Breathing Space (Ellis McFadden Mysteries #1)

Chapter 25

T he carnivore option was ziti with meat sauce, but since I’d just had pasta, I made the rare decision to go vegetarian. That meant the ratatouille, which looked great. I added a grilled chicken breast on the side and got a cup of cheesy potato soup, before joining the girls at our usual table.

“So,” Benni started before I’d barely sat down, her eyes twinkling with information she was clearly dying to share. “How was dinner at Luna’s?”

Vashti sucked in a breath. “Is that where you went last night?”

“Nice,” Zanya said.

I nodded. “Yep. It was. Frank took me. It was fantastic. Highly recommend. All the stars.” I furrowed my brow at Benni. “But how did you know that?”

“Because Will has a friend, Lenny, who works there, and he mentioned he saw Frank there, and Will told me that Frank was on a date with someone who sounded like you. Will, Lenny, and Frank have gone simdeck fly-fishing together.”

What had I said about this ship being a small town? Proof right there. I nodded. “Then Will knows what a nice guy Frank is.”

Benni, who’d gone with the pasta, stabbed a piece of ziti. “Frank’s a majorly good dude. He’s really solid. You like him?”

“I do.” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

She nodded like I’d just said the wisest thing ever. “Awesome. He is worth hanging on to.”

“Good to know.” I wondered if Benni knew the truth about Frank. That he wasn’t just a mech. That he was a computer genius and part of the brains behind compdroids. I figured she didn’t or she’d have said something.

Zanya and Vashti were smiling. Zanya looked absolutely tickled. “You have a boyfriend now then?”

“I don’t know if we’re ready for labels just yet.” My protective instincts were kicking in, just like I’d predicted. “Hey, could you have Xavier check something for me?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“If Andrew Woolsey went planetside at Morphae.”

She brought her wrist up. “I’ll text him right now.”

“ No .” I smiled quickly to soften the sharpness of my reply. “I’d rather you ask him in person. It’s just that…” I sighed. “I don’t want the ASF to know I’m digging into Andrew’s death. It’s their investigation, but since I’m part of it, I just want to do what I can to clear my name. And I don’t think they’d appreciate it.”

“Probably not,” Benni said with a snort.

“Wait,” Vashti said. “You think the ASF is monitoring our personal correspondence?”

I shrugged. “We’ve just had what seems to be a murder on board. Do you think they aren’t? You know there are apparently listening devices in the elevators.”

The girls all looked at each other with slightly horrified expressions for a moment. Then Zanya nodded. “I’ll ask him in person.”

Seated next to me, Vashti put her hand on my arm. “Do they really still think you’re involved in this?”

“I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything, so I have to assume that’s because they consider me a suspect.”

Benni frowned. “Like you could murder someone.” She sucked her teeth. “Please. You’re a librarian. They’re like the most nonviolent demographic ever.”

I laughed. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

She brought her fist up with her fork still in it. I bumped my fist against hers. “We got your back, mama.”

She dug into the ziti again. “So, you going to see Frank after this?”

He’d already texted, telling me he’d be back by seven and asking me to come to his place after I finished dinner. I nodded as I poked at my food. “Yes.”

I arrived at Frank’s a few minutes after seven. The girls hadn’t given me too much ribbing about going to see him. Less than I’d expected, really. I think they understood I had enough on my plate for the time being, and Frank was a good thing in my life when the rest of it was not so good.

He opened the door with a smile. “Come on in.”

“How was your day?”

“Interesting. I talked to Vivak.”

“Any luck with the pin drive yet?”

Clearly unhappy, he shook his head. “The algorithm is still running, trying to crack the password. There’s no telling how much longer it’ll take. Could be a while.”

“That’s disappointing, but at least you found Vivak. Tell me everything.”

“I will, but come sit and get comfortable. Do you want anything? Coffee? Tea? Water? Cookies?”

“Do you have a decaf version of that great coffee?”

“I do. I’ll get us two cups.” He plugged the request into the Instachef. “Tell me about your day first. Did you give the book to Sarah?”

I took a seat on the couch. Gracie was on her perch. “I did, and she confirmed that she and Andrew were a couple, but here’s the curious part. I smelled no perfume on her, and Zanya’s friend said for the last two months, there’s been floral perfume on Andrew’s sheets. Doesn’t mean that much, though, because Sarah might not wear perfume to work. Could just be the sort of thing she does on a date.”

“Could be. You’re a woman?—”

“Thanks for noticing.”

He chuckled as he brought a plate of cookies to the coffee table. Fancy cookies of all different sorts. “Is that something a woman would do? Only wear perfume for a date?”

“Maybe. If the person she was seeing particularly liked that perfume. Or if the place she worked didn’t allow it. Her off hours might be the only time she can indulge.”

“Should be easy enough to figure out what the rules of the Botany Department are.” He returned again with two mugs of coffee. Mine was fixed the way I liked it.

I picked up a delicate rectangle of shortbread. “Have you been to La Patisserie again?”

He looked like he was fighting a smile. “Possibly.”

I took a bite. It was sweet and crumbly in the way good shortbread should be. In a word, perfect. I was glad I’d skipped dessert at dinner. “What does it mean if Sarah is the only woman he was seeing? And what does it mean if she wasn’t?”

“If she was his only companion, it narrows our field of suspects,” Frank answered. “If she wasn’t, then we have another potential suspect that we know nothing about.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it was Sarah. She’s really focused on finishing Andrew’s project. Oh! I found out what that’s all about, too. A new kind of hydrogel that would shorten the recovery time necessary for coming out of cryostasis. From twenty-eight hours down to three. And with better cell integrity and fewer side-effects.”

Frank’s brows lifted as he reached for a cookie with a dollop of jam in the center. “That is pretty significant. From what I understand, cryostasis recovery is a real ordeal currently.”

I nodded. “Yep. I’ve heard that. All those big brains in the hold would certainly be happy if she can complete his work.”

He gestured with the uneaten half of his cookie. “What if she killed him so that she could get the recognition for his work?”

“Possible. But she’s either a really good actress or she genuinely cared for Andrew. She shed tears talking about him today.”

He sighed. “None of this new information is moving us forward in a significant way, is it?”

“Sadly, no. I have more information, too. The computer came up with a match on the plant, but only because I’d scanned in the Nine Climes book. The plant was in there.” I pulled the slip of paper out of my pocket and read off the plant name. “It best matched a currently extinct species known as aconitum orbexilum . The plant likes a particular kind of growing region on Earth. One that can also be found on Morphae and Kem.”

Frank swallowed the bite he’d just taken. “We need to find out if Andrew went planetside on Morphae.”

“Already running that down. But again, what does all of this mean? How does the plant tie into his death? How did he even have the plant if it’s extinct? I don’t know what to make of all of this. What did you learn from Vivak?”

“That he has seen Andrew’s rug and that it’s very special, meaning it could be worth as much as two hundred thousand credits.”

I stared in disbelief at Frank. “Where did Andrew get that kind of money?”

“I can’t answer that, but it’s a good question.”

“What kind of feeling did you get from Vivak? Could he be a suspect?”

“Maybe, but there was nothing about him that made me think he was involved.”

I groaned softly. “So much information but no real leads.”

Frank nodded slowly. “Maybe we need a murder board. You know, like they do in all the best cop shows.”

I grinned. “Yeah, might help.” In truth, I loved the idea. We were doing all of this work. Why not?

“Office,” he said, picking up his mug as he got to his feet. He went to the wall and pressed the panel that opened the hidden door to the bat cave, which was how I’d started to think of it, despite him telling me he wasn’t Bruce Wayne. I followed him in.

The dining chair was still next to his desk chair. He sat, and I sat beside him. After using the retina scanner to log in, he tapped away on the keyboard for a few seconds. The big screen came to life, blank and white.

He tapped some more, and a photo of Andrew appeared in the center with his name beneath it. Then more pictures and names appeared. Scotty, Sarah, Vivak. “Anyone else that should be up there?”

“A possible mystery woman?”

A new image appeared, but it only held a question mark. Under that one he wrote other woman . Under Vivak he wrote knew about rug . Under Sarah he wrote partner on project . Under Scotty, distraught . Frank looked at me. “Tell me the name of the plant again?”

I took out the slip of paper. “ Aconitum orbexilum .”

He looked at the paper. “Why did you write that down on paper and not just put it in your Notekeeper app?”

“Because after what you said about the elevators being bugged, it didn’t seem safe. It’s why I didn’t text you anything I learned today. I thought the ASF might be monitoring my communications.”

He nodded, his gaze coming up to meet mine. “Smart thinking.”

“So you think they are?”

“Can’t say for certain, but it’s a strong possibility.” He made a face. “I’ll work on that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Give me a day or so.” Fingers on the keyboard, he added a random plant photo with the name aconitum orbexilum beneath it, then the planet names Morphae and Kem.

Along the side of the photos, which were arranged in a circle around Andrew’s face, he started a list: The Nine Climes of Practical Plant Alchemy , hydrogel project, Sha’rossi rug, possible poisoning.

He sat back. “What else?”

“What about the autopsy report? That contusion?”

He nodded. “Good. Yes.” He added contusion on temple to the list, then glanced at me. “Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“We should look at the autopsy report. See if toxicology is back yet.”

I nodded. I still had no desire to see any of those pictures, but the toxicology report would just be words. “Can you get in again without any danger to yourself?”

“I can.” He smiled. “I installed a small trapdoor for myself so I can come and go as I please without detection.”

I smiled, despite worrying about him. “You’re very clever.”

“Yes, I am.” Grinning, he tapped away, and within a few moments, we were looking at Officer Lu’s screen. Frank went into Andrew’s file. “Looks like toxicology is in.”

“Oh, good. Let’s have a look.” I leaned forward, eager to see the results.

There was a lot of writing, a lot of terminology, but Frank and I seemed to read at about the same speed, which meant we came to the same wording at the same time.

I read it again. Then looked at him. “Are you seeing that? That can’t be a coincidence.”

His eyes were still on the screen. He shook his head as he turned toward me. “No, it can’t be. But let’s do some research and be sure.”

Frank opened a browser search window and began to type.