Page 150 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

accomplished something on my own. Like putting another Simulian
behind bars.
“I can’t make sense of events from what I’ve read here. Let’s go
over it together.”
Well, that was the end of my little bid for totally independent glory.
But I had to satisfy my curiosity first. “Lieutenant,” I asked—it didn’t
make any difference what I called her, but I knew she preferred the
title—“why are you back so soon? Did the program finish ahead of
time?”
She looked at me instead of the report. A thousand times I had
met those penetrating green eyes directly: I still couldn’t help
flinching, even infinitesimally. Once in a while that inhuman scrutiny
was worth it, just to be acknowledged as an object of interest rather
than a familiar piece of furniture.
“It was canceled after the lead instructor sustained injuries in a
training exercise.”
I didn’t need to pursue it. No doubt I would get the barely-
exaggerated account within a few days from other officers at the
conference of how some martial arts hotshot had ill-advisedly picked
Labelle to act as assailant in a demonstration of hand-to-hand
combat. Her graying temples were deceptive. Maybe that was why
she never dyed her hair—not the total absence of any female vanity.
“Now, back to this case: with four murders in four weeks you
might have called me. Saint Thomas is accessible by telephone, and I
did leave you the number where I was staying.”
“Sorry.” Better an insincere expression of contrition than an
excuse which, regardless of ingenuity and plausibility, would soon
have its shortcomings exposed by this implacable bloodhound.
Anyway, my problem was really Captain Nimeau and the rest of the
departmental brass. They had to take pity on me sooner or later,
right?
“Why weren’t more steps taken to protect the other jurors after the
first one was killed?”
“Resources.” On this I had official sanction. “Only four Simulians
to keep tabs on, and a lot more remaining jurors. But you will see
from my notes that I established after the fact where each of the
possible victims had been at the time of the murders. I did that to
determine whether or not the Simulians had been stalking them, to

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