03-Flatlander Page 16

  “What about his taxi?” Porter was hot on the scent. “Maybe the killer just waited till that taxi got here, then took it somewhere else when Steeves finished with it.”

  “It left immediately after Steeves had stepped out. He had a taxi clicker if he wanted another. The cameras were on it the entire time it was on the roof.” Ordaz paused. “You see the problem?”

  Apparently Porter did. He ran both hands through his white-blond hair. “I think we ought to put off discussing it until we know more.”

  He meant Janice. Janice looked puzzled; she hadn’t caught on. But Ordaz nodded at once and stood up. “Very well. There is no reason Miss Sinclair cannot go on living here. We may have to bother you again,” he told her. “For now, our condolences.”

  He made his exit. I trailed along. So, unexpectedly, did Drew Porter. At the top of the stairs he stopped Ordaz with a big hand around the inspector’s upper arm. “You’re thinking Janice did it, aren’t you?”

  Ordaz sighed. “I must consider the possibility.”

  “She didn’t have any reason. She loved Uncle Ray. She’s lived with him on and off these past twelve years. She hasn’t got the slightest reason to kill him.”

  “Is there no inheritance?”

  His expression went sour. “All right, yes, she’ll have some money coming. But Janice wouldn’t care about anything like that!”

  “Ye-es. Still, what choice have I? Everything we now know tells us that the killer could not have left the scene of the killing. We searched the premises immediately. There was only Janice Sinclair and her murdered uncle.”

  Porter bit back an answer, chewed it … He must have been tempted. Amateur detective, one step ahead of the police all the way. Yes, Watson, these gendarmes have a talent for missing the obvious … But he had too much to lose. Porter said, “And the maintenance man. Steeves.”

  Ordaz lifted one eyebrow. “Yes, of course. We shall have to investigate Mr. Steeves.”

  “How did he get that call from, uh, 36A? Bedside phone or pocket phone? Maybe he was already on the roof.”

  “I don’t remember what he said. But we have pictures of his taxi landing.”

  “He had a taxi clicker. He could have just called it down.”

  “One more thing,” I said, and Porter looked at me hopefully. “Porter, the elevator wouldn’t take anyone up unless they were on its list.”

  “Or unless Uncle Ray buzzed down. There’s an intercom in the lobby. But at that time of night he probably wouldn’t let anyone up unless he was expecting him.”

  “So if Sinclair was expecting a business associate, he or she was probably in the tape. How about going down? Would the elevator take you down to the lobby if you weren’t in the tape?”

  “I’d … think so.”

  “It would,” Ordaz said. “The elevator screens entrances, not departures.”

  “Then why didn’t the killer use it? I don’t mean Steeves necessarily. I mean anyone, whoever it might have been. Why didn’t he just go down in the elevator? Whatever he did do, that had to be easier.”

  They looked at each other, but they didn’t say anything.

  “Okay.” I turned to Ordaz. “When you check out the people in the tape, see if any of them shows a damaged arm. The killer might have pulled the same stunt Janice did: ruined her arm trying to turn off the generator. And I’d like a look at who’s in that tape.”

  “Very well,” Ordaz said, and we moved toward the squad car under the carport. We were out of earshot when he added, “How does the ARM come into this, Mr. Hamilton? Why your interest in the murder aspect of this case?”

  I told him what I’d told Bera: that Sinclair’s killer might be the only living expert on Sinclair’s time machine. Ordaz nodded. What he’d really wanted to know was: Could I justify giving orders to the Los Angeles Police Department in a local matter? And I had answered yes.

  The rather simple-minded security system in Sinclair’s elevator had been built to remember the thumbprints and the facial bone structures (which it scanned by deep radar, thus avoiding the problems raised by changing beard styles and masquerade parties) of up to a hundred people. Most people know about a hundred people, plus or minus ten or so. But Sinclair had only listed a dozen, including himself.

  RAYMOND SINCLAIR

  ANDREW PORTER

  JANICE SINCLAIR

  EDWARD SINCLAIR, SR.

  EDWARD SINCLAIR III

  HANS DRUCKER

  GEORGE STEEVES

  PAULINE URTHIEL

  BERNATH PETERFI

  LAWRENCE MUHAMMAD ECKS

  BERTHA HALL MURIEL SANDUSKY

  Valpredo had been busy. He’d been using the police car and its phone setup as an office while he guarded the roof. “We know who some of these are,” he said. “Edward Sinclair Third, for instance, is Edward Senior’s grandson, Janice’s brother. He’s in the Belt, in Ceres, making something of a name for himself as an industrial designer. Edward Senior is Raymond’s brother. He lives in Kansas City. Hans Drucker and Bertha Hall and Muriel Sandusky all live in the Greater Los Angeles area; we don’t know what their connection with Sinclair is. Pauline Urthiel and Bernath Peterfi are technicians of sorts. Ecks is Sinclair’s patent attorney.”

  “I suppose we can interview Edward Third by phone.” Ordaz made a face. A phone call to the Belt wasn’t cheap. “These others—”

  I said, “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “Send me along with whoever interviews Ecks and Peterfi and Urthiel. They probably knew Sinclair in a business sense, and having an ARM along will give you a little more clout to ask a little more detailed questions.”

  “I could take those assignments,” Valpredo volunteered.

  “Very well.” Ordaz still looked unhappy. “If this list were exhaustive, I would be grateful. What if Doctor Sinclair’s visitor simply used the intercom in the lobby and asked to be let in?”

  * * *

  Bernath Peterfi wasn’t answering his phone.

  We got Pauline Urthiel via her pocket phone. A brusque contralto voice, no picture. We’d like to talk to her in connection with a murder investigation; would she be at home this afternoon? No. She was lecturing that afternoon but would be home around six.

  Ecks answered dripping wet and not smiling. So sorry to get you out of a shower, Mr. Ecks. We’d like to talk to you in connection with a murder investigation.

  “Sure, come on over. Who’s dead?”

  Valpredo told him.

  “Sinclair? Ray Sinclair? You’re sure?”

  We were.

  “Oh, lord. Listen, he was working on something important. An interstellar drive, if it works out. If there’s any possibility of salvaging the hardware—”

  I reassured him and hung up. If Sinclair’s patent attorney thought it was a star drive … maybe it was.

  “Doesn’t sound like he’s trying to steal it,” Valpredo said.

  “No. And even if he’d got the thing, he couldn’t have claimed it was his. If he’s the killer, that’s not what he was after.”

  We were moving at high speed, police-car speed. The car was on automatic, of course, but it could need manual override at any instant. Valpredo concentrated on the passing scenery and spoke without looking at me.

  “You know, you and the detective-inspector aren’t looking for the same thing.”

  “I know. I’m looking for a hypothetical killer. Julio’s looking for a hypothetical visitor. It could be tough to prove there wasn’t one, but if Porter and the girl were telling the truth, maybe Julio can prove the visitor didn’t do it.”

  “Which would leave the girl,” he said.

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Nobody’s. All I’ve got is interesting questions.” He looked at me sideways. “But you’re pretty sure the girl didn’t do it.”

  “Yah.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I don’t think she’s got the brains. It wasn’t a
simple killing.”

  “She’s Sinclair’s niece. She can’t be a complete idiot.”

  “Heredity doesn’t work that way. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe it’s her arm. She’s lost an arm; she’s got enough to worry about.” And I borrowed the car phone to dig into records in the ARM computer.

  PAULINE URTHIEL. Born Paul Urthiel. Ph.D. in plasma physics, University of California at Irvine. Sex change and legal name change, 2111. Six years ago she’d been in competition for a Nobel prize for research into the charge suppression effect in the Slaver disintegrator. Height: 5′ 9″. Weight: 135. Married Lawrence Muhammad Ecks, 2117. Had kept her (loosely speaking) maiden name. Separate residences.

  BERNATH PETERFI. Ph.D. in subatomics and related fields, MIT. Diabetic. Height: 5′ 8″. Weight: 145. Application for exemption to the Fertility Laws denied, 2119. Married 2118, divorced 2122. Lived alone.

  LAWRENCE MUHAMMAD ECKS. Master’s degree in physics. Member of the bar. Height: 6′ 1″ Weight: 190. Artificial left arm. Vice president, CET (Committee to End Transplants).

  Valpredo said: “Funny how the human arm keeps cropping up in this case.”

  “Yah.” Including one human ARM who didn’t really belong there. “Ecks has a master’s. Maybe he could have talked people into thinking the generator was his. Or maybe he thought he could.”

  “He didn’t try to snow us”

  “Suppose he blew it last night? He wouldn’t necessarily want the generator lost to humanity, now, would he?”

  “How did he get out?”

  I didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Ecks lived in a tapering tower almost a mile high. At one time Lindstetter’s Needle must have been the biggest thing ever built, before they started with the arcologies. We landed on a pad a third of the way up, then took a drop shaft ten floors down.

  He was dressed when he answered the door in blazing yellow pants and a net shirt. His skin was very dark, and his hair was a puffy black dandelion with threads of gray in it. On the phone screen I hadn’t been able to tell which arm was which, and I couldn’t now. He invited us in, sat down, and waited for the questions.

  Where was he last night? Could he produce an alibi? It would help us considerably.

  “Sorry, nope. I spent the night going through a rather tricky case. You wouldn’t appreciate the details.”

  I told him I would. He said, “Actually, it involves Edward Sinclair—Ray’s great-nephew. He’s a Belt immigrant, and he’s done an industrial design that could be adapted to Earth. Swivel for a chemical rocket motor. The trouble is, it’s not that different from existing designs, it’s just better. His Belt patent is good, but the UN laws are different. You wouldn’t believe the legal tangles.”

  “Is he likely to lose out?”

  “No, it just might get sticky if a firm called FireStorm decides to fight the case. I want to be ready for that. In a pinch I might even have to call the kid back to Earth. I’d hate to do that, though. He’s got a heart condition.”

  Had he made any phone calls, say, to a computer, during his night of research?

  Ecks brightened instantly. “Oh, sure. Constantly, all night. Okay, I’ve got an alibi.”

  No point in telling him that such calls could have been made from anywhere. Valpredo asked, “Do you have any idea where your wife was last night?”

  “No, we don’t live together. She lives three hundred stories over my head. We’ve got an open marriage … maybe too open,” he added wistfully.

  There seemed a good chance that Raymond Sinclair was expecting a visitor last night. Did Ecks have any idea—?

  “He knew a couple of women,” Ecks said. “You might ask them. Bertha Hall is about eighty, about Ray’s age. She’s not too bright, not by Ray’s standards, but she’s as much of a physical fitness nut as he is. They go backpacking, play tennis, maybe sleep together, maybe not. I can give you her address. Then there’s Muriel something. He had a crush on her a few years ago. She’d be thirty now. I don’t know if they still see each other or not.”

  Did Sinclair know other women?

  Ecks shrugged.

  Who did he know professionally?

  “Oh, lord, that’s an endless list. Do you know anything about the way Ray worked?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “He used computer setups mostly. Any experiment in his field was likely to cost millions or more. What he was good at was setting up a computer analogue of an experiment that would tell him what he wanted to know. Take, oh … I’m sure you’ve heard of the Sinclair molecule chain.”

  Hell, yes. We used it for towing in the Belt; nothing else was light enough and strong enough. A loop of it was nearly invisibly fine, but it would cut steel.

  “He didn’t start working with chemicals until he was practically finished. He told me he spent four years doing molecular designs by computer analogue. The tough part was the ends of the molecule chain. Until he got that, the chain would start disintegrating from the end points the minute you finished making it. When he finally had what he wanted, he hired an industrial chemical lab to make it for him.

  “That’s what I’m getting at,” Ecks continued. “He hired other people to do the concrete stuff once he knew what he had. And the people he hired had to know what they were doing. He knew the top physicists and chemists and field theorists everywhere on Earth and in the Belt.”

  Like Pauline? Like Bernath Peterfi?

  “Yah, Pauline did some work for him once. I don’t think she’d do it again. She didn’t like having to give him all the credit She’d rather work for herself. I don’t blame her.”

  Could he think of anyone who might want to murder Raymond Sinclair?

  Ecks shrugged. “I’d say that was your job. Ray never liked splitting the credit with anyone. Maybe someone he worked with nursed a grudge. Or maybe someone was trying to steal this latest project of his. Mind you, I don’t know much about what he was trying to do, but if it worked, it would have been fantastically valuable, and not just in money.”

  Valpredo was making noises like he was about finished. I said, “Do you mind if I ask a personal question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Your arm. How’d you lose it?”

  “Born without it. Nothing in my genes, just a bad prenatal situation. I came out with an arm and a turkey wishbone. By the time I was old enough for a transplant, I knew I didn’t want one. You want the standard speech?”

  “No, thanks, but I’m wondering how good your artificial arm is. I’m carrying a transplant myself.”

  Ecks looked me over carefully for signs of moral degeneration. “I suppose you’re also one of those people who keep voting the death penalty for more and more trivial offenses?”

  “No, I—”

  “After all, if the organ banks ran out of criminals, you’d be in trouble. You might have to live with your mistakes.”

  “No, I’m one of those people who blocked the second corpsicle law, kept that group from going into the organ banks. And I hunt organleggers for a living. But I don’t have an artificial arm, and I suppose the reason is that I’m squeamish.”

  “Squeamish about being part mechanical? I’ve heard of that,” Ecks said. “But you can be squeamish the other way, too. What there is of me is all me, not part of a dead man. I’ll admit the sense of touch isn’t quite the same, but it’s just as good. And—look.”

  He put a hand on my upper forearm and squeezed.

  It felt like the bones were about to give. I didn’t scream, but it took an effort. “That isn’t all my strength,” he said. “And I could keep it up all day. This arm doesn’t get tired.”

  He let go.

  I asked if he would mind my examining his arms. He didn’t. But then, Ecks didn’t know about my imaginary hand.

  I probed the advanced plastics of Ecks’s false arm, the bone and muscle structure of the other. It was the real arm I was interested in.

  When we were back in the car, Valpredo said, “Well?”

  “
Nothing wrong with his real arm,” I said. “No scars.”

  Valpredo nodded.

  But the bubble of accelerated time wouldn’t hurt plastic and batteries, I thought. And if he’d been planning to lower fifty pounds of generator two stories down on a nylon line, his artificial arm had the strength for it.

  We called Peterfi from the car. He was in. He was a small man, dark-complected, mild of face, his hair straight and shiny black around a receding hairline. His eyes blinked and squinted as if the light were too bright, and he had the scruffy look of a man who has slept in his clothes. I wondered if we had interrupted an afternoon nap.

  Yes, he would be glad to help the police in a murder investigation.

  Peterfi’s condominium was a slab of glass and concrete set on a Santa Monica cliff face. His apartment faced the sea. “Expensive, but worth it for the view,” he said, showing us to chairs in the living room. The drapes were closed against the afternoon sun. Peterfi had changed clothes. I noticed the bulge in his upper left sleeve where an insulin capsule and automatic feeder had been anchored to the bone of the arm.

  “Well, what can I do for you? I don’t believe you mentioned who had been murdered.”

  Valpredo told him.

  He was shocked. “Oh, my. Ray Sinclair. But there’s no telling how this will affect—” and he stopped suddenly.

  “Please go on,” said Valpredo.

  “We were working on something together. Something revolutionary.”

  An interstellar drive?

  He was startled. He debated with himself, then said, “Yes. It was supposed to be secret.”

  We admitted to having seen the machine in action. How did a time compression field serve as an interstellar drive?

  “That’s not exactly what it is,” Peterfi said. Again he debated with himself. Then, “There have always been a few optimists around who thought that just because mass and inertia have always been associated in human experience, it need not be a universal law. What Ray and I have done is to create a condition of low inertia. You see—”

  “An inertialess drive!”

  Peterfi nodded vigorously at me. “Essentially yes. Is the machine intact? If not—”