Chapter Three
CSI
Dr. Phlox stood as close to the body as he could without stepping in the wide pool of red blood that still dripped occasionally from the saturated mattress. He was the veteran of more investigations into unexpected death then he cared to count. He knew what was expected and how to obtain it. More significantly, he knew what was to be avoided.
He aimed his molecular scanner at the motionless body, taking a complete series of readings. What he collected this time would not tell how the man had gotten into this condition so much as help determine who had made him so.
About him, ignored as much as possible by the Denobulan, were as many scientists as could fit into the tightly spaced room at once, all trying to gather what information they could. He waited about three minutes, then turned around and threw them all out.
A moment later Captain Archer and Lt. Reed, neither of whom could be ejected, stood beside him. With them was Ensign Jim Cein, who had made the initial call, decks B, C & D Starboard being his sector. "What can you tell us?" The Security Officer asked. Phlox glanced up at him.
"He's dead, Jim."
"We can see that." Archer replied testily. The only thing worse than a death aboard his ship was the murder of a guest.
"A single stab wound directly through the heart. It severed the aorta, death was instantaneous. Judging by the condition of the body, I'd say he was asleep and likely was never aware that he'd died."
That was something of a chilling thought. Archer did not know how Denobulans felt about the subject, but the concept of a man who did not know that he had died…
"I'd put the time of death at between 0200 and 0230. I'll be able to be more specific when I get the body into Sick Bay."
"The knife is pretty familiar." Cein noted. Reed nodded in agreement.
"Chef's got about a hundred of them in the Mess Hall."
"Talk to him. Find out how long he's had ninety-nine." Archer directed. The look Reed gave his assistant did not need words. The younger man nodded.
"At least we don't have to look far for suspects." Phlox pointed out, glancing out to the corridor. Archer nodded in agreement. The man had come aboard with barely a day's notice, with one companion, had a single brief tour of the ship, and was dead a few hours later. Suspects would not be plentiful, though the thought gave him no pleasure at all.
"I'm not sure I agree, sir." Reed objected. Archer looked at him curiously. "It's too pat. The only person on the ship who knows him; the only one on this ship who's ever met him in fact, is in the room right next door, and a few hours later he's dead? If we assume she even wanted to, she could have probably done it a thousand ways that would keep anyone from suspecting her." Archer glanced at Phlox.
"I agree." The doctor said. "I'd only met her for about five minutes yesterday, but she does not strike me as an imbecile."
In spite of the grimness of the situation, Archer could not help but smile at the physician's summation. It would be an act of staggering stupidity for anyone to make herself the only possible suspect. "All right, I want to know who did this before our rendezvous with the 'Sevigny'. That gives you two days, gentlemen. Don't let me down."
"Yes, sir."
"I suggest back-tracking, Lieutenant." Cein said. "Maybe someone on board isn't the stranger to him that we're assuming." Reed nodded.
"Put Carstairs on the historical records, and Tigat as follow-up. Get his history from Starfleet and match it against everyone on board. Tell them to go back to bloody primary school if they have to."
"Yes, sir." The man turned and left, pausing at the door to have a blonde Security Officer follow him. Andrea Carstairs did not look back, somewhat relieved to leave the post. Archer turned to Reed.
"Do you have everything you need?"
"For the moment, sir. When the Doctor's done, I'll have the body moved to the morgue and a seal placed on the door."
"Then let's go. I want to talk to Mother McCabe."
xx
Rev. Patricia McCabe sat on her bunk, absorbed in prayers that did not cushion her from the grief and shock that assailed her. That George Pineda was dead was shocking enough under the best of conditions; the man had seemed full of life and without a care in the universe. In fact, on this last trip he'd seemed more at ease with the cosmos than he had in all the time she'd known him.
But that he was murdered, that was the devastating thing. She'd seen him last night. They were strangers, virtual strangers, at least she believed, to everyone – almost everyone – on board this ship. That he lay now in the next room with a knife in his chest was … she had no word for it.
Added to this was the shock and distress at finding Malcolm again, and the pain of that reunion. She did not know how she would have imagined it to be, being so totally unexpected. She had not known he was aboard this ship. She had been pursuing her life, her mission, and suddenly there he was.
There he was, a vital piece of her past, of her life, of the future that would have been. That should have been. It should have been an occasion for joyous reunion, for celebration and revelry. She had not known, could never have imagined, that it would be a cause for such pain.
She shook her head, recognizing her fractured thoughts. She was badly shaken, and here in her quarters she realized she had the privacy to give in to her feelings. She did not have to be in control, did not have to appear calm and collected, did not have to maintain the outward dignity of her Calling. There would be a time and need later for such practiced veneers. They were going to be coming for her soon; of that there was no doubt, and she would have to show all these things, to be all these things. But for these few minutes of privacy, she could surrender to her feelings; to her grief.
Her hand clutched the cross at her chest, feeling the emotions she'd kept so tight a rein upon surface again, and she surrendered.
xx
Jonathan Archer pressed the annunciation button a few minutes later. Beside him stood his Chief of Security and, in the room before him, he hoped he would find some answers.
It took a few moments, and when the door slid open the Rev. Patricia McCabe was on the other side.
She looked much as she had when he'd first laid eyes on her yesterday; and yet not. She still looked in her late 30's, still long chestnut hair framed a face of almost startling beauty, still the same clerical uniform of black trousers, royal blue shirt, the inch high collar of the shirt a band of stiff white at her throat, and the quadruple cross suspended from a blue cloth collar. This time, however, though her eyes and face were recently rubbed dry, those eyes were red from prolonged crying, and she wore a barely masked expression of grief. Even now, she kept a very careful control of her appearance and manner, but it was a precariously strained one indeed. "Reverend, may we come in?"
She nodded, barely able to speak yet, and stepped aside to admit them. She keyed the door closed and turned to greet her 'guests'. She tried to dry her eyes without their noticing, and they obligingly failed to notice.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Mother McCabe." Archer said, acknowledging her obvious grief.
"Thank you, Captain." She managed to say, grateful that she could keep her voice from shaking so soon. If she spoke softly, she could just about keep it under control.
"Did you know him long?"
"On and off, for about six years. He traveled frequently. He was off world far more often than I was."
"The order you belong to…" He left it hanging. He did not miss the fact that her eyes occasionally darted to Reed. The looks were brief, but frequent.
"The Order of St. John." She answered, knowing fully well that he knew that already. She touched the unique quadruple cross absently. It combined the traditional Roman cross in red, overlaying a Maltese cross of white so that the edges of the arms showed above, below and to either side of the red cross. Over all, on the vertex, was a square shield, itself a cross in black on which was a banner of red inset with a diagonal tiny golden cross. "Our Order is an ancient one, dating back to the Crusades on Earth, combining the several Orders of Christian Knighthood; Hospitalers, Templar, Rhodes, Teutonic and several other Orders under one banner. We've had an eclectic history."
"Why were you chosen for this assignment?" She considered. She recognized that these questions were only preliminary, a way of trying to put her at ease while gauging her reactions and manner. She knew the questions were soon going to get a lot harder.
"Well, I was born and raised an Anglican, but I have extensive training in both psychology and psychiatry. A lot of my role in space is going to be in these disciplines."
"You describe yourself as an Anglican; but I thought the Order of St. John was…"
"Oh, yes. There actually was, and is, a branch of the Order, now technically united, in every denomination in the world." She smiled, but it was a sad one, tinged by grief. "We're a strange puppy, if you look to us with an eye for all the Christian denominations as a whole.
"Starting in the late 20th Century, a series of accords 'culminated' in the 'Seventh Vatican Council'; so named, I always thought, because no place else was big enough to hold all the delegates.
"You see, the differences in the various denominations are not so much a matter of religion. We all believe in God and Jesus Christ, but the difference is in who runs the Church and how it operates.
"The differences in our worship services were never insurmountable, and after VC7 the intent was to gradually phase everything together into one form over a 50 year period." She smiled. "Though sometimes I now wonder to which planet's 'year' they referred."
"Not much luck?"
"Some. But fifty years was overly optimistic. As Christians we are one; but pick a Leader."
"And if you stay here," Archer pointed out, "you'll have to integrate several denominations and religions plus Denobulan, Vulcan and Auran."
"Oh, joy. I can hardly wait."
"How do you run things, if you are one Order among several denominations?"
"Well, the original Order, Roman, was under a 'Grand Master', and we have one too, after a fashion. He's selected by the heads of the various denominations, but he has no real power. He serves as an Advisor, and his real job is to coordinate our 'eventual' integration under one banner. It's a position I do not aspire to, believe me! The job has already outlasted four 'Grand Masters', and I really don't think the current one gets very much joy out of life."
"So Father Pineda was from the Anglican denomination?"
"Actually, he was Roman."
"But you wear the same …" Archer had to let it trail off, feeling a little lame.
"Actually, the raiment was the easiest accord. Everyone got a new … uniform." She said with a small smile.
"How well did you two get along, considering the differences?"
She thought about it. "About as well as someone from your Life Sciences division and, let's say, Security."
"Actually, in one case, that's pretty well indeed." Reed opined, thinking of Jim Cein and Liz Cutler.
"I suspect it would help if you related our Order to this ship. You have your Commanders, Lieutenant Commanders and Lieutenants who head up different departments. You'd fill the role of 'Grand Master', though in more than an advisory capacity, but the various crewmen and crewwomen in multiple departments function as members of one ship."
"Thank you. That's very clear. Now, I'm sorry, but we have to ask you some tougher questions."
"As a suspect." She said as calmly as she was able, hiding her pain behind a carefully built mask made up of years of training in keeping her feelings from showing on her face. She often had to withhold her own feelings when dealing with other people's grief. That training came in useful now, in ways she had never conceived of needing.
Despite her distress, she almost smiled at the 'taken aback' expressions on their faces. They did not 'expect' her to be calm, and their expressions could almost make her feel a tiny bit better – if not for the horror of the situation they faced. "I'm the only one he knew here, so far as I know. I'd have to be pretty vapid not to realize you'd think I did it." She could barely believe she'd said the words. It all seemed so much a nightmare. Pineda dead, herself a 'logical' suspect, it was all the stuff of madness. She tried to keep from showing how much it cost her, but inside her heart clenched at the thought.
"We don't think you did it."
Archer had been about to make a mild protest to the effect that there were other possibilities being investigated as well, but the definitive tone in Reed's voice surprised him. He turned to his Security Chief. "Well, sir, it does seem …" He had maintained a definite tone to that point, but then broke eye contact. "…unlikely."
"Yes." Archer admitted, not pleased to have been undermined, however. But he turned to her. "We have to consider all possibilities. Malcolm?" The moment of silence that responded to his direction made him turn to his friend.
"Yes, sir." He looked at the woman, and Archer could not remember the last time he seemed reluctant to ask a question. "Would you … care to sit down?"
'Oh, for –.' Archer bit the thought back. He'd find out later what was taking the wind out of his Security Chief's sails, but for now he'd had enough. "Reverend McCabe, did you leave your quarters last evening?"
"Yes, I did." The woman answered, surprising him. "I couldn't sleep. I never can on the first night in a new room, so I went out. I stopped at the Mess Hall. I'd thought about something to eat."
"Did anyone see you?" She shook her head.
"I don't think so. I don't recall seeing anyone. It was quite late."
"How late?"
"Around 1:30."
Archer thought about it. Gamma shift would be less than two hours into their tour, but it would not be 'lunchtime' until about 0400, so it was possible. Then again, the knife had come from the Mess Hall.
"What time did you return?"
"I'm not sure. Around about 2:30, I'd guess."
Phlox had fixed the time of death between 0200 and 0230. "You spent about an hour in the Mess Hall?"
"No, Captain. Just a few moments. When I got there, I decided I wasn't hungry after all."
"Then you were out of your quarters for about an hour, and no one saw you? Where did you go?" Her eyes flickered aside toward Malcolm Reed for an instant, and she looked very uncomfortable.
"Captain, there are some things that, at this moment, I do not think I can speak openly about." She saw his expression darken. "But I give you my word that none of them have anything to do in any way with what happened to George Pineda. It is not, quite, covered by Sacramental seal, but I would have to consider just how much I should reveal … about things that have been told to me in privacy."
"Did you kill Father Pineda?" He asked suddenly, attempting to startle her. He succeeded.
"No." She answered definitely. He could find no lie in her eyes.
"All right." He turned to Reed. "Carry on. Let me know as soon as your team has anything." He looked at the woman. "Reverend."
"Captain."
x
Jonathan Archer left the room, feeling a knot in the pit of his stomach. The room next door was closed, a single guard remaining outside.
"Doctor Phlox has returned to Sick Bay, but the body is still inside, sir." The man reported crisply. Archer nodded, trying to make it friendly, or at least non-committal as he then continued on his way, but he was really too upset to trust his voice.
There was something going on, and it seemed to have something to do with Mother McCabe and his Security Chief, the same one who was so keen not to have her stay on. McCabe had more than intimated that whatever it was she considered confidential; she'd come right out and said it. And Malcolm was pretty firm in his certainty that she had not done the elder priest to death.
But just what was going on? She had not invoked Sacramental seal. If she had he doubted he could pry the answer out of her by any means. But she had also given her word that what she was withholding had nothing at all to do with Pineda's death.
For now, he decided to bide his time, and to wait on what the evidence revealed. Maybe he did not have to take action at all. Maybe it was innocent – no, strike that. Maybe one thing did actually have nothing to do with the other, but he would wait and find out.
But much as he wanted to believe there was no connection, a nagging thought in the back of his mind would not be silenced. But, damn it, she'd given her word – yet though he had never imagined being in the position of questioning the word of a 'person of the cloth', he did not know her and had absolutely no idea how good her word was.
He decided he would have to let this whole matter – both these matters – play out. As he walked toward the turbolift, he found himself empathizing with his friend Trip. He really wished he had a bar of neutronium to chew on.
