[Cavan] Death in the Margins

[Lynzie Austin]

Death in the Margins A chill crept through the room. Ellie felt her ears twitch ever so slightly as Reynie let out a short huff. “So, Cassia ripped someone off,” he ran his hand through his hair exasperatedly. His disappointment was palpable, like a child finding out Santa at the mall is merely hired for the paycheck and has no intention of getting the pony for the holidays. “And that person would have every reason to kill her, considering her affectation for all this.” He gestured broadly to the gauche scenery. 

“It would appear so,” Ellie nodded. “Or would be an awfully convenient cover story.”

She walked over to the bureau that was still adorned with garish knick-knacks and other bobbles that defied all fiscal logic. The embarrassment of wealth was on display in spades, short of just putting latinum in shadow boxes with little lipstick kiss marks. As if on cue, her eyes drifted up… Sure enough, there they were—neatly mounted bars of latinum, each one tagged with a tiny, gilded plaque. First Advance. First Bestseller. First Movie Deal. Each one kissed with what Ellie could only assume was Cassia's signature lip print, that adorned the back of her pulp print books for the “real fans”, preserved behind glass like relics of a forgotten time.

“Tacky,” Ellie muttered. 

“Some would just say, extravagant,” Reynie corrected, though his tone lacked its usual theatrical lilt. Perhaps, he was still processing the betrayal. The man who had waited four hours in line, who owned signed first editions, who quoted Eternal Flame for a pickup line, had just learned that one of his literary heroes was a fraud.

“She was not Elizabeth Taylor,” Ellie replied as she examined more of the room. “However, we do not know the rest of the story. Perhaps this Ylena was her Debbie Reynolds.” 

“You think that himbo back there is some mastermind of Eddie Fisher?” Reynie disconnected Dottie and returned her to his breastpocket. “That seems highly unlikely, doesn’t seem like he can formulate enough of a plan to get his eyebrows waxed.” 

“Reynie, are you allowing yourself to be taken for a ride by his oversized delts or something because I have never seen you be so sure that someone is too stupid to murder before,” Ellie opened a drawer on the bureau with a side eye. He opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. Then he proceeded to run a hand through his hair, a gesture Ellie recognized as him recalibrating.

“Point taken,” he admitted. “I’m letting my disappointment color my judgment. Kaelen Rish could be a brilliant actor playing dumb. Or he could be genuinely stupid but still capable of murder. Stupid people kill people all the time.”

“Usually by accident, but you never know in this case,” Ellie said, pulling a datapad from the drawer. “This was premeditated. Neurotoxin typically does not just appear in someone’s drink by happenstance.” She scanned the datapad, her brow furrowing. “Well, well.”

“What have you there?”

She held up the device. “Cassia’s personal calendar. Look at the last three months.”

Reynie moved to her side, reading over her shoulder. The calendar was color-coded, meticulously organized—book signings, interviews, private events, and... gaps. Large, recurring gaps marked only with a single word in red. “What do you suppose Ace-bus means?”

Ellie pursed her lips. “Like… Caties Acebus?” She handed him the PADD and pulled her diagnostics from her hip pocket. “I was so caught up with the obvious poisoning and death…” she let out a slow breath. “I had not done her long term diagnostics yet.”

“What is Ace’s Catbus?” 

“Caties Acebus is a degenerative cellular disorder that starts from degrading the spinal cord, which in theory could be fixed in this day and age—however, with most of our medical advances it tends to speed the degeneration along instead,” Ellie began to explain as she ran Cassia’s scans through hastily. “What seems to work is a slow, long term treatment of, ostensibly, micro hormone replacement. Which would explain the setting fire to a yacht and other out of pocket behavioural problems, intermixed with lulls of calm. She would be a tinderbox for all of three days after treatment, then back to her normal self.” 

Reynie's eyebrows shot up. “So Cassia wasn’t just dramatic by nature. She was literally on fire. Chemically speaking.”

“Chemically speaking, yes.” Ellie frowned at the diagnostic results scrolling across her PADD. “The treatments would explain the mood swings, the erratic behavior…” she gestured vaguely at the room around them, “…perhaps even the questionable decorative choices.”

“Hypomania as a side effect of life-saving medication. Charming.” Reynie peered over her shoulder. “Does it say who was treating her?”

Ellie shuffled through the medical data, her brow furrowed. “Dr. Q Woraht, huh—a Bolian?” she chewed her lip. 

“Is that significant?” 

“Well, they are not exactly known for technological leaps in treatment in Caties’ research, like say, Rigelians,” she returned the PADD to its holster. “That could mean absolutely nothing, but we are looking at an embarrassment of riches here and she is being treated by a Bolian general practitioner every three weeks near DS14.”

“That’s a long way to go out of her way,” Reynie crossed his arms. “Most of her book tour is Alpha Quadrant or adjacent, she doesn’t seem to really leave the territory.”

“You should probably talk to Commander Faruska about that,” Ellie said with a small sigh. “It seems incredibly suspect. I wonder if this Ylena is not some kind of false flag operation.”

“Authors have rabid fans,” Reynie shrugged. 

“That is true, maybe you should have Dottie keep digging then if you think there is some validity to Ylena’s threats at all while I do the autopsy and get ahold of our Dr. Woraht.”

Ellie settled at the kitchen table, folding her legs under herself comfortably, her PADD linked to the Starfleet medical database. The coolers on the Runner hummed beneath her, the familiar vibration of the warp core a comfort after hours of velvet and gold.

“Alright, Dr. Woraht,” she murmured, pulling up his file. “Who are you?”

The image that appeared was unremarkable—a middle-aged Bolian with kind eyes and where the typical sheen of blue bald on his head would be, there was a complimentary blue hair piece adorning the top of his dome. His credentials were standard: medical degree from the Bolian Academy, residency on Bajor, leading into this fifteen years in private practice near DS14. Nothing unusual. Except having a practice so near the former Klingon Empire for a private practice. 

Ellie zoomed in on the location. “Reynie, look at this.”

He crossed from the kitchen, throwing a tea towel over his shoulder, peering over her shoulder. The smell of cooking food filling the runner was making her stomach growl. “A Bolian with a medical practice within spitting distance of the former Klingon border? That’s quite  a career choice that close to the Tholian Assembly, he must not make any waves. Seems like someone wanted to lay low.”

“I wonder why,” Ellie pulled up a request for the patient roster from the clinician end. “His clientele is mostly Klingon.”

“Woo busting past all protocols and right into those databases, you renegade.” Reynie’s eyebrows shot up. 

“Oh please, it is not like I am reading their charts, this is more like perusing a phone book,” Ellie replied with a chuckle. 

“I should lock you up,” Reynie growled playfully.

“Focus. Dead woman.”

“Yes ma’am,” Reynie saluted with a laugh. “Dottie, any connection between Woraht and this Ylena?”

“None directly,” Dottie replied. “However, Dr. Woraht's patient files indicate he treated a 'Y. Vorsten' for stress-related insomnia. The treatment period: six months, ending approximately one year before Cassia Vane's first book was published.”

Ellie crossed her arms in thought, her appetite momentarily forgotten. “Y. Vorsten. That has to be her. Ylena.”

Reynie leaned closer, his shoulder brushing hers. “Stress-related insomnia. Six months of treatment, ending right before Cassia’s first book dropped.” He let out a low whistle. “Timing is everything, isn’t it?”

“It is worth noting,” Dottie added, “that Ylena Vorsten's medical records indicate she was also a patient at Maryaim Clinic during the same period as Cassia Vane.”

Ellie’s mind raced. “They were not just friends. They were fellow patients.”

“Woraht’s practice is 3 hours from DS14, which is a hop skip and jump from Maryaim Clinic with the right ship,” Reynie said returning to the kitchen. The aroma of butter chicken permeated the runner with spice and warmth as he dished it up, ripping the naan in half and placing it delicately on the side of the plate, before setting them both on the table with a wink. “There’s something about this guy having his shop set up in between hot water is making my spidey-senses flair.”

“You think the Doc is running schemes?” Ellie picked up a bite with the naan and popped it into her mouth. 

“He’s running something. You said this Catbus is uncommon right? How did Cassia even find this guy?” Reynie rubbed his whiskers. “Now this Ylena, who even knows.”

“Maybe they wrote together,” Ellie said between bites. “Surely any treatments on Maryaim left them too wired to sleep—”

“OoooooOOOOOoooo are we talking about pillow fights?” 

“Obviously, where do you think her stories came from?” Ellie yawned. “Now, focus. DS14 is fifteen hours from Maryaim at Warp 1.”

“If you’re dragging your ass, yes, relatively close,” Reynie said quickly. “But there’s ostensibly a speed limit through there because of the Tholians.”

Ellie chewed thoughtfully. “So Cassia was making regular trips to a clinic near Tholian space, being treated by a doctor with a suspiciously funded practice, and somehow emerged with a bestselling novel and a new identity in a span of fifteen years?”

Reynie dunked his naan into the sauce. “Fifteen years is a long time to do anything,” he scooted out of the booth seat with his mouth full and made his way to the bookshelf wall near the bedroom, dusting his hands off on his pants. His fingers trailed over the spines—old case files, technical manuals, a dog-eared copy of The Captain's Desire.

“You brought her books on my ship?” Ellie raised an eyebrow.

“I brought my books onto our ship my love,” Reynie sat down with his copy of Eternal Flame. “Huge difference.”

“Is there?”

Reynie’s lips curved into a smirk. “You tell me.” He flipped open the book to a page marked with a dried pressed rose, still faintly pink. He cleared his throat with theatrical solemnity. “‘“His hands, rough from battle, trembled as they traced the curve of her waist. She gasped, not from fear, no, from the sheer, overwhelming heat of his touch. “I have crossed galaxies to find you,” he murmured against her throat, his breath a brand upon her skin. “And I will burn every world between here and Andoria before I let you go.”’”

Ellie exhaled a long sigh that sounded both exasperated and mildly amused. “Worth every drop of ink, clearly.”

“Chapter Seventeen, after a very slow burn, that means build up my dear,” Reynie flipped to the page in question. “The scene where the Klingon general reveals his tender side. It is widely considered one of the most romantic passages in modern literature.”

“I am sure it is,” Ellie’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“‘'She had spent so long being brave. Being strong. Being the one who held everyone together while her own heart was splintering into pieces no one could see. But here, in the dark, with a man who had seen her at her worst and stayed—here, she finally let herself break. And he caught every piece.’”

“Chills,” Ellie chortled. “Riveting.”

“How you’ve been romanced at all is beyond me,” Reynie rubbed his temples. 

Ellie shrugged, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “I prefer actions over words. Grand gestures over flowery prose.”

Reynie cleared his throat as though determined to get a rise out of her by any means necessary. “‘“The temperature was rising, most literally, as the turbolift’s environmental controls failed, and figuratively, as the space between them shrank to nothing. She could feel his breath on her neck, could see the pulse hammering in his throat. “This is illogical,” he said, but his voice had dropped an octave, rough as gravel. “Desire cannot be regulated by environmental factors.”’

“‘And yet,’ she whispered, her fingers finding the clasp of his uniform, ‘here we are.”’”

Reynie paused, looking up at Ellie with wide, innocent eyes. “Would you like me to continue? It gets rather... explicit.”

“You seem rather pleased with yourself… you are also red in the face,” she noted with a breath. She got to her feet, clearing her plate to the replicator. “Continue if you wish, but that would be only for your own amusement. I have a dead woman in the morgue.”

Ellie was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You clean the coffee machine.”

Reynie blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The coffee machine. You clean it. Every week. You never mention it. Never lord on about it. You just do it.” She held his gaze. “That is more romantic than any Klingon general trembling over someone’s waist.”

His ears flushed with heat. “You are a romantic.”

“Without all the vein and throbbing talk,” she winked. 

“We can definitely have more throbbing talk—”

“Later Aralim,” she patted the top of his head.

 Reynie caught her hand before she could pull it away, pressing a kiss to her palm. “You’ll be the death of me, Elinor Fa Cavan. I pine for you.”

“I learned from the best.” She tugged her hand back, but her smile lingered. “Now. Make the list. Faruska. Woraht. DS14. Dead woman in the morgue. Focus.”

He sighed dramatically, slumping back into his seat. “Fine. But I’m keeping the book.”

“I would not dream of taking it from you.”