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CHAPTER TWENTY

It was just after seven o’clock that evening when the knock Chomps had expected finally came. Taking a deep breath, he got up from the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting, crossed the room, and opened the door.

“Mr. Townsend,” Sheriff Vespoli greeted him formally. “May I come in?”

“Sorry,” Chomps said, not moving from the doorway. “I’m expecting someone.”

“If you mean Dr. Tsai, he won’t be coming,” Vespoli said. Her hand, Chomps noted, was resting casually on her holstered sidearm. “He and Deputy Lassaline are on their way to the duke’s retreat to retrieve the rest of the spoiled milk cartons.”

“Really?” Chomps said, frowning. “I thought we were going to have this one checked first.”

“Change of plans.” Vespoli’s gaze flicked past his arm. “You have it here?”

“I do.”

“Good, because I’m here to collect it.”

“I don’t know,” Chomps said hesitantly. “I should check with Terry first.”

Vespoli shook her head. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

And suddenly, her gun was clear of its holster and pointed squarely at Chomps’s chest. “Hands on your head,” she said quietly, “and step back into the room.”

Clenching his teeth in half a snarl, Chomps obeyed. Vespoli followed, staying well out of reach, and closed the door behind her. “Over there,” she said, gesturing to the corner farthest from the door and the bed. “Face the wall, please.”

She waited until he was in the corner. Then, as he watched her over his shoulder, she sat down on the bed and felt under the pillows. “You’re wasting your time,” Chomps said. “I don’t have a gun.”

“Maybe not one of your own,” Vespoli said. She finished with the pillows, then leaned over and ran her hand along the underside of the bed. “But Lassaline carries a backup Drakon—ah.”

She straightened up, holding up the Drakon for him to see. “Serisburg Deputy gun; Serisburg Deputy hiding place.” She checked the chamber, confirming there was a round in place, then holstered her own gun and shifted the Drakon to her right hand.

“And Serisburg Deputy murder?” Chomps suggested, turning back around to face her.

“I’m sorry,” Vespoli said. She sounded determined, but not especially sorry. “But you know too much.”

“So does Deputy Lassaline,” Chomps pointed out. “You going to kill her, too?”

A flicker of pain crossed Vespoli’s face. “That one’s going to hurt,” she admitted. “I’m just glad I won’t have to do it myself.”

“Your fellow murderer will do it?”

“There’s no fellow murderer,” Vespoli ground out. “I’m the one who killed them. He’s just helping me clean up my mess.”

“Awfully decent of him,” Chomps said. “This Good Samaritan got a name?”

“Why do you care?”

“Why do you care?” Chomps countered. “You’re about to shoot me, aren’t you?”

For a moment she stared at him. Then, she gave a little shrug. “His name’s Masterson,” she said. “He’s a special agent with the Royal Investigation Division. He’s the one who first—” She broke off, her throat working. “He’s the one who told me the duke was going to fire me.”

“Really,” Chomps said. The Royal Investigation Division. Right. “I thought the duke had a permanent wink about your drinking.”

“I guess his eye got sore,” Vespoli said. “He’d decided to kick me out. And not just kick me out, but publicly shame me.” Her throat worked again. “This job’s all I’ve got, Townsend.”

“Yes, Terry told me,” Chomps said. “So what did you do? Go to his retreat and confront him?”

Vespoli gave a little snort. “Yes, that would have been the adult thing to do, wouldn’t it? And believe me, I had a speech ready that would have blistered the wood siding off his greatroom. But no, I needed a little extra courage first. So I had a drink. And another, and probably another.”

She took a deep breath. “And when I finally woke up, I was sitting in my patrol car in the middle of the forest, with the wreck of the duke’s air car beside me.”

“Wait a second,” Chomps said, frowning. “Falling-down drunk, you were still able to force him into a tree?”

“Who said anything about forcing anyone?” Vespoli demanded. “I scared him into the tree. I had him dodging, weaving—he was just trying to get away and protect his family. But I was too crazy drunk to care. If I could take it back…but what’s done is done. You have to understand—all I’ve got left is my job.”

“I understand,” Chomps said.

So he’d been right. He almost wished he hadn’t.

“So you scared him into a tree,” he said. “Let’s talk about Deputy Lassaline. You said Masterson’s waiting at the retreat to kill her?”

“Yes.” Vespoli glanced at her uni-link. “She’s almost there.”

“And you’re going to explain how she’s there getting killed at the same time she’s here at the inn shooting me?”

Vespoli shrugged. “I can revise her uni-link locator history afterwards.”

“That could end up being confusing.”

“Not really. I know how to do it.”

“Of course you do.” Chomps shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I was really hoping it wasn’t you.”

Vespoli frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was hoping it was Deputy Broganis or one of the others,” Chomps went on, ignoring the question. “For a while I thought it might even be Terry.”

“If you’re trying to stall—”

“Because it had to be one of you,” Chomps said. “Only a police car has the capability of overriding another air car and taking over its controls.” He shook his head. “Duke Serisburg wasn’t scared into the tree, Sheriff. His car was overridden and rammed into it.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Vespoli bit out. “There was no override. The black box would have shown that.”

“Only if the override frequency and protocols were ones the black box recognized and recorded,” Chomps said. “Except that this was a Solarian car.”

She was frowning now. “So?”

“League planets are pretty crowded,” Chomps said. “Lots of people, lots of jurisdictions, all of them pushing up against one another. There’s no way one frequency, or even one group of them, could handle all the potential police overrides. That’s why their air-car computers have a handy little port on one side to shift to the local jurisdiction’s override frequency.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, I think you do,” Chomps said. “Your friend Masterson, the one who claims to be helping you clean up your mess, is the one who started all this in the first place and has been playing you like a puppet. He was the one who got into the duke’s car and slipped the frequency-shifter into the computer, then poisoned the milk in the fridge so the duke would grab his family and head for Serisburg Point and a hospital.”

“No,” Vespoli insisted, her voice strained. “That’s impossible.”

“We have the computer,” Chomps told her. “More than that, we have the specs and now know what that port was for. Masterson was the one flying your patrol car that night while you were sleeping off the booze and whatever drugs he’d added to it. He would have had to put something in your patrol car’s system to shift its override frequency to the new one, but that wouldn’t have been a problem—all of that would have been out of sight, and no one was looking at your car or its black box records.

“Once everything was in place, it was pretty simple. I’m guessing he took partial control of the car right from the start, shutting off the radio but otherwise letting the duke fly it until they got near the site he’d picked out for the crash. Once it was done, he retrieved the shifter, woke you up, and spun his story. The tweaking he’d done to your override system could be pulled out over the next couple of days at his leisure.”

Vespoli’s face had gone progressively more rigid as he talked. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Maybe it happened that way. Maybe it didn’t.”

“The ironic thing is that somewhere along the way the duke figured it out,” Chomps said. “That’s why he unstrapped and was trying to get to the computer. I’m guessing all the swerving that Masterson said was you buzzing the car was Masterson trying to throw the duke back and forth across the car and away from the console before he could get to the shifter and pull it out.”

He paused, but Vespoli remained silent. “The black box recorded all the car’s movements like it was supposed to,” Chomps continued, “but didn’t register that the commands were coming from outside. Masterson could control the car from well outside proximity range, so your patrol car didn’t show up on any of the black box’s sensor records. He was also lucky in that the duke lived a few minutes after the crash, long enough for him to pump some alcohol into his blood and get it circulated enough to indicate he was flying drunk. A nice little twist of the knife, but really just icing on the cake.”

“You’re not listening,” Vespoli said. “Maybe it happened that way. It doesn’t matter. I was there, in the car, when it happened. Whether I was flying or not, it’s still my responsibility.”

“You weren’t culpable.”

“The law says otherwise.” She hefted the Drakon. “And this job’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Chomps said. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re going to shoot me, then gimmick Terry’s uni-link to show she was here at the time—and gimmick yours to show that you weren’t—then make it look like after she killed me she flew to the duke’s retreat where Masterson killed her. That right?”

“Yes.” Vespoli visibly braced herself, and Chomps saw her knuckles whiten as she got a firmer grip on the Drakon.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Chomps said doubtfully. “It’s going to look strange. Her uni-link being gimmicked twice in the same day, I mean.”

Vespoli frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that,” Chomps said, nodding over her shoulder. “Deputy?” he called.

And as Vespoli half turned her head, the closet door swung open and Terry stepped out, her gun drawn and ready.

Vespoli, at her best, was pretty good. She could have only barely felt the subtle movement of air on her neck and cheek before she dropped to one knee and swiveled around at the waist to bring the Drakon to bear on the deputy. The muzzle steadied on target, and Chomps heard the click of the striker.

Nothing happened.

Again, the sheriff was right on it, working the slide awkwardly with her body half twisted and ejecting the bad round. As Terry moved toward her there was a second useless click—

“Don’t bother,” Chomps advised. “Loading the magazine with dummy rounds makes it pretty useless.”

Vespoli swore and again worked the slide.

And then it was too late. Terry was right in front of her, ignoring the useless weapon and pulling the sheriff’s own gun from its holster. “It’s over, Sheriff,” Terry said, her voice under rigid control. “You have the right to remain silent—”

“I know my rights,” Vespoli interrupted, her voice suddenly weary.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Terry repeated doggedly, clearly determined to follow all the protocols. “You have the right…”

This time she got through the whole list. “You okay?” she asked, looking at Chomps as she cuffed Vespoli’s hands behind her and sat her down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine,” Chomps said. “You get all that?”

Terry nodded. “Recording came out perfect.” She hissed out a breath. “I didn’t believe it when you said this was how it happened. I still don’t want to.”

“Do you know this Masterson?” Chomps asked. “Was he part of the investigation team?”

“No, and I never heard of him,” Terry said. She threw a tight look at Vespoli. “He must have kept his connections here strictly to the sheriff.”

“Just remember that she was a patsy,” Chomps said. “Masterson was the one pulling the strings and doing the actual killing.”

“I know,” Terry said. “It still tracks like a nightmare.”

“It’s almost over,” Chomps assured her. “By the way, I trust Dr. Tsai isn’t really heading for the retreat?”

“No, of course not,” Terry said. “Though if we’d known Masterson would be planning an ambush there we could have set up a welcoming committee for him.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get him,” Chomps said. “Sheriff? Feel free to jump into this conversation any time.”

“What do you want me to say?” Vespoli bit out. “I’m either a murderer or a dupe. Big damn choice.”

“Third choice: you can be a Crown’s witness,” Terry offered. “We want Masterson, not you.”

“You want both of us,” Vespoli countered.

“Technically, yes,” Chomps said. “But mostly because we want you to ID him once we catch him.”

“You won’t,” Vespoli said, shaking her head. “Not a chance. He’s way too smart.”

“It’s a small planet,” Terry reminded her.

“It’s a big universe,” Vespoli countered. She took a deep breath, and Chomps saw a subtle shift in her expression. “What’s it worth for me to help you nail him?”

“What do you want?” Terry asked.

“I want out of here,” Vespoli said. “Cleared record, new name, maybe on Gryphon where no one knows me. You guarantee that and I’ll get him out in the open for you.”

Chomps and Terry looked at each other. “I think we can get someone to sign off on that,” Terry said.

“I’m sure we can,” Chomps confirmed. “Okay. Where and when?”

“He’s expecting word that you’ve been dealt with,” Vespoli said. “I’ll screen him and say you must have changed your plans at the last minute and I wasn’t able to get to you.”

“What about me?” Terry asked. “You said he was going to take me out at the duke’s retreat?”

“Obviously, we went off somewhere together,” Chomps said, thinking quickly as he took his uni-link off his wrist and used his multitool to pull off the back cover. “Dr. Tsai was nervous about meeting at the retreat and insisted we go to his office instead to have Benjamin’s chocolate milk analyzed. He wanted to make sure the chain of evidence was documented.”

“And there will be other people working in his building, so he’ll feel safer there,” Terry added. “Masterson can’t easily get to him, which is why you didn’t screen him earlier to let him know where to find us.”

“That should work,” Vespoli said. “Okay. Uncuff me.”

“Just a second,” Chomps said, pulling out his pocket flashlight. He unscrewed the bottom, pulled out the special Delphi gadget tucked away in there, and plugged it into the uni-link’s diagnostic port. “I don’t know if he can access our locators, but if he can it might be just a tad suspicious if he noticed we were all in the inn together when we were supposed to be elsewhere…okay. You still came here, Sheriff, and probably waited for me to come back.”

“And you spent a few minutes searching for the tainted milk before you screened him,” Terry added.

“Right,” Chomps said. “While Terry and I…Terry, what’s Tsai’s address?”

“Two Hundred West Barker Avenue in Serisburg Point.”

“Thanks. While Terry and I met Tsai. Give me another second…”

A minute later, he’d finished entering the false location data into his uni-link. Three minutes after that, he’d done the same for Terry’s locator.

“Interesting gadget,” Terry commented as Chomps put it away. “Do I want to know where you got it?”

“Probably not,” Chomps said, handing Terry back her uni-link. “Okay, Sheriff. You’re on.”

Vespoli waited silently until Terry removed her cuffs. Then, visibly bracing herself, she keyed her uni-link.

Another moment of silence. “Masterson?” Vespoli said. “It’s me. We’ve got a problem.”

Chomps listened closely as Vespoli ran through the scenario he and Terry had given her, trying to spot anything in her words or phrasing that sounded odd or out of place. If Masterson had set up a code to tip him off that they’d been compromised, this would be the time for her to use it.

Beside Vespoli, Terry leaned casually backward across the bed, craning her neck to peer at the sheriff’s uni-link display. She straightened up, caught Chomps’s eye, and shook her head.

So, no locator or other useful data attached to Masterson’s number. Chomps hadn’t expected there to be.

“…so what do you want me to do?”

The reply was audible but too soft for Chomps to make out any of the words. Masterson talked for no more than ten seconds before Vespoli nodded. “I’ll be there,” she said, and keyed off.

“Well?” Terry asked, wiggling her fingers in silent order.

“He wants to meet,” Vespoli said, handing the uni-link to the deputy.

“So we gathered,” Terry growled. “When and where?”

“Now, and at the spot—” Vespoli’s throat worked. “At the spot where the duke’s family died.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a nice touch,” Chomps murmured. “Not ghoulish or anything.”

“Maybe it’s ghoulish, but it’s also practical,” Terry said grimly. “Out in the woods he’ll be able to hear a second air car coming from a long ways away, not to mention scanning for human heat signatures on his way in.”

“And he knows I’m here at the inn,” Vespoli said. “It won’t take me long to get there.”

“Longer than I can get anyone else here, anyway,” Terry said. “I guess it’s up to us, Townsend. Any ideas on how to sneak up on someone who’ll be specifically watching for someone to sneak up on him?”

“I might,” Chomps said. “Let’s go see if I can borrow your parents’ shotgun.”

* * *

Masterson made better time than Chomps had expected, especially given that the man was almost certainly staying strictly to the speed laws rather than risk drawing unwanted attention to himself. The killer must have been already on his way back from the duke’s retreat, he decided, when Vespoli first called him.

“Here he comes,” Vespoli warned.

“Yeah, got it,” Chomps said as he climbed out of the patrol car. Making sure his borrowed shotgun was slung securely across his back, he climbed beneath the rear of the vehicle and slid as far under the thrusters as he could.

A fully heated thruster nozzle, the Delphi techs had once told him, could mask a human IR signature from anything short of military-grade detectors. The question now was whether the sheriff’s trip from Serisburg Point had been enough to crank up the thrusters’ heat to that level. Certainly the heat radiating down on him felt like it would be enough.

Unfortunately, there’d been no time to test it. His only clue that it had worked—or, more critically, that it hadn’t worked—would be when Masterson opened fire on him.

He lay flat beneath the vent until the underside of the other air car came into view as Masterson settled toward the ground on the other side of the clearing. Then, moving quickly, he rolled out from under Vespoli’s air car to the far side and rose into a crouch, keeping the thruster vents between him and Masterson’s sensors.

The other car’s door popped open, and Chomps eased an eye up over the rear of Vespoli’s car. He caught a glimpse of a single shadowy figure in the car—

And ducked again as a searchlight abruptly blazed out at him.

He swore under his breath. Not entirely unexpected, but he’d been hoping he could get a quick picture of Masterson on his uni-link before he and Vespoli got into their conversation. But the spotlight now glaring into his face made that impossible.

Or at least, impossible from his current position.

He turned his head, blinking away the purple afterimage, and studied the forest. Vespoli had landed close to one edge of the clearing, putting the nearest trees no more than three meters away. If he stayed low, he should be able to stay in both the thruster’s IR glare and the air car’s shadow and make it to cover undetected.

The air car rocked slightly as Vespoli got out and headed across the clearing. Picking a good-sized target tree in the middle of the air car’s shadow, Chomps got down on hands and knees and headed toward it.

No shouts or gunshots accompanied his movement. He reached the tree and crawled behind it. A line of small bushes led off to the side; using them for cover, he crawled another ten meters, far enough to be out of the floodlight’s main beam. Picking another sufficiently large tree, he got behind it and stood up.

He’d moved as quickly as he could while still staying mostly silent. But even so, the clearing wasn’t all that big, and he’d fully expected Vespoli to be all the way to Masterson’s car by now.

Only she wasn’t. She’d covered maybe two-thirds of the distance and was now simply standing there, facing Masterson from a few meters away, her arms folded across her chest. Chomps could hear a murmur of conversation, but the distance and the rustling leaves made it impossible for him to eavesdrop.

But if he shifted his uni-link to tight-beam, maybe its microphone could pick up their words. He got the device in hand and started making the adjustment—

And then, without warning, Vespoli abruptly unfolded her arms, dropped her right hand to her holster, and drew her weapon.

She had it about halfway to target when the sound of a shot hammered across the clearing. Vespoli jerked backward, her legs collapsing beneath her.

Chomps was already in motion, dropping the uni-link and snatching the shotgun from across his back. But it was too late. Far too late. Even as he lined up the muzzle a second shot rang out, the jolt of the round twitching Vespoli’s body for a second time as she landed in a crumpled heap.

The displaced leaves were still fluttering as Chomps’s return shot blasted across the clearing, the beanbag arrowing through the open door to slam into the half-seen figure there. The air car, which had been starting to rise again on its counter-grav, hesitated as the hands guiding its movements were knocked off the controls; Chomps fired again, and this time the air car dropped back solidly to the ground.

The beanbag rounds were pretty potent ones. Still, given time, Masterson would recover enough to escape. Chomps had no intention of giving him that time. He sprinted across the clearing, swearing viciously the whole way, ready to fire a third round if it seemed necessary.

To his bitter disappointment, Masterson gave him no such excuse. He was, in fact, only starting to come out of his daze as Chomps reached the air car. The gun he’d shot Vespoli with was still gripped loosely in his hand; Chomps wrenched it away, stuffed the weapon behind his own belt, then grabbed the man’s arm and hauled him out of the vehicle. “Damn you to hell,” he snarled, shoving his face close to the killer’s, noting distantly that the man’s lip was bleeding and wishing regretfully that his beanbags could have caused at least a little more damage.

Masterson didn’t reply. Chomps hadn’t really expected him to. Still holding the killer’s arm, he shoved him face-first into the dirt and leaves, then pulled out a binder strap and pinioned his wrists behind him, probably tightening the strap a bit more than necessary. Then, shotgun in hand, he sprinted back to Vespoli.

The sheriff was still alive, her breath coming in short gasping bursts. Chomps grabbed her wrist, keyed her uni-link— “Vespoli’s been shot,” he snapped. “Get Emergency here—now!

He didn’t wait for Terry’s acknowledgment. Pulling off Vespoli’s belt first-aid kit, he popped it open and grabbed a tube of wound sealant. “Help’s on its way, Sheriff,” he said between clenched teeth as he pulled open her tunic and searched for the entry wounds. One was over her left lung, the other just below her heart, possibly having clipped it. Not good. “Stay with me, okay?”

“It’s…all right,” she murmured, her hand weakly touching his as he got the sealant tube open. “Townsend…it’s all…”

“Stay with me, Vespoli,” he repeated, squeezing sealant onto the first wound. “Come on, damn it.”

“It’s…all…right,” she repeated, her voice now almost too soft for him to hear. “This…job…all…I…had…”

Chomps had closed her eyes and was sitting wearily beside her when Terry’s patrol car dropped like an avenging angel into the clearing.


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