Midnight Garden
Chapter 12
by Kye Syr
"What do you mean, screwed?" Brad said again. I pointed further down the page.
"No suspects, huh?" I said weakly.
"'We have actually got other samples of the DNA found on the evidence on file, in relation to several unsolved murders,' stated Police Chief Watanabe. 'Even if we don't have names, this gives us some history with the perpetrator. We may be able to establish some kind of behavioral pattern.'"
Brad read over my shoulder, and out of the corner of my eye I could see his fingers digging into the couch.
"Oh, that was very clever," he said with a growl. "How did they manage to get other samples, anyway? With the exception of Farfarello, we don't ever leave anything behind. And the only ones who touched the smoker were you and me. So how did they...?"
"Should we do something?" I asked. I didn't want him wandering off into a musing and leaving me in suspense before he answered some questions. Brad straightened and gave his hair a tug.
"I believe we may be forced to," he said. "Considering our Ezsett trouble, Schuldich notwithstanding, we cannot afford to fight on any other fronts." He strode across the room, pushing up his glasses and looking so overly Crawfordlike that I could hardly believe him to be real. "So," he said. "Tonight, perhaps. Or tomorrow at the latest. No, tonight. The sooner this is dealt with, the better. After all, that's yesterday's paper. Who knows what they've found out since. You and I will go. Farfarello will remain here with Schuldich. I don't think missing out will kill him. Or, more importantly, anyone else."
"You have a plan?" I said. He probably did. Brad was good with the fast planning of all things criminal.
"Yes," he said (who called it?). "You know where the evidence for recent crimes with ongoing investigations would be kept, correct?"
"Yes." I knew the whole town. Especially the parts where death and destruction were concerned. I actually had most of the police records for the past twenty years stored in my unobtrusive little computer. As I saw it, we were, in our line of work, likely to come up against the law at some point, and someone might as well know the facts beforehand.
"Well, good," said Crawford. "You will find whatever concerns us-- past cases included. I will work on getting us quietly inside-- I know someone who thinks I am someone else-- and when we know where and when we are going, we'll slip in, slip out. Without anyone trying to kill on our side, it should be simple. I mean that, by the way. No unecessary flinging of people against sharp or heavy objects."
"Yes, Crawford."
"I'll call my deluded associate, then. You find what we need."
He disappeared into the Great Crawford Void to do whatever he did there. I went to my room and started hacking. The perk of being a tele-k. (or of being a good one, anyway) was that you could find and move things that existed only as numbers as well as tangible matter. It made hacking, stealing, and covering one's footsteps a snap. If you had the skill.
I, of course, did. Brad's big job took me all of maybe ten minutes. All evidence from the Weiss case was being held in the analysis center pending proper poking about. Older evidence, from a few of our less tidy jobs, was actually being transferred to the central Tokyo police station that night from a storage facility out of town.
Wasn't that convenient?
I memorized everything we would need and erased my existence from their files. On cue, Brad came in. Without knocking, of course. He was lucky I didn't feel like more than one fight tonight.
"Done?" he asked. He had his coat on. Hat, too. That was a surprise. Usually he refused to wear one, for the ladylike reason of it would mess up his hair. Only in extreme cold and states of more extreme distraction would he...ah. That was it. Super-business-mode had settled upon him. Not even fashion could now stop him doing what he set out to do.
"Done," I said. "Now?" It was only about noon. Not exactly prime time for evidence snatching.
"No," Brad replied, but didn't explain. "Anything I should know?"
"They're going to be transporting the....other....evidence tonight. I have a map."
"Good. You figure out when we should intercept. As for our little insurance problem...my contact is quite willing to exchange shifts with a friend last minute due to his aunt's eightieth birthday party on Saturday. He will likely mysteriously disappear into the lunchroom at about 1:38 A.M. to investigate a disturbance. If someone slips by in the three point five minutes he is gone, he will be very sorry to hear about it. He will, however, have found the bird that somehow flew into the building, hit a camera and shorted them out, and set off the motion sensors."
And the coat is, what? So you're ready? I thought.
"What's with the coat?"
"Oh, this?" said Brad, sounding distracted. "We need groceries."
It was just like Brad to leave me to worry while he went off for vegetables.
Apparently there were lots of choices that day. Five hours later, he wasn't back yet. Six, and I wondered if he maybe didn't want to come back. Seven, and I decided he had either suffered amnesia-inducing damage or was dead. Finally, at eight, he turned up again. He looked sullen.
I looked at his arms. Except for a newspaper curled under one elbow, they were empty.
"Stores closed?" I asked. He threw the paper at me, in explanation I assumed. I looked at the headline, and then at the picture beneath it, and then back at the headline.
There, in full color and life-like detail, was Brad Crawford, looking over the shoulder of his blindingly white suit.
SUSPECT IN PHOTO-I.D.ED said the headline. PUBLIC TAKES UP SEARCH.
This, I decided, was one of those occasions when there was both plenty of news and no news that was good news.
"Oh," I said.
"This makes things all the more difficult," he said. "I'm quite certain my associate at the police station will have seen this by now, and even he would not wish to be involved with the executors of gruesome murder. We'll have to go sooner. They'll have security up for hours before we're to arrive, if he's said anything. He probably has, saying that we'd threatened his family or something. Even if we go now, we're going to have some trouble."
"Why didn't you know about this?" I asked.
"I was thinking of that. I've been having trouble Seeing for several weeks now. I am thinking it may be thanks to our friend the hunter."
"The one in Schu's head?"
"What other hunter is there?"
I shrugged. Just making sure.
"Now, Nagi, if we are ever to succeed, we must go now. You get what you need--"
"Is there any point?" I asked.
"To what?"
"To getting back what we're trying to get back."
"There's as likely to be your DNA on that evidence as mine. We don't want them to find any more of us, do we?" I supposed not. "Now come on. Get what you need and I will update Farfarello."
Farfarello 3.0, I thought. Version one wasn't psycho.
I found my coat and got ready to commit some crime.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Kye: Gomen nasai, minna, for such a long intermission. I went chapter 12 braindead, wrote seven new chapters, realized something was missing in the middle, and wrote this. There'll be one or two new parts to this subplot, and then we're back on course with Ezsett's new favorite pet. If he *is*--
Eki: WHA! Ignore her! That's why author notes should NOT be allowed. Trying to give things away all the time...
Akemi: Stupid. After all Eki's hard work, you try to ruin everything! P
Kye: 'o___o'
Rika: Lay off, she's trying!
Akemi: Easy for you to say. She's actually working on *your* book! Even if it does suck.
Kye: -_-...Until later. If you've read the whole chapter, do me a favor and take three more minutes to R+R. Danke! Domo! Gracias! Thanx! ^v^
Chapter 12
by Kye Syr
"What do you mean, screwed?" Brad said again. I pointed further down the page.
"No suspects, huh?" I said weakly.
"'We have actually got other samples of the DNA found on the evidence on file, in relation to several unsolved murders,' stated Police Chief Watanabe. 'Even if we don't have names, this gives us some history with the perpetrator. We may be able to establish some kind of behavioral pattern.'"
Brad read over my shoulder, and out of the corner of my eye I could see his fingers digging into the couch.
"Oh, that was very clever," he said with a growl. "How did they manage to get other samples, anyway? With the exception of Farfarello, we don't ever leave anything behind. And the only ones who touched the smoker were you and me. So how did they...?"
"Should we do something?" I asked. I didn't want him wandering off into a musing and leaving me in suspense before he answered some questions. Brad straightened and gave his hair a tug.
"I believe we may be forced to," he said. "Considering our Ezsett trouble, Schuldich notwithstanding, we cannot afford to fight on any other fronts." He strode across the room, pushing up his glasses and looking so overly Crawfordlike that I could hardly believe him to be real. "So," he said. "Tonight, perhaps. Or tomorrow at the latest. No, tonight. The sooner this is dealt with, the better. After all, that's yesterday's paper. Who knows what they've found out since. You and I will go. Farfarello will remain here with Schuldich. I don't think missing out will kill him. Or, more importantly, anyone else."
"You have a plan?" I said. He probably did. Brad was good with the fast planning of all things criminal.
"Yes," he said (who called it?). "You know where the evidence for recent crimes with ongoing investigations would be kept, correct?"
"Yes." I knew the whole town. Especially the parts where death and destruction were concerned. I actually had most of the police records for the past twenty years stored in my unobtrusive little computer. As I saw it, we were, in our line of work, likely to come up against the law at some point, and someone might as well know the facts beforehand.
"Well, good," said Crawford. "You will find whatever concerns us-- past cases included. I will work on getting us quietly inside-- I know someone who thinks I am someone else-- and when we know where and when we are going, we'll slip in, slip out. Without anyone trying to kill on our side, it should be simple. I mean that, by the way. No unecessary flinging of people against sharp or heavy objects."
"Yes, Crawford."
"I'll call my deluded associate, then. You find what we need."
He disappeared into the Great Crawford Void to do whatever he did there. I went to my room and started hacking. The perk of being a tele-k. (or of being a good one, anyway) was that you could find and move things that existed only as numbers as well as tangible matter. It made hacking, stealing, and covering one's footsteps a snap. If you had the skill.
I, of course, did. Brad's big job took me all of maybe ten minutes. All evidence from the Weiss case was being held in the analysis center pending proper poking about. Older evidence, from a few of our less tidy jobs, was actually being transferred to the central Tokyo police station that night from a storage facility out of town.
Wasn't that convenient?
I memorized everything we would need and erased my existence from their files. On cue, Brad came in. Without knocking, of course. He was lucky I didn't feel like more than one fight tonight.
"Done?" he asked. He had his coat on. Hat, too. That was a surprise. Usually he refused to wear one, for the ladylike reason of it would mess up his hair. Only in extreme cold and states of more extreme distraction would he...ah. That was it. Super-business-mode had settled upon him. Not even fashion could now stop him doing what he set out to do.
"Done," I said. "Now?" It was only about noon. Not exactly prime time for evidence snatching.
"No," Brad replied, but didn't explain. "Anything I should know?"
"They're going to be transporting the....other....evidence tonight. I have a map."
"Good. You figure out when we should intercept. As for our little insurance problem...my contact is quite willing to exchange shifts with a friend last minute due to his aunt's eightieth birthday party on Saturday. He will likely mysteriously disappear into the lunchroom at about 1:38 A.M. to investigate a disturbance. If someone slips by in the three point five minutes he is gone, he will be very sorry to hear about it. He will, however, have found the bird that somehow flew into the building, hit a camera and shorted them out, and set off the motion sensors."
And the coat is, what? So you're ready? I thought.
"What's with the coat?"
"Oh, this?" said Brad, sounding distracted. "We need groceries."
It was just like Brad to leave me to worry while he went off for vegetables.
Apparently there were lots of choices that day. Five hours later, he wasn't back yet. Six, and I wondered if he maybe didn't want to come back. Seven, and I decided he had either suffered amnesia-inducing damage or was dead. Finally, at eight, he turned up again. He looked sullen.
I looked at his arms. Except for a newspaper curled under one elbow, they were empty.
"Stores closed?" I asked. He threw the paper at me, in explanation I assumed. I looked at the headline, and then at the picture beneath it, and then back at the headline.
There, in full color and life-like detail, was Brad Crawford, looking over the shoulder of his blindingly white suit.
SUSPECT IN PHOTO-I.D.ED said the headline. PUBLIC TAKES UP SEARCH.
This, I decided, was one of those occasions when there was both plenty of news and no news that was good news.
"Oh," I said.
"This makes things all the more difficult," he said. "I'm quite certain my associate at the police station will have seen this by now, and even he would not wish to be involved with the executors of gruesome murder. We'll have to go sooner. They'll have security up for hours before we're to arrive, if he's said anything. He probably has, saying that we'd threatened his family or something. Even if we go now, we're going to have some trouble."
"Why didn't you know about this?" I asked.
"I was thinking of that. I've been having trouble Seeing for several weeks now. I am thinking it may be thanks to our friend the hunter."
"The one in Schu's head?"
"What other hunter is there?"
I shrugged. Just making sure.
"Now, Nagi, if we are ever to succeed, we must go now. You get what you need--"
"Is there any point?" I asked.
"To what?"
"To getting back what we're trying to get back."
"There's as likely to be your DNA on that evidence as mine. We don't want them to find any more of us, do we?" I supposed not. "Now come on. Get what you need and I will update Farfarello."
Farfarello 3.0, I thought. Version one wasn't psycho.
I found my coat and got ready to commit some crime.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Kye: Gomen nasai, minna, for such a long intermission. I went chapter 12 braindead, wrote seven new chapters, realized something was missing in the middle, and wrote this. There'll be one or two new parts to this subplot, and then we're back on course with Ezsett's new favorite pet. If he *is*--
Eki: WHA! Ignore her! That's why author notes should NOT be allowed. Trying to give things away all the time...
Akemi: Stupid. After all Eki's hard work, you try to ruin everything! P
Kye: 'o___o'
Rika: Lay off, she's trying!
Akemi: Easy for you to say. She's actually working on *your* book! Even if it does suck.
Kye: -_-...Until later. If you've read the whole chapter, do me a favor and take three more minutes to R+R. Danke! Domo! Gracias! Thanx! ^v^