Polaris Page 12

  “Odd,” he said.

  Alex shrugged. “If they were smart, they wouldn’t be thieves.”

  The intruder had cut through the back door, which would have to be replaced. The male took a deep breath, suggesting a world-weariness. “You have the nicest house in the neighborhood, Mr. Benedict. If a thief is going anywhere, he’s coming here.”

  “I guess.”

  He slapped the cover shut on his notebook. “I think that’s about all we can do for now. If you find anything else we should know, get in touch.” He handed Alex a crystal. “Here’s a copy of the record, with your case number.”

  Alex managed a smile. He was not happy. “Thanks.”

  “No trouble, Mr. Benedict. We’ll keep you informed. You can keep the generator until you get up and running again.” They wished us good evening and got back into the cruiser. “I don’t think you need to worry,” he said. “They never come back. But keep your doors locked anyhow.”

  I went out onto the roof, hauled the dish back up, reset it in its housing, taped it down, and was gratified to see that it worked. “It should be all right for tonight,” I said. “We’ll want to get somebody over in the morning to take a look at it.”

  We sat down and began running pictures of the house, room by room, on a split screen, as it had been at the beginning of the day, and as it was now, to see whether we’d missed anything. But everything looked unchanged. Cushions were arranged as they had been, kitchen chairs were in the same positions, a cabinet door left half-open in the dining room remained half-open. “It doesn’t look as if they were very serious,” he said.

  “Maybe they’d just started when we arrived and scared them off.”

  “That can’t be. Jacob says he was down well over two hours.”

  “Then they must have known exactly what they wanted.”

  He frowned. “The coin collection and The Complete Fritz Hoyer?”

  “Yeah. I don’t understand it either.”

  The kitchen before and after flashed on the wall screen. The dining area. The living room.

  The living room had four chairs, a sofa, a bookcase, and side and coffee tables. A book lay open on one of the chairs. The drapes were drawn. Vina, the pagan goddess of the Altieri, stood fetchingly atop a globe representing the world, her long arms outstretched. The book was My Life in Antiquity, and it was open to the same page in both displays. Pictures were distributed around the walls. These were of Alex’s father (whom he had never known) and Gabe, of Alex and some of his customers, and a couple of Alex and me.

  Finally, he sighed, told Jacob to shut it down, and we took to wandering through the house, studying drapes and windows and tables and bookshelves. “They went to a lot of trouble,” he said. “There must have been a reason.”

  So much of the stuff should have begged to be taken, onyx religious figurines from Carpalla; a ninth-century drum from the obscure rhythm group, Rapture; a set of eight-sided dice from Dellaconda. “Don’t know,” he said. “Makes no sense.” We gave up finally, went back to the office, and sat down.

  We sat there for a couple of minutes in puzzled silence. It was late, and I was ready to go home. He was looking at Maddy’s jacket.

  “Gotta go, boss,” I said, getting to my feet and pulling on my coat. “Tomorrow comes early.”

  He rose also, nodding, but paying no attention. Instead he walked over to the case holding the jacket, stared at it for a minute, and tried the lid. It was still locked.

  “You look surprised,” I said.

  The lock was electronic, designed to keep children or idle adults from handling the contents. It wasn’t the sort of thing that would have deterred a burglar. He opened it and pursed his lips. “They’ve been into it,” he said.

  You already know the angle of the imager didn’t give us a picture of the jacket as it had appeared earlier. But it was still folded. It looked okay to me. “Alex,” I said patiently, “if they’d done that, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to put it back. And relock the case.”

  “You got me there, love.” He grimaced. “This is different from what it was, though. Look at Maddy’s name.”

  It had been clearly visible before. It still was, actually, but it was partially around the fold. “This isn’t the way it was,” I said.

  “No. They took it out, refolded it, and put it back.”

  “That can’t be right. Why would a thief do that?”

  “Why would a thief leave the jewelry? Or the Sujannais?” He walked over to the bookcase, turned its light on, and looked at the long-stemmed glass. The lock was an old-fashioned one requiring a metal key. It could have been opened, but, unlike the display case, not without breaking it. “It hasn’t been touched,” he said.

  Advanced Electronics showed up next day, shook their heads a lot, and wondered that we’d left so much to chance. “Well, no more,” they told us. “From now on, anybody tries to knock out your dish, you’ve got a serious backup. Anybody manages to break in, Jacob will call the police, and the intruder will be lying on the floor when they get here.” They collected the police generator and announced they’d return it.

  That was the day we started the paperwork to implement the idea about doing some radioarcheology. But Alex was distracted by the break-in. “We better assume,” he said, “that they got into the records.”

  “Did you ask Jacob whether he can make a determination as to whether that happened?”

  “He says he has no way of knowing. So we have to assume the worst.”

  “Okay.”

  “Chase, we need to inform everyone with whom Rainbow has done business recently, say, the last two years, that the details of all transactions have been compromised and may be in the hands of thieves.”

  While I was taking care of it, he went to lunch with someone, and I got a call from Fenn Redfield. Fenn was a police inspector, and also a friend. He’d handled the original burglary years before. “When you get a chance, Chase,” he said, “you and Alex might want to drop by the station.”

  “Alex isn’t here,” I said. “He’s off working with a client.”

  “Then yourself will do fine.”

  Fenn has an unusual history. In another life, literally another life, he’d been a small-time thief, apparently not very competent. In the incident that ended that career, the owner of a house he was burglarizing walked in on him. There was a struggle, the owner got pushed through a second-floor window and died of his injuries. Fenn, who had a different name in those days, was caught leaving the premises. The jury found him guilty, a fourth conviction. The judge pronounced him incorrigible and a danger to society, so they’d done a mind wipe and a personality adjustment. Nobody in Fenn’s new life is supposed to know that. He didn’t even know it. He received a new identity, a new address halfway across the country from where the crimes occurred, a new set of memories, and a new psyche. Now he had a wife and kids and a responsible job. He worked hard, seemed to be competent, and showed every sign of enjoying his life.

  I knew all this because the victim’s sister was a Rainbow client. She’d wanted the killer dead, and she’d shown me pictures from the trial, and there was Fenn. Incredible. I pointed out to her that the killer was dead, as surely as if he’d been dropped in the ocean.

  But I’ve never said anything to anyone, not even Alex. And I doubt this memoir will ever be published. In any case, I won’t allow it until I’m sure it can do no harm.

  I thought his summons meant they’d caught the intruder. Probably trying to break into someone else’s place.

  The police office is located on the lip of a ridge about a kilometer away from the country house. The day was unseasonably warm, so I decided to walk over.

  It’s an old run-down stone building, a former courthouse, with a lot of space in back and upstairs that they’d sealed off because they had no use for it and wanted to avoid the expense of climate control.

  The front looks like a neglected thirteenth-century portico. Lots of fluted columns, curving
steps, and a fountain that doesn’t work anymore. A bit pretentious for a police station. I climbed the steps and went in. The officer on duty showed me directly into Fenn’s office.

  Fenn was short and heavy, with a voice down in the basement somewhere. Off duty, he enjoyed a good party, a good joke, good VR. But when he put the badge in his pocket, his personality changed. Not that he became unduly formal, but anything not related to the business at hand was clearly perceived as inconsequential.

  He had large jaws, riveting green eyes, and a talent for making people feel that everything was going to be all right. A plastene bag stood on the floor at his feet. “Don’t know what we’re coming to, Chase,” he said, looking up from a document and waving me to a seat. “Getting so people’s homes aren’t even safe anymore.”

  He lifted himself out of his chair, came around in front of the desk, and used it to prop himself up. The office was small, with a single window looking out on the house next door. The walls were covered with awards, commendations, pictures of Fenn standing by a police cruiser, Fenn shaking hands with important-looking officials, Fenn smiling broadly as someone pinned a set of bars on his shoulders. A blackened Fenn carried a child out of a disaster site.

  “Did you catch them?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Afraid not, Chase. Wish we had. But I do have good news for you.” He reached down beside the couch, picked up the bag, and held it out to me.

  It was the coins.

  “That was quick,” I said. “Where’d you find them?”

  “They were in the river.”

  “In the river?”

  “Yes. About two klicks downstream.”

  The satin-lined container that had housed the collection was ruined. But the coins were okay.

  “A couple of kids were making out on a landing. Skimmer comes by, swings low over the river, and drops that and the books. Everything was in a weighted sack.” He produced one of the books. It was a soggy mess. I couldn’t even read the title.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why steal stuff, then throw it in the river? Were they worried about getting caught?”

  “I have no idea. It happened the same night they were taken. Next day, the boy came back to the spot with a sensor.” He examined one of the books under a lamp, holding it carefully as if it were something unclean. “He thought it was strange, and he called us. This one”—he consulted his notes—“is God and the Republic.”

  “Yep. That’s one of ours.”

  “Leather cover.” His jaw muscles worked. “I don’t think it’s of much use now.” We sat staring at one another.

  “Sounds as if somebody has a grudge,” I said.

  “If they did, Chase, Alex wouldn’t have had a house to come home to.” He ran his fingers through his hair and made a series of pained faces. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Are you sure nothing else is missing?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Sometimes thieves really want an ID, but they take other stuff so the owner doesn’t notice right away. That way they can go on a spree.”

  I looked down at the bracelet that carried my data disk and thought about it. “No,” I said. “We checked that possibility last night. Did the kids get a look at the skimmer?”

  “It was gray.”

  “That all?”

  “That’s it. They didn’t get the number.” He squinted at one of the coins. “Where’s it from?”

  “Meridian Age. Two thousand years ago.”

  “On Rimway?”

  “Blavis.”

  “Oh.” He put it back. “The inspecting officer told me there were other valuables that the thieves missed.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And that some of them were out in the open.”

  “That’s true, too. You’ve been over there, Fenn. You know what it’s like.”

  The green eyes narrowed. “You and your employer need to get serious about security.”

  “We already have.”

  “Good. It’s about time.”

  I thought we were ready to change the subject. “By the way,” I said, “have you made any progress toward catching the people who planted the bomb at Proctor Union?”

  He grunted. “It’s not my case. But we’ll get them. We’re checking out every Kondi in the area.” Kondi was a disparaging term for anyone from Korrim Mas. His lined face acquired a bulldog look. “We’ll get them.”

  “Good.”

  “The bomb was homemade. From chemicals available over the counter. And insecticide.”

  “Insecticide? Can you really make a bomb out of that?”

  “Yes, indeed. And it packs a wallop.”

  I sent the boy who’d found the package in the river a couple of rare coins, and judging from his reply, he was smart enough to understand their value. A few days later Fenn confessed they were having no luck tracking down the thieves, and he said that we’d have to be patient, that eventually they’d make a mistake, and he would catch them. What he seemed to be saying was that the police were waiting for them to burgle somebody else.

  At about the same time I got a call from Paul Calder. He materialized in the office, wearing a gray military-style jacket over a blue shirt. He was outside on his veranda. “Chase,” he said, “I wanted you to know how much I appreciated your getting Maddy’s vest for me.” He’d already thanked us. That, and the fact that he looked embarrassed, told me something had happened. “I’m sending you another four hundred.”

  “Was there something else you wanted to buy?”

  “No. Call it a bonus.”

  We’d already been paid. “That’s generous of you, Paul. But why?”

  He was about average height, a bit overweight. He wore an unruly black beard in an effort to appear intellectual, but he just looked unkempt. Calder was afflicted with runaway piety. Lots of references to the Almighty. “I really liked that vest.”

  I noted the past tense. “What happened to it?”

  Another grin. “I got an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  I believe, had he been physically in the room, I’d have throttled him without a second thought. “Paul,” I said, “tell me you didn’t sell it.”

  “Chase, they doubled my money.”

  “We would have doubled your money. Damn it, Paul, I told you that thing was worth a lot more than you’d paid for it. Do you still have it in your possession?”

  “He picked it up this morning.” I sat there shaking my head. He cleared his throat and pulled at his collar. “I know what you said, about what it was worth, but I thought you were exaggerating.”

  Paul’s money was inherited. He’d never known what it took to create wealth, so he’d never taken it seriously. Money was just something he spent when a whim took him. More or less, I thought, the way he took his religion. There was a superficiality to it. Lots of Bless you’s and God willing’s but I never got the sense he thought in serious terms about what a Creator might be like. Or what the implications were. Nevertheless, he was a difficult man to stay angry with. He literally cringed while waiting for me to react. So I calmed down. “Any chance you can cancel the deal?”

  “No,” he said. “I wrote a receipt, took the money, and gave it to him.”

  “No escape clause?”

  “What’s an escape clause?”

  I found myself thinking about the thief poking around in the Rainbow data banks. “Paul,” I asked, “how’d he find out you had it?”

  “Oh, that’s no big deal. Everybody knew. I didn’t make a secret of it. And anyway I took it with me the other day to the monthly meeting of the Chacun Historical Association.”

  “How’d they react to it?”

  “They loved it. Friend of mine even brought a sim of Garth Urquhart.”

  “Paul, the person who bought it, did you know him? Prior to the purchase?”

  “No. But he was at the meeting.” He tried grinning again. “Little guy. Name’s Davis.”

  “Okay. Thanks for letting me know
.”

  “I’m sorry if I upset you. Selling it seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “Maybe it was. I’m not upset, Paul. You doubled your money so I guess you came out of it all right.” I thought about returning the bonus he was sending us, but there was really no point in that. I’d just earned it.

  I stared at the empty space Paul’s image had occupied. How could he be so dumb? But there was nothing to be done about it.

  Even though we were no longer involved with Polaris artifacts, I was still curious about the incident itself. I began to think I’d never rest easy until I could at least construct a rational sequence of events that could have resulted in the disappearance of Maddy and her passengers. “Jacob?” I asked. “Is there a visual record of the Polaris departure?”

  “Checking.”

  While he looked, I went to the kitchen and got a cup of tea.

  “Yes, there is. Do you want me to set it up?”

  “Please.”

  The office morphed into a Skydeck terminal. And they were all there. Maddy and Urquhart, Boland, Klassner (looking barely alive), White, Mendoza, and Dunninger. Along with a crowd of about fifty people. And a small band. The band played a medley of unfamiliar tunes, and people took turns shaking hands with the voyagers.

  Martin Klassner was propped against the back of his seat, talking to a rumpled man, whom I recognized immediately as Jess Taliaferro, the Survey director who’d organized the mission and had himself eventually disappeared. It was an odd scene, Klassner and Taliaferro, two men who’d walked into the night on different occasions, and never been seen again. Klassner’s lips barely moved when he talked, and his hands trembled. I wondered that they’d send a man so obviously ill on such a journey. There was a physician on one of the accompanying ships, but that hardly seemed sufficient.

  Nancy White stood near a souvenir shop. She was trim, attractive, dressed as if she were headed out of town for a holiday. She was talking quietly to a small group, one of whom was a tall, dark-complexioned, good-looking guy, who looked worried. “Her husband, Michael,” said Jacob. “He was a real estate developer.”