The ride took fifteen minutes. Suzanne Baranski was waiting outside for me. She was a good cop, but too green to handle a homicide alone. Still, she’d get a big cut of the fee for being the original responding officer — after all, the cop who responds to a call never knows who, if anyone, is going to pick up the tab. When there is money to be had, first-responders get a disproportionate share.

I’d worked with Suze a couple of times before, and had even gone to see her play cello with the symphony once. Perfect example of what Mendelia’s all about, that. Suze Baranski had blue-collar parents. They’d worked as welders on the building of Wheel Five; not the kind who’d normally send a daughter for music lessons. But just after she’d been born, their soothsayer had said that Suze had musical talent. Not enough to make a living at it — that’s why she’s a cop by day — but still sufficient that it would be a shame not to let her develop it.

“Hi, Toby,” Suze said to me. She had short red hair and big green eyes, and, of course, was in plain clothes — you wanted a uniformed cop, you called our competitors, Spitpolish, Inc.

“Howdy, Suze,” I said, walking toward her. She led me over to the door, which had been locked off in the open position. A holographic sign next to it proclaimed: Skye Hissock Soothsayer Let Me Reveal Your Future! Fully Qualified for Infant and Adult Readings

We stepped into a well-appointed lobby. The art was unusual for such an office — it was all original pen-and-ink political cartoons. There was Republic CEO Da Silva, her big nose exaggerated out of all proportion, and next to it, Axel Durmont, Earth’s current president, half buried in legislation printouts and tape that doubtless would have been red had this been a color rendering. The artist’s signature caught my eye, the name Skye with curving lines behind it that I realized were meant to represent clouds. Just like Suze, our decedent had had varied talents.