It Was Murder Read online

  “Rather peckish myself, Maya,” Albert Koosa agreed.

  “There’s a surprise,” Frances said under her breath.

  “Do you think we could order some food while we’re here?” Koosa asked, looking over the octopus.

  Marshal Harry went over to the equipment and examined a control panel. “All the preparation equipment is shut down. Does anyone know how to turn it on?”

  Kord Rooni and Leeli Kveen climbed nimbly onto the table.

  “We can make this work,” Kveen said, running her hands over the equipment. But we’ll need food to process.”

  “The fridge is round here,” I said. “Lots of food in there.”

  I led the way round a corner and yanked the fridge door open. The shelves were mostly empty, but the pile of body parts on the floor got everyone’s attention. Maya screamed and hid her face in Koosa’s ample chest. I scanned.

  “There are enough bits for four male tooyr, and one human,” I said. “All the parts are fridge temperature, and there’s not a lot of blood. I think they were killed somewhere else and dumped here.”

  “But that means they’ve been dead for hours,” Marshal Harry said, stroking her chin. “Longer than we were locked in the baggage compartment, at least.”

  “Do you still want to see the other bodies?” I asked. “Or are these enough to be going on with?”

  “That’s my father!” William said, pointing at a head.

  “That’s Big Bill Faa?” Marshal Harry asked.

  “Not so big now,” I said.

  “Yes! But it can’t be,” Faa said.

  “Cut down to size, you might say,” I looked round, that one didn’t even get a titter.

  “We checked he was in his office, with the company accountant, before we fled.”

  “Would these other people be his bodyguards?” Marshal Harry asked, prodding a tooyr antler with a frozen leek.

  “Yes! God knows he wasn’t a good father, or even a good man, but he didn’t deserve to be dumped in a fridge with the broccoli!”

  William Faa smelled upset and angry. Oddly, I got the idea he was angry with the head.

  “You saw broccoli?” I stuck my head back in the fridge. “Where?”

  “You can’t touch anything in there,” Marshal Harry told me. “It’s a crime scene.”

  “That’s the boss of our boss,” Ummen said.

  ”I could slip round the corpses and grab a few things?” I asked.

  “No. Crime scene.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “We’re all hungry,” Albert Koosa said.

  “I’m not,” Maya said. “Not anymore.”

  “Crime scene. There must be other storage areas on this ship.”

  The freezer door was opposite the fridge. I spun round and dragged it open, looking forward to sucking on frozen peas.

  “Oh no, not another one,” I said. There was a human stretched out on the floor, wearing black clothes, a gold bracelet and watch, and a gold chain round his neck. He also had a nasty wound on the back of his head from a blunt instrument. William beat the marshal to the door and stood with his mouth open.

  “Is it the hunting season for humans?” I wondered.

  “Uncle Stormen!” William sobbed, burying his face in his hands. “Not my real uncle, but he’s the only one treated me like a human being.”

  I tapped William on the shoulder with a claw. “You’re over egging your part.”

  “And that’s our boss,” Ummen sighed, peeking over the top of William’s head. “Time to find a new line of work.”

  “Anthony ‘Golden Balls’ Stormen. I led a task force that investigated this guy,” Marshal Harry said, looking William over. “But I never met you.”

  “Guess I’m the white sheep of the family,” William said. I want nothing to do with gambling or crime.”

  My voice box came with a dictionary app that plugged straight into my brain. I looked up ‘white sheep’ and discovered I was the black sheep of my species.

  “That’s it, I am out of suspects!” Marshal Harry shouted at the ceiling. “I was sure these guys were behind all this.”

  I had a tingling feeling in my tush brush. My back brain was trying to tell me I’d missed something important and it had nothing to do with the bodies.

  “We can’t leave Uncle Stormen lying in the freezer,” William said.

  “Why not?” I asked. “He’s not going to get any deader, is he?”

  “That was a tasteless thing to say,” Maya said, hugging William to her silver-coated chest.

  “Are you two copulating?” I asked. I’d come across this behaviour before and the mammals had been funny about it. “Should I turn round until you’re finished?”

  “What? No, we are not copulating,” William said. “Can’t you see I’m upset?”

  “No, I haven’t figured out mammal body language,” I admitted.

  “I know what it’s like to lose a parent,” Maya said. “I was trying to comfort the boy.”

  While we talked, the marshal stared at the body in the freezer, shaking her head.

  “Start over,” she said. “That’s all there is for it. We still have the shoes and the warnings, that must mean something?”

  Marshal Harry pulled two pieces of blue rubber from her pocket and drew them onto her hands.

  “Got anymore of those?” I asked. She took out another pair and passed them across, while staring down at the body. I grabbed the rubber in my palps and chewed away happily.

  “I’m gonna barf,” Sarah Kody said, smearing a hand across her red-painted lips.

  “Don’t, you’ll set me off too,” Ummen said. I ignored them and enjoyed a moment of pure pleasure. You can’t beat rubber for a good chew.

  “That’s not what they’re for,” Marshal Harry said. “We wear them so we don’t contaminate a crime scene with fingerprints.”

  I waved a claw. “I don’t have those.”

  Marshal Harry entered the freezer and searched the coverings of the deceased. It turned out humans hide stuff inside their coverings, but other humans know about it.

  “Here’s his ID, some casino chips, hologram player… oh… no phone. Looks like someone beat him about the head until he stopped moving.”

  She stood and turned to the chill.

  “I can’t watch this,” Faa said, and Maya led him back to the kitchen table.

  Marshal Harry searched the parts in the freezer. The tooyr weapons had been removed and Big Bill’s phone.

  “They were killed somewhere else and dumped in there,” she decided. “A single beam slice from close range, it looks like. So someone they trusted got really close.”

  “Bit odd for one killer to use four different methods,” I said.

  “Four?” William shouted from the kitchen. “Are there more bodies?”

  “No, I meant, you guys were drugged. The fake crew were poisoned. These guys were shot, and that poor sod,” I pointed a claw over my shoulder, “got his brains beaten in. I’m saying- unusual.”

  “Yes…” Marshal Harry said. She drifted off again. I began to think my new human was broken.

  “Did your boss drink the wine?” she asked Ummen.

  “Not that I saw,” he said. “Tony was a whisky man.”

  “So… the killer planned to use drugs and poison, but when the plan went wrong, he adapted- violently.”

  “Still feel like barfing?” I asked Sarah Kody as she leaned into the freezer for a better look.

  “No,” she said. “It’s gross, but he deserved it.”

  “Will you continue with the court case,” Marshal Harry asked, “now the man you hated is dead?”

  “If we survive somehow?” Kody asked bitterly. “Yes, because my family needs that money.”

  “What other connections do you have to the casino?”

  “We’ve got the kitchen up and working,” Leeli Kveen said standing in front of the marshal and facing away from the bodies. “Is there anything we’d be allowed to cook?”r />
  “There’s a dry store over there.” I pointed a claw to the far end of the kitchen complex. No one moved. “Weren’t you lot hungry a minute ago?”

  “I am hungry,” Koosa said. “And not eager to find another body.”

  Still no one moved. Their eyes pointed at the dry goods store, at me, back to the dry goods store.

  “Are you lot telepathic or something?” I asked, because the synchronised way they were moving freaked me out.

  “You’re a fucking jinx,” Ummen declared. He strode through the kitchen and grabbed the handle. “I’ll open this door.”

  Shelves lined the walls. I spotted some tins and a large sack next to the door. But no bodies. There was an audible sigh of relief.

  “Right, we’ve got some tinned veg, that looks like a bar of cheese, and this is a twenty kilo sack of flour,” Rooni said, pointing at the bag. “We can load this into kitchen automatics and make pizzas.”

  I didn’t wait. I gnawed the top off the bag of flour, tipped back my head, and gulped it down. I’ve [MVN3]eaten worse.

  “Right...” Kord Rooni pointed eyes at me as I chewed the bag and swallowed. “So... cheese salads all round?”

  Emgeenie, Leebris, and Soh Lukt returned.

  “We’ve made a discovery, too,” Emgeenie said to the marshal. “It’s... well, I don’t know what it is.”

  And that’s when I realised what had been bothering my tush brush. I raised a claw. I had information and an urgent question.

  “Does anyone here reproduce asexually?” I interrupted. I don’t make assumptions about other species. There was a chorus of ‘noes’ and head shaking. Very proud of their narrow necks, your average biped, always showing off with the nodding or shaking.

  “Why?” Marshal Harry asked.

  “When I woke in the baggage compartment,” I revealed, “there were eleven bipeds in there with me. There are twelve bipeds here. So where did the extra one come from?”

  The bipeds looked at each other. Marshal Harry counted everyone, as if to check my arithmetic.

  “Oh shit,” she said. Then she pointed at Kord Rooni. “Make that machine produce coffee. I need coffee.”

  “Arrant nonsense,” Frances spluttered. “You painted us a picture of a criminal mastermind behind all this- but a mastermind wouldn’t trap himself on a crashing ship.”

  “Unless...” was as far as the marshal got, as James Emgeenie grasped Kord Rooni’s shoulders from behind and moved the little fellow out of the way.

  “We’ve made a discovery, too,” he said. “I couldn’t unlock the password-encoded areas. But I discovered the energy network is on low power, except for one node.”

  The marshal shrugged. I shrugged, too; it’s the only biped body language I can copy.

  “So?” she asked.

  He was one of those humans with no hair on his head. His business suit was of silk and fitted him snuggly. He reeked of sexual attraction, as did the marshal. Odd that neither mentioned it.

  “So, there’s something plugged into the portside power grid on floor twenty that isn’t part of the ship. I thought it might be a clue?”

  “Shouldn’t you focus on stopping the ship crashing and killing everyone?” I pointed out.

  “I hate to say it, but I agree with the bug,” Frances admitted. Big of her, I thought.

  “We have to turn the system off and reboot it. That will reset the passwords to the ones in the manual,” he replied. “But whatever is plugged into the ship’s system will be affected. I thought we should find out what that is and I don’t want to go on my own.”

  “What? You want to split up the group,” Kody said. “Just when we found out one of us is the killer?”

  “Yes,” Emgeenie nodded. “Because if we don’t, he might turn out to be our killer as well.”

  “Can Ummen and Leebris stay with me?” Kody asked. “I’ll pay you guys to keep me safe.”

  “You got money for that?” Leebris asked.

  “Yes, I crowd funded my court case,” Kody said. “There’s enough to pay you both five hundred a day to bodyguard me, starting today.”

  “Okay,” Ummen said. They moved over to flank the small female.

  “You could pay them to guard us,” Frances said to Albert Koosa. The big man had dressed in a robe with a broad sash made from gold cloth tied in a bow at his waist. He looked like a walking Christmas cracker.

  “No point,” he shrugged. “They can’t protect us from a crashing spaceship.”

  “Okay, let’s make some ground rules,” Marshal Harry said. “Everyone stays in the kitchen and watches everyone else. Try to find out what we all have in common. But do not leave the kitchen. Emgeenie, Chunglie, and I will go and have a look at this node thing. After I search the crew.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why me?” I’d planned to sneak into the fridge while the marshal was out of the way.

  “Because we might need your ability to open doors,” the marshal said. “Remember, there’s a killer in our midst. Everyone keep an eye on everyone else.”

  Marshal Harry walked away and I followed her through to the crew lounge. She examined the six bodies, without touching them, but found nothing.

  She dropped into the one vacant chair and stared at the table. There were three opened bottles and seven used glasses. She picked up one with a lipstick smear on the rim and toyed with it.

  “I need a forensic team. I need reports,” she said. “There’re no obvious signs of violence, no bruising or torn clothing. They might have been poisoned, but I can’t know for sure without forensic scanners.”

  I raised my head above the table and waved my antennae over the glasses. “Smells like arsenic in the glasses and bottles,” I said.

  Marshal Harry did the mouth open thing as she pointed eyes at me.

  “You can smell arsenic?”

  “Sure, there’s a lot of it in the ground back home. You’ve got to smell it and then dig round it or you’re dead.”

  “So... someone maybe... paid these guys to bring the bodies aboard and lock us in the baggage compartment. Then killed them to keep the whole thing a secret. Yes... that sounds about right.”

  “It would take someone with a large organisation behind them to arrange all this.” I waved my antennae at the ship. “You’d need to grease a lot of palms to pull this off.”

  Marshal Harry wiggled the glass she was holding.

  “Lipstick on the rim, but none of these guys is wearing lipstick. I think we have a chance of surviving this only because you got us out of that baggage compartment. We were supposed to be trapped in there until the ship crashed and now the owner of this glass is making it up as she goes along. She disabled the security cameras and joined our group when you came out of the air vent and took her by surprise.”

  “Is there a reward for that?” I asked.

  “My eternal gratitude and thanks.” The marshal smiled.

  “You’ll be surprised to hear I don’t get a lot of gratitude in my line of work.” It touched me. I dropped a claw in her lap. “Look, I want to live, so let’s put this murder shit on the back burner until we stop the ship crashing?”

  “Good point. Let’s go see what’s plugged into the ship and shouldn’t be.”

  Emgeenie quietly approached and placed a mug of coffee before the marshal.

  “Where’s mine?” I asked.

  “You drink coffee?” he sounded surprised.

  “I refuse nowt but blows,” I replied. It’s an ancient proverb where I come from.

  Marshal Harry emptied the mug in one long chug and wiped her mouth.

  “No time for coffee, Chunglie,” she said. “Let’s go solve this latest mystery.”

  She hurried away and a grumpy invertebrate scurried after. You help people and then they expect more help? Catch me doing that again.

  6.

  I am a Passenger Who Wants to Get Off

  I directed the bipeds to the elevator banks. Why intelligent beings don’t leave a scent trail so the
y can return to places is beyond me.

  “It’s up on the twenty-eighth floor,” Emgeenie said.

  Marshal Harry pressed the call button. Emgeenie looked her up and down before he said, “So... what’s Harry short for? Harriet?”

  “It’s not short for anything,” the marshal said. “I am Harry Ward the 23rd. My dad didn’t want to end a family tradition just because he didn’t have a son.”

  “Oh... and what takes you to Smuds?” he asked. “Got a big case on?”

  “Yeah, possibly. Possibly a big case,” Marshal Harry admitted. She smelled nervous talking about it.

  “I live on Smuds,” I said. “Anytime you want directions, I can help you out.”

  “I have a very good sense of direction,” Marshal Harry said.

  No, she doesn’t. Funny how people who can get lost in a small room still believe they have a good sense of direction.

  “I’m starting a new job there, myself,” Emgeenie said as the lift arrived and the doors opened. “I built the new deep learning system on Kamaree Yaparee and now they want me to have a look at the deep learning system that runs the spaceport.”

  “You have links to Kamaree and the space port?” Marshal Harry began.

  “That AI calls itself Port Authority,” I said. We have history, it’s an arsehole. “Does it know you’re coming?”

  “The deep learning system? Yes, why?”

  “Don’t stand near me if we land,” I said. “Port Authority knows how to protect itself.”

  “A deep learning system would never harm a developer,” Emgeenie said.

  “It once vaporised a developer who—”

  “Excuse me, detective marshal asking a question here,” Marshal Harry shouted over us. “You built a new AI for the casino people?”

  “Deep learning system, yes.” He waved his hands in circles. “I know they have a criminal reputation, but what I did was all legal and above board.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “So how come you’re doing a death dive with the rest of us?”

  “Ah... I did not think of that,” Emgeenie said. “But I only met with their Director of Deep Learning Systems.”