Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: The Author's Cut by Diane Duane Page B
Authors: Diane Duane
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turned. A man stood there in white T-shirt and jeans; the first glance gave her an impression of longish, unruly gray hair, wide-set dark eyes, big shoulders, big hands, polishing a glass with a glass cloth. “Yes,” Lee said, bringing out her professional ID and showing it to him. “My name is Lee Enfield: I’m a ‘mancer working with the LAPD, investigating the murder that happened around the corner last night.”
“Mike Ibanez,” the man said.
“What time would you normally be opening tonight, Mr. Ibanez?’
“Six,” Ibanez said.
“All right Mr. Ibanez, my partner Madra Gelert and I are going to need to do a psychoforensic sweep through here later today: probably early this afternoon, though we’ll come sooner if we can. Until the first sweep is done, we’ll need you to keep the premises locked, and not open them again until we clear them. You can stay inside, that’s all right, but no one else should come in: no deliveries, that kind of thing. The County will compensate you for your downtime and any employee overtime or reimbursement that the closure entails. I’ll bring the paperwork for you when we come back. Is that all right?”
“Sure,” Ibanez said.
“Thank you,” Lee said. “My partner and I may have some questions for you afterward.”
“Sure, no problem.”
Lee wondered whether he was always going to be this voluble. Of course, he may just be freaked out. It’s hard to remember that other people don’t see murders every other day… “Thank you,” Lee said. “Will you lock the front door behind me? We’re taping off the front sidewalk, but all the same we don’t want anyone slipping in and contaminating the scene before we’ve had a chance to examine it.”
He nodded and accompanied Lee to the door: as she stepped out, she heard it lock behind her. Lee made her way down the sidewalk toward the middle of the block, staying close to the wall, and out past the dry cleaner’s where Gelert had fastened the tape.
“Talkative guy,” she said to him, as he held the tape up to her and they started to walk back. “We’ll see what we find out later on. You want to drive? I wouldn’t mind a few minutes to look over the profile Hagen sent us.”
“Go ahead.”
Their company hov was a Skoda Palacia with the flex-species package. Gelert nosed the driver’s side door open, and the hov recognized his touch on the lock and reconfigured the driver’s seat as the forward-facing flat contour pallet that Gelert preferred. He jumped in, lay down, and let the guidance sleeves and safety webbing connect up around his limbs and hook into his implant, while Lee got in on the passenger side and kept the hov from belting her up until she could reach into the backseat for the printed report that Mass had handed them as they left the office.
She started paging through it as Gelert pulled out into traffic. Omren dil’Sorden had just turned thirty-two years old. He had been working in ExTel’s network development department for eight years: his official title there was “senior research assistant.” The personnel-department files appended to his CV explained that his work mostly had to do with building and enhancing telecommunications network structures at the point where they interfaced with intraworld gating facilities—both commercial gates like those at Kennedy and LAX, and “electrons-only” minicollider exchanges such as were maintained by many public and private companies. It was specialized work—Lee understood the general concept, but she had the sinking feeling that she was going to get to know it a lot better in the coming days. For the moment, she gathered that dil’Sorden had been mostly busy with improving present solid and wireless telecom networks in the LA area, and designing the new ones that would replace them—nets specifically structured to integrate with the new intercontinual comms gateways being installed at LAX over the next couple of years. Not
“Mike Ibanez,” the man said.
“What time would you normally be opening tonight, Mr. Ibanez?’
“Six,” Ibanez said.
“All right Mr. Ibanez, my partner Madra Gelert and I are going to need to do a psychoforensic sweep through here later today: probably early this afternoon, though we’ll come sooner if we can. Until the first sweep is done, we’ll need you to keep the premises locked, and not open them again until we clear them. You can stay inside, that’s all right, but no one else should come in: no deliveries, that kind of thing. The County will compensate you for your downtime and any employee overtime or reimbursement that the closure entails. I’ll bring the paperwork for you when we come back. Is that all right?”
“Sure,” Ibanez said.
“Thank you,” Lee said. “My partner and I may have some questions for you afterward.”
“Sure, no problem.”
Lee wondered whether he was always going to be this voluble. Of course, he may just be freaked out. It’s hard to remember that other people don’t see murders every other day… “Thank you,” Lee said. “Will you lock the front door behind me? We’re taping off the front sidewalk, but all the same we don’t want anyone slipping in and contaminating the scene before we’ve had a chance to examine it.”
He nodded and accompanied Lee to the door: as she stepped out, she heard it lock behind her. Lee made her way down the sidewalk toward the middle of the block, staying close to the wall, and out past the dry cleaner’s where Gelert had fastened the tape.
“Talkative guy,” she said to him, as he held the tape up to her and they started to walk back. “We’ll see what we find out later on. You want to drive? I wouldn’t mind a few minutes to look over the profile Hagen sent us.”
“Go ahead.”
Their company hov was a Skoda Palacia with the flex-species package. Gelert nosed the driver’s side door open, and the hov recognized his touch on the lock and reconfigured the driver’s seat as the forward-facing flat contour pallet that Gelert preferred. He jumped in, lay down, and let the guidance sleeves and safety webbing connect up around his limbs and hook into his implant, while Lee got in on the passenger side and kept the hov from belting her up until she could reach into the backseat for the printed report that Mass had handed them as they left the office.
She started paging through it as Gelert pulled out into traffic. Omren dil’Sorden had just turned thirty-two years old. He had been working in ExTel’s network development department for eight years: his official title there was “senior research assistant.” The personnel-department files appended to his CV explained that his work mostly had to do with building and enhancing telecommunications network structures at the point where they interfaced with intraworld gating facilities—both commercial gates like those at Kennedy and LAX, and “electrons-only” minicollider exchanges such as were maintained by many public and private companies. It was specialized work—Lee understood the general concept, but she had the sinking feeling that she was going to get to know it a lot better in the coming days. For the moment, she gathered that dil’Sorden had been mostly busy with improving present solid and wireless telecom networks in the LA area, and designing the new ones that would replace them—nets specifically structured to integrate with the new intercontinual comms gateways being installed at LAX over the next couple of years. Not
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