The Song of the Dead by Carrie Patel

Author:Carrie Patel [Patel, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85766-610-9
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2017-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Navigation

Malone’s initial investigation went as slowly as she would have expected. Few of the crew knew her, and none trusted her. Unfortunately, it all fit too well with what Geist had told her – to most of them, she was a savage, an untouchable.

Unfortunately, the (roughly) seven days remaining in their voyage were long when counted in hours sweeping corridors and wiping down bulkheads, but short for winning the trust of forty-two people.

Forty-one without Sharad.

She sorted through schedules and duty rotations, looking for anyone reporting absent for a shift (or anyone switching with someone else). She talked with Sharad’s shift mates and acquaintances, with the crew who had shared meals with him and whose cabins were placed near his. She asked about unusual behavior, close friendships, special enmities.

Nothing.

The most obvious suspects were the crew who had been off duty at the time of the murder, but that only narrowed her list by twelve. She performed a more thorough search of Sharad’s cabin, not expecting to find much.

The body had been removed, the bed stripped, and the walls cleaned of blood by the time Malone finally returned to the scene. There was no telling what else had been moved.

But as Malone poked around, she found something wedged under Sharad’s bunk. It was a small, narrow tab of metal, something she probably would have missed if the dead man’s belongings hadn’t already been cleared away. She picked it up, flipped it over, and read “GINTNER” on the other side.

It sounded like a title. Or a name. Not one Malone had heard on board, but that didn’t mean much.

Back in the corridor, Malone studied the door to Sharad’s cabin. She had to press her nose nearly to the metal, but she found it – a patch of scuffing at eye level. She glanced in either direction. When she was certain she was alone, she pressed the little nameplate to the door. It fit neatly in the middle of the scuffing, with a few stray scratches extending beyond the corners, where someone would have dug in with a prying tool.

Malone continued down the hall. For the first time, she noticed similar markings on all the cabin doors – as if someone had meticulously removed all the nameplates.

The question was, why? And was the gintner the crew member who had originally had Sharad’s cabin, or perhaps someone who had visited Sharad before the man’s death?

Unfortunately, when she asked about the gintner, all she got were blank stares.

She learned little more about Sharad. He had been one of the younger, newer crew members. No one knew him as well as Malone would have hoped. Or no one wanted to talk to her about him. He had worked the night shift in the control compartment, he’d taken his meals alone, and he’d played cards with the others on his shift. Malone heard the same story from everyone she asked, almost word for word. It was a little too perfect.

And what was stranger still was that no one had reacted much to his death.

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