She looked around the room. Williams was in high spirits, tossing a stylus at the back of Best’s head, then hooting when he swatted at it. She caught Agnew looking at her. He quickly glanced at his partner and looked away. She was accustomed to men looking at her. This was different.
Meg Dalton came by on her way to the coffee corner and Livvy made a decision. She made and held eye contact aggressively and tilted her head in the direction of the Atrium, then waited a long few minutes before getting up and walking out of the room. She found Meg at the bench with the geese and the predatory fox.
This time they stood, Meg looking back down the hall, leaning back with her elbows on the rail, and Livvy looking out over the Atrium.
“You’re looking a little frazzled in there. When was the last time you heard from McGregor?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I’m aware that he’s neither a training officer nor accustomed to having a partner but…”
“But this is a little extreme,” Meg supplied. “What happened to Louie?”
“He had… an altercation with someone at McGregor’s apartment.”
“Hmm. LLE tends to be unpopular with a whole bunch of the people we’re trying to protect, but you three seem to be getting more than your share of hostility,” Meg said.
“An unlucky streak,” Livvy said.
“Uh huh,” Meg said, and waited.
Chris had seemed to trust Dalton, and certainly Livvy had no reason not to. But orders were orders. She couldn’t say anything. Instead, she asked a question.
“How much do you know about this case McGregor and I are working?”
Meg continued to watch the hall as she replied. “Josephson’s disappearance? Besides the background I gave you Tuesday, a little more that I can guess, but probably not nearly as much as you do. I suspect that Josephson is with someone who has a lot of money and who is paying for Josephson’s special skills. I suspect the Chief has McGregor’s notes by now and with time I could piece the rest together. But unless you two are… out of the picture for some reason, I won’t be taking an active role.
“It all goes to how LLE…”
“… handles things differently,” Livvy interrupted with asperity. “So I gather. Look, I appreciate all of the advice you’ve been giving me, all the mentoring,” here she gave Meg a small nod, “but this still seems wrong. Any other unit, if a member is missing under somewhat suspicious circumstances, they mobilize heaven and earth. It’s the way it’s always been. And now you’re telling me you know something about this case, and the Chief…”
“The Chief wants you to do exactly what you’re doing. Work the case as thoroughly as you can. McGregor must have given you a full background Wednesday night…”
“How did you know that?” Livvy asked sharply.
Meg looked at her calmly. “Because it’s what I’d do.”
“I’m sorry,” Livvy said. “Sorry. I’m just on edge.”
“It all fits with what I’ve been trying to tell you, Livvy. We keep these cases under wraps because it’s ruinous to allow the anti-Longevity zealots to use them as propaganda. Secrecy and deniability are crucial. You’ll never work anywhere with more autonomy, but it comes with a price. The brutal truth is, often LLE would prefer not to take cases to court. That means that to a certain extent we trim our consciences in terms of proper, legal, stand-up-in court police procedures. If that seems wrong to you… I can’t help you make that choice, but perhaps you should rethink this career shift you maneuvered. As I said, the Chief can’t tell you to do it, and McGregor won’t. It’s a choice we all have had to make for ourselves,” Meg said. “And that is probably more than I should have said on the subject.”
“In other words,” Livvy said, “among other things, deniability is another LLE priority. Another reason for the secrecy. The Chief wants to hold you in reserve in case we fail, and he wants to be able to deny knowledge in case we succeed in averting an LLE disaster but our efforts bring down the wrath of the judicial system if someone in power with some good attorneys takes exception to our methods. We can be the rogue LLE detectives who created a mess independently of the rest of the unit. Tell me, Meg, is there some thought, too, that LLE can better afford to lose me than you?”
Meg turned to look at her and smiled. “Not from my perspective, no, and I doubt from the Chief’s. And McGregor would be a huge loss.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked suddenly. “Still want to give it a full week?”
“In terms of my career in Enforcement, I’m starting to feel the truth of what Chris said. But I’m not Alice and I haven’t traveled through a wormhole lately,” Livvy mused. “I don’t care about any of that. He also said that we were initiating a ‘private little war.’ I need to engage.”
Meg smiled but remained silent.
“And the first thing I need is some intel. I asked you to come out here so I could ask a specific question,” Livvy said. “I had hints from both McGregor and the Chief that there is someone in LLE that I can’t trust. I’m not talking about Archives or Forensics, but someone in the detective squad.”
Meg continued facing away from the Atrium and looking back down the hall. Then after a moment she looked down at the floor, put a hand on her forehead and closed her eyes. When she took her hand away, she said, “Let me offer you some practical advice. In LLE, unlike any other unit, the two most important pieces of information you can have about a suspect are their chrono and their allotment. That’s true as well for understanding where the derelicts who work in the LLE brain trust are coming from.”
Meg shrugged. “It’s something you may want to consider doing before working here too much longer. You can do it from here,” she added, “and I need to get back. I’ve got my own minor catastrophe pending.”
“Wait,” Livvy said. “One more thing. This ‘private little war’ McGregor described. I need to take that literally, don’t I? That’s LLE code for a double-or-nothing, take-no-prisoners, tactical action, isn’t it? Just deny it if I have it wrong, please.”
Meg looked at the polished stone-inlaid floor for moment and then met her eyes. “I have nothing to say about that except that you catch on quickly. And now you can forget I ever confirmed it.”
“Confirmed what?” Livvy asked with a blank expression.
Meg was smiling when she turned away to head back to the office.
As an LLE detective, Livvy had access to ages and family histories for everyone in the city. She sat down on the bench with the topiary fox stalking her and tapped into the files.
Chris, of course, she already knew: 101 chrono, widowed, no children.
Agnew was only 27 chrono, unmarried and a rookie in LLE. It must have been a choice right after making grade, and it was a strange one. LLE was not considered a stepping-stone to anything. One joined it from conviction or sometimes, if one was talented but a little wild one was shuffled into it to save their career. Like Williams, she suspected. She looked a little deeper and saw that Agnew came from a working class family, naturals, and that he had excelled at the Academy. Like every other city employee, he could receive a reset annually as a benefit, if he chose to use them. He had gone in for a reset three months ago. Perhaps he was from one of those ambivalent families that wanted their children to have choices.
Best, 82 chrono, married to his fourth wife, two children from the first marriage and none since, twenty-five years in LLE. A possibility, she supposed, but after twenty-five years in the squad?
Dalton was 83 chrono, married and divorced once years ago, with LLE fifty-five years, like Chris a highly decorated detective. She was the only other woman on the squad.
Toscano, 45 chrono, married, one child, with LLE ten years. Dalton’s partner. That alone put him way down on the list.
Best’s partner, Wachowski was 34 chrono, unmarried, and the other LLE rookie. Transferred from Tactical at his own request after a back injury that had taken some time to heal, despite accelerated healing. She might find more about that if she called Bruno, discretely.