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CHAPTER TWELVE

It turned out that Chomps’s earlier lie to Terry had had a grain of truth in it. Her parents really had heard about the explosion near Whistlestop and had debated screening her to see if she was all right. Apparently Terry’s boss, Sheriff Laura Vespoli, was fussy enough about personal screens that they’d decided against it, but had compromised by waiting up until Chomps returned to see if he had any information.

Which meant that they were both awake, and both fully and nervously keyed up, by the time Chomps and Terry came walking in.

“…and I’m fine,” Terry assured them after the hugs were over, along with the expressions of relief and probably a couple of tears on Eileen’s part. “Really. You know Broganis—he’d never have released me if he didn’t think I was all right.”

“But your face,” Eileen protested, tentatively touching Terry’s cheek with her fingertips.

“It’s just heat rash, Mom,” Terry said. “Okay, excitement over. You two should get to bed—I’m sure you have a busy day planned.”

“Not so you’d notice,” Ralph said, folding his arms across his chest. “All right, Terry, spit it out.”

“Spit what out?”

“Back in school you occasionally wanted us out of the way when you were entertaining a young gentleman,” Ralph said. “Your technique was lousy then, and it hasn’t gotten any better.”

“Dad!” Terry protested, sounding scandalized.

“And since you have your own place now,” Ralph continued calmly, “I doubt that’s the issue here.” He raised his eyebrows at Chomps. “Though I suppose it wouldn’t be remiss for me to ask what your intentions are toward my daughter.”

For a moment Chomps considered deflecting the question, either with humor or a show of indignation. But having lived with these people for over four months, and having observed their interactions with each other and their daughter, he knew he owed them more than empty words. “My intentions are to keep her alive.”

Their reactions were about what he’d expected. Ralph’s mouth dropped open a couple of millimeters, Eileen’s eyes widened, and Terry looked both startled and slightly betrayed. “He’s joking, Dad,” she said.

“No, he’s not,” Chomps said. “Though he hopes he’s exaggerating a little. But just a little.”

Ralph looked at Eileen, then back at Chomps. “The rest of you go into the office,” he said. “More private and soundproof than the dining room. I’ll make coffee.”

“We want to hear everything,” Eileen added, taking her daughter’s arm.

They listened in silence to the interlocking reports of the evening’s events. Chomps and Terry finished, and for another moment all four of them sat in the same dark silence.

“You really think you found something worth killing for?” Eileen asked at last.

“If I’m right, they’ve already killed the duke’s whole family,” Chomps reminded her. “Once you’ve murdered five people, one more doesn’t make a lot of difference.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, now that you’ve heard the whole story, it’s time for all of us to get to bed. I know Terry’s had a rough day, and I doubt yours has been any easier—”

“Hold it,” Ralph said, holding up a hand. “Nice try, but just hold it.”

“What do you mean?” Terry asked.

“He means,” Eileen said quietly, “that Chomps knows something important that he’s not telling us.”

“And whether you tell us about it or not,” Ralph added, “whoever’s running the cover-up is still going to assume you did. That puts our lives in danger, too.” He cocked an eyebrow. “It seems to me that if we’re going to join the two of you in the crosshairs, we should at least know why.”

“I don’t—” Chomps began.

“Forget it, Townsend,” Terry interrupted. “Remember Mom telling you I was stubborn? You want to guess where I got it?”

“Yeah, but you’re also armed,” Chomps reminded her. “They’re not.”

“Never assume, Chomps,” Ralph said quietly. “Never assume.”

“So?” Eileen prompted.

“Okay,” Chomps said reluctantly, pulling out his recorder and connecting it to his tablet, making sure none of them could see exactly what he was doing. “Let me set it up.”

With access to Delphi’s computers, he could have copied the file to one of the most crack-proof systems on Manticore. Unfortunately, that access had long since been taken from him.

But all that meant was that he’d have to go with Plan B.

The transfer mark flicked on and then off, confirming the file had been sent and received. At least now there was a second copy elsewhere on the planet if the killer got to Chomps.

Though Flora would probably not be thrilled about getting all this dumped on her computer this way. Especially not in the middle of the night.

“Okay,” he said, keying for the relevant part of his recording and turning the tablet around toward them. “A bit of data that, not surprisingly, the investigators missed.”

“What are we looking at?” Ralph asked.

“That’s the computer from Duke Serisburg’s car,” Terry told him. “We didn’t take it out during the investigation because it was already half ruined and cutting it out would have destroyed the other half. Thom Devereux, having more time on his hands, used a hammer and chisel.”

“And he found something?” Eileen asked.

“Not yet,” Chomps said. “Possibly never will—as Terry said, half ruined. But this is what I found interesting.”

He keyed for a different set of pictures. “This is the computer’s casing. It’s got the usual collection of ports and other access points, all of them wired either to the computer directly or through buffers or modulators of various sorts.” He switched pictures again. “Here are individual pictures of the ports. See if anything odd strikes you.”

He ran the pictures past them, one at a time, giving them a few seconds’ view of each. He watched their faces as he did so, wondering if there was really something there or if his imagination and suspicions were playing tricks on him. He reached the end and started again—

“Hold it,” Eileen said. “Back up one, will you?”

“I was just about to ask the same thing,” Terry said, leaning forward toward the tablet. “That middle port. The inside looks remarkably clean.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Ralph murmured. “Can we see the others again?”

Chomps nodded and ran through the pictures again, feeling a sense of relief. So he hadn’t been imagining things.

A satisfaction that was short-lived. Confirmation that he wasn’t crazy also meant confirmation that he’d found possible evidence of murder.

“So what does that mean?” Eileen asked, sounding confused. “I’m not all that good at keeping my own computer dusted.”

“That’s not dust, Mom,” Terry said grimly. “That’s debris from the crash that got jammed into the ports. All except one of them.” She looked at Chomps. “Which means that at the time of the crash, there was something in that port.”

“Exactly,” Chomps agreed. “Something that was gone when you got there. And the only other person who could have done that was whoever engineered the crash.”

“Damn,” Terry muttered under her breath. “The clearing. You were right—that’s why he needed that particular tree. He had to get to the car and the port.”

“But what could have been in there?” Eileen asked. “Ports like those are usually for peripherals and other non-vital equipment.”

“Maybe it was something that scrambled the computer,” Ralph suggested. “You’re assuming that all the damage in the system came from the crash. What if it was a capacitor that sent a jolt of current into the autopilot? Would the duke have been able to even manually fly the car with that section fried?”

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “The manufacturers make it really hard to completely take out an air-car computer, for obvious reasons. I’d think a Solarian design would be even tougher.”

“And something that catastrophic would show up on the black box recordings,” Chomps added. “I assume the data said the computer was running properly?”

“Yes, as was all the other equipment,” Terry said. “Which is why the only conclusion we could reach was operator error.”

“I assume we’re reaching a different conclusion now?” Ralph asked.

“I don’t know,” Terry said reluctantly. “Something here is weird—there’s no doubt about that. But as evidence of foul play it’s awfully thin.”

“Could it have been something to block the radio?” Eileen asked. “Surely the duke had enough warning that something was wrong that he could have screened for help.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Terry agreed. “Of course, when we thought it was just an accident, the lack of an emergency screen didn’t look suspicious. Now…” She shook her head.

“The killer must have jammed the radio and his uni-link,” Chomps suggested.

“But there’s no indicated that the radio was ever activated,” Terry countered. “Even if the signal was jammed, the fact that he tried to screen would still be recorded.”

“Unless the radio had been disabled or disconnected,” Ralph said. “If no signal came out of it, wouldn’t the black box see that as the lack of a screen?”

Terry shook her head. “We tested the radio. It was fully functional.”

“Or at least the radio you took back to the station was,” Eileen said. “If the killer took something out of the computer, couldn’t he have swapped out the radio, too?”

“Even easier, our missing plug could have been a cable to the radio,” Terry said. “If the computer was telling the radio not to function, the black box would just record that it hadn’t been used.”

“And the duke knew it,” Chomps said suddenly as a flash of understanding lit up his brain. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?” Terry demanded.

“Whatever was happening with the computer, the duke figured it out,” Chomps said. “That’s why he was out of his seat—he was trying to get to the computer and pull out the mystery plug.”

“Only he didn’t make it in time,” Eileen whispered. “Oh God. Knowing your family was about to die…”

She trailed off, and for another moment the room was silent.

“We need to find out what was in there,” Terry said.

“Absolutely,” Ralph said. “But there’s still one question hanging over all this: why? Why would anyone want to kill the duke?”

“Unfortunately, motive is usually a lot murkier than method,” Chomps said. “The first thing we have to figure out is who the actual target was.”

“Obviously, Duke Serisburg and his family,” Terry said, frowning.

“Are you sure?” Chomps countered. “Remember, his youngest child was sick. Instead of piling everyone into the car and heading home, wouldn’t it have made more sense for the duchess and the sick boy to stay at the retreat for another day or two and let him recover before returning to the capital?”

“With a cold?” Eileen shrugged. “It’s certainly what I would have done. But why does that matter? The duke, or the duke and his family—what’s the difference?”

“No, no, he’s right,” Ralph said, frowning. “If the killers were only after the duke, then this might have been an attempt at regime change.”

“At which point his family would have been collateral damage,” Chomps said.

“That’s a horrible way to put it,” Eileen murmured.

“Sorry,” Chomps apologized.

“Welcome to the wonderful world of law enforcement, Mom,” Terry said. “Check your heart and feelings at the door.”

“Let’s track it through,” Chomps said. “Typically, the title would have passed to the duke’s eldest son, with the duchess acting as regent until he came of age. How was the duke seen by his subjects? I know everyone fell all over themselves praising him after his death, but I never put much stock in eulogies.”

“Not an unwise policy,” Ralph said. “I’d say that Duke Serisburg was reasonably popular; but among the groups he was unpopular with he was very unpopular.”

“Specifics?” Chomps asked.

“Terry probably knows more than we do about the realities,” Ralph said. “Most of what we get are rumors and the social nets.”

“We probably fielded a dozen complaints a week about the duke or the government in general,” Terry said. “Maybe a death threat or two a month.”

“Did those numbers increase in the month before his death?” Chomps asked.

“The complaints did,” Terry said. “No change in the death threats.”

“I assume your office follows up on those?” Eileen asked.

“For what it’s worth,” Terry said. “Most are just people venting their spleen. We find them, warn them that overt threats of violence are considered felonies, and they usually keep their heads down after that. One or two a year are from mentally disturbed people, and we usually end up referring them to the hospital for psych evaluation.”

“I suppose that list will at least give us somewhere to start,” Ralph said.

“Not really,” Terry said. “If Chomps’s scenario is right, this thing was way too clever and subtle for your typical crazy.”

“And no one who actually intends murder tips his hand by sending in a threat,” Chomps agreed. “So if the target was only the duke, we may be looking at an attempt at regime change. Any other thoughts?”

“Well…” Ralph looked at his wife. “There was the duke’s will.”

“The duke’s will?” Chomps echoed. “Doesn’t everything go to his wife and…wait, are you saying he had a separate will?”

“That’s the rumor,” Ralph said. “Moot, of course, given that the whole family died. But he was previously married, and there were persistent rumors that he had a separate will to make sure some of his holdings went to his first wife if he died before his current wife.”

Chomps looked at Terry. “Well?”

“Not my department,” she said firmly. “Wills are filed with attorneys and the duchy probate court, not the sheriff’s office.”

“Well, then, we need to track it down,” Chomps said, making yet another mental note. “See if anyone besides the ex was going to get a slice of the pie. Former employees, maybe, or friends of his who aren’t necessarily friends of his wife’s.” He hesitated, but it had to be said. “Or maybe it covers distribution of assets that weren’t held in common property.”

“What kind of assets?” Eileen asked.

“Assets he might have hidden from his ex before their settlement,” Chomps said. “Or possibly property or cash he was hiding from the tax assessor.”

“Duke Serisburg?” Eileen asked, her eyes going wide. “No. Not a chance.”

“Hey, even the nicest guys have secrets,” Chomps said. “Sometimes they’re big secrets. Sometimes they’re nasty secrets.”

“You have a cynical view of the world,” Ralph said.

“But he’s not wrong,” Terry said. “So we need to see the duke’s will if we can.”

“And I want a list of all the duke’s employees at the time of his death,” Chomps added.

All three of them looked at him. “You think one of them might have been involved?” Eileen asked.

“No one would know the duke’s schedule and habits better than the people who worked for him,” Terry pointed out.

“I’m also not necessarily accusing any of them,” Chomps added. “But the killer might have cozied up to one of them for information.”

“Well, if you’re looking for sources, we need to check staff members, their families, their friends, their acquaintances, and the people who do their hair and nails,” Terry said. “Can’t be much more than half the duchy in that list.”

“So I’ve already cut your workload by half,” Chomps said. “You’re welcome.”

She gave him a look of strained patience. “And you’ve put up with him for four months?”

“Plus a bit,” Eileen said, giving Chomps a tired smile. “Anything more?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Chomps said. “Deputy?”

“No, I think this gives us plenty to start with,” Terry agreed.

“Well, then, it’s been a long day and all of us need to get some sleep,” Eileen said. “Terry, you can take the room next to ours.”

“Actually, I think I’ll take the one next to Chomps’s,” Terry said. “Even if the killer thinks the shed explosion fixed the computer problem, he probably knows Chomps was in there making recordings before I arrived. If we’re in a loose-end-tightening mood, there could be trouble in the night.”

“Whatever you think best,” Ralph said. “Good-night, everyone.”

“Just a second,” Chomps said, hesitantly. He hadn’t planned on bringing this up until they’d sorted out the will and employees. But the more he thought about the evening’s events, the more he’d realized he needed to get on this aspect as quickly as possible. “We’re assuming the duke’s air car was deliberately rammed into the tree, and that a single killer was involved. But it’s possible he had an accomplice, and that accomplice would need a staging point. Unless he wanted to hunker down in the forest, he would have needed somewhere to wait.”

“What’s your point?” Ralph asked.

“That the backup might have decided the inn would be the perfect spot,” Terry said sourly. “That where you’re going with this?”

“Oh, my God,” Eileen breathed. “He was here?

“Maybe not,” Chomps said. “Probably not, actually. There are a lot of downsides to staying in a public place. But we can’t ignore the possibility.”

“No, we can’t,” Ralph said grimly. “Okay. Let me go dig out the registration and security records.”

“Not now,” Terry said. “That’ll take at least an hour, and you’re as tired as the rest of us. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

“Agreed,” Chomps said. “I just thought I should bring it up, because…” He hesitated.

“Because we kicked over a fire ant nest tonight,” Terry said. “The fire ants may not be worried about it yet, but sooner or later they will be. If you still have that old shotgun, you might want to make sure it’s in reach.”

“All right,” Ralph said reluctantly. “But all we’ve got is birdshot and beanbag rounds.”

“You hunt with beanbag rounds out here?” Chomps asked, frowning.

“A gift from Terry,” Eileen said with a faint smile. “She said killing an intruder created too much paperwork. Disabling him was simpler.”

“Fair enough,” Chomps said. “And speaking of killing and intruders, Terry, I think you should reconsider the idea of sleeping away from your parents. They might need you.”

“You might need her, too,” Ralph said. “And you have the records, which makes you a more likely target. Ergo, she stays near you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Chomps said.

“So can we,” Eileen said.

“They can,” Terry seconded. “Trust me.”

“Then it’s settled,” Ralph said.

“Yes, but—” Chomps began to protest.

“And now, we’d all better get some sleep,” Ralph said. “The next few days are likely to be busy.”

“Absolutely,” Terry said. She arched her eyebrows. “Pleasant dreams, everyone.”

“We’ll try,” Eileen said. “And you two…just be careful, all right? Both of you.”

Apparently, that part of the discussion was over. “We will,” Chomps said. “Good night.”

Which was just as well. The better Terry was in position to protect him, the better he would be in position to protect her.

* * *

“You scared them,” Terry said as she and Chomps walked down the quiet hallway toward the rooms.

“You have a problem with that?” Chomps countered. The adrenaline rush of the evening’s events had long since passed, leaving him tired and on edge. First exile from his chosen profession, then spinning his wheels as carpenter’s assistant in the middle of nowhere, and now up to his eyebrows in a murder investigation. Not exactly the way he’d seen his life going a few months ago.

“Not with the message,” Terry said. “Only with the delivery.”

Chomps shook his head. “I’m too tired to soft-sugar anything. There’s nothing wrong with being scared if it keeps you alert. And alive.”

“I suppose,” Terry said. “It’s not like they can’t take a shock. But next time, you feed me the bad news and let me decide how to hand it over.”

“Fine,” Chomps said. “Our very next murder case. Promise.”

“Right. Our next one.” She was silent for the next few steps. “I take it this isn’t your first time?”

“My first time with a murder?”

“Your first time sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” Terry said flatly.

Chomps shook his head. “I just came here to help with your parents’ remodeling.”

“Right. I forgot.” She looked sideways at him. “So who exactly should I be asking about you? The Royal Investigation Division? The Navy? The Palace itself?”

Chomps winced. “I really wish you wouldn’t. There could be…unpleasant repercussions.”

“I’ll just bet there could,” Terry said, still eyeing him. “Okay, fine. I’ll let you run with it. For now. Just know that I’ll be watching you very closely.”

“Understood,” Chomps said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “But I suggest you hold your applause until the end of the show. So what are you going to look for on the employee list? Someone who’s suddenly come into money?”

“Yes, if one of them was bribed and is also terminally stupid,” Chomps said, dragging his mind away from the precipice’s edge and back onto the case. “I’m thinking the more likely lever was blackmail or extortion.”

“So you look for a shady past.”

“Right,” Chomps said. “The problem being that the only way blackmail works is if those shady bits haven’t yet come to light. Makes the investigation a wee bit trickier.”

“Well, if it was easy everyone would do it.” Terry shook her head. “I don’t know, Chomps. I see all the pieces you trotted out, but I can’t quite make them all fit. I think we’re missing something.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Chomps said. “Hopefully, the will and the employee shake-down will help clarify things.”

“I hope so,” Terry said. “We’re already treading dangerous ground here, and not just from the killers. Reopening a closed case isn’t exactly a politically smart thing to do. Especially when opening it also rips a scab off a gaping wound.”

Chomps made a face. She was right, of course. With less than a T-year since Serisburg’s death the national psyche was still adjusting to the loss. Proving murder would be legally satisfying, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be resentment from some quarters that they had to relive the trauma.

And if there was enough resentment in the highest ranks of government, it could permanently end any chance of getting back into Delphi.

“But you don’t go into law enforcement to be loved by all,” Terry continued. “If I’d wanted that I’d have stayed here with my mother. This is your room, right?”

“Yes,” Chomps said. “Well, good-night—”

“Just a second,” Terry said. Crouching down, she pulled up her left pantleg and retrieved a Drakon 6mm from an ankle holster. “Here,” she said, straightening up and handing it to him. “Just in case.”

“You sure?” Chomps said, gazing at the weapon. Small and compact, fairly useless for anything distant, but wonderfully suited for close combat.

“I’m sure,” Terry said. “Try not to get oil stains on my mother’s pillowcase.”

“I think sleeping with a gun under your pillow is probably more your thing.”

“Hardly,” Terry scoffed. “Makes a huge, uncomfortable lump. Current procedure is to holster your weapon under the edge of the bed.”

“Sounds much more comfortable.”

“It is,” Terry said. “And do remember that that gun’s registered to me. So don’t shoot anything.”

“I won’t,” Chomps promised.

“Thanks. Unless, of course,” she added thoughtfully, “it’s something that needs shooting.”


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