Detective and mystery stories; Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
People who deride Fedpol and call it a useless anachronism don't know
what they are talking about. It is true that in our society criminal
tendencies are understood to be a disease, amenable to treatment, not
a free-will demonstration of anti-social proclivities. But it is also
true that every member of Fedpol, down to the merest rookie policeman,
is a trained specialist in some field, and that most of its officers
are graduate psychiatrists. As soon as Madolin Akkra's identity was
determined, it was easy to find out everything about her.
* * * * *
The circumstances surrounding her in life were sufficiently odd in
themselves. Her mother was dead, but she lived with her own father and
full younger sister in a small (only 20 stories and 80 living-units)
co-operative apartment house in the old district formerly called
Westchester, once an "exclusive" settlement but now considerably run
down, and populated for the most part by low-income families. Few of
the residents had more than one helicopter per family, and many of them
had to commute to their jobs or schools by public copter. The building
where the Akkras lived was shabby, its chrome and plastic well worn,
and showed the effects of a negligent local upkeep system. The Akkras
even prepared and ate some of their meals in their own quarters--an
almost unheard-of anachronism.
The father had served his 20 years of productive labor from 25 to 45,
and the whole family was therefore supported by public funds of one
sort or another. When the Fedpol officers commenced their investigation
by interviewing this man, they found him one of the worst social
throwbacks discovered in many years--doubtless a prime reason for the
bizarre misfortune which had overtaken his misguided daughter. To
begin with, the investigators wanted to know, why had he not reported
his daughter missing? To this, Pol Akkra made the astonishing reply
that the girl was old enough to know her own business, and that he had
never asked any questions as to what she did! Everyone knows it is
every adult's responsibility to report any deviation by the young more
serious than the mischievous trespassing by the boys who had found
Madolin Akkra's body, and who at least had gone to Fedpol at once. The
officers could get no lead whatever from the girl's father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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