“Shit,” Laughton said, pulling off his mask as they exited the hospital. “I should probably see the commissioner.”
“The secretary promised it won’t be long.”
“She better not be. Our job is policing, not politics,” Jesse said.
“Most of the time,” Kir said, “it’s the same thing.”
* * *
The Charleston Police Department’s headquarters was across the street from a small riverside park. Metal posts placed at equal distances lined a paved walk. The grass was well tended, the few trees wearing young leaves. Across the water, rows of small, probably no longer owned yachts were anchored along a pier, sun bleached, algaed, and barnacled, but from this side of the river, white and grand, and suggestive of freedom and money. Beyond that, a gray skyline described the city of the distant shore. If you were in lockup and lucky enough to be on the right side of the building, the view must have made the stay more bearable. It was probably prisoners who did the park’s grounds keeping, after all.
The headquarters looked like the kind of high school they had built eighty or ninety years ago, red brick stained black with grime, opaque green glass windows, concrete steps, and a later addition tacked on to the side, a tan brick building with a grid of small square windows. For a minute, Chief Laughton stood with the park on his left and headquarters on his right, looking from one to the other. The river was the promise of the preserve, the headquarters its reality.
“How come we only got a view of the highway from headquarters in Baltimore?” Laughton said to Kir.
“We were only five minutes from the water.”
“And how often did we walk over to the water? Oh, never.”
“It’s not my fault you were unimaginative.”
“How about we just go sit on a bench for a little while?”
“You do that,” Kir said.
Then Jesse’s phone buzzed. “And the phone again.” He pulled it out.
There was an older message that he must have missed at some point. Mathews letting him know that the tech people had arrived at the hackers’ house, and that the robots had taken off when they saw the other cops show up.
The new notification was an email from Moira with Smythe’s clinical record. The hacker had seen three women over the past nine months. Two only once each right when the clinic opened, and then a woman named Nancy Enright, once a week for the last few months. He wondered how Miss Enright was handling Carl’s death. He held the phone out so Kir could see. “Smythe had a lover,” he said.
“Good to hear.”
“Let’s go,” Laughton said. “I don’t want to waste any more time here than I have to.”
Inside, headquarters had a similar vibe to the hospital, large and impersonal. Many people were on their way out, the day over for them. The commissioner sent a uniform down to escort Laughton and Kir to his office. The nametag pinned on the uniform’s shirt read “A. Knightly.” He was maybe twenty years old, clean-shaven, and sported close-cropped hair. He walked with his eyes straight ahead in such a way that Laughton knew he was using all his willpower to not look in the chief’s or Kir’s direction. Was it Kir that was making the boy so nervous?
When they reached the commissioner’s office, Laughton said, “Thank you.”
Officer Knightly met his eyes. “You’re welcome. Anything you need.”
Laughton saw what he had taken to be nerves was actually admiration. He couldn’t understand why.
The commissioner was sitting at his desk with his eyes closed. There was a flutter in his lower lip that belied the appearance of calm. But it was the woman sitting in the chair in front of the commissioner’s desk that commanded Laughton’s attention. Grace Pattermann. Laughton had seen her on the news countless times. Seeing her in person was unreal. Small and compact as she was, she seemed bigger than anyone else in the room.
“Gentlemen,” she said by way of greeting.
The commissioner took three deep breaths, then opened his eyes. “Five minutes of regular breathing and I feel refreshed.”
“Good for you.” Laughton genuinely meant the comment, but he could see the commissioner took it as sarcasm.
“You should try it,” he said.
Maybe I should, Laughton thought.
“Madam Secretary,” Kir said.
She held up her hand. “I know you both know what’s at stake here today,” the secretary said. “But I want you to understand how dire the situation actually is. Brandis has asked the president to bring army forces onto the preserve.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Laughton said.
Secretary’s lower eyelids tense, lips tighten—mild anger
Kir put a silencing hand on Laughton’s shoulder.
“It is ridiculous, Chief Laughton. A single murder is not civil unrest, but Brandis is trying to blow this murder out of proportion. He can’t decide if he should claim it’s part of a sims war or if it’s just evidence of humans’ natural violence.”
“What’s the president said?” Kir said.
“He’s using caution, but if more robots die from this bad sim and it really did come from the preserve, then he won’t be able to be cautious much longer.”
“So, first,” the commissioner said. “Is it?”
“Is it what?” Laughton said.
“Is it tied to this bad sim, killer app, whatever?”
Laughton looked from one to the other. Would it be better to equivocate? It was all speculation right now. Just because the victim could have been the creator of the killer app didn’t mean he was. They had no evidence one way or the other. “What’s better?” he said to Secretary Pattermann. “Forewarned or plausible deniability?”
“Deniability is always an option,” the secretary said, “regardless of what was actually known. That’s why it’s denial, and not definitive.”
“Then,” Chief Laughton said, “I think probably, yes, but…”
“Shit,” the commissioner said.
“No, I needed to know that,” the secretary said. “It will make it more difficult, but at least I can plan for it.”
“Plan to have robots swarming all over the place,” the commissioner said. “I can barely keep the feds off us about the sims coming out of the preserve, as if there was really any way to control it and I don’t have a million other things to worry about.”
“A murder was going to be a lightning rod no matter the circumstances,” Secretary Pattermann said.
“Not if it was a simple domestic, and we had the man in jail within the hour.”
Laughton felt that as a slam against him, the muscles in his shoulders seizing and his cheek throbbing.
“This does make it harder,” the secretary said.
“So where are we on this?” the commissioner said. “What did the ME say?”
“Taser hit the wiring for Smythe’s arm at close range with precision,” Kir answered.
“Does that mean anything?”
“No. Not really.”
“So, do you have anything else?”
“Your tech people are at the hackers’ house, right?” Laughton said.