CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Chomps had hoped that, given the urgency of the circumstances, Terry would loosen up a little on letting him into the classified sheriff’s files.
But no. Calmly, blandly, but firmly, she pointed him to the public information databases, assured him she would look through the classified files herself, and promised to let him know if she found anything of interest.
Still, there was plenty in the public files to keep him busy for a while.
Duke Serisburg had had eight full-time employees: a chauffeur, a chef, two housemaids, a secretary, and three bodyguards. Another dozen people had regular or semi-regular access to the mansion, including landscapers, caterers for the duchess’s monthly formal banquets, occasional tutors for the two oldest children, and, of course, Devereux.
The secretary would have had the most complete knowledge of the duke’s schedule. But Chomps could find nothing in his past or current life situation that either indicated a need for fast cash or hinted at dark, manipulatable secrets. The bodyguards were next on his list, but again there was nothing to indicate trouble. The chauffeur and his wife were rumored to be having some marital problems, but everyone Chomps talked to agreed that most of their trouble had faded in the surge of shock and loss following the Serisburg family’s deaths. The chef and maids had equally innocuous backgrounds and lifestyles.
The one bright spot was that he found the man who’d handled the import and sale of the duke’s air car. The other didn’t have any detailed specs on the car’s computer, but he promised to get in touch with a couple of friends in Landing who did similar purchases and let Chomps know if he found anything useful.
It was a week later, and Chomps was starting through the caterer’s employee list, when he got a message to meet Terry at a café near the Serisburg Point sheriff’s office.
She was waiting at one of the outside tables when he arrived. “Terry,” he said, sitting down across from her and glancing around. She’d picked her spot well, he noted: The streets around them had their fair share of vehicles humming along, but most of the foot traffic was on the other side of the road, leaving the two of them in reasonable seclusion. “What’s up?”
“I had a request,” Terry said, her face set and unsmiling. “Someone wanted to talk to you.”
The hairs on the back of Chomps’s neck tingled. “Does this someone have a name?” he asked, freshly aware of the Drakon 6mm tucked out of sight in its waistband holster.
“Yes—Sheriff Laura Vespoli,” a hard voice came from behind him.
Before Chomps could turn a tall, blond woman stepped into view alongside him and sat down in one of the vacant chairs. Her uniform was identical to Terry’s, except with a slightly fancier badge and a few extra spangles on the shoulderboards. “I gather you’re the famous Charles Townsend?”
“Don’t know how famous, but that’s me,” Chomps confirmed. There was a distinct whiff of alcohol on the sheriff’s breath. “Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, you’re famous, all right,” Vespoli growled, fixing him with the kind of withering stare Chomps normally saw only on bosuns and bosuns’ mates. “I’ve had four complaints about you in the past week. That’s a record, even for Serisburg Point.”
“May I ask the nature of these complaints?” Chomps asked, keeping his voice steady. When bosuns used that stare they were usually looking for an excuse to rain brimstone down on some unlucky spacer, and he had no intention of giving Vespoli any assistance in that department.
“Harassment,” Vespoli said. “Interfering with business. Generally sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and isn’t wanted.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chomps said, resisting the awful urge to ask if duchy law defined those as misdemeanors or felonies. “I’m just interested in your people and the emotional aftermath of Duke Serisburg’s untimely death.”
“Let me guess. You’re writing a book?”
Chomps looked at Terry, hoping for a clue as to whether or not he should take Vespoli into their confidence. But her face was still unreadable.
When in doubt, don’t, Chomps’s uncle had always said. Not necessarily what he’d always done, but pretty much what he always said. “I’ve done some professional writing,” he said, putting a hint of defensiveness into his tone. One of the best ways to manipulate people was to play to their expectations. “It was never my intention to cause people distress. My apologies.”
“Yes,” Vespoli murmured. Clearly, she’d come here ready for a fight. Just as clearly, Chomps’s unexpected humility and lack of push-back had taken some of the wind out of her sails. “You have enough material?”
“I have enough to get started.”
“You have enough material,” Vespoli said, making it a statement this time. “I suggest you go back to Landing and start writing.”
“Of course,” Chomps said. “Again, my apologies.”
Vespoli gave him another long, evaluating look, then stood up and disappeared back behind him. Chomps didn’t turn, but instead focused on Terry’s face as the deputy watched the sheriff’s departure.
Finally, he saw the flicker he’d been watching for, the shift in expression that told him Vespoli was out of earshot.
“You could have warned me,” he murmured.
“You could have stuck to the plan,” she countered sourly. “You were supposed to sift through public records, not poke the good citizens of Serisburg with a stick.”
“I got bored. Did Vespoli really track me down through a measly half dozen complaints?”
“Never underestimate the sheriff,” Terry growled. “Sees all, hears all, tells not much, puts up with nothing. And she’s serious. Stop poking or risk getting booted out of the duchy.”
“I’d like to see her try.”
“No. No, you wouldn’t.”
Chomps rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m a bad dog. Is that all you hauled me out here for?”
“Not entirely.” Terry favored him with a tight smile. “I got word about the Solarian air-car computer.”
“The importer was supposed to screen me.”
“This wasn’t from the importer,” Terry said. “I found a car buff on Sphinx who thinks he has the data we need.”
“Who thinks?”
“It depends on where the computer was made,” she said. “Turns out some of those ports are hard-wired and can have different options depending on which planet the car was intended for.”
“Let’s take a look,” Chomps said, reaching for his recorder.
“Save it,” Terry said, waving back the device. “It’s not on any of your recordings—I already checked. The number we need is inside the computer, underneath the port.”
Chomps made a face. He would have sworn he’d gotten everything they would ever need on his recorder. “Fine. Let’s go see Devereux.”
“Whoa,” Terry said holding out a restraining hand as he started to get up. “I can’t go right now—I’m on duty. It’ll have to be later.”
“Why? I don’t need you to hold my hand.”
“Yeah, and perish that thought,” Terry growled. “Remember the whole chain of evidence thing?”
“I’m not going to touch or bag anything,” Chomps said patiently. “I’m just going to take a look.”
“No, you’re not,” Terry said. “Aside from the legalities, the last time you went up there alone we ended up with an exploded hydrogen tank and wrecked shed. We go together or we don’t go at all. Clear?”
Chomps sighed. “Clear.”
“Good,” Terry said, her voice heavy with suspicion. “Now swear it.”
“What? Terry—”
“I mean it, Chomps. Swear to me on my mother’s continued good-will toward you that you will not go talk to Devereux alone.”
Chomps rolled his eyes. “I swear I will not go talk to Devereux alone,” he intoned, lifting his hand palm-forward like the people in courtroom dramas.
“Good,” she said, still eyeing him. “I’m off-duty in three hours. Go back to the inn, or get ice cream in Whistlestop or something. I’ll screen you when I’m ready.” She stood up. “See you later, Mr. Townsend.”
“See you later, Deputy Lassaline,” Chomps said, just as formally. “By the way, the sheriff’s starting a little early in the day, isn’t she?”
Terry’s lips puckered. “No earlier than usual.”
“That’s not a good thing,” Chomps pointed out. “Also more than a little against regs.”
“I know.” Terry took a deep breath and sat back down. “Look. Okay, she’s got some demons—some really nasty ones. Staying a little numb gets her through the day.”
“And the duke let her get away with that?”
“The duke understood and winked at it,” Terry said. “So did everyone else.”
“I sympathize,” Chomps said. “But to properly do her job—”
“Do I have to draw you a map?” Terry cut him off. “The job’s all she’s got left. Don’t dig into that, just take my word for it. And she’s careful—never drives under the influence or confronts anyone in any kind of potentially deadly situation. She does her job, and the duke’s word is right up there with law, and that’s that.” She winced. “That was that, anyway. No idea what happens now.”
Chomps sighed. The sad truth was, what would probably happen was nothing. Until and unless the Queen appointed someone to handle Serisburg directly, the duchy would fall under the management of the Royal Lands Administrator, who was already up to his eyeballs in other work. Unless Sheriff Vespoli stepped out of line in a very dramatic and visible way—or unless someone brought it to the Crown’s attention—she’d probably be allowed to keep her job and her behavior until the day she retired.
Of course, the only line-stepping that would likely catch anyone’s attention in Landing would probably be because she got someone killed.
“But that’s not your problem,” Terry said, in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t to become his problem, either. “Now, I believe there’s a hot fudge sundae with your name on it?”
“I believe there is,” Chomps agreed. He nodded slightly back over his shoulder. “Just keep an eye on her.”
“We do,” Terry said soberly. “Believe me, we do.”
And she undoubtedly did, Chomps thought as he headed toward his air car. Terry had will, all right. All will, and a meter wide, his uncle used to say.
But for all that will, and for all her law enforcement experience, she didn’t understand bad guys as well as Chomps did. With all the poking around he and Terry had been doing, it was entirely possible that whoever had sabotaged the duke’s air car had gotten wind of the possibility that his last attempt to destroy the computer had failed. The last thing Chomps wanted to do was hang around until the end of Terry’s shift and give the murderer those additional three hours to make trouble.
He’d sworn he wouldn’t go alone to talk to Devereux.
But really, he’d never said he was planning to talk.
* * *
There was no one in sight on the grounds as Chomps lowered his air car toward the spot between the shed and the house where Terry had set down that other evening. With the sun blazing down his IR scanner couldn’t definitely ascertain whether or not anyone was home. Still, he’d seen Devereux’s door locks, and if the man had stepped out for a minute he should have no problem getting inside.
And if someone had helped him step out, that was what Chomps’s concealed Drakon was for.
No one answered his knock. The door was indeed locked, but a minute of work with his pickset and he had it open. Giving the clearing one last look, he opened the door and slipped inside.
“Hello?” he called tentatively. “Devereux? It’s Townsend. Anyone home?”
There was no answer. Feeling a creeping feeling along the back of his neck, he drew his Drakon and thumbed off the safety. Hopefully, Devereux was simply down in his workshop with the door closed and hadn’t heard the knock or Chomps’s entrance.
Still, caution was definitely called for. Peeling himself off the door jamb, Chomps headed for the stairs as quietly as a massive Sphinxian could manage. If he ran into Devereux now, he reflected, the man would probably have a heart attack.
There was no one on the stairs or in the basement. The door to the workshop was ajar—a bad sign, given that the only way Devereux could be sitting there oblivious was if it had blocked the sound of Chomps’s arrival. Clenching his teeth, holding his gun ready, Chomps crossed to the door and gently swung it open with the toe of his shoe.
Devereux wasn’t there. Neither, to Chomps’s relief, was Devereux’s dead body.
Neither was the air-car computer.
For a minute Chomps stood at the doorway, his eyes running methodically around the room, looking for anything out of place or something that might offer a clue as to what had happened. A closer look might yield something, but if something had happened to Devereux this might be a crime scene, and he knew better than to contaminate it. Backing out, he retraced his steps through the basement, up the stairs, and out the door into the clearing.
There he again stopped and looked around. The shed was there, or at least what was left of it, looking like it had the night he and Terry had been here. Now that he was seeing the area in daylight he saw that one side of Devereux’s garage had been scorched and pitted by the explosion.
He took a step closer. The garage doors were closed and there were no windows. No way to tell whether Devereux’s car was there.
That, at least, he should check. If the car was gone, maybe Devereux had simply gone into town or somewhere. He headed across the grass, keeping an eye on the trees at the edge of the clearing.
He was passing the shed when he heard the sound of an approaching air car.
Reflexively, he took a long step between the wrecked doors into the partial cover of the shed. He froze there, just inside the doors, peering up through the gaps in the roof and turning his head back and forth in an attempt to figure out the vehicle’s vector. Coming from due south, he concluded, the direction from Whistlestop.
And definitely coming toward him.
He swore under his breath. Terry, probably, checking to see if he’d disobeyed her order and come out here without her. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out what she would say when she found him here.
But there might still be a chance. If she was coming in low, she might not have spotted his car yet. If she hadn’t, he might be able to get to it and skate off the other direction, maybe flying low along the gap in the trees around the creek he’d had to jump his last time here. He turned back to the shed doors—
Just as the thundercrack of a rifle shot shattered the forest silence and something whistled past behind him.
Navy- and Delphi-trained reflexes kicked in with a vengeance, sending him diving to the floor. There was another rifle crack, the shot again slicing through space he’d already vacated.
No chance of getting to his air car now. The shed walls would have been inadequate cover even before they’d been blast-shredded, and they were even less useful now. There was another of Devereux’s heavy workbenches at the far end that might provide protection, but only from directly above, and it was bolted too securely to the floor for him to detach it to use as a moving shield.
You can run, his uncle used to say, or you can hide. Clearly, it was time to run.
Only there wasn’t any place to run to. Not with all that open ground. Not with a sniper floating overhead where Chomps couldn’t get a clear return shot at him.
Or at least, not without making a hell of a mess.
He moved to the shed door, muttering a curse as he lined up the Drakon’s muzzle on the aft part of his car where the main hydrogen tank was located. Sighting down the barrel, he squeezed the trigger.
His first two shots went through the side of the car and into the tank, breaking through the containment wall and then breeching the tank itself. He heard a faint hiss as a stream of released gas erupted from the car, scattering leaves and dust ahead of it. His third shot shattered the electronics regulator box beneath the tank, and his fourth went into the box itself. If he could create a spark at the edge of the hydrogen flow…
That fourth shot didn’t do it. Neither did the fifth. Chomps clenched his teeth, knowing that the sniper had almost certainly figured out what was happening and where his target had to be standing. Bracing his hand against the door jamb, he fired a sixth shot, and a seventh—
And with a sudden ferocity, the hydrogen jet burst into flame.
Reflexively, he ducked back as the blast swept across the front and roof of the shed. A second later the inferno faded, leaving all the remaining wood in those areas blazing with a smoky flame.
And for the next few seconds, whatever infrared targeting system his attacker was using would hopefully be useless.
He ducked past the flames, leaped through the doorway, and headed to his left toward the nearest section of trees. The smoke was angling partially across the path he was taking, which should hopefully block his attacker’s view as well as messing with the IR.
For the first few seconds that seemed to be the case. There were no further shots as he reached the edge of the clearing and charged into the woods, dodging trees and roots and grabbing as much distance as he could. Ten meters…twenty…halfway to his goal—
Another thundercrack sounded from behind him. This time he didn’t hear the whistle of the round, which suggested it had gone wide, which hopefully meant the attacker had lost his quarry. Another shot, again wide—
And then, he was there. Bracing himself, he leaped over a final tangle of grasses at the edge and launched himself head-first into the creek.
The water was a lot colder than he’d expected, and for that first agonizing second he was convinced he was going to have a heart attack. But there was no time for such trivia now. The water was deep enough to not only cover him but to allow him enough buoyancy to float a little, and he took advantage of that to dog-paddle his way another ten meters downstream. There, hanging onto a submerged tree root, he buried himself in the cold water, leaving only his eyes and nose above the ripples.
And now, with his last card played, there was nothing to do but wait.
He lay there for what seemed like hours, the frigid water sapping his body heat, then his strength, then his feeling. Twice he thought he heard the sound of an air car, but the first time it was too distant to worry about and the second time he wasn’t sure he wasn’t hallucinating the sound.
He was half asleep, visions of hiking through the snow with his uncle drifting across his eyes, when something half-felt closed around his upper arm and he found himself being pulled out into the warm mountain air. “Townsend?” a distant voice called. “Townsend!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t shout,” he heard another voice mutter. That one was both distant and slurred.
“Come on, snap to it,” the first voice said. “I can’t do this all by myself.”
With an effort he forced open his eyes.
To find himself staring into Terry’s face.
“Were you shooting at me?” he muttered, wincing as feeling started coming back into his arms and upper chest. He shifted his gaze downward, discovered that Terry had levered him into a sitting position in the creek. “You shouldn’t have shot at me,” he continued. He flexed his fingers, managed to close them solidly around a tree root, and started pulling.
It wasn’t easy. Probably wasn’t pretty, either. But between the two of them they got him out of the water and stretched along the bank. “How long were you in there?” Terry asked, checking his pulse and peering into his eyes. “Do we need to get you to the hospital?”
“I don’t know,” Chomps said. At least the slurring was going away. “A couple of hours.” An idea belatedly sifted through the mental fog, and he checked his uni-link. “About twenty minutes,” he corrected. “And no, I’m fine.”
“More than can be said for your car,” Terry growled. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“Which part?”
“Start where you decided to ignore my orders,” Terry said. “End where I dragged your sorry butt out of the water.”
By the time Chomps finished, his body had mostly recovered from the ordeal. Recovered to the point, in fact, where the air no longer felt warm but began aggressively chilling his wet skin and clothes. When Terry silently took off her uniform jacket and draped it across his chest, he didn’t argue.
“Well, if we had any doubts before about this being murder, they’re pretty well out the window,” Terry said, a shiver running through her shoulders. Chomps started to hand her back her jacket, stopped as she waved it back. “I don’t suppose you got a glimpse of the car or the driver.”
“Sorry,” Chomps said. “He came in at a low angle, and once the smoke started he was completely out of sight.”
“And vice versa.”
“Yes.” Chomps pursed his lips. “He or she.”
“That sounded significant.”
“I was just wondering where Sheriff Vespoli was during the incident,” Chomps said.
“That’s what I thought you were wondering,” Terry said darkly. “And you can stop any time.”
“Why?” Chomps countered. “You’ve been poking around this thing for a couple of weeks now, and it wouldn’t take much detective work to figure out what you were doing. Toss in an overheard screen asking an enthusiast about Solarian air-car computers, and there you go.”
“Point one: She wasn’t the first one at the crash scene,” Terry said. “I was. There’s no way she could have gotten there ahead of us and removed whatever gizmo you say was taken. Point two: The duke was the one who ignored Vespoli’s little failings and let her stay in her job. That doesn’t give her much reason to want him dead. In fact, just the opposite.”
“Points taken,” Chomps had to concede.
“And point three—” She punched some keys on her uni-link. “She hasn’t left the two-block area around the office since she met us at the café.”
“Locator histories can be faked.”
“Not police ones.”
She was wrong about that, Chomps knew. But now didn’t seem the right time to point out that he knew how to do highly illegal stuff like that.
Anyway, there were her other two points, both of which were unfortunately reasonably solid. “So where does that leave us?” he asked.
“For starters, going back to the scene and telling the firefighters what happened,” she said, standing up. “Or a modified version of it, anyway. So the computer was gone?”
“The computer and Devereux both,” Chomps said with a sigh. “I’m hoping he’s out enjoying Whistlestop culture and not lying dead under a log somewhere.”
“I’m guessing the latter,” Terry said bitterly. “Once the killer got the computer, Devereux would be the next to go.” She raised her eyebrows. “Followed by you.”
“Already figured that out, thanks,” Chomps said ignoring her proffered hand and getting to his feet by himself. “Well. Let’s get it over with.”
* * *
The firefighters had finished with the blaze and were packing up their equipment by the time they reached the clearing. Questions were asked, answers were given, and a whole lot of paperwork was threatened.
Fortunately, Terry’s presence on the scene got some of that paperwork postponed, though probably not eliminated.
And finally, the two of them were once again alone.
“I don’t suppose I could help your team search the house,” Chomps said, eyeing the building.
“We don’t have a team here, and no one’s searching any houses,” Terry said. “They’ll do a quick person-in-distress check of the area, then call it a day.” She gave him a hard look. “Which is what you’re also going to do.”
“What if there’s still evidence in there?”
“There isn’t,” Terry said. “Even if our killer can’t hit a Sphinxian at point-blank range, he’s certainly competent enough to do a proper search.”
Chomps scowled. But she was probably right. “Fine,” he said. “So we’ll have to find something else to do. I was just thinking about the joys of sitting in front of a roaring fireplace.”
“The inn hasn’t got a fireplace.”
“No, but I’ll bet Duke Serisburg’s mountain retreat does.”
“No,” Terry said firmly. “Let me rephrase that: hell no.”
“I want to see if someone besides the duke and his people could get in without leaving any traces,” Chomps said patiently. “If I can’t get in, that’ll tell us something.”
“Like what? Besides, the crash didn’t happen anywhere near the retreat.”
“My uncle used to quote an old magician’s saying,” Chomps said. “By the time the magician says ‘watch closely,’ the trick’s already done. So: mountain retreat?”
“Damn it, Chomps,” she gritted. “What parts of warrantless and inadmissible don’t you understand? Do I have to haul you back to Point and let you dry out in a jail cell?”
Chomps sighed. “We don’t have a choice, Terry,” he said quietly. “Just asking a few questions put the killer onto us. Getting a warrant—telegraphing our intentions and suspicions to everyone in Serisburg—is the surest way to make sure any evidence still at the duke’s retreat is gone before the paperwork’s even done. And as for a cell—” He looked her straight in the eye. “Given the events of the past hour, I submit that disarming and immobilizing me would get me killed in the first twenty-four hours. Possibly the first twenty-four minutes.”
“We can protect you.”
“How? You don’t even know who you’re protecting me from.”
Her gaze drifted away, settling into the direction of the twice-baked storage shed. “You really think someone else got into the retreat?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out. But if someone else did it, so can I.”
“And you think we won’t need whatever we find to convict the killer? Because there’s still that warrant thing.”
“At this point I’ll settle for figuring out who the killer is,” Chomps said. “We can worry about convicting him later.”
“Yeah, well, us real cops have to worry about both parts of it.” Terry hissed out a frustrated-sounding sigh. “Fine. Anyway, if I let you go alone and you get killed I’ll never hear the end of it from Mom.”
“That’s the spirit,” Chomps said. “Let’s go. Your car’s got a good heater, right?”