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

Chapter 5

V

“I was not planning for it to go off,” said Loki, ten minutes later. “When they arrived, I was trying to backstep to just after I had set it. I was going to disarm and remove it; avoiding a time loop. There was no point of it going off when he was already dead.”

            “That’s as maybe, but I am still never inviting you to anything again,” said Brian Mammon.

            The guests’ banter, and the case itself, was beginning to give me a headache. My helmet was starting to feel tighter and heavier than usual and my chinstrap was starting to chafe. I tried to block out these irritating distractions and concentrate on our only real lead; the business card the mysterious Edward Minkwood had left behind. It lay in my palm; white against my black glove as I ran wristcom’s multi-scanner over it again. The green laser flickered back and forth and then gave the same result as last time. There were fingerprints and DNA on it, but they belonged solely to Chris Venus and myself.

            I must have sighed with frustration out loud, because Lucian Hell walked over with his latest champagne glass.

            “Best lead so far, eh, Sergeant?”

            “So it would seem,” I said.

            “You know, I have been thinking,” said Hell, sipping from his glass. “If this Minkwood character is the guilty party, and the teleport pads have been down for all the evening before William was shot…”

            “…When and how did he arrive?” I said. “Don’t worry. I haven’t missed that. Your attention, please everybody!”

            Everybody looked around and the banter died. Mirabi, who had made Venus assume the position against the opposite wall, and was now patting him down, paying particular attention to his bicep and pecs, looked up as well.

            “Did anybody arrive with an extra passenger aboard their ship?”

            Saying Minkwood’s name out loud would have been too obvious. It is hard, but not impossible to beat Polygraph tests by emotional self-control alone. Misdirection was the best way for us to counter that. But to my annoyance, it did not work. There was a loose chorus of “No’s” and a lot of headshaking and Helmcom gave a blanket reading of 87%+. It placed a 4%? query over Karl Yahweh’s answer, but under the-bane-of-my-existence entrapment laws, I was not allowed to explore it further.

            “That doesn’t prove anything,” said Sebastian Sheol, who had arrived silently in his usual position behind Hell’s shoulder. “Minkwood could have stowed away on any of the ships. The owner could be unaware of it.”

            He tried to bore through my helmet visor with his eyes again, staring unblinking at his own reflection; showing he knew there was a human face behind the mask of authority and that was who he would address. For no reason I could fathom, he wanted to see me squirm. Or at least admit I did not have all the answers.