We Install (12 page)

John Paul Kling shook his head. “Not even a little, not on a case like this.”

“Go on, then,” van Gilder said bleakly. “I don't have anything to do with a hoxbomb.”

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Kling poked a button and spoke into it: “Go ahead, Vanessa.” He put the phone away. “Okay. That's taken care of. And believe it or not, Mr. van Gilder, I hope you're telling me the truth.”

“I am!” Van Gilder bristled.

Kling held up a placating hand. “Honest to God, Mr. van Gilder, I hope so. But that hoxbomb didn't happen all by itself. Somebody planted it on the Cravaths. And that means somebody is lying to me—or maybe to my opposite number on the Snarre'i side of town. Whoever it is, we'll catch him, or her, or them.”

“Evidence? You have evidence?” Miss Murple said eagerly.

The human detective's head went up and down on the little telephone screen, by which he meant yes. “That's right,” he said. “A jacket taken from a man who talked with and touched Jack Cravath early enough in his mate's pregnancy to make him a possible hoxbomber. We're taking it to the lab to check for traces of Scrambled Egg 7.”

“Don't!” Miss Murple exclaimed. The human had called her in the middle of the day, so she wasn't at her best. But no matter how sleepy she was, the protest automatically rose to her lips.

“Why not?” Even heard through the worm in Miss Murple's brain, John Paul Kling didn't sound happy.

“Will you believe me when I tell you I speak without offense?” Miss Murple waited till the human nodded again before she went on, “I want one of our own labs to do that analysis. We can detect much smaller traces of organics than you can.”

“Maybe so,” he said. “But it's in your interest to pin this on a human, regardless of who really did it. How far can we trust your lab results?”

Miss Murple bared her teeth in a threat gesture he might or might not understand. She was too angry to care whether he did. “If you don't trust us, why are we working on the same side? For that matter, why should we trust you or anything your labs do?”

She didn't anger him in return. She'd gathered that he wasn't easy to anger—or, at least, that he didn't show his anger. Miserable human telephones wouldn't let her smell him, and humans used nasty chemicals to try to defeat their own odors anyhow. It was as if they wanted to play guessing games with one another.

“Well, you've got a point,” Kling said. “Can we share the cloth from the pocket that the hoxbomb would have been in if it was there at all?”

“Why would it have been in that pouch and not some other one?” Miss Murple asked suspiciously.

“Our greeting gesture involves clasping right hands. You will have seen this.” The human waited. Miss Murple waved for him to go on; she
had
seen the gesture. Kling continued, “The suspect's right hand would have been in his right jacket pocket. It
was
in his right jacket pocket. We have video confirming that.”

They had video for everything, near enough. A human criminal had to be clever and intrepid, or else very stupid. Well, the same held true for her own species. “All right—we can share,” she said. “But if we find something and you don't, it isn't necessarily because we're cheating, you know. Your laboratory simply may not be good enough to sniff out what it should.”

“Maybe.” John Paul Kling didn't seem convinced. “I'll send you the cloth as soon as I can. 'Bye.” His picture winked out.

Miss Murple called Sam Spud to let him know what was going on. When the neural net connected the two of them, she didn't just see and hear him at headquarters. She smelled how tired he was, smelled on his breath the cragfruit grub that let him go on longer than he could have without it. She had a real conversation with him, in other words, not the denatured excuse for one she was reduced to with humans.

“Part of this cloth is better than none, anyhow,” he said after she summed up what she'd got from Kling. “Maybe the human really did it, and that will wrap things up for everybody.”

“We can hope so, anyhow,” Miss Murple said. “The next most likely candidates are Sharon Rock and Joe Mountain.”

Sam Spud winced as if an impacted anal gland suddenly pained him. “I wish I could pretend I never heard that. Their solicitors have bone hides and giant fangs. The mere idea that they could be suspects is an insult. And what's their motivation?”

“If I knew, I would tell you,” Miss Murple said.

“Besides, I think they really are innocent,” her superior went on. “They gave the male parent spices as a parting gift when they bought the scooter from him. Our lab and the Baldies' excuse for one both analyzed what's left of those spices. No hoxbomb. I would eat from that spice pack myself.”

“Stench! I hadn't heard that.” Miss Murple muttered to herself. Then she asked, “Did they ever have anything to do with this other Baldy before, the one the humans suspect?”

“You're reaching, Murple,” Sam Spud said. Miss Murple spread her fingers; she knew she was. Sam went on, “Why are you asking me, anyway? Let the miserable Bald Ones figure it out. They're so stinking proud of all their pictures. …”

The humans had reason to be, too, at least when it came to gathering potential evidence. Bald Ones made all kinds of boastful noises about how free they were. Whether the way they lived measured up to their claims might be a different story.

“I wouldn't be surprised if Sharon and Joe did,” Miss Murple said. “They like human gadgets—one sniff at their flat will show you that. And their brain will let us know the truth even if they can lie well enough to beat the sniffers.”

“They just got a new one,” Sam Spud said. “They used the old one to pay for their fancy new scooter.”

“They did?” Miss Murple's ears came erect. “That's interesting. How did you find out?”

“Oh, they were open enough about it,” her superior said. “It's in their contract with the Bald One. They know humans keep trying to figure out how brains do the things they do.”

“Yes,” Miss Murple said uncomfortably. She wouldn't have given humans even an old brain. The unhappy little creature would think it had done something dreadful. Brains were terrific at storing information and passing it along, not nearly so good at figuring out what it meant. They would have been people if they could do that, so the ability had been bred out of them. Well, most of it had, anyway. “So the humans have had it all this time, then?” Miss Murple asked.

“If it's still alive, yes. I don't even know that it is,” Sam Spud said.

“If it is still alive, it's probably not sane any more, poor thing,” Miss Murple said. “I'd better find out, though, don't you think?”

“Bound to be a good idea,” Sam Spud replied. “Maybe it doesn't know anything interesting, but getting rid of it like that sends up a bad smell.”

“Sure does. Makes you wonder what Sharon and Joe are hiding. Even if they aren't hiding anything, it still makes you wonder.” Miss Murple sighed. “After the neural net, the human telephone seems worse and worse.”

“Well, you're stuck with it.” Sam Spud sounded glad he wasn't stuck with it himself. And well he might, too. He took his finger away from the brain on his desk, vanishing from Miss Murple's perceptions.

She called Kling again. “Yeah? What is it?” the human asked.

“We're trying to find out if there was ever any connection between our couple who bought the scooter from the father of the hoxbomb victim and the human you're interested in,” Miss Murple said.

“
Are
you? That could be interesting, couldn't it?” John Paul Kling said. “Well, we may have video to let us know.”

“Our … individuals of interest's brain could have told us, but they used it as the price for the scooter,” Miss Murple said. “It may be valuable even now, if it's still alive and close to sane in your hands.”

“Ha!” Kling said, a noise the worm in Miss Murple's brain didn't translate. The Baldy went on, “You think they got rid of the evidence on purpose.”

“It's a possibility,” Miss Murple agreed. Kling could smell which way she was going, anyhow. He might be alien, but he wasn't stupid. That was worth remembering.

“I'll see what we can find out from Cravath,” he said. “Talk with you pretty soon. So long.” He disappeared as abruptly as Sam Spud had.

Jack Cravath had to check his own credit records before he could tell Sergeant Kling the name of the outfit that bought the Snarre'i brain. The detective showed up at Intelligent Designing with a search warrant, but also with the hope that he wouldn't have to use it.

“We don't see police around here every day,” the receptionist remarked. By the way she looked at Kling, she might have just noticed him on the bottom of her shoe. If he had an hour's pay for every time he got that look, he could have quit the force a long time ago. She also sounded dubious as she went on, “What's this all about?”

“It's in connection with the hoxbombing a few days ago,” Kling answered.

That made her sit up and take notice. The crime was all over the news. Such things weren't supposed to happen on Lacanth C. Well, what was crime but something that wasn't supposed to happen but did anyway? “How are we involved in that?” she asked.

“I'd rather discuss it with one of your principals, if I could,” Kling said coolly. He might have gossiped if she were friendlier. He was as human as anybody else on Lacanth C except the Furballs … and even they were closer to apes than angels.

Dr. Brigid Singh was a small, precise blond woman who wore a tailored lab coat. “Oh, yes, I remember that brain,” she said. “We're always pleased to acquire them, however we do it.” The Snarre't didn't encourage humans to learn more about their technology. Some of the deals Intelligent Designing made were probably under the table.

“Have you still got it?” Kling asked.

“I don't believe so. Let me check.” Dr. Singh spoke to a terminal. She turned the display so Kling could also read it. “Unfortunately, we don't. That's getting on towards a year ago now. The brain was old then, which has to be why the Snarre't traded it to Mr. Cravath. And brains never do as well with us as they do with their creators. We lost this one within thirty days.”

“Well, hell,” Kling said. What he thought was considerably less polite. “Did you learn anything worthwhile from it?”

“We think so. That's proprietary information, though.” Dr. Singh was polite, anyhow. If she weren't, she would have told him it was none of his goddamn business.

“Proprietary. Right,” he said. “Did you learn anything from it that has anything to do with the hoxbombing at all? No information stays proprietary in the middle of a criminal probe.” That wasn't strictly true, not if the people who wanted to hide things had a good lawyer. But it came close enough.

Brigid Singh shook her head. “No, Sergeant. Please accept my assurances that we didn't.”

Kling decided he would accept them—for the time being. He went off to the crime lab. One look around was plenty to remind him that Intelligent Designing wasted more money than the department spent. People like Dr. Singh probably looked down their noses at the lab almost as much as the Snarre't did. But, even if it cut corners, it did pretty good work.

“Any signs of hoxbomb material on the pocket I got from van Gilder?” he asked the tech on duty.

“I don't think so,” she said. “Let me check.” She spoke to the computer, then nodded to herself when it coughed up an answer. “Nope. Far as we can tell, it's clean.”

“Okay. Thanks.” John Paul Kling wondered what to make of that. The lab did pretty good work, yeah. When it came to genetic material, though, the Furballs did better. Everybody and his stupid Cousin Susie knew that. Of course, the Snarre't had reasons of their own for wanting to find Scrambled Egg 7 in Petros van Gilder's pocket. If he hoxbombed the Cravaths, their people were off the hook. How far could he trust any positive they got?

I'll burn that bridge when I come to it
, Kling thought. Then he wondered how he was supposed to cross if he burned the bridge. Things were really screwed up when you couldn't trust your own clichés.

“Ah, yes.” Louie Pasture looked as pleased as a toleco chewing pintac leaves. “The human did it. We have a match. We have an unmistakable match, a double match. Scrambled Egg 7, or I'm a Baldy. The humans can't argue with us.”

“Their detective said their laboratory didn't find any,” Miss Murple told him.

Louie Pasture emitted a rude smell. “Oh, yes, and a whole fat lot humans know about these things, too.”

“They aren't dumb,” Miss Murple said. “They don't do things the way we do, but they aren't dumb.”

“When it comes to stuff like this, they are.” The lab tech pointed to a vat with a soft yellowish glow. “That wouldn't be there if my bacteria didn't detect Scrambled Egg 7. I got a smell check from the sniffer, and confirmed it with the light emitters. I don't waste time with the droppers and reagents and I don't know what all other kinds of foolishness the Bald Ones use. I have the right bacterial strains, and I don't need anything else.”

“They'll say your bacteria are wrong. Or they'll say you planted the hoxbomb material. They don't want to believe one of their own could be guilty.” Miss Murple didn't want to believe one of her own could be guilty, either. She recognized the possibility all the same.

Louie Pasture gave forth with an even ruder odor. “Yeah, nothing's ever their fault. Now tell me another one.”

Humans thought Snarre't were sneaky. Snarre't thought humans were self-righteous. As often as not, both species were right. “I'll pass the report on to their detective,” Miss Murple said. “He won't like it, though.”