Artemis

“You’ll have to excuse the constable,” Ngugi said to me. “We don’t see eye-to-eye on everything.”

“If you’d stop coddling criminals like Jazz, we’d get along better.”

She waved her hand as if shooing a bug. “Every city needs an underbelly. It’s best to let the petty criminals do their thing and focus on bigger issues.”

I grinned. “You heard the lady. And I’m the pettiest of them all. So lemme go.”

Rudy shook his head. “The administrator’s authority over me is questionable at best. I work directly for KSC. And you’re going nowhere.”

Ngugi walked over to the air shelter and peeked through the window. “So this is our murderer?”

“Yes,” said Rudy. “And if you hadn’t spent the last decade hampering my attempts to drive out organized crime, those murders wouldn’t have happened.”

“We’ve been through this, Constable. Artemis wouldn’t exist without syndicate money. Idealism doesn’t put Gunk on people’s plates.” She turned to face Rudy. “Did the suspect have anything to say?”

?

??He refuses to answer questions. He wouldn’t even tell me his name—but according to his Gizmo, his name is Marcelo Alvarez and he’s a ‘freelance accounting consultant.’?”

“I see. How sure are you that this is the man?”

Rudy turned his computer to face Ngugi. The screen showed medical lab results. “Doc Roussel dropped by earlier and got a blood sample from him. She says it matches the blood found at the crime scene. Also, the wound on his arm is consistent with the knife Irina Vetrov had in her hand.”

“The blood DNA matched?” Ngugi said.

“Roussel doesn’t have a crime lab. She compared blood type and enzyme concentrations—they matched. If we want a DNA comparison we’ll have to send samples to Earth. It’ll take at least two weeks.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ngugi said. “We only need enough evidence to warrant a trial, not to convict him.”

“Hey!” Jin Chu interjected. “Excuse me! I demand to be released!”

Rudy squirted him with the bottle.

“Who is this man?” Ngugi asked.

“Jin Chu from Hong Kong,” Rudy said. “Couldn’t find any record of where he works and he isn’t forthcoming about it. He set a trap so Alvarez could kill Bashara, but claims he did it under duress. Alvarez was going to kill him if he didn’t.”

“We can hardly blame him for that,” she said.

“Finally! Someone with common sense!” Jin said.

“Deport him to China,” said Ngugi.

“Wait, what?” Jin said. “You can’t do that!”

“Of course I can,” she said. “You were complicit in a plot to murder someone. Coerced or not, you’re not welcome here.”

He opened his mouth to protest again and Rudy pointed the squirt bottle at him. He thought better of it.

Ngugi sighed and shook her head. “This is troubling. Very troubling. You and I…we’re not friends. But neither of us wants murder in our city.”

“On that, at least, we agree.”

“And this is new.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “We’ve had murders before, but it’s always been a jealous lover, an angry spouse, or a drunken brawl. This was professional. I don’t like it.”

“Was your gentle hand with petty crime worth it?” Rudy asked.

“That’s not fair.” She shook off the gloom. “One thing at a time. There’s a meatship launching today for the Gordon cycler. I want Mr. Jin on it. Deport to Hong Kong with no legal complaints. Hang on to Mr. Alvarez for now. We need to collate the evidence for the courts in…where’s he going?”