Different Senses (6 page)

I wanted to search the work
area around Jishnu’s table. “But we went over the entire thing
three times,” Kirin protested.

I ignored him. He was a
forensic scientist. I was the cop, or had been. Thieves were my
speciality, not his.

No point in checking
fingerprints. Everyone wore protective gloves, and the search would
have compromised every surface. I donned gloves myself and went to
work, while Kirin watched and chewed a hole in his bottom lip.

I found the wallet in under a
minute, stuck to the underside of the bottom drawer in the
workstation. Kirin gaped as I held it up. “How did you...?”

“Perps do this all the time
with stolen goods, contraband, weapons.” I checked the packet. “The
pendant’s gone. Damn, I wish you had image surveillance in this
area.”

“We don’t employ thieves,” he
said, but didn’t even convince himself, let alone me.

I straightened and handed him
the wallet. “You can try to get prints and DNA off it. I doubt
you’ll find anything. Tell me, did you do a search as people left
every day since this went missing, or just the first day?”

“Just the first.”

“Terrific.” So the thief could
leave the wallet hidden until the fuss died down and then sail out
of the building with the damn pendant in their shoe. “I think it’s
long gone. You need to talk to the police and your insurance
company.”

He moaned. “It’ll ruin us.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do any
more. Okay...give it a day. Won’t make any damn difference. I want
the names and details of the client and the court case, all the
people involved. And I want to talk to Jyoti again, privately.”

“Jyoti?”

One of the technicians
close by heard him and gave Jyoti a suspicious look. Great. “Yeah.
I’m going to leave now. Send me that information, then ask her to
leave in half an hour and to meet me at the chai house you found me
at this morning. Don’t frighten her, and don’t make a fuss.
She’s
not
a suspect, okay?”

“Yes, I understand.” But he
looked at her speculatively, as did a couple of others when they
saw the direction of his gaze. I could have kicked myself for
sowing seeds of suspicion about an innocent woman in the minds of
her co-workers.

“And keep your mouth shut,
especially to Devi.”

“I don’t think he’s talking to
me right now anyway.”

“I’m heartbroken, truly. I’ll
call you later. Tomorrow, maybe.”

He didn’t want me to go but
there was nothing more I could do there for now and being around
him was acid etching the glass shell of my soul. It gave me no
pleasure to see him flailing so incompetently, though this was new
to him, and honest citizens rarely did well when confronted with
criminality. Seeing Devi’s face only made me want to punch it. I
needed to get out of here.

~~~~~~~~

I waited for an hour in the
chai house, and was on the point of calling Kirin to ask what was
taking so long, when Jyoti walked in. I stood to greet her, but
though she responded politely, her resentment was clear. “Chai?” I
offered.

“No, thank you, sir.”

“Jyoti, I need to apologise. I
didn’t mean to draw attention to you and before I say anything
else, let me make it clear—I know you had nothing to do with the
pendant going missing.”

“
Because you are
matos
.”

“Huh?”

“
Matos
. Empathic.” She tapped her
head in case I didn’t get her meaning. “Sri Terben told us.
Uh...when you and Sri Nel—”

“
Broke up. Yes. What a
surprise. It’s not like it was our
private
business or
anything.”

Some small sympathy under the
irritation. “It’s nothing surprising for me. Everyone else was
shocked.”

“Is that why you haven’t told
them you’re empathic too?”

Her head jerked up. “How did
you know?”

“Well, the chances were good
and while I was waiting, I did a little research about this tingle
you give me in my head. Seems that’s something that happens when
empaths are physically close. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

She sagged with relief. “Thank
you. It’s difficult, being new and—”

“
The only
banis
in
the building?”

“Yes. They all think I took
it,” she said, her anger flaring again. “I felt them, so
suspicious. Even just after it happened. And now....”

“I’m sorry. I made it clear to
Sri Nel you’re not one of my suspects and in fact, that’s why I
want to talk to you.”

“Bit late now, isn’t it? Once
you ruin my reputation, you think it will be so easy to mend
it?”

Her brilliant blue eyes
bored into me above the weird high-angled cheekbones of her race.
Her flame-coloured hair framed her features like a headdress,
braided carefully and intertwined with fine purple ribbons. A
beautiful woman, for a
banis
. “I’ll do what I can. If
Kirin doesn’t support you, I can make his life merry
hell.”

“
It’s too late.
The
chuma
only need an excuse. Sooner or later, I’ll make a mistake,
and they’ll be expecting it. Then I’ll have to leave.”

She stared at me, willing me to
contradict her. Sadly, she was probably right. “But if we find the
thief, and with your help, you’ll be vindicated.”

“A stranger naming one of their
own as a criminal? They’ll hate me more, Sri Ythen.”

“I’ve made a mess of this,
haven’t I?”

“Your people usually do.” She
sighed. “But what is done is done, and the Spirit will give me
strength to endure. So how can we find the thief?”

“I found the wallet in Jishnu’s
desk. Empty. Think back to the search. Not just who was where, who
looked where, but how they felt to you. Did anyone’s emotions
strike you as wrong?”

“It was very hard to separate
them. Ten people all frantic—” She put her finger on her lips as if
something had suddenly come to her.

“Someone wasn’t frantic?”

“Hmmm. Sri Mlano was much more
worried than anyone.”

“Pritam? Why would he care so
much?”

“
I don’t know, but he
was
desperate
. Even more than Sri Nel
at that time, though Sri Nel is more worried
now
.”

That didn’t fit at all. “And
Sri Uin? How did Jishnu seem?”

“I wasn’t paying that much
attention because I wanted to find the pendant. I knew because it
had gone missing while I was around, people would suspect me. Sri
Mlano stood out though.”

“And Sri Terben?”

“He wasn’t there. He went to
lunch and only returned when we were done. I think he was on his
way out when I saw him.”

“And his reaction to the
news?”

“Uh...annoyed. A little
excited.”

“Like....”

“Like he is when he has gossip
to share,” she said. “Sri Nel would sack me for saying that about
his lover.”

“I won’t repeat it.” I easily
recalled Devi’s eager expression as he shared some private secret
or other. “But not glee? Relief? Anything to indicate he’d pulled
off a successful crime?”

“No. Though I didn’t spend all
that long with him, as I had to speak to Sri Nel about what
happened.”

“Okay, let me be blunt here.
You were lying when you said you liked everyone you worked with.
Who don’t you like?”

She clasped her hands in her
lap. “This isn’t fair, Sri Ythen.”

“Then who would you suspect of
this theft, if you had no evidence at all other than your instincts
and your empathy?”

“That’s even less fair. But we
have mentioned them in this conversation.”

“Devi? You don’t like him, do
you?”

She shook her head. “He’s very
funny and is friendly to everyone, but he can be unkind and...he
makes remarks about my people I don’t care for.”

That was Devi all right.
Once I’d thought him funny too, a spice in my life. When Kirin took
up with him so suspiciously fast, I wondered how I’d been so ready
to excuse the bitchiness which had always had such an undercurrent
of cruelty. Unfortunately, Jyoti’s report made him an unlikely
suspect, even if the little shit was hiding
something
.

“I don’t blame you for not
liking him. Now, this is more speculative. If you wanted to sneak
something out of the lab, and not take it out in your own hands,
what can you think of as a way to remove it?”

She frowned. “Well, I’d take it
to Dispatch and post it. Some of the staff, uh, send....”

“Private material on the boss’s
bill? Not surprising. Damn. And no one checks the parcels going
out?”

“Not that I know of. Sri Nel
would know.”

“Yes. You’ve been really
helpful, Jyoti. Incredibly so. Do you have to go back to work?”

“Sri Nel told me to fake a
migraine and take the afternoon off. I think Sushri Tarl knows it’s
not the truth.”

“
Don’t worry, I’ll
explain to Payal, or Kirin will. Let me order a taxi for you to go
home. This is my phone number,” I said, writing it on my notepad.
“I want you to keep your eyes, ears and empathy open, especially on
those individuals we talked about. And I
will
make sure Kirin
protects you, okay? He owes me big time for this.”

“Thank you,” she said
unenthusiastically, taking the piece of paper. “There is one thing.
One of the people who uses Dispatch for personal purposes is Sri
Mlano.”

“But there are others.”

“Yes.”

She looked as if she wanted to
say more, and I waited, but nothing came. “I’ll walk you out,” I
said.

I insisted on paying the taxi
driver to take her to her door, since she was only here at my
request. Then I started home, and called my brother as I
walked.

“I was worried about you,”
Yashi said. “Are you on your way over to the clinic?”

“Yes, I guess so.” I checked
the time—almost six. “I’ll bring food.”

“Great, I’m starving.”

Surprisingly, so was I. My
appetite had been lousy since I got out of the hospital, which
drove my dear, sweet sister-in-law crazy. She spent more time
pestering me to eat than she did her twins. Well, tonight, I didn’t
need to be pestered. Maybe cop work—even this pretend kind—was what
my stomach needed to feel perky again.

~~~~~~~~

I didn’t tell Yashi much about
the case, except to say I thought it would be a poke in the eye for
my faithless ex. He only grunted and said it was good to see me
interested in something, whatever the reason. But as we ate and
talked about this and that, my mind turned over the facts I’d
gleaned. By the time he’d finished his meal break, I knew I needed
to go back to the lab. “I might be late home,” I told him.

“Be careful and have fun,” he
said, sounding just like our father. I grinned and told him that,
which made him pull a face.

I called Kirin at home. “I need
to look around while the place is empty. Meet me there.”

“I was just about to eat.”

“Wrap your food in a chapati
and come down. Leave the weasel behind.”

“Javen.”

“You’ve got twenty minutes, and
I’m not joking about the weasel.”

I called a taxi and arrived a
minute before Kirin’s tidy red auto slid into the car park. The
sight gave me a pang—how many times had we sat in that vehicle,
making out at a beauty spot, or at the beach. I grew hard just
looking at the damn thing. I’d thrown Kirin’s gifts back at his
face as I left, but I’d forgotten how much the auto meant to me.
Maybe I should have asked for it as part of my own personal
‘divorce’ settlement.

“Couldn’t this have waited,
Javen?” he said as he walked over. No sign of his supper.

“No. Stop bitching. This is for
your benefit, not mine.”

“Sorry.”

“And stop bloody apologising.
You’re not really sorry.”

His mouth opened to issue
another meaningless apology. I cut him off with a glare.

“What are you looking for?” he
said as he let us into the quiet building.

“Records. Dispatch, clients.
Specifically anyone giving you work in the last two weeks, or that
you sent items to. Not reports—packages.”

He was completely confused and
more than a little irritated. I ignored him and asked him to pull
up the dispatch logs for the times after the incident with the
centrifuge.

“Look.” I pointed at the entry.
“Wala and Faute, lawyers. Package sent the afternoon after the
pendant went missing.”

“So?”

“
Kirin, they’re
Kajal Gemate’s
lawyers.”

His eyes went huge. “Her
lawyers are behind this?”

“That’s what I think. I want to
know when they sent you the job and if you’ve worked for them
before.”

It was all so obvious, but the
trick was knowing to look for it. Wala and Faute, in the first work
they’d ever offered the lab, had sent an inexpensive bauble for DNA
testing two days after the pendant arrived. It had been signed out
by Jishnu—and returned by him too. “Could he make sure he was the
one to process an item?” I asked.

“Theoretically, no, but he’s
been here so long he does pretty much what he wants because he’s
fast and does a good job. He’s done this out of turn, but it’s not
the first time. But why would her lawyers contact him?”

“I don’t know but I bet there’s
a connection. Maybe they did work for him or a friend. He has to be
the one, Kirin. It’s the only explanation that fits all the
evidence. He was the only one with access to the wallet at the
crucial times, and the one who had the obvious means of dispatching
the pendant without suspicion.”

“The centrifuge?”