Free Terminal Island by John Shannon

signature. We faxed it to the Tokyo police and asked for their input.”
    “The symbol isn’t part of the card?”
    “No; we bought a couple sets to look them over. Anyway, it’s in a different place on each card. He’s definitely stamping the cards. He means it to be the kind of clue that drives you nuts. I really hate these puzzle cases. You’ve got some geek out there who feels compelled to outthink you, and, of course, he’s got all the advantages. All the aces, if you like. To be literal, I’m worried about the ace. It’s got to be something big.”
    “Let’s hope you get him long before that. He hasn’t really hurt anyone yet.”
    “Jack!” Steelyard’s voice skirled down the open stairwell and seemed to ricochet a few times around the concrete-walled room. “Get up here!” It was so peremptory that he glanced at the woman, but she only shrugged.
    “Hold the fort,” Jack Liffey suggested as he climbed up out of Tinytown.
    Maeve was a little embarrassed to be left there alone with the policewoman and didn’t know quite what to say. “What do you think of all this?” Maeve asked, which allowed enough latitude so that almost any answer would do.
    “The toy trains, or the destruction?” Gloria Ramirez replied.
    “I guess I meant the trains. It’s just not a girl thing.”
    The woman looked around the room. She wore a severe navy blue suit that was at odds with her lovely rich skin and thick jet black hair that she had tied back. “You and I would probably have a lot more sympathy if it were a collection of heirloom quilts. It sure meant a lot to him.”
    “I guess a lot of work went into it,” Maeve conceded.
    “I think he said once his dad started it, but that doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
    The conversation kept threatening to wind down to nothing, but Maeve sensed the woman looking at her with sidelong glances, maybe just out-of-ordinary curiosity.
    “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a policewoman one-on-one,” Maeve offered. “Oops, can you say ‘policewoman’? It’s not ‘police person’?”
    “ ‘Officer.’ ” She smiled. “In my case, ‘detective.’ That’s gender-neutral. Is your family still together?”
    “That’s a funny question,” Maeve said.
    “It’s just that it’s so rare these days. Let me guess: you live weekdays with your mother and weekends with your father.”
    “Something like that. That must be police training, to look for stuff like that.”
    “I think it’s female training. Ken would always prefer to avoid asking about family if he could get away with it.” She set down her coffee cup and leaned against the edge of the huge train layout, looking across a trestle and a low mesa at Maeve, still watching with something that struck Maeve as beyond normal interest.
    “You’re not drinking your 7UP.”
    “I usually stick to diet. The chemicals will kill you in the end, but you’ll have a nice, skinny corpse.”
    “I wish I had the motivation to take better care of my body.” Just as Maeve thought, the conversation was spiraling down toward stasis when suddenly, the woman’s expression registered discovery. “Something’s been teasing my memory. Aren’t you that girl who saved her dad in the riots a couple years ago?”
    Maeve felt herself blushing. “You have a good memory.”
    “It was in the papers a lot. And I remember the papers saying your father was a detective.”
    “Dad always says he just hunts for missing children; he’s not a detective. He’s sensitive about that for some reason.”
    The woman looked upward, as if she could see through the ceiling to the two men upstairs. “They take a lot of care and feeding, don’t they?”
    Maeve grinned. “Why do you think they need so much tending?”
    “I don’t know. But some of us have got to have the homely virtues, or the whole world will end up a pissing contest. Pardon me. I’m not really antimale. Some of my ex-boyfriends haven’t been so bad.”
    “My dad