The Time Traveller's Ball (The Erik Midgard Case Files Volume 1)

Chapter 3

III

Mirabi had once told me about the procedure taught at the Academy for situations like this and it was pure common sense. When faced with a large number of suspects and several possible angles to work on, don’t hax about trying to find the most relevant, applicable, or best-place-to-start. Just pick one – not at random; just pick one – and get on with the job. Here and now though, one was literally jumping off the screen at me.

            “I’ll take Yahweh,” I said.

            “Why?” said Mirabi. “What about Osiris? He’s been babbling himself into an early grave since we got here.”

            “Polygraph cleared him already,” I said. The polygraphic scanners were about 90% accurate at the best of times, but they had surprised me on Osiris’s ship by giving a rare 110%+ to his many denials of killing the Prince. “He’s not important.”

            “Come on, Erik. He’s got a guilty conscience about something,” said Mirabi. “And, if he was so keen to leave, it’s bound to be related.”

            “He can wait,” I said. “Start with Loki. He gave the weakest reason for leaving.”

            “You are not cutting me out of this,” said Mirabi. “I know you’ve been counting the days, Erik. I know why this matters to you…”

            “I’m not trying to cut you out,” I said.

            “Then don’t,” said Mirabi. “Because it matters to me as well. And not just because of you. This case? It could be the first of its kind. I mean, have you ever heard anything like this before?”

            “No,” I admitted. It was true. A murder investigation where every single suspect had access to a time machine was something that – as far I knew – ChronOps had never encountered before. It was a unique; textbook-chapter-for-future-generations material. Those who solved it were going to go down in history.

            “Exactly. We pull the gun-toting white rabbit out of the bloodstained hat and we’re going to win Officers of the Year as well as our haxing promotions,” said Mirabi. “We’re meant to be partners, remember? Let’s be them.”

            “OK,” I said. “Sorry. But still start with Loki.”

            “What is a tobacco merchant going to kill the Prince of Jupiter for?”

            “What’s the first rule of detection?”

            “Fine! I’ll take him,” said Mirabi. “But you’re making this up to me later.”

            I certainly would be. My approach was against the procedures I knew, and Mirabi knew it as well. The proper thing to do would be to keep everybody secured in the Ballroom and call for back up; a forensics team and fifty or so constables, who could search the building room by room and dig out Edward Minkwood if he was there. But command of that number of men would never be given to a lowly sergeant like me; even with my success record. A senior officer would come in – probably two as ChronOps forensics teams were rarely led by the inexperienced – and I would have to defer to them. This would no longer be my investigation; and whether we solved it or not, the glory and prizes would go to the man in charge; not the guy who happened to be the first on scene. Mirabi was prepared to let me avoid that; provided that it was our case rather than just mine.