"The Transgenic Falcon"

Our first stop was the office Belinda had arranged for us, I needed to check in with my team. Overnight, on their own time, and against my explicit orders, the quants had been through the Coroners report, annotating and dividing. They’d found some interesting things.

“More than seventy percent of the cells in the damaged organs are shattered” Chatham told us as we huddled around the big table in my office. “Dr. Ferguson’s team says that they were destroyed so completely the DNA strands were fractured,”

Apparently Simone’s team had granted my quants access to their growing database of information. She must have decided that I might actually be of some use in solving a mystery. Go figure.

“What causes that kind of damage?” Belinda asked. A pretty good question.

“They’re not sure,” Chatham said, looking down at his notes, “They say it’s similar to what happens to infected cells, but the volume is so high its unlikely. Also if it were an infection, we’d be seeing lots of replicated bacteria or viruses, none is present, even in fragments. Right now they are favoring a toxic chemical for the damage,” he finished rather lamely.

“What about Taylor?” I asked, “Has Round been able to put his hands on him?”

Belinda fielded this question, “No, not as of this morning. Though from the overtime requests by his department, it looks as though he’s fully mobilizing.”

“I have some news on that front,” Lynn Delfor put in. We all looked at her. “I can’t say for sure, of course, but I think I know where Mick’s money was going,” She paused, annoyingly. Sure she had our full attention, she went on.

“I pulled his HR payroll file yesterday. Starting about a year ago, there was a hold in his file for advances at the casino.”

“Casino? Gen-Tech has a casino?” I asked incredulously.

“Why shouldn’t it?” Belinda replied, “People like to gamble, so why should they have to go to Nevada or one of the reservations?”

“I thought Texas didn’t license casinos?” I said.

“Well, it’s not like its open to the public or anything. Its more like an extended casino or poker party, Gen-Tech residents only.”

“And Taylor had some kind of flag on his file?” I asked Lynn to get things back on track.

“Right, he wasn’t allowed to gamble with advances on his salary. Anyone can ask for an advance, but if their savings are too low or the amount they owe gets too high, they get put on a cash only basis. The limit’s around a grand for people in Taylor’s pay-range. That’s what happened to him.”

I took a sip of the, of course, excellent tea in front of me. Belinda had presented it to me without comment earlier. I’d have rather had coffee, but my old flame was determined to make me pay for sending her out for tea yesterday. Elephants talk about how good Belinda’s memory is, especially for slights. I realized I was gritting my teeth. Was there no area of a person’s life that Johnson and Gen-Tech didn’t butt in? Even vices?

“Did it work? Did Taylor stop gambling?” I asked.

Lynn smiled, “Well, he stopped playing in casino here, but I don’t think he quit gambling. He paid off the advances to the casino, but kept taking them for what’s listed as personal reasons.”

“Nice work, Lynn. Be sure to let Chief Round know. His teams will want to hit the dog tracks, and as many unlicensed card rooms as they can find. Maybe Taylor is hiding out in one. People run to their addictions when they are under stress.”

“Mr. Hunt?” said the other quant, Downey. He actually raised his hand. Oy.

“Yes, Downey,” I said giving him the permission he was asking for.

“Can you tell me, us really; why it is you’re not focusing more on Mick Taylor? He sure looks like the most likely suspect, what with his slipping out and this possible gambling problem.”

I rubbed my chin for a second thinking it through. Why didn’t I think it was Mick? Because I now disliked Johnny Round? “Right, time for a little tutorial on crime investigation.” I told the table at large. I pulled out the Fifteen Steps and put it on the table. “People, humans, have a lot of motivations; they have a lot of stress points. When something happens that majorly disrupts them, people will react in all kinds of strange ways. Some get terrified and do stupid stuff, like running away. Does that mean their guilty of the crime?” I gave a pause Socrates would have been proud of.

Downey and Chatham both said “Yes,” while at the same time Lynn said, firmly, “No,”.

I grinned, what a nice audience. “Exactly,” I told them all. “It might mean that they are guilty of the crime. It might mean they are afraid of the police or they might think they are next or any of a dozen reasons. Some good, some, most, bad, but none is iron clad proof that they are the perpetrator. It’s only a data point. We can’t base our entire investigation on a single data point.”

That sunk in for the quants, they understood painting a picture with data better than most.

“There is a reason it’s called a frame-up when you try to pin a crime on someone else. What we do in an investigation is build a frame that should, in theory, fit only the killer. The edges of the frame exclude folks who might have a motive but not the means. Or they might have the means but not the opportunity. You get the point. If we do it right, in the end only one person will fit. Right now, the frame is too big. It fits Mick Taylor, but it also fits other people. We have to narrow it down.”

I pulled out a handwritten list. Old school I know, but I made it up at breakfast when I didn’t have my Gen-Tech handheld. I slid the list to Chatham, who was sitting to my left. It had the names of all but one of the women who had been taped by Cho. That one I’d have to handle myself.

“To that end, I need you two to work on this list. Everyone on it has a connection to Cho, and a possible motive. Get into the public surveillance records and see whose whereabouts you can pin down conclusively for between 10pm on Tuesday through 8am Wednesday. Make a list of all the ones you can’t verify. I’ll talk to them.”

Chatham and Downey leaned together to look at the list.

“We only have, at most, another forty hours, so get moving guys,”

They stood up and scampered out. I turned to Belinda.

“Can you give Lynn and me a minute? I have an assignment for her and it’s of a very sensitive nature.” She gave me a level stare that went on a few beats too long for comfort, but then nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her. No counting under her breath in any language. I couldn’t decide if it was a good sign or not.

“So, what have you got for me that your watchdog couldn’t or shouldn’t know?” Lynn asked, her eyes glittering with the joy of knowing secrets.

I fished out the holo crystal and held it up. “I’m about to hand you plutonium,” I explained, “If you handle it correctly it can be very powerful and useful, handle it poorly and it will probably kill you. Are you sure you want it?”

Give credit where credit is due, she actually thought about it for a second.

“What’s on that crystal?” she asked.

“Porn,”

Her eyebrows arched in surprise and she grinned an uncomfortable grin. “Well, I have to say I never thought I’d be asked to watch porn as part of an HR job. Just tell me this isn’t some kind of convoluted come on.”

I felt a half-smile crease my face, the more I got to know her, the better I liked Lynn’s style. “No, sorry, no come on. This contains the private recordings of Dr. Cho and his, uh, girlfriends, I guess would be the best word. I’m fairly certain that none of the women on here knew they were being recorded.”

Delfor nodded, “Ah, so. That’s who is on the list you want the data guys to run down. Lots of women with lots of motive. But what do you want me to do with it?”

“I watched a couple of the recordings but there are more than a hundred files. I need someone to watch them and let me know if there is anything that might bear of the case. It’s the only real insight we have into Cho’s personal life, so we have to go through it.”

“Got it,” Lynn said reaching for the crystal. I pulled my hand back out of reach.

“You’re going to see names on here that you will know, probably most of the HR complainants, as well as Dr. Ferguson, and Ms. Morris.”

Lynn pulled her hand back. “Ouch, that’s a slap, seeing her in Cho’s private collection. Did you know? I mean did she tell you she’d been involved with Cho?”

“No,” I said gruffly, “And it’s a big problem. Everyone on that crystal is on the suspect list, at least until we can lock down their alibis. That includes Morris.”

“Double ouch.”

“Yeah, its all glitz and glamour in the PI game,” I said sourly, “But I need you to keep it under your hat, Lynn. I didn’t put Belinda on the list for the quants because I am going to handle it personally. I want to give her a chance to tell me before I hit her with the fact that I know, understood?”

She nodded emphatically, “I can do that, don’t worry. But are you going to be okay? I mean its pretty obvious that you and her have a lot of intense history, seeing that can’t have been easy.”

“We’re all adults here, Lynn. Belinda and I were a thing a decade ago. I sure as hell haven’t been celibate and had no reason to think she had either.” I put a good face on it, but I don’t think Delfor was buying. But she didn’t press anymore.

“In that case, I guess I’ll get some coffee and then settle down to watching Cho bump uglies with a bunch of women.”

“One last thing, use a portable viewer, one that doesn’t have a network connection. I don’t want that crystal plugged into any of the G-T networks. I don’t trust Johnson to not watch our electronic foot prints. Those files can’t get out, right?”

“Will do,” Lynn agreed, “Given who is on this thing, I don’t want anyone to know I’ve seen it.”

She left the room and I sat there alone for the moment. The issue with Belinda was eating at me. The love struck kid in me wanted to flatly deny that she could be mixed up in Cho’s murder. But I’d been a detective long enough to know that people are rarely who we want to them to be, no matter how desperately we want it.

If there was some kind of power play going on with Cho that was serious enough for Round to get into, it wasn’t unreasonable that Johnson would send in his chief fixer to take care of it. And anyone who would collude to violate serious federal laws in order to suborn a State Senator was not someone who would immediately scruple at murder. Especially if the stakes were high enough.

It’s thoughts like the last that make detectives cold and cynical.

Belinda came back into the office. She sat down next to me and asked, “So, that’s the others set to work. What are we doing this morning?”

“We need to go have another interview with Simone Ferguson. Since we last talked, she made the suspects list. And I want a better chat with Tara O’Neil too.”

“The new suspects. Where did you get the list from?”

It was a question I was dreading. When they update the Fifteen Steps they should include some advice on how to deal with a suspect who’s also on your investigation team. It could be a whole chapter. Luckily, I had a pre-planned lie.

“Lynn Delfor developed it for me. You were right about her; she really knows all the dirt on people. It’s a comprehensive list of Cho’s paramours,” I told her, watching her carefully. She didn’t freeze or tense. Could be a good sign, could be bad.

“And Simone is on that list?”

“Yeah, the most recent in fact. Interesting that she didn’t feel the need to tell us that when we spoke yesterday. I want to ask her about it.”

“You think Simone was involved? That doesn’t fit for me. After all, six of the Eolin-I died too; they are her career-making project,” Belinda said.

“True, but whoever killed Cho is very smart. What better way to throw us off the track than to kill the Eolin-I too? She thinks of them as a product, and there are thirty-four more.”

“But you think she might be the killer because she didn’t tell you something?”

“She left out a fact that might have brought suspicion on her. We are looking for someone doing things that seem off. It’s why we’re trying to run down Taylor, because his actions look odd. Same thing goes for Simone, or anyone else who keeps us in the dark.”

I watched Belinda like a hawk as I said it. She didn’t flinch much and she covered it right up, but it was there all the same. It made my heart rise a little. Come on Angel, I thought, I’m giving you a big chance here, own up! Unfortunately she kept her composure and started twiddling her data set. I didn’t have all the time in the world for her to come clean, but I still had some left. For the sake of what we once had, I’d let it run.

“Simone is in the Eolin-I lab complex right now. Shall we go see her?” she asked.

There was nothing for it but to get up and go.