Malefictorum Read online

  Corsi raised an eyebrow. “Who said I’m out of options? I just tested every one I thought of already and have no likely scenarios. There wasn’t any evidence that he tripped on anything. He didn’t have a medical condition that would cause him to suddenly collapse. There weren’t any incurable blood disorders involved. So why? How could he still have enough of his wits about him to clearly call for help before he died if his brain was coming apart?”

  Lense shrugged. “Trust me, I’m just as frustrated as you are. His blood chemistry was otherwise perfectly normal.”

  “So, if he wasn’t drugged, there wasn’t a struggle, and he didn’t trip, then what?” Corsi’s stare returned to the ax.

  Lense sighed, and then said, “What we need is a change of subject. Sometimes that helps me think. You know, you never did tell me what’s so important about this thing.”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s so important about an axe? It seems pretty impersonal to be a family heirloom.”

  Corsi leaned back in her chair, reluctantly thankful for the change in subject. She had to admit, the doctor had a point. She’d only met two or three other people over the years who carried heirlooms with them, and those pieces had been things like ancient jewelry or quilts that had been made by their great-great-grandmothers back wherever home was.

  “You’re right,” Corsi said, rubbing a hand over her face in an attempt to clear the mental cobwebs. “It was an ancestor of my father’s. He was a firefighter back in New York at the start of the twenty-first century. He got killed in the line of duty during a terrorist attack on the city. Remember when the Breen attacked San Francisco during the war? From what I’ve read, it was like that.”

  A cloud crossed Lense’s features.

  Corsi winced. “Sorry. I forgot you’ve got family there.”

  “It’s okay. Thankfully, I didn’t lose anyone. Go on. What happened?”

  “He was responding to the site of the attack when the building he was in came down around him. All that was left of him was what they could find back at his firehouse. They used to give a firefighter’s badge to next of kin, but his was never found. Yeah, it may not be the most personal family heirloom, but it’s all they could do at the time.”

  The corners of Elizabeth Lense’s eyes pinched. After everything they’d been through in recent years, far more close calls than even Corsi cared to remember, she could only guess that the doctor was imagining the same thing she had from time to time—what Starfleet would give their next-of-kin.

  “The terrorists used things people saw every day against them, so what their victims thought nothing of became weapons.”

  They hid things inside everyday items…so standard security measures wouldn’t see them. Wait a minute. What if there’s something inside one of the padds? We would have spotted it on the scans, wouldn’t we?

  Not if it had a masking signal.

  Corsi’s eyes shot open. She was about to slap her combadge and contact Commander Gomez when a comm came through. “Hawkins to Corsi. We’ve got another body.”

  Chapter

  5

  Corsi was really getting sick of the harsh, sharp smell of death forcing its way into her life. Deverick’s body stared up accusingly. She cursed to herself, convinced that she should have been able to stop this one. They had the padds in custody. How could one of them have gotten out?

  Maybe it isn’t the padds after all?

  The evidence, what little there was of it, was just as inconclusive as it had been for Caitano. No fibers out of place. No unusual dusts. Nothing remotely of use. The only major difference with the body seemed to be that this time, he’d ended up on his back instead of facedown. Corsi took little time pointing out a trail of blood that led from the victim’s ears. “From what you said you found in Caitano’s autopsy, looks like the same thing.”

  “That would be a logical assumption,” Lense said from beside her. The doctor had followed her from their quarters the second the call from Hawkins had come in.

  Lense pulled out her own tricorder and began scanning the body. “Creatine kinase levels are normal. Save for blood type, these readings are virtually identical to what I found on Caitano. It’s even picking up the same percentage of brain tissue in the blood.”

  Corsi couldn’t believe her ears. “Identical? That shouldn’t be possible. There are too many variables involved for it to come out identical.”

  Lense held out the tricorder, and Corsi immediately inspected the readings. The tricorder was only able to do a few of the exams, but a bare-bones toxicology reading, pathology scans, even scans of the blood trails from his ears, scan after scan, it was all the same. “At least now we’ve got a signature on the murder weapon,” was all she could manage.

  Corsi visually scanned the area around the body. It looked remarkably like the scenario she’d found Caitano in, only transposed to the new quarters’ sitting room: body on the floor near the sofa, glass of a clear liquid on the table near his head—she presumed it was water, but aimed her tricorder at it, just to be safe.

  It was precisely as it appeared—water.

  Damn. With the glass Caitano had, that’s about the only other consistency between the crime scenes.

  She checked the closets and dressers, but came up empty. The replicators showed that he’d requested a homeopathic headache remedy. She called up the chemical composition that had been programmed into the replicator. Both the pattern on that and the one on the aspirin Caitano had called for checked out as having nothing added.

  One detail jumped out at her, though. “Where’s the padd?”

  “Padd?” Lense asked.

  “Yeah. The padd. If what I was thinking before is right, it might be the key here.” As soon as Hawkins had scans of the room for the official record, Corsi began going over the room. Between a pillow and blanket on the sofa, she found the object of her search. “Here it is. Hawkins?”

  “Yeah, Chief?”

  “Get this to Commander Gomez. Run a DNA trace while you’re at it. I want to know what the difference is between this one and the ones we’ve got in custody.”

  Hawkins nodded, and gingerly took the padd. “Anything else?”

  That was when it struck her. “Yeah. Take a DNA trace on the glass. Compare it to the one from Caitano’s murder and standard replicator settings. Have the chemical compositions double-checked on both glasses. I want to make sure the replicators aren’t lying to us.”

  “You got it,” Hawkins said.

  “What are you thinking?” Lense asked.

  Corsi tried to figure out an appropriate way to phrase the thoughts in her head. She gestured for Lense to follow her into the corridor. “Remember how I was saying that the terrorists used everyday things as weapons?”

  The doctor nodded. A glimmer of understanding quickly followed. “You think whoever did this used something we wouldn’t notice?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “But, what is ‘it’? Domenica, I don’t know of anything that could do this kind of damage that isn’t something we could easily pick up on a simple scan. Whatever this is, it’s something new. The only drug I found in Caitano’s body was the aspirin, and so far I don’t see any difference here, either. I don’t think whatever did this was delivered in the glass.”

  Corsi slowly shook her head. “I’m not so sure, either. I’ve got a feeling it’s got something to do with the padds. So far, it’s the only other connection between the two deaths. We need to examine that padd.” Tapping her combadge, she said, “Corsi to Gomez.”

  “Yes, Commander?”

  “Has Mr. Hawkins reported to you yet?”

  “He just got here. What’s up?”

  She took a deep breath. “Doctor Lense and I need your help. Could you meet us in the hololab as soon as you have a chance?”

  Chapter

  6

  The look on Sonya Gomez’s face couldn’t have been more incredulous. “The padds?”

  Corsi sat
the two padds recovered from Caitano’s bed, as well as the padd she’d found at Deverick’s crime scene, on the workbench between them. “Whoever did this is using our own equipment against us.”

  “Our own equipment?”

  Corsi tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. You’re the only one who’s taken counterterrorism training. Don’t forget that. “It’s an old terrorist ploy. If they use things that we take for granted, they can plant the bomb in the center of town and nobody will give it a second look.” She pointed at one of Caitano’s padds. “Commander, Hawkins scanned this one three times and found nothing unusual about it. I even scanned it once, myself, but it was the same reading. If I’m right, somebody wants it that way.”

  Gomez picked up the device and began giving it a closer inspection. She retrieved a sonic screwdriver from the nearest tool kit. Grabbing the unit that had the novel Caitano had been reading, she got to work. Her eyes widened when she cracked the padd’s case open on two bits of electronics that obviously hadn’t been part of the padd’s original design. “How’d the scanners miss this much tampering? That’s got to be the smallest emitter array I’ve ever seen. That looks almost like an acoustic amplifier. Bounce the acoustic signal off of this, and you can focus it like a phaser beam. You know, I’ll bet that’s designed to fool any scanner into thinking the padd’s just a plain, off-the-shelf unit,” Gomez said in the same tone that Corsi had heard from Stevens—she was rolling, and nobody with any sense should interrupt. “I wonder what the other thing’s for.” Her voice trailed off as she resumed staring down into the guts of the altered padd. She stared intently at the small piece of obsidian circuitry that sat beside the emitter. “Have you told Captain Gold yet?” she muttered.

  Corsi shook her head. “There was nothing new to report until now. How long before you think you’ll know what the other emitter does?”

  Gomez shrugged. “Don’t know. A day, maybe? Caitano got this on Deep Space 9, right?”

  Corsi nodded. “Best we can tell. I’m already working on the message for Captain Kira and Lieutenant Ro. If my hunch is right—”

  “Yeah, a padd with that novel on it came through Quark’s place last month,” Ro Laren said, her brow furrowing into ridges that matched those on the bridge of her Bajoran nose. “He told me it was some bestseller in the Gamma Quadrant.”

  “That’s their cover story,” Corsi replied. “The crew here believes it was designed to pass scanner detection, because we’d never think to look at a padd. Who’d tamper with that?”

  Ro shook her head. “I know it’s probably not worth much, Commander, but we should have thought to look at it more closely. At least half of the grandfathered militia members were in the resistance. The odds are good somebody tried a stunt like this once.”

  Corsi leaned back in her office chair, staring at Deep Space 9’s security chief. Dark eyes that had seemed pretty happy when they’d begun the conversation now looked haunted—the eyes of someone who was going to be feeling some serious guilt when the conversation ended. Corsi couldn’t say as she blamed her, really. In her shoes, she probably would have felt the same. If she didn’t figure out who used the padds to kill Caitano and Deverick, she was pretty damned sure she’d feel the same.

  “Do you know if he has a paper trail on the device?” Corsi asked.

  Ro shook her head again. “No, but I will by the time you arrive. I suppose you’ll want to talk to Quark about it?”

  Corsi thought about that for a moment. She would definitely have to question the Ferengi on the transaction, but something as simple as Bajor’s recently finalized Federation membership would throw more than just a spanner into the works. Quark’s Bar had become the Ferengi embassy. She realized with a depressing turn of her stomach that this would require questioning an ambassador, possibly even in his own embassy where he could pretty much call all of the shots.

  Her lips pursed. She didn’t like that one bit.

  “We may want to get him out of the bar to do it,” Corsi said. “Questioning him inside the embassy could raise all kinds of diplomatic problems.”

  Ro’s eyes rolled. “Especially since he also happens to be the brother of the Grand Nagus. What a time for fatherhood to make Rom grow a spine.”

  Corsi shook her head. “From what Nog said, he’s always been protective of Quark.”

  The ends of Ro’s lips turned up. “That protection works both ways. Those two have been to hell and back together. He held the guns on a couple of Jem’Hadar guards to get Rom out of jail during the Dominion occupation. Who knows what Rom might do in return? Although, I just don’t see Rom going ballistic.”

  A thin smile spread across Corsi’s face as she thought of something. “On second thought, a little ‘interview’ in the bar might prove handy. He won’t want to cause a scene in front of the customers.”

  “True,” Ro replied, one dark eyebrow raised. “Bad for business.”

  “Let me work on a strategy here,” Corsi said. “We’ll be there in about another day.”

  Chapter

  7

  “Commander Corsi, do you have a moment?”

  Corsi looked up from Gomez’s latest report on the padds with weary eyes. Standing in the doorway to her office was P8 Blue, the ship’s pill-bug-shaped Nasat structural engineer. “Pattie,” as she had come to be known, held out a padd in one clawed hand. “Captain Gold said that you are looking at the padds that had been owned by or come in contact with Caitano or Deverick?”

  “Yeah, why do you ask?”

  Pattie reached forward, placing the padd on the desk. “Caitano donated a copy of a novel to the ship’s library and then checked it out to my padd. He thought I might enjoy it.”

  “Did you?”

  Pattie held out her arms. If she’d had visible shoulders, Corsi suspected Pattie would have shrugged. “The translation from its native language was rough at best. I am sure if the translation had not been required, it might have worked better. It isn’t a bad story, kind of fun, actually. But as it is, I don’t believe it would be nearly as successful in the Alpha Quadrant as Caitano thought.”

  Wait a minute. Corsi’s overworked brain stopped in its tracks. If he uploaded it before he read it, he wouldn’t have known something was up. “Computer, pull up the contents of the ship’s fiction library, sort by date of donation. Route the results to my viewscreen.”

  “Working.”

  Her screen flickered, and was quickly filled with a listing of most of the major fiction works the Alpha Quadrant’s authors had to offer. The most recent donation, however, was from Caitano. The same title had been on the padd they’d recovered from the sofa when Deverick died, and the padd that Caitano had been reading when he died. “Computer, give me the details on the book titled Tafock Navar Relal.”

  “Donated by Crewman Kenneth Caitano. Author: Unknown. Genre: Suspense fiction.”

  “Author unknown? If it was a Gamma Quadrant bestseller, why didn’t he know who the author was?” Corsi looked up at Pattie. “Did you really read this?”

  “Yes,” the Nasat replied, concern edging her voice. “Is that a problem, Commander?”

  “Well,” Corsi said dryly, “you’re still alive.”

  A tinkling that Corsi had come to know as nervous laughter came from Pattie. “Very funny, Commander.”

  “I’m serious. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before now, but both Caitano and Deverick had this file on the padds that were near them when they died. Computer, did anyone else check this file out besides P8 Blue?”

  “Crewman Theodore Deverick.”

  Corsi let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Computer, this file is a security risk. Put it under Security Quarantine Alpha. Access only to myself, Chief Petty Officer Hawkins, Commander Gomez, and Captain Gold.”

  As soon as the computer confirmed the quarantine, she pressed the comm button on her desk. “Corsi to Gomez.”

  “Yes, Commander?”

  “Are you stil
l in the hololab? We’ve got a new lead.”

  Chapter

  8

  “How’re we doing?” Captain David Gold said as he strode through the doors into the hololab. He made his way around the two unused workbenches and over to the one where Gomez had more small tools than Corsi had ever seen scattered across the surface. Even though he only came up to Corsi’s nose, Corsi knew better than to dodge anything with him. She’d trust the man with her life if it came down to it, and on occasion it had. It wasn’t anything she’d ever admit to anyone, but there were times when she hoped to have that sharp a mind when she was old enough to have great-grandchildren.

  Provided I survive this and live long enough to have children. I did not just have that thought.

  Shaking it off, she said, “We believe we may finally have the murder weapon, and it’s a mean one.”

  That seemed to pique Gold’s interest. One gray eyebrow rose. “Really? What have you got?”

  “The padd,” Gomez said, pulling herself out of the hunched position she’d been in for the last several minutes. “There’s an emitter array that lets the thing pass scanner detection. We’d have had to crack the thing open to know it had been altered.”

  “So, what does it do when it passes detection?”

  Gomez brushed a strand of black hair out of her face, using the needlelike probe in her hand to point at the complex bit of circuitry that sat beside the emitter array. “See this? It’s designed to learn the species of whoever is holding the padd. We’re still trying to figure out exactly how it interacts, but we know it works with something else in the padd’s programming. To the best I’ve been able to determine, it’s set to generate different results for each species. I’ve got a feeling that those results modulate the frequency of the sound that it produces, but I haven’t been able to prove it yet. This piece here allows it to be focused.”