Asteroid Outpost (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 1) Read online

  “In the meantime, the Solar Press was trumpeting our misfortunes and one of the Outer Worlds was threatening lawsuits because their population needed the water and we were unable to fulfill our contracts. How could we, with the inspectors all over us?”

  Nick glanced at the screen in time to see a glitter of tears in her eyes.

  “All of that went on for the better part of a year,” she said, “but what really finished us was when the investors began pulling out. Stock prices took a nosedive, but nobody was buying.”

  “And Farrington came to see you again?”

  She nodded. “He brought his lawyer. They already had the papers drawn up, and all we had to do was sign.”

  “For nine cents on the terro.”

  “Yes.” She brushed at her eyes and cleared her throat, her voice turning hard again. “The other two companies had similar experiences, and they caved even before we did. By the time we walked away Farrington had control of all three, including all real property and fixed assets. They took over our fleet and our contracts and the accidents miraculously stopped. You tell me, Marshal—was all of that a coincidence?”

  “Sure doesn’t sound like it.”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  “You said Harvey had no money.”

  “Not when he first showed up. But when he came to see us the last time he did.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What was it you said earlier, about no justice on Ceres? What were you referring to?”

  “Two years after we were forced out, Farrington filed suit against us, claiming that we had hidden some liquid assets during the sale. It was ridiculous, of course, because we were deep in debt and barely got off that rock with the clothes we were wearing. But they wanted ninety million terros they claimed we had held back from them, and they had auditors on the case trying to find out where we had hidden the cash.

  “My father was already ill, so he couldn’t do anything about it, but I went back to Ceres to see what could be done. Judge Boxner had always been fair, and I was sure he would hear our petition, but when I got there I found out he was dead. His replacement acted like I was a criminal for even filing the petition!”

  Dead! Monica had told him the old judge retired.

  “What was the petition for?”

  “I was asking for an injunction of relief against Farrington and requesting an investigation of their business practices. I also wanted an independent audit of our books.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The judge called a hearing of all parties to settle the matter. Harvey Farrington showed up with his lawyer and laughed at me and mocked me and sneered at my father’s illness, and then threatened me with further lawsuits unless I coughed up the money. And the judge did nothing about it. Did nothing, said nothing, and in the end denied my petition.”

  Nick rubbed his face wearily.

  “Jesus! What was the outcome?”

  “The auditors never found any money—because there isn’t any—and I had to go even further into debt to defend us against that monster. We had a few thousand a year income from an insurance policy but that all got sucked up and left us with nothing. We’re now living on welfare from the Martian state and I have to work in the office here on the satellite just to keep my apartment, such as it is.”

  “Did Farrington drop the lawsuit?”

  “Temporarily. I live day to day with the threat that he’ll renew it. He still claims we owe him money.”

  Nick sat back in his chair, anger churning in his guts. Carmen Castillo could be feeding him a line, but he didn’t think so. He’d always been pretty good at reading people and her body language told him she was truly distressed by the whole thing.

  “Marshal, did you mean what you said in the beginning? About us getting our company back?” Her dark eyes were tense with hope.

  “I don’t know, Señora. But from everything I’ve learned so far, Farrington has got to go. Somebody has to take over when they do, and it would only be proper if that someone was you.”

  “I don’t have any money, if that’s what is required.”

  “I can’t make you any promises, but if I get my way, you won’t need any.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then sagged slightly, as if it were too much to hope for.

  “I want to thank you for talking to me,” he said. “I’ll keep you up to date if I can accomplish anything on this end.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled briefly. She was a very pretty woman when she smiled.

  “One more question, if you don’t mind?”

  “Of course.”

  “You mentioned Farrington’s lawyer. What was his name?”

  “Stanley Cramer.”

  Nick nodded, not at all surprised. He was going to have to meet Mr. Cramer one of these days.

  Soon.

  “Oh—and the judge who treated you so poorly? What was his name?”

  Carmen Castillo’s face twisted with anger.

  “It was a woman. Judge Monica Maynard.”

  Chapter 21

  Centerville - Ceres

  For the first time since arriving on Ceres, Nick Walker slept in his own bed in his own hotel room. He’d hardly spent any time there, just dropping in for a quick change of clothes. But tonight, weary beyond belief, he slid between the sheets and closed his eyes, vaguely comforted by the tight quarters, as if in all the universe he had only this one tiny space to call his own.

  In a very real sense, that was true. He’d left home at eighteen, going straight into the Star Marines, and while serving had owned practically nothing; from there to the U.F. Marshal Academy, where again he lived a dormitory life…and now, a rented room provided by the Federation as a perq to his salary. It wasn’t really “his”, but he could pretend it was, at least for the moment.

  Tired as he was, sleep was slow in coming. In four days he’d been through a whirlwind of events and conversations, had killed two men, beaten a couple of others, and been threatened with death. One thing for sure—life as a U.F. Marshal hadn’t been boring. He had a vague sense that he was in over his head, in really deep water, but one lesson he’d learned in the Star Marines was to keep moving forward, present your face to the enemy, and never give up. Right or wrong, he wouldn’t give up now, either—it simply wasn’t in his nature.

  But as he lay staring into the darkness, he began to have serious doubts whether he could accomplish all that lay before him. The problems he’d uncovered, if his assessments were correct, had been around for years; other men, like Marshal Milligan and David Tarpington, had either never recognized them or never dealt with them. Nick had been here four days—did he seriously think he could accomplish what they had not?

  He didn’t know. He was a rookie marshal, after all—maybe he hadn’t discovered his limitations yet, and everything would come crashing down when he did…but for the moment he knew only one course of action—keep moving forward.

  Improvise!

  Friday, August 9, 0440 (CC) — Government Annex - Ceres

  The coffee was fresh when he arrived at the office on Friday, and so was the cigar smoke. Beech and Murray were both there, chatting about solarball scores, and greeted Nick when he arrived. Nick had never been a sports fan, so didn’t join the conversation until he had a hot cup in his hand, and changed the subject abruptly.

  “I hate to break up all this auto-eroticism, but I have a question.”

  Murray grimaced in annoyance but Beech laughed. Milligan merely stared at him.

  “Whatever happened to Judge Boxner?” Nick asked.

  A moment of silence followed the question, and everyone looked away, as if the subject were taboo.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said, “I didn’t think the question was that hard.”

  Milligan cleared his throat with a growl, but Murray spoke up.

  “He’s dead.”

  “I heard he retired.”

  “Nope.” Sandy Be
ech shook his head. “Shot in the back. Laser pistol, late at night, no witnesses.”

  “You’re telling me the case was never solved?”

  “Remains open to this day,” Murray said. “It was a class 3 laser, the kind that everyone carries if they carry at all. You can’t do ballistics on a laser beam.”

  Nick considered that a moment. “When did it happen?”

  “Eight, nine years ago. The crime report’s in the database, if you want to look it up.”

  Nick nodded. “Thanks. I will.”

  “How come you’re asking about him?” Milligan asked.

  “I heard the name last night. Wondered why he stepped down.”

  “Well…he didn’t.”

  After finishing their coffee, Beech and Murray left to do whatever they did all day and Nick sat down at his desk again. Milligan waited until he was deep in the database and spun around to face him.

  “You making any headway on the Farrington thing?”

  Nick looked up. “Do you need me on something else?”

  “No, not at the moment. If you can do any good on this, then keep going. But I’d like to stay up on your progress.”

  Nick told him about the call to Carmen Castillo-Bernal, causing Milligan to frown as he anticipated the subspace charges.

  “That’s why I asked about Judge Boxner,” Nick said when he finished his tale. “I hadn’t heard the name before and was just curious. Mrs. Castillo said Boxner was a fair man, but she wasn’t so generous with Judge Maynard.”

  “Well, I told you to watch out for Maynard. She runs hot and cold, and you never know from one day to the next which it’s going to be.” He got up and walked to the coffee pot, refilling his cup.

  “What do you know about Stanley Cramer?”

  Milligan turned in surprise.

  “Cramer! Shit, he’s worse than Harvey Farrington. Slick son of a bitch—arrogant, conniving, merciless.”

  “Crooked?”

  “Undoubtedly. Trouble with lawyers is, they know the law better than we do, so they can operate on the dark side of it for years and never get caught. If we try to get something on them we usually run into starcrete walls.”

  “What do you know about his background?”

  “Not much. He came out here with Harvey Farrington, or maybe a little later, and sort of took over the pond. No one likes him but he doesn’t seem to give a shit. He takes care of his client and, apparently, his client takes care of him.”

  “How important is he to the Farrington operation?”

  “Hm. Don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say he’s the real brains of the outfit. For all his in-your-face snobbery, Harvey is about as intelligent as a rock crab. He has absolutely nothing on the ball except a gift for talking shit, and I suspect Cramer even has to hold classes on that so Harvey doesn’t get confused.”

  “What about Henry?”

  “The dangerous one. Harvey takes point on everything, but he’s completely transparent. Henry is the scorpion in your shoe.”

  Nick poured more coffee and returned to his terminal. He looked up the crime reports on Judge Boxner’s death. As the others had stated, it was a cold case, completely unsolved, with no witnesses and not even a suspect.

  Nick moved on to news reports of the incident and learned that the Ceres court had remained closed for six days after the killing, until a Federation court on Mars had appointed a local attorney to the bench. That appointment, of course, was Monica Maynard, but what surprised Nick was the glowing recommendation she received from another prominent local attorney. It was this endorsement which apparently convinced the Martian Judiciary to confirm her; his name was Stanley Cramer.

  By midmorning Nick felt he was at a crossroad, with no idea which direction to take. He was accumulating evidence at a staggering rate, to the point that he was starting to suffer information overload. Some of it was little more than gossip, yet he was convinced it was all important…somehow. The question was, what could he do with it?

  More to the point, what did he want to do?

  Frowning as he narrowed his focus, he opened a text document and started making a list. Included in the list were a corrupt corporation and its crooked lawyer, prisoner abuse by Farrington Security, a space freighter with a murdered crew, falsification of death certificates, probable sabotage in the interest of affecting a hostile takeover, an unspecified number of deaths as a result of that sabotage, a murdered judge…

  He was starting to lose track. Some of these events had happened several years apart, so were they even connected? But how could they not be connected? Everything seemed to be centered around, or pointed to, Farrington Industries. Looking at Ceres through the unobstructed eyes of a newcomer, Nick was seeing a cancer…a cancer that was slowly eating away at the legal and social stability of the entire asteroid, and that cancer was Farrington Industries. Yet not a single person who had been here any length of time—not Milligan, not Tarpington, not Monica—had done a thing about it as far as he could tell. Could they not see the nebula for the stars?

  At the bottom of the list he added two more names—Jessica Garner and her husband Scott. Below that he added the word “solution:”, and sat in thought for several minutes. Finally, he completed the phrase: “shut down Farrington”.

  The only question remaining was…how?

  * * *

  When Nick reached the second floor of the courthouse he saw David Tarpington coming down the stairs from the floor above. The tall blond prosecutor grinned with pleasure and halted at the foot of the steps.

  “Howdy, Marshal! What are you up to this morning?”

  Nick returned the smile but nodded up the steps, where Misery Allen was making her way down.

  “I need to have a few words with your opponent.”

  Tarpington glanced up with a grin, then turned back to Nick, leaning in confidentially.

  “Don’t noise this around, but I think she has the hots for you.”

  “Really! You think so?”

  Tarpington nodded. “Trust me, I’m a trained observer.”

  Nick laughed and started to turn away. Tarpington caught his sleeve.

  “Hey, if you aren’t doing anything tonight, I’d like to invite you to have a drink with me. I’ll show you a tavern that’s a lot nicer than the Open Airlock.”

  Nick gazed at him a moment. “Do I have to wear leather or anything?”

  Tarpington hooted with laughter.

  “Well, that’s up to you. There will be a few leather freaks in attendance.”

  Nick shrugged. “Sure, why not? Can I bring a date?”

  “You mean, like a female date?”

  “Yeah. My favorite defense attorney, for example.”

  Tarpington’s eyes gleamed with suppressed laughter.

  “If you can convince her to go in there, you bet. She’ll be a lot safer than you will.”

  “Okay. I’ll drop by around five o’clock.”

  Nick left Tarpington and joined Misery Allen, who had stopped to wait for him. She smiled brightly and Nick realized that Tarpington was right—she was practically glowing.

  “Hi, Nick! What’re you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.”

  “Well, you timed it perfectly. Court just let out for the morning. Come on to my office.”

  Two minutes later they entered her office and she closed the door. As she turned toward her desk she bumped into him, thinking he’d taken a chair when he hadn’t.

  “Oops! I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Nick took the briefcase from her hand and set it on the floor, then put his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him expectantly, almost breathless, her eyes suddenly wide. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” he said, “because it means absolutely nothing.”

  “Okay…take what the wrong way?”

  “This.”

  He wrapped both arms around her and pulled her against him, kissing her firmly. He felt her tremble for a few seconds,
then she relaxed and slid her arms around his neck, returning the kiss with passion. He held her for several seconds, then pulled back slowly.

  “This doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything,” he said. “But I’ve been wanting to do that since the first time I saw you.”

  She teetered slightly, breathing hard.

  “You have?”

  “Yeah. Sorry if I’ve sexually harassed you or anything.”

  Misery laughed, more a release of tension than humor, and pulled him back down, resuming the kiss for another ten seconds.

  “And I’ve been wanting to do that,” she said. “Not very professional, I’m afraid.”

  “Not for me either.”

  She walked on around the desk and sat down. He took a chair facing her. She still had a glow in her eyes as she smiled at him.

  “So, Nick, other than getting that out of the way, what’s up?”

  He leaned back in the chair and stretched, then cracked his knuckles.

  “I need to get inside Farrington lockup.”

  Her smile faded slowly. “You’ll need to see Judge Maynard for that. I doubt if they’ll let you in without a warrant.”

  “They won’t, but I don’t think Maynard is going to give me one. I don’t have enough probable cause, at least not that I can reveal to the judge.”

  Misery nodded. “You haven’t told her about Mrs. Garner?”

  “I haven’t told anyone except you. And I have to keep it that way for the time being.”

  “I don’t see how I can help you.”

  “Well, I was wondering…do you ever visit clients out there? You know, defense prep, pretrial stuff, things like that?”

  “Sure, sometimes.”

  “Do you have any interviews planned for today?”

  “No, I don’t have anything immediately pending.”

  Nick grimaced, drumming his fingers on the chair arm.

  “Can you invent something? Maybe ask some redundant questions just to clarify a point of evidence?”

  Misery nodded, looking slightly confused. “Sure, I guess I could do that. But how would that help you?”