Dead Man on the Moon (21 page)

"Listen, love,"
Karen said,
"much as I love being your sidekick, I have patients to see this afternoon and it's getting on toward lunch."

"Take the rover, then," Linus said absently. "I'm going to keep going. The next airlock's not that far ahead."

Just don't forget that you're taking me to Noah's show tonight"
Karen reminded him.
"Are we having dinner first?"

"Dinner?" Linus shook his head, not sure what she was talking about. "Dinner."

"You know
—
that meal you eat between lunch and bedtime. Dinner."

"Oh. No. I'll be working. Dinner at my desk. You know how it goes." He couldn't take his eyes off the shuttle. It rushed across the sky like a demon fleeing an angel. "I'll meet you at the theater."

"Fine, then."
Karen jumped into the rover, wrenched it around, and drove away. Linus tore his eyes away from the sky and watched her go. Had he pissed her off? He couldn't think of what he might have said.

Itch itch itch. The imp at the back of his brain waved the feather some more. What was he missing? A shoe. Airlock. Drag mark. Close proximity to the site where the body had been dumped. No DNA entry in the immigration or security databases. He stood there, letting his mind wander a bit to see if it would connect with something. Metallic air hissed through his suit. Nothing.

Linus started walking again. He passed the airlock second closest to the dump site without seeing anything unusual. This part of the lunar surface received more traffic, and he kept finding more footprints and rover tracks, but no shoe. His stomach rumbled, reminding him it was now well past lunchtime.

And then he found it. A single brown loafer lying on the gray dust as if it were a completely normal, everyday object. Linus removed a holographic imager from his belt and made a scan of the immediate area, then gingerly picked up the shoe. It was dry and cracked, of course, and he quickly popped it into a sealed evidence bag. Linus looked at the bagged shoe, then at the airlock behind him. Why was the shoe
here
instead of between the first airlock and the body site? Had the killer used the airlock, taken the body in this direction, and changed his mind? But why? Transporting a body was risky enough without going in half a dozen different directions while you did it. Panic might have been involved, but it didn't seem likely. The killer would have had plenty of time to calm down while putting on the vac suit and cycling the airlock.

Linus looked down at the shoe again, then looked up into the impossibly black sky. The fiery streak of the shuttle was just barely visible in the distance.

And then he knew.

Noah exited Xiao Yen Hall and the security offices therein with quick, firm steps that bounded only slightly in the lunar gravity. The Dome was as crowded as ever, with students clogging the paths like salmon in a river. Conversation mixed with shouts and laughter. Noah made a smart left turn outside, marched down a little path that ran alongside a bicycle rack, and stepped into a copse of trees. He looked around to make sure he was alone—or at least not visible—then buried his mouth in the crook of his elbow and yelled.

It was a trick he had picked up growing up in a crowded household where he shared a bedroom with two brothers, and where a cathartic yell would bring instant, unwanted attention. On this occasion, Noah had intended for the shout to be short and sharp, but once he got going, he couldn't seem to stop. Noah yelled and screamed and hollered and shouted into the soft fabric of his shirt until his vocal cords protested under the strain. He hadn't been on the moon for two days and already he'd been yanked into
two murder investigations, gotten into a major fight with his roommate, messed up a corpse, been ordered onstage to do a show he'd barely had time to prepare for, and been falsely accused of carelessly processing a murder scene. What next? Maybe he should just get on the next shuttle and head for home. All of a sudden he wanted to hear his mother's voice, calm and soothing. The voice that made sickness feel better and childhood fear recede. It was stupid to stay in such a cold, hostile place when he could be with warm friends and loving family.

Noah slowly realized he was on his knees and his throat hurt. He stopped screaming and just knelt there on the ground, the dirt and wood mulch pressing lightly through the thin fabric of his trousers. Then he got up, dusted his knees, and made his way back to the path. He felt a little better. Time to get a little perspective. He was
used
to investigating murders. The show would be easy. Linus had made it clear that he didn't necessarily believe Gary's version of events.

Noah's hands knotted into fists. Gary Newburg. What the hell was up with him? The bastard had out-and-out
lied
about the investigation, blamed Noah for his own screw-ups. Noah tried to think of a reason for it and came up empty. He hadn't even
met
Gary until yesterday at the crater crime scene.

Well,
he told himself,
you're an investigator. You'll just have to find out.

Other priorities came first, though. Linus seemed to be handling the John Doe in the crater, and that left Noah free to devote his full energies to the murder of Viktor Riza. Noah checked the time. Ten o'clock. On a hunch, Noah loped to the train station and caught a tram back home to his apartment. He palmed the door open and strode into the living room.

Wade was sitting on the couch watching a vid-feed on the window screen. He shot Noah a startled glance and tensed visibly. Noah allowed himself a small, triumphant smile. Wade had been avoiding Noah, but he obviously figured

Noah was out for the day and had come back to the apartment. The idiot hadn't counted on Noah popping in unexpectedly.

"Hi," Noah said.

"Hey," Wade turned his gaze pointedly back to the vid-feed. Two robots were zapping at each other with laser weapons. Noah wondered what it would be like to have one of those puppies for real, then grabbed a hard ladder-back chair from the kitchen area and faced Wade over the back of it.

"Got some questions to ask you," he said.

Wade didn't respond. He kept his eyes on the vid-feed, but Noah easily spotted the rigid jaw, the tense fingers.

"You tossed my stuff," Noah went on. "Not a great thing for a roommate to do."

"You mean like throwing my friends out in mid-fuck?"

Noah sighed. "We can go on about this all day if we want. I probably won't convince you that I was right for wanting to sleep in my own apartment and you probably won't convince me that you were right for heaving my stuff into the hallway. But you know that Viktor Riza was murdered, right?"

Zap! Pow! One of the robots exploded in a shower of sparks.

"Yeah," Wade muttered. "I heard about it on the news-feeds. You must feel great about tossing him out like that. He'd probably still be alive if it weren't for you."

A stab of guilt knifed Noah's stomach, but he refused to rise to the bait. "I blame his killer. The one who gave him the overdose of Blue and held him underwater at the fish ponds." Noah paused. "Where'd he get the Blue overdose, Wade? From you?"

Now Wade turned away from the vid-feed. His face was pale. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Two convictions for possession of Blue, Wade," Noah said. "And oh yeah—a little stash hidden the closet." He cocked his fingers like a laser pistol. "Zap! Three strikes and you're out."

"You went through my closet?" Wade said in outrage.

''Our
closet, roomie. So I don't even need a warrant."

"You can't prove that ampoule was mine. It could be Jake's."

"I found your fingerprints all over it," Noah lied. He hadn't processed the ampoule yet—the meeting with Linus had blasted all thoughts of evidence work out of his head. The ampoule was, in fact, still nestled in Noah's pocket, protected by an evidence bag. It made a hard lump in his pocket. "I didn't find Jake's prints. Once I make an official report, Wade, you're history. Hell, you'll be so far gone, you'll be
mythology."

And Wade's bravado evaporated. He collapsed backward onto the couch and his lower lip trembled. Noah wondered if he'd burst into tears. It happened with macho guys more often than most people thought.

"Please," Wade whispered at last. "Please don't."

"Don't what?" Noah asked calmly. "Turn you in? Why wouldn't I, Wade? You're a criminal, and catching criminals is my job. Besides, you threw all my stuff out into the hall. Why should I do something nice for an asshole?"

"It'll ruin me," he said. "And it'll kill my mom. God, I worked so hard to get into Luna U. I've only got one more semester before I graduate." He looked up at Noah, his long face looking fragile as antique china. "Look, I'm sorry about throwing your stuff around. I'll do anything you want. I'll move out. I'll—"

"—tell me who your supplier is?" Noah finished.

That caught Wade off-guard. "What?"

Noah leaned in and down, almost in Wade's face. The chair tipped forward, but the light gravity let Noah keep his balance. "Who's your supplier? Who sells you Blue?"

"How do you know I'm not making it myself?" Wade shot back with some of his old bravado.

Because you asked that question,
Noah thought. But he said, "Because dealers don't usually use. Cough up the name, Wade, and I
might
forget I found your stash."

"Shouldn't I have a lawyer or something?" Wade temporized.

"If you want. Though that'll mean I'll have to tell my superior why you want one, and I doubt
he'll
be willing to forget about the Blue."

"Look, I'm just... I'm just nervous about telling, okay? I don't want him to come after me."

So the dealer was a man. "I won't mention you to him," Noah said. "No point. Now quit stalling and
tell me."

Wade pursed his lips and refused to meet Noah's stare. "I don't know his real name, I swear. Everyone calls him Indigo. Probably a color thing—indigo, blue. Ha ha."

"Ha ha. Description?"

"I dunno. A little taller than me. Short brown hair. White

guy."

"Age?"

"Late twenties, I think."

"And he's a student."

Wade shrugged. "I suppose. I don't make conversation with him."

"How do you hook up with him?"

"He hangs out in Dai Memorial Park in the Dome. It's not hard to find him out there."

Noah took a shot in the dark. "How well does he know Bredda Meese?"

"I think they fuck around sometimes," Wade said, "but it's not exclusive or anything."

"No kidding," Noah said. "Okay. I won't tell about your stash. But you better quit using, especially if you're going to live with a cop."

"I didn't know you were a cop when you moved in," Wade muttered. "Shit."

The doorbell rang. Wade remained on the couch with his attention on the exploding vid-screen, so Noah opened the door. Ilene was standing in the corridor holding a largish box. Noah blinked, slightly dumbfounded. Her lilac perfume filled the hallway. He didn't remember giving Ilene
his address. Maybe she'd seen it at the housing department. Not that it wasn't nice to see her. It just felt out-of-context seeing her just after he'd finished interrogating his roommate.

"Uh, hi," he said.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" she asked, batting her eyelashes with silly coquettishness. She held up the box. "I brought you a present."

"Oh. Uh, right. Come in."

She did so, and Noah noted with some relief that Wade had vanished into the bedroom and shut the door. No need for introductions, then. Ilene set the cardboard box down on the counter next to the sink.

"So how've you been?" she asked.

"Busy," he said weakly. "Busy beyond belief."

Her forehead furrowed. "Classes don't start until next week. What have—oh! You're probably investigating those murders."

"Yeah. Got sucked right into it. In fact, I should probably—"