Alien Heat

by Lynn Hightower

  The door opened and Mel came in, a parcel crinkling in his hands. David could see the red sweater through the clear package.

  “Here we go.” Mel unwrapped the plastic and set the neatly folded sweater on the table. Next, he unwrapped a worn paperback that had golden thunderbolts on a black cover, and the word REINCARNATION in large white letters.

  Hokey, David thought. Arthur was rubbing a fist in his eyes. The boy should not be here. Someone should be gentling the child through this, not throwing things at him with no warning or care. Blake was a con, but Jenks should have had better judgment.

  David leaned across the table, his voice gentle. “Arthur, do you recognize the sweater? Does it belong to your mom?”

  Arthur stared at the soft red knit. “Can I pick it up?”

  “Sure.”

  The room was stone quiet. Everyone watched the boy paw through the sweater, clutch it close to his chest.

  “It’s hers,” Arthur said. His voice was steady, though he was at the age where it changed on him without warning. David caught the telltale tremble of the lower lip.

  “You sure, kiddo?” Mel’s voice was kind.

  Arthur held up a sleeve and poked a finger through a hole in the shoulder where the yarn had unraveled.

  “She wore it all the time, even with the hole.”

  Jenks leaned forward, fingering the worn red knit. “It was hers.”

  David flicked a finger at the book. “You recognize this?”

  Arthur was nodding his head. “She read lots of stuff like that, before she left.”

  “Like this? On reincarnation?”

  “With thunderbolts on the cover.”

  David flipped the book open, and Teddy Blake frowned at him. David had the feeling she didn’t like him touching it. He looked inside the front cover. Small press publisher. The Mind Institute.

  David nudged the book toward Teddy Blake. She looked white around the lips, and he wondered if she was ill.

  “Can I get you a glass of water?” David asked.

  She nodded at him, looked over her shoulder at Jenks and the boy. Out of the corner of his eye, David saw that Arthur was holding the sweater up close to his face, smelling it.

  He headed into the hall, then filled someone’s clean mug with water from the dispenser. He had the strong feeling that Teddy Blake did not want to talk in front of Jenks and the boy. Which meant that she thought Theresa Jenks was dead.

  David went back to his desk and picked up the phone, asking for the extension to conference room C. It rang twice. Mel answered.

  “Mel? David.”

  “So good to hear from you after all this time.”

  “Get the boy and his father out of there, okay? Send String and Arthur for a candy bar, and futz Jenks with some bureaucratic red tape that looks like progress and attention.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Mrs. Miller, I’m glad they found your cat. I didn’t realize Elaki liked cats.”

  David waited till he saw Arthur trailing behind String, then scooted back down the hallway to the conference room. An Elaki slid by him in the hallway, her eye prong twitching.

  David raised a hand. “Hello, Walker.”

  “Yes, yes, the constant greeting all day long. I say hello to you at beginning of week, Detective Sssilver, do I keep the greet up for all the times in between?”

  “Not you,” David said. He slid into the conference room, easing the door shut behind him.

  Teddy Blake dropped the red sweater and pushed away from the table, a puzzled look on her face.

  “Interrupt something?” David sat down and set the glass of water next to the book.

  She tapped a finger on the table. “So what’s the problem, Detective? Some fortune-teller drop you on your head when you were a baby? I tell you what. I’ve worked with police departments in New Orleans, Wichita, Chicago, and New York. I’ve worked in LA, for God’s sake, where everyone and their brother is psychic. I’ve even worked in Alabama, and I’ve never met anybody hostile as you.”

  “I should be flattered?”

  She snatched his hand, and the contact startled him. He started to pull away, then changed his mind, letting her keep it.

  “How about I read your palm?” She touched the sensitive skin beneath his wrist, then traced the life line across his palm. “Looks like you lost something. Somebody named Elliot? Yes, Elliot. But not someone, it’s a lizard, right?” She looked at him steadily, eyes big and brown.

  He nodded, wondered how she knew.

  “I heard you talking on the phone, that’s all. Confirms your opinion, right, Silver? Psychics are nothing but cheats.”

  David thought of Mattie, sobbing into his shoulder the night Elliot ran away. He reached across the table and took Blake’s wrist, turning her palm up. He felt the resistance of her muscles, the weight of her hand when she relaxed.

  He looked into her eyes, not bothering to glance down at the palm he pressed with his thick rough thumb.

  “Let me tell your fortune, Ms. Blake. You take advantage of people. People who are hurting and vulnerable and sad. People who have money. Little boys who miss their mothers. Fathers who don’t know how to be comfortable around their own sons, who want their wives back to make them a family again. You do it because you like the money, and because you like the attention. My guess is you were a lonely little girl.”

  She bit her lip, then lifted her chin. “You done? Had your say?”

  “For now, anyway.”

  She stood up. “Okay, Detective. I got better things to do than fight with you. You’re a very perceptive man, for all your faults. Thank you for clearing the room.”

  “The boy shouldn’t be here.”

  “No. He’s upset. Jenks says he cries himself to sleep at night.”

  David nodded, thinking this was a mental image he could do without.

  “Anyway, I’ve done my reading. I have no questions for you and I’m ready to go.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Did you expect me to wrap myself in a shawl and pull out a crystal ball?”

  “What do you think’s going on, then?”

  She leaned back against the table and rubbed her temples. “She’s dead.”

  David nodded. He thought the same, but he was only a cop. A homicide prima donna, at that.

  “Up till now, I thought she was alive.”

  “The sweater changed your mind?” David asked.

  “Yeah, right, there was a message on the label.”

  “You told Jenks and the boy you thought she was alive.”

  “I thought she was, till you brought the sweater in. When I saw it, I knew that the person who wore it was gone.”

  “Too bad, since you’ve been keeping their hopes up.”

  “Look, Detective, I didn’t create this situation, and Jenks came to me for help. I do my best, but I don’t guarantee happy endings.”

  “Just endings,” David said.

  “There’s plenty of comfort to be had from just knowing. You should know that.”

  His voice was sharp, clipped. “Why should I know that?”

  She flipped her braid off her shoulder. “Because you’re a cop. You’ve been through this stuff with families. You must know the hardest thing is never knowing what happened.”

  David nodded, unsmiling. “Yes. That’s the hardest part.”

  “I’d be embarrassed to tell you what else I saw.”

  “Why?”

  “It shoots the hell out of my credibility.” She looked at him and laughed. “Not that it matters, where you’re concerned.”

  “What did you see?”

  She stood up, shoved her hands in the pockets of the khaki pants. “Saw a hallway, what’s left of it. There’s been a fire; it’s still smoking, still hot. Water’s dripping somewhere.”

  David frowned, folded his arms.

  Teddy Blake rested a knee on the plastic chair. “I think … I heard a noise, kind of a beep. And there’s something on the floor. A dog, some kind of spanie
l. I thought it was sick, but now I think it’s dead. And I think there was a baby crying.”

  David felt the hair stir on the back of his neck. He wondered how Teddy Blake was able to describe with such detail the fire scene of the night before.

  FIVE

  David closed his eyes, breathed in steam, let the hot water run over his head and aching shoulders.

  He did not believe in psychics, not now, but there were always cops who went for readings—it was an addiction for some of them, a natural response to a job that involved sudden danger and constant tedium. He recognized the need to control what could not be controlled, but he hated to see fellow officers waste their money because they were worried and vulnerable. He hated to see police departments waste man-hours following vague and useless whims.

  How do you find a body “near water” when “the number four” is significant?

  David soaped his hair. Ridiculous.

  Teddy Blake had precisely described the fire scene he’d walked through hours ago. Why was she seeing the fire, when she was tracking Theresa Jenks?

  She was a good con, that was all. She’d had him going about the iguana, and he knew better. She was an intelligent, good-looking, manipulative, evil woman with honest brown eyes and a reassuring air that made you want to please her. And she was very much beside the point.

  The combined human/Elaki death toll from the supper club was over two hundred and thirty now.

  David stepped out of the shower and wrapped a thick yellow towel around his waist. Water ran down his chest. He rubbed his hair dry, then combed it with his fingers. He put on a clean pair of jeans and a white shirt. Rose had left the bed unmade, as usual, and the twisted mass of sheets and blankets did not beckon. He’d skip the nap.

  He went out of the bedroom, barefooted, rubbing the livid red scar on his chest. He would grab something to eat and go. He paused in the doorway of the kitchen.

  Mattie had the cat, Alex, by the head and front paws. His hind legs dangled, little pink pads visible as he swung from side to side in Mattie’s tight grip.

  Kendra wore an apron and stirred something in an iron skillet. She looked tense and focused, cooking dinner from scratch all by herself. Rose stood nearby, chopping an onion.

  “Is this enough, Mama?” Kendra asked.

  “Stir it till all the pink turns brown.” Rose sounded absent, faraway.

  Lisa sat in a corner, sketching. She looked up at David and smiled.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  His wild child, the middle girl, very like Rose—even though she was there, she wasn’t there. Her hair was tangled, her face smudged. For some reason David thought of Teddy Blake.

  Dead Meat, the dog, was scratching at the back door, whining. Rose looked up over her shoulder at David.

  “Look who’s here. Mattie, let the dog in.”

  David bent close to Rose. Her shoulders tensed at his approach, and he gave her a polite kiss on the cheek. She smelled of fresh cut onions and the outdoors. He noticed that her hair had been cut a few inches, shoulder length now, black, thick, and curly. He wondered when she’d had the cut.

  Mattie hugged his knees. “Hi, Daddy.”

  He rubbed the top of her head, his one daughter who didn’t mind having her hair messed up. The phone rang. Rose gave him a polite look. She used to get tense when the phone rang at suppertime, worried another family dinner would be interrupted.

  “David, why don’t you pick that up? Likely, it’ll be for you.”

  Any number of his colleagues would have given their right arm for such a pleasant, understanding spouse. David wondered how you got them to the polite part without hitting the uncaring stage.

  “Hello?”

  “I figured you’d be home.”

  “Hi, Mel.”

  “I assume you’ve had a shower, a rest, something to eat, and quality time with the fam?”

  “I’ve been here twenty minutes, Mel.”

  “You shouldn’t live so far out.” Somewhere in the background someone laughed and sang loudly. Mel raised his voice. “I been talking to Detective Yo.”

  “You mean Clements?”

  “Yeah, Detective Yo. She wants to take us over the supper club. Looks like they finally got all the bodies out.”

  “What’s the toll?”

  “Two hundred forty-three.”

  David knew the number would rise as people waited for the clogged medical system to decide how much they’d be helped.

  “So when’s a good time to set this up?” Mel asked.

  David glanced over his shoulder. “How long till supper?”

  Kendra dropped her wooden spoon, trailing grease from the stove to the floor. “I’m doing my best, okay, Dad? You can zap a package in the mike if you don’t want to wait for the real thing.”

  David made a mental note to strangle his daughter. “Give me a couple hours, Mel.”

  “Okeydoke. Tell my sister hello. Tell the kids I’ll take them out for ice cream next week.”

  David hung up the phone. “Uncle Mel says hello.”

  Mattie took his hand. “Come on, Daddy, let me show you Elliot’s food bowl.”

  She led him out the door, into the backyard and the tall grass. How would it be for the girls if he and Rose split? Did he really want to pull the security out from under this little girl who looked at him with eyes that reminded him so much of his father?

  He had been naive at the birth of his children, vowing to be a perfect parent, sure he could shield them from all the hard edges, and give them picture perfect childhoods.

  What was it in his marriage that held him? Did he love Rose, or was he just afraid to let go of the fairy tale? Some days the rest of his life seemed like a very long time.

  The garden was choking under a waist-high tangle of weeds. The leaves of the plum tree had been stripped by Japanese beetles and were brown, dead, and dry. The plums that had survived the final freeze were just now showing hints of purple. It would be a race to see who got them first, the birds or the kids.

  Mattie led him to the grape arbor, another example of good intentions gone to hell. He looked into the blue plastic food bowl. The bits of broccoli had dried and been bleached almost white by the sun. The lettuce had dehydrated and lined the sides of the bowl like a layer of paper. The fruity iguana mix was dried and crumbling.

  “See?” Mattie said. “Something ate some of the iguana mix. So Elliot’s been here, he’s okay.”

  David knelt down till he was eye level with his youngest. “It looks to me more like birds have been at it.”

  Mattie tucked her chin close to her chest. “That’s what Mommy said.”

  “Why don’t we look in the garden? Maybe Elliot’s in there.”

  Mattie shook her head. “Me and Haas already looked there.” She kissed his cheek, then turned away, heading back into the house. Her shoulders slumped and she walked slowly. She had given up.

  SIX

  The sidewalks were empty now, the charred bodies bagged and waiting in the morgue. The scorched shell of brick was stark against purple twilight.

  David heard a car engine. He stepped off the track and out of the way of a battered white van—police issue, Elaki-adapted. The driver’s door opened and String slid out.

  “Good of the evening, Detective David.” The Elaki was bedraggled-looking, as Elaki went, one eye stalk crumpled, bare patches where scales were missing. He was black on the outer parts, his tender inner belly warm pink.

  “Hello, String.”

  “Is the lizard friend of your pouchlings still being loose?”

  The passenger door opened and Mel climbed out, grimacing. He did not like riding in the van, did not like being forced to stand. He slammed the door.

  “Say ‘on the lam,’ Gumby. That’s the way people say it.”

  “Why would this lizard be on a lamb?”

  “He’s hiding out.” Mel scratched his left armpit and looked at David. “No sign of the little sucker yet, huh?”

  Da
vid shook his head and headed for the line of sensors.

  The Elaki skittered sideways. “Little ones sad?”

  “They’re missing him,” David said.

  Mel nodded. “He was a great little pet. What’s that you said about him just last month, David? You were going to wring his little green—”

  “He bit me,” David said.

  “Yeah, what an endearing little guy. Bit the kids, whipped them with his tail, ate like a pig.”

  David tried not to laugh. “Come on, Mel. The kids miss him.”

  “I guess ’cause he was so affectionate.”

  “The whipping of small girls with the tail. This does not to me seem the affectionate.” String rolled toward the sensor control box.

  Mel shrugged. “That’s just females, String. They like you more when you treat them bad, even when they’re little bitty.”

  “I do not believe this, Detective Mel. Why do you have such a pet? Is it the Rose Silver who has brought him? It is another animal rescue, like the ostrich?”

  David looked over his shoulder at String. “The less said about that ostrich the better. Rose is still suspicious as hell.”

  String skittered backward. “You will not tell?”

  Mel grinned. “He will not. Or he will be in as much trouble as you.”

  “And you,” David said.

  The supper club was roped off, sensors up. David passed his ID into the control slot and waited for the green light. The sensors had been known to malfunction, zapping officers with enough volts to knock them off their feet.

  David looked at his partner. “After you, Mel.”

  “Nah, David, you go ahead, you got seniority.”

  “I will go.” String rolled toward the glowing crime-scene tape.

  Mel put an arm out, catching him across the fin. “Nah, we don’t need a fish fry, Gumby.”

  “Please to explain?” String said.

  “Too much voltage for a little twerp like you.”

  “I am one foot taller than the average height male human, Detective Mel. Though many inches thinner.”

  “Don’t get nasty.” Mel pushed through the barrier.

  The screech of brakes caught their attention. String surged back toward the sensor line.