The thing about needing to do some paperwork wasn’t exactly a lie. He was behind on more than a few tasks. But the first thing Harry did when he got to his desk at the security station was call up Maddox’s personnel file. It was clean as a whistle, but that was what bothered him. It was a little too clean, like someone had scrubbed it a little, filed off the rough edges. A little bleach and peroxide to mop up the blood spatter. Harry slumped backward in his chair.
He’d have to do some old fashioned detective work, contact some of Maddox’s past associates, and do it without his rookie partner finding out. He stuck a mental pin in it and tabled it for now.
The second thing he did was pull up every piece of security footage on Valhalla for the hours up to and just after Honey’s murder. Most of it was from the upper levels and therefore irrelevant. Time of death was any time between oh two hundred and oh four hundred, with the actual time of death probably being closer to oh four hundred. It was shortly after that when the emergency maintenance crew found her, so it was possible that the killer heard them coming and got out of there before he could finish cramming Honey’s body into the reclamator.
The footage was of no use. There were few security cams down on that level, and of the ones that were there all of them were broken or malfunctioning. There was no money in the security budget to get them fixed, especially when people were damaging them all the time. They decided instead to focus all of their spending on manpower, which was good for Harry as it gave him a job, but they couldn’t be everywhere. This put Harry back where he started.
A while later Maddox came sauntering through, acting as if he’d just rolled out of his bunk. He shot a glance Harry’s way, but said nothing, going straight to the coffee machine. He returned a few minutes later with two plastic cups of tar-black sludge. One for himself and one for Harry. He took it and stared into its black depths, flecks of light-colored sediment swirling slowly around in the direction of the station’s spin. He sat it on the desk.
“Did I ever tell you about that time I worked on the Osiris? Long haul colony transport out of trans-Neptunian space. One time we busted a huge illegal coffee ring. You ever heard of such a thing? I shit you not. So the O had this big contract with the coffee supplier, right? Probably same outfit that provides us with this swill. Anyway, the black market stuff was better. I mean they had this whole setup. Hydroponic beans. The works. Their stuff was glorious. But it violated the coffee company’s contract, so it had to go. So we had to pour all this stuff out, right? Feed it to the waste recyclers. Well, maybe a few gallons made it down the drain, while the supers were watching, but then when they clocked out we started pouring that beautiful stuff into every container we could find. Water bottles. Nutrient bulbs. Guys were pouring out their soups and protein shakes and replacing them with this coffee. Then we went back to our bunks at the end of shift like nothing happened. Damn, that was good coffee.
“This story have a point?”
Maddox frowned into his cup. “No. Not really. I just really wish I had some more of that coffee.”
“All right then. So I checked the available camera footage. None of the cams that might show our killer actually work, so we’re back to square one on that.”
“We’ve still got the old boyfriend,” said Maddox.
“Right. We’ll have a chat with him later today. But in the meantime I wanted to see how many other ex- or current boyfriends we can track down.”
“A girl like Honey, that’s gotta be a large number,” said Maddox.
“Exactly. So let’s scrub her socials and see who she was hanging around with the night she got her ticket punched?”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Maddox arched an eyebrow. “Ticket punched?”
Harry smiled. “Sorry. An archaic euphemism. I watch a lot of old movies.”
“Don’t you mean archaic?”
“All right. You get my point. Now let’s go to work.”
* * *
While Maddox busied himself with studying Honey’s voluminous public feeds—what else were rookies for?—Harry went for a walk, taking the tram up the spine to the upscale shopping level the locals had dubbed the Promenade. It catered mostly to middle and upper management, but one could occasionally encounter an immortal there as well, some bored centenarian several times over who came down from their enclave for a bit of slumming and socially acceptable debauchery.
The Promenade held many of the same kind of establishments as the workers entertainment district one ring below—bars, restaurants, night clubs, brothels—they were just more upscale. Shinier. More polished. Decked out in white ceramic tile and shiny thermoplastics and bamboo. There was lush greenery here, including tall, spindly trees that went up and up, and people dressed in corporate finery instead of gray work coveralls. Harry always felt out of place when he came up here, conspicuous. A dangerous thing in his line of work. He didn’t feel at home.
He thought of Honey then. She had shunned that life to live down among the working class. That was why they loved her, hailed her as a kind of folk hero. That was part of the reason Harry loved her. She had given up everything, including living forever, to be a regular Joe. There was something noble out the whole thing that Harry found intriguing. Being born in one world but fitting in better with another. He admired Honey’s bravery. It had to have been scary, at least at first, to leave one life in exchange for an entirely new one. Especially a life where she was functionally immortal. Like leaving the realm of the gods to live amongst mortals.
But he wasn’t here to ponder Honey’s life choices. He was here to bring her murderer to justice. He put himself in Honey’s place. When she had been here, where did she go? Who did she associate with?
Filled with grim new purpose, Harry started walking toward a row of trendy boutique shops. The holo adverts began bombarding him almost immediately. But since he had never bought anything up here—he couldn’t afford it—they started off by showing him everything. Glittering party dresses. Silky lingerie. And the latest in non-lethal personal defense. Harry stopped and watched as the hologram of a beautiful woman, flickering and semi-transparent, showed how easy it was to secret a fifty-thousand volt stun on on her scantily clad person.
Non-lethals were perfectly legal; it was the stuff that could be used to take hostages or go on a revenge-killing spree that Cerberus and the Valhalla higher ups frowned upon. Even their biggest guns only fired baton rounds and sprayed anti-riot foam. But thinking like Honey got Harry thinking. Had she seen this ad? And had she visited this establishment? He followed the virtual arrows that marked the way to the shop.
Harry smiled when he recognized the proprietor. The guy was legal, kept his permits in order, and had sold Cerberus some of their equipment. “Hey, Dennis,” he said as he entered the shop. Everything was brightly lit, implements of varying levels of lethality displayed in spun diamond cases.
“Detective Gleason,” said Dennis, wiping off the counter he was leaning against with a flourish. “Are you in the market for something? Police discount as always.”
“Just information today, Dennis,” said Harry as he slid up to the counter. “I’m working the Honey Gomez case.”
Dennis nodded, frowning. “Yeah. Everyone’s just sick over that. She was somethin’ else.” Dennis held his hands out in front of his chest, simulating Honey’s breasts, as he said this last.
“Yeah. Listen. She ever come in here?”
Dennis made a face like he had just been asked the dumbest, most obvious question in the history of questions. “Well yeah. Sure. A couple of times. I tried to get a licensing deal with her for a new line of stunners I just got in, but nothing ever came of it. But she was in here one night about a week ago.”
“Buy anything?”
“No. I urged her to, of course. A girl like her, in her line of work? But she wouldn’t do it.”
“Anyone with her?”
Dennis tapped his chin in thought. “Yeah. Come to think of it. Scuzzy looking guy. Not the type you’d expect someone like her to associate with. Covered in tats. And he was hanging on to her like he was afraid she’d up and blow away. It was kind of funny, like he knew she could do better and would do anything to keep that from happening. He looked at a few items, and then they left.”
“Did she look like she was in distress?”
Dennis shook his head slowly. “No, not really. If anything she looked bored.”
Harry leaned his left arm against the counter. “Your cameras work?”
“Of course they do. Let me send you what I got.”