Soon I was at the police station sitting across from a pudgy old stiff that could only be Mac Malden. I had told him everything I knew from the last few days, but he didn't display any sort of concern during the course of my story. Instead, he sat in deep thought. The silence was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and I had to fight every urge to break it by continuing to babble.
Finally, he leaned forward and addressed me. "I can't say I'm surprised, Ms. Bando. I actually got a visit from Murphy last week, telling me he's in the middle of some big new case. I gave him some information, and he left. Later, we found his speeder outside the restaurant. When we couldn't get a hold of him, I got a little suspicious and had it looked over. Apparently someone intentionally severed the fuel injection line. What you just described to me sounds like some elaborately conceived plan to kidnap Murphy."
"What did he tell you about the case?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. He just needed to know about the Australian Resistance--some anarchist punk group that's been causing a lot of trouble recently. He also asked me about Big Jim Slade, who is still safely in jail and can be ruled out as a possiblity."
"What can you do?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. No leads, no suspects, no evidence. The best I can do right now is file a missing persons report with the information we have and hope something turns up."
It was beginning to feel hopeless. "Isn't there anything else?"
"Yeah, one thing. We found this at his apartment when we went through it," he said, handing me a small brown box. "It doesn't mean anything to us, so you should take it."
"Thanks, Mac."
"Take care of yourself, missy. Call if you need anything." With that, we exchanged numbers and I was promptly excorted to my speeder.
(Go to 9.)