Unless of course she was covering up her own crimes.
Martinez thought were interrupted by a polite knock on the dining room door. Martinez looked up to see his cook, Perry.
"I was wondering when you'd be wanting supper, my lord."
"Oh." Martinez forced his mind from one track to the next. "Half an hour or so, then?"
"Very good, my lord." Perry braced and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Martinez returned his attention to Chandra and realized, a little belatedly, that it might have been the polite thing to invite her to supper.
He also realized he'd made up his mind. He didn't think Chandra had killed anybody-had never believed it-and in any case he had to agree with Michi that the squadron couldn't spare her.
If she wanted to spend her spare hours hunting incriminating tracks in the cruiser's data banks and erasing them, he didn't much care.
"If you'll give me your key," he said, "I'll see if I can give you more access."
He awarded her a clearance that would enable her to examine the ship's hard data storage, then returned her key. She tucked the key back into her tunic and gave him a provocative smile.
"Do you remember," she said, "when I told you that I'd be the best friend you ever had?"
Martinez was suddenly aware of her rosewood perfume, of the three tunic buttons that had been undone, and of the fact that he'd been living alone on the ship for far too many months.
"Yes?" he said.
"Well, I've proved it." Chandra closed the buttons, one by one. "One day the squadcom talked to me about whether or not you could have killed Fletcher, and I talked her out of the idea."
Martinez was speechless.
"You shouldn't count too much on the fact that you married Lord Chen's daughter," Chandra went on. "The impression I received was that if you died out here, it might solve more problems for Lord Chen than it would cause. He'd have a marriageable daughter again, for one thing."
Martinez considered this, and found it disturbingly plausible. Lord Chen hadn't wanted to give up his daughter, not even in exchange for the millions the Martinez clan were paying him, and Martinez' brother Roland had practically marched Lord Chen to the wedding in a hammerlock. If Martinez could be executed of a crime-and furthermore a crime against both the Gombergs and the Fletchers-then he couldn't imagine Lord Chen shedding many tears.
"Interesting," he managed to say.
Chandra rose and leaned over his desk. "But," she said, "I pointed out to Lady Michi that you'd played an important part in winning our side's only victories against the Naxids, and that we really couldn't spare you even if you were a killer."
The phrasing brought a smile to Martinez' lips. "You might have given me the benefit of the doubt," he said. "I might not have killed Fletcher, after all."
"I don't think Lady Michi was interested in the truth by that point. She just wanted to be able to close the file." She perched on his desk and brushed its glossy surface with her fingertips. A triumphant light danced in her eyes. "So am I your friend, Gareth?" she asked.
"You are." He looked up at her and answered her smile. "And I'm yours, because when Lady Michi was trying to pin the murder on you-with far more reason, I thought-I talked her out of it using much the same argument."
He saw the shock roll through Chandra like a slow tide. Her lips formed several words that she never actually spoke, and then she said, "She's a ruthless one, isn't she?"
"She's a Chen," Martinez said.
Chandra slowly rose to her feet, then braced.
"Thank you, my lord," she said.
"You're welcome, lieutenant."
He watched her leave, a little unsteadily, and then paged Mersenne. When the plump lieutenant arrived, Martinez invited him to sit.
"Some time ago," Martinez said, "before I joined the squadron, you found Lieutenant Kosinic leaving an access hatch on one of the lower decks. Do you happen to remember which one?"
Mersenne blinked in utter surprise. "I haven't thought about that in months," he said. "Let me think, my lord."
Martinez let him think, which Mersenne accomplished while pinching his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger.
"That would be Deck Eight," Mersenne said finally. "Access Four, across from the riggers' stores."
"Very good," Martinez said. "That will be all."
As Mersenne, still puzzled, rose to his feet and braced, Martinez added, "I'd be obliged if you mention my interest in this to no one."
"Yes, my lord."
Tomorrow, Martinez thought, he would schedule an inspection, and something interesting might well come to light.
After breakfast Martinez staged an inspection in which Access Four on Deck Eight was opened. The steady rumble of ventilations blowers rose from beneath the deckplates. Martinez descended with Marsden's datapad, squeezed between the blowers and a coolant pipe wrapped in bright yellow insulation material, and checked the serial numbers on the blowers against the numbers on the 77-12 that had been supplied by Rigger/First Patil.
The numbers matched.
Martinez crouched in the confined space and checked the numbers again. Again they matched.
He straightened, his head and shoulders coming above deck level, and looked at Patil, who looked at him with anxious interest.
"When were these blowers last replaced?"
"Just before the war started, my lord. They're not due for replacement for another four months."
So these were the same blowers that Kosinic had seen when he'd gone down the same access. If it wasn't the serial numbers, Martinez thought, what had Kosinic been looking for?
Martinez ducked down the access again and ran his hands along the pipes, the ductwork, the electric conduit, just in case something had been left here, a mysterious message or an ominous warning. He found nothing but the dust that filled his throat and left him coughing.
Perhaps Mersenne had been wrong about from which he'd seen Kosinic emerge. Martinez had several of the nearby access plates raised, and he descended into each to find again that everything was in order.
It was hours later, while he was eating a late supper-a ham sandwich made of leftovers from the meal he'd given Michi-that a memory burst on his mind.
With Francis it's always about money.
That had been Alikhan's comment on the cruiser's former master rigger, and suddenly, days after they'd been spoken, the words suddenly seemed to echo in Martinez' skull.
Gambling, he thought.