Alien Heat

by Lynn Hightower

  FORTY-SIX

  David was hard asleep, vaguely aware that someone had been knocking, knocking a long time, that the door opened and someone walked in. He felt a presence by the bed.

  He sat up in a panic, reached for his gun. The woman flinched, but did not touch him. He felt a twinge of fear, a conviction that she could have taken the gun if she wanted, that she held herself in check. He felt that he knew her.

  She was dark-haired, violet-eyed, extraordinarily pretty. He rubbed his eyes, wondered what she was doing here, standing by his bed, unsmiling, wearing cutoff shorts and a white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  His tongue felt thick and sticky. “I forget to pay?”

  She cocked her head to one side, gave him a reluctant smile. The room was hot, quiet, no sound of the air conditioner, which was no longer making a pretense. He ran a hand over his beard.

  “You need a shave,” she said. “And a bath.”

  He cleared his throat. “Who are you?”

  “Right now? Right now, I’m your worst nightmare. My name is Rose. I’m your wife. Here, take this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s just a Coke. It’s cold.”

  David took the can—so cold it seemed precious. He held it to his forehead and closed his eyes.

  She grimaced. “My God, it’s hot in here. You look dehydrated, David. Drink and take some of these. No, no, it’s just aspirin, that’s all. You look like your head hurts.”

  It did hurt. He took the aspirin, reached for more. She snatched the foil pack out of reach.

  “No, that’s all for now, did you want the whole pack? You don’t look like you’ve eaten in days.”

  “I have … no money.”

  “Considering that you cleaned out every account we have, it’s hard to be sympathetic. Come on, get up.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  There was a fat man on the sidewalk, standing beside his father. David smiled at his dad and waved.

  His father did not smile or wave back. He was handcuffed, and the fat man had him in a grip that looked painful.

  David was amazed at the intense surge of anger. He raised his gun. “Let him go. Let my father go.” He liked the way that sounded. My father.

  The fat man looked at the woman who called herself Rose. “You let him keep his gun?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t want him to feel threatened. Besides, I know David. The only person he might shoot would be you, Peterson, which would suit me just fine.”

  David clenched his teeth. “Let my father go.”

  The safety chip glowed green as it registered David’s fingerprints. Ten more seconds, and he’d be able to shoot. He aimed for the center of the fat man’s chest.

  Peterson looked at Rose. “Now what?”

  “I guess you let him go. Otherwise, I think he’s going to shoot you.”

  Peterson let go.

  “Cuffs off,” David said.

  Peterson said something under his breath and keyed in the cuff release.

  “It’s okay,” David told his father. “We’ll sort this out.”

  Rose curled her lip. “Tell him your real name. Tell him who you are.”

  David’s father looked at her, rubbed his wrists.

  “Tell him and don’t take off. I run faster than you, ’cause I wear Keds.”

  The man looked at her shoes, then at David. He turned and ran.

  “Shit,” Rose said. “Mel!”

  David’s father dashed toward the street, Rose right behind him. David saw it before it happened—the police car bearing down, the screech of tires, the thud of the body being thrown. He called out and ran, praying as he went. Not dead. Not now, not after he’d found his father at last.

  The police car stopped, frozen in the tracks which had clamped the wheels as soon as the man crossed the grid. David got there just as Rose tackled his father, bringing him down hard.

  “Don’t hurt him!” David lunged, but someone caught his arm.

  “She won’t hurt him, I already made her promise.”

  David turned, thinking he should know this man. Blue eyes, thick brown hair, solid build.

  “David? You recognize me?”

  David did not know what to say.

  “It’s Mel, David. Your partner? Your best friend?”

  David shook the man’s arm off, helped his father to his feet. “You okay?”

  The man curled his lip. “I don’t know who the hell you think I am, chère, but I don’t know you. Get him off me, for Christ’s sake.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  David sat on the front porch, his daughters curled around his feet. They had barely let him out of their sight since he got home, forty-eight hours ago. He did not have the heart to send them away, though they should not have been up so late, out on the porch, hearing the conversation.

  Mattie blinked, head nodding forward, and David tucked her into his lap. She laid her cheek on his shoulder, touched his freshly shaven chin, and closed her eyes. Lisa went into the house and came back with pillows from the beds. She and Kendra curled up next to his chair.

  David caught Rose looking from him to the girls.

  String came out onto the porch, beers cradled in his fins. The screen door banged behind him.

  “For Rose Silver, and Detective Mel, and Detective David.”

  David shook his head, waving the Elaki aside. For now, he had a horror of anything that might take the edge away. The disorientation of the last few days had been a nightmare.

  String settled against the support post by the porch swing—his favorite spot.

  “When did Miriam figure out the toxins were coming from the scale?” David asked.

  Mel took a long drink of beer. “Miriam got worried the second time you called in sick, so she took another look at that tea sample. Didn’t find anything. So she starts studying the tape, that monitor sheet of your blood chemistry when you were there on your first visit. Said she saw some elevated histamine levels—not much to speak of. Looked more like allergies, and was just the barest trace at that. But then she compared them to the monitor sheet on your second visit, and your levels had gone up a lot—and that was before you even set foot in the place. So either you had really bad hay fever—which was possible, because you said you were sick—or you were being exposed to something outside of the Institute. Which had to mean the scale, because you kept it with you all the time. Handled it, right?”

  David shivered, and Mattie sighed in her sleep. “Yeah. I did.”

  “Miriam said you were unusually sensitive to whatever it is that’s on there—kind of like an allergic reaction.” Mel took another drink of the beer, looked out into the night. “The guy we arrested in Meridian, his name is Alford Crumbo, David. If he’s your father, he’d have to have married your mother when he was fourteen.”

  David knew they were looking at him. He didn’t like it. He stroked Mattie’s hair. He was mourning his father all over again. Whatever he’d settled in his mind all these years, had come unsettled.

  “Did they hypnotize me?”

  Mel shook his head. “Not that we could see, unless it was awfully subtle. Miriam’s still working on the drug—actually, she’s handed it off to the Feds. Working theory is it worked like an allergy, like an irritant, and it made you very suggestible, very vulnerable. Suppressed some parts of your brain, stimulated others.”

  String swayed sideways. “Much testing will be the necessary.”

  “Anyway,” Mel said. “We went in stomping, into the Institute. Got a warrant after you disappeared, on the grounds we had an officer in peril. So that worked in our favor, otherwise no judge would ever let us in there.”

  “You’re so welcome,” David said dryly.

  Mel grinned.

  String waved his beer can, spilling droplets on the porch. “This Jordiki psychic. He is to be back in tomorrow. To talk and sign. To face off the interrogation onto you, Detective David, w
ill be most of the interesting.”

  David shuddered, saw Mel watching.

  “David’s just going to be observing, String. Me and you will be talking to him, and keep it in human-speak this time, hear me? We’ll catch him tomorrow, before Peterson gets to him. You can invite Yo, David, she promises to be good.”

  “You sure he’ll come through?” David asked.

  Mel hid a small belch behind his hand. “He’s ready to go. Worked everything out with his legal aid already. We broke Alford, got one other worm that turned—woman who played the reincarnated lover to the guy that blew his brains out.”

  “We still don’t have Tatewood,” David said.

  Mel reached for the beer String had brought David. “We got Jordiki, and he’s dealing. We’re hoping he’ll bring us Tatewood, and one or two of those Kahaners.”

  David frowned. He wanted Tatewood. Tatewood had strangled Theresa Jenks.

  The phone rang. Rose got up from the swing, silent and graceful.

  “Pouchlings all sleepset?” String asked.

  David looked at his daughters. “Like babies.”

  “Ah. So glad to have the Father-One.”

  “Hey,” Mel said. “We’re all glad to have the Daddy-One home. How come you shaved the beard? I kind of liked it.”

  Rose opened the door. Looked from David to String to Mel.

  “Now that you have our attention,” Mel said.

  “Clampett called.”

  “Clampett?” Mel asked.

  “What iss thiss Clampett?”

  David frowned. “You mean Clements? Arson cop?”

  Rose nodded. Her lips went tight. “Bad news. You no longer have your witness.”

  String arched back on his fringe. “Is thisss the Jordiki? He is to recant?”

  “Dead,” Rose said. “The Mind Institute burned, right to the ground, no more than an hour ago. I didn’t do it.”

  David stood up.

  “No, don’t go, David. Clements said there was no reason for you to come out, and you still … you’re still shaky. The place went up in minutes, nothing left but ashes and remains that they’re pretty sure belong to Jordiki.”

  David sat, settling Mattie back on his lap.

  “Isss justice of the rhyme,” String said.

  Mel crushed a beer can. “Poetic justice, Gumby.”

  Rose settled back on the swing. “She said to tell you one other thing, David. That somebody saw a clown there, a half hour before the place went up. With a fistful—”

  “Of purple balloons?”

  Rose nodded.

  “That’s our Tatewood,” Mel said.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  David waited till Rose and the girls were asleep before he left the house. He drove two hours in the night heat, windows down, arriving as the sun came up.

  The Psychic Fair was quiet. You would never know that the streets had been crawling with fire fighters, psychics, palm readers, and residents just a few short hours ago. David passed his ID through the sensor box and stepped through the crime-scene tape.

  The smell of smoke hung heavy. The glass dome had shattered and melted, nothing left but incinerated garbage up to the waist.

  He felt almost ill standing there, thinking of himself in that little brown room. He felt as if his father had died all over again. He would be sorry if they lost Tatewood, but he was not sorry Jordiki was dead.

  David hoped the Elaki had suffered.

  Something moved, back in the rubble. David felt sweat roll down his shoulder blades. He took a breath. Peterson. Just Peterson.

  The FBI agent raised a hand.

  “Don’t have a gun with you this time, do you, Silver?”

  Actually, he did, but he shook his head. “You been here all night?”

  Peterson nodded. “Watched it burn to the ground. Jordiki was dead by then. Went fast, Tatewood did it up good.”

  “Hurts, losing him.”

  Peterson hitched his pants up, stuck his thumbs in his belt. “If you only knew, Silver. I’d tell you I’ve lost count of how many of Tatewood’s fire scenes I’ve been to, but the truth is, I can tell you the exact number. And this is number twelve.”

  David saw that Peterson’s face was slippery with sweat, his eyes red-rimmed.

  “I go to sleep at night … I smell smoke and burnt hair. I close my eyes … I see people, incinerated people. They sit on the end of my bed. I been tracking this man so long I know what his farts smell like. I got a psychological profile on him that would fill your office, we printed it out.”

  David rocked back on the heels of his shoes. “A good hunter knows where the target is going, not where he’s been.”

  Peterson shook his head. “We’ve tried that, I promise you. Problem is, there’s so many targets he could go for.”

  “He ever fail before? Not finish a job?”

  Peterson gave David a sideways look. “None I know of. Everything else has gone right down to the ground, except—”

  “Except the Cajun Supper Club. Because we ignored the bomb threat and released the grids.”

  Peterson stuck his hands in his pockets, looked hard at David. “I think I get your drift, Detective, but give me some specifics.”

  “I think we set out bait. Make it irresistible. He likes the fire, Peterson. He likes the games. Let’s throw the ball in his court, and be waiting by the hoop when he comes to play.”

  “Think it’ll work, do you?”

  “You tell me, Peterson. You’re the one with the profile.”

  FORTY-NINE

  David put the interrogation vid into the slot, then settled next to Detectives Clements and Wart.

  Wart rippled his fringe, getting comfortable. “The Calib-boy should be present for this music event.”

  Clements shook her head. “Last one I took him to, Wart, he just squirmed in his seat. Didn’t pay the least bit of attention.”

  “It is the wrong music of choice. This is one to be different.”

  “I don’t have time to fool with it,” Clements said.

  David looked at the two of them, then back to the monitor. The static cleared, and he saw Mel in the interrogation room, feet up on the table.

  Clements went up to the VCR, turned up the volume.

  Jordiki stood next to the wall, and looking at him made David’s heart beat harder, his palms sweat. He focused on String, who skittered from one side of the room to the other, deliberately trying to annoy the other Elaki.

  Mel opened his arms, as if he wanted to take Jordiki in a passionate embrace. “Hey, you’re psychic, right? Take a look at your future. Ain’t too bright, you think?”

  Jordiki stayed still, but David could see the signs of discomfort, tension.

  “Charges will be the murder conspiracy, multiple counts,” String said.

  Jordiki followed String’s movements with both eye stalks. “There is no murder.”

  Mel gave the alien a half smile and tapped the computer printout with a finger.

  “We got you six ways to Sunday on the financing, Jo.”

  The alien reared up on his back fringe. David decided that it was the nickname that bothered him, more than the evidence.

  “Tell me of the Tatewood,” String said.

  “I do not know of a Tatewood. Is human?”

  String said something Elaki-to-Elaki that David did not understand.

  “String. String.” Mel was shaking his head. “String, you can’t do that, DA will have your scales in a bag. Talk people-talk, come on.”

  Jordiki skittered sideways, and Mel slammed the file on the table. “Sir? Jordiki, sir? Have you been threatened? Coerced in any way? Let me assure you—”

  “There has been no threat,” Jordiki said.

  “You sure?”

  Jordiki looked at String. “Reassure the human.”

  String waved a fin. “Do not speak over the head of this partner, you Jo. We have the financial connectors of the Mind Institute and Tatewood human. You have the proven financial bridg
e with you and the fire murders of hate. You may talk to us of Tatewood, and—”

  “There will be negotiations?” Jordiki asked.

  String’s belly turned a darker color. “Yesss.”

  “Make the arrangements.” Jordiki looked up at the monitor, and David felt his stomach jump.

  This was a video and Jordiki was dead, he reminded himself.

  Wart turned to Clements. “Must make the time, Yo Free. Have already reserved tickets.”

  “Wart … hell. Okay. Thanks, I guess.”

  The door opened and Mel walked in. “Just heard from Peterson, David, and—”

  “How can this human be in two places at time and the same?” Wart asked.

  Mel turned sideways, facing the Elaki. He glanced at David over one shoulder. “This is unbelievable. Two funny Elaki in the same building. Is it the coffee around here, or what?”

  Clements leaned back in her chair. “He used to be very tame. You guys are a terrible influence.”

  David rubbed the back of his neck, realized his hand was shaky. “What did Peterson say?”

  Mel sat on the edge of the table. “Said we got the go-ahead.”

  “For what?” Clements asked.

  “We’re smoking Tatewood,” David said.

  Wart waved a fin. “I must understand making a cigarette roll of the—”

  Clements grimaced. “Quit playing dumb blond Elaki, Wart, you know exactly what he means.”

  David frowned, wondered if Elaki made a habit of feigning misunderstanding. Another irritating manifestation of quirky Elaki humor? Had String been making fun of them all this time?

  “What’s be the plan?” Wart asked.

  “Bait,” Mel said. “Cajun Supper Club just had smoke damage, right? Other than the second floor and the roof, okay, but still a lot of it standing. It’s Tatewood’s one big failure, that we know of. Peterson thinks Tatewood’s going to jump at the chance to go back and try again, so we’re being accommodating, and giving him another shot.”

  “How?” Clements asked.

  David rubbed the top of the table with his finger. “We’re back to the Racial Harmony Awards. Going to hold a dinner, some kind of fund-raiser there.”