Final Reckoning by J. Gregory Keyes

Author:J. Gregory Keyes [Keyes, J. Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, SciFi, Babylon 5
ISBN: 9780345427175
Goodreads: 77251
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1999-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

“He didn’t have any friends. At least none that I saw.” Margarite de Cheney might have been attractive once, before life had scrubbed her face red and bruised her eyes with disappointments. Girard wondered, looking at her, if she ever felt joy in anything anymore.

He wondered if she could kill. If one’s own life was gone, it was easier to take another’s, yes?

He wondered wryly if that meant murder was next on his agenda. Would his life be easier if he had killed Marie? No, because he would have been caught. Everyone got caught, sooner or later.

Besides, he did love her, in his way. And the thought of another child, while immensely complicating, was not without appeal.

“No one came or went?”

“You’d have to ask the doorman. I never saw anyone, but then I don’t spy on my guests. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“He’s dead.”

He watched her reaction—this was the moment when a lot of them blew it. They always imagined they should act surprised, shocked. Real reactions were slower than that. Death was something people spent their whole lives pretending couldn’t be real. When confronted with it, there was usually a comprehension gap, a moment searching through the words they had just heard, trying to see if there was some other way to interpret them.

“Dead? You mean…”

“Dead,” he repeated, disappointed. But then, he hadn’t really thought she was guilty. “Murdered.”

“Here?” That scared her.

“Maybe,” he lied. “We found his body in the river, but he could have been killed anywhere. Which is why it’s so important that you recall everything you can.”

“There are two doormen, one for night, the other for day. I’ll give you their names and addresses, but Etienne is here already. You want to talk to him?”

“Of course. But first, I would like to see Mr. Ackerman’s room.”

“Oh, yes. This way.”

They went upstairs to room 12. De Cheney exhaled into the cheap chemical lock and the door sighed open.

There wasn’t much to the place. A couch and two chairs that looked like they belonged there. Some clothes in the closet, a night guard’s uniform and one new suit, undoubtedly the one he had received on release from prison.

The forensic team would be here soon, and he was loath to spend much time inside, for fear of contaminating the place, of erasing the trace elements and bits of hair, the physical clues that sometimes led nowhere and sometimes everywhere.

He just wanted to see it, to picture where the man had spent his last days. If Justin Ackerman had been killed for being Justin Ackerman, then knowing the victim would help him know the killer. If he had been killed simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, well, it wouldn’t help much at all. But it couldn’t hurt.

“Was he noisy? Did anyone complain about him?”

“Not that I know of.”

“The rooms next to his—are they occupied?”

“That one is. A Mademoiselle Carter.” She pointed to the door on the right.

Girard knocked. After a few moments, a young woman answered.

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