Chapter Four

Clues

"Ensign Cutler to Captain Archer." The intercom in the Ready Room spoke three hours later. Archer looked up from the report he was reading on the monitor screen and touched a button.

"Archer here."

"Captain, could you meet me in my quarters? It's very important." Archer was mildly surprised, and was about to 'invite' the woman to his Ready Room, but something about the request intrigued him. It was just far enough out of the ordinary to get his attention, especially as he was involved in a situation that was filled with outré elements.

"I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Thank you, Captain."

He turned off the intercom and was about to return his attention to Reed's preliminary report. But a special sense, one he had learned to trust, one that served him well in stressful situations, told him it would be more advantageous to answer this request first.

Blanking the report off the screen, he stood up and left his sanctum.

xxx

A few minutes later he was standing outside cabin D/47. When he pressed the annunciation button the door slid aside, revealing the young biologist. "Ensign? What is it you wanted to tell me?"

"Actually," a male voice came from within the room, "I asked her to invite you here. I wanted to speak to you privately, sir." Archer looked inside to see Jim Cein from Security. Cutler stepped aside, admitting the Captain. "Ensign; thank you for your assistance." He said formally.

"Don't mention it." She replied with a barely hidden smile; then pushed the door button again, exiting when the portal slid open. When it had closed behind her, Archer turned to the guard.

"I presume you have excellent reasons for this 'cloak and dagger' maneuver?"

"The best, sir. I've turned up evidence that can be … sensitive; and I wanted to present it privately, in case my interpretations are wrong."

"And those are?" He could see that the man was loath to speak. Yet he had sent for Archer, not the reverse.

"Sir, I started gathering evidence by checking the times when the doors to the two Priests' quarters were used, particularly after Zero hours. Mother McCabe, as she testified, left her quarters at 0131. Father Pineda's door opened and closed twice; once at 0153, then at 0237. Mother McCabe's door opened and closed again at 0239."

"That seems to fit the theory."

"No, sir. It seemed to, but the two minutes at the end bothered me. They're next door to each other. I couldn't see her standing in the corridor for two extra minutes. Especially when there was no attempt to get rid of the weapon."

"Yes. That is unlikely."

"Yes, sir. There was something more that turned up while I was checking the door logs. When Lieutenant Reed brought the two Reverends to their quarters, he would have shown them the amenities. It's the usual routine. There is an interval of 3.3 minutes between the initial and second openings and closings of Father Pineda's door, which is just about right. But it seems that with Mother McCabe, he was in there with her for 47 minutes."

"That's …interesting." And far beyond what he knew of the man. If, on the one hand, his impression from last evening was right and he was uncomfortable with the woman's presence, he'd hardly spend three quarters of an hour with her. That seemed consistent with his choice of Pineda. On the other hand, if Trip Tucker's estimation was right, and he was smitten with her, it seemed unaccountably forward of the man to spend so long in a single woman's private room. It was not the behavior of the Malcolm Reed he knew.

"That's when I started questioning other things." Cein continued. "There are too many things about this case that almost add up, yet do not. We're looking into Father Pineda's background, seeing who aboard this ship may know him from an earlier time, who may have a motive? I thought, maybe we're looking into the wrong background."

"Explain."

"Mother McCabe. I ran a background check on her, and there is one person on board who, for twenty two years, lived 0.37 kilometers away from her."

"Who?"

"Lieutenant Reed."

x

"What do you have?"

"Sir, Lt. Reed's door also opened and closed during that period, once at 0135,

again at 0234, and then a third time at 0236.

"With Doctor Phlox's help we have found traces of Reverend McCabe's DNA on both the outer and inner door buttons of Father Pineda's quarters. Based on my other findings, I asked him to run the same trace on Lt. Reed's outer door. The test came back positive. Lt. Reed was not present. I then asked the doctor to run that same test on the inner controls. Sir, that test came back positive as well."

Cein tried to keep his inner thoughts from showing on his face. He had, in his report, now testified that he had pushed his authority beyond the breaking point by opening a superior officer's quarters without authorization and with just barely 'probable cause'. He knew that if he did not get Archer's approval, he was facing considerable risk.

He was vastly relieved when his Captain did not rebuke him. In that moment he'd gained the Captain's belated authorization for his actions, and had saved himself a load of potential problems.

x

Archer thought about all the man had told him. In light of what he'd seen and heard in McCabe's quarters, it did not come as the surprise he'd thought it would. In fact, if things had not worked out this way, he would have been surprised. "What do you know?"

"Well, sir, without being able to contact Earth yet for more detailed records, I really have no more information than that. There are several explanations for the times indicated, but no witnesses that we can find yet, nor anything of a concrete nature. That's why I did not want to come to you on the bridge, or meet openly with you. I have no more evidence in the Lieutenant's favor than I have against it. That he knew her is highly probable, considering the size of the community where they hailed from. That there's any complicity … is completely unknown. There is just too little evidence."

"Good. I like an officer who does not draw conclusions where there are none." He thought about it, not liking to say what he had to. "Your orders, Ensign, are to continue this line of research. Also, find out what other doors may have opened during that period. I have a feeling that that is going to be a barely tapped mine."

"Yes, sir."

xxx

Half an hour later, Ensign Cein returned to his quarters, deciding he could just as easily continue his research on his own terminal as from anywhere else. His first duty was to ask Hoshi Sato to contact the appropriate records areas on Earth, hopefully without his Chief finding out. He felt extremely tense. This was more than just a murder investigation. Somehow, it had hit unexpectedly close to home. And he did not like the direction in which it seemed to be leading him.

He sat down at his desk chair, leaning back, sighing and not feeling a bit of the tension easing.

A moment later, the door to his 'fresher slid open. He looked up, startled to see Elizabeth Cutler standing in the doorway. As if that were not enough of a surprise, he was astonished to see her significantly out of uniform.

She was, in fact, 'wearing' the scarlet 'babydoll' negligee she had almost worn that day their friendship had taken a far more intimate turn.

Several weeks ago he'd responded to an alert from Reed that several crewwomen were in danger, and he'd been assigned to Cutler's quarters. She'd met him, 'dressed' in this sheer red negligee which did not hide but only tinted, one half pulled completely off her shoulder and arm, her bare breast enticingly exposed, and no panties anywhere in sight. She'd greeted him with a tone that could have melted any of the ship's bulkheads before being startled by his presence, but had visibly changed her mind, dropped any embarrassment … and things had gone on from there.

He'd always known she had been expecting someone else. That had, somehow, never wound up mattering. He never learned who, but that other had never arrived. In the weeks that passed since then, there had been no room for a third.

Now, looking at her 'dressed' in exactly that same manner, one spaghetti thin shoulder strap completely off, her left breast bare and again no panties in sight, he knew quite well who she had dressed for this time. "Surprise." She whispered, raising the temperature in the already quickly heating room another forty degrees.

She walked toward him slowly, enticingly, the sheer material fluttering about her as obscuring as thin scarlet steam. He had a passing thought to watch out for the fire sprinklers, but dismissed it with just about everything else. "I thought you'd like some 'company' when you got back." She said in quiet, searing tones, stepping around behind him. He was hard pressed not to grab for her as she passed, but she ran her fingertips along his shoulders as she stepped behind his chair.

"Oh, could I ever!" He could not remember the last time he had been so happy, so relieved, to see anyone, let alone the lovely woman who, for the past several weeks, had become more and more a part of his life.

"What was with the 'cloak-and-dagger' bit?" She asked, unknowingly repeating Archer.

"I didn't want Lt. Reed to know I was seeing the Captain." She started to massage his shoulders, her strong fingers digging into his tight muscles.

"Why not?"

"I was telling him that what I found could accuse my Chief of complicity to murder." She stopped for a moment.

"That really rots." She said, commiserating. Then she resumed her 'labors' with greater effort, forcing a groan from him. "What did he say?"

"What could he say?" He winced as she found a particularly hard spot. "This is a total mess."

"I wish I could make you feel better, to say something that could help," she said sympathetically, working on his neck, her hands wrapped about his throat, "but I'm guilty too."

He froze, particularly aware of her hands about his throat. "That's not damn funny!"

"I mean it." She released her 'grip' and leaned closer, his head on her chest so he was nestled between her breasts. He could see them, one barely covered and the other not, on either side of his head. She then bent down lower, trailing her warm breasts over his shoulders until her lips came to his ear. "I'm guilty." She whispered into his ear, her searing breath about a thousand degrees. "In fact…" She stood up and came around him, standing before him with her back to him. "… I've been very bad." She whispered hotly, looking back over her shoulder, licking her lips suggestively. "You should arrest me."

She crossed her wrists behind her back, her shapely bare rear just inches from his eyes. Her arms behind her back started to raise the hem even further, though she was half-uncovered already. "I think you should put me in restraints."

He smiled, closing his hand over her crossed wrists, standing up behind her, hearing her steamy sigh. "And just what's the charge?"

"Oh, breaking and entering." She whispered delightedly, stepping a half-step back into him, her wiggling posterior finding his interest in her. "Unlawful search." Finding just the right spot, she pressed back even more firmly against him. Though her hands were still 'trapped' behind her back, she managed to reach him and get a firm grip. "Assaulting a deadly weapon." She sighed volcanically, a quiet groan as his left hand came up her body to cup her bare breast. "Indecent exposure…" Her whisper seared the air.

"Hmmm."

"And if you're really rough…" she sighed, looking over her shoulder at him with a burning smile, coming up on her toes high enough to kiss him with liquid fire, "…you might have to throw in 'resisting arrest'."