“I’ve gotten to know a couple of them in my piloting class. I like them. I think they have a lot of potential. And I’m concerned what their sponsor’s murder will mean for their future at the Academy. I figure there’s a good chance it was done to hurt them.”

Sh’Deslar had not softened. “It’s reckless to presume a motive going in. It can bias the investigation.”

Sulu had smiled. “ ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’ ” He had shrugged at her stare. “Captain Spock likes to quote Sherlock Holmes.”

She had crossed her arms. “So you’re only concerned with seeing justice done for Rakatheema?”

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

The captain had bent enough to let Sulu assist in the investigation, but only on a peripheral level. That was what had brought him out onto the streets of Presidio Heights on this brisk October morning, going door to door to canvass Rakatheema’s neighbors for any information they might recall about the comings and goings around his apartment building on the night of his murder. On a safe planet like Earth, there was little need for widespread surveillance, so eyewitness accounts were their best option. Sh’Deslar had gotten no luck interviewing the fellow tenants of Rakatheema’s building; none of them had seen or heard a visitor prior to the point when Janith-Lau had called for help. But there was a chance that the killer had been more careless before reaching the building—or after leaving it, presuming that Janith-Lau was innocent.

Presidio Heights was a quiet residential district in easy walking distance from Starfleet Headquarters and the Academy, a popular neighborhood for Starfleet personnel stationed in San Francisco, and not far from his and Demora’s residence in Lower Pacific Heights. It was a nice neighborhood to walk through, with lots of elegant, lovingly maintained pre–World War III buildings coexisting alongside more modern ones. It had its share of steep, hilly streets, but that was no bother for a native like Sulu. If sh’Deslar had hoped to tire him out with busywork, she’d find that it had backfired. The chance to meet and converse with dozens of his fellow San Franciscans, a number of whom were current or former Starfleet members or the families thereof, was no hardship for the gregarious Sulu.

Eventually, his canvass bore fruit in a more practical way. A married foursome of Rigelians had been out on their balcony having a barbecue on the evening of the murder, and two of them recalled seeing an Arcturian in an Academy cadet jumpsuit coming from the direction of Rakatheema’s building around the time of his murder.

“You’re sure it was an Arcturian?” Sulu asked the two witnesses, the endomale and exomale members of the family.