The Cold Between (8 page)

“None of them do.”

“But Central is still letting MacBride file this work of fiction.”

His lips tightened. “He's an experienced Corps captain, Elena, and a die-hard patriot. And why in the hell would Niall MacBride make up a story that makes him sound like a coward?”

True enough . . .
MacBride was all ego and bravado, but he did his job, and he did not have a reputation for running away. “So Central thinks something is up with PSI.”

“Central is watching very carefully right now.”

“So carefully they will let Volhynia convict a man for murder who had
nothing to do with it.
”

His face took on a careful expression. “Kind of a coincidence,” he said, “that of all the people in that bar, Zajec talked to you.”

Bastard,
she thought, but something had occurred to her. “Listen—I'll allow for the possibility that it wasn't my wit and charm that made him take me home.” She hated saying it. She certainly did not believe it—not after last night. “But think about this: let's suppose, for a moment, that PSI has some secret scheme that involves making MacBride look chickenshit, and picking off our mid-level infantry grunts one at a time. Does Central really want Captain Zajec in the hands of the authorities on Volhynia? Where by the end of the day they'll have him locked up in some room so far belowground he'll never see sunlight again? It makes no sense, does it?”

Please,
she thought at Greg.
Please understand what I'm saying.

He was staring away from her, his eyes aimed at the herb garden, seeing nothing. “Why do I feel like you'd say anything to get me to agree to this?”

“Because I'm right,” she told him, “and you know it.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Central won't want him locked up on Volhynia,” he said, “but they're not going to want him running around free, either.”

That was an angle she had not thought of. “But—”

“You can't have it both ways, Elena. You tell me he's useful? I agree. That means we use him.”

“He's
retired,
for God's sake,” she snapped. “He doesn't know what happened to
Demeter.
”

“And you know this how?” He opened his eyes and stared at her, his gaze hard. “This isn't some guy you picked up at a school dance. This is a PSI captain who runs into you while we are on alert. Central isn't going to buy ‘he's retired.'”

“And you don't, either, do you?” She felt anger taking over again. “It's so easy for you to believe that he could have fooled me, that I could have turned a blind eye to some fucking
conspiracy.
”

“And it's so easy for you to dismiss the possibility because the guy's got some personal charm.” Before she could object, he added, “Will you fucking
think
for a second? You want to believe this guy? Fine. But think about how it looks from the outside, to people who've never met him. We need to talk to him, Elena. This isn't about tact or diplomacy, this is about people
shooting at each other.
”

“So you want me to arrest him.”

“I want you to do what you have to do to get him up here,” he told her. “Appeal to his better nature. I'm sure he doesn't want war any more than we do.”

And yet we're the ones talking about taking prisoners.
She shook her head. “I'll get him released, Greg. But if you want him up here, either he comes willingly or you send someone else down to grab him. I won't do it.”

She saw his jaw set and his fists clench, and she wondered if he would risk giving her a direct order.

She wondered what she would say to him if he did.

At last he nodded, and she felt a flood of relief. “You go down there,” he told her, “you give your statement, you get him out. And you do your damnedest to convince him
Galileo
is the safest place he could be right now. Whether he says yes or no . . .
you don't piss around down there, Chief. You deal with the immediate situation, and you haul ass back here. Clear?”

“Clear, sir.”

“And I'm sending Bob down with you.”

The relief vanished. “Doctor Hastings? Why?”

“I want him to validate their postmortem results,” he told her. “And it's a plausible excuse to have someone down there keeping an eye on you. You stay with him, you understand? Have him treat Zajec's injuries, if it makes you feel better, but do not go anywhere without him.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “But he's got five minutes to make it to the hangar, or I leave without him.” She turned and started to walk away.

“Elena.”

She stopped.

“This isn't going to change what happened.”

Nothing would change what happened. Danny was dead, and that was reality, and when all of this was untangled she would have to sit down and have a good hard look at that fact. When Jake had died she had spent days cleaning up the engine room, clearing burnt debris left over from the blast, repairing what she could and writing up invoices for the parts that needed replacing. It had not brought Jake back, but it had needed doing, and when his loss finally hit her she had been able to surrender to grief without having to worry about duty.

She would do her duty for Danny as well, and see his killer come to justice.

“Five minutes,” she repeated, and headed for the hangar.

Volhynia

I
forget,” Doctor Hastings said as they glided back down toward the planet, “do you deal with this sort of thing head-on, or are you the type to swallow your feelings?”

“You know exactly what type I am,” she told him. Bob, as it happened, was one of the few people who would know for certain.

“You've been swallowing a lot lately.”

Not now,
she thought, shoving a bubble of grief back down her throat. “Maybe I wouldn't have to if my friends weren't being such assholes.”

“Did it ever occur to you that he's even worse at dealing with loss than you are?”

“Did it ever occur to you that that's no excuse for his behavior?”

“Didn't say it was an excuse.” Bob always spoke mildly, as if nothing he ever said was of any import. “I'm just suggesting that when someone who copes poorly makes the mistake of getting intoxicated in public, he's not going to handle it well.”

Annoyance began to blunt grief, and she clung to the topic.
“He's a grown man,” she said. “He has a tantrum, and I'm supposed to shrug it off and forgive him?”

“It's really that bad between you?”

“You were there,” she reminded him. “What do you think?”

Everyone
had been there. Bob had been at the bar right next to her, talking with Emily Broadmoor until Greg's yelling drew their attention. She had retorted, for all the good it did—there was no real comeback to what he had said. His outburst had crossed a line she had thought long crossed. He had hurt her, when she had thought there was no more room for hurt in her life. At least she wasn't spending any more time trying to figure out how to forgive him.

Bob had known Greg for years; knew his father, his sister, his wife; had known his mother before she died. Duty notwithstanding, Elena knew where his loyalties lay.

“If I asked you, as a personal favor, not to close the door on him,” Bob asked, “would you do it?”

For a moment she thought quite seriously of screaming at him. Instead she bit her tongue, and took a mental step back. Underneath her irritation, her guilt, her grief, there was bone-deep exhaustion. She had not slept, she had not eaten, she had too much left to do, and none of that was the fault of the physician. “I didn't close anything,” she said, with more civility than she felt. “But he sure as hell did.”

Novanadyr's traffic control guided them through the atmosphere and onto the spaceport's tarmac, keeping them hovering until they were waved into the hangar. The deck coordinator assigned them a spot right by the back door. She appreciated the placement—she always preferred to be close to the exit, even on a developed colony—but she suspected they were sim
ply hoping that Central wouldn't leave their representatives on the surface for long.

They took one of the public trams to the police station. Elena was aware of stares. She kept her face expressionless and her eyes forward; both of her hands gripped the railing, but she was conscious of her handgun at her hip. Next to her Bob leaned into the wind, a half smile on his face. At one point he turned to a woman standing behind them and said hello. The woman looked startled and moved away; Bob gave a low chuckle.

“We need to be efficient,” she told Bob as the tram slowed in front of the station. “Once we walk in there, the press will descend like vultures.” She hopped off, Bob at her heels.

“A proper postmortem is going to take me at least an hour,” he warned her.

“You do what you need,” she said. “If we get separated, you can go ahead and take the shuttle back up.”

“He'll skin me alive if I do that, Chief.”

“He'll skin me alive, too. But I'm not sticking around here if it means dealing with stringers.” If she had to choose between Greg's anger and the full force of the press corps, she would face her captain's rage.

His lips thinned, and he shook his head. “Stubborn,” he murmured, and she knew she'd won this one.

As they were walking up to the station's entrance, a wide gap open to the building's lobby, she caught sight of a man halfway up the block, slouching against the wall, eyes looking ahead at nothing, as if he were listening to a comm. He was absurdly thin, absurdly tall, and absurdly handsome.

She cursed.

“Bloody Ancher,” she said to Bob's look. Ancher was a stringer: a professional journalist who had covered the Corps for years. He was tenacious, good-natured, and entirely without ethics. “Someone's leaked that the dead man is a soldier.”

“Then we'd better get it done,” Bob said wearily, and opened the door.

The desk officer, a young man with disapproving eyes, checked her weapon and directed them upstairs to the main office, a wide, airy room spanning the width of the building. Behind the reception desk stood a young woman, pale and petite, like Jessica; but her hair was dark, her skin was free of freckles, and she lacked Jess's palpable exuberance. She watched them patiently, and Elena stood back, allowing Bob to handle the social aspects. “Good afternoon,” he said to the officer. “We're here to see Chief Stoya.”

He flashed her a smile that Elena had long ago noted many women—even as young as this one—found charming. Elena saw the pale cheeks color a little, and her dark eyes warmed. “Of course,” she replied easily, giving Elena a perfunctory glance. “I'll let him know you're here.” She walked off toward the private offices that lined the room's interior walls.

One of the office doors opened, and the weary-eyed Chief Stoya emerged. In person he seemed smaller, although he was easily Elena's height. She thought the illusion came from the way he moved, compact and efficient, threading himself between the desks with ease. He scanned the room with wary intelligence, and despite his cold expression she wondered if he would prove more flexible than she had assumed.

She did not have to wonder long. He shot her a look of open dislike, then let his gaze settle on Bob. “You are Doctor Hast
ings,” he said. His rigid mouth thinned. “Doctor Velikovsky is waiting for you downstairs in the morgue,” he said. “Officer Keller will escort you.”

That accent again, different from that of the locals she had heard in the city, and still vaguely familiar. He sounded like some of the traders she knew, and she wondered if he had spent time in the Fourth Sector. Cygnus, maybe, or Osaka Prime. Someplace with money.

Bob favored Keller, the young woman at the desk, with a pleased smile. “That's very kind of you, Chief,” he said, and Elena thought his warmth was sincere.

As Keller made her way around the desk, Stoya locked his eyes on Elena. They were cold, those weary eyes; ice-blue and clear, but barren of any emotion at all.

“Captain Foster says you are a material witness,” he said. “You will make a statement, on the record?”

She nodded, and caught a flicker of emotion in his face, too quick to identify.

“Very well. Luvidovich!” he shouted.

Another office door opened, and Luvidovich emerged. She saw him hesitate, his confident expression wavering, and then his face darkened as he realized she was about to ruin his day. She had wondered if he would remember her.

It was still not payback enough.

He kept his eyes on her as he approached. “Yes, sir,” he said to Stoya when he was close enough.

“This woman,” Stoya said, “claims she can provide Zajec with an alibi. Set up the polygraph and take her statement.”

Luvidovich flushed, and she saw his teeth clench. “That is not possible.”

Stoya gave an impatient sigh. “If it is not possible, she will fail the polygraph. And then, if you wish, you may charge her with obstruction of justice. But until that happens, do as you are told.” He added a phrase in the local dialect; Elena, despite her passing familiarity with the language, missed it entirely.

Luvidovich, however, did not miss it at all. He colored more deeply, but straightened up, composing himself. He glanced back at Elena, then looked away as quickly as he could. “Follow me,” he told her.

Elena turned and met Bob's eyes; he nodded at her, and she followed Luvidovich out of the room.

Luvidovich took her statement in a small, dank, and poorly lit basement room, with the help of an ancient polygraph. At times he seemed to believe he was interrogating her, challenging the sequence of events and accusing her of saying things she had not said; but after a quarter of an hour it struck her that however hostile his delivery, Luvidovich was doing his job, and fairly well. She thought she might have misjudged him, at least a little. No professional police officer would release a suspect lightly.

But it was not until they had left the polygraph behind and were heading up the stairs to the lobby that he asked her anything about Danny himself.

“Did you know the dead man well?”

She could not see his face, but his tone was overcasual, and she tensed. “There are just over two hundred and fifty people on board right now,” she told him. “We all know each other well.” It was only a slight exaggeration.

“Did you speak to him about Volhynia before you came?”

The question threw her, and she felt a glimmer of relief; she had been expecting something more personal. “He was talking to people about the planet's history—its stability, agriculture, how the population dealt with the pulsar. Not much else, though.” He had sounded like a tourist the first time away from home; they had all teased him. Something rolled over in her stomach, and she bit her tongue to quiet it.

“It was the pulsar that interested him?” Luvidovich's tone had sharpened.

“He mentioned it,” she repeated. “But he spoke of a lot of things.”
He has found something.
Despite his earlier hostility, she could not keep from pressing him. “What is it?”

He was silent as he climbed the last few steps, and when he turned as the door opened, she thought he was going to answer her. But she became abruptly aware of the audience that stood beyond the doorway: a dozen members of the press, gathered in a polite crowd in the station's foyer. Before them, his hands behind his back like a field admiral, stood Chief Stoya. Luvidovich's expression went flat.

“I must ask you to wait, Commander Shaw.” The police chief's voice was even as he stepped forward to face her down. Elena watched him warily; next to her, Luvidovich did not move. Stoya had not acknowledged his subordinate at all. “Are you aware of our laws governing obstruction of justice? I should like to know why Central is choosing to champion a known criminal.”

He had listened in as she made her statement, of course—she had expected nothing less—but his response to it was puzzling. Hadn't she just advanced his case by eliminating a suspect? Why would he try to discredit her? Especially in front of the press?
Beside her Luvidovich shifted, his eyes quickly scanning the reporters before resting unhappily on the open entryway beyond. She did not really expect him to challenge his superior in public, but he seemed reluctant to engage Stoya at all. She was missing something.

Whatever Stoya's reasoning, if he thought the presence of reporters would make her back off and leave, he was going to be disappointed. “It has nothing to do with championing anyone,” she said. “We wish the criminal to be brought to justice, and Captain Zajec is not responsible for this murder. You're not going to find the one who killed my crewmate by pursuing some personal vendetta against one of your own.”

That caught Luvidovich's attention. He turned on her, face reddening, his stiff discomfort erupting suddenly into rage. “He is
not
one of our own!” That same quick temper from the night before; she wondered if his problem was with Captain Zajec, or if he disliked all foreigners. She found her curiosity becoming an annoyance; when had this stopped being about Danny?

Deliberately, she took a step toward Luvidovich. “And what is your standard for that? Because he grew up somewhere else? So did your own police chief, and that doesn't seem to bother you at all.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stoya's face flicker with surprise, and she felt a moment's satisfaction. He had not expected her to know.

“You make me wonder if this is typical on Volhynia,” Elena continued. The anger that had been building since she had learned of Danny's death began to rise in the back of her throat. Luvidovich knew something, dammit, and she couldn't understand why he was stonewalling her. “That you would fabricate
evidence against someone simply because you dislike him, and then try to discredit someone who points out your error. Perhaps your department hasn't the skills to do the job properly. Is that the problem? Or is it just that the case has been botched by your off-worlder police chief?”

She knew she was deliberately provoking Luvidovich, but she was utterly unprepared for his response to the remark. His face went purple, and his hands were shaking, but he was not looking at her anymore. He was staring over her shoulder at Stoya, and she thought what she saw in his eyes was desperation.

For the first time that day, since Greg had told her of Danny's death, everything came abruptly into focus. She thought of Zajec's bloodied face, of the look of resignation in his eyes, of Luvidovich mentioning Danny only where Stoya would not overhear. Something hot and sharp began to grow in her stomach. “You're not going to investigate this at all, are you?”

Luvidovich turned to her and opened his mouth to retort, but she shook her head. “No, that's why you didn't ask me about Danny in the interrogation. None of this is about him at all. This is about
someone you don't like.
” She turned to Stoya; his stony expression had not changed. A wave of revulsion overcame her, and suddenly she didn't care that the press was there, that the whole conversation would get back to Greg, who would almost certainly yell at her again. “What kind of people are you?”