I grinned. “Not really. They just should have been.”
No laugh, not even a smile. “You knew Dr. Fevre.”
“Slightly. I’ve met him and spoken to him.”
She watched her driving, not looking at me. “Did you like him?”
I had to think that over. “I admired him. If I’d gotten to know him better, I might have liked him.”
“But you don’t think so. Why not?”
“You had to know him.”
“Which you did, a little. Why didn’t you like him?”
“He’s not alive to defend himself. Can’t we talk about something else?”
“Not now, Smithe. Why didn’t you like him?”
I said, “Suppose you were to show me a forest I’d never seen before.” I didn’t have to think about it.
For a moment the lady cop turned to look at me. Then she said, “My name’s Katrine Turner, Mr. Smithe. Do you want my badge number?”
I said it was a pleasure, and the number wasn’t necessary.
“Now tell me about your forest.”
“I’d look it over and think about hiking and fishing. Maybe hunting. Sitting under a tree, reading poetry and listening to a brook. Dr. Fevre would look it over and think about lumber.”
Katrine was quiet for a few seconds. Then she said, “I never knew a library reference would be so much fun to talk to.”
It was a compliment worth filing away for the dark hours. I said, “I never knew a policewoman could be such a charming friend.”
“Thanks, you win. Will you help with my investigation? You ought to, after that.”
I was tempted to say that since she was fully human and I wasn’t I’d have to. It was true, but it would’ve taken us into territory I didn’t want to visit; so I substituted, “All I can, certainly. How can I be of help?”
“You weren’t there when Dr. Fevre was killed. Correct?”
I nodded. “Correct. I was sitting on a shelf in that rather unpleasant library.”
“Would you have killed him if you could? Honestly now. Lies won’t help me.”
“No. I would not.”
“Why not?”
“For a long list of reasons. How many do you want?”
“What’s number one?”
“I’m a reclone. Dr. Fevre was fully human. If the authorities—that’s you, among a million others—so much as suspected I had killed him, I’d be burned.”
“Let’s have more.”
“Killing him would be morally wrong. Maybe I should have led with that one. I have no right to make private judgments or perform private executions. Third, I had nothing to gain by his death. Fourth, he had never harmed me or even insulted me. Is that enough?”
“Not quite.”
Polly’s Cove was some distance behind us now. Pastures held little fawn dots I decided were dairy cattle. Most of the houses had pointed towers and big featureless buildings that were probably silos and barns. I wondered where we were going, but this seemed like a bad time to ask.
I said, “On top of the reasons I’ve already given, his daughter, Chandra, had checked me out. She did it as her mother’s surrogate, but I felt that she was my patron. The law would say she wasn’t, but that was how I felt. Legally I’d be killing my patron’s husband. Emotionally I’d be killing my patron’s father.”
“Go on.”
“Dr. Fevre had checked out two of my friends, Millie Baumgartner and Rose Romain. Naturally they were deeply grateful; we always are when anybody checks us out. They would’ve spoken well of me, just as I speak well of them. Dr. Fevre and I were acquainted, and so on; there seemed to be a pretty good chance that he might check me out someday. We’re burned when there isn’t any reader demand for us. Do you know about that?”
Continental Turner nodded. “It must be a hell of a way to live.”
“You get used to it,” I told her.
We were silent after that, while I reflected that a Continental cop was at least as likely to be shot as I was to be burned. That must be a hell of a way to live, too.
15
STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE
For the first few kilometers, I thought we were on our way to police headquarters in Polly’s Cove. When we finally got to where we were going, it turned out to be a cluster of gray buildings surrounded by a high concrete wall. Wide steel gates half opened to let us in, and shut behind us fast and with a solid clang. The silence that followed made me think there might be no prisoners and for that matter no guards. In a room on the top floor of a building without windows I was told to sit in a machine with half a dozen dials and a big screen I couldn’t watch. A helmet was positioned on my head and I got quizzed all over again, this time by a little man with rimless glasses. I told him the same things I had already told Katrine Turner. They didn’t satisfy him, and after a while I got the feeling that nothing ever would.
It was already pretty dark when I was brought back to Katrine and her ebony groundcar. It had seemed to me that the examination went on forever; it must have been six or seven hours really. “I’m supposed to bring you back to the house where I picked you up,” Katrine told me. “Would you rather go someplace else?”
I said yes, that I’d rather go where I belonged, which was the Spice Grove Public Library.
“I can’t go that far, but I’ll talk to the people in Polly’s Cove about you.”
I thanked her. Coming from a Continental cop it was bound to do some good.
“Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever asked your opinion, Smithe. Who do you think murdered Dr. Fevre?”
“I don’t think, I know.” I sort of braced myself, feeling pretty sure she wouldn’t believe it and I might get slapped around for saying it. Being a library reference can be tough. Trust me, it often is.
“A big guy in a pointed helmet with feathers and gadgets on it,” I said. “He came out of a side passage on my floor. I’ve gone down that a little way and tried to open some of the doors—there must be a dozen of them—but all those I tried were locked.” I shut up for a minute, thinking and wondering whether she’d believe me. “I’d never seen the big guy before, and I haven’t seen him since. But I know damned well he did it.”
When I’d finished, she wanted to know if I’d used tools on the doors, an axe or something like that. I said no. What good would it do? Just make the big guy mad at me, and we knew he’d kill.
“Could you show me the passage?”
I tried to say sure. You know how that came out.
“If the doors won’t open, you and I will force one.”
Which is pretty much what we did.
Saying it like that makes it sound simple and easy, but it wasn’t. In the first place, I did just about all the work while she supervised. In the second, I had to scare up—or get her to buy—my tools. By the time we had the first door open, I had a pry-bar, a drill, an axe, and some other stuff. The first two I got out of the tool chest on the boat. The rest I had to buy with Katrine’s money. When she said she was sorry the door was so tough, I told her that the last door like this I’d seen was steel. This wood was hard and thick and bound with iron straps, but steel would have been a ton worse.