“Yes, sir.”
“Finally, I want a search of the grounds in case an intruder is still here, or in case he – or she – ditched the weapon somewhere,” Ashton added. “No, wait a minute.”
The puzzled forensics team leader stood and watched as Ashton headed for the balcony, stepping out into the dark. He turned back and called to Garza, “Sergeant, could you have the staff turn on the outside lights for the rear yard?”
When the exterior lights came on, Ashton stood and stared out into the landscaped yard. Garza joined him.
“What are you trying to do?” he asked Ashton.
“Find the murder weapon,” Ashton said.
“But it’s dark!”
“I know. That’s why I wanted the exterior lights on.”
“But surely the murderer carried it away with him,” Garza pointed out.
“I don’t think so, I – there!” Ashton pulled a small but powerful flashlight from his jacket pocket and shone it into the shrubbery, some twenty or twenty-five feet from the edge of the balcony. A long, intermittent scrape mark in the sod led to something glinting under the shrubs, and he climbed over the railing, eased himself as low as he could, then let go, falling to the ground and landing on his feet. He pulled out a small imager and took in situ imagery, then walked over to the shrub where the glint had appeared, donning gloves as he went. He bent, reached under the manicured bushes…
…And drew back a small revolver.
A quick sniff of the weapon revealed the scent of fresh gunpowder; Ashton carefully placed it in an evidence bag. Chances were, it had been emptied of bullets in the attack, but he wasn’t taking chances in the near-dark.
“It’s been fired recently, by the smell,” he told Garza as that worthy leaned over the rail to accept the bag Ashton passed up. “It’s an old-style revolver, so the casings are still in it. And now that I’m down here, I can tell you for certain, there’s no easy way to get up there from here, unaided.” He looked around. “And no sign of anything to aid a climber in getting up there, either.”
“Now what, sir?”
“Go back and get the room taken care of as I instructed, and I’ll go around to the door,” Ashton said. “Have someone waiting to let me in, please. And if you can set someone up to get the staffers lined up for questioning, it would be good.”
“Yes, sir.”
“…What? No, sir,” one staffer told Ashton as he questioned the workers in turn, in a small room down the hall from the sitting room. “That’s not what happened at all. I heard the gunshots, two bursts of three, from inside the sitting room. I ran in – I’d just been in there not long before, so I wasn’t far away – and Ms. Palomo was just lying there, staring at the ceiling, with blood all over her and the floor, and the horrid stink of gunpowder in the room. And Mr. Palomo came running in from the balcony and said, ‘Did you see him?’ I said, ‘See who?’ and he pointed at the French doors and said, ‘The shooter. He was on the balcony.’ Well, I didn’t see anyone – at least, besides him and Ms. Palomo – and I told him so. Then he told me to call the police and report that the governor was dead and to send help. And I rushed out, because I was going to have to send someone, what with the VR down and all.”
“Wait,” Ashton said. “So Ms. Palomo’s body had the eyes open when you saw it?”
“Yes, sir.”
And they’re not open now, Ashton realized, recalling the scene as he had first seen it upon entering the room. So someone closed them. And Bernardo Palomo was neither cowering, nor fleeing, according to this staffer. Who, unlike Bernardo Palomo, shows every indication of telling the truth. I think perhaps Mr. Palomo’s story needs looking into a little deeper. Surprise, surprise.
Just then, a message came in for him through the Imperial Police VR channel. He dropped into a voice channel.
“Ashton here.”
“Ashton, this is General Walder. I have Imperial instructions. I quote, ‘…You are to hold Mr. Palomo on an Imperial Warrant as the investigation proceeds. In addition to the murder investigation, you will investigate the financial records of both Mr. and Ms. Palomo. The Throne is particularly interested in payments to individuals in the press.’ For what it’s worth, I do have our forensic accounting people already on the latter.”
“Oh; that’s good. And yes, I already have Mr. Palomo, uh, under guard. He thinks it’s for his protection, but what he doesn’t know doesn’t hurt.”
“You suspect him?”
“Aside from the fact that he and his wife participated in treason? Yes. His story doesn’t align with the crime scene or the story told by the staff members at the governor’s mansion. I’m still looking into it. I fully expect to place him under arrest for the murder of his wife before all this is over, though.”
“Keep going, Ashton. This sounds good. Fill me in with the details as soon as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Walder out.”
“Ashton out.”
By the time Ashton had finished interviewing the on-shift staff and returned to the crime scene, Garza and his people had it laid out.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he said, noting the bright dye markers that had reacted with the gunpowder on the floor, and the lasers aligning the various gunshot angles. “A nice little right-angle layout. With nothing coming even close to the balcony doors.”
“No, sir,” Garza said. “Why did you think – oh.”
“Right,” Ashton said with a grim
