Criminal Minds (Fox Meridian Book 4) (24 page)

‘Give it an hour to cool down, then put through a reasoned complaint about his behaviour. Every site NAPA have processed, including the last one, was sanitised within a couple of hours of the discovery. He has better forensic data than he would normally get and full VR reconstructions of everything. He didn’t need to see it physically and had no right to expect it given that Rutherford didn’t request that you maintain the sites. That’s Rutherford’s bad, but Olin is following right along in her footsteps procedurally.’

Naomi frowned. ‘He requested to interview Gilly. I told him she was in classes and he said he wanted to interview her tomorrow. I’m going to decline unless he can give a valid reason.’

‘He’s digging for something he can use to hang the blame on someone else. We’re still getting delays in receiving new case data. Legal will be pushing through another complaint this afternoon if they don’t move before then.’

‘People are covering their asses left, right, and centre, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah,’ Fox agreed, nodding slowly. ‘You know, a sort-of-nun saying “asses” just seems wrong.’

‘Oh, Fox, tits and ass are our stock-in-trade. It’s all about the T and A.’

~~~

‘We have the data from NAPA,’ Kit announced, once again dragging Fox away from her requirements analysis. Fox was not exceptionally sorry about that. ‘All the bodies from Brooklyn, and Miss Quade.’

‘Okay, make sure legal know. I’m betting they’re about thirty seconds from sending in the next complaint.’

‘They were two minutes from sending it, but they have filed it for reference instead. I have yet to do a thorough analysis of the files. There is quite a lot of it.’

‘And there I thought you were superhuman.’

‘I am insulted. Comparing me to a mere human, indeed. I did note one element in the inventory record, however. There was a note left on Miss Quade’s body.’ Kit held up a facsimile of a blood-stained sheet of paper with writing on it in block print. ‘It reads “Fair Emma can hide behind no disguise. She is dead though she knows it not.”’

Fox frowned. ‘“Fair Emma” was one of Mary Jane Kelly’s nicknames. No one’s quite sure why. And why’s he leaving a note on the body? He’s never done that before. When the media gets a hold of that one… Shit! Kit, get on to legal and internal security. I want a lock on all communications, corporate and private, for anyone who’s even been in the building while that data has been with us. Message everyone concerned to tell them that we will need to log everything they do for the next forty-eight hours. That includes everyone in this house.’

‘Initial messages dispatched, Fox, but why?’

‘Because Olin doesn’t like me very much and Robbard really hates me.’

~~~

The first reports with the note in appeared on the news channels in the early evening. They were sketchy about a lot of the details of the actual murder, but they all had the text of the note quoted verbatim. Fox watched the feed from IB-62, though she had asked Belle to scan as many of the other channels as she could manage to see if anything new or essentially weird came up.

‘NAPA were unavailable for comment at this time,’ the presenter stated as he wrapped the segment, ‘but inside sources indicate that the leak of information is being investigated.’

‘Of course it is,’ Fox said, and then she muted the broadcast because she could hear Marie running down the corridor from the back stairs.

‘Did you see it?’ Marie asked as she burst in through the lounge door. ‘That was one of M. J.’s nicknames. I mean, “Fair Emma” was one of the original Mary Jane Kelly’s nicknames.’

‘I saw it,’ Fox replied, ‘and I did know that. I’m pleased to see you do.’

‘Background reading on the original person the character was based on. Not that there’s much background. She was kind of enigmatic.
So
enigmatic that some people claimed to have seen her after she was supposed to be dead. What do you think the note means?’

‘No idea. Kit? You’ve had time to use your super-AI powers now. Anything coming up that’s outside the usual?’

Kit appeared as Marie walked over to sit on the sofa. ‘I’ll refrain from displaying the crime scene images,’ Kit said, ‘because I don’t believe Marie needs to see them.’

‘I’d be okay,’ Marie replied.

‘Marie, I wish
I
hadn’t seen them. The bodies found in the storm drain were too badly decomposed for anything to be absolutely certain. The wounds had suffered considerable deformation. There were missing organs, but those could easily be inside the local rats. The abdominal trauma is more consistent with the Ripper victims than the Driscoll ones, however.’

‘To be expected,’ Fox said.

‘The times of death fall within the time range reported in the media, occurring between the second and third victims. I suppose the third victim is now the tenth. The abdominal trauma is a little more extreme than for the other victims. You may be right about taking them down there to have more time, Fox. Identification attempts are continuing, but the two so far named are Brenda Coulton and Lee Rand, both unregistered prostitutes from the Sprawl.’

‘Okay. Street girls aren’t hard to identify, and he’s got a ready supply up there. What about Quade?’

‘Rapid death by exsanguination due to a lateral stroke across the throat using a short blade made of surgical steel. The wound track and bruising to the face suggests that she was held and then cut from behind, left to right. Further abdominal incisions were made post-mortem. Her heart was missing from the scene.’

‘M. J.’s heart was removed,’ Marie said. ‘Is that it? Miss Quade had silver hair, so she’s “Fair Emma,” and he took her heart and left the note to say her “disguise” didn’t work?’

‘Maybe,’ Fox said, ‘but it doesn’t quite work.’

‘The note implies that his disguised victim is currently alive,’ Kit added, ‘but that she does not know that she is marked for death.’

‘And the date’s wrong. Kelly probably died in the early hours of the ninth of November. That’s not far off. If he’s going to make the link, why not wait and do it at the right time?’

‘Oh,’ Marie said. ‘So someone’s going to die on the ninth.’

‘Not if I can help it. He’s getting cocky. That’s never a good idea if you’re a serial killer.’

‘Well, I think I need a drink. You want one?’

‘Sorry. I have to go over to the MarTech tower to meet a visitor, and then I need to get some rest. Early start tomorrow.’

‘Oh? Something to do with the case?’

‘Obliquely. I’m expecting a couple of inspectors to turn up quite early tomorrow.’

25
^th
October.

Fox was awake and fully dressed at seven a.m. when Olin and Robbard came to the door. She opened it herself only a few seconds after they had announced themselves and provided identification, and Robbard looked a little worried by that. Olin was too busy being smug.

Just to give Robbard more of a feeling of apprehension, Fox said, ‘Gentlemen, come in. We’ve been expecting you.’

Olin paused at that. ‘We?’

‘Yes. Come through to the lounge.’ Ushering them through, Fox did not get to see the looks on their faces when they found a man waiting for them. A man in a dark-grey suit who just stank of lawyer. ‘Inspectors Olin and Robbard, this is Trey Gorse. Trey is the head of the legal department at Palladium Security Solutions. He’s come all the way from Chicago to hear what you have to say, so please don’t disappoint him.’

Olin had lost a lot of his smug. ‘We’re investigating a leak of sensitive information to the media. Specifically, the content of a note left at the scene of Miss Silver Quade’s murder.’

‘Yes, that was reported by several news channels. However, you’re not empowered to investigate that given that you should be under investigation. And Inspector Robbard is internal affairs, so
he’s
not empowered to investigate outside NAPA.’

Olin bit his lip for a second. ‘We want you to come with us to precinct eighteen HQ where–’

‘No,’ Fox said.

‘No? You’re refusing to come in for questioning?’

Fox smiled at Olin. ‘Trey, would you?’

‘Of course, Fox.’ The lawyer continued to smile as he addressed the two detectives. ‘Realising the issue of media attention should the content of this evidence become public knowledge, Miss Meridian placed an immediate lockdown on all communications within the company. This was lifted having received permission from all employees with access to the data to have their communications and activities logged. On specific request, Palladium Security Solutions will make these logs available for review; however, no employee of Palladium Security Solutions with access to this data has contacted anyone in the media since Palladium Security Solutions received the data. Further harassment of any employee of Palladium Security Solutions or any suggestion that Palladium Security Solutions was involved in the leak of the aforementioned information
will
result in punitive legal action.’

Fox had to admit she was a little impressed. The whole speech was delivered in such a pleasant tone, but it basically came down to ‘fuck off or we’ll sue your ass.’ Olin was looking like he might explode!

Robbard, however, was still thinking. ‘What about the other people in this building?’

‘They both agreed to have their communications monitored,’ Fox said, ‘but neither of them knew about the note until it came out on the news channels. Everything that happens here is monitored by the house AI who can be called as a legal witness to state that I didn’t speak to any of them about this until Miss Shaftsbury saw it on IB-Nineteen and came upstairs to ask me about it.’

Olin opened his mouth, but Robbard got in ahead of him. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Meridian, Mister Gorse. If we require corroboration of your testimony, we will be in touch.’

Fox showed the two of them out and closed the door behind them. She could still hear Olin detonating outside the door even if she could not quite make out what he was saying.

‘Inspector Olin appears to have forgotten that I have audio receptors outside the door,’ Belle said, appearing beside Fox to walk back into the lounge with her. ‘His language is… quite choice. He believes you are a–’

‘I really don’t want to know,’ Fox interrupted, ‘but keep it logged in case we need it. Thanks for that, Trey. I’m sorry to have dragged you all the way here for five minutes’ work.’

Gorse smiled: it looked very genuine, and just the kind of thing you expected to see on a shark that has just spotted a really juicy tuna. ‘Oh, my pleasure. Do you know how rarely I get to tell cops to piss off?
And
I get a couple of hours off reading through contract documents.’

Fox sagged. ‘Don’t remind me. I’m just going over them to work out what we need to fulfil them and it’s driving me nuts. Ryan has to be pulling his hair out.’

‘He is looking more and more like a zombie every day.’

‘And Alice said there was no chance of a zombie plague in Chicago.’ Fox grinned. ‘I guess she didn’t take into account contract documents.’

27
^th
October.

‘All right, the Topeka area,’ Eaves said. He was working down a list which everyone in the teleconference had, so Fox had expected that one to be next and had her notes ready. ‘Ryan?’ Eaves asked.

‘As expected, they’re going for a local watch model for basic policing,’ Ryan said, jumping straight in. ‘We don’t need extra resource in that area to cover response and the training schedule they’ve requested shouldn’t stress us either. It also looks good. They aren’t skimping. They want intensive training for the full-time officers, induction courses for the part-timers. Operational assist packages for on-duty personnel and a rolling programme aimed at getting investigation assistance vests in every patrol vehicle, though they’re starting out with response vehicles.’

‘Mom’s excited,’ Fox said. ‘Dad’s… reservedly pleased with the plans so far. They’re using a core of fully employed, trained officers backed up by a volunteer force, which they’re screening to cut out the ones who just want a reason to bully people. They
are
planning to contract out complex investigation work, at least initially. We’re going to need someone in that region who can handle that. I put forward a name for us to contact to see if he’d be willing to go private.’

Eaves spoke up. ‘Raymond Rogers, detective. You worked with him on the Bateson case.’

‘Yeah. Good attitude, observant, and he’s not an inspector which likely means they won’t look at him for taking on an auditing role. He may know someone else in the area we could tap. I think two in the Topeka region would be best. What do you think of taking on around five to cover the Kansas Belt as a whole?’

‘Sounds a little low, given the number of contracts.’

‘You’re thinking in terms of a metro. A lot of the crime in those regions can be wrapped by someone with a support vest. And we can tap central resource if something
really
bad comes up. I want to staff an office here, in tower three, with core resource. Specialists, exceptional general investigators, all with fast transport to get them where they need to be when something difficult comes up. Jackson’s looking at getting one of his financial AIs trained up in forensic accounting and those things are pretty damn good at digging out details already.’

Ryan was grinning. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were starting to enjoy this.’

‘Huh, if I didn’t daydream a little while going through these files, you’d probably be watching my mad rampage through Times Square with an assault rifle. I’ll need some help on the budget proposals.’

‘Get the basic requirements to me,’ Eaves said, ‘and I’ll have the finance department run some figures. Same for you, Ryan. How’s the Ripper thing going, Fox?’

‘I
think
NAPA is trying to trap him,’ Fox replied.

‘Control in New York has noticed a heavy increase in cambot patrols,’ Ryan said.

‘Exactly. Particularly in precinct eighteen, but they’re even pushing out more flights in the Sprawl areas. I haven’t gone out to look, but I expect they’ve got, or plan to have, a bunch of plain-clothes officers on the streets, hoping they’ll be nearby when he strikes again.’