Part 40 (1/2)
”This is interesting,” Damini said. ”Coffin hadn't been to the office in a week.”
”Since about when Morganti started investigating him. Or when he might have become aware that she was on his trail.”
Ferron said something sharp and self-critical and radically unprofessional. And then she said, ”I'm an idiot. Leakage.”
”Leakage?” Damini asked. ”You mean like when people can't stop talking about the crime they actually committed, or the person you're not supposed to know they're having an affair with?”
An urgent icon from Ferron's mausi Sandhya-the responsible auntie, not the fussy auntie-blinked insistently at the edge of her awareness. Oh G.o.ds, what now?
”Exactly like that,” Ferron said. ”Look, check on any hits for Coffin outside his flat in the past ten days. And I need confidential warrants for DNA a.n.a.lysis of the composters at the BioSh.e.l.l laboratory facility and also at Dr. Rao's apartment.”
”You think Rao killed him?” Damini didn't even try to hide her shock.
Blink, blink went the icon. Emergency. Code red. Your mother has gone beyond the pale, my dear. ”Just pull the warrants. I want to see what we get before I commit to my theory.”
”Why?” Indrapramit asked.
Ferron sighed. ”Because it's crazy. That's why. And see if you can get confidential access to Rao's calendar files and email. I don't want him to know you're looking.”
”Wait right there,” Damini said. ”Don't touch a thing. I'll be back before you know it.”
”Mother,” Ferron said to her mother's lion-maned G.o.ddess of an avatar, ”I'm sorry. Sandhya's sorry. We're all sorry. But we can't let you go on like this.”
It was the hardest thing she'd ever said.
Her mother, wearing Sekhmet's golden eyes, looked at Ferron's avatar and curled a lip. Ferron had come in, not in a uniform avatar, but wearing the battle-scarred armor she used to play in when she was younger, when she and her mother would spend hours Atavistic. That was during her schooling, before she got interested in stopping-or at least avenging-real misery.
Was that fair? Her mother's misery was real. So was that of Jessica Fang's abandoned daughter. And this was a palliative-against being widowed, against being bedridden.
Madhuvanthi's lip-curl slowly blossomed into a snarl. ”Of course. You can let them destroy this. Take away everything I am. It's not like it's murder.”
”Mother,” Ferron said, ”it's not real.”
”If it isn't,” her mother said, gesturing around the room, ”what is, then? I made you. I gave you life. You owe me this. Sandhya said you came home with one of those new parrot cats. Where'd the money for that come from?”
”Chairman Miaow,” Ferron said, ”is evidence. And reproduction is an ultimately sociopathic act, no matter what I owe you.”
Madhuvanthi sighed. ”Daughter, come on one last run.”
”You'll have your own memories of all this,” Ferron said. ”What do you need the archive for?”
”Memory,” her mother scoffed. ”What's memory, Tamanna? What do you actually remember? Sc.r.a.ps, conflations. How does it compare to being able to relive?”
To relive it, Ferron thought, you'd have to have lived it in the first place. But even teetering on the edge of fatigue and crash, she had the sense to keep that to herself.
”Have you heard about the star?” she asked. Anything to change the subject. ”The one the aliens are using to talk to us?”
”The light's four million years old,” Madhuvanthi said. ”They're all dead. Look, there's a new manifest synesthesia show. Roman and Egyptian. Something for both of us. If you won't come on an adventure with me, will you at least come to an art show? I promise I'll never ask you for archive money again. Just come to this one thing with me? And I promise I'll prune my archive starting tomorrow.”
The lioness's brow was wrinkled. Madhuvanthi's voice was thin with defeat. There was no more money, and she knew it. But she couldn't stop bargaining. And the art show was a concession, something that evoked the time they used to spend together, in these imaginary worlds.
”Ferron,” she said. Pleading. ”Just let me do it myself.”
Ferron. They weren't really communicating. Nothing was won. Her mother was doing what addicts always did when confronted-delaying, bargaining, buying time. But she'd call her daughter Ferron if it might buy her another twenty-four hours in her virtual paradise.
”I'll come,” Ferron said. ”But not until tonight. I have some work to do.”
”Boss. How did you know to look for that DNA?” Damini asked, when Ferron activated her icon.
”Tell me what you found,” Ferron countered.
”DNA in the BioSh.e.l.l composter that matches that of Chairman Miaow,” she said, ”and therefore that of Dexter Coffin's cat. And the composter of Rao's building is just full of his DNA. Rao's. Much, much more than you'd expect. Also, some of his email and calendar data has been purged. I'm attempting to reconstruct-”
”Have it for the chargesheet,” Ferron said. ”I bet it'll show he had a meeting with Coffin the night Coffin vanished.”
Dr. Rao lived not in an aptblock, even an upscale one, but in the Vertical City. Once Damini returned with the results of the warrants, Ferron got her paperwork in order for the visit. It was well after nightfall by the time she and Indrapramit, accompanied by Detective Morganti and four patrol officers, went to confront him.
They entered past shops and the vertical farm in the enormous tower's atrium. The air smelled green and healthy, and even at this hour of the night, people moved in steady streams towards the dining areas, across lush green carpets.
A lift bore the police officers effortlessly upward, revealing the lights of Bengaluru spread out below through a transparent exterior wall. Ferron looked at Indrapramit and pursed her lips. He raised his eyebrows in reply. Conspicuous consumption. But they couldn't very well hold it against Rao now.
They left the Morganti and the patrol officers covering the exit and presented themselves at Dr. Rao's door.
”Open,” Ferron said formally, presenting her warrant. ”In the name of the law.”
The door slid open, and Ferron and Indrapramit entered cautiously.
The flat's resident must have triggered the door remotely, because he sat at his ease on furniture set as a chaise. A gray cat with red ear-tips crouched by his knee, rubbing the side of its face against his trousers.
”New!” said the cat. ”New people! Namaskar! It's almost time for tiffin.”
”Dexter Coffin,” Ferron said to the tall, thin man. ”You are under arrest for the murder of Dr. Rao.”
As they entered the lift and allowed it to carry them down the external wall of the Vertical City, Coffin standing in restraints between two of the patrol officers, Morganti said, ”So. If I understand this properly, you- Coffin-actually killed Rao to a.s.sume his ident.i.ty? Because you knew you were well and truly burned this time?”
Not even a flicker of his eyes indicated that he'd heard her.
Morganti sighed and turned her attention to Ferron. ”What gave you the clue?”
”The scotophobin,” Ferron said. Coffin's cat, in her new livery of gray and red, miaowed plaintively in a carrier. ”He didn't have memory issues. He was using it to cram Rao's life story and eccentricities so he wouldn't trip himself up.”
Morganti asked, ”But why liquidate his a.s.sets? Why not take them with him?” She glanced over her shoulder. ”Pardon me for speaking about you as if you were a statue, Dr. Fang. But you're doing such a good impression of one.”
It was Indrapramit who gestured at the Vertical City rising at their backs. ”Rao wasn't wanting for a.s.sets.”
Ferron nodded. ”Would you have believed he was dead if you couldn't find the money? Besides, if his debt-or some of it-was recovered, Honolulu would have less reason to keep looking for him.”
”So it was a misdirect. Like the frame job around Dr. Nnebuogar and the table set for two ... ?”
Her voice trailed off as a stark blue-white light cast knife-edged shadows across her face. Something blazed in the night sky, something as stark and brilliant as a dawning sun-but cold, as cold as light can be. As cold as a reflection in a mirror.