Gene Wolfe - Home Fires

“But you don’t know?”

“No.” Skip shook his head. “You’re quite correct. I don’t know.”

“Here’s another one. Mother said that you said Rick couldn’t have been the one who stabbed her. So who did?”

“Rick, almost certainly.”

“You were lying?” Chelle sounded incredulous. “It could have gotten her killed.”

“I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know he was the one. I still don’t, although I think it quite probable. When I said what I did, and when I outlined the evidence in his favor, I was trying to show him I didn’t suspect him.”

Chelle was looking at a desert landscape, and Skip paused to admire her profile. “Do you want the honest truth?”

She nodded.

“All right. I was trying to persuade myself. I liked him and he had gone down into the hold to rescue you. I didn’t want it to be him. So I said he wouldn’t have had to use a steak knife because he had a license for a gun, and all the rest of that folderol.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have, would he?”

“If he had his gun on him—if he carried it when he had no reason to think he would need it. But he probably didn’t—most people don’t.”

Chelle nodded reluctantly.

“Just for the sake of argument, let’s say he did. A gun attracts a lot more attention than a knife. Guns have serial numbers, too. If he had left it at the scene—”

“He wouldn’t. Nobody would.”

“Then if he came under suspicion and was searched, it would be found on him.”

“It would have been anyway, but the cops wouldn’t care. He had a license, and she’d been stabbed. You’re saying he was in the suicide ring?”

Skip nodded. “Absolutely. Has it occurred to you that he may not have wanted to kill Virginia?”

“Vannessa. Are you serious?”

“Certainly. She was the senior member.”

“Which meant the others were supposed to kill her.”

“Correct, and Rick was a member. Suppose he didn’t want to die.”

“Well, I thought…”

“Rick was a spy. Entrée to a group like that could be useful to a spy; it would give him access to a selection of unbalanced people, pathetic individuals who could be easily manipulated by a clever operator.”

“Like your secretary.”

“Exactly. Rick had taken her to lunch, hoping to learn something about me that would lead him to you, and thus to whatever may remain of Jane Sims.”

“You know about her.”

“I do.”

“I—well, I guess I didn’t want you to think I was crazy.”

“You’re not,” Skip said, “and I know it. You came out of an explosion alive, but with a lot of damage. Some of that was brain damage, and the brain tissue you lost was replaced with a transplant from Jane Sims, who had been too badly hurt to live. They would have had brain scans, of course; presumably they uploaded those into somebody else who may go looking for Don Miles. Can we get back to Rick and Susan, or are we through with that?”

“I still don’t think you’re making a lot of sense. I mean about not killing Mother. Are you saying he stabbed her just for fun?”

“Not at all. For show. He needed to show Susan that he was a good member of the ring, but he didn’t want Virginia to die. She was their senior member, after all. Nobody would die until she did.”

“Including him.”

“Correct. Also including Susan, who seemed certain to be useful to him. He was trying to get his hands on you, and he didn’t know—either because Susan hadn’t told him, or because Susan herself didn’t know—that we had booked on the Rani .”

“I see.” Chelle nodded. “We did that ourselves, online.”

“Exactly. From that point on, we can guess pretty easily what they did, and my guess is that Susan did most of it. The news would’ve told her that Virginia survived. She must have gotten her address from the hospital; quite possibly she had my researcher do it for her. When they got to the apartment, they found it empty, no woman and no clothing. They searched it because Susan hoped to find something that would tell them where she had gone, but they found nothing.”

“I’ve got a another question,” Chelle said. “Who planted the bomb?”

“Susan, of course, acting on Rick’s orders; and I’ll get to that in a moment. Susan quit a few days after we sailed. It must have been a blow to his plans, but she still knew everyone in our office. Somebody told her our ship had been hijacked, and that Mick was recruiting people to rescue us. Rick and Susan joined. They would surely have done that separately; Rick was much too cagey to have them come in together. When they were on Soriano’s boat they would have pretended they were strangers who had just met.”

“They acted like that on our boat, too.”

“Correct. Finding Virginia on the Rani must have been a shock, to Rick particularly. But he wanted to get his hands on you, and wanted Susan to help him with it. To get her, he needed to prove that he was a loyal member of the suicide ring. He proved it by having her plant his bomb in the social director’s office—a bomb he detonated by broadcasting a signal when he knew Virginia wasn’t in there.”

Chelle raised a graceful eyebrow. “Why’d he bring a bomb?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know that he did. Perhaps the hijackers had one. Rick was down in the hold, too. He may have found a small bomb and decided it might be useful. Or he may have brought one—in imminent danger of capture, he could threaten to kill himself and hostages. He may merely have thought that a device that would permit him to kill while he was elsewhere was apt to be valuable.”

“Okay if I ask why you’re not sitting down?”

“I was hoping we’d take a look around. Living room, dining room … You know.”

“Bedroom.”

“Yes. There, too.”

“Okay, we will. Only we’re in the living room now, so all you’ve got to do is turn your head.”

He smiled. “I’d rather look at you. Besides, this is the reception room. It’s where our guests take off their coats and our housemaids hang them up. The living room is where the party is, there and perhaps in the family room and the entertainment center.”

“No lounge?”

“And the lounge. I forgot.”

“The kids will be in the nursery, I suppose.”

“Yes. Or the entertainment center.”

Chelle nodded to herself. “You want kids?”

“Yes, if you do. Do you?”

“I don’t know.” She paused, staring out a window. “What about our round-the-world cruise?”

“We’ll take it, but not until next year. They don’t want you to leave the country.”

“I remember. Did you leave your gun on the ship?”

“No. No to both.” The colorful sofa was wide, deep, and comfortable. “Are you asking about my pistol or the submachine gun?”

“Either one, I guess—I’d forgotten about the subgun. Don’t tell me you tried to bring in that.”

“I did not. I threw it over the side, but I kept my pistol.”

“The pistol didn’t get you busted.”

“Correct.”

“Have you got it?”

“Not yet. Achille was supposed to take it ashore for me.”

Slowly, Chelle nodded. “If anybody could sneak it off the boat, he could.”

Watching her, Skip decided that her inquiry was far from idle. He said, “He’ll have to sneak himself off. I thought that if he could do it, he could bring my gun—or both our guns—easily enough. Did you get your own gun ashore?”

“Huh uh. I gave it to Charlie. He said he could do it. No problem.”

“No doubt he was right.”

“Only I don’t know where to contact him.” Chelle paused. “Do you know where he is?”

Skip shook his head.

“Do you know anybody who would know?”