Chapter Nineteen

The Evidence of Miss Lee

When Hannah Lee entered the room she confirmed Plormot's prior estimations of her.

She was neatly dressed, her hair smoothly twisted and tucked away. She was neat as a pin and exuded a wholly calm and unruffled aura. She sat at Plormot's gesture and waited for them to start. Plormot began with the basic questions, speaking in Xoisk, and she did not disappoint him. She answered in Xoisk with proper tenses and conjugations. She didn't go so far as to fill out every sentence with pleasantries, though she did use formal conjugations.

Plormot gave a great start and realized they were leaving the good Dr. Suric out, so they switched to Axanarian, and Miss Lee obliged with perfect ease. After finishing the background information, Plormot paused for a moment, ostensibly to complete a note or two.

"You are a linguist by training, are you not? Out of interest, how many languages do you speak?" She gave a small shrug.

"It isn't quite like that."

"What do you mean?"

"It's …" She briefly searched for an analogy. "Your question invites a response in the form of an integer. Languages are a bit more like whole numbers; they can encapsulate a value anywhere on the number line."

"Whole numbers, Miss?"

"Languages are math – albeit a bit non-linear. Once you work out enough equations, new ones aren't so difficult. Many languages breed families and result in languages that overlap, or dialects that share vocabulary or structure. Once you know a few, it becomes easier to pick up the rest. And it isn't a matter of counting them like static values, since they evolve and change."

"Ah! I sense in you a great intelligence! It's a wonder some great university or the likes of Starfleet or the Federation haven't coaxed you into their ranks!"

If he had hoped to flatter her into a more open mood, his hopes stopped short. She simply dipped her head in acknowledgment.

Such dispassion.

"Now, if you would be so kind to tell us about the happenings last night."

"I'm afraid I have nothing to tell you. After dinner, I went to bed and slept."

"Are you not upset that a crime was committed last night?"

Her eyes widened slightly at the unexpected question.

"I don't understand you."

"It's a perfectly simple question, Miss. I will repeat it. Are you upset that a crime was committed on this vessel?"

"Oh. I hadn't framed it that way in my head. I suppose no, I can't say I'm particularly upset."

"Crime, it's a part of a normal day to you, eh, Miss?"

"It's certainly an unfortunate occurrence."

"You are very vulcan, Miss. You don't approve of emotion, do you?"

To his surprise, the comment elicited a wry smile from her.

"Emotions have their place, but they don't seem to fit these circumstances. People die every day."

"People die, yes. But murder has a bit more gravity."

"Yes, it does."

"Did you know the dead man?"

"I had never seen him before yesterday."

"How did he strike you?"

"I don't know that I particularly noticed him."

"He did make you feel as though you were in the presence of an evil person?" She blinked at him.

"Really, I can't say I thought about it like that." Plormot searched her face.

"I sense that you disapprove of the manner in which I am conducting this interview," he smiled understandingly.

"To your mind, and I'm sure in the Sol system and Federate regions, a proper investigation will limit itself to the hard facts and evidence at hand, no? And here, the questions I ask, they meander, they take us on tangents, they cover unrelated topics.

"In many places, an investigation would be straightforward and methodical. But I, as you may have noticed, I have my own methods. I look at my witness and get a feel for their character, their personality, and I proceed accordingly. Just before you, I questioned one of your fellow humans, who is verbose. I do my best to keep him stringently focused. I desire yes or no answers from him.

"But you, Miss, I see at once you live by the scientific method. You will automatically limit your answers to the specific matter at hand, and you will disregard any information that doesn't neatly factor into this case. Because, Miss, human nature is perverse, I ask questions of you that are quite different. I ask what you feel, what you thought. This method displeases you?"

"If I may say so, it seems to be an inefficient use of time. Whether Mr. Evered's presence made me feel one way or another doesn't seem to be helpful in finding out who killed him."

"Do you know the man's true identity?"

She nodded.

"Mrs. Valy'r has been telling everyone."

"And what do you think of the Archer Affair?"

"It was terrible," came her simple answer.

A pause.

"You are traveling from Ghavad, Miss?"

"Yes."

"To Iser?"

"Yes."

"What have you been doing in Ghavad?"

"Language instruction."

"Are you returning to your post after?"

"No."

"Why?"

"It was only a temporary post begin with. I mainly took it so I could travel."

"It seems to me you have traveled a fair bit. You seem very at home in the cosmos. Why do you return to Iser?"

"It's time. I'd like to take a position there." It's time. Plormot regarded her a moment.

"I see. I had thought that you might be returning for courtship purposes."

Miss Lee did not verbally reply. She narrowed her eyes, however, and they plainly told him of his impudence.

"You have no answer?"

"There wasn't a question." She somehow managed to remove any inflection from her speech.

"What is your opinion of the lady who shares your compartment?"

"She seems to be a kind person." He rifled through his stack of documents, murmuring:

"What is her name, again?"

"The doctor? Finta."

"Ah." Plormot sat back, puzzled. "And what color is her bath robe?" It was Hannah Lee's turn to stare.

"Purple. Sort of faded."

"And yours is…?"

"Green." He nodded, having himself seen it in passing on the Taurus traveling from Al'reshdhury to St'aldor.

"Do you have any other robe? A red one?"

"No, that isn't mine." And Plormot latched on.

"Then whose is it?" She was taken aback.

"I don't know."

"Why not?" Her confusion increased.

"What do you mean?"

"You did not say, 'No, I don't have a red one.' You said, 'That isn't mine.' It means a red robe does belong to someone."

She nodded.

"Yes."

"So whose is it?"

"As I say, I don't know. I woke up sometime around five this morning because it felt strange that the ship's engines had been quiet for a while. The phal blocked up most of my view through the porthole, so I looked into the hall to see what was going on. There was someone in a red robe disappearing down at the end of the hall."

"And you didn't see who it was? Was she tall or short or fat or old?"

"I couldn't say. She had her head wrapped up in a towel and I only saw her from behind as she disappeared down the hall."

"And her build?"

"Tallish, I suppose, but with the towel piled on top, it's difficult to say. On the slender side, I think."

Plormot turned the information over in his head a few times, grimacing.

"None of this makes any sense."

Everyone sat patient while Plormot continued to contemplate. Then he looked up.

"Thank you for your time, Miss." She seemed a bit surprised at how abruptly the interview had ended, but promptly left.

Once she was gone, Mr. Douqh eyed his friend with curiosity.

"Why did you tackle her interview in such a strange fashion?"

"I was looking for some chink in the proverbial armor."

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

"Some flaw. In the woman's sense of self. She's very impersonal to the world, shows only a side of herself that is as cold as the vacuum just beyond our bulkhead. I was trying to flush out some further facet of her that she keeps to herself. Did I crack the shell at all? I don't know. But at the very least, she did not anticipate my methods in interviewing her."

"You suspect her," Dr. Suric commented, polishing his glasses while he thought. "But, she seems such a respectable young lady – the last sort of person to be mixed up in all this."

"She is cool-headed," Plormot responded simply.

"Further than that," Dr. Suric countered, "she is cold, you said so yourself. She doesn't approve of undue emotions. She wouldn't stab a man, switching hands and varying her force. She would instead bring a civil suit or research the means to take his money. Why do you latch onto suspicion of her?"

"Firstly," Plormot reshuffled his notes as he spoke. "The both of you must dispel your preoccupation with assuming that this murder was a stroke of luck and passion, and was somehow unpremeditated. It was not, I am certain of it.

"As for why I suspect Miss Lee, there are two reasons. One is because of something I overheard."

He recounted the private discussion he'd stumbled onto on their way from Al'reshdhury.

"It's strange, yes." Douqh said slowly. "It needs explaining. It certainly indicates towards your suspicions that the two of them are in it together."

Plormot continued:

"It is curious, though. If they were both in this together, then I would expect them to provide each other's alibi. That is what cohorts in crime do, after all. But that does not happen. Miss Lee's alibi is provided by Finta, whom she has never seen before. And Lieutenant Keller's alibi is vouched for Qozz, the secretary." Plormot sank back into a moment of contemplation.

"What was the second reason for your suspecting her? You said there were two?" Douqh passed on.

"Ah, well the good Dr. Suric here might find this trying, but the second reason is psychological.

"Dr. Suric asks himself who could have physically accomplished this crime. A sound question. I pose a psychological one: Who could have planned this crime? Is it possible for Miss Lee to have planned it?

"Behind this murder, I have come to be convinced that there is a cool, resourceful, ruthless mind. Miss Lee answers to that description."

Mr. Douqh shook his head.

"I think you're wrong, dear friend. Yes, she seems the meticulous type, but this crime seems uncouth, and I don't see her as that."