Hayford Peirce: Innocent Until Scanned Guilty

Emily grinned and reached up to tweak Roderick’s gaunt cheek. “Hear that, skinny? We’re going to have to keep you right here until you’re fit for polite society again.”

Roderick forced a wan smile and took a tentative bite of lobster, his eyes downcast.

Bruce Ferron, Sam and Marianna’s sixteen-year-old son, shook his head in disgust at the embarrassing antics of the elders in his family and applied himself with gusto to a third serving of mayonnaise-drenched lobster. “Well, come on, Dad,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food, “don’t just stop there! So it was Linda’s lawyer who shot Uncle Roderick. How did they figure that out?”

Sam took a healthy swig of the Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle he had found in Santa Fe for this so-far not very festive celebration dinner. “Well, after Judge Johansson—long may the learned jurist flourish!—cleared the courtroom, he then unofficially and, I suppose, illegally let Fighting Bob Martinez and the police use the scanner to backtrack the guy who killed Linda. They even found someone in City Hall who could lip-read to see what he was saying when he talked to Roderick.”

“Wow!”

“Wow is right. They followed him back to his own room in the same hotel and watched him check out the next morning as if nothing had happened. That made it a cinch to find out who he was and to trace him back to the Big Island. A little bit of liaison work with the Island police and it became apparent that he and Linda had been having an affair for some time—and apparently plotting to get their hands on as much of Roderick’s eventual Nobel money as possible, as well as any other money he might make from the scanner.”

“Bitch!” muttered Bantry, for the first time that evening showing any real animation.

Sam shrugged. “I guess that as long as you were still married to her, they were going to argue that the money, or your expectation of it, was all part of the community property. So now our Fighting Bobcat is saying that when the two of them decided that you really meant it about divorcing her, no matter what the consequences might be, they became desperate, especially when you then came over here to see Emily. They followed you, taking separate rooms in the same motel. Both of them sound as if they were half-crazy by this time, hardly able to tell reality from what they were getting from their VR implants. We’ll probably never know exactly what their original intentions were, but it’s significant that he brought a gun along.”

Roderick Bantry shook his head wonderingly, no longer making even a pretense of eating. “It never occurred to them that someday someone might use a scanner to look in on whatever they were doing?”

“Remember that it didn’t occur to Fighting Bob Martinez either. And he wasn’t completely looped out on dope or VR like they were.” Sam leaned across the table to tap his finger against the top of Bantry’s hand. “I tell you, Roderick, this scanner of yours is going to change the world in more ways we still don’t know about than any other invention in history. So along with the Nobel, you’re going to have to get used to taking all the brickbats that come with it.”

Bantry snorted sullenly. “You think I haven’t been taking them—ever since this whole damned scanner business started six or seven years ago?” He glanced guiltily at Emily, then turned his gaze back to his lobster.

“Hey, come on! ” protested Bruce. “You guys can talk philosophy about changing the world later on; I want to know what happened! ”

“And how did this awful… ambulance chaser, you called him? get Roderick to go over to Linda’s room?” demanded Marianna. “Didn’t Roderick just say that he wouldn’t even speak to him?”

Sam shrugged. “This is pretty unofficial, but the lip reader said that it looked as if when Ingersoll called Roderick he said that he was Linda’s new legal counsel, not Carlos Ingersoll, and that he was only in town for a few hours. He said he had prepared a quitclaim document that would get Linda off his back forever. So Roderick—probably not thinking very clearly after being chewed up and down by Linda, agreed to go to his room to look at it. And you at least know the rest.”

Sam raised his glass to Bantry. “You’re a lucky man, Roderick—you must have someone watching over you. Or you’re an awfully stubborn one. Somehow you managed to push the emergency caller on your wrist-phone—if you hadn’t, you’d have bled to death in another half-hour or so.”

“Wow!” repeated Bruce, his eyes gleaming. “So now they’ve arrested Ingersoll and they’re going to put him on trial?”

“Absolutely not!” snorted Sam. “He’s still in Hawaii, as free as a bird. Judge Johansson’s order that he be examined under perceptualization enhancement on the basis of what we saw on the scanner is being appealed. Ingersoll’s lawyer is saying, of course, that it’s inadmissible even as preliminary evidence. So while the appeal grinds along, the Taos police are trying to find enough physical evidence to let them apply again. Once they do question him under PE, of course, he’ll be extradited, tried, and convicted.”

“Wowee,” muttered Bruce incredulously, “that’s absolutely weird! Everyone in the whole world watched him kill her and then no one can arrest him!”

Sam nodded and forked an asparagus tip into his mouth. “When I get back to Washington, maybe I can use this whole mess to pound a little sense into my colleagues’ heads and see if we can finally get something done to change the situation.”

“I sure hope so,” said Bruce with the same vibrant enthusiasm of his mother, “cause I know what I want to do as soon as I can—and that’s to work with scanners and O-CLIPs and put people like Ingersoll away where they belong—” he directed a sly glance at Emily, who had placed her hand on top of Bantry’s “—and to keep people like Uncle Roderick where he belongs.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story continues the series, including, “Under the Wings of Owls,” January 1994; “To Change a Memory,” March 1994; “Pandora’s Scanner,” June 1994 and “Mid-Wife,” September 1994.