Lam’s eyebrows went up. “Yes? But now, you see, we do not care. It is too late. What Kuo did, those were the preliminaries. The major is a softhearted man.”
Lam leaned close, and whispered into his ear, holding his gaze, smiling. “Now we will start the real interrogation.”
24
The exec’s stateroom was much smaller than Aisha’s. Made sense; hers was a suite, to host a commodore or an admiral. Still, she felt trapped when the door closed and Staurulakis gestured her to the only other chair, between the sink and a filing cabinet. Diminutive Chief Toan lurked like an uncertain shadow in the open doorway. Until Aisha murmured, “I’m sorry, I know it’s late, but… And maybe we’d better keep this private.”
Staurulakis blew lank greasy-looking hair out of her eyes. “Sheriff? You mind?”
The door clicked closed. Aisha took the wrapped package out of her carpet-purse and set it on the exec’s bed. Staurulakis eyed it. “What’s that?”
“Something he left behind.”
The commander folded small hands and glanced away. In the overhead light shadows were engraved under her eyes. “Tell me what happened. I got a partial report—”
“Probably not much more I can tell you. I was returning to my cabin from the wardroom. Where you and I were talking, over the chili.”
“I remember.” Glancing away again, at the file cabinet. What did the woman see in her face, that she kept evading her gaze? “Go ahead.”
“I opened the door. It was unlocked. I didn’t notice that at first, but when I hit the switch, the room stayed dark.”
“Same as in the hangar. And the fan room. Then what?”
“I ran to my desk, for my gun, but he came out of the dark and grabbed me. Tall. A grating voice. Short hair. With a knife. There was a struggle. I got in a couple of licks with my baton. He may be marked.”
“You told the chief corpsman? To watch for someone with wounds, bruises?”
“Seaman Ryan did. She came in. Just at the last minute. He was—” She took a breath, fighting not to show how she felt, what even then closed her throat as she remembered it. The stairwell. “He was on top of me, getting ready. She opened the door and he… tried for my neck, with the knife.”
“Tried to kill you?”
“Yes. And it was a serious try. You can see the marks on the floor tile.”
“Attempted murder as well as rape.” When Aisha nodded, the exec said, “All right… and what’s this?” She waved at the bunk.
Aisha undid the brown paper. She’d photographed it in place. Now it lay exposed, sealed in transparent plastic with evidence tape, marked for ID with her initials and the date. A worn-soft baby-blue blanket. Blue satin bindings banded the ends. So old patches were turning brown, although those might also be stains. She didn’t want to think from what.
Staurulakis extended a hand, but Aisha grabbed her wrist. “The lab’s going to want trace/touch DNA.”
“It looks soft.”
“There’s a tag. Pure lamb’s wool. Made in the U.S. Probably fifty years old, maybe older.”
“This is what he put on the deck, to rape the victim on?”
“A compulsion. Part of the script he has to reenact.”
Staurulakis trailed her fingers over the plastic covering, then turned brisk. “So who is it?”
Aisha grimaced. “On the basis of the voice, I’m going to eliminate one suspect. This guy was disguising his voice, but he’s American. I caught a glimpse of his hair, from behind, in silhouette. When the door opened. Almost brush-cut. Which eliminates another… whose hair is… cowlicked, wild.”
“Wenck,” the exec said. “I know, you can’t give me names. Which leaves who?”
Aisha tilted her head, not wanting to say it, then deciding she didn’t have to. “There are still three names on my list. One more than I want to go to an Article 32 hearing with.”
Staurulakis shook her head and sighed. A tap at the door. The exec flinched. “Who is it?”
From outside: “Me. For the trash.”
“C’mon in, Longley.”
The wardroom messman crept in, his ax-like costive face narrowly focused across the room. He grabbed the metal wastebasket, started back to the door, then glanced at the bunk. Turned back, picked up the blanket, and folded it over his arm.
“Longley,” Staurulakis sputtered, jumping up, as did Aisha too, horrified. “What the… what the fuck are you doing?”
He halted, frowning at them. Looked at it, in his hands, then back at them. Murmured, angrily, “What are you guys doing with Dr. Noblos’s blanket? Belongs at the foot of his bunk. What, did the laundry drop it here? Those assholes. Where’s the laundry chit?”
The two women stared at him, mouths open.
An hour later, in the scientist’s stateroom. Toan was with them. The exec had confirmed with a call that Noblos was in CIC. Aisha had her SIG, loaded and with a round in the chamber, stuffed into the back of her cargo pants. Just in case he returned, and caught them here.
The whole way down she’d been cursing herself. Though understanding why she’d missed him.
The civilian wasn’t on the ship’s roster. He was a supernumerary, a rider, like her. So he’d never been given a questionnaire. Never popped in any of her investigations about who’d been on watch when. Because he didn’t stand watches.
The Invisible Man. And one with the skills to account for the lacunae on the camera tapes.
His cabin was so clean as to seem uninhabited, full of shining, polished surfaces. The air-conditioned chill was enhanced by the absence of any photos, the lack of any stamp of personality. Longley, who was with them too, said he wasn’t allowed to clean, only to pick up laundry and empty the wastebasket; Noblos did his own room. And the room was immaculate. The freshly waxed deck tiles reflected their faces. The clothing in the drawers was as neatly folded as if by a professional valet. Even the toilet articles were carefully arranged, with three toothbrushes, all with red handles, aligned in a rack to dry, as if employed in rotation.
Aisha told the master-at-arms and the steward to stand back, as chain-of-custody witnesses, while she tossed the place. Staurulakis was spinning the dial on the personal safe above the desk, peering at a slip of paper; the exec held the combinations to all the safes on the ship.
Hands sheathed in blue nitrile gloves, Aisha checked the usual hidey-holes: behind drawers, under the mattress, under the bunk frames. Inside the ventilator diffusers, which were easy to remove by unscrewing them. She’d seen some imaginative uses made of common fixtures, for hiding drugs, but came up empty. She unscrewed the cover plates on the electrical outlets. Opened each book and binder, held them over the bed, and shook them.
“Nothing much in here.” The exec closed the safe with a dull clank.
“He knows you have access. Does he have a computer? A notebook?”
“Carries it with him. Probably has it up in CIC right now.”
She grimaced. If he had files about his activities, a log, they’d most likely be on his machine. But in the end, it was the exec who said, fingering through a small, perfectly aligned row of plastic software and video boxes, “We looking for media?”
“Digital media? With this guy, could be. Sure.”
“Recordable DVDs. In boxes marked MDA — Missile Defense Agency?”
They were snapped into the jewel boxes. Sony recordable disks Magic Markered with four-digit numbers, not titles. “Good eye,” she told Staurulakis. She didn’t want to take them out of the cases until she could dust for prints. She photographed them in place. Then dropped them into evidence bags, sealed them, and ID marked them.