“Yes, that’s what the facts support.”
“But they don’t, Detective. That’s not evidence. That’s your theory. It is not evidence, not some bloodstained blunt instrument in a plastic bag which you can hold up here in court and point to. It is the most tenuous circumstantial theory. So I ask you again: Is there any evidence, physical or digital, that definitely rules out Wyobie Cotal and Tara Jennifer Shaheef walking in on a criminal activity and being killed to shut them up, and incidentally why their memorycell inserts were erased?”
Hoshe stared ahead for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “No, there is no physical or digital evidence which rules that out,” he said in a monotone.
As the court recessed for the day the talking heads in media studios across the Commonwealth were nearly unanimous that Howard Madoc had done a good demolition job on Hoshe Finn. A great deal of the prosecution case was subjecture. It should be enough for a good defense lawyer to swing the jury in his favor. Public sympathy was definitely moving toward Morton according to the constant interactive polls monitoring opinion on the case. It acted like a feedback loop, giving even more people the impression he was going to get off. Which implied an even bigger revelation was waiting to be accessed: Paula Myo was actually going to lose a case.
After such momentous events, day three brought an unsurprising increase in the unisphere audience, close to three billion people were on-line and waiting to see what would happen. They watched as Mellanie arrived early and took her usual seat. This morning she was wearing a long coat of some shiny ice-blue fabric with matching trousers. The vest underneath was a translucent mesh, though the coat lapels remained very close together, hinting at rather than revealing any flesh. With her hair given a sophisticated wave and combed back neatly she was radiating raw sex appeal.
After yesterday’s roasting, Hoshe Finn was wearing a lighter suit, for once allowing his oiled hair to fall loose over his shoulders. Next to him, Paula was in a somber dark green suit, her hair scraped back severely.
When the court officer brought Morton in, he’d put on a navy blue suit appropriate for any boardroom meeting, emphasizing his authority and integrity. His face was sober and intent, betraying no hint of contentment at what had happened yesterday. He was restrained as he shook hands with Howard Madoc, then they both stood as Judge Carmichael entered.
With the prosecution case over, defense called its first witness: Morton himself.
Howard Madoc faced the shielded jury as he asked his opening question. “For the record, do you believe yourself capable of committing such a dreadful act as this murder undoubtedly is?”
“I do not believe I could kill in cold blood. And I did not kill my wife and her lover.”
“Thank you.”
Madoc went through a long series of questions designed to show his client in the best possible light to the jury. How Morton was ambitious but not so ruthless as to use murder to his corporate advantage. How he had shown sympathy and support for his ex-wife after her re-life procedure. How he would have risen to the top no matter what trivial little financial problems beset him forty years ago.
“The prosecution has made much of how cold and ruthless you are,” Madoc finished. “Are you a cold man?”
Morton looked up to the public gallery where Mellanie was sitting, gazing down with a soft devoted smile on her beautiful young face. “You’d have to ask those who know me properly, but I don’t think so.”
Howard Madoc bowed slightly to the judge and sat down.
“Your witness,” Judge Carmichael told the prosecution table.
Everyone in the courtroom fell silent as Paula Myo slowly stood up. Then a round of excited whispering broke out as she bowed to the judge and walked over to the witness stand. If she was having to take charge herself, the prosecution must be desperate.
“Murder ain’t what it used to be,” she said to Morton in a pleasant conversational tone. “It’s no longer death. Not final. Today it’s bodyloss, memory erasure, lots of euphemisms that describe what is essentially a discontinuity in consciousness. Your body can be killed, but the clinics on every Commonwealth planet can bring you back to life with a simple cloning procedure. There’s a blank decade or two, but eventually you’re walking around again as if nothing ever happened. It’s a wonderful psychological crutch to have. A lot of psychiatrists argue that it helps make our society a lot more stable and calm than before. They bandy the word ‘mature’ around quite a lot.
“So you see, murdering somebody is nothing like as serious as it used to be. All you’re actually doing is removing them from the universe for a few years. You’re not really killing them. Especially when you know their insurance will cover a re-life procedure. It would probably be an acceptable risk to remove someone who was going to ruin your plans.”
“No,” Morton said. “It is completely unacceptable. It is not a done thing, something that can be performed for convenience. Murder is barbarism. I wouldn’t do it. Not now, not forty years ago.”
“But we are agreed that your wife and Wyobie Cotal were murdered?”
“Of course.” He frowned, puzzled by the question. “I told you, remember?”
“No, you originally said you were suspicious about her disappearance, especially when it coincided with that of her lover. Feelings of unease aren’t entirely memory-based, they can’t be erased by legal or black-market editing. They are derived from the subconscious. You knew something was wrong about their disappearance.”
Morton sat back and gave her a suspicious stare.
“The Tampico alibi was a good one, wasn’t it?” Paula said.
“Yes.”
“Yes. Assuming you no longer had the memory of murdering her, neither you nor her other friends ever questioned the story that she’d left you to go there.”
“I didn’t kill her. But you’re right, it was a watertight cover-up. I had no reason to question her disappearance, especially after Broher Associates contacted me and said they were acting as intermediaries.”
“Let’s examine this again. You came back from your conference in Talansee, and found your apartment had been stripped of all your wife’s things, her clothes and possessions, and there was a message telling you she had left for good.”
“That’s right.”
“And that was enough to convince you at the time that there was nothing unusual about her leaving.”
“It was unusual, and unexpected, and quite shocking. But it didn’t make me suspicious.”
“So you knew of her affairs?”
“Yes, there had been several by then. Our marriage allowed for them. I’d had a couple myself. I’m only human, not some cold machine.”
“Did you argue the terms of the divorce?”
“No. They were all set out in the marriage contract. I knew what I was getting into.”
“What about the items removed from your apartment, did you ask for any of them to be returned?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Morton gave Madoc a quick glance. “Tara only took her own stuff.”
“You knew what was hers, did you?”
“Sure.”
“Did anybody else?”
This time the glance Morton shot at his lawyer was a puzzled one. “Excuse me?”
“I read the transcripts of all your calls and messages to Broher Associates,” Paula said. “There was never any dispute over what was removed. So tell me this: In a home where two people have lived together for twelve years, where only those two people could possibly know whose item was whose, how is it that the killer removed only her property?”
Morton’s expression turned to one of stricken incomprehension. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.
“No criminal gang would ever know what to take to set up the alibi,” Paula said. “It would take someone intimate with the house and its contents. There were only two of you with the exact knowledge. One of them is your ex-wife, and we know she didn’t do it.”