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If the Frame Fits: A Jake Masters Story

Written by Mike Resnick

Illustrated by Karl Nordman

There are probably less appetizing ways to spend an afternoon than having lunch with Baro the Grub, but offhand I couldn’t think of any.

Baro was one of my informants. He lived in the Alien Quarter. I didn’t need anything from him at the moment, but with Baro you had to keep the pump primed because his loyalty didn’t last a lot longer than his lunch, which was purple and wriggling, and screamed bloody murder when Baro held it above his gaping mouth and dropped it in. He knew what I thought of his gustatory habits, so he always made a production about chewing noisily and chatting while his dinner breathed its last.

He told me about some minor thefts that had taken place in Homer, the capital city of my home planet of Odysseus, and about some contraband no one, including the cops, gave a damn about. It was supposed to be showing up in the Quarter the next day, and I slipped him ten Maria Theresa dollars for information I didn’t want or need. I was about to get up and go back to my office when a young man in a lieutenant’s uniform walked up to our table.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you Jake Masters?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”

“Please come with me, sir,” said the officer. “I have an aircar waiting just outside.”

You don’t say No to officers, not if you want to keep your license, so I stood up. “Catch you later,” I said to the Grub.

“Have many laws have you broken this time?” asked the Grub with an amused inflection in his inhuman voice.

“Be sure to let me know when your race evolves a sense of humor,” I said. Then I turned to the lieutenant. “Lead the way.”

He took me to his vehicle, and we skimmed eighteen inches above the pavement for a few miles. I was a little surprised when we went past both police and military headquarters without slowing down. Pretty soon the huge government complex loomed in front of us, and we pulled up to the building that housed Sector Affairs.

“I haven’t had a Sector Affair in months,” I said. He gave me a look that said Baro wasn’t the only one who needed to evolve a sense of humor.

“Follow me, please,” he said, and walked into the building without giving me another glance.

I fell into step behind him, and we took an airlift to the fifth floor. It was pretty posh; even the reception area smelled of clout.

“This is Mr. Masters,” announced the lieutenant. He turned on his heel and left, as an elegantly-dressed middle-aged woman approached me.

“Please come with me, Mr. Masters,” she said pleasantly. I noticed that no one had given me their names, but when you’re dealing with diplomats and the military you don’t ask too many personal questions. Besides, they were just handing me off like players in a murderball game. I figured when someone finally introduced himself I’d have arrived at where I was supposed to be.

It didn’t take that long. We walked down a long shiny corridor, with unconcealed Spy Eye holo cameras everywhere, and finally came to the huge office at the end of it. The door sensed our presence and vanished. She indicated that I was to walk through. I did so, and the door immediately closed behind me.

There was one man and one desk in the office, and although neither of them could be considered undersized, they looked undersized because of their surroundings. There were a number of alien artifacts that made no sense sitting on pedestals, and bonded to the wall was a genuine Morita that probably cost half what the entire building had cost to construct. I didn’t have to be a genius to conclude that it was the property of the man I was facing, rather than the Department of Sector Affairs.

His face looked familiar: thin, clean-shaven, with graying red hair, a distinct widow’s peak, and mildly bushy eyebrows. Not that I’d ever met him—I was reasonably sure we didn’t travel in the same social circles—but I’d seen him on various newsdisks and holocasts. I didn’t remember his name, and it was clear that he was going to be disappointed when I didn’t gasp in amazement and go all weak in the knees in his presence.

“Mr. Masters?” he said at last, wiping a microscopic smudge from the empty surface of his gleaming desk.

“Call me Jake,” I said.

“I am very glad we found you so easily, Mr. Masters,” he said, and I decided that if his name was Smith, he probably called his wife “Mrs. Smith”, even in bed.

“I wasn’t hiding,” I replied. A mirror caught my eye. It was bonded to the wall, amid all the artwork. It was a dumb place for it, and I knew it had to be a two-way, that someone on the other side of the wall was watching me through it, just in case.

“I’ve summoned you, Mr. Masters, because we have what one might call a situation,” he said.

“What would you call it?” I asked.

He gazed coldly at me. There were clearly specific rules to this game, but no one had clued me in on them. Finally he shrugged.

“I am William Henshall, Secretary of Sector Affairs."

“I know that,” I replied. I didn’t tell him that I’d known it for about three seconds.

“Let me get right to the point,” he said, and it was clear I wasn’t of the proper class for the courtesy of small talk. “We have need of your services.”

“We, or you?” I asked.

“I meant what I said.”

So it wasn’t a straying wife. I already felt sorry for the poor woman.

“Fine,” I said. “I just find it difficult to visualize the Department of Sector Affairs needing a private detective.”

“Personally, I agree with you,” he said, an expression of distaste on his face. “I argued against it.”

I’m sure you did, I thought. He didn’t look like the kind to get caught with his hand in the till. I wondered what it was he didn’t want me looking into.

“I’ll lay it out for you as simply as I can, Mr. Masters,” he continued when it was obvious I wasn’t going to say anything. “Have you ever heard of Keladroon II?”

“Nope.”

“Perhaps by its informal name, which is Purplehaze?”

“I’ve heard of it, or maybe seen it in some holo or other,” I replied. “I’ve never been there.”

“The Democracy has an embassy there,” said Henshall.

That was no surprise. The Democracy had embassies on thousands of worlds, and Odysseus was part of the Democracy—a very tiny part—but I couldn’t figure out what an embassy sixty or seventy light years away had to do with a private detective. Whatever happened there, embassies had security forces out the wazoo, so why was he talking to me?

“One Standard day ago there was a murder there.”

He looked like he expected me to say something. All I could think of was “Oh”, and I was sure that would just annoy him, so I stood still and waited for him to keep talking.

“A very important Tjanti was the victim.”

That made it interesting, but I still didn’t know what it had to do with me.

“As you know, Odysseus has had numerous military incidents with Tjant over the past few years. They were not exactly wars, but the two planets decided it was time to sort things out. We organized a week-long meeting in the Democracy’s embassy on the neutral planet of Keladroon II.”

“An unofficial peace conference for an nonexistent war,” I suggested wryly. And of course, if the two spoiled kids didn’t sort out their problems, then Odysseus’s big brother—the Democracy—would take them both out behind the woodshed and impose a solution that neither side would like. It had happened often enough among minor worlds like Odysseus and its neighbors. The Democracy thought and planned in huge, galactic terms. and it resented annoying little disturbances like ours.

“Yesterday Mglias, Tjant’s chief negotiator, was found murdered in the embassy.”

“So someone killed a Tjanti bigwig on Purplehaze,” I said.

“In the Democracy’s embassy,” repeated Henshall.

“In the Democracy’s embassy,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear it, but why are you telling me?”

“We find ourselves with a bit of a situation,” he said. Diplomats love the word “situation”; it sounds much better than saying they’ve fucked up or they’re in deep shit. “Since we are still theoretically at hazard with Tjant, they naturally do not want this to be a human-led investigation, especially since it happened on our turf, so to speak.”

“So turn it over to the Purplehaze cops.”

“We can’t.”

“Don’t tell me they’ve never investigated a murder before,” I said.

“Of course they have!” he snapped.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The Democracy will not permit the Droons or the Tjantis”—the natives of Keladroon II and Tjant—“free access to the embassy. They have too many sensitive files than cannot fall into alien hands. They won’t allow them to ransack their computers searching for clues.” He paused. “So we were at an impasse. The Tjantis would not accept an investigation performed by the human security staff, and we will not allow non-humans to prowl through the private areas of the embassy.” He paused and stared at me, as if trying to convince himself I wouldn’t start drooling and scratching myself momentarily. “Finally the Tjantis came up with a compromise.”

“A compromise?”

He grimaced. “You.”

“Why me?” I asked. “I’ve never been to Purplehaze or Tjant, never met a native of either.”

“You seem to have developed a bit of a reputation,” he said, shifting his weight uncomfortably as if my reputation was accompanied by a very unpleasant odor. “You solved a murder on Greydawn a year or two ago, and it is also known that you took on an alien partner shortly thereafter.”

That was Max, who resembled nothing more than a purple beachball. A short-lived one. He was murdered less than two months after we started working together.

“It has also not escaped their attention—or ours—that you seem to move freely among the criminal element in the Alien Quarter.”

“That’s because they trust me.”

He tried to hide a look that said being trusted by alien criminals should be a flogging offense, and didn’t quite succeed. “So I’ve been told.”

“Well, I’m flattered,” I said, “but I don’t know anything about the other two races, I’ve never been to Purplehaze, and no matter what assurances I’m given I suspect I won’t have any more freedom within the embassy than an alien cop. So with all due respect, I think I’ll politely decline your offer.”

“It’s not an offer,” said Henshall quietly. “You’re going, period.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I said pleasantly, “but I’m not one of your employees. I can say no to any job I don’t want.”

“Can you stand a close audit by the Taxation Bureau?” he asked.

“I don’t make enough to worry about it,” I said.

“You’re going to make even less,” he said, “because if you walk out of here without accepting this assignment, you’re also walking out with an indefinitely suspended license.”

“I’ve been threatened by experts, Mr. Henshall,” I said.

“Mr. Masters, you just became a security risk. Your license is hereby revoked, there are three security men outside my door waiting to take you to a detention cell in the basement for eventual questioning, which may or may not take place this year, and all your assets will be frozen within the hour.”

“You just make me proud all over to be a human,” I said.

“If, on the other hand, you will accept the assignment, you will be supplied with transportation, all your expenses will be paid, and the sum of ten thousand credits will be deposited in your bank account the moment you land on Keladroon II.”

“I don’t trust credits,” I said. “Make it the equivalent in Maria Theresa dollars or Far London pounds.”

“Maria Theresa dollars it is,” he said.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll take the job.” As if there was ever any doubt after he started flexing his clout.

“I had a feeling you would,” he said smugly.

“And I hope to hell when I find the killer, it turns out to be your illegitimate son.”

“Get out of my sight!” he snapped.

I walked to the door, it sensed my presence and vanished, and three security men—he hadn’t been lying about that—escorted me to my apartment while I packed a bag, and then to the spaceport. An hour later a small military ship took off with me as its only passenger, and two hours after that we entered the MacDougal Wormhole, which would let us out within half a light year of Purplehaze, just in time to miss dinner.

****

The embassy wasn’t that impressive compared to some I’d seen holos of. You could probably fit more people into the boxing arena back on Odysseus, and it had a few less windows than the Governor’s Palace. Still, it was nice to know our tax dollars weren’t wasted on medical R & D or anything silly like that.

The place reeked of protocol. There were security men everywhere, each of them snapping off the kind of salute you tend to see only in holos. Bureaucrats in formal wear—the higher up the pecking order, the more formal the dress—abounded. There were local police—Droons—but they seemed to understand that they were just there to stop jaywalkers and the like.

I showed up a little after nine o’clock at night, local time, and was introduced to a dozen forgettable men and women who bowed obsequiously and smiled ingratiatingly, so I knew instantly that they were the service staff. One of them showed me to my third-floor room, while another carted my luggage up there. There were airlifts galore, but we used the winding staircase. I assume the purpose was to impress me; it didn’t work half as well as a first-floor room would have.

As I was unpacking I noticed a human butler standing in the doorway, staring at me.

“Am I doing it right?” I asked, hanging some clothes in the closet.

“The Ambassador would like to see you at once,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “Send him up.”

It’s a pity he didn’t have a longer nose, so he could have enjoyed looking down it even more. “In his office, sir.”

“As soon as I’m done here,” I said, and spent an extra fifteen minutes unpacking, shaving, brushing my teeth, doing whatever I could to show him I wasn’t someone an Ambassador’s flunky could order around. Finally I couldn’t think of any more busywork, so I told him to lead the way, and he headed off toward the stairway.

“Just a minute,” I said. “What floor is the Ambassador’s office on?”

“The second, sir.”

“I already know what the stairs look like. Let’s take the airlift.”

His face became a totally impassive mask, and he led me to the nearest airlift. He was clearly one flunky who wasn’t going to do anything to make me report him. A moment later I was ushered into an office that made Henshall’s office back on Odysseus look like a broom closet. It actually had a wall of real, honest-to-god books; not holodisks or litcubes, but real paper. They must have cost a fortune.

There were three men in the office. One of them wore a Security uniform.

“Mr. Masters?” said a tall, good-looking man with steel gray hair and eyes to match.

“Right,” I said.

“I am Ambassador Phillip Ruskin. Allow me to introduce Philip Finn, Odysseus’s chief negotiator, and Bradley McKay, our Chief of Security.”

I shook each of their hands.

“I’m sure the Ambassador wants to speak to you in private,” said Finn. “Just solve this damned thing quickly. We’ve got to get them back to the table.” He turned to Ruskin. “I’ll be in the office down the hall for the next hour.”

He left the room, and McKay left a moment later.

“I trust your journey was uneventful?” said Ruskin to me when we were alone.

“I suppose so,” I replied. “I slept through most of it.”

“Secretary Henshall has contacted me and told me that you’ve been briefed on the situation.”

I nodded. “A Tjanti was murdered, and the Tjantis don’t trust the embassy’s security team to solve it—or at least to reveal the truth if they do solve it.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” agreed Ruskin. “It’s an awkward situation. The Tjantis don’t trust the Droons either, though we have insisted that we must have access to the local forensics unit.” He paused and sighed deeply. “I just hope you’re as good as our people back on Odysseus think you are.”

“That makes two of us,” I said.

“They tell me you worked for the police before going private a few years ago.”

“That’s right.”

“Why did you leave the force?”

“It was strongly suggested,” I said. He seemed to be waiting for an explanation. “I arrested the wrong men.”

“Innocent?”

“No,” I said. “Elected.”

Which closed the subject.

“We’ll provide you with any assistance you require,” he said as if the last few sentences hadn’t been spoken. “I’ve never been involved in a murder investigation before, so I don’t know what that will entail.”

“I’ll let you know, once I know,” I told him.

He fidgeted uncomfortably. “There’s another complication, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he said. “The Tjantis want you to be in charge of the investigation...” he began.

“I know that.”

“But they want their own observer on the scene, someone from their security team who can keep them informed about the progress of the investigation.”

“Their own spy,” I said.

He grimaced and nodded. “In essence.”

I couldn’t repress a smile. “So they trust me to solve the murder. They just don’t trust me to tell them who done it.”

He shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t refuse their request,” he said. “We are in the middle of a peace conference.” Another grimace. “At least we were.”

“Before I start, have you got any ideas about the murder?” I asked.

“Someone clearly doesn’t want Odysseus to cease hostilities with Tjant,” said Ruskin.

“Why?”

“Who knows? There’s always money to be made during a war, even a small one like this.”

“Could it have been a third party?” I asked.

He frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

“You’re on Purplehaze,” I said. “I know that Men and Tjantis were meeting here, but did any Droons have access to the embassy the day Ambassador Mglias was murdered?”

“Yes,” answered. “After all, it is their planet. They were sitting in on the talks.”

“As referees?”

“As interested observers, anyway,” he said. “There were the Droons, Mglias and his team of Tjantis, and Mr. Finn and the Odysseus team. Have you met him before?”

“I don’t think we belong to the same clubs,” I replied with a smile.

“Very nice man. Fine command of the issues.”

“I’m sure. You didn’t participate?”

“I am the Democracy’s ambassador to Keladroon II,” he pointed out. “I am not a citizen of Odysseus. It’s my job to be host to the conference, not a participant and not a partisan.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “How many representatives of each side are here?”

“That was negotiated before the conference even began. There are six members on each team, and one security agent for each member.”

“So there are a dozen on each side?”

“There were. The Tjantis have said they won’t send a replacement for Mglias until we can guarantee his safety, and of course we can’t do that until we apprehend the killer.”

“And how many men on your staff—cooks, servants, security, everything?”

“Sixty-three.”

“So we’ve got eleven Tjantis, seventy-five men excluding yourself, and however many Droons you’ve let in as observers.” I sighed. “That’s a shitload of suspects.”

“Surely you don’t think one of my staff could have done this?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “And with all due respect, neither do you.”

He seemed about to object, then restrained himself. I guess it goes with being an ambassador. “You’re quite right, Mr. Masters.”

“Okay,” I said. “I might as well take a look at the crime scene. I assume it’s been sealed off?”

“After the initial confusion.”

“How much initial confusion was there?” I asked, though I could guess the answer.

“Quite a lot,” he confirmed. “He was their chief negotiator.” He sighed and shook his head. “I still don’t know how the killer beat our security system.”

“I assume he wasn’t killed in whatever passed for the conference room?”

“No, he was in his own quarters.”

“Third floor?” I asked.

“Second,” he said. “Why did you assume the third?”

“That’s where they put me.”

“Meaning no disrespect, Mr. Masters, his quarters were somewhat more luxurious than yours, as befitted his station.”

“So his room was just down the hall from your office?” I suggested.

“Quite a bit down the hall,” he said. “I’ll summon your Tjanti…” He seemed to be deciding between “friend” and “partner”.

“Watchdog?” I suggested.

He nodded. “I’ll have him take you there.”

He touched a spot on his timepiece, and a moment later the door irised and the first Tjanti I’d ever seen entered the office. He was about five feet tall, with a face like a bulldog: huge undershot jaw, canines peeking up over his lower lip, great big wide-set purple eyes that looked like they didn’t miss much, a couple of slits for nostrils, two more for ears. He walked erect, and gave the impression of being musclebound. His hands were unique: each possess a pair of thumbs, with two long, tentacle-like fingers in between. He was covered, head to toe, with a light red down that made him look like he needed a shave from top to bottom. He wore a single garment, a metallic blue fabric that started at his chest and wound up just above his knees; it looked like a corset with shorts, or a child’s playsuit built big.

“Mr. Masters,” said Ruskin, “this is Djimbi, a member of the security force that is part of the Tjant mission. He’ll be assisting you.”

I waited for his reaction, because some races get annoyed and others panic when you reach out to shake their hands. But he stepped forward and extended his hand, or paw, or whatever the hell it was. “I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Masters,” he said in heavily-accented Terran, “and I shall enjoy working with you.”

“Call me Jake,” I said, taking his hand. It felt strong.

“Jake,” he said.

“I think I may have a little trouble pronouncing you name, so if you don’t mind I’ll just call you Jimbo.”

“I can answer to that,” he replied. “It is only a concoction of sound.”

A philosopher, yet. “Well, Jimbo,” I said, “shall we take a look at the murder scene?”

“Follow me,” he said, heading out the door.

“If there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask me,” said Ruskin. It figured; this was important enough that we had access to the Ambassador, not one of his flunkies. As we left, another well-dressed and self-important man—they seemed to inhabit government buildings—entered.

“I hope you are not offended that I have already examined the murder scene,” said Jimbo.

“Why should I be?” I responded. “After all, you were here when it happened.”

He looked as relieved as a red bulldog can look. “I think we are going to get along well.”

Jimbo led the way down a long corridor, turned left at the end of it, and walked another fifty yards before he came to a stop.

“Impressive building,” I remarked.

“There is a lot of wasted space,” he answered.

“By the way,” I said, “are you a cop back on Tjant?”

“A cop?” he repeated.

“A policeman.”

“No,” he said. “I provide security for a minor government building.”

He seemed friendly enough, but it would have been nice to have someone who knew a little something about murder, or Tjanti anatomy, or at least police methodology.

“This is the room in which Mglias was murdered,” announced Jimbo, uttering a code that caused the door to iris and let us through to the interior.

I looked around. The room was empty, and neat as a pin.

“I guess no one ever heard about not tampering with a crime scene,” I said as I walked across the thick carpet.

“They didn’t know how long it would be before they could agree upon an investigator,” said Jimbo. “They couldn’t just leave the body here.”

“Actually, they could have,” I said. “Well, there’s no sense wasting any time here.”

“Wait,” he said.

“For what?”

“I made sure they captured everything before they restored the room.”

He uttered another multi-digit code, and suddenly I was standing five feet away from a perfect hologram of Mglias’s body. It was so real you could almost smell him. There was a chair near him, one that wasn’t there now and had obviously been taken to the lab for examination, and the small trash atomizer by the desk had been kicked over by someone in a hurry to get to the door.

“That’s pretty impressive technology,” I said. “So why didn’t the security system make a holo of the murder?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, someone must know.”

“There is a screening room in the basement where all the rooms are monitored,” said Jimbo. “According to Chief of Security McKay the system for this room was temporarily disabled during the murder.” He paused, and his face came as close as a Tjanti’s face can come to a frown. “The humans who run the embassy would not allow my security team or the Droon police to examine the system or question the security team.”

“Do they want this damned thing solved or not?” I grumbled.

Jimbo’s expression said it all. The odds were that the murder was committed by a Man. What did I think the answer was?

I squatted down next to the representation of the body. You could have seen the marks where its head had been staved in from twenty yards away: the top, mildly domed in life, was now concave, and the left temple had been crushed for good measure. There were a few marks on his left side; I couldn’t be sure what caused them. Not a drop of blood anywhere. “Good professional job,” I commented. “No chance to cry for help, no blood to splatter on the killer, no way he lives long enough to make it to the door. Have you identified the weapon yet?”

“No,” said Jimbo. “At first we thought it might be one of the lamps, or a stone sculpture from the shelves, but they all turned out to be negative when examined by the lab.”

“The Droons’ lab ?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do they know what they’re doing?”

“They seem to,” he replied.

“Nothing taken from the body?” I asked. “He still had his money and anything else of value?”

“Yes.”

I stood up. “I just love a clueless crime on an alien world,” I said grumpily. “You got any notions?”

“Notions?”

“Ideas. Reconstructions. Accusations.” I paused. “Solutions?”

Another shrug. “Only the obvious: someone wished to sabotage the peace conference.”

“Do we have a list of everyone who was in the embassy at the time the murder occurred?”

“Yes.”

Something was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I hoped if I kept talking it would come to me.

“I assume no one left the building before the Droon authorities arrived?” I said.

“That is my understanding,” he replied.

“Did the Droon police question anyone?”

“They briefly questioned the members of the negotiating parties, but they were not allowed access to the rest of the embassy. This surely gave the killer time to get rid of the murder weapon.”

I shook my head. “Why get rid of it?” I said.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “It will identify him.”

“Why?” I said. “This is an embassy. They’ve got all kinds of security devices. If anyone tried to walk in with a blackjack”—I made a gesture to show what it was—“it would have set off every alarm in the building. Whatever he used, he picked it up inside the building.”

“That makes sense,” he acknowledged.

“Once we learned it was missing,” I continued, “we’d know what it was, and who had access to it. I told you: this was a very professional job. The killer’s had well over a day to cover his tracks. For a guy who knows his business, that’s as good as a month.” I paused, trying to order my thoughts. “How many blunt instruments—statuettes, lamps, ornate carvings, whatever—have they got in this place?”

“Too many,” said Jimbo.

“I knew you were going to say that,” I muttered, lighting up a smokeless cigar. I’d been trying to cut down; it was only my second of the day.

“I suppose we should go to security headquarters next,” he said. “I believe it’s in the basement.”

“Not just yet,” I said.

“Oh?” he replied, suddenly alert.

“Something’s not quite right here,” I said.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I need a minute or two to figure it out.”

I walked around the room once and stopped where I’d started. I still hadn’t spotted what was bothering me.

“How much of this stuff isn’t really here?” I asked.

“Two chairs, a waste basket, a small table, a lamp, and of course Mglias.”

“Can you make just the lamp disappear?” I asked.

“I can’t, but I’m sure someone in security can,” he said. He spoke briefly into his pocket computer, and the lamp vanished.

“Well?” he said.

“Nope. The table next.”

One by one we eliminated everything but the corpse, and I stared at it intently.

“What is it, Mr. Masters?” asked Jimbo.

“Jake,” I corrected him. “And I don’t know. But something’s still wrong.”

I walked twice around the hologram. I don’t know what the hell I was looking for. I just knew I was missing whatever it was.

“He never yelled?”

“No.”

“Just dropped where he was.”

“That is the way it appears, Mr. Masters.”

“Jake, damn it!” I said irritably.

“I apologize, Jake.”

“Forget it,” I said. “I’m just mad at myself. Something’s staring me right in the face, and I can’t figure out what it is.” I went back to staring at Mglias. “All right. He enters the room. Is the killer waiting for him, or does he accompany him?” I muttered an obscenity. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean, Jake?” asked Jimbo.

“The result is the same. Mglias turned his back on the killer.”

“Then the killer must be a Droon or a Tjanti, because Mglias wouldn’t turn his back on a Man.”

“During a peace conference, in a human embassy?” I said. “Of course he would.”

Jimbo made an inscrutable face as he considered it. “Yes, I suppose he would,” he said at last.

“Okay,” I said. “So Mglias enters the room, with the killer or without him.” I walked to where the corpse was found. “He gets this far, and gets clubbed from behind. He’s probably dead before he hits the floor.” I stared at the holograph. I was getting so close I could almost taste it, but it was still just out of reach.

I stepped back a few paces, as if that would make everything become crystal clear. It didn’t, and I walked forward again. “So he gets bopped on the head, and he falls down right here. Never moves once he hits the ground.”

“That’s right,” said Jimbo.

I uttered an obscenity under my breath.

“What is it, Jake?”

“There’s no blood.”

“I know."

" There’s no blood, and no indication that he moved after he hit the floor.”

“What are you getting at, Jake?”

“I was wrong,” I said. “This wasn’t a professional assassination.”

“Because he didn’t bleed?” said Jimbo, frowning in confusion.

“Because he was dead when he hit the floor,” I said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I saw it the second the holograph appeared,” I said, “but it didn’t register. Come over here,” I said, walking him to the far side of the room, then turning back to the corpse. “What do you see?”

“Mglias.”

“I know that,” I said impatiently. “Look at his head. Now what do you see?”

“The marks where he was attacked.”

“That’s right,” I said. “The killer stands behind him—not beside him, because your race has wide-set eyes and probably has excellent peripheral vision. The killer puts a huge dent on the top of his head—and he falls down right here, dead on contact. Then he cracks him on the temple, just to be sure. In the idiom, it’s called paying the insurance.”

He gave me a puzzled look. If he’d been a man, he’s have said “So?”

“Any professional would know he was dead the second he staved in his skull. And if not, he’d have known it when he fell, didn’t move, and stopped breathing. He’d nail him on the temple for good measure, and then get the hell out of here.”

He continued staring at me.

“Look at his left side,” I said. “I wasn’t quite sure when I first looked, but he was kicked there”—I pointed—“and there, and there. I’ll bet the autopsy shows some busted ribs.”

“How does that make it the work of an amateur?” asked Jimbo.

“There’s no sign of a struggle,” I said. “If you kick him while he’s down and alive, he rolls and bumps into something, probably knocks it over. You kick him while he’s standing, you do it with enough force to knock him halfway across the room.” I could see he still wasn’t following me. “Look,” I continued, “a pro kills him, pays the insurance, and leaves as quick as he can. Probably doesn’t know him, maybe never even saw him before. He clubs him with something that won’t break the skin—a statuette, a carving, something—then makes sure there’s no blood on anything and especially not on himself or his clothing, and makes his getaway.”

“Yes?” he said. If he’d been a Man, the next words out of his mouth would have been: “So what’s your point?”

“What a pro doesn’t do is plant a few vicious kicks at a corpse that’s beyond feeling it. Those kicks didn’t make the corpse feel any worse, so we have to assume they made the kicker feel better. And that’s why it’s not a professional job.” I paused. “It’s not a solo job either.”

“There were two killers?” he said dubiously.

“No. But the killer had to have a confederate to disable the security system in the right room at the right time. If security had gone down throughout the embassy, someone would have noticed it, or remarked on it, but no one did. Anyway,” I concluded, “what we have is a crime of passion.”

“Passion?” he repeated.

“Yeah. Now, among my race, that usually implies something to do with sex. In this case it probably doesn’t. I have no idea why Mglias was killed…but I’m pretty damned sure he was killed by someone who hated him so much that he couldn’t help taking a few kicks at him after he was dead.”

“I don’t know, Jake,” he said. “There’s a lot of profit to be made from a war, even a little one like ours. It could have been someone from either side who wanted the conflict prolonged.”

“It’s possible,” I said. “But the conference wasn’t over, and for all anyone knows the two sides weren’t going to resolve anything. I’m not saying I know who it was, but I sure as hell know who it wasn’t—a paid professional assassin. It may well be someone with an interest in keeping the battle going—or ending it, if Mglias was a hard-liner, but whoever it was, he had a personal grudge against Mglias. I think we’d do well to check into his private life.”

“He’s been in our military and then our Alien Service for twenty years,” said Jimbo. “Do you know how many enemies he could have made in the time?”

“Most of them don’t count,” I replied.

“Why not?”

“Because we know he was killed by someone who was in the embassy. It shouldn’t be that hard to find out who he knew before he got here.”

Suddenly a big grin spread across his face. “You’re very good at your job, Jake Masters,” he said. “That was precisely my conclusion.”

“It was?” I said. “Since when?”

“Since I surveyed the scene a few hours after the murder, when the police had left.”

I returned his grin. “You’re a ringer.”

“If that means what I think it means, yes. It will be a relief not to play dumb any more.”

“Are you a detective too?” I asked.

“No,” said Jimbo. “I’m a senior officer in Spdaine, Tjanti’s largest city. I came here incognito, as a member of our security staff.” He paused. “I think it will be a pleasure to work with you.”

“Same here,” I said, taking his alien hand in my own. “Now let’s go catch ourselves a killer.”

I suppose if I was a writer of holo entertainments, it would have been just that easy. Maybe I fooled myself into thinking it’d be a piece of cake for a couple of old pros like Jimbo and me.

I should have known better.

****

My first step was to inspect the security system. Since Jimbo had already seen it, I told him to stay upstairs, that I thought the staff would speak more freely if there wasn’t a Tjanti taking notes.

Security was headquartered in the basement, though the surroundings were so luxurious that “basement” seemed an inappropriate word. The thick carpet massaged your feet if you stood still for more than a couple of seconds, the chairs were as comfortable as anything you’d find this side of Ambassador Ruskin’s office, and there was even a small but well-stocked galley. I remembered seeing holovids about prisoners left to rot in dungeons, and I decided those same prisoners would have paid good money to be incarcerated here.

The walls were covered with screens, one for each bedroom in the place (there were eighteen), three for the dining hall, two for Ruskin’s office, three for the kitchen, four for the ballroom (yes, it had a ballroom), others for every corridor in the place, every storage area that was big enough to turn around in, every office, the security crew’s quarters, the garage where the official vehicles were kept, and (though they asked me not to mention it) every bathroom in the building. Finally, there were screens showing every inch of the embassy grounds. The holos were crystal clear, most were Tri-D, they all had sound though I couldn’t hear it. (It was explained that overhearing seventy or eighty people all at once, to say nothing of all the background noise, would drive me crazy; that if I wanted to listen, I could insert a tiny receiver in my ear and tune in to any room or area that I wanted.)

McKay, the Chief of Security who I had briefly met in Ruskin’s office, greeted me. He was a pudgy, balding man with a troubled expression on his face. He told me he had a spotless record for the twenty years he’d been in the service, and acted more than a bit defensive. It didn’t imply guilt as far as I was concerned. Hell, if someone was killed on my watch, I’d feel a little defensive myself.

“So what exactly happened?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Mglais entered his room and turned off the lights. We can switch our camera to infra-red, of course, but we respected his privacy and did nothing—until a minute or two later when the Spy Eye in the corridor outside his room stopped functioning. Then we activated the infra-red, but it wasn’t working either. We spent about two minutes, no more than that, trying to find the source of the problem down here—we had no reason at that time to suspect anything was amiss on the second floor—and then the screens came back up, and we realized what had happened. We signaled to Brochinsky and Dunn, our men on the second floor, to seal off all exits, but it was too late.”

“Has anyone left the building since you found the body?” I asked.

“Only to take the body to the Droon forensics lab and to pick up you at the spaceport.”

“So the killer and an accomplice are almost certainly still on the premises.”

“Why do you think we’re so jumpy, and no one’s turning his back on anyone?”

“Got any idea who might have done it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was supposed to be a fucking peace conference.”

“Have any members of the embassy—from Ambassador Ruskin right down to the butler and the low man in your department—lost anyone near and dear to them in this conflict?”

“You’d have to check the records. No one down here has ever mentioned it.” He paused. “Hell, most of them didn’t even know there was a war going on.”

“It was a very minor war,” I acknowledged. “That’s why the Democracy didn’t step in.”

“Will they now?”

It was my turn to shrug. “Who knows?”

“Well, is there anything else I can show you?”

“One thing,” I said.

“What is it?”

“How do you kill the security system in just Mglais’s room and the corridor?”

“There’s the computer that controls the whole system,” he said, pointing to a surprisingly small machine on a table in the middle of the room.

“So you couldn’t walk over and kill the room without someone noticing?”

“A bunch of someones,” said McKay. “There were five men and woman on duty at that time.”

“And they were always in each other’s field of vision?”

“I didn’t say that,” he replied. “Someone could have gone to the john, and if you kneel down in the galley you can’t be seen from here. But,” he added, “you can’t approach the computer without everyone on duty seeing you.”

“You got a list of the five who were on duty?”

He nodded and handed me a readout. “I thought you’d ask sooner or later.”

“I want to question them all.”

“Roberts is on duty now,” he said, indicating a man about twenty feet away who was doing his best to act like he wasn’t trying to overhear what we were saying. “When do you want to speak to the other four?”

“As soon as I’m finished with Roberts,” I said.

“I’ll call them in.”

“You got another room down here where I can question them privately?”

He smiled. “We have eight storage rooms, a couple of small bedrooms, and”—the smile became a broad grin—“a pair of detention cells.”

“So you do have a dungeon,” I said, returning his smile. “I’ll have to cancel that nasty letter I wrote to the video producers.”

“We’ve never had cause to use it...yet,” he said. “I assumed you’d want to question my people, so I’ve set up one of the storage rooms for you.” He pointed to the room in question. “Hey, Ralph!” he called, and Roberts looked up. “This is Jake Masters. He wants to talk to you.”

“I can’t leave my post,” said Roberts. “You know that.”

“I’ll cover for you,” said McKay.

“Who is he?”

“If you haven’t figured out who I am yet,” I said, “I’m going to recommend that they demote you.”

He looked half angry and half embarrassed, but he got up and followed me into room McKay had indicated. There were two chairs, a desk, a pitcher of water, a couple of glasses, and not much else. I was sure a hidden holocam would record every second of the interview. I spent about five minutes questioning him, then repeated the process with the other four who were on duty during the murder. Didn’t learn a damned thing; didn’t really expect to.

“Will there be anything else?” asked McKay when we emerged from the storage room.

“Not now,” I said. “But I’ll be back.”

“Why?” he asked. “I gather you didn’t get anything out of the staff.”

“Why?” I repeated. “Because the odds are that someone down here rigged the security system for the killer, and since everyone knows why I’m here, I’d like to catch him before he rigs the system in my room and the killer pays me a visit.”

His expression said: Now, why didn’t I think of that?

That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to get a lot of help solving this damned thing.

****

I figured my next step was to pay a visit to the Droons’ forensic lab, and find out exactly what they’d managed to discover. I had no idea where it was, but Jimbo had been on the planet for a week, and made a couple of excursions into the city that housed the embassy.

“How far?” I asked as we climbed into an aircar after Jimbo gave our destination to the embassy chauffeur.

“About two miles.”

We took off, skimming just above the ground. I’d arrived after dark, so this was my first real look at Keladroon II. We were in a mid-sized city that would hold about 300,000 Men, though I had no idea how clustered or spread out the Droons were. The buildings didn’t abound in straight lines; I don’t think we passed a rectangular one the whole trip. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to them; skyscrapers stood side-by-side with little storefronts, some smaller buildings seemed composed almost entirely of glass while a couple of the tallest ones didn’t have a single window. The streets didn’t make much sense: they turned, they twisted, they circled back on each other, and there was no pattern to the traffic either. More than once vehicles were parked in such a way that we had to elevate to a dozen feet in altitude to get past them. Which is to say, Keladroon II was a typical alien world.

I can’t say the Droons themselves were typical of anything. They looked at first glance like shaggy, bright yellow, seven-foot-tall worms or snakes. It was only when they ambulated that you realized they really did have legs, which seemed to shrink back inside their bodies when not in use. The same with their arms—two on each side, hidden in their torsos until needed. I’m sure they had skeletons, but they were so flexible you couldn’t prove it by looking at them. They had such small eyes that it was clear they’d never been nocturnal at any point in their development. Their noses were small and flat, their ears weren’t visible, and their toothless mouths looked like they’d been made for sucking fluids.

They clearly had trouble forming the consonants used in human and Tjanti languages, because once we reached the police station they were all wearing t-packs, translating devices that turned their high-pitched buzzing into monotone approximations of Terran.

A cop named Blaish (that wasn’t really his name, but it’s as close as I can come to spelling it) led us to the lab where he introduced us to the head technician, a Droon whose name I can’t even begin to spell or pronounce (it sounded like yodeling underwater). We were shown Mglias’s body, which looked exactly the way it had in the hologram. No one had bothered to do an autopsy.

“So what have you got for us?” I asked

“There were two blows to the cranium,” said the technician. “The first one killed him instantly.”

Which confirmed my initial conclusion: the second was just the killer paying the insurance.

“What about the torso?” I asked. I didn’t want to call it his ribcage, because I was pretty sure Droons didn’t have any ribs.

“Very curious,” was the answer. “He was brutalized”—he didn’t used the word kicked, either because his race couldn’t kick like that or because he didn’t want to commit himself—“three times after he was already dead. Almost all the bones on this side of the torso have been damaged.” Which was probably as close as a seven-foot boneless wormsnake could come to saying “fractured”.

“Will you be doing an autopsy?”

“Only if you request it. We’ve taken soft tissue samples, and there seems to be nothing untoward about them. He wasn’t poisoned, he wasn’t taking stimulants, and he seems to have been in good health.”

“Consider it requested,” I said.

“Why?” asked Jimbo.

I shrugged. “You never know.” I turned to the technician. “If there’s any charge, bill the embassy.” I paused, wondering what to ask him next. “What other evidence did your team bring back?”

He looked surprised. Well, as surprised as a snake with tiny eyes can look. “Just a chair, a table, a desk, and a trash atomizer,” he said. “I would have thought they told you that. We examined all the possible weapons in the room while we were there, but the tests were all negative. There was no DNA, nothing to indicate any of them had been used in the commission of the murder.”

“Did you examine any potential murder weapons elsewhere in the embassy?” I asked. “There’s no law that says the killer had to leave it at the scene of the crime.”

“We were not given access to most of the embassy.”

Clearly it wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a ton of work still to do. “All right,” I said. “I’d like whoever the investigating officer was to come back to the embassy with us.”

“What for?” he asked.

“There are probably a hundred blunt objects in the embassy, objects that could crush a skull without breaking the skin. I’ll make sure he has access to all of them. If he can’t test them there, we’ll bundle them up and he can bring them back here for examination.”

He shrugged, which was almost worth the price of admission, as it started at his very narrow shoulders and undulated down to his tail. “That would be Officer Ploorh. I am afraid he is working undercover right now. I have no idea how to get in touch with him. Let me recommend Blaish. He is the most promising of our newer officers, and I think working with a Man and a Tjanti, however briefly, would be a useful experience him.”

“Was he part of the crew that went to the embassy when the murder was originally reported?”

“No, he was off-duty at the time.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll be happy to have him.” I turned to Jimbo. “You got any questions?”

“None.”

We met Blaish in the outer office, invited him to come along with us, and he enthusiastically accepted. The three of us went out to the aircar, where our chauffeur was waiting for us.

“This is most exciting,” said Blaish, though the t-pack took all the excitement out of it.

“Oh?” I said. “Why is that?”

“We have only had four murders since I have been on the force, and I have not participated in any of them.”

He seemed like an eager enough rookie, and since I had no budget, I figured: what the hell, I can use all the help I can get.

“As soon as we get to the embassy,” I said, “we’ll round up the most likely weapons and have them sent back to the lab.”

“Them?” said Blaish. “What about me?”

“How’d you like to work on a homicide?” I asked him.

“I would love to!” he said eagerly, and this time even the t-pack couldn’t totally hide his enthusiasm.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have the Ambassador fix it with your boss.”

“Might I ask what you think I can bring to the investigation?” he asked.

“You know what happened here,” I said. “A Tjanti was murdered in a human embassy during peace talks. The Tjantis are very likely certain that the killer was a Man, and won’t trust me to find him. The Men are just as sure it was a Tjanti, and probably think Jimbo here wants to frame a Man. Nobody has anything against the Droons, so you might be able to get some answers out of Men and Tjantis who are distrustful or resentful of Jimbo and me.”

“I’m very grateful,” he said.

“I just hope you’re very lucky,” I replied.

We pulled up to the entrance, which like all embassies was built to impress, and if Blaish had had a jaw it would have dropped. His narrow eyes got as wide as they could get, and he just looked at everything with awe. A man and two women, the on-duty greeters, came out to meet him, then turned away and went back to their posts when they saw he was with Jimbo and me.

We had him sign in. That’s probably not the right word, since what he did was extend a tentacle from his left hand (after first extending his upper left arm from within his body). A kind of orange slime extruded from it and made a mark on the page. That seemed to satisfy the officer in charge of the guest book, and a moment later we took the airlift up to the second floor and went up and down the row of rooms, collecting anything that looked like it could conceivably have been the murder weapon. Jimbo wore Tjanti surgical gloves and neatly packaged each one. At the end of an hour we had sixteen potential weapons.

“You see anything else that could have been used?” I asked as we took one last look at Mglais’s room.

Blaish pointed to a lamp on the desk. “How about this?”

Jimbo shook his head. “Metal’s too soft. It would show a dent.”

“Send it along anyway, just to be on the safe side,” I said.

Blaish wandered around the room, but he couldn’t find anything we hadn’t found earlier. There was a small artifact, perhaps three inches in height, on mantelpiece over the fake fireplace.

“This?” he asked, picking it up and carrying it over to us.

“No,” I said. “It would have shattered from the force of the blow. Besides, it’s too small to have done the damage I saw.” I took it from him and stared at it. It seemed as much a puzzle as an art object, and you’d have sworn half of it was in some dimension that you could only guess at. “Fascinating, though,” I added.

“That is from our world,” said Tjanti. “I suppose