Hard Line - Pamela Clare Page 0,38

them full law-enforcement authority on station. Do you want to say something?”

Thor nodded. “We’ll be asking you all some questions in the coming days. In the meantime, the NSF has put together a list of new regulations for the station. No more alcohol sales. Curfew at ten each night. No one in the ice tunnels or service arches who doesn’t work there.”

“Curfew?” Jason blurted. “Why a curfew?”

Thor didn’t bother to explain. “One of you—someone sitting in this room right now—murdered Patty. You gave her this bottle of wine after poisoning it with methanol. Yes, we’ve tested it. If any of you saw or heard anything unusual, please tell us. Patty was your friend and colleague. Help us catch her killer.”

11

If Thor had ever felt unequal to a task, it was now. He was used to acting when there was a crisis, not sitting around and talking. Give him a blizzard, a dog fight, an aggressive polar bear, his sled falling through sea ice, an enemy pointing a rifle at his head, an incoming grenade. He could handle those things.

But a murder investigation?

They knew how Patty had been poisoned, but they had no idea who the killer was or what exactly had driven that person to take her life. Shields had cautioned him against making assumptions—or excluding anyone, including Samantha.

“Don’t share your progress with anyone. People living in a situation like this one develop close friendships. Everyone trusts everyone. Anything you say could get passed on to the killer.”

“I understand.”

He, Segal, and Jones had divided up the staff and had interrogated every person on station, asking them all the same questions, recording their answers and taking notes. There had been a few confessions. One of the fuelies—a guy in his forties—was fucking around on his wife, who was back home, with Analise Weber, a kitchen worker in her twenties. The guy who ran the aquaponics greenhouse had smuggled in marijuana seeds and had a few plants in a secret grow operation in the back. Charli had taken books from the Quiet Reading Room, read them, and failed to return them.

Some people had their own theories. Lance said it had probably just been a bad bottle of wine. Ryan wondered if it might have been an accident, though how methanol could accidentally end up in someone’s wine, he didn’t know. Hardin and Wei had both wondered if it had been suicide.

Unsurprisingly, no one had admitted to killing Patty. More than that, no one had seen or heard anything unusual that night.

It had taken more than eight hours to interview everyone. Then Thor, Jones, and Segal had scanned their notes and uploaded both the scans and the recordings to Cobra’s servers for Shields and the other analysts to study. The analyst team would cross-reference people’s stories and look for holes and pieces that didn’t fit.

Shields had already given them one bit of news. Vasily was former KGB, just as Thor had suspected. Whether he was actually a scientist or whether he now worked for the FSB—Russia’s Federal Security Service—only Vasily knew.

All Thor wanted now was a drink—a beer, some whiskey, maybe cognac.

“Anyone else feel like we’re stuck in a three-dimensional game of Clue?” Jones asked. “It’s someone with a bottle of poison wine at the South Pole. But who?”

“That’s the question.” Thor sent his last scan and glanced at his watch. “I’ll meet you two in the galley. I need to escort Dr. Park back to the station.”

He left Jones and Segal to finish and layered up. “Samantha, this is Thor.”

She replied quickly. “Samantha here.”

“I’m on my way to walk you back.”

“Okay. I’ll be ready.”

She’d been out there by herself today. There hadn’t been much choice, given the need to interview the staff as quickly as possible. Thor had checked in on her periodically, and she had kept the lab door locked, promising to call him on the radio if anyone came knocking.

He stepped outside, the cold reviving him, a chill wind helping to clear his head. The stars glowed above, the aurora flaring and ebbing across the sky, a tide of green.

Nature made sense. But not human beings. They were the only creatures capable of intentional malice.

He found Samantha waiting for him just inside the door.

She turned off the lights, put on her mask, and stepped outside. “How did it go?”

He started down the stairs, Samantha behind him. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“How’s the Cosmic Microwave Background?”

“I had a hard time concentrating. I couldn’t stop wondering who poisoned the wine. I