"I see what you mean."
"Besides, I had a supervisor who was an eared grebe. That's a bird."
"I assumed it was either that or an illegal wrestling hold."
Shad gave my joke a truncated pity laugh and continued, “Dudley Baumgartner. A small bird, he had a big black crest and these flaky little golden ear tufts he was really proud of. He could've been an American bald eagle, but BioDyne couldn't legally recode the bald eagle DNA to give him black head feathers."
"Why on earth would he want that?"
"Baumgartner was very sensitive about hair loss."
"Eagles don't have hair."
"Tell it to Baumgartner. Red eyes, his voicebox implant programmed to talk like a frog—I'm telling you, boss, this case is saving more than my life."
"Speaking of programmed voiceboxes, Shad, why do you use this duck voice? I mean, it's still rather comical."
"This was the voice that made me a star."
The cruiser came in over the village of Leighon and up a gentle rise to a wood of oaks, maples, and conifers at the eastern foot of Hound Tor. In the center of the wood was a clearing, and in the center of the clearing, at the intersection of a maze of bricked paths and boxwoods, was the grand lodge of Houndtor Down Hunts, a city within a palace made familiar by countless posters, post cards, vid story settings, skyvault projections, and telly commercials.
A circular drive only slightly smaller than the M-5 ran from the front steps to an improved road that lead north toward Manaton. Most of Houndtor's clientele came in by air. The huge skydock was south of the lodge. The dock appeared to have parking slips for only a few hundred vehicles, but as we came in over it, I could see the access lanes to additional parking slip floors below ground level. As we descended onto one of the multiple landing targets, I noticed with some alarm that Shad was shaking his tail feathers back and forth. “I say, Shad, do you need to go to the loo?"
"What?” He glanced back at his own shaking tail. “Oh.” He dismissed my concern with another wave of his wing. “Updating my anti-virus definitions."
Despite the promised rain, the gardening staff was out in force, clipping, pruning, weeding, and such. No one else, staff or guests, seemed to be about. Of course, the promised park constabulary vehicle and driver were absent, which was a dual problem for us since the ABCD charter requires us to turn our case over to the local authorities in the event an arrest is to be made. The missing fellow, in addition, was supposed to bring us to the scene and copy us the park constabulary's case file. “Typical,” I muttered as we exited the cruiser. “A thing you'll notice during your time with ABCD, Shad, is that, as you Americans say, we can't get no respect."
"Let me see if I can scare up our ride,” said Shad, pointing his right wingtip up at the sky.
"You can fly?"
"But of course.” He took a running step, furiously flapped his wings, and took off low across the ground, gradually increasing his altitude in an ever-widening arc to the right. Quite beautiful, really. Almost completing a circuit of the clearing, south of the skydock he dropped from the sky like a hawk, disappearing into the trees below. This was shortly followed by rather loud duck calls, and the whine of an electric energizing. In moments a green and white park constabulary electric emerged from the trees, my partner perched triumphantly upon its light array.
Park Police Constable Lounds was a lethargic lad about fifteen stone, dark-complexioned, and keeping both head and face hairless. Clad against the anticipated precip in a constable's yellow anorak, he appeared to be torn between his affected contempt for the “Interpollys,” as local police are wont to address ABCD investigators behind their backs, and his actual esteem-crushing shame for being so terribly low in DCI Stokes's estimation as to be the one detailed to meet with us. His eyes were puffy and there was a bit of dried drool on the left side of his chin. Lounds had been napping. He pulled his desktop from his belt array and transferred the current Miles Bowman murder casebook to my portable. We boarded the vehicle, Lounds in the driver's seat, I in the passenger seat, and Shad up on the light array. Lounds drove us to the scene following a route marked by numerous hoof impressions. I noticed carefully hidden motion cameras and sound pickups in several places along the way. It appeared as though the vid director and those manning the cameras and audio for the tally-ho virtuals knew exactly which course the wily old fox would take during the hunt. Probably all the details had been worked out with Archie Quartermain prior to the meet where the followers joined the hounds, tipped their hats to the Master—now deceased—and sucked down the first of several libations offered along the way. Call me old-fashioned, but the fox being in on the planning of the hunt seemed to take at least a bit of the sport out of the thing.
The route Constable Lounds took led around the ends of several hedges and fences, none of which enclosed anything. They were placed there, obviously, to provide the mounts and riders barriers over which to jump.
Eventually we crossed sheep-grazed grassland up a moderate grade to the left of Hound Tor, a magnificent citadel of weathered granite towers, a motorway-wide notch through the center of which became visible once we crossed the crumbling remains of an old asphalt road and reached midway between the lodge and a grove of conifers near the crest of the down. “Scene's up there,” said Lounds.
I faced him and saw he was nodding toward the pines. I noticed my partner flying on ahead of us, soon disappearing behind some trees. I took a moment to look at the case file, but could find nothing in it referring to an interview with Archie Quartermain. “Are you familiar with this case file, Constable?” I asked Lounds.
"Read it twice waiting for you and your feathered friend there, guv. Fact is, I was first responder here.” He shrugged resignedly and stifled a yawn. “Been here since."
"All night?"
"I was supposed to get relieved, but some bloody cock-up left me carrying the can."
"I don't see any interview with the deceased's business partner, Archie Quartermain."
"The fox, y'mean, guv? He's in a hole somewheres."
"No one's seen him?"
Constable Lounds tapped his own portable desk in its holster. “Only address Quartermain's got's here at the lodge. He don't have a room, though. No room and hundreds of millions in the bank."
He parked the vehicle, we got out, and crossed the tape. There was a lane through the grove made by the trees being thinned to where no two of them in the path were any closer than six meters from each other. The trees themselves were Quik-gro pines, the vegetable kingdom's twenty-meter-tall answer to Quik-gro human and amdroid meat suit bios. The tree branches throughout the entire wood had been trimmed to four meters plus from the ground. Within the confines of the path, then, there was an intermittently clear view from above, allowing the tally-hover spectators to follow the riders with their eyes and cameras, with no one actually riding to the hounds being more than a second or two out of view from someone above. Off the lane, however, the view from above was completely blocked due to the closeness of the trees. The yellow tape placed by the scenes of crime officers enclosed part of the lane but extended deeply into the off-lane trees.
"We got the vids, guv, both the lodge's and from the folks up in the hovers."
"Did anyone catch the actual killing on camera?"
"Not a one. Bowman got his in the thick of it.” Lounds pointed a finger toward our left. “Trail vids got Miles, his missus Lady Iva, Huntsman Diana Weatherly, Lead Second Horseman Sabrina Depp, the head whipper-in Thomas Flock, his nibs Lord Peter Talmadge, and that old West End actress Dotty T. off the main track here."
"Dotty—Dorothea Tay, do you mean?"