THE GOOD KILL
by Barry B. Longyear
* * * *
Illustrated by John Allemand
Changing times can put an end to old traditions—unless they can find untraditional ways to adapt. Very untraditional, in this case....
The Rent-A-Mech, Walter, had just put my breakfast on the table when D. Supt. Matheson rang me. "Forgive me for ringing you so early, Jaggers, but London ABC wants us to look into that fox hunting matter at Dartmoor. Apparently there's an amdroid involved. It's an outdoor scene and if you don't move quickly the evidence may become contaminated.... “
Matheson hadn't begun with a knock-knock joke, which meant he was troubled. The Miles Bowman death was the biggest story to hit Devon in decades. The wealthy and charismatic Master of Houndtor Down Hunts had died, I had gathered from yesterday's news reports, when he had been thrown by his horse during a run. Apparently someone in the park police was exploring another theory.
Val momentarily looked up from the table where she had been lapping her single cream. Seeing nothing to distress her, she twitched her tail as if to launch an unwelcome insect and resumed emptying the saucer. A sepia and golden Tonkinese, her soft coat colored in a random watermarked silk pattern, she was much too elegant ever to be observed using the litter box, although I supposed she must be using it. It was, after all, being used. Perhaps she had friends in.
"Jaggers? Jaggers, there. Pay attention. Blast! When are you getting a modern screen phone? Bloody hell. Jaggers?"
With a parting glance at my rapidly cooling eggs and bacon, I responded into the handset, “Yes, Superintendent. You were saying?"
"Now, I've made a good number of allowances for you, Jaggers, because of your record. You were once an impressive detective. Do not take advantage. Am I understood?"
"Certainly, Superintendent."
"You're going to want to get to the scene before it rains."
I shifted my gaze to the glass door that looked into the garden as Matheson continued. The mid-March sky over the city was gloomy grey with curtains of mist coming up from the river. "The park constabulary think they have their murderer, Jaggers. London wants us to go through everything. After all, artificial beings are our bailiwick. Ready to receive?"
I toggled the receive on my hand desk. “Go ahead, Superintendent."
"Sending now."
As the case file form and location instructions loaded, I mulled the late Miles Bowman's place in the scheme of things. In certain upwardly crusted circles, Bowman's death was immense. Houndtor Down had brought riding to the hounds and the good kill back to Albion after an eight-decade hiatus, dotted with less than satisfying drag hunts and those absurd experiments with AI-equipped robotic foxes. Houndtor's answer was to introduce genuine bio fox amdroids for prey, but imprinted with human engrams. The fox, therefore, would be physically a fox, but no longer a fox according to the prohibition against fox hunting, in that the creature understood the consequences and could volunteer. In actuality, the vermin was a human in a fox's “meat suit,” entitled under law to engage in whatever absurd, but legal, occupation he or she chose. Nevertheless, where one got volunteers was a puzzle.
I'd never been at the Houndtor Down Lodge, although I had witnessed a bit of one of the operation's hunts on Cripdon Down the year before when I was on an easily resolved poodle abuse enquiry. The amdroid poodle had undeniably abused her owner, a Harley dealer from Torbay. However both poodle and woman confessed to being consensual S&M partners in the area for a hunt, hence no crime. Too bad really. The poodle matter promised to be the most interesting case I'd been on since being assigned to the Exeter office. Nevertheless, since I was on the moor then and a hunt was on, I watched. Except for the chase being followed above by a hoard of hovercraft, the hunt itself had been something caught in amber. Elegantly costumed riders mounted on magnificent steeds chasing a huge pack of handsome foxhounds, the peculiar warbling notes of the Master's tiny horn signaling the sighting of the prey. As long as you weren't particularly fond of foxes, it was rather uplifting.
The lodge was twenty-five kilometers southwest of the city, just beyond the village of Lustleigh on the east edge of the moor. The enormously lucrative concession had its own skydock, and the park detective in charge, one DCI Stokes, condescended to have a constable at Houndtor Down to bring us up to speed. “Superintendent, on the killing, did the park cops get a verbal?"
"No. This Stokes fellow is certain he has his killer, nevertheless: Lady Iva Bowman, Miles Bowman's wife."
Lady Iva Bowman. The image of that stunning beauty was fixed in the nation's memory. Her marriage to Bowman had been little short of a media coronation.
"Their theory is Bowman and Lady Iva, along with the hunt staff and some eighty followers and club members, were in the middle of one of their smaller commercial runs when Miles was found dead along the route. Lady Iva inherits and I gather from DCI Stokes she had just learned that her husband was bonking the company's lead second horseman, one Sabrina Depp."
"Motive and opportunity,” I commented.
"They're up the wrong branch, Jaggers."
"You disagree, sir?"
"I knew Lady Iva years ago. For all her beauty, she is old school, very refined. I can't see her getting down into the muck and beating a grown man to death with what appears to have been a horseshoe, regardless of the provocation. In fact, I rather suspect Miles Bowman's horse."
"An amdroid?"
"Yes. The horse isn't running on a human imprint, though. It appears a year ago a favorite jumper of Bowman's was near death from an injury and Bowman spent a not inconsiderable fortune to have the mount's engrams copied and imprinted on an equestrian meat suit drawn from the mount's own DNA."
"That which Miles rides shall never die,” I dogmatized.
"Quite. I suspect Bowman's nag determined one lifetime under Miles Bowman's arse was sufficient."
"In which case, Superintendent, it wouldn't be a murder."
"All of which I imagine Lady Iva would very much like to have established as quickly as is feasible—oh. Swing by Heavitree Tower before you leave for Dartmoor. You have a new partner: DS Guy Shad."
"You're having a laugh, right, Superintendent?
"Not really."
"Guy Shad? Sounds like someone copied the name off an old action vid poster."
"That is his name, Jaggers. Shad is an American."
"Of course he is. Now, we agreed—"
"This isn't a negotiation, DI Jaggers. Shad has been assigned to this enquiry because of his prior association with two of the principals, as well as his familiarity with the artificial being end of the law enforcement spectrum. He'll be waiting at the skydock." That warning edge crept back into the superintendent's voice: "Grasp the nettle, Jaggers. It's up to you to make this work."
"Yes, Superintendent."
A significant pause and then the superintendent decided to lighten the mood. "Jaggers: Knock, knock."
"Ringing off, Superintendent. There appears to be someone at the door."
I quickly hung up the handset as I muttered, “Brilliant,” to no one in particular. After the dreadful experience I had partnered up with the ever-effervescent Ralph Parker, I thought Matheson and I had agreed I always work solo.
Guy Shad. American. He'll want to eat at Wendy McDonald's Kentucky Burger Hut and call me Bud, I mused. I certainly hoped Parker's meat suit was one of a kind. I'd go into retirement before I was made to work with another Parker.