“You mean the guy that’s been popping the suspected spies?”
“That’s the one, yeah.”
“Okay, sure,” Ashton said. “I’ll be happy to take a look at it. Arguably they’re doing us a favor, taking ‘em out, but vigilantism isn’t a good thing regardless; it has a tendency to get out of hand. And if I recall right, there was at least one victim that you weren’t sure was a spy?”
“Right,” Stone said. “And now it looks like the killer has struck again. We just got word of an ‘import’ dead in her home, over west of the University. I was gonna send Elliot and Law to have a look. Wanna tag along with ‘em?”
“Sure,” Ashton agreed. “What’s the basics?”
“Female, around mid-thirties, emigrated from Jasmine, name of Ida Carson,” Stone said. “Found dead in her apartment this morning, when her co-worker came by to walk to work with her like usual, and she didn’t answer the door. Co-worker let herself in with the code – they were buddies – and found the body.”
“Address?”
“1204 West Center Street, apartment 8204.”
“Time of discovery?”
“Around seven-fifty in the morning.”
“Time of death?”
“Dunno yet. Our main forensics team is out on another case and I’ll be sending them over there shortly. Sooner if I hear back that they’re needed.”
“All right, then we need to have a look,” Ashton decided, turning to the young investigators. “The sooner the better. Are you two okay with that? I don’t wanna tick anybody off, I’m just trying to help. And maybe get back in the swing of the division.”
“Absolutely, Inspector Ashton,” Elliot said. “We’ll take all the help we can get, at this point.”
“Of course, sir,” Law agreed.
“Okay, then. Lemme get my jacket and we’ll head out.”
When they got to the location, which was about a third of the way from the Imperial University of Sintar to the spaceport, the beat cops guarding the crime scene let them enter and they found the body was lying in the floor of an apartment on the eighth floor of a ten-story apartment building. Here the buildings were only around ten or twelve stories maximum, as the underlying rock and soil did not support such tall buildings as could be found closer in toward Imperial Park, where a thick stratum of granite lay close to the surface, so the apartment was among the highest in the area.
The woman had been shot in the back of the head and fallen forward onto the carpeted floor. There was a good bit of blood and brain tissue in the area and on the opposite wall, as the projectile had passed through the victim’s head, creating a large exit wound in the center of the forehead, most of which was missing; the bridge of the nose was missing, as well.
“Damn,” Law murmured, paling slightly. “That’s...”
“Nasty,” Ashton said, giving her a gentle once-over. “Are you going to be all right, Donna?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’ll be okay. I’m just... not quite used to it yet.”
“It’s all right. You’re fairly new, aren’t you? Lee – um, Director Carter – hired you out of the Academy on the recommendation of Stone and Peabody, correct?”
“That’s correct, sir. I interviewed with Detectives Peabody and Stone, as the assistant division leads in your absence – it was actually while you were still on-planet, but working that undercover intelligence case, so you were rarely in the office – and they recommended I be brought on board.”
“How long have you been with the department, then?”
“Maybe... seven or eight months?” She paused, glanced at the body, and shivered. “But this is the first, um, well, not the first murder I’ve worked, it’s the second, but that first one was... not like this.”
“Well, it’s all right to be bothered by things like this, just so you know,” Ashton said, keeping his voice soft. “It’s a good indication your heart’s in the right place. One of my mentors was pleased when I got upset at a crime scene, early in my stint as an investigator, because I’d been hired into the old IPD Headquarters, and he said it was a sign I wasn’t a psychopath like some of those guys were.”
“That’s good to know,” Elliot said, as Law nodded. “Because I’ve been doing this for a couple years and it still bothers me to see someone’s body just... destroyed... like this.”
“I’ll let you both in on a secret,” Ashton said. “It upsets me, too. Even after as many years as I’ve been doing this. But I’ve learned how to set the emotion aside, because that’s what I have to do to do my job – which is to bring justice to the person who did this. You’ll both have to learn that, too. And yes, it can take a few years. Just try to grit your teeth and keep going. Start by looking at details, rather than the big picture. Gather the details, then you can assemble it into a big picture, and that’ll help you develop that dispassionate viewpoint you’ll need to get through it.” He rubbed his palms together. “Okay, let’s see what we can find out. I’ll handle the body itself, for now. Law, I want you going through the victim’s things. We need to find out if she really was conducting espionage against Sintar, or if she was a relatively innocent victim, a mistake, as it were. Elliot, I want you looking for the murder weapon,
