Part 2 (1/2)
”Weapons besides the one that was left so obviously,” Nyquist said. ”Spatter. Footprints. Any evidence of surveillance. h.e.l.l, any evidence of anyone else being nearby. And we will need to search every centimeter of this place just to see what else we can find.”
”You know how big these woods are, right?” Owens asked. ”Actually, no,” Nyquist said. ”They can't be that big. This is the center of Armstrong.”
”Ten square kilometers,” Owens said. ”And they've got enhanced areas, so it looks even bigger. It's going to take a while to separate the real from the not-real.”
”How the heck did they get so much land?” Nyquist asked. Leidmann smiled. ”I know, I know,” he said. ”Money buys everything.” ”Included added dome s.p.a.ce,” Leidmann said.
”It wasn't the dome s.p.a.ce that was the problem,” Owens said. ”It was the historic homes that used to be here. Don't you remember all the fighting when the Hunting Club was built?”
Nyquist shook his head. He never used to pay attention to that sort of thing. Now, if it had happened in the past six months, he would know about it. Down to which celebrity was having whose baby and what celebrity hangout had the most security breaches in the last few weeks.
”They fight everything with lawsuits,” Owens was saying. ”So go carefully in there.”
Nyquist sighed. If he had known that, he wouldn't have sent street cops in first.
”I'll be back soon,” he said. ”See what you can do.”
Leidmann nodded. Owens was already directing the other two members of the team, gesturing toward the open forest on either side of the path, his long hair swaying in the breeze.
Nyquist shook his head a final time at the futility of it all, then started down the path toward the club itself. Bowles hadn't been more than two dozen meters from the club. If she had stayed on the path, she would have arrived in just a few minutes.
Nyquist wondered what she'd been thinking as she came here-excited to see someone she knew? Worried that she couldn't afford it? Embarra.s.sed at the state of her career?
Although he wasn't certain what her career was now. After the firing story faded, he hadn't seen her on-screen for months. Now that he was back to work, he wasn't watching holos or vids as much, and he certainly wasn't downloading stories. So he felt out of touch, even though by his old standards, he wasn't out of touch at all.
Certainly the woman he'd met six months ago couldn't have afforded this place. Her apartment was upscale but un-lived in-the perfect apartment for one of Armstrong's up-and-coming celebrities-but she'd just lost her job and didn't seem to know where or if she'd work again.
Nyquist adjusted his suit coat, knowing it was rumpled and cheap. DeRicci had tried to get him to upgrade his clothing-she had even offered to pay (which embarra.s.sed the h.e.l.l out of him), reminding him that he'd lost nearly a quarter of his original weight because of his injuries. He was thinner now, and would probably stay that way. Even though the doctors had put his stomach back together and it worked just fine, he no longer liked the feeling of being overly full. It was almost painful.
The doctors said it was all in his head, but he wasn't sure. He had been rebuilt. Whether things worked properly or not, the fact that the parts were new had to change a man.
The path widened as the trees thinned. As he approached the front of the building, the path split into two, arching around a flat plane of gra.s.s that was covered with flowers and shrubs and statues of dogs, foxes, horses, and people in hunting clothes, like those old-fas.h.i.+oned prints he'd seen in history texts when he was a kid.
He thought the statues the creepiest part of this place-they were often rearranged into different tableaus depending on the time of day and the season. In the fall-or what pa.s.sed for Armstrong's fall (even though the Moon really didn't have seasons, not as Earth knew them), the human statues were posed on top of the horses, chasing a pack of dogs that was after a single fox.
He hated that tableau the most. Even though he knew such things used to happen on parts of Earth, he saw no reason to glorify them. He wasn't the only one: Protestors had complained about the tableaus over the years, often citing the cruelty they represented as barbaric and belonging to a bygone era.
This afternoon, however, the statues were in a calmer pose. The horses were standing outside the building, as if they were waiting patiently for someone to emerge. The human figures were separated, each with its own dog. The dogs were sniffing the foliage near them. Some kind of bird burst out of a nearby shrub. If the bird hadn't been motionless, Nyquist would have thought it was real.
The breeze had died down, leaving him feeling unusually hot. He wiped his forehead, still shocked to find it smooth. Just a month ago, he still had scars. He pulled his coat around him, straightened his shoulders, and walked up the real marble stairs to the oversized wooden doors.
They didn't swing open for him as they had done for DeRicci that day during lunch. Instead, a cultured voice with an accent he almost recognized told him to state his name and his business.
Instead of doing that, he pressed his fist against the door-jamb, informing the club's system of his name, his identification, and his official purpose without saying a word.
The doors swung open, revealing darkness beyond. He stepped inside, blinking quickly so that his eyes would adjust. As he did, a woman approached. She wore a knee-length skirt, a silk blouse, and had a cardigan tied around her neck.
It was almost as if she had been sculpted to resemble the oddly athletic but st.u.r.dy women from the paintings.
”Detective Nyquist,” she began in that same weird accent. ”I'm-” ”I'm here to see whoever is in charge,” he said. ”It's urgent.” ”I'm sure we'll get to everything in due time,” the woman said. ”Nothing-”
”You have two dead bodies in your forest. The forest's programming is disrupting our investigation. Unless you people want the club's management to be indicted for conspiracy to conceal evidence in a felony investigation, you will take me to whoever is in charge immediately.”
The woman's mouth was still open, as if she couldn't close it until she completed her thought. Finally she did shut her mouth, and she nodded.
”You'll want to see Director Jaeger. He's in his study.” She spun on her flat shoes as if they were designed for that, then marched down the carpeted hallway.
Nyquist followed, feeling more and more uncomfortable. The dark wood walls were covered with two-dimensional reproductions of those hunting scenes he remembered from school. The carpet was green and everything from the real potted plants to the upholstery was accented with a deep red.
The hall opened into a sitting area, complete with fire-place. A fire burned in it, and Nyquist hoped that the d.a.m.n thing was fake. He had no idea what kind of permits it would take to waste real wood and pollute the air in the dome the way that smoke from a real chimney would.
The woman swept her arm toward the couch in front of the fire. ”Director Jaeger will be with you in a moment.”
”It better be fast,” Nyquist said.
She nodded and disappeared through some more wooden doors.
Two large white dogs lay in front of the fire, and it took Nyquist a moment to realize that they weren't sculptures. The dogs watched him, their chins resting on their front paws, but their bodies were alert, as if they could attack at any moment.
He had encountered dogs only a few times in his life-the permits to keep domestic animals in Armstrong were prohibitively expensive-and he had never liked them. He always felt as if they were only seconds away from real violence.
”Detective Nyquist.”
Nyquist turned. A short man with a bald head was walking toward him, hand extended. ”I'm Edvard Jaeger. How may I help you?” ”By taking me somewhere private,” Nyquist said. ”This will be private enough. My a.s.sistant will put up screens.”
Nyquist hoped that would be enough. ”Two street cops came in here almost half an hour ago to request that you shut down every bit of equipment in the forest outside the club. Nothing has been shut off.”
Jaeger folded his small hands in front of the brown vest he wore over matching brown pants. Beneath the vest he wore a white s.h.i.+rt. The outfit, which was supposed to make him resemble the athletic men in the paintings, only served to show how small he was. ”That system as you call it is our security. We cannot shut it off without express permission of the board of directors.”
”Get it,” Nyquist said. ”Now.” ”Now.”
”I have put in a request,” Jaeger said. ”It may take as many as two days to get a response. Some of our board members aren't on the Moon-”
”I don't care,” Nyquist said. ”Shut it down now or the City of Armstrong will shut it down for you.” Jaeger reached into his breast pocket and removed a small plastic card. He handed it to Nyquist. ”These are our attorneys. Please take up any problems you have with them.”
Nyquist shoved the card into the pocket of his coat without looking at it. ”Have you ever heard of Ki Bowles, the investigative reporter?”
”Don't threaten, Detective. As I said, if you need to-”
”She's one of the dead people in your forest. This is going to be a media nightmare, and I'll make it worse, starting now, if you don't shut this whole thing down.”
Jaeger bit his lower lip. For the first time, he looked rattled. ”I'm afraid I don't have the authority-” ”Who does?”
”No one on the premises.”
”I don't care about the authority,” Nyquist said. ”Show me the system and I'll shut the d.a.m.n thing down.”
”You need codes and permissions and everything in the proper sequence. Otherwise it triggers the system and we go into lockdown. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I truly am unable to help you.”