In the Black (9 page)

The chief nodded. “Point taken. But now I’ve got to explain to Trainer and Swendson why you went all vigilante on his ass and tranq’d him.”

“He shot him. Not me.” Sam smiled. “Take it up with the good marshal.”

The security chief let out an exasperated sigh. “You remind me of my ex-wife. That’s not a good thing.” He turned his attention to the marshal. “Thank you for your assistance. Otherwise I’d probably have a damned complaint from the Guild about one of their captains being manhandled and no response from security.”

He gave Sam a sideways glare during the last word.

She didn’t say anything, taking her lumps like a good little girl. This wasn’t the time or place and she didn’t need any more enemies on this landfall.

Huckness studied the stunned miner. “Idiot. Taking on a marshal and a Mercy captain at the same time.” He gestured at the two guards. “Take him to Danforth for a fast medical check and then haul his ass to the brig. I don’t want to hear a peep from him until the end of shift. He can explain to Trainer and the rest of his squad why he’s locked up.”

They stepped up and took hold of the unconscious man none too gently. He groaned.

“His knee might be broken.” Sam wriggled her mag-boot. “Might be.”

Huckness sighed. “Of course. Just don’t make a habit of beating up the fellows. I’ll clear this up with Trainer, talk to Swendson and keep the union happy. At least we have it on film so no one can claim you jumped him first.” He allowed himself a smirk. “So to speak.”

Sam glared at him, signaling the end of her patience.

Huckness turned to LeClair. “Got the notice you arrived only a few minutes ago. I see you’re a fast worker.”

“So I’ve been told.” He gave Sam a flirty wink.

She ignored it, crossing her arms in front of her and watching the two guards drag away her attacker. This marshal was going to be trouble.

Huckness didn’t notice or didn’t care to react. “Marshal, when you’re ready to talk to us we’ll be available. I’ve got full statements from the men still on the
Belle
and those who were on board the previous hour.” He nodded at Sam, all joviality gone from his tone. “Next time, please call me. This is what I get paid for, not you.”

She nodded. The chief was right even if she didn’t want to admit it.

But it had felt so good.

Daniel waited until the troop had disappeared around the corner before speaking. “Good way to say hello to the locals. Although I haven’t heard you say ‘thank you’ yet.”

Sam resisted the urge to kick him. “If you’re waiting for tea and crumpets you’ll have to talk to Kendra. All I can give you is crappy galley coffee better suited to cleaning the hull.”

The marshal smiled. “I’d be honored. After I look over the crime scene, if you don’t mind.” He shot a glance down the nearly empty corridor behind him. “That is, if you don’t think anyone else is going to visit.”

Sam turned in the direction of the
Belle’s
front door. “I think we’ll squeeze you in the schedule somewhere.”

The miners’ glares followed them like laser sights as they went through the landing bay. No one said anything, including Daniel.

A few minutes later they stood outside Halley’s cabin.

“Locked since the M.O. declared the body,” Sam said. “Belle?”

“There has been no attempt at entry since you instructed me to secure the door.” Belle’s tone was flat as if she was trying to figure out what to make of the lawman.

“Acknowledged.” Daniel nodded at the hatch. “Please.”

Sam heard the locks disengage with a clink and pulled the hatch open. She wrinkled her nose at the odor drifting out. The air circulation fans had cut out when Belle locked the doors, keeping inside not only the stale air but also the less-than-enticing odors that accompany death. “After you.”

“Right.” Daniel moved inside, his mag-boots keeping him anchored to the floor. He turned back. “Come on along if you’d like. I love company.”

She suppressed a snort but walked in, careful where she stepped. Her first instinct was to turn off the boots and float free, but every item she touched could prove to be a problem later on and she couldn’t risk contaminating the scene more than she already had.

“You came in, checked on the woman and left?” Daniel was almost out of sight, already in the back room.

“Yep. April, one of the other courtesans, found the body. Says she came in to take a break with Halley and found her dead. She screamed for help. Belle reacted and activated the alarms that brought me running.” Sam moved forward, watching every step she took. The metallic smell grew stronger. She began taking shallow breaths as she caught up with the marshal to keep herself steady. The last thing needed was for her to make a mess by vomiting.

She’d seen worse.

Jackson trying to scoop his guts back into his belly
,
sobbing a prayer as the slick intestines kept escaping his grip.

Anderson sobbing for his mother as the sucking chest wound drained the life from him.

Tango pulling his right arm to his chest
,
hugging it after it’d been blown off along with most of his right side.

She fought through the memories and anchored herself in the here and now of a murdered woman’s cabin.

It still didn’t calm the pain in her gut.

Daniel studied the body, which was still rotating in a morbid orbit around the room. The drops of blood had started to smash into each other, forming larger and larger deposits that bounced off the walls.

“Hmm.” He plucked a small black box the size of a candy bar off his hip and brought it up to his mouth. “Etts, hook up with the mainframe and gather what we need. Security footage, comms transmissions and the like.” Daniel tilted his head to one side, looking back at Sam. “If you don’t mind.”

“Belle, allow...” Sam frowned. “ET?”

“It’s short for etcetera. Pronounced ‘etts,’ actually. ’Cause everyone’s always wanting to add stuff at the end of their statement—usually ‘and I’m innocent.’”

She eyed the small black box. “Is that a recorder or—”

“Etts is my computer AI, much like Belle is yours.” He touched the back of his right ear. “Implant means I’m the only one who understands him. This—” he tapped the glossy black surface, “—is an extension of the AI. He rides along with me and keeps a running record for the Service. Lets him get out and about, keeps the little fellow happy.”

Etts gave an easily decipherable snort.

“Okay. Belle, let him access all records allowed by his status,” she said. “Hope you know there’s some info you’re not going to get, like financial, without a darned good reason. Security footage, well—” She tilted her head. “The only cameras on the
Belle
are trained on the landing bay, the cockpit and exterior shots of the ship’s hull. Sorry, but the Guild’s rather particular about some things. Privacy and all that.”

Sam waited for his response, more tired by the minute. The initial rush of adrenaline from the confrontation in the hallway had worn off. Her feet dragged on the ground as she moved around the room, and not just from the mag-boots being heavy.

“I’ve heard about the Guild’s restrictions.” Daniel nodded as the small box’s lights began to flash rapidly. “He’s on the job. Who had appointments with her before she was discovered?”

Sam tried not to shuffle her feet. “We don’t know.”

“Excuse me?”

“The
Belle
purges the appointment books after a client checks in. Part of the whole privacy agreement.”

“Excuse me?” Daniel repeated. His tone crept up an octave. “Deleted, you mean.”

“Purged. As in, not a chance in hell of recovering the records.” She held up a hand before the marshal could respond. “The Guild offers total privacy to their clients. That means every trace of our visitors is erased from the records after their appointment is completed, period.”

“You believe that? You think the Guild doesn’t keep records of their more famous visitors?” The disbelief in Daniel’s voice grew. “You’ve got to be smarter than that.”

“I believe the
Belle’s
going to tell you that.” Sam chose her words with care. “In keeping with the Guild’s policies, posted in the landing bay and also on the back of every registration form on board signed by the clients.”

She knew Belle’s speakers weren’t activated in the private quarters unless by specific permission by the courtesans. The AI wasn’t supposed to be overhearing or recording anything that happened in here.

She also suspected the Guild wasn’t above eavesdropping if there was a profit in it.

She wasn’t enough of a fool to badmouth the Guild in public.

Daniel frowned for a second. His eyes darted upward toward the ceiling and he nodded slowly.

He got it.

“I understand. So there’s no way to find out who she saw before her death?”

“None,” Sam said, glad to be off that topic. “You can ask the men individually but I’m not sure how much response you’re going to get to that. Huckness was taking statements but I don’t know if he included or tried to include which courtesan each customer visited. And they’re totally within their rights to refuse to answer that question.” She sighed. “Still some haters out there who would jump at the chance to target someone for their choices on a Mercy ship. Better to keep a secret than admit something and get beaten up in the back room if your buddies find out.”

“Gotcha.” He gestured at Etts. The small black box began wandering around the room, small puffs of air helping it maneuver. “Let’s get a closer look.”

She knew where his eyes were wandering, over the sparse decorations.

“Sort of empty, isn’t it?” he murmured.

“Everyone does their own thing. I guess Halley liked keeping it this way.”

Daniel grunted. “Suite layout?”

“Three rooms, standard.” Sam gestured to the sides with one hand. She wasn’t sure how much he knew about Mercy ships, but her report stated she’d found Halley in the personal bedroom and Daniel had come right in without any hesitation, turning to his right upon entering. He could have done his research on how the suites were laid out before he’d arrived or—

“You’ve been on a Mercy ship before.” The statement came out before she could censor it. It was personal, way too personal for someone she’d just met.

He grinned. “Are you asking if I’ve partaken of a Mercy woman’s services?”

Before she could answer he shot her another saucy wink. “I’m not a kiss-and-tell type of guy.”

A stab of jealousy ran through her as she envisioned Daniel LeClair with one of the women, letting them seduce and pleasure him. Strip him slowly of that uniform and see how many scars he had, if any, on that finely toned body.

Her lips twitched as she ran him through her imaginary analysis. A man like that, a man in a position of power, might like not being in charge in the bedroom. Hand the reins of command to someone else, someone who would push him to the edge of release and then deny him. Maybe he liked being restrained, teased to the limits of his control—

Sam gave her head a shake, mentally slapping herself out of the reverie. That was enough of that line of thinking and she should be ashamed of herself. What the marshal did outside of his work was none of her concern, just as her private life was none of his.

Including having dirty thoughts about the only available man within reach that wouldn’t charge her by the hour or pay for a Mercy woman’s services himself.

She glanced over to where he stood, hoping he hadn’t seen her momentary fall from grace.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” His attention never moved from the corpse.

“Excuse me?” She felt the heat rising in her cheeks and mentally tried to tamp it down.

He eyed her. “You’re no rookie, Keller. You’ve seen death before. What’s your conclusion?”

He was addressing her as a fellow warrior, not a fluffy seat warmer with the honorary title of captain.

It felt good.

She drew a deep breath before speaking, letting out the concern she’d held in for the previous few hours. “Her throat was cut after she died. This isn’t a suicide. It’s a murder.”

Daniel turned slowly, locking eyes with her. “What makes you say that?”

“Not enough blood.” Sam swallowed hard, her throat dry. “If she’d cut her throat while still alive, her heart would have pumped more blood into the cabin.” She waved at the small amounts of clotted blood floating around them, tiny planets in orbit around the dead body. “Even in zero-g your heart keeps pumping, keeps you alive. But when it stops pumping, it stops. There’s no way this little blood would have come out from a fully functioning circulatory system—there’d be much, much more. This is what was in her throat when she died, nothing more and nothing less.”

She tried not to think about the bodies she’d seen at the Hub, men and women who had killed themselves rather than face justice for their actions. They’d run out of bullets and gone for their knives in the end—a painful, horrible death.

Daniel nodded. “I agree. I’m willing to bet the autopsy will either show a drug overdose or some other cause of death. Won’t know until Danforth opens her up.” He pointed at the gaping wound on Halley’s throat. “That’s just to throw us off the trail.”

“The killer did a good job of it,” Sam said. “If it were deep it’d be easily recognized as done by someone else. You can’t slash your own throat without some hesitation and flinching. He started and stopped, making it look like she paused.”

“Agreed.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her for a minute before speaking. “Why didn’t you include this information in your first transmission to the Guild? You said suspicious death, not suicide and definitely not murder. If you thought—”

“I don’t get paid to think.” The words came out harsher than she intended.

Daniel waited for her to continue, one eyebrow raised.

She took a long, slow breath. He wasn’t the enemy. “Sorry. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions before the expert arrived. That’d be you.” She pointed at him. “Besides, why would the Guild or the Service take what I say at face value? I just fly the ship.”

And she flies herself.
I’m just window dressing for the customers.