Alien Heat

by Lynn Hightower

  “No,” David said. “I don’t think he was.”

  Cromwell shrugged. “It’s all a racket anyway.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  David did not know what had happened in the hallway between String, Warden, and Della, though someone told him later that the presence of the ATF Elaki, Smokar, had somehow banded them all together. By the time he and Clements made it back to his office, the three of them were clustered around Della’s terminal—Della at the keyboard, the aliens at her back.

  Mel pointed a finger. “Harmony of the races.” He offered a bag to Clements.

  “Doughnuts? I’m hungry, Burnett, I didn’t get any lunch. Don’t you guys ever send out for sandwiches?”

  “This is homicide, Yo. In homicide we eat tacos in the morning, and doughnuts in the afternoon.”

  “Tough guys, huh? What you eat for dinner?”

  “Arson detectives.”

  Clements sat on the edge of Mel’s desk and leaned close. “Typical cop, I bet. All talk, and no follow-through.”

  David had the unique pleasure of seeing Mel blush. He sorted through the doughnuts—all caramel, chocolate, and white powder. No plain ones. He looked at Clements.

  “You think Cromwell torched his club?”

  She licked caramel icing off her fingers. “Hard as hell to prove. His alibi holds.”

  Warden flicked an eye prong at Clements. “But of course this human be the responsible party, Yo Free. This storage bunker holds many of the choice goods, hidden to be the squirrel.”

  Della looked at David. The squirrel? she mouthed.

  “Squirreled away,” David said.

  Clements crossed her legs. “And no dust on anything, so it was all put there a day or two before we found it. But two things bother me, Wart.”

  Mel scooted his chair away from the desk. “Come on, Yo, this guy led you right to the storage bin where all the stuff was stashed? You think he’s that stupid?”

  “He could be related to you, Burnett.”

  Warden swiveled toward Mel. “But this happens the most frequent. In the arson, the perpetrators not always the criminal profession. Many the mistakes are to be made.”

  Mel nodded. “So what you’re saying, is even your low IQ cops got a chance working arson.”

  Clements rose to the challenge, but David didn’t listen. He thought about Teddy, wondered why she did not answer the phone. Was it a psychic thing? Did she know it was him on the other line? Did she know he was going to kiss her on the Ferris wheel? Did she know all his thoughts?

  He was being paranoid. Besides, Rose always said it didn’t take a psychic to know what was on a man’s mind.

  “I say David.”

  He looked up. Blinked. “What, Della?”

  “I got no other real similarities between the two names, but—”

  “What two names?” David asked.

  Della studied him a moment, and when she spoke her voice was kind. “The two names on the list my computer ate. Alice Caspian and Jefferson Ford. Both of them have money. Caspian’s mom won a lottery and hung on to enough of it to leave Alice money to invest—which she did, and I may say shrewdly. And Ford’s a pretty big gun at Nano-Dirt.”

  “Those guys who do garden soil?” David said. He bought from them all the time.

  “Fat salary, stock options, stuff like that.”

  David looked at Clements, who was rummaging through the doughnuts. She found one with chocolate sprinkles. “This looks like your speed, Wart, want it? Last one.”

  David wondered why Elaki were invariably attracted to any food that was messy, sticky, or runny. Like two-year-olds, he thought.

  “Yolanda?” David said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you mean yeah, baby?”

  She grinned at him. “You homicide guys do stand-up on your days off?”

  “We don’t get days off,” Mel muttered.

  David waggled a finger. “I want to know what you think of Cromwell. I want to know what two things bothered you.”

  Yolanda folded her arms. “Okay, one. His little caddy, where he keeps all his bills and stuff? Everybody has something like that. Most of the time, somebody torches the place, or hires it done, they take it out. It’s so damn inconvenient to lose all that stuff, you know? Account password numbers, all those things. And his is sitting in the office, smeared with fire gel.”

  “Probably all on a disc at his home computer anyway,” Mel said.

  “Maybe. But what about the man’s medication? You know how hard it is to get what you need these days, much less replace the stuff? Worse than trying to put an unregistered car through the DMV, which is damn near impossible. People always take their meds out.”

  “Then please to explain items in storage,” Warden said. A rainbow of sprinkles shone on his chest scales.

  Clements opened both arms. “That’s what I’m saying. This case doesn’t hold up no matter what direction you run it. I mean, you should have heard the guy in interrogation, Wart. He says, ‘I did not burn my club.’ Said it twice, didn’t he, David?”

  “Words to that effect.”

  She frowned at him. “They told me you were obsessive.”

  Obsessive? David thought. Did he have that reputation?

  “Anyway, most guys I talk to? They use weasel words, if they’re guilty. Never come out and say the touchy stuff. Caused this accident … incident, problem. This guy wasn’t any kind of mealy mouth. Said the deaths were murder.” She frowned. “It could just be his personality. Could be a real cool guy.”

  David shook his head. “No, because when I asked him if he’d been arrested for a felony, look how he answered.”

  “That’s right. Said he hadn’t been convicted. And he’s got to know we got the information in the computer.”

  “So if he’s worried, he weasels, that what you’re saying?” Mel stuck a finger in his ear, wiggled it around.

  Clements looked at him. “You got serious allergies or something? You’re always scratching.”

  Mel wiped his finger on a handkerchief. “You know how I know you’re a good arson cop, there, Detective Yo?”

  “How’s that, baby?”

  “See, my old sergeant, he always said arson was a tough job. Hard to convict. Said it took a cop with two things to do the job.”

  “I know I’m a be sorry I asked, Burnett, but what two things?”

  “One’s a tape recorder, the other’s a big mouth.”

  David decided to change the subject. “We found the dog.”

  Clements looked at him. “The dog? What dog?”

  “One killed in the first fire. The house where we found Theresa Jenks.”

  “The one with the people in the closet? Where you fell—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” David said.

  “Where’d you find him?”

  “Garbage. We also found food packages from that first supper club, the one the Bernitski brothers own. You remember when we went in the kitchen, and you said they’d probably been taken out by—”

  “The owners, yeah. And you found them in the garbage? A lot of them? Not just one or two?”

  David nodded.

  “That tears it,” Clements said. “These guys are being framed.”

  Mel frowned. “By who? What’s the point?”

  “Somebody does desire this property?” Warden asked.

  “They want the property, be easier to buy it than open yourself up to three hundred counts of homicide.”

  Clements shrugged. “You’d be surprised, Burnett, I promise you. That Smokar from ATF—” Both String and Warden hissed. Clements looked at David and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, like I was saying, you-know-who may be right. She thinks we have a serial arsonist. You remember two years ago? Guy that was going after all the dental clinics?”

  David was nodding. “You think we got somebody after supper clubs? Or places where people and Elaki hang together?”

  Della’s hands froze on the keyboard. “Hate crimes.”

>   Warden waved a fin. “The Federal Bureaus will be looking into this then. We can ask them to consult for knowledge.”

  “No. They will be like the sslugbartoners and not share.”

  Mel frowned. “Like the what, String? Run that by again.”

  David looked at Clements. “You talked to any Feds yet?”

  “Yeah, about that hate mail Tatewood showed us.”

  “You go to them or they come to you?”

  “Actually, you know, they came to me.”

  “They ask about me?” David asked.

  She looked at him. “As Wart would say, the ego is a very big thing.”

  “How about Jenks? They want to know about her? They ask about the Mind Institute?”

  “Shoot, Silver, I don’t remember. We talked about a lot of stuff. I even told them they should talk to you some. I see they didn’t.”

  “Theresa Jenks is the key to this whole thing,” Mel said. “Her murder ties the arson and the Mind Institute—which by the way may hold the mortgage on at least one of the supper clubs.”

  “I’ll check the other one,” Clements said. “And try to confirm the first.”

  “We figure Jenks out, we’ll have it,” Mel said.

  Warden turned to String. “Please explain to me one thing.”

  “And this is?”

  “What does this mean, eat the corncob?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  The desk clerk greeted him like an old friend. David lifted a hand, said hello. He wasn’t noticing the smell of mildew anymore, or the stain on the carpet. He took the stairs slowly, tucking the loose ends of Mel’s best shirt down into his pants. Mel often went out after work; usually kept a clean shirt in his desk. David had kept Mel talking while Della raided the drawer.

  The shirt was big in the middle, sleeve length a hair too short, but made of fine quality cotton.

  The hallway was quiet. David checked his watch—seven P.M. He ought to call Rose and tell her not to expect him. He ought to go home and have dinner with his kids.

  Another tense night on the home front.

  He knocked. Waited. Knocked again.

  The door opened.

  Teddy was barefooted, wearing the cutoff jeans and an oversized white shirt that hung down past the shorts. Her face was freshly scrubbed, and she wore no makeup. Her hair hung long and straight, past her shoulders, making her look very young. There were deep circles beneath her eyes, and the animation had gone from her face.

  “Teddy, are you ill?”

  She gave him a half smile. “I’m fine. Want to come in?”

  He felt awkward. Wondered if she was unhappy to see him. If she’d notice the scent he wore. If she’d figure it out and hate him for it.

  She pointed to a chair. The television wall was dark and quiet. Radio off. No book in sight.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Of course.” She sat down on the bed, put a pillow in her lap. Raised an eyebrow. “Get you a Coke or something, David? I didn’t know you were coming. If I had of, I’d have put on some makeup and brushed my hair. But I didn’t know.” She pulled a thread on the pillowcase, unraveling the hem.

  “What is it?” There was no reason for her to confide in him, no reason for her not to shut him out. “Tell me,” he said again. Willing her to talk.

  She was quiet a moment. Years of interrogation had given David a good sense of when to shut up.

  She tilted her head sideways. “It’s a funny thing about you, David. I knew when I met you that you were important to me.” She had the thread again. Unraveled three more inches of hem. “Knowing things, like I do—see, to me it’s just a natural part of every day. It’s there, David, that’s all. It’s in the air, it’s all around you, you just tease it out. Or you can ignore it.

  “Everybody has their way. Like other psychics? You always find each other—takes one to know one, believe me, it’s true.”

  David settled back in his chair, enjoying the sound of her voice, letting it wash over him.

  “My brother’s dead, happened a long time ago. And at the time, I knew it was coming, but I was a kid, and nobody believed me.”

  He moved toward her, but she scooted backward on the bed. This was an area not to touch. Like his father.

  She was circling, something big she hadn’t said.

  “See, David, the mind takes in so much, then stops. That’s why psychics only get bits and pieces.” She leaned toward him. “But what I think is, it’s all out there. Every single bit. You just have to stop being scared to go and get it. So many psychics, they’re content, you know, with tiny little insights. They think that’s all, they won’t run with it. Because it’s like taking a running jump off a cliff, and thinking, yeah, okay, you’ll know how to fly once you get out there. But there’s this voice in your head that says, come on, get real. People can’t fly, what are you, nuts? I mean, David, I have doubts. I’m no different from any other neurotic human being. I have doubts, even when I know. There’s always little nasty voices in your head, they say … they say, God, girl, you’re such a faker. You’re three bricks shy of a load. My mom used to say that to me all the time—three bricks shy of a load.”

  David moved from the chair and settled on the edge of the bed. “What happened when your brother died?”

  She was close to him, so close he could smell the hotel soap on her smooth, tan skin. Camay. It smelled sweet.

  “He just died, David. A dumb accident, at my grandparents’. I told my mom, I told my dad, don’t let him go. Nobody listened. I didn’t trust my instincts then. Knowing what I know now … I wouldn’t let him go. Still, I was just a kid, it wasn’t my fault. If anybody’s to blame, it’s my mom and dad, for not listening. At the time I was so sure, everything was really clear. Then after it happened, I shut down.”

  “What do you mean, shut down?”

  She put her hand on his arm and he moved closer on the bed. “Shut down, David. The psychic stuff. It all went away.”

  “How long?”

  “Two years, and then some.” She squeezed his arm. “You know, this sounds stupid, but sometimes I think I meet people for a reason, because they need me in their life. I thought you needed me, David.”

  Maybe I do, he thought. “What is it, Teddy? The fire?”

  She was trying not to cry.

  “Have you shut down, Teddy?”

  “It’s gone. Everything’s quiet, everything’s dead. There were so many people, David, and I heard them, clearly, like I was at some peak. And then that pregnant woman, in the ambulance. She died, and everything went dead. It’s like I’m lost, David. I’m a long way from home and I can’t find my way back.”

  “You feel separate? Like everybody is behind glass and you can’t get to them?”

  “Don’t want to,” she whispered.

  “Welcome to the club.” He leaned close and kissed her.

  It was a risk, of course, and when he thought about it afterward, he wondered how he’d found the nerve. He had never kissed another woman this way, not since he married Rose.

  She could have been angry, she could have pointed out, quite accurately, that he was taking advantage of a vulnerable moment.

  But she didn’t. She kissed him as if she’d been waiting on him for a very long time.

  He touched her throat, brushed his knuckles across the soft sweet skin. He kissed the tears that wet her cheeks, and pressed his body gently into hers, easing her backward on the bed.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  He felt an acute elation, surprise that was not surprise. He put a hand beneath her shirt; it was loose and slipped easily over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her breasts were small and firm and cool. He put his mouth on one breast and squeezed the other in his hand. She made a low noise in the back of her throat and arched her back gently, saying his name three times fast.

  He put his hand into the loose leg of the cutoff shorts, wondering about thong panties, and
found she wore no panties at all.

  “Bad girl,” he said softly, biting the edge of her ear.

  She unfastened the buckle of his pants. “I’ll show you bad.”

  David cradled Teddy in his arm, her head in the crook of his shoulder. She ran a finger up and down his chest, and her touch made him sensitive, ticklish.

  “I came to ask you about the Mind Institute,” he said.

  She went tense beside him, and he was sorry he had brought it up.

  “You got a funny way of asking.”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” He turned sideways and kissed her, sucked her tongue into his mouth. He sighed. “I have to go home.”

  She nodded. Watched him while he got dressed. He went to the bathroom, looked out the tiny, frosted window. Still dark out, that much he could see.

  The bathroom was still cluttered, worse than ever. David smiled and borrowed her toothbrush.

  When he came out, she was sitting on the side of the bed clutching a pillow, breasts welling up over the top. He bent close and kissed her shoulder.

  “David?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You should know I’m not entirely what you think.”

  “I know what you are, Teddy Blake. I’ve seen quite a lot of you.”

  She grinned, rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously, David. There’s things about me you don’t know. I’m talking about the case, the murder of Theresa Jenks. I’m talking about the Mind Institute. There’s more to this than you have any idea.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “Not now, I can’t.”

  He thought about it. She watched him carefully, expectantly. She bit her bottom lip and blood welled over the soft red flesh.

  “Whatever it is can wait till tomorrow, Teddy. What I know about you, I know. I like. You understand me?”

  She nodded. Kissed him. He licked the blood off her bottom lip.

  “Call you tomorrow,” he said, and walked out the door.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  David had the car windows down on his way home for what was left of the night. The wind was soft and humid, and he could smell fresh cut grass. The radio was turned low, the DJ’s voice was pleasant and peaceful, and he smiled in the darkness as the woman promised the thirty-eighth remake of that Stone Age classic … “Unforgettable.”