KILLER PLANET

“I will send you another pair of tickets for our next game,” Hernan said to Nefertiti in the garden.

“I will cosmomail you another couple of tickets for our next game.”

“They’ve never been interested in watching your games, Hernan,” Cleopatra said with bitterness. “They just hope we’ll split up before Christmas.”

“You almost succeeded in inviting the whole Nickel community, Lord Gloucester” Hernan said in a conciliatory way.

“This is my people, Mister Sousa,” Lord Gloucester said, folding his newspaper with evident irritation. “You will understand me better once you go back to your world.”

“This is now his world, Daddy,” Cleopatra intervened. “He won’t return to Mercury.”

Lord Gloucester smiled as he saw Severus, Martha, Guillermina, Anaximandra, and Mrs. Grave approaching him.

“Seriously?” Sir Weyden asked in a patronizing tone.

Nefertiti gently snatched the newspaper from her husband’s hands and perused it.

“Martha!” Cleopatra exclaimed, “I’m so happy to see you again! My dearest friend!”

Nefertiti raised her eyebrows as soon as Cleopatra hugged Martha.

“Where is Fabio?” Cleopatra asked.

“Just by the pool,” said Severus, “with the bride.

Fabio turned his head towards them, as if he sensed that they were watching him.

“I think they will join us soon,” mumbled Sir Weyden.

“My dear friend!” Nefertiti told Severus, unrolling her arms and handing him out the newspaper. “Did you hear about this wicked dentist? He has been poisoning his patients for nearly 30 years.”

Severus read the headline of the newspaper’s page:

DOCTOR CAICEDO, PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER

Beneath it, there was a photo of Doctor Caicedo, a bonny 70-year-old bald man.

Severus sneered.

“Actually,” he said, “Doctor Caicedo is one of our professors. A wicked genius, no doubt. He was an advocate of the Phoenix tooth filling, a Venusian mixture that regenerates teeth’s roots. Anaximandra! Weren’t you with him the day they arrested him?”

“It was a nightmare,” Anaximandra acquiesced.

“Why don’t you tell us what you saw?” Severus exclaimed.

“I don’t think this is the appropriate moment.”

“Where are you staying?” Cleopatra asked Martha.

“How rude you are, Cleopatra!” Anaximandra exclaimed, approaching the group. “Let me introduce Hernan to Severuso.”

Fabio’s swarthy figure emerged from the crowd just as Severus and Hernan shook hands.

“I’ve heard a lot about you!” Severus said. “I hope you stay for good on Mars.”

“I don’t think there is a better planet to live on.” Hernan nodded as he toasted. “Besides, Cleopatra’s family has been very warm and hospitable to me.”

Guillermina laughed, spitting out drops of champagne.

“I heard you were planning to get married,” Severus said to Cleopatra, “is that true?”

“You can’t imagine, darling,” Cleopatra said, “how much gossip such as that, my family has encouraged amongst our relatives and friends.”

“What do you think of such a union, Lord Gloucester?” Guillermina asked, smiling at Lord Gloucester as she drank from her cup. “Would you like to extend your family to Mercury?”

Lord Gloucester suddenly choked and coughed. Cleopatra hit and rubbed his back.

“Cleopatra deserves the best,” he said, catching his breath, “but I think it’s time to start the ceremony.”

The crowd moved towards the central chapel and Anaximandra grabbed Fabio’s arm.

On Sir Weyden’s house’s terrace, Wagner’s nuptial march was interpreted by an Orchestra of young students from the University of Salford, all of them standing on a three-step wooden stage. Hundreds of lilies, sweet peas, freesias, tulips, carnations, sunflowers and anemones decorated the altar and the guests’ benches, illuminated by towers of purple and pink lights.

“Cheers!” Anaximandra exclaimed as soon as the orchestra ended Wagner’s march.

About one thousand guests, the beau monde of Titanium City, seated around a white-linen-covered long table, raise their champagne cups, responding to her toast.

“Cheers!”

Anaximandra and Sir Weyden drank from silver cups, their arms hooked. The guests applauded, laughed and whispered as they scattered and clustered in small groups.

Hernan and Cleopatra walked away towards the mansion.

“Cleopatra!” a voice called them.

When they turned around, they ran into Fabio, with a drink in his hand, and Martha, who was taking a pic of them.

“Fabio!” exclaimed Cleopatra.

“I may presume you are the bride, Cleopatra,” Fabio said. “You look splendid!”

“How charming you still are!” Cleopatra said. “This is my boyfriend, Hernan Sousa. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to introduce you both before.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Hernan, shaking his hand. “Cleopatra has talked about you both in the most commendable terms.”

“I’m very glad,” Fabio smiled. “That’s very generous of her.”

“I understood you cleared her name after her mother’s death.”

“Something like that.”

“We were worried about you,” Martha said to Cleopatra. “Why didn’t you answer my cosmomails?”

“I haven’t had the strength,” Cleopatra answered, “to tell you.”

“Cleopatra has been in psychiatric treatment for five months,” Hernan intervened.

“I’m sorry I didn’t travel before,” Martha whispered. “Are you leaving the party?”

“Just for a while” Cleopatra stuttered, “I see you later. I must talk to the bridegroom.”

“Yes,” Fabio mused, “of course.

Cleopatra caressed Hernan’s arm.

“The groom,” said Hernan. “What a bloody asshole.”

“A proud and ambitious man,” Fabio bent his head.

“No one exceptional” Hernan assented, “By my standards.”

“Your dress is immaculate,” said Martha to Cleopatra, “a more dazzling white than the bride’s dress.”

“Oh darling!” Cleopatra smiled. “I have to sing a couple of truths to some people.

Fabio noticed a tear drying on Cleopatra’s cheek. She stared at him, turned around and walked away towards the house over the perfectly-trimmed grass. Hernan followed her with his gaze until her silhouette was diluted in darkness and fog.

“I saw Anaximandra dragged you into the house” Martha said.

“She seems to be obsessed with a passenger,” Fabio assented, whispering to his wife: “Something is rotten in Nickel Port.”

Minutes later, on the main hall of the imponent Victorian Gloucester-family mansion, Nefertiti played Mozart’s piano sonata No 11, K. 331’s first movement on a newly-bought Bösendorfer Opus piano. Fabio, seated on a canopy beside Marthala, examined the hall.

“Have you noticed, mon amour” he said to Martha’s ear, “that all members of the Gloucester family are absent.”

Martha assented with a nod without taking away her eyes from Nefertiti’s hands.

“Her Neptunian manners don’t allow her to whisper at a piano concert,” Fabio said to himself.

As a waiter served him a cup of Oporto wine, Fabio turned around and studied the glass wall erected behind the hall. Two silhouettes were visible across it. One of them raised its hand and slapped the other on its face. As they stepped back they both vanished by the optics of the frosted glass. Fabio tried to ignore the scene and concentrated on Mozart’s notes. Nefertiti was, according to him, a fine musician, but her interpretation was too precise; it lacked emotion. He thought of giving her a copy of Death in Venice, the classic by Thomas Mann.

As it became evident, he was not the only one to notice the hosts’ absence.

“They all have left the party,” a woman said. “There is no reason why we should stay here.”

“They will reward us with a Plutonian piece of cake,” a male cracking voice retorted.

“If we don’t leave, Tommy, I’ll fall asleep in this chair. This woman is awful!”

“Silence, please…” a haughty voice whispered behind them.

Suddenly, the loud explosion of a window glass and the acute sounds of gravimotor crashing against a solid object were heard.

Nefertiti interrupted her sonata as women screamed. Most of the audience jumped from their seats to run outside the hall. Fabio took Martha’s right hand and brought her to the closer window.

They saw a MC555 black Benz gravilimousine half-smashed against a wall. Inside, Hernan, behind the wheel, covered in transparent gel, lied unconscious, his forehead bleeding. Mrs. Grave, arriving first from the hall, screamed before him and raised her head in a gesture of horror. She fainted in the arms of a waiter.

Fabio lifted a canopy and threw it at the window, breaking the glass. He leaped onto the windowsill, next to the gravilimusine, from where he saw some folded bushes. He approached them and felt the broken branches, checking that sage still sprouted from their stems. He looked up then and discovered a pair of shoes among the branches of the weeping willow. Fearing the worst, he stepped back and stumbled over Lord Gloucester. They look at each other in fear. A waiter brought a lantern and focused a beam of light on the willow’s branches.

The multitude screamed in awe as the face of Cleopatra became visible, her corpse hanging from a tree.

A piece of paper was fiercely grasped by her right hand.

The sky was gray, as usual, over the fields of Nickel Port, in Northern Mars. In August 3897 A.D., Magnesium was a prosperous city due to Mines County Market trade taxes. In its cemetery, Father Samuel prayed over the tomb of Cleopatra Gloucester.

“Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es[4].”

Wearing a brown-hat, Fabio studied Lord Gloucester’s body language. Surrounded by a crowd of relatives and friends, his eyes looked fixed on the interior of Cleopatra’s coffin.

A friend of his who was half blind had taught him to use his peripheral vision. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Nefertiti’s eloquent look with Sir Weyden. Sir Weyden appeared to notice this, as he turned his inquiring gaze over Fabio. But Fabio did not even blink, and continued to listen with ecstatic countenance to Father Samuel’s prayer.

“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem[5].”

Severus gazed coquettishly at Martha, who returned her attention with a quizzical smile. She scanned his 6”2’-figure, his flat-belly, his baby face. As Severus spoke to her ear and smiled, Fabio wondered whether his sense of uneasiness was due to a sudden unwanted jealousy.

“Liberame, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda, quando coeli movendi sunt et terra[6].”

The Titanium City Philharmonic Orchestra and The Nickel Port Choral Society performed Fauré’s Requiem just as Cleopatra’s coffin descended into the bowels of the earth. Lightning struck the city and powerful thunder was heard.

“As the sea and wind,” Fabio murmured, quoting Shakespeare, “when both contend which is the mightiest.”

Minutes later, Frank, with a black umbrella, opened the door of a black 3875 Rolls Royce gravimotor. Nefertiti shielded herself from the rain under Frank’s umbrella. Behind her, two politicians and a doctor shook hands with Lord Gloucester. As soon as he turned around, clutching his purple umbrella, he faced Fabio’s light brown eyes and a reflective light from the sky.

“You don’t think Cleopatra committed suicide,” affirm Fabio, “do you?”

“I believe we should research the matter.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Fabio!” Lord Gloucester stepped back, drawing a sad smile on his face, “I’d like to agree with you, Sir, but we don’t have a single hint in that direction.”

“Would you agree to start a private investigation? Comme en le vieux temps[7].”

Lord Gloucester sighed looking at the endless rows of tombs set from the 28th century under the tree’s shadows.

“Nothing would be more pleasant than to question the tragic end of my girl. But then, we must admit she was murdered. I’m a pacifist. Punishment won’t ease my pain, Sir. Now, I apologize.”

Lord Gloucester advanced two steps until he was cut by Fabio’s figure.

“Cleopatra was dear to us as well.”

“She was always dear to strangers” Lord Gloucester retorted, “Now, I’m in a sort of a hurry, Monsieur.”

“I understand you didn’t get along with her fiancé.”

Lord Gloucester examined Fabio’s purple tie.

“He was a rude man. You don’t know much about him, detective. When Cleopatra became ill, Hernán Sousa left her abandoned. He didn’t visit her once in the hospital..”

“A serio[8]?” Fabio said to himself.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. I was just cogitating.”

“Did you know about it?”

“No, I never heard of that.”

“Cleopatra never admitted it.” Lord Gloucester’s eyes filled with tears. “Poor Cleopatra! She testified that she was the victim of a burglary. But we all knew that he was just protecting his violent lover. Such a scum!

“That scum is the start of your football club.”

Lord Gloucester’s eyes were illuminated by a flash of ire.

“Always money!” he said. “You don’t understand it!”

Unwilling to offer further explanations, Lord Gloucester got into his gravilimousine. Frank contracted the umbrella and closed the door, just before Martha approached. Frank started the Rolls, rolling from side to side as he lit a cigarette, under Fabio’s inquiring gaze. Once out of reach, he pressed down on the power pedal and was slowly lifted away.

One Week Later, on the Starbucks Coffee of Central Titanium City, Fabio read the main page of Metro, a local morning newspaper:

FORENSIC REPORT CONFIRMS SUICIDE OF CLEOPATRA GLOUCESTER

Martha observed Fabio’s eyes with an inquisitive smile. An EOS D30 SLR Canon Camera with a 33.25-megapixel CMOS sensor hanging from her neck. Suddenly a pink limousine stopped along the sidewalk. The Saint-André couple saw Lord Gloucester and Sir Weyden coming out from city hall towards a 3843 Thrupp Maberly Rolls-Royce Phantom II.

“Murders are often committed by ambitious grooms,” Fabio said in a peremptory tone. “The first time my optical nerves were disturbed by the sight of a corpse was in Bucaramanga, my hometown. One of my high-school teachers murdered his wife in order to get her life insurance.”

“You haven’t told me about it.”

“Professor Padilla used to spy on his neighbors at night, from his study, with a telescope with which he was supposed to observe the stars. One night he discovered his wife at a stranger’s home. It was then that he planned his macabre murder. As soon as she crossed her house’s threshold, Ms. Cardona Padilla received a hack on her wrist. Her cry was drowned out by a formaldehyde-soaked handkerchief. Padilla gave her an injection, which immobilized her. The wretched woman watched in horror how she was bleeding to death, unable to move a muscle. Her husband, meanwhile, threw muriatic acid at her. Her skin puffed up and fell easily to the touch. It was just then that I walked in in order to turn in a teacher assignment. The sight of that dying woman caused me so much horror that I ran away screaming in terror. The neighbors entered too late to help the unfortunate Cardona Padilla.

“I’d rather suspect the unsuspected” Martha retorted with a skeptical voice.

“Here come our men,” Fabio smiled with irony.

Fabio stood up and walked towards the gravimotor.

Lord Gloucester caressed his red mustache as he recognized Fabio. Frank had just turned on a directional light.

“Stop for a moment, Frank, please” he said.

From the coffee shop Martha shot a couple of pictures of Fabio’s black hairy countenance, Lord Gloucester’s bald head, and Sir Weyden’s blue eyes.

“Would you and your wife like a ride to your hotel, Monsieur Saint-André?” Lord Gloucester asked.

“Thank you, Sir,” Fabio apologized, “but I have an appointment with Inspector Keiichi.”

Lord Gloucester frowned and opened his eyes in disbelief.

“How did you know him?” he asked.

“By cosmomail,” Fabio answered. “I hope you’ll understand my doubts, Lord Gloucester.”

Lord Gloucester opened the door of his gravimotor and stepped out, a high man in a long black coat. He took out his hat and smiled at the onlookers. Several fellows in sight bowed obsequiously; some crossed the street to shake hands with him. About a dozen folks came out of stores and houses to holler at him. A couple of secretaries leaned out of the windows and smiled. Several Plutonian women slowed down their walk to wave their hands at him.

“I do,” Lord Gloucester said, “believe me, I do understand your doubts. If you can prove she didn’t commit suicide, I may avail your intention… I’m sorry, Mister Saint-André. I’m not a very articulate fellow, as you can already gather.”

Lord Gloucester swept her forehead with a red silk handkerchief and took out his dark coat.

“How is it that your life partner is taking pictures of us?” Sir Weyden intervened all of a sudden.

Fabio noted that his white suite was spotless.

“She is a grown up, Sir” Fabio answered, “You can ask her.”

“I don’t see where she is now.”

“I was just intrigued by Lord Gloucester’s popularity, Sir,” Martha said, popping up from the opposite side of the limousine.

“Lord Gloucester gives jobs to hundreds of people in Titanium City City” Sir Weyden replied with disdain.

“I noticed you ran away from the party with Anaximandra hours before Cleopatra’s death,” Fabio said. “I know It’s a Martian custom, and it doesn’t bode well to reveal the name of the honeymoon site, but if you are so kind, could you tell me where you spent that night?”

“Do you suspect, Monsieur Fabio, that I murdered poor Cleopatra on my wedding night?”

“I’d never thought that,” Fabio replied.

“That’s a theory we haven’t considered yet,” Martha cut him off.

“We have to go now, Lord Gloucester,” said Sir Weyden. “Goodbye my friend.”

Lord Gloucester grumbled and sat back in the Rolls Royce’s rear seat.

“Ma’am,” he said to Martha, raising her top hat.

The limo pulled away, taking the road to the Titanium City library.

A man with Coltrian features emerged between Martha and Fabio.

“Danny!” Martha exclaimed.

“Inspector Keiichi!“ Fabio said as he hugged him.

“Let’s go for a beer at Titanium City University’s inn,” said Keiichi.