Chris took a deep breath, fighting off the fatigue that threatened to prevent him from doing his work. How does one explain to a woman that her father-in-law, a man she’s known and presumably trusted for decades, is not only planning to kill her but his own grandson? Could any motivation explain something so incomprehensible to most sane people?
Even more worrisome were the constant reminders, at Isabella’s, at Josephson’s clinic, on the High Speed, in his own apartment, damn it, that Bedford was ahead of him all the way – more than fifty years ahead, to be honest. This was Chris’ only chance to change that now that he was convinced his suspicions were real. Before the events of the last few days he had never been sure he wasn’t taking something Karen had said about someone and granting it the elevated status of prophecy.
Unfortunately, he still had no evidence that would stand up to scrutiny in the courts; he had only his instincts and a cascade of events and connections that he found convincing but that meant nothing in terms of the Law. The evidence would have to come later, if at all, hard-won with work and persistence. In the meantime, in the face of that inadequate evidence, he had to convince Mickey Bedford of her danger.
Although also brunette and vaguely exotic, the woman sitting before him was otherwise quite different from Paula Bedford. Whereas Paula had been tall and slender, Mickey was petite and somewhat voluptuous. Chris reminded himself that he wasn’t dealing with sisters. Paula was John Bedford’s daughter; Micaela was the woman his son had chosen to marry.
Mickey, who had been on her way to some social engagement, was wearing a short, skin-tight dress of some color Chris recognized as a shade of blue – it shifted to a different shade every time Mickey moved, as though it was part of a tropical sea. The effect was guaranteed to attract attention as she walked across a room. Livvy would probably recognize the material, Chris thought, and appreciated what it said about the woman who chose to wear it. As she seated herself on the spotless white sofa across from him, Mickey focused on Chris for the first time.
“My sister-in-law called and asked me to see you, Mr. McGregor. I have very little time this afternoon. I have an engagement I simply cannot miss this evening, I have number of other engagements I have to cancel, and then we leave for Italy tomorrow, and I still have to pack this afternoon,” Mickey said. “Paula has said there is some imminent danger to me and to Jesse, and on that basis, because she was very insistent, I accepted her invitation to join her at her family villa for a while. She also said I should listen to you.” She tossed her hair back and used a perfectly manicured hand to make sure it was in place, then flashed him a brilliant but vague smile.
“Where did you say you were from, again?”
“I’m a detective from LLE – Longevity Law Enforcement.”
“Yes, I know what it means, of course, but I thought you only dealt with things like Longevity fraud and illegal enhancements. That sort of thing. Paula said you wanted to warn me about a possible kidnapping. She said that your warning to her was responsible for her impromptu invitation, although, of course, she said it much more charmingly.” She held up a hand to forestall him, smiling disarmingly to soften it.
“You understand that people in our position are inured to the threat of kidnapping and I have always been very diligent when it comes to security. However, if you have information about something specific, I am happy to listen. Surely by going to Italy we are forestalling any plot that you may have heard about.”
“Is your son here with you?” Chris asked.
“If you mean in the house, yes, and I know Paula asked if Jesse could be present as well, but Jesse is with his tutor,” Mickey said. “Children nowadays mature so much more slowly and I’ve always tried to make sure that Jesse had a normal childhood. It is hard enough… I don’t expose him to these concerns about kidnapping unless it is unavoidably necessary to keeping him safe.”
“I understand,” Chris said. “I wonder, Ms. Bedford, if you could give me a picture of your son?”
“Mickey, please. I don’t mean to be disobliging or to imply that I don’t trust you, but I would prefer not. It is just one of my security measures, to keep people from recognizing Jesse.”
“I see,” Chris said. “I suppose your father-in-law was happy to advise you on such matters.”
“Of course, who else would have Jesse’s safety so much at heart? And he has so much experience in arranging his own security. But Detective McGregor,” Mickey said, nodding graciously at him to show she was pleased to have gotten it right, “you still haven’t explained what LLE has to do with a kidnapping threat against my son.”
“Your son seems to have led a very secluded life,” Chris said.
Mickey may have sensed some disapproval, and her next words took on a slight defensive tone. “Perhaps more than you are used to, but then his grandfather is both extremely wealthy and has many enemies.”
“And he has been careful to remind you of this, and to advise you on this aspect of your security, as well?” Chris asked.
Mickey’s patience had worn out. “Of course,” she said thinly.
“Ms Bedford… Mickey, I’m sorry to have tried your patience, but it’s your father-in-law that I have to warn you about,” Chris said finally.
“I… I don’t understand,” Mickey said. “What are you saying? John is extremely wealthy. He has no need of Jesse’s inheritance from his father.”
“It’s not money I’m talking about, Ms Bedford.”
“Then…?”
Chris continued to watch her steadily as she thought through the possibilities. She had to know Bedford well enough to have glimpsed the obsession that Paula understood all too well.
“No, it is too fantastic. I must thank your… good intentions, I’m sure, but I have no time for nonsensical…” Mickey stood up and her gaze on Chris had hardened. She didn’t believe him, and now didn’t trust him.
“Detective McGregor, you must please excuse me. I will send Robert to see you out.” She started to turn away.
“Ms. Bedford,” Chris said, keeping his tone both rational and persuasive. “Please listen. I need to be brutally frank with you, and you need to decide if you can believe me. I ask you to remember that your sister-in-law, John Bedford’s daughter, already has heard everything I’m going to say, and has asked you to listen to me.
“I have good reason to believe that John Bedford plans to kidnap Jesse and exchange identities with him.” It was as bald a statement of his suspicions as Chris had ever made, even to himself, and even now it made him feel a little sick. It stopped Mickey Bedford in her tracks, and she stared at him. At one point she started to say something, then she appeared to think better of it and her eyes unfocused. She was thinking, and remembering, Chris was glad to see.
“But how could he? Jesse would never agree. I would never agree. Paula herself would never agree.”
“I know,” Chris said. “I am sure of all that.” Chris watched Mickey absorb this. She had neither Paula’s innate intelligence, nor her willingness to easily accept such a stark assessment of John Bedford. But she was thinking through the implications, and probably reconciling her own experiences of her distant father-in-law with what Chris was saying about him.
“But no, this is unbelievable,” Mickey said, and for the first time Chris picked up a hint on an accent, although he didn’t recognize the origin. She began to pace, with her arms pressed protectively across her midriff as Paula had done. “You must be mistaken somehow.”
Chris let her alone to think it through.
“How could anyone? Unthinkable.” Mickey stood in the middle of the floor as though undecided which way to move. Chris knew she was a chronological 55, but at the moment she seemed as lost as the 21 year-old she looked to be.
“The DNA mapping, and how…?”
“Ms Bedford,” Chris said. “I have worked in LLE for longer than you have lived, and I will tell you that there is nothing, nothing that money cannot arrange or buy. These matters are not a problem for someone with resources and uncommon persistence, and not the issue for John Bedford. What he wants, what he believes he needs, is a legitimate long-term identity that he can assume so that he can live unchallenged for another lifetime. With his intact fortune at his disposal, as well. Unfortunately, I am able to remind you that people have murdered other people, sometimes their own family members, for far less. Tell me, in terms of appearance, meaning height and features, are Jesse and John similar?”
Mickey nodded slowly. “Similar enough.”
“And both have lived in seclusion. I need to ask you if there was some additional security measure that you have considered lately, and that you may have mentioned to your father-in-law?” Chris asked.
Mickey placed her fingers on her lips briefly, then said, “Yes. There is a new kind of injectable tracer that after it is injected cannot be located for extraction and cannot be jammed. Last Thursday I told John that I was arranging it for Jesse, along with an early pre-reset mapping, for security. I haven’t done them yet. I thought he would be pleased,” she added bitterly. “He told me not to rush into it, that he would investigate it for me, but he did not say what his concerns were.”
Much as Paula had done, Mickey came up with a word that came close to accurately describing John’s plan. “If it is true, it is diabolical. Please understand, I do not doubt that you are sincere, I just cannot believe…
“You have evidence of this?” she asked abruptly, turning to face him fully.
“Unfortunately, I have no direct evidence. Paula believes it. My partner and I are trying to get proof. We need you to be safe for a while so that we have time to find it.”
“But wait, if it is true, he is… not a man who tolerates interference. He will not give up unless you make him. He is also very powerful. You can get the proof? For the courts? Can you make him give it up? Arrest him! You can arrest him.”
Chris found it chilling that Mickey was also relatively quickly convinced that what he was warning her about was true, and that now that she was convinced, she was plainly very frightened.
“I’m sorry. We would if we could. Not without the evidence. It would just handicap us further, because he would be warned and he might be able to take legal measures to impede us. Even in LLE we need proof to take legal action.”
Mickey paced indecisively for a moment and then stopped at a small ornately- carved table and waved a hand over its polished surface. A life-sized holographic video of a boy appeared. He was sitting on white sand, with lovely translucent blue-green and foaming tropical waters breaking behind him. There was a surfer in the distance, but no one else in sight.
“Mother, don’t. It will look stupid,” the image said, laughing. The image was of a young teenager, brown-haired and blue-eyed. “I told you. I want you to do one of the ocean, so I can enlarge it for my wall. Stop! The ocean is over there.” Still laughing, he pointed behind him a couple of times and then held up his hand as though to cover the optical.
Mickey waved her hand again and the image disappeared.
“Jesse has sacrificed so much because I’ve wanted to keep him safe, and now this… In some ways, he is more innocent that other children his age. He has been so protected, and confined.
“Do you have a child, Detective McGregor?” Mickey asked, turning to him once more.
“No.”
“By choice? No, please forgive me, that is perhaps too personal.”
“It’s all right,” Chris said. “My wife died young. With our unborn child.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a lifetime ago. Mickey, take Jesse to Italy. While you are there, get the implant and the mapping. Let us try to get some evidence.”
“Children change everything,” Mickey said. “Will you stay a few more minutes and meet Jesse? Please, I want you to meet him.”
“Of course. It’s one of the reasons I came.”
“I am so afraid,” she added, almost to herself. “This man will do anything…”
Brian Clifford, it developed, was happy to hear from one of the LLE detectives he had met the day before and delighted to contemplate spending the next few days in a tiny, characterless room in WitSec, especially when told that Livvy would be in a room close by. He was especially pleased by her offer to pick him up after work, and agreed readily that it would be fun to make their rendezvous secret. His only request was that they stop by his apartment first so that he could pick up a few things. Livvy was accustomed to the effect she had on some men, but this time it registered that Brian Clifford was very young, probably almost as young as he looked. It also registered that Chris had counted on her affect on the young lab tech to gain his cooperation in their plans for his safety.
Starting to feel a little pressed for time, Livvy dropped Louie off at the City Central Veterinary Clinic with a promise to pick him up in two hours, then hurried over to Forensics to log in the finger, gun, and towel from Chris’ apartment. Chris had requested that she enter them under an anonymous address code to avoid raising any red flags as a match to an LLE officer. It was, apparently, another LLE prerogative.
That left her with seventy minutes for updating the Chief and giving him Chris’ notes for safekeeping. After the incident on the High Speed, he’d requested an immediate debriefing. From Chris’ attitude, Livvy had determined that in the parlance of a senior LLE detective that meant whenever that senior detective could find the time that day, or maybe the next. She didn’t delude herself into thinking she had the same latitude.
“Hutchins, in here now,” the Chief called as soon as Livvy stepped into the squad room. He simultaneously waved Best out.
“Close the door and sit,” he said. “And then give it all, starting from Josephson’s disappearance.”
She started there, but then, as Chris had done, she had to jump back over fifty years to the Greater Potomac Reset Institute fire, and tie in the Potomac Falls Institute bombing, the Maas attack, the bomb under Chris’ car, the still anonymous professional on the High Speed returning from Paula Bedford’s, and the attempt, foiled by Louie, at Chris’ apartment. Too much of the case seemed to depend on the timing of the attacks on her and Chris. She went on to what she worried was even shakier ground: what they had learned about the characters of Josephson and Bedford that suggested they might be capable of such a fraud. The Chief had been listening without interruption, but this last part he waved away impatiently.
“If you continue to work in LLE, this won’t seem incredible. Also, since the rich and powerful are the ones that usually have the resources for it, they are the ones we often encounter in our fraud investigations. It’s the reason we have been given so many prerogatives and one of the reasons we enforce anonymity so strictly. Almost all our fraud cases would become headlines, if they are made public.”
The Chief continued to stare at her thoughtfully for a few moments. Livvy squirmed mentally but took his cue and didn’t interrupt.
“Where is McGregor now?” he asked finally.
“Warning Mickey Bedford, Joshua’s widow.”
“It stops there. Here too. No one else comes in on this. No one.”
“You’re not convinced,” Livvy said flatly.
The Chief registered surprise. “Oh, I believe it. McGregor has excellent instincts, and even though all of the connections are tenuous and we have nothing directly linking Bedford to any of it, the guy’s own daughter… “
“She said he has an obsession.”
“Warning – Mickey, is it? – is absolutely necessary. But for the rest of it… Dalton’s been briefing you on the way we do things here?”
“LLE handles things differently,” Livvy said dutifully. “We abhor publicity.”
The Chief gave her a sharp glance, then smiled and set down the stylus he had been using on a memopad during her summary.
“As Dalton has apparently explained, LLE shuns the spotlight. No need to let the firebrands know that a trillionaire is prepared to kill most of his family to get the chance to cheat on his allotment.”
“Some of the people I grew up with would say we forced him to it, that Bedford’s other crimes are a direct result of being forced into a corner by the Laws,” Livvy said. “They’d say the Law should be changed; that Bedford is entitled to all the benefits he can afford.”
“Your family?” the Chief said.
“But I never would,” Livvy said, ignoring the Chief’s query.
He leaned back in his chair, watching her.
“You know your commandments?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” she answered, dragging out the syllable.
“Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill,” he continued. “Pretty clear, and most people have a moral compass that aligns closely with those. For Longevity and Enhancement Laws… there are a lot of people out there, as you know, that feel comfortable debating the Laws and discounting them, figuring they lack authority in terms of good and evil. Not so McGregor. One reason McGregor is such a good LLE detective is that he never compromises on them. He might compromise on every other thing having to do with Enforcement, but he never compromises on LLE.
“Sometimes… most of the time, I wish the damned process had never been discovered. Unfortunately, it’s not going away. If we can’t enforce the Laws, if LLE is ever revealed to be slack or corruptible, we’ll end up like most of the rest of the world – in anarchy or a brutal oligarchy,” the Chief said finally.
“For now, this case depends on the two of you. Less chance of the details getting out and less risk that your evidence will be ferreted out and ‘lost.’” That’s been my experience. It’s a bad position to be in,” he added, “but McGregor has been here more often than not.”
“Is there…” Livvy started, then stopped.
The Chief was watching her shrewdly. “A dilemna, isn’t it? A suspicious mind is a valuable asset in an LLE detective.”
Livvy stayed quiet.
The Chief gave a small smile that reminded her of her partner. “Of course, this is all exactly what I would say if I’m in Bedford’s pay and want to suppress any evidence you find.”
She had, in fact, been thinking something along those lines, although not exactly that. She had meant to ask the Chief if there was anyone she could rely on in Forensics. She was beginning to understand how completely alone she and Chris were, even after reporting to the Chief, and not just because of the need to keep it quiet to prevent a leak to the media. LLE itself was part of the razor’s edge. Having backup one couldn’t trust was worse than having no backup at all.
“Look, you trust your partner?” the Chief asked.
Livvy nodded.
“Then I guess you’re going to have to trust me. I’m going to guess he told you to give his notes to me.”
“He wanted me to leave them here with you until he can pick them up.”
“There’s nothing more you can do today. Tomorrow, I’ll talk to McGregor when he comes in and find out how it went with Mickey Bedford. You can question the gunman from the High Speed and Maas again, and find out if Forensics has discovered anything about the unlucky bastard that belongs to that finger. Looks like McGregor was right about the dog, too.”
“Go get your witness and the dog and then get back to WitSec and get some rest,” the Chief said. “And lock your door.”