“Well, there’s more,” Darcy said. The night guard took another deep breath. He had obviously run down the hall from the lift. “Lots more.”
“We think we’ve got it pieced together,” Stevens said with confidence. He nodded toward the open cryopod. “It’s pretty clear that a murder took place here. It started—”
“Not a murder,” Darcy interjected.
“Give the deputy a chance,” Brevard said, lifting his mug. “He’s been looking at this for hours.”
Darcy started to say something but caught himself. He rubbed under his eyes, seemed exhausted, but nodded.
“Right,” Stevens said. He pointed his camera at the cryopod. “Blood on the lid means the struggle began out here. The man we found inside must’ve been subdued by our killer after a fight, that’s how his blood got on the lid. And then he was tossed inside his own cryopod. His hands were bound, I’m assuming at gunpoint, because I didn’t note any marks around the wrists, no other sign of struggle. He was shot once in the chest.” Stevens pointed to the streaks and spots of blood on the inside of the lid. “We’ve got splatter here, indicating the victim was sitting up. But the way it ran suggests the lid was shut immediately after. And the coloration tells me that this likely happened on our shift, certainly within the past month.”
Brevard watched Darcy’s face the entire time, saw how it scrunched up in disagreement. The kid thought he knew better than the deputy.
“What else?” Brevard asked Stevens, prodding his second-in-command along further.
“Oh, yes. After murdering the victim, our perp inserted an IV and a catheter to keep the body from decomposing, so we’re looking at someone with medical training. He might, of course, still be on this shift. Which is why we thought it best to discuss this down here and not around the med team. We’ll want to question them one at a time.”
Brevard nodded and took a sip of coffee. He waited on the night guard’s reaction.
“It wasn’t murder,” Darcy said, exasperated. “Do you guys want to hear what else I have? For starters, the blood on the lid matches the database entry for the pod, just like you said, but it doesn’t match the victim. The guy inside is someone else.”
Brevard nearly spat out his coffee. He wiped his moustache with his hand. “What?” he asked, not sure that he’d heard correctly.
“The blood on the outside was mixed with saliva. It came from a second person. Doc said it was probably a cough, maybe a chest wound. So our suspect is likely injured.”
“Wait. So who’s the guy we found in the pod?” Stevens asked.
“They’re not sure. They ran his blood, but it seems his records have been tampered with. The guy this pod is registered to, he shouldn’t be on the executive wing at all. Should’ve been in Deep Freeze. And the blood from the inside of the lid matches a partial record from the executive files, which would place him in here somewhere—”
“Partial record?” Brevard asked.
Darcy shrugged. “The files are all kinds of fouled up. According to Doctor Whitmore.”
“Ah,” Deputy Stevens said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve got it. I know what happened here.” He pointed his camera at the pod. “There’s a struggle out here, okay? A guy who doesn’t want to be put under. He manages to break free, knows how to hack the—”
“Hold up,” Brevard said, raising a hand. He could see on Darcy’s face that there was more. “Why do you keep insisting this wasn’t a murder? We’ve got a gunshot wound, blood splatter, a closed lid, no weapon, a man with his hands bound, and blood on the lid of this pod, whoever the hell it’s registered to. Everything about this screams murder.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Darcy said. “It wasn’t murder because the guy was plugged in. He was plugged in the entire time, even before he was shot. And the pod was still on and running. This Troy fellow – or whoever it is that we pulled out of there – he’s still alive.”
17
The three men left the pod behind and headed for the medical wing and the operating room. Brevard’s mind raced. He didn’t need this crap on one of his shifts. This was not vanilla. He imagined the reports he would have to write after this, how much fun it would be to brief the next captain.
“Do you think we should get the Shepherd involved?” Stevens asked, referring to the head executive up on the administration wing, a man who kept mostly to himself.
Brevard scoffed. He coded open the Deep Freeze door and led the men out into the hallway. “I think this is a little below his pay grade, don’t you? Shepherd has entire silos to worry about. You can see how it wears on him, how he keeps himself locked up. It’s our job to handle cases like this. Even murder.”
“You’re right,” Stevens said.