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                      SEX, LIES, AND NECROMANCY

                                  by

                    Daniel Parsons and Brandi Weed

           What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
                           -- John Lubbock

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Ardrin and Jake took a trip down to the evidence storage warehouse to
search the Cadillac for evidence.  Getting and filing all the proper
paperwork took some time, but afterwards, they were allowed into the
warehouse where the car sat.  It was a big car, black, shining and
luxurious, except for the dented front end.

     Ardrin let out a long whistle. "Nice looking car."
     "Um... I dunno.  It's kind of big."
     "Yeah.  V8, leather interior.  Pretty awesome."
     "Well, yeah, ok.  Lets start checking it out."

     The Cadillac was obviously just about brand new; its odometer
read 000057, its paint job was mostly unmarked, and its interior still
suffused with that new car smell.  The two soon fell to, examining the
passenger compartment minutely.

     "There's sand on the carpet on the drivers side."
     "Hmmm..." Ardrin scraped the carpeting under the rear seat with
his pocket knife. "Got any mud up there?"
     "Mud?  Oh, yeah!  Some real fine dirt, rubbed into the carpet.
It's hard to see with everything black."
     "That's probably some of the soil from around where it was found.
I think Scotland is pretty loamy.  Now, where'd the sand come from?"
     "The beach?"
     "It was found about 100 km from the ocean, and there's not enough
miles on it for it to have driven that far.  What was that town where
they found it?"
     "Uh... lessee..." Jake stopped to leaf through their briefing
papers. "Mikleway.  It's a shipping point on the river Spie.  Boats
stop there to unload cargo."  Looking up at Ardrin, Jake smiled.  "Do
you think that means it must have been taken off a boat?"
     "Yeah, probably.  Don't see what else it could have been.  I
wonder what beach they were driving it on?"
     "Hey, there's a bunch of sticky stuff all over the dashboard."
     "Sticky stuff?"
     "Yeah.  It's like something spilled over the dash and dried.  You
think maybe they were drinking something when they crashed?"
     Ardrin leaned over the front seat and scraped a bit off the dash
with his knife, then smelled it. "Ah... Bocks Dark.  It's a kind of
ale.  They make it in Northumbria."
     Jake blinked, visibly impressed. "Oh, you know your beers."
     Ardrin grinned ruefully.  "Nope.  Can't stand the stuff.  Better
bag it and send it to the lab."
     Jake blinked again. "Uh... yeah.  And bag some of this sand and
mud, too.  Maybe they can identify it."

     The interior disclosed no further information, though they
searched for all the secret hide-aways, stashes, and marks, they had
been trained to look for.  The car was too new to have picked up much
from its driver.  The undercarriage had a large dent where it had
struck the edge of the ditch, and also some other strange dents, as
though it had been driven over very rough country.  There was a minute
quantity of sand to be found on the underside, and in the tires.  The
search of the engine compartment was fruitless, but the trunk was not.

     "Jake, could you get the trunk catch?"
     "The what?"
     Ardrin swore mildly. "The bonnet."
     "But we already looked at the engine."
     Ardrin stared, then swore less mildly. "The rear of the car."
     "You mean the boot?"
     "Yes, I mean the boot.  Will you open it, please?"
     Jake frowned, then released the catch. "You don't need to shout,
you know.  It's not my fault you keep talking like an American."
     "Yeah, right." With a grunt, Ardrin threw up the trunk lid and
stared inside. "Empty.  Shit."
     "Well, of course whoever was driving it cleaned it out."
     "Yeah."  Ardrin trained his flashlight around the trunk, finally
bringing the beam to rest in one of the corners. "Hello.  That looks
like a marijuana leaf."
     Jake picked up the bit of green with his tweezers, and looked at
it in the light.  "Yeah, I think that's what it is.  We better look
under the carpet, there may be more."

     After scraping over the carpet with a manilla folder to pick up
anything that may have been on it, the two lifted the carpeting out
and went over it and the trunk interior with a fine toothed comb.
There was more sand, a few marijuana leaves, and some small, greyish
crumbs of vaguely fleshy material they were unable to identify.  All
were duly bagged, labelled, and mailed down to the forensics lab for
analysis and identification.

                            *     *     *

     Janie looked at the crew list, frowning.  "This is just a list of
names."
     "I don't see the problem," Angel said.
     "None of these names, except for this Mgune fellow, are really
unique.  If I do a search of the Interpol database by name alone,
we'll probably get duplicates.  And these may not even be their real
names.  Did Bob give us any other data?"
     "Our supervisor's name is Mr. Samuels," Angel sniffed.  "Don't be
disrepectful."
     "Don't worry, I'd ask him permission to call him Bob to his
face."
     Angel ignored her companion and riffled through the file they'd
brought into the lab with them.  "I'm afraid that's all we have."
     "Damn.  How about if we get in touch with Bristol & Chambers--
the ship's owners, right?-- and get personnel files on this crew?
Even just a birthdate will cut down the search time."
     "Good idea, I'll do that.  Go ahead and search for Mgune."
     "Actually, I shouldn't.  For security reasons, they only allow us
so much connect time per day, and I'd rather do the whole search in
one shot."
     "Ah, yes, I see.  You spend rather a lot of time on the
computers, I take it?"
     "Well, yeah.  I'm good at it."
     "Good.  I'd much prefer that this be done efficiently.  I suppose
you're the best one for it, then.
     "The right man for the job, eh?"
     "You're not a man, Jane.  But yes, that's the general idea."
     "Yeah.  You want me to call Bristol & Chambers?  You can try Mrs.
Finkelstein and Lloyds of London."

     Soon, Angel had an appointment with Mr. Chambers of Accounts
Payable for 10:00am the next morning, and with Mrs. Bathsheba
Finkelstien at 3:00pm.  Janie had a little less luck dealing with
Bristol & Chambers.

     "Bristol & Chambers shipping.  How may I help you?"
     "Hello, this is Jane Calder.  I'm with MI5."
     "Who?"
     "Agent Jane Calder.  I'm calling in connection with one of your
ships."
     "What's MI5?"
     Janie was stunned for a moment, and could only say, "What do you
mean, what's MI5?  It's like your FBI, only in Britain!"
     "Oh, so you're like a cop, or James Bond, or something?"
     "Yes!  I'm a agent!  I'm calling about one of your ships.  More
specifically, I want to know about the crew on one of your ships.
Would you mind patching me through to the right department?"
     "Um..."  Janie could hear sugarless bubble-gum snapping in the
background. "I guess you could talk to Andy.  He's, like, in charge of
employees and stuff."
     "Thank you.  I would appreciate it."
     "Sure.  Have a nice day!"
     What a twit, Janie thought, as she was put on hold.  After an
annoying interlude of listening to U2 songs played on a piano and
violins, a male voice came on the line.
     "Hello?"
     "Hello, this is Agent Jane Calder.  I'm with MI5.  I'm calling
about the _Caduces_."
     "What can I do for you?"
     "MI5 is investigating the disappearance of the ship, and we were
wondering if you could help us.  We would appreciate it if you could
give us some information on the crew of the ship."
     "Well... our employee files are confidential.  Is there anything
specific you were looking for?  I can give you their names."
     "We have the names, and are really interested in any kind of
background information, birthdates, hopefully the full record of each
crewmember if that's possible."
     "I'm sorry, but that's really not in line with our policy.  Do
you have a warrant, or can you come see us in person?  I'd really like
to help you, but I can't just fax this to you without at least seeing
some sort of credentials."
     "It would be a little hard to visit you all the way from London."
Janie chewed on a nail in irritation.  "Would you accept a badge
number and the phone number of one of our branch offices?"
     "That would certianly be helpful... did you say you were in
London?  Our insurer is in London too."
     "Yes, Lloyds of London.  We're getting in contact with them as
well."
     "Oh... actually, we've had some problems with Lloyds over the
_Caduces_.  You see, they won't pay the claim for the ship, claiming
the loss was unconfirmed."
     "That's strange," Janie said, arching an eyebrow. "I'd have
thought having the ship vanish from radar in a storm would confirm it
pretty well." Janie grinned for a moment, a wide, impish grin.  "We
are going to see them, and ask about some things."
     The voice at the other end of the line sounded almost crafty. "I
don't suppose you could ask them why they won't pay off our claim?
It's an open and shut case of a ship lost at sea, and there shouldn't
be this kind of trouble about it."
     "Indeed.  It seems so... dishonest."
     "Oh, very.  Say, you wanted the employee records of the _Caduces_
crew?  Since they're all missing and presumed dead, there really
shouldn't be much of a problem releasing their records to the proper
authorities."
     "I can't see any problem with that at all.  Do you still want the
number of the branch office for confirmation?"
     "Yes, please."
     "All right.  I'll give you our fax number as well."

     Soon, the fax machine was humming away, as a thick stack of paper
rolled off and into Janie's waiting hands.  They were just finishing
up when Angel came back from making her calls.

     "Hello, Jane.  How have you done?"
     "I did super.  Got complete records of everyone on the ship."
     "Good.  We have two appointments tomorrow.  A Mr. Chambers at
Lloyds of London in the morning, and Mrs. Finkelstein in the
afternoon.  And what's so funny?"
     A silly grin had crept onto Janie's features. "I'm sorry, it's
that name..."
     With a sigh, Angel stared down her nose at Janie, which was not
entirely easy to do given that Angel was much shorter. "Jane, you are
not going to laugh at Mrs. Finkelstein when we go to see her."
     "I won't.  I promise.  And call me Janie."
     "If I promise to call you Janie, will you promise not to laugh,
even if you explode?"
     Without even trying to supress the giggles, Janie grinned and
nodded.
     "Good.  Now, let's do the database search."


Daniel Parsons                                             Brandi Weed

                   Questions or comments to bweed@anubis.claremont.edu