Bronsky was lying, of course. He was good at that. Mia had never left Wollaston. But no one was ever going to find the body, either. Armstrong and his people had helped him see to it. And he had learned a lot in the process.
In the end, the Petticord murder had become a cold case, and Bronsky was smart enough to leave Wollaston and head for what he expected to be far better pickings, especially for someone who wanted to change “careers.”
Imperial City on Sintar.
No one knew the details except Bronsky himself, of course, but Ashton had some serious intelligence, imagination, and a distinct aptitude for investigation instilled by his late mentor Detective Waterford – who had lived just long enough to see Ashton graduate the Imperial Police Academy – and it didn’t take a great stretch of that imagination for him to suspect what had happened. For it was a demonstrable fact that Josip Bronsky had not resorted to con schemes upon making landfall on Sintar. He also had had no problems setting himself up in a new life on his new homeworld…which, to Ashton, spoke to being paid off handsomely by someone on Wollaston, though he couldn’t determine who, let alone prove it.
Bronsky, or Bronze, as he now preferred to be known, dropped out of sight for a significant amount of time after arriving on Sintar. There was no evidence of employment, legal or criminal – or much of anything else – for nearly a year… though Bronze continued to maintain an apartment in the neighborhoods west of the Imperial complex.
Then Wang Li had been killed.
And suddenly Joey Bronze had surfaced again.
It all appeared innocent, his resurfacing; when approached by any authorities, Bronze claimed to have cleaned up his act, got some specialized training, and become a consultant of some sort. Ashton dug and dug, but had a hard time determining who Bronze was consulting for, let alone how. But in fairly short order, Bronze had ditched the leased apartment and bought an upscale condo in Imperial Park East. His lifestyle began to change concurrently.
I dunno, Ashton considered, studying his display in VR, all the info on that seems to go around in circles. Maybe I need to get back to my current case and my cold case and quit worrying so much about Bronze himself. If he did it, the clues will be there. I just have to find them.
So he pulled up all of the known information about both cases and settled down to look at the details and try to correlate the information.
And it was at that point, when he dug into the two victims themselves and compared the cases, that Ashton was shocked at the correlations. Both victims had been involved in efforts to bring to light corruption in government. Her Majesty Adannaya III had evidently had an investigation ongoing into medical matters, the young sleuth decided, though it had been somewhat before his time, and apparently hadn’t come to a head until the reign of her successor Ilithyia I had forced the issue. That had been when the principal information source, Wang Li, formerly of one of the major pharmaceutical firms, had met with unexpected “random violent crime.”
This most recent murder had been another whistleblower, this time in the university education field, likewise for Ilithyia I.
Both had been shot twice in the back of the head. Both had died essentially instantaneously.
Son of a bitch, Ashton thought, grim. I bet I know just exactly what sort of “consulting” Bronsky is doing. And somebody in the government has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and they’re willing to take out anybody trying to make a change. At least, anybody they can get to, he decided, thinking of the Empress herself.
The next day, the news was full of the death of Empress Ilithyia I.
Whenever a leader died unexpectedly, regardless of the time period, planet, or regime, there was always a concern that there could be unrest. So the Imperial Police turned out in force, creating a show of presence to keep the streets quiet. So Ashton and his roommate stayed busy for the entire week – by which time the new empress, Ilithyia II, had been duly installed and announced, if not yet formally crowned, and her predecessor laid in the Imperial Mausoleum with all due respect, pomp, and ceremony.
When that was over, things settled down.
And Ashton had a chance to think.
Two whistleblowers, both working with the Empress, he considered. Or at least, with her investigatory teams. And I was only just starting to dig out any other murders – assassinations, really – that fit the same modus operandi. But even so, I found a couple. Double-taps to the back of the head, .25 caliber, no evidence of residue from the weapon so probably an airgun… He broke off. So there’s evidence of a conspiracy to fight back against the Empress’ reforms, he thought. And that’s just from one assassin. How many others might there have been?
And then another, even more dreadful, thought hit him.
They said that Empress Ilithyia I died of congestive heart failure. But these days, what with the state of the medical arts, I’d have thought that was just not a problem, that they could have cured her without difficulty. Especially with the resources available to the Throne. What if… he stopped, gathering his thoughts, not sure he even wanted to think it, what if it wasn’t really heart failure? At least, not natural heart failure? What if the heart failure was induced over time, by something someone was slipping to her? What if Ilithyia I was assassinated, too, to get her out of the way? Maybe somebody thought they could slip somebody into position if the Empress died suddenly and didn’t name
