The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - RASKOV STILL (Part 1)

(Chapter 16, Part One)

She gaped momentarily, then fiddled with the beads hanging from her sleeve again. “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

“Mist’ Fortunato drove a TOF Ventrego MkVII,” the Ensign-Captain said, “which, happily enough, takes a Raskova Ground-Car Core 4.”

“I don’t understand ground-cars,” she said, “and I hardly understand my father’s products,” she said.

“I don’t either,” he confided to her, “but there’s militia experts who know all these things, ground-cars and differoscripts both. They tell me that Mist’ Fortunato’s car got a bad update, with his blocknumber on it, and that it was applied wirelessly.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you going somewhere with this?”

“Miss Fenek says there’s a thorough placement of security cameras on the premises,” he said. “Yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “The Sub-Director showed me her whereabouts during the time Mist’ Fortunato was murdered.”

“I’d like to request,” Ensign-Captain said, “the recordings from the garage where Mist’ Fortunato parked his car from the afternoon four days ago, and we can sort through if you came near with a datawand, since that’s the timestamp day on the differoscript update.”

She was very still, staring at me, then slowly turned her eyes at Mardonios. “Mist’ Fortunato did not die in a ground-car accident.” Her voice was hardly above a whisper. “I may have been in the parking garage—I don’t recall—”

“Why?” he asked firmly. “Why did you go to the garage?”

“Another question,” I said thoughtfully, “is if she has a datawand in her flat.”

“Ensign-Captain, I absolutely do not have a datawand in my flat,” she said.

“Ensign-Captain,” I went on, thinking quickly, “I suppose that means that you can tell the uniforms at her flat they can stop searching for one.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said to me with a pleased smile. “What if she’s lying?”

She looked at me, horrified. “Ensign-Captain,” she said, stepping backward and raising her hands palm-out. “I—I—”

“You can explain,” he said. “That’s what they usually say.” His hand was resting easily on the handcuff case on his belt. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

She licked her lips and smiled very faintly, but her eyes did not join her mouth. “I suppose this looks bad.”

“I suppose it does,” Mardonios agreed. “What will look worse is when we find out what employee of your father’s you went to provide you with the code and the datawand. And we will, I assure you. I’m sure he’ll tell us everything to save himself.”

Her lips trembled. “I’m—I—that is to say—this is not as serious, surely as—”

“Serious?” He sounded scandalized. “Serious? Attempted murder, Miss Raskov? That will lose you your citizenship.”

“I did not attempt to murder Mist’ Fortunato!” she said, breathless. “I meant—I mean I—I—”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to see his car smashed. Him frightened. The kinetic gel would have released—it would not have allowed him to be killed!—It did release! And he was not killed.”

He covered his eyes. “Listen to her. It could still happen, Miss. You can’t make cars drive into buildings at high speed and remove every risk. That’s foolish.” He looked angry.

“He would not have been killed!”

“If you’d succeeded in killing him anyway, Miss Raskov, it would be the garotte for you unless your father’s connections saved you. But attempted murder and destruction of property—that’s the loss of your citizenship: your name, your property, and your liberty. I wonder what would become of you. What do you think, Barsina? She’s not brothel material, is she?”

Barsina, who’d been quietly writing everything down, lifted her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, perhaps, Sir,” she said with her usual honesty. “She’s not a great beauty, but she would do very well in a bottom-tier bathhouse or wharf mat-and-girlery, but Sir—”

“Yes?”

“Most madams avoid women who have committed assault because they would be liable if the girl attacked a customer.”

I almost laughed. I’d never heard Barsina sound so, what, supercilious I think it is. “She’s good for housework or shopwork, but she’s too untrustworthy. Her contract might be sold for light industrial, agriculture, or hard labor,” she added, confident.

“Thank you, Barsina. Hard labor,” Mardonios repeated. Miss Raskov was flushing darkly, offended. “People aren’t keen on taking attempted murderesses into their households. I suspect you’re looking forward to being labor-ganged onto an agrivilla. Vineyards if you’re lucky, though I hear the coffee plantaos always need hands. You’ll be, what, almost sixty when you get out? If you get out.”

“If,” I agreed. I’ve always heard bad things about the coffee plantaos. She’d never live that long on the savano.

“Assuming you don’t get put in a deme chain gang and put on roads, which I think would be the end of you.”

Now she went as pale as linen and as quivery as an aspen leaf.

“You’ll kill me,” she said hoarsely. “I didn’t even kill him! And you’ll kill me for it! Him! A monster!”

I looked at Mardonios. His face was stern, his eyebrows bunched, and his lips pursed. His fingers tapped the handcuff case. “Explain yourself,” he said. “This is your one chance, or go before a magistrate and be ended.”

“She told you,” she said, pointing with a shaking hand to me. “I know she told told you. What he did to Nunzia,” she went on, dropping the Miss. “And what he did to me! Me! His wife’s eldest child! His daughter’s older half-sister! He had no shame! He was loathesome! Filth!”

Mardonios looked at her, motionless. “You also?”

“—Yes.”

“So when you said he had not, you lied.”

She stared at him, pale and trembling, then nodded.

“And others?” he asked, more gently.

“I—I don’t know.  There are the gallery servants, of course, but they aren’t off limits to those who work here, as long as they complete their tasks and the public doesn’t see. There—there are other citizen women who work here. None of them liked to remain around him, so perhaps … but they are from lower epistarch ranks, or from the mercanters, so I don’t associate with them. I—I don’t know—sir.”

Ah, I thought, now she gives him a sir!

“It doesn’t seem unlikely,” she concluded. She crossed her arms, hugging herself.

“Were his attacks on you ongoing?”

“They began recently,” she said. “We had a tense relationship … because of his wife being my mother.” She sagged. “May I sit down?” she asked plaintively.

I looked at Barsina, who stepped forward and helped her to the stone bench in the middle of the exhibit space.

“Perhaps,” the ensign-captain said, “you can explain what happened for us, and I can decide what to do with you.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, pressing her hands together.

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( … This way to Chapter Fifteen part 3 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Sixteen part 2 … )

… ( … This way to Chapter One part 1 … ) …