rel="nofollow" href="#litres_trial_promo">Chapter 34
Because her recent days had been filled with scientific data and research, Europa had paused only for the most basic of human necessities—food, water, bathroom breaks. Her nights had been equally jammed as she tried desperately to play catch-up—exercising on the stationary cycle, calling friends and attempting a life. Time had taken on a pace as unstoppable as the biblical flood. The rushing tempo had given her sporadic anxiety attacks as well as migratory bouts of heart palpitation—unusual since she was in peak condition and excellent health. She’d probably live a long time, judging by her parents’ genetics. Her mother had been in her early sixties when she had died, but she had been a broken woman.
Unlike her father.
Her father. He’d be in his seventies. And like most narcissists, he’d probably be in wonderful health.
Or so she thought.
But no time for any musings. Her professional calendar had been too demanding.
Except there had been that recurring daydream, a fragment from her past, a sneaky little devil that kept insinuating itself into Europa’s brain when she least expected it.
A remembrance of things past, thank you, Proust.
Sitting by the lake, watching the water gently lap up on the shoreline. For her tenth birthday, her father had decided to take her camping—just the two of them, leaving her squalling younger brothers at home with Mom. Dad had taken her somewhere up in the San Bernardino Mountains. To this day, Europa wasn’t sure of the precise location, and after she had become estranged from her father, she hadn’t bothered to ask.
The moment to remember had been at night. Back then, the stars weren’t subjects of scientific scrutiny nor were they inanimate objects of cosmological theory. They were millions of diamonds set into a velvet sky. The moon had been out—a waning moon, Europa recalled that. Its beams had bounced and rolled along the caressing waves. They had just finished a trout dinner cooked on the campfire … roasted marshmallows for dessert. Snuggling under her sleeping blanket with her father by her side.
Just the two of them.
When her father had been the most important person in her life.
To help her fall asleep, he had told her stories, something he rarely did. Tales of evil empires in faraway places called black holes. There were also the heroic, fleet-footed knights of Quasar. And when demons of black holes tried to capture the knights of Quasar with their secret destructive weapon called gravity, the knights would turn themselves into invisible, weightless rays, and escape faster than the speed of light.
A fantastic story because her science teacher had told them that nothing traveled faster than the speed of light. And when she had mentioned that fact to her father, he had laughed, then kissed her cheek. The only time in her life when Europa remembered being the recipient of her father’s affection. Not that Dad had been overtly cruel, just inconsiderate. But mostly absent.
She thought of that night when she received the news—that her father was not only dead, but had died under suspicious circumstances.
“The thing is, they moved the body, Lieutenant.”
“What?” Decker strained to hear Oliver’s voice over the unmarked’s radio static. “Who’s they?”
“Whoever’s acting as the head honcho of the Order, I guess. Marge did manage to seal off the bedroom. That’s where Jupiter was found—”
“Could you talk up, Scott?”
“—point being that the crime scene is screwed up, and the body has been messed with because of the shrine.”
“Shrine?”
“Yeah. When we got here, the members were in the process of dressing him and constructing this shrine—”
“Where’s the body now?”
“In a small anteroom off some kind of church—”
Temple, Decker heard a male voice enunciate from the background. “Someone with you, Detective?”
“Hold on, lemme …”
Decker tapped the steering wheel until Scott came back on the line. It took a while.
Oliver held his voice low. “I told them to stop messing with the corpse until you got here. Not being a trusting soul, I’ve been guarding the body with some self-appointed guru who calls himself Brother Pluto. I sent an officer in there to keep him company so we could talk more privately.”
The electronic noise cracked through Decker’s ear. He said, “You need to talk louder.”
Oliver spoke up. “This Pluto person doesn’t want the police here. He keeps insisting that the death was natural, waving this bogus death certificate to prove it, disregarding the empty fifth of Stoli underneath the bed. Which he claims wasn’t Jupiter’s because Jupiter didn’t drink.”
“Death certificate?” Decker said. “Has the coroner been there?”
“Nope. It was signed by a gent named Brother Nova.”
“Who’s he?”
“Got me, sir.”
“Did you explain to them what we’re doing is standard procedure in sudden deaths?”
“I’ve tried to explain it, but Pluto’s not listening.” A laugh. “I’ve been biting my tongue, refraining from asking him where Goofy was.”
Decker smiled. Oliver was showing unusual discretion. “Did you tell him that we have to transport the body to the morgue for autopsy?”
“Been saving the good news for you. Because right now, Pluto and his toons are not happy campers, though I suspect they’ve never been a cheerful lot. Who called the death in?”
“Jupiter’s daughter. Her name is Europa Ganz. She’s on the faculty at Southwest University of Technology. Jupiter used to be a hotshot professor there years ago. His real name is Emil Euler Ganz. Apparently, the daughter’s not associated with the Order.”
“So how’d she find out about the death?”
A good question. “I don’t know, Scott. The details are sketchy.” He hesitated. “Find out about Ganz’s death certificate. This Nova must be a member of the Order, right?”