Paula sat opposite her. “Did you ever hold a license?”
“No.” Tara shook her head, smiling softly at some private joke. She took a cigarette out of her case, and pressed it on the lighting pad at the bottom. It gave off the sweet mint smell of high-quality GM majane. “Do you mind? It helps me relax.”
Hoshe Finn frowned, but didn’t say anything.
“Did you ever possess a gun?” Paula asked.
Tara laughed. “No. Or if I did, I never kept the memory. I don’t think I would, though. Guns have no place in a civilized society.”
“Most commendable,” Paula said. She wondered if Tara was really that unsophisticated, or if that was something she wanted to believe post-death. But then, most citizens chose to overlook how easy it was to get hold of a weapon. “I’d like to talk about Wyobie Cotal.”
“Certainly. But like I told Detective Finn last time, I only have a couple of weeks’ memory of him.”
“You were having an affair with him?”
Tara took a deep drag, exhaling slowly. “Certainly was. God, what a body that kid had. I don’t think I’d ever forget that.”
“So your marriage to Morton was over?”
“No, not really. We were still on good terms, though it was getting a bit stale. You must know what that’s like.” There was an edge of mockery in her voice.
“Did you have other affairs?”
“A couple. Like I said, I could see where it was heading with Morton. Our company was doing well, it was taking up more and more of his time. Men are like that, always obsessing about the wrong things in life. Some men.” She extended a languid hand to deSavoel, who kissed her knuckles indulgently.
“Did Morton know about the other men?”
“Probably. But I respected him, I didn’t flaunt them, they were never the cause of any argument.”
“Did Morton have a gun?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. We had a good marriage.”
“It was coming to an end.”
“And we got divorced. It happens. In fact, it has to happen when you live this long.”
“Did he have a gun?”
“No.”
“All right. Why would you choose Tampico?”
“That’s the place I filed the divorce from, isn’t it? Well, I don’t know, I’m sure. The first time I heard about it was right after my re-life when the insurance investigators were asking me what happened. I never even knew the place existed before.”
“You and Cotal bought tickets there. You left with him four days after your last memory dump in the Kirova Clinic’s secure store. Why did you run off with him?”
“I don’t know. I remember meeting him, it was at a party, then after that it was just for the sex, really; and he was fun, enthusiastic the way only first-lifers can be. I enjoyed him, but I always found it hard to believe I gave up everything for him. It was a good life Morton and I had here.”
“You weren’t the only girl Cotal was seeing.”
“Really? Somehow I’m not surprised. He was gorgeous.”
“You’re not jealous about that?”
“Irritated, is about as far as it goes.”
“Did Wyobie have a gun?”
“Oh…” She appealed to her husband. “Please.”
“Come now, Chief Investigator,” deSavoel said loftily. “There’s no need to take such a line. Wyobie Cotal was also killed.”
“Was he? We haven’t found a body. In fact, we haven’t found your wife’s body either.”
“If I’d been alive, I would have turned up for rejuvenation,” Tara said sharply. “And I’ll thank you not to open that can of worms.”
“I understand. We do have to examine every possibility.”
“But perhaps not out loud when it can cause such distress,” deSavoel said irately. “This is not pleasant for my wife to raise such specters again after she has finally accustomed herself to complete bodyloss.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Paula said. “To make sure it won’t happen again.”
“Again?” Tara’s voice rose in alarm. She stubbed her cigarette out. “You think I’ll be killed again ?”
“That’s not what I meant. It would be most unusual for a killer to strike at you twice; and you have been alive for over twenty years this time. Please don’t concern yourself about the possibility. So, Wyobie didn’t have a gun?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
“You mentioned other affairs. Were you seeing anybody else at the same time as Cotal?”
“No. Wyobie was quite enough for me.”
“What about enemies, yours or Cotal’s?”
“I must have fallen out with many people, you do over a hundred years, but I can’t think of any argument or grudge that would warrant killing me. And as for Wyobie, nobody that age has enemies, not ones that kill.”
“His other girlfriend might have been angry enough.”
“Possibly.” Tara shuddered. “I never met her. Do you think that’s what happened?”
“Actually, no. If you and Wyobie were killed, then it certainly wasn’t a crime of passion, or at least not a spur-of-the-moment slaying. As yet, we don’t know where and when you were killed. To throw up that much uncertainty takes planning and preparation. Other than your ticket there’s no real proof you ever went to Tampico.”
“The divorce,” deSavoel said. “That was filed on Tampico. And all Tara’s things were sent there.”
“The divorce was lodged with a legal firm, Broher Associates, on Tampico. It was a pure data transaction. In theory it could have been filed from anywhere inside the unisphere. As for your effects, Tara, they were sent to a Tampico storage warehouse for seven weeks, then removed by your authorization into a private vehicle. The insurance company investigators were unable to trace them. What I find interesting about this is your secure memory storage arrangement. There isn’t one apart from the Kirova Clinic, not on Tampico, nor on any other Commonwealth planet as far as the investigators could find, though my Directorate will start double-checking that now. And you would have made one, everybody has a secure store they can update for precisely this reason: re-life. The ticket, your effects shipped out there, your divorce, it’s all evidence you were settled on Tampico. But to me, the lack of a secure memory arrangement calls the whole Tampico episode into question.”