DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) (23 page)

‘Cory Druss, the politician?’

‘Yeah, him. Bateson had plans to whore his daughter out to the lordly Mister Druss. Bart said he liked young women. I wonder if he knew
how
young?’

‘On that subject,’ Pythia said. ‘The other task you assigned to me? Your mother went out today, at ten eighteen. She went to a motel in the northern part of the city where she was met by Mister Druss at eleven. My drone frame was able to pick up audio of their meeting. There was very little conversation, however. I am not sure it is worth listening to.’

Fox’s fists clenched. ‘Thank you, Pythia.’

‘Your mother is sleeping with Mister Druss,’ Kit said, ‘who appears to have a taste for very much younger women.’

‘Let’s just concentrate on Sandy for now. I’ll deal with Andrea later. Kit, I need an appointment to see Detective Rogers, tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Of course, Fox,’ Kit said, her voice subdued.

30
^th
June.

The market was not quite up to speed when Fox walked in, which was fine by her. She had picked out an outfit which, if her memory of the gangs out of the dustbowl was right, would make her look like one of the girls who gravitated in that direction. They had a style which Fox thought was a little crazy given their choice of living area, but she could make it work. On mentioning this to Kit, she was told that Fox could make anything aside from a fatsuit work.

Whatever the truth of that statement, Fox had decked herself out in a pair of stupidly short, denim shorts with a pair of belts looped around her hips, a pale blue bikini bra with string straps which was about a size too small, high-top boots, and black, mesh thigh-highs. The locals looked at her as though she was from out of town, which of course she was but previously no one had batted an eyelid.

She browsed, getting the stink eye from a couple of stall owners as she gravitated to the top end where the out-of-towners were located. With the stalls up, it was more obvious that that top rank had a wider gap between it and the other stalls. Here Fox received fewer disapproving looks and more distinctly approving ones. Finding the stall was easy, and not finding Drew there was unsurprising.

‘His name,’ Kit said, ‘is Drew Maple. Pythia tracked him down. He was born in the Tulsa projects, had the biomods done when he got to eighteen. Standard dry environment stuff which he seems to have saved for himself. And after that he vanished. That was about fifty months ago and he has not been seen since.’

‘And that continues.’

‘If I had skipped town with my girlfriend, I might not show up here either.’

‘You have a girlfriend? Does Vali know?’

‘Oh, that’s funny.’

Fox forced herself not to laugh. ‘What bothers me is that
no one
on that stand was here last week. Okay.’ She paused, considering, and then walked over to the stand. ‘Hey,’ she said aloud.

She got smiles from the three men staffing their stand of leather goods. ‘Morning.’ The speaker was the eldest, a man of maybe fifty. He was dressed in a leather waistcoat, faded blue jeans, and Army boots. He had a beard that could easily have held a flock of starlings.

‘Ah, well, I was hoping to see Drew here. Passed by a couple of weeks ago and bought these belts and I wanted to thank him. Good-quality work.’

‘Thank you. We make all our own products ourselves.’

‘It shows.’

‘Drew’s not around this week, but I’ll be sure to tell him you dropped by…’

‘Call me Fox, everyone does. Thanks. I hope he’s not sick or anything.’

‘No, but we like to mix things up now and again.’

Fox smiled. ‘Great. Maybe I’ll see you around.’ She turned and strutted away.

‘Sure hope so.’

Fox let herself grin and put a little more swing in her hips for his benefit. ‘Kit, call Chicago and get them to dispatch a long-range, airborne surveillance frame. I want it to follow the people on that stall.’

‘I’ll send the request immediately. You believe Drew has taken Sandy to wherever they have encamped.’

‘He’s got a problem. He’s had the mods to make life easier down there, but she hasn’t. That means she uses more water than he does and they’ll need to be careful about dust or she’ll be coughing her lungs up inside of a week. He’ll need help and their camp is the best bet.’

‘Might I remind you that you don’t have all those mods yourself?’

‘No, the Army assumed that we’d always be in combat gear so lung filters weren’t an issue, but filter masks aren’t hard to get hold of. I need to wrap things up here before I can go after Sandy, though. That’s where Detective Rogers comes in.’

New York Metro.

Kit, the copy still residing on her home server, peered closely at the picture she had found on LifeWeb. According to LifeWeb’s photo-tagging system, it showed Lauren Coolidge running and it was dated on the nineteenth of June. Coolidge had gone missing on that date and her LifeFit logs indicated that she had been running on the East Side. Kit was moderately sure that that area did not have a lot of huge, grassy areas.

A few minutes of matching pictures from the only large, grassy area Kit
was
aware of suggested that the backdrop of the photograph was in Central Park, which posed something of an issue. Verification was in order and she spent some time, almost a second, running tests on the picture to ensure that it was, indeed, what it appeared to be. Satisfied, she dispatched a message to her counterpart in Topeka, and then set to work with renewed vigour.

She had found something very interesting, but it might just be a glitch. Kit needed more.

Topeka Agri-Zone.

Rogers looked white, with a hint of green, when he had finished listening to the recordings on Sandy’s PC.

‘I know how he feels,’ Kit commented. ‘I admit that, even without internal organs, I felt nauseous. My copy in New York has uncovered an anomaly regarding Lauren Coolidge’s murder. She’s looking for more information.’

‘Okay, keep me informed.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘You okay?’

‘No,’ Rogers said. ‘You listened to that without the warning and you didn’t throw up?’

‘I… It was close. Do you think there’s enough there to do something about Bateson?’

He frowned. ‘I can run it past the local prosecutor. My opinion is that he needs to be locked up until the oceans boil, but it’s not for me to decide.’

Fox nodded. ‘I know how it is.’

‘Druss is a bigger problem. This might get him in for questioning and it’s
maybe
probable cause to go looking, but the guy didn’t touch Sandy Bateson and he’s got political juice enough to slide.’

‘Leave Druss to me.’

Rogers’ eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not going to do anything…’

‘Illegal? No. Don’t worry about it.’

‘And you have a lead on Sandy?’

‘Not yet, but I will have. If you can get clearance to pick up Bateson tonight, I’d like to accompany you.’

‘I’ll let you know.’

~~~

‘Mom, could I have a word?’

Andrea looked around at her daughter and smiled. ‘Of course, Tara, what about?’

‘Not here. I need you to come out to the workshop with me. There’s something I need to show you.’ Without waiting, Fox headed for the kitchen door, but her mother followed, frowning.

‘What’s this about, Tara?’

‘I found some evidence which I’d like your opinion on.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to get your father–’

‘Dad’s fixing that irrigation pump and I don’t want to disturb him. Besides, I think you’ll be more informed on this one.’

‘You’re being obtuse, Tara.’ There was a slightly disapproving tone in Andrea’s voice.

‘Sometimes it’s better if you get an impression of something without any preconceptions. I want your initial reaction to this, what you think and feel
before
your brain has had time to process it properly.’

‘Did they teach you that in detective school, or wherever you learn these things?’

‘Army interrogation course, actually, but it’s the same principle however it’s applied. It’s a matter of judging the data you get based on how your subject is presented with it, and determining how best to present certain kinds of information.’

‘I thought the Army’s idea of interrogation involved thumbscrews and electrodes.’ Andrea’s tone suggested that she was only half-joking.

‘They stopped teaching us proper use of thumbscrews in the forties,’ Fox replied and pushed into the workshop. ‘Pythia, play audio file SAN zero three.’

Sandy’s voice cut in from the speakers on the server. ‘Dear… Shit, it hurts. Dear Diary, sometimes I think you’re the only friend I’ve got. Trudy’s great. And Nicky…’

‘What is this, Fox?’ Andrea asked.

‘Just listen.’

It was not the entirety of Sandy’s diary. Fox had cut together a sequence lasting around twelve minutes from the long list of files. After about a minute, Andrea was trembling and Fox stepped around behind her, ready. ‘Just keep listening, Mom.’

Andrea broke after six minutes, which was more than Fox had expected, but she was still ready, gripping her mother’s arms and holding her there. ‘Keep listening. It’s important.’

‘I’ve heard enough, Tara. Please.’

‘You haven’t. Listen.’

The last two minutes were the longest. Fox was a little surprised to find that, even on a second listen, the recording of Sandy Bateson being forced into sex with her father had her almost begging for it to be over soon.

‘Good girl. Friday night you’re going to be a good girl for Druss.’ Andrea went very still at the sound of Malcolm Bateson’s voice. Fox released her and moved slowly around to look at her mother’s face, streaked with tears, and white as a sheet under the summer tan.

‘That’s the reaction I was hoping to see,’ Fox said. Andrea’s mouth opened and nothing came out. ‘I looked pretty much the same after I heard it, but I’m not fucking Cory Druss.’

Andrea opened her mouth again, but this time her eyes widened and a fraction of a second later, she darted into a corner, bent double, and threw lunch up onto the concrete floor. Fox watched her until the vomiting became retching, pity warring with disgust in a mired-down, trench battle which neither side was making much progress with.

‘I’m going to join Detective Rogers in about forty minutes and we’re going to take Malcolm Bateson in,’ Fox said to her mother’s back. ‘NAPA believe there’s enough evidence to put him away. Druss is another matter. Connected, there’s limited evidence. Rogers will see what he can get from Bateson, but Druss is probably going to walk. You know, if his tastes in women run to teenagers, you have to wonder what he sees in you. Or is that why you’ve been having all the treatments and dressing like a New York street hooker?’

Andrea spat on the floor, still leaning over the puddle of stomach contents she had made. ‘How did you know about Cory?’

‘You’re not exactly trying to hide it, Andrea. People noticed him visiting every Tuesday and Thursday. Specifically when Dad’s out of the house.’

‘But–’

‘He didn’t come yesterday? No, you went to a motel. Bad move. Not only do they have lousy soundproofing, but the walls are thin enough that infrared cameras can see warm bodies through them. I got to watch my… You know, I’m just not going to call you that at the moment. I got to watch
you
fucking that degenerate in false colour and listen to all the dumbass lines he fed you. It hasn’t occurred, just once, that the only reason he’s doing it is your delegated votes?’

Andrea managed to straighten up and turn around. There was still no colour in her face, but she was starting to rally, starting to rationalise. ‘I don’t believe–’

‘His preference for a shaved pussy come up? I bet you’re smooth as a baby down there. He’s changed up on the wives twice, always going for a younger model. Do you
really
think he wants a fifty-year-old woman? Even one that looks like you?’

‘H-he said that my exp-perience was a ch-change… Oh shit.’ Andrea’s knees collapsed under her and she dropped to the ground on all fours. Pity managed a cannon barrage which decimated disgust’s lines in a surprise counter-offensive and Fox moved forward, picking her mother off the ground and guiding her to a chair, sitting her down, and pushing her head down between her knees.

‘Just breathe, Mom. Druss played you. I’d imagine he’s doing the same with a bunch of people. I bet that lovely young wife of his has done her bit for the cause. She’s desperate to keep her claws in him. She’s got a wide social net.’

‘There have been a couple of rumours,’ Andrea said, her voice a whisper. ‘Cory…’ She swallowed. ‘Druss used that to get me into… Not that it took much effort. Your father and I were going through a bad patch. I wanted to get deeper into politics, but he wanted to concentrate on his fields. We argued. We weren’t… a couple for some time.’ She looked up. ‘I’m not excusing it, just explaining. Druss’s aims seemed to match mine.’

‘Seemed to, yeah. I think you actually believe your watchmen are a good idea. He wants a police force that he owns. I’m sure it’s not
just
so he can fuck little girls with impunity, but it has to be a side benefit.’ Fox watch her mother flinch on the word ‘fuck.’ So far, so good. ‘What you do with this is up to you, but there are a couple of provisos to that. If Bateson knows we’re coming and skips, I’ll hand you over to Rogers for obstruction of justice and hope he throws the key away.’

‘I wouldn’t!’

‘I’m not really sure what you’d do. I never thought you’d cheat on Dad with a child molester. When I get back with Sandy, I’m going to tell Dad about your affair. I think it’d be better coming from you, but he’s going to hear it.’

Angela lowered her face again, but she nodded. ‘I’ll deal with it. My mess, like that one in the corner. I’ll deal with them both.’

~~~

Malcolm Bateson’s eyes flicked from Rogers, to Fox, to the NAPA transport vehicle sitting at the end of his garden path. ‘What’s this about, Rogers?’

‘Perhaps we should discuss that inside, Mister Bateson,’ the detective replied. Fox admired his restraint: she would have pushed the door in and flattened the fucker.