Babylon 5 02 - Accusations (Tilton, Lois) Read online

  Garibaldi's priority call got him through to the head of medical services on Babylon 5. "Doc, this is Garibaldi, I've got a dead body here, and I need you to examine it right away."

  "Look, Garibaldi, I've got an experiment in progress here. I'll send"

  "No, I need you, personally. This is a security matter. Something Earth Central wants kept quiet. You've got the highest security clearance on the medical staff."

  "A homicide?"

  "Could be. Most likely it is. But that's one of the things I want you to find out."

  A sigh of resignation. "All right, Garibaldi, I'll be right there. Where did you say you put this body?"

  "Fighter maintenance bay one." Which, he suddenly realized, was Alpha Wing's maintenance bay.

  They gathered around the equipment locker: Garibaldi, Franklin, and Garibaldi's best evidence technician, Popovic. Franklin and Popovic were busy with the corpse, running scanners up and down the length of the body, taking samples from the locker and the floor around it. Garibaldi took a few steps away, leaving them to their macabre work. He'd seen the dead man's face for a moment, long enough that he was mortally certain it was J. D. Ortega. That was as much as he needed.

  So. They'd been looking for a fugitive, but they'd found a corpse. And a mystery. No, Garibaldi didn't think this was going to simplify the case.

  He opened his link to C&C. "This is Garibaldi. I'm calling off the search for J. D. Ortega. We've found him."

  Then he turned to the other end of the bay, where Torres was holding a small unhappy group from leaving. There was the maintenance foreman, the technician, who'd actually found the body, and an unfortunate fighter pilot who'd shown up to check on the progress of the repairs to her ship just as the discovery of the body was made.

  Or was it really luck? Maybe the pilot was involved in some way, maybe she was planning to move the body and the ship was just an excuse? Garibaldi didn't mean to leave any questions unasked.

  He started with the mechanic, who was not at all unwilling to talk.

  "I came in a little early, to get to work on this ship. Got to rebuild the upper starboard engine."

  Garibaldi glanced briefly at the impatient pilot. So she was with Alpha Wing, Ivanova's group. Stuck here with a crippled ship while the rest of them were out chasing raiders. He wondered if that had any significance for the investigation.

  The mechanic was saying, "So I get my brazing arc, and somebody else's been using it, got the feed line all clogged. I hate that, people using my tools! So I go to the locker to look for a new feed line. And there he is."

  "The body?"

  "Yeah. All stiff and staring at me. So I call Brunetti to come see, he calls security, and then you guys all show up."

  The foreman nodded, silently confirming this account of the events.

  "No one else?" Garibaldi asked.

  "Only her." The mechanic looked at the pilot, who said, "Look, I just came in here to check on my ship, all right? I came in, these guys were looking at something in the locker, I came over to see, and there was this naked dead guy. But I just came in to check on my ship!"

  "All right, one at a time. Now, do any of you recognize this man? Any of you ever seen him before on the station? Or anywhere else?"

  Three heads shook vigorously in the negative.

  "You're sure? Never seen him before? A long time ago, maybe? During the war? On Earth, Mars?"

  They were sure.

  "All right, so he was a total stranger." Back to the mechanic now. "He was like that when you found him? No clothes?"

  "Not a stitch."

  "And you didn't see his clothes around on the floor or anywhere? In another locker?"

  "Nope."

  "All right, what time do you usually come on duty? Were you late this morning or maybe a little bit early? Who was the first one into the bay?"

  He wasn't halfway through with the questioning when Franklin came over to him. "I've done everything I can here. For the rest, I'll have to take him to Medlab. I've ordered a cart to come pick him up."

  "Sure, Doc, that's fine. You and Popovic have everything you need?"

  "Yes, we're finished. There's no need to keep the site secured. This isn't where he was killed."

  The fighter pilot was on her feet. "That means we can go, right?"

  "Not quite yet," Garibaldi stopped her. "I still have a few more questions."

  The next time he saw J. D. Ortega's body, it looked much different. The corpse in the locker had been stiff, contorted into a grotesque position to fit it inside the confined space, teeth bared in a rictus, eyes staring. Now it lay covered as if the dead man were asleep, and Garibaldi didn't turn away when Franklin pulled off the cover to expose it to view.

  "He looks better already," Garibaldi said dryly.

  "I used a compound to reduce rigor," Franklin explained. "Makes it a lot easier to conduct the autopsy. So here's what we've got. These bruises and abrasions are posthumous. They were probably made when the body was being forced into the locker. Now, these marks are not. There was a struggle. He tried to fight them off."

  "Then it was a homicide."

  "Oh, yes." Franklin flashed a pointer at a small livid spot in the crook of Ortega's arm. "This is where they injected the poison."

  "Ah. So what was it?"

  "Chloro-quasi-dianimidine. Injected directly into the bloodstream."

  Garibaldi frowned. "I thought that couldn't be detected, that it broke down within a few minutes after death. Or am I thinking of something else with a longer name?"

  "No. That's the general belief. As it happens, recent research has come up with a more sensitive test. It's not widely known."

  "Maybe a good thing that it's not."

  "True. Now, as to time of death, I put it at around 20:00 hours yesterday."

  Garibaldi frowned, remembering what Ivanova had told him. "How sure are you about that time?"

  "Give or take an hour either way. No more than that. The breakdown of the drug is a good guide, besides the usual signs, rigor and all that. No way to pin it down much more closely, though."

  "And you're sure they killed him someplace else, then brought him into the maintenance bay to hide the corpse? Any idea how long ago that was?"

  "I'd say within a couple of hours after he was killed. No longer than that."

  "And obviously, they took off his clothes before that. To search him, I suppose." Garibaldi wondered, What were the killers looking for?

  Franklin echoed his question aloud. "I wonder if they found whatever they were looking for. I suppose it was something fairly small, easily concealed."

  "Like a data crystal," Garibaldi said, speculating. He had a sudden thought. "It couldn't still be ... inside there?"

  Franklin shook his head. "I scanned him. Not a thing."

  "And I suppose the killers could have scanned him, too."

  "It's not hard to get that equipment," Franklin said, covering up the body again. "Well, what do we do with him now?"

  "Wait. Until I contact Earth Central. They may have specific instructions. I don't know what they're going to think about this. Orders said they wanted him taken alive and shipped to Earth."

  "All right, then. I'll try to keep him fresh for them."

  "Um, before you put him away ..."

  Franklin paused.

  "I think there's someone else who ought to see him. Someone who can give us a definite ID. After she gets back."

  CHAPTER 4

  Ivanova was just leaving the briefing room when she saw Garibaldi waiting outside. "Garibaldi. What is it?"

  "Commander, I know you're just back from a tough mission, but I think there's something you should see."

  Ivanova shut her eyes wearily. All through the long debriefing, she'd been anticipating the moment when she could fall into her bed. Or maybe into a stiff drink first and then to bed. But her eyes flew open again when she heard Garibaldi say, "We've found your friend Ortega."

  "Ortega? J. D.? You have him in
custody?"

  He shook his head. "I think you'd better see for yourself."

  Garibaldi looked at Captain Sheridan, standing in the doorway behind her. "Maybe you want to see him, too, sir."

  Sheridan sighed. "Maybe I should."

  Ivanova was numb with exhaustion and shock as the small group headed toward Medlab, and she didn't react when they showed her the covered form on the treatment table. Dr. Franklin's grave expression would have prepared her for the sight, even if nothing else had. "Go ahead."

  They were all stiff, standing almost to attention as the doctor pulled aside the cover and exposed the dead face. "Commander, can you identify this man?"

  She blinked. It was strange. At her first, brief glance, the face on the table was almost the face of the J. D. she'd known ten years ago, not the man who'd sent her the message to meet her last night. The harsh lines of strain were softened. They looked like laugh lines again. She could almost imagine his eyes opening, his mouth breaking into one of those smiles.

  But in the next moment the signs of death were all too obviousthe discoloration of the skin, the slackness of the flesh. She turned away abruptly, glad the eyes had been closed. "Yes, that's J. D. Ortega. What happened? How did he die?"

  "Murdered," said Franklin, frowning as he covered the body again. But the head of Medlab took all death seriously. It was his enemy, as the raiders were hers.

  "Murdered how?" Her voice had recovered its usual crisp tone.

  "An injection. Poison. The death itself was probably painless. But he tried to fight off his attackers beforehand.

  "I see." It wasn't all. She knew from the way they were all looking at her that it wasn't all.

  It was Garibaldi who told her. "We found him in an equipment locker out in fighter maintenance bay one. He'd been moved there after he was killed."

  Ivanova knew what he was saying. "That's our maintenance bay. It's just one level down from the Alpha ready room. Where he was going to meet me."

  Garibaldi nodded. There was more. "The doc here estimates the time of death at around 20:00 hours, yesterday."

  "20:00 hours. Yesterday?" Ivanova shivered suddenly. At the exact moment she'd been in the ready room, waiting for Ortega, wondering why he was late, someone had been stabbing a lethal poison into his bloodstream. She'd been waiting for a dead man all that time.

  "At least now we know why he never showed up," Garibaldi said. "They got to him before he could get to you."

  Captain Sheridan interjected, "Commander, you say you have no idea why this man wanted to meet with you?"

  "No, sir. I assumed, from his message, that he needed my help, that he might have enemies on the station."

  "Which obviously he did," Garibaldi interjected.

  "You didn't know he was a wanted fugitive, then?"

  "No, sir. Ortega was an old friend, from after the war. I didn't know he was on the station until I got his message. When he didn't make the meeting, I queried the computer. That was when I found out about the alert and contacted Mr. Garibaldi."

  "I see." The captain looked distinctly unhappy about this situation that had fallen into his lap. "Well, according to Mr. Garibaldi, it looks like he might have had friends on Babylon 5 as well as enemies. I hope you can help us find both of them."

  "Of course." Ivanova's already-straight back went slightly stiffer, her shoulders squared. "Anything I can do."

  Sheridan nodded in approval. "But I suppose it's a matter for security right now. Why don't you get some sleep, Commander? Unless there's anything else?" he asked Garibaldi.

  "No, sir," said Garibaldi. "Not yet. We're still investigating. Questioning the witnesses who found the body."

  Ivanova turned to him. "Let me know if you find anything."

  "Of course."

  After she'd left the lab Sheridan said, "Mr. Garibaldi."

  A muscle in the side of Garibaldi's face twitched. "Yes, sir."

  "Tell me I'm wrong, tell me these latest developments aren't going to make this case more complicated than it was before."

  "Sorry, sir, can't do it. Before, all we had to do was nail Ortega, turn him over to EA, and be done with him. And maybe find out how he got onto the station. Now, it looks to me we've got to find whoever killed him and whatever they were looking for when they did it."

  "Whatever they were looking for?"

  "The body was stripped. To me, that means searched real thoroughly. Yeah, I think they were looking for something."

  Sheridan sighed. "Garibaldi, I've gone over the files on this case since you first reported it to me. Earth Central seems to consider it highly sensitive stuff. I have every confidence that you'll give it your highest priority. Have you sent them a report about finding the body?"

  "Not yet, sir. I thought I'd wait until Commander Ivanova got a look at him. Positive ID."

  "Well, now she has."

  "I'll get on it right away."

  "And you'll keep me informed."

  "Absolutely, sir. As soon as I find anything, you'll know about it."

  "Good." Sheridan started to leave the lab, then paused. "I can't help wonderingwhy did he come here? Why did he want to see Ivanova?"

  "Maybe we'll learn that when we find out who killed him."

  "I hope so. I really do."

  On his way back to the maintenance bay, Garibaldi encountered one of the people he wanted to see, Ms. Talia Winters, registered telepath, the station's only representative of the Psi Corps. While she wasn't a member of his security department, her duties included assisting in difficult investigations. And in this one Garibaldi was using all the resources he had available.

  "Ah, Ms. Winters! So you're finished with the witnesses? Did they all agree to be scanned?"

  She nodded gravely, slightly stiff in her long, unattractive skirt and jacket. She smoothed down the skirt with gloved hands. It was something Garibaldi often noticed about her, that contact with other minds didn't seem to make the telepath very happy. It was like she carried around some secret cloud of grief.

  The Psi Corps made Garibaldi just a little nervous. It made most people he knew a little nervous. Someone knowing what was going on inside your head . . .

  But Talia's tone was dry, businesslike. "They all agreed, yes. They seemed to feel a scan was the quickest way of putting an end to the questions."

  "Well, I'm glad they cooperated. So, what did you find out?"

  "Nothing. I'm sorry, I mean none of the witnesses know any more than they've told you already."

  "The truth."

  "Yes, the truth," she agreed. "The fighter pilot just came into the bay to check on her shipshe very much resents your trying to link her to your investigation, by the way."

  "That's just too bad for her," Garibaldi replied, unrepentant.

  "The mechanic who found the body and his foreman have told you everything they know, too. I'm sorry, but there just isn't anything more."

  "Well, thanks anyway, Ms. Winters. Every bit of information helps, even if it isn't what we wanted to hear." She turned to go, still stiff, untouchable. "Um, Ms. Winters?"

  "Yes? Mr. Garibaldi?"

  "I was just wondering. Just . . . hypothetically.

  There wouldn't be any way of doing a telepathic scan after a person's dead, would there be?"

  She recoiled visibly. "No! And even if there were, I would certainly never want to attempt such a thing. I can't imagine anything more ..."

  He shrugged, a wry grin on his face. "Oh, well. It was just a thought. Thanks again, Ms. Winters."

  The door to the maintenance bay closed behind her.

  "Damn," said Garibaldi.

  CHAPTER 5

  There were raider ships everywhere. She kept firing, firing, but the raiders kept coming at her. From above, behind. She had to protect her wingman. He was in trouble. She could hear him calling her: "Commander Ivanova!"

  Strange, it was Garibaldi's voice, not Mokena's. Garibaldi wasn't her wingman? Was he?

  "Commander Ivanova!"

/>   Groaning, she struggled to open her eyes. C&C? No, they couldn't be calling her already, she was just back from a mission, she wasn't supposed to be on duty yet, she had to sleep.

  "Commander Ivanova!"

  "Uh . . . Ivanova here," she mumbled, still too much asleep to speak clearly.

  "Commander, this is Garibaldi. Are you awake?"

  "No," she said, letting her face fall back onto the pillow.

  "Ivanova, sorry to wake you, but there's something I'd like you to see."

  "Garibaldi, in case you didn't know, I was just out tangling with about a hundred raiders. I just got to sleep, it's the middle of the night"

  "Actually, it's 10:30 hours."

  "Um ..." Ivanova shook her head and opened her eyes. Was it really? "So, what is it?"

  "We found another piece of evidence in the Ortega case. I think it involves you."

  "I'll be right there."

  A life in the military had taught Ivanova how to get herself quickly into uniform while still asleep, but this time Garibaldi's news had galvanized her awake. What was this new evidence? How could it involve her?

  "That was quick," said Garibaldi approvingly as she came into the briefing room. Ivanova was taken slightly aback to see that Captain Sheridan was there as well. The security chief took an evidence packet from his pocket and removed a small slip of paper, security sealed.

  Ivanova handled it cautiously. The paper had been tightly folded at one time, then opened and smoothed out. She could easily read through the clear seal: SI-hardwir. She shook her head slightly, not understanding.

  "You've never seen this before? You don't know what it means?" Garibaldi asked.

  "S I: I suppose that could mean Susan Ivanova. But I don't know what the rest of it means. I never saw this before. Where'd you find it?"

  "In the ready room. Where you were waiting for Ortega. We put it through some pretty fine scans and managed to pick up enough to make it certain. This was Ortega's. He'd handled the paper, at least, even if he didn't write the note."

  "In the ready room?" There was disbelief in Ivanova's voice. "He left me a note?"

  "On the floor. Near the door to the rest room."

  "But I never saw . . . You mean, it was there while I was waiting for him? All that time?"