maggie had a lot to say.
I moved to his desk and pulled open the top left drawer, scoring nothing but a jumble of office supplies. I found more of the same in the next two drawers and then hit pay dirt on the bottom right. The drawer was full of vids lined up in neat rows. I scanned through the labels finding a complete row of station promos and next to it, a row of wedding vids. I ran my finger from innocuous label to innocuous label, disappointed even though I knew it had been way too much to expect that I might find any vids labeled “Barge Murders.” He'd have to be an idiot to keep vids like that in his office. Even so, until now, I'd been holding out hope that he was indeed a bona fide idiot.
I heard more footsteps in the kitchen and tried to ignore them. No wait. They're coming this way. I spun around in the desk chair just as the door opened. SHIT! In came somebody slender, definitely not Yuri Kiper. He startled upon seeing me. “Damn, man! You scared me.”
I was frozen in my seat.
“They didn't tell me there was anyone back here,” he said.
I recognized him from Adela's case files. Raj Gupta, ex-boyfriend of our death-row dish. I forced my dry mouth into action. “What the fuck are you doing here, kid? This is official police business.” I pulled my shoeless feet back under the chair, hopefully out of sight.
“Hey, sorry, man. I just came to pick up a lens. Yuri always forgets and brings it home. He and that cop lady didn't tell me you were back here. Otherwise, I would've knocked.”
“You work with Yuri?”
“Yeah. I work at Lagarto Libre. I'm an intern.”
More connections fired in my mind. “Do you see the lens you need?”
“Yeah, this is it right here.” He picked it up from a bookshelf then looked at me with his eyebrows up, waiting for permission to leave. Raj was a good-looking kid, dark hair, bright smile, confident air…
“You can go,” I said. “But don't disturb them up front, you got me? This is official police business. You just walk straight out. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. I'll be on my way then.” Raj walked out, closing the door behind him.
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. Fuck me! I stared at the closed door expecting a raging Yuri Kiper to come storming in any moment. C'mon kid, just leave. Don't stop to chitchat. Just go. With every uneventful second, my heart pounded a little softer and a little slower. Kid must've done what I said. Yuri Kiper was none the wiser-at least for now. I turned back to the drawer and tried to focus on the vid labels, skimming through them until one finally jumped out at me, its title: “Liz-Complete Works.” I pulled it and sweated out the two minutes of copy time before putting it back in the drawer.
I shut the drawers and took one last look at the room to make sure everything was back in place. Looked good to me. I moved out into the hall and from there into the kitchen. I needed another distraction to help me get past the sitting room doorway. I placed a holo-free call to Maggie, then as we agreed, I hung up as soon as she answered. I tiptoed to the doorway and listened to the tail end of Maggie's fake phone conversation. “Yes, Mom,” she said. “I'll be by after work, okay?” Then after a short pause, “'Bye.”
“Sorry about that, Yuri,” she said. “Were you about to say something?”
“No.”
“Listen to me, Yuri.” The tone in Maggie's voice said it was definitely hardball time. “I know you and Ian have something going. I saw you having dinner with him.” Maggie was pacing. I could hear her shoes clacking loudly on the floor with her overemphasized steps. “Ian told you that you were sloppy. Sloppy how?”
Yuri played dumb. “I don't know what you're talking about. That cop beat me up for doing my job. You should be grilling him, not me.”
“Cut the shit, asshole.” Maggie was full into it now. “The Libre didn't send you out to that barge. I talked to your reporter friend. She said she never got a call that night.”
“She's lying.” Yuri was sounding whiny.
“Why would she lie?”
“She never showed up. She's just acting like she didn't get the call so she doesn't get in trouble with management. These reporters don't like getting their hair wet.”
Maggie's pacing stopped. “You expect me to believe that?”
“It's the truth,” he said, quiver-voiced.
“I want to know why you were snooping around that barge. I want to know what kind of shit you and my partner are into. I want to know about the offworlder. You're going to tell me, Yuri, or I'll be back here with a warrant.”
“But I didn't do anything.”
“Liar!” The sound of shattering glass burst from the sitting room. I seized my opportunity and scrammed out the front.
I arrived at Maggie's first and sat on her front stoop, rain sleeting off the slicker. We Lagartans didn't use these things often, rain gear was for tourists. We'd rather tough it out than look like offworlders. Not that it was that tough. Even during the long stretch of winter, when our polar location hid us from the sun and left us in total darkness for twenty-two hours a day, even then, this place stayed balmy.
Maggie came up the walk wearing a conspiratorial grin. “Did you get anything good?”
“Don't know yet.”
Maggie walked up to the door, which swung open for her DNA. I followed her through, my sopping shoes leaving little pools of water on the tile floor. Maggie snatched up a couple towels, tossed one my way. I stripped off the slicker, this time making sure I carefully slipped the sleeve over my splinting so as not to get knotted up again.
Maggie excused herself, and I settled in her living room, an almost cavernous room with monitor hide furniture and spotless white carpeting. I wondered how much she must pay to keep this carpet mold free. Her family was loaded, descendents of plantation owners who made their fortune on the long since defunct brandy trade.
Maggie stepped in, wearing a fresh set of clothes and bearing a couple glasses of what was sure to be a rare family vintage. I took a deep swig, swishing the brandy in my mouth, savoring the flavor before swallowing it down.
“You scared him pretty good,” I said.
“I wish you could've seen him when I smashed my tea glass. He was shaking, he was so scared.”
“Did he say anything useful?”
“No. He held firm to his story, flimsy as it was.”
“Ian's going to be fuming when he hears.”
“Good.”
I nodded, though I thought it likely that Ian had been expecting Maggie to confront the cameraman. He knew that Maggie had seen him with Yuri and the offworlder. I wouldn't have been surprised if Ian had spent time coaching Yuri, preparing him for Maggie's interrogation.