Android: Golem (The Identity Trilogy) (5 page)

The odds were that the spree killer was someone who lived inside the gated community. Killers usually killed within their own families, neighborhoods, or work groups.

Based on the cases Shelly and I had worked, and successfully solved, the killer would be someone in the security department or good at computer programming. The killer would have to be someone who could hack the security.

Unfortunately, having security or programming abilities were skill sets that got people assigned to gated communities. So the list would be short, but there would still be a list.

Finding a murderer was always done with the same variables, though. Homicide detectives concentrated on finding out
what
happened, not
whodunit
the way so many ficvids portrayed.

I liked my job, and I liked knowing how to do my job.

I didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty left by the glitch…

“Drake?”

I looked at Shelly. “Yes?”

“You’re thinking a lot.”

“No. I’m reviewing the mass killing Reynolds and Mack have been assigned to.”

“Anything good?”

The catchline on the Net changed.

“Five bodies have been found in a mass grave in Gila Highlands.”

Shelly shook her head in disgust. “Sounds a lot more interesting than what we’re working.” Then she looked embarrassed. “I guess that sounds pretty ghoulish, doesn’t it?”

“Not to me. I like our work, but Reynolds and Mack will have a much more interesting investigation. Serial killers and spree killers are intriguing.”

“Reynolds and Mack won’t feel that way.”

“True. That is their loss.”

Shelly grinned at me. “You know, I couldn’t ask for a better partner.”

“Actually, you could. Haas-Bioroid has rolled out new models.”

“I wouldn’t have one. I enjoy working with you. We’re…compatible.”

I considered that. “Do you mean to say that I am more human in context than other models? Because that isn’t so. Or are you implying that you have the same skill set as a bioroid? Which is also impossible.”

She took one of her hands from the control stick and patted my hand. She did that sometimes, and I recognized it as a human expression of affection. “I’m saying, Detective Drake, that you’re a fine investigator and an even finer partner.”

“Thank you.” That seemed to be the only necessary response.

Lightning blazed across the sky and rain that had been threatening all night finally settled into a steady downpour. The transplas windshield muddied with rain and the city lights softened and blurred.

Shelly cursed. She didn’t like the rain. I did. The constant noise muted the din of the city.

 
*

 
Only a few minutes later, Shelly landed the hopper on top of the L’Engle Hotel. The gull-wing doors hissed open and I stepped out into the rain without hesitation. Wet clothing didn’t bother me.

Shelly paused only long enough to reach into the back of the hopper for a smartslick. It was worn as a small package on the shoulders behind the head. When it sensed rain, it unfolded to cover the head, shoulders, and upper body, refolding itself when no longer needed.
 

Two hotel security men waved to us from the rooftop elevator. Both of them were professionally dressed and looked very much like fraternal twins. We made our way over.

Once the two sec men saw that I was a bioroid, they shifted their attention and proximity from me to Shelly.

“I’m Detective Nolan.” Shelly waved her hand in front of the PAD one of the sec men held out for verification. “This is my partner, Detective Drake.”

The e-ID reader in the PAD pinged when it registered the e-chip embedded in Shelly’s hand. Her police identification superseded all other information on the chip and kept it secure with extra firewalls. That was one of the perks of working with the NAPD.

The sec man with the PAD was blond-haired and blue-eyed. He consulted the device quickly as the response juiced through from the hotel’s secure Net, then nodded to his partner.

Brown-haired and brown-eyed, the second sec man offered his hand. “I’m Sergeant Toomis, L’Engle Security. This is Sergeant Carter.”

Shelly took the man’s hand briefly. “Good to meet you. Where’s your commanding officer?”

Toomis flustered a little at that.
 

“Captain Latimer told us we could brief you.”

“Captain Latimer isn’t running my investigation, is he?” Shelly’s tone was neutral. She pushed past the two sec men and I followed her automatically. She looked at me. “You said our victim was in one of the executive suites?”

“Yes. Ninety-sixth floor. D unit.”

Toomis looked surprised. Then he looked disgusted. Shelly didn’t like it when people disrespected me. I didn’t recognize any offense, and I’d tried to tell her that on several occasions. She’d told me it was as much an insult to her as it was to me.
 

Toomis reached for the elevator control panel but Shelly got to it first. Her police ID overrode the security protocol.

The elevator doors shut the rain and the night outside and we dropped along the magnetic lift lines.

*

The ninety-sixth floor was divided into quadrants. A single hallway bisected the floor. I followed Shelly’s lead from the elevator, staying one step behind her on her right so I could watch over her.

Toomis spoke aloud, but he wasn’t talking to us. “Captain Latimer, this is Toomis. Be advised that we’re skipping the prelim briefing and coming straight to you.”

From the way Toomis frowned and looked distressed, I surmised the news wasn’t well-received. I didn’t care, but I took note of all reactions. The L’Engle sec team wouldn’t be the first hotel sec agency to kill a guest in their care. Suspects were everywhere. I kept a log of them all. Shelly depended on me to see things she missed if she developed tunnel vision.

We stopped for a moment in front of the plain black door with an elegant, glittering gold
D
. Toomis started to knock, but Shelly waved her hand in front of the sec lock and the bolt released with an audible
thunk
.

The door slid aside with a
whoosh
of displaced air. We stood suddenly face to face with an older, heavyset sec man in a plain suit that wouldn’t have gotten him noticed anywhere. He had perfected innocuous. I knew who he was only because of my built-in e-reader. I scanned him and recorded the information automatically.

His name was Earl John Latimer and he was fifty-six years old. He had been with the L’Engle Hotel Security Agency for twenty-seven years, the last nine of them as captain. His face was broad and natural, and even had acne scarring that hadn’t been lased away. With his big head, massive jaw, and iron-grey hair, he looked like a bulldog.

He shoved out a big hand. “Detective Nolan. Bad night to get out, isn’t it?”

Shelly took his hand. “There aren’t any good nights for this, Captain.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Latimer shifted his attention to me. His gaze was one of forthright appraisal. “You’d be ‘Detective Drake.’”

“Yes.” I took his offered hand and felt the strength of his grip.

“Haven’t ever met a bioroid police detective before.”

“There aren’t many of us.”

Latimer took his hand back. “I
have
met bioroid sec men. Not too bright. Not intuitive enough.”

“That result is usually based on the neural channeling used to install the personality indices, not the unit, sir.”

One of the subroutines hardwired into me was the instant rebuttal of all negative complaints about Haas-Bioroid—as long as such rebuttal didn’t adversely affect an ongoing investigation. The NAPD had insisted on that once they’d discovered the routine.

Actually, the NAPD had insisted on complete removal of the subroutine. Haas-Bioroid had merely gotten better at hiding the programming and toning down the immediate defenses.

“I am very intuitive,” I added.

Latimer put his hands behind his back and nodded. “Yes, I suppose you would have to be.”

Shelly hid a smile.

The captain turned to Shelly. “I suppose you’d like to see the victim.”

“Yes.”

“This way, detectives.” Latimer turned and headed deeper into the suite. “Toomis, Carter, why don’t you two see if you can keep the door secure?”

Neither of the sec men appeared enthusiastic about their assignment. They glared at me as if I were somehow to blame. Or maybe the reaction was a direct result of being jealous of my invitation to the crime scene. The nuances between the assignation of blame and resentment were too fine to register with my cognitive programming.

I felt a desire to smile at their discomfiture, which wasn’t in my programming at all. That made me wonder if I was about to experience another glitch, or if the earlier one had left some kind of residual programming damage.

Either way, I did not care for my reaction or my inability to know why it was there.

Chapter Four

The opulent suite held expensive 3D viewing equipment, a stocked wet bar, a kitchen area, and a small office work area complete with secure Net hookups. The center of the room was a bloody mess around “Richard Smith’s” body.

The blood was almost completely coagulated, offering mute testimony that the murder had taken place sometime within the last thirty minutes. A small crimson holodisc lay beside the body.

Shelly knelt beside the body and examined the dead man without touching him. According to procedure, we had to wait for the medical examiner. “You’ve confirmed the victim’s ID?”

Latimer stood a short distance away with his arms crossed over his barrel chest. “As Richard Smith, yes, though I think we both know that’s not this man’s name.”

“Don’t you have safeguards against obvious aliases?”

“There
are
people named Richard Smith in the New Angeles megapolis, Detective.”

“Seems like the name and the fact that he paid with a prepaid credaccount would trigger some kind of response.”

“If ‘Mr. Smith’ had checked into one of the
economic
units in this hotel under such conditions, yes, there would have been a soft investigation into who he actually was. This is one of the exec suites. We don’t do that to these people.”

“Wealth has its privileges.” Shelly nodded.

Latimer grunted. “At the L’Engle Hotel, we prefer to think anonymity for those able to afford it is simply one more of the services that are offered. CEOs, execs riding a corporate chit, and other wealthy guests often require…privacy. Sometimes it’s for personal recreation. Sometimes it’s to transact business they want to keep away from the nosies.”

“Yeah, but sometimes the personal recreation is illegal and the business is criminal.”

Latimer sighed and continued speaking by rote, a tone that Shelly had cautioned me against in the beginning of our partnership. “At the L’Engle Hotel, we do not condone such activities. If malfeasance comes to our attention, we summon the proper authorities.”

“Sure you do.”

Shelly’s caustic attitude was deserved. Most of the hotels nowadays had unwritten policies to stay out of a guest’s business as long as possible. Only when hotels were endangered, either from attack or from litigation, did they bring forth such knowledge about their guests, and even then they complied only when no longer able to hide behind a legal technicality.

But, people continued to go missing and get murdered within the plush rooms of five-star hotels like the L’Engle, as well as the low-rent establishments like the San Bernadino Ruins. Sometimes a hotel even “cleaned up” after a guest so there would be no corporate involvement.

If an attorney was really good at his job, and desperate for a big payout, he or she could track back most of the sleazy hotels to the same chains that owned the big ones. Profit in that industry came from both ends of the food chain.

Such action was dangerous for the attorney and his client, though. Sometimes people disappeared or turned up dead later. Not all high-stakes games were played in the casinos.

Shelly shifted and examined the cuts on the man’s face more closely. She carefully avoided the holodisc. “What can you tell me about this man, Captain Latimer?”

Latimer took out his PAD and flicked through his notes. “Checked in two days ago. Room and casino privileges were secured through a prepaid credaccount.”

“Did he play the casino?” Shelly looked at me as she asked the question.

“He did. Infrequently.”

I nodded to verify that. All of the information I’d downloaded in my database corroborated the response.

Shelly persisted. “What did he play?”

“Blackjack.”

“No craps or roulette?”

“No.”

“Blackjack is a mathematician’s game.”

Latimer frowned at that. “The casino people don’t like to look at it that way.”

“A skilled player can win at blackjack. Especially if he’s a card counter.”