The Cold Between (9 page)

“Let me assure you, Commander Shaw,” Stoya said with infuriating calm, “we have no intention of abandoning our investigation.”

“You are a
liar,
Stoya.” Behind her she heard the reporters murmuring, but she was done with tact. “You've got an off-worlder corpse and an off-worlder suspect, and the only rea
son anyone is focusing on your manufactured case instead of an incompetent off-worlder police chief is that PSI makes an easy target. What in the hell is wrong with this place?”

Stoya stood back, his expression stoic, but Luvidovich was furious. “Chief Stoya has done more for Volhynia than you and your useless soldiers have done in five hundred years!” he shouted. “Who do you think you are, coming to our world and accusing an honest man?”

“You started it,” she snapped.

At that Luvidovich lunged, but before he could reach her, Stoya held out an arm, and the younger officer stumbled against it. She had not even had time to flinch. “It is Stoya who has been fighting for this city, for this world,” Luvidovich continued, fists still clenched. “
You
are the one who is letting a murderer go free!”

“Perhaps we should all calm down,” Stoya said. He fixed his cold gaze on Elena, still holding off Luvidovich. “As far as our case against Captain Zajec is concerned, there is still the possibility of conspiracy—”

“Oh, bullshit,” she said. “If you had anything on him, you wouldn't have cared what I had to say. He's innocent, and you know it, and all of those people”—she gestured toward the reporters—“know it, too. While you're idly persecuting an innocent man, there's a
killer
wandering around. Is that your way of ‘fighting for this city'? Do you really think Central Corps is going to sit on their hands while you waste time fucking this up?”

It was a baseless threat, and she suspected Stoya knew it. At the same time . . . whatever her arguments with Greg, however angry he would be with her for losing her temper, she could not
believe he would sit by and watch the police do nothing. Greg had been Danny's captain. In the end, Danny had belonged to Greg more than he had to her.

Stoya raised his eyebrows at her mention of Central. “The citizens here
chose
me,” he said. “They have not chosen Central. What kind of goodwill do you suppose you would gain by trying to take over?”

Goodwill.
She almost laughed. “I rather imagine the Corps will take
justice
over
goodwill,
especially when it comes to the death of one of their own. Are you going to release Captain Zajec, or not?”

He stared at her a moment without moving: one last gesture of control. But in the end he shrugged, and nodded. “There is no need for a Central invasion, Commander Shaw,” he said. “We will release Captain Zajec. Our investigation will continue.”

She didn't believe him. Danny meant nothing to him. The murderer meant nothing to him. She didn't know why, but Stoya was hell-bent on pinning the crime on Zajec. And Luvidovich, for all his doubts, couldn't get far enough past his own biases to listen to his instincts. If she were not angry enough to choke the pair of them, she might have felt sorry for the young man.

Stoya, on the other hand, could go straight to hell.

With some effort, she controlled her temper. That she no longer believed that Zajec's innocence would make a difference to the police did not change the fact that she needed to get him out of prison. As far as justice for Danny was concerned . . . it seemed possible, she had to admit, that Stoya's insistence on framing the PSI captain was not coincidence. Greg was wrong about what Captain Zajec had wanted from her, but she was beginning to share his fear that PSI was a piece of this somehow.

“Excellent,” was all she said aloud. “I look forward to the successful resolution of this case.” Her eyes flicked dismissively to Luvidovich, still vibrating with anger; despite herself, she could not resist a parting shot. “But you may want to call off your dog before somebody puts him down.”

She turned away from the two men, ignoring the silent stares of the press and the open-mouthed gape of the desk officer. Her comm chimed insistently as she headed up the stairs.

She did not answer it.

I
t was only when he began to see lights before his eyes that Trey realized there was something unusual going on.

In the six months since he had returned to Volhynia he had been arrested a handful of times, albeit on charges far less serious than suspicion of murder. Each time the interrogations had been carefully restrained, designed more to intimidate and demoralize than cause injury. Luvidovich, who could not have known Trey's experiences as a child, seemed to believe Trey ought to be learning a lesson, and Trey was always surprised at how quickly his stoicism crawled under the officer's skin. It was petty, but he took a grim pleasure in that small, useless act of defiance.

This interrogation was different, though, and Trey began to wonder if his innocence mattered at all.

Trey had been escorted to one of the dark basement interview rooms and shoved into a hard chair. Luvidovich had spent the first hour of the interrogation doing nothing but hitting Trey, who knew enough of Volhynia's authoritarian rules to refrain from hitting back, even when his vision tunneled and he began to feel nauseated. The questions, when they finally
arrived, included predefined answers, and Trey realized Luvidovich was dictating his confession. After attempting to assert the truth—no, he did not know the victim; yes, he had been home all night—he had stopped answering and started to listen. His head was alarmingly foggy, but even so he could see how thin the story was: Luvidovich was suggesting that he had, for unknown reasons, followed the soldier into the alley behind his own workplace and killed him for an unknown sum of money that had not been found.

“Do you know,” Trey said at last, unable to restrain himself, “that is a remarkably foolish story. If you have the need to frame me, you had best come up with something more substantive. Not even the courts in Novanadyr would believe this nonsense.”

That had earned him a further beating, but he had minded less.

When Luvidovich finally left, Trey seriously considered putting his head down on the table and surrendering to unconsciousness. He tried and failed to remember anything about Volhynian criminal law. He might be entitled to a lawyer, and a trial, but he was not sure. Certainly the court of public opinion would not be on his side. Most of them believed he was an off-worlder, and after forty-four years, he was in all meaningful ways. They would desperately want to believe that this had nothing to do with their friends and neighbors. He would likely be railroaded, with or without a trial, and no one would ever find out what had really happened to that poor boy.

The thought of what Katya might believe nearly drove him to despair.

The lock turned, and he tensed, lifting his head; but it was not Luvidovich who came through the door, it was Chief Stoya.
Trey sat back, knowing better than to be relieved. Stoya was more observant than Luvidovich, and far more ruthless. He understood people where Luvidovich did not, and never had to resort to physical abuse. Even Trey was careful of him.

Stoya stood before the open door, frowning at Trey, his gaze thoughtful. “A woman has come here,” he said, “who claims you have not committed this crime.”

There was no way, he realized, that Stoya could miss his surprise. She should have trusted him to look after himself, should have left Volhynia to its own business. He thought of that dead boy in the alley, thought of her passion, her empathy:
I know what people say. There is truth and lie in all of it.

Of course she had come back.

Deliberately, he straightened his shoulders, shifting in his chair as if he were stiff from sitting still instead of having been beaten. “Excellent,” he said. “When can I go?”

Stoya's jaw twitched—a rare betrayal of emotion. “Luvidovich has taken her statement. We will be releasing you. For now.”

Luvidovich.
Good God.
Had it only been the night before that he had reminded himself he would kill Luvidovich one day? “There was no need for Luvidovich to speak to her, Stoya. She is a soldier. She knows how to make a report.”

“And now you are worried for her. This is curious, given that she says you did not meet until last night.”

Damn.
He must have been more exhausted than he thought. He dropped all pretense. “Luvidovich is a thug,” he said seriously, “and she came here only to help. You know I am innocent of this.”

Stoya was younger than Trey by fifteen years, but even so Trey was taken aback by the man's quickness. He was abruptly
in front of the table, leaning toward Trey, his face so close Trey could see the shadow of stubble on his chin. “I know you are a killer,
Captain Zajec,
” he hissed. “That woman may absolve you this time, but she does not know what you are. She does not even know your real name, the name you gave up when you fled this place. You cannot become something else so easily. You may not have committed
this
crime, but we will have you. Whether it is today or tomorrow makes no difference to me.”

Trey kept his expression mild, and when he moved he was slow and careful. He pushed his chair back from the table and stood, the ache of his legs keeping him focused. Standing, he was taller than Stoya, and he allowed himself to lean forward, just a little, to look steadily into the police chief's eyes. “But you do not have me today, Stoya.” He straightened, then walked around the table, avoiding Stoya's eyes, and headed through the cell's open door.

She was still beautiful, Trey thought, tall and elegant and patrician, waiting for him by the main office door. But if the night before she had seemed self-conscious, here she stood with an unconcerned composure that suggested she had no expectation of being thwarted. A performance, almost certainly, but an effective one; he supposed it was an indispensable skill for a soldier. When he caught her eyes he saw her blush faintly, and he remembered standing with her in the moonlight and thought perhaps he had not been beaten so badly after all.

He stepped up to the desk, where Reya Keller had his paperwork ready. “Just here,” she told him, gesturing at the thumbprint square. When he moved to approve it, she spoke more
quietly. “There are reporters outside,” she whispered. “A lot of them.”

He looked at her. Reya was a girl of about twenty, and considered a good police officer, if inexperienced. Unlike many of the others, though, she treated him with respect every time Luvidovich dragged him in. Once she had slipped him a small bottle of analgesic on his way out; he had plenty of the stuff back in his flat, but the gesture had touched him.

“Thank you,” he said, and she nodded, a smile flickering across her face before she backed away.

Trey turned, and took a step toward the woman. She looked guarded, and a little hesitant; he supposed he looked the same. He wanted to tell her he was pleased to see her again. He wanted to tell her to go home. Instead he said, “You did not have to wait for me.”

She looked away, and he wished he had been more welcoming. “I did, actually,” she told him. “It seems your police department has no intention of investigating properly.”

He was surprised Stoya had tipped his hand in front of her. “You believe you can make up for their deficit?”

“That's my intent, yes. Does this place have a back door?”

“You wish to avoid the press.”

Her face warmed again. “I already have their attention. I'd just as soon avoid entertaining them again.”

He had missed more, it seemed, than just her arrival. “There is a rear exit,” he told her. “But we will need someone to let us out.”

In the end it was Reya who helped them, escorting them down a poorly lit back stairway. He fell into step next to the woman—the soldier, he realized. She moved differently here,
confident and unhesitating. She was a good deal more forbidding than she had been the night before, and he wondered once again exactly who she was on her starship. At thirty-two, she was young for command, but she carried herself as someone accustomed to being obeyed.

Valeria's voice echoed in his head.
It is not women you like; it is power.
He had laughed at her and told her it was powerful women. That exchange had been decades ago. It seemed his tastes had not changed.

Reya left them briefly at the back of the building to retrieve the woman's weapon from the desk sergeant. She released the door's voice lock, and Trey stepped through into an alley. He began walking toward the street, the woman next to him, the afternoon sunlight a balm against his face.

They had taken no more than two steps on the main sidewalk before he heard footsteps running behind them. “Hey, Chief!” a man's voice called. Not all of the press had missed their surreptitious exit, apparently. Trey glanced at the woman; she neither slowed nor reacted, and he followed suit.

After a moment the man caught up, falling into step next to Trey. Tall, slim, with vid-ready good looks, he wore a perpetual manic grin that was almost absurd enough to distract from the shrewd gleam in his eyes. He held his hand out to Trey.

“You're Treiko Zajec,” the man said. “Cholan Ancher, Corps press corps.” He laughed at his own joke.

Trey considered, then took the offered hand. “How do you do, Mr. Ancher?”

Ancher's grin widened. “Better now. You're a legend, you know. It'll be something, telling people you shook my hand.”

“What do you want, Ancher?” the woman finally said.

Trey looked at her again. Her demeanor had not changed, but he thought he detected a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“You're always so suspicious,” Ancher said cheerfully.

“That's because I know you.”

“Are you
still
holding a grudge?” She said nothing, and this time the reporter didn't laugh. “I was doing my job, Chief.”

“So was I.”

And damned if Ancher didn't look uncomfortable.

“Well, maybe I can make it up to you,” he told her.

“How would you do that?”

“I have an ID on your dead man.”

And that stopped her. Trey watched her look over to the reporter, and wondered if she had the authority to back up the murder in her eyes.

But Ancher did not back off, or stand down. Instead, his face softened into something almost human. “I know who he was, Chief,” he repeated. “And I know who he was to you.”

Trey saw her turn ashen, then go red; she looked away for a moment. When she turned back she met Trey's eyes, and she was the woman he had known the night before: vulnerable and transparent. The sadness he saw in her told him all of it.
That boy,
he thought, remembering what he had found just a few hours before. Alive, he would have been tall, young, handsome.

The boy she had loved.

“My dear lady,” he said gently, “I am so sorry.”

Her eyes brightened for a moment, and then she shook her head. “He was not mine,” she told him. “Not anymore. He's not for me to grieve. But if it gets out . . .”

“. . . the alibi you have given me will look quite different.”

“Wait,” Ancher said. “She's your alibi?”

PSI did not have journalists who followed them, like Central did, but Trey recognized the tone of a reporter who had landed on a story. How to best handle the situation depended on the reporter, and he did not know this one. This woman—Chief, Ancher had called her—seemed to have some sway over him, though. Trey opted to give the man a chance.

“If you would give us a moment, Mr. Ancher,” he said.

The reporter looked suspicious, but when Trey stepped aside, the woman following him, Ancher let them be.

“What will your crew say when the police talk to them?” he asked her.

She grasped her elbows. “Depends on who they talk to. The
Galileo
crew won't be inclined to share, but we have some loaners on board that we borrowed to deliver cargo. Danny . . . he was tight with them, and they don't like me much.”

“So it will come out.” When she nodded, he said, “Would your friend Mr. Ancher spin the story for you?”

“Would it matter if he did?”

“No,” he admitted. “They will use it as an excuse to detain me again, and possibly you as well.”

“That excuse or another, they'll find a reason.” Her eyebrows drew together. “We've got to find out what happened before they come after you again.”

“My dear, I think we had best rid ourselves of your reporter before we discuss this more deeply.”

“Don't worry about it,” Ancher called over. “My ears aren't that good.”

She gave Ancher a look, then turned toward him, pulling him into their conversation. “Why haven't you gone public with this?”

“I told you,” he said. “I figure maybe I owe you one. But I can't sit on it forever, Chief. Someone else will find out, and they'll broadcast.”

“How much time can you get me?”

“Five hours, maybe six.” He began to sound like a reporter again. “What do I get for it?”

“What do you want?”

“An interview.” His gaze took in Trey. “With both of you.
And
Captain Foster.”

“No deal. Leak it, and I'll take my chances.” She turned and began to walk away, and Trey moved to follow her.

“Wait, wait!” Ancher scurried to catch up. “Just you, Chief. But an exclusive. Nothing for those streamer scavengers, okay? Not a word.”

Her reply was just as prompt. “Done,” she said. “But if I hear so much as a rumor anywhere on comms in the next six hours, Ancher, you are shut out for good. Not just on this, but on everything. You understand?”

That, Trey knew, was a serious threat for a reporter, and she delivered it sincerely. But Ancher just gave her that cocky smile again. “Loud and clear, Chief.” He winked at Trey. “You kids have a nice day.” He turned, and walked off the way he had come.

They both watched him until he was well out of earshot, and then Trey turned to her. He could see the shadows under her eyes, and her expression held a hint of desperation. Closer to the edge than she was letting on. “What of Central?” he asked. “Will they get involved?”