“It’s got to be her parents’ house,” Sikes said.
“Or her boyfriend’s,” Angie suggested. Before Sikes could respond to her barb she addressed the officers. “You check all the windows?”
“No sign of life,” the younger of the two said. He had a fresh, eager look to him, and Sikes vaguely remembered he had had that look once himself, back in his first year with the department. “We can see in through about half the ground-floor windows. No indication that anything’s amiss. But there is a large dog run out back, and no dogs.”
Angie studied the front door. She and Sikes had known that no one was home here as soon as they had radioed in for a report from the officers sent to check the house. She looked at the two officers again, then held out the photograph she had taken from the office wall. “Either of you two recognize this guy?”
The officers peered at the photograph. The older of the two pushed back his hat to reveal a few silver tufts of hair against a freckled brown scalp. Sikes recognized the pattern—young cop with old, passing on the tradition.
“He’s someone from television, isn’t he?” the rookie asked. “Wasn’t he on a sitcom or something?”
“Naah,” the old hand said. “He’s from the movies. Been in war pictures, back in the old days when they still made ’em.”
“But you’ve seen him before?” Angie asked.
Both officers decided that they had, though neither knew where.
Angie put the photograph under her arm again and turned to Sikes. “Okay, Sherlock. I’ve heard that you had an interesting childhood. Can you get us in here without causing too much damage?”
“Without a warrant?” Sikes asked.
“I don’t know about you, but given what we found in her office, I’d say there’s a chance that Stewart might be facing the same kind of trouble that Petty faced. That’s clear and probable grounds provided we go in looking only for signs of foul play.”
“Uh,” the rookie uniform said, “there’s a Westec sign out front on the wall.”
“Then one of you go out front to meet them when they get here,” Angie said. “And find out if whoever lives here said anything about going on vacation.” She nodded at Sikes. “Let’s go.”
Sikes and Angie walked around the odd-shaped house to check all the possible entrances, and Sikes settled on a back patio where he would only have to break one small pane of glass in a pair of French doors. A shrill siren sounded as soon as they stepped inside, but both ignored it as they did a quick room-by-room search. There was nothing out of place, no signs of struggle. It was just a house where, judging from the closets and the enormous sacks of Dog Chow in the kitchen, one woman and two very large dogs lived. And none of them was home at present.
By the time Sikes and Angie left the house to check out the attached garage, a Westec Security car had arrived with a private guard. The guard, helpfully accompanied by the two police officers, went into the house to shut off the siren, then started taking down badge numbers for his report.
There was a convertible BMW in the garage, stone cold. Angie considered the car for a moment, then told Sikes to use one of the gardening shovels on the wall to smash the lock on the car’s trunk. It took five swings. The trunk was empty.
Sikes had no idea what to do next other than to issue a missing person report. But Angie patted his shoulder and had him follow her out to the Westec guard to ask who was on file with the company as the person to be notified in case of an emergency at this address. The guard went to his car radio, and the answer came back from his head office in seconds. Sikes recognized the phone number that went with the name. It was the Astronomy Department at UCLA. The contact was the professor for whom Amy worked as a student assistant and tutorial leader.
“Shit,” Angie said. “Full circle.”
“What’s that mean?” Sikes asked.
“What do you think it means? It means our leads have run out.”
“So what do we do now?”
Angie chewed on one arm of her sunglasses as she watched the uniformed officers stretching yellow police crime-scene tape over the empty pane in the French doors as a temporary repair. “That depends. We have to ask ourselves what we’re facing here.”
Sikes didn’t understand her uncertainty. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Amy’s missing because she’s either already been murdered or because she’s running for her life.”
A look of pity came to Angie’s face. “You’re thinking with your pants again, rook. That’s only one possibility. The other is that we’re dealing with someone who’s covering her tracks.”
Sikes snorted in disbelief. “Amy? That’s crazy, Angie.”
“She pulled a pretty good vanishing act.”
“She’s afraid she’ll be next!”
“Why didn’t she come to the police?”
Sikes waved his arms as if he were trying for lift off. “What good can the police do if the poor kid’s being hunted by her own government?”
“Sikes, do you honestly believe the government had anything to do with Dr. Petty’s death? Over some UFO a billion miles out in space that’s supposedly going to disappear in another week? Let’s get real here. Either Stewart is genuinely certifiable or she’s made up the whole story to disguise the real motive for Petty getting hit.”
“Or,” Sikes said angrily, “she really did photograph something out there, and someone else really wants to kill her for it!” Sikes was still finding it difficult to consider Amy Stewart a likely suspect in Randolph Petty’s murder.
But the more worked up Sikes became, the more composed Angie appeared to be. “Uh-uh, Sikes, this isn’t the fifties. Remember E.T. phone home? To boldly go? May the force be with you, and all that junk? People want there to be real flying saucers and real little green men. Hell, if Stewart actually took photos of a real UFO, she’d be able to sell them for a fortune, and the government would probably be giving her a medal, not trying to silence her.”
Sikes looked at the expensive house Amy lived in on her own. “Well, maybe she doesn’t need a fortune.”
“Now you’re thinking like a detective!” Angie said approvingly. “You met her. You talked with her. What does this woman need? What drives her? Why would she lie about any of this? Why would she think she was telling the truth? If she’s a victim, why would anyone be after her? What could she have that’s important or dangerous? And if she’s the murderer, then why would she kill Dr. Petty? Quick, Sikes, before you can think about it—go with your first reaction. Why would Amy Stewart kill Randolph Petty? A man and a woman. A young astronomer and an old astronomer. Why, Sikes?”
Young and old, Sikes thought. Like himself and Theo Miles. Two uniformed cops. Like himself and Angie Perez. A teacher and a student. He stared at Angie. She was right. He’d been influenced by personal reactions again. Amy Stewart might be Petty’s killer. He did what she told him a cop had to do—make the connection. So he made it personal. Why would I kill my teacher? he asked himself. He thought of how angry Angie made him. The way she pestered him with questions. But that’s part of the learning process, Sikes thought. I expect that. And any student would expect that, especially one who works in a university.
“C’mon, Sikes, let’s have it,” Angie prodded. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Sikes shook his head, everything a jumble, worse than Stewart’s office. It’s not her questions, Sikes thought. It’s not the fact that she can see through me, knows more than I know.
Angie was at his elbow, urging him on. “If you’re stuck, Sikes, then whatever you’re thinking about, turn it around. Come at it from the other side.”
Okay, Sikes thought, I wouldn’t kill Angie because I respect her. But what if I didn’t respect her? Why wouldn’t I respect her?
“Turn it around, Sikes.”
I respect her because she gave me a break, Sikes thought, and he suddenly felt as if he had hit upon the core of the problem Angie had set for him. He understood what was inside him that made him l
ike Angie so much—the shooting back of Mann’s Chinese. He had done good work for her that night, followed procedure straight from the book and contributed to the perp’s arrest and conviction. And Angie had given him the credit he deserved. He had gotten his commendation. She had included him in her report. She hadn’t taken anything away from him. She hadn’t—
“One of them stole something from the other,” Sikes said.
Angie encouraged him to continue. “Go with it.”
“If Amy did it,” Sikes said slowly, “then it was because either Dr. Petty stole something from her or she stole something from him.”
Angie waved an arm at Amy Stewart’s house. “Look at the size of this place, Sikes. What would she need to steal? What would be important to her? Think, man, think.”
Sikes screwed his face up as he recalled his talk with Amy Stewart. She had definitely been edgy. Was that because she had been trying to hide how she felt about Petty, or because she had been truly upset and frightened?
“Her career,” Sikes said suddenly.
“Astronomy?”
“Whatever was stolen had to do with—” Sikes turned away and dragged his hand through his short, spiky hair. “This is no good, Angie. It just brings us back to the photographs.”
“But take it from the other side,” Angie urged. When Sikes turned back to face her his partner was waiting for him. “What if Petty was the one who came up with the photographs—or whatever the real material is—and he passed them to her?”
“So every word she said to me was a lie?” Sikes asked.
“Maybe some of it was true, maybe none of it was, but at least we can see a way through it.”
Sikes frowned. “You can see a way through all this?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time an academic type bumped off a coworker over research, rook. It’s the stuff careers are made of. An important career move might trigger some people into wanting to kill, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah,” Sikes said. He guessed he could understand the urge to kill—if not the action—when it came to preserving one’s job. And he could certainly understand the need to make up wild stories for self-protection.
“So what do we do now?” Angie asked.
Sikes grinned despite himself. She had done it to him again. “I go back to the university and find out what the old man was working on and what Amy was working on and interview other faculty to see where their interests might have overlapped.” He sighed.
“Pretty boring stuff, hmm?”
“I hated college,” Sikes said.
The uniformed officers had finished with their serviceable but makeshift repair of the broken pane in the French doors, so Angie threw an arm around Sikes’s shoulders and steered him across the perfectly manicured lawn toward the front gate. “If you think interviewing faculty is dull, rook, wait till you start doing the paperwork that will let you track Stewart by monitoring her credit-card use and bank transactions.” She shook her head in condolence. “You know you have to file more than thirty different forms for that? Looks like I’m going to have to give you an extension after all. Maybe even a whole week just to do the typing.”
Sikes was aware that he felt much lighter leaving than when he had arrived. Everything had been a jumble—alien spaceships, government agents, losing his detachment, Amy Stewart missing. But Angie had managed to sort through the garbage and lies and cut the whole situation down to size. The most likely explanation was that this was simply a personal incident between two professionals—one old and at the end of his career, one young and on her way up. For whatever reason, bad blood had arisen between them, and one had attempted to kill the other. Whether Petty had set out to kill his student and had died in the attempt or whether the student had gone after her professor remained to be seen. He sighed again as he thought of Amy and the instant effect she had had on him. But still, on the face of it, the scenario worked. Randolph Petty’s death might just be what Sikes had first thought it to be—a deliberate killing, not a random one. Now all that remained to be done was to put in the necessary hours of plodding, detailed investigation that would bring the last few pieces together. He shifted restlessly from foot to foot, eager now to get the tedious follow-up out of the way and get back to his own life.
“Jesus, Sikes,” Angie said as they reached the Mustang, “the way you’re hopping around, you look like you’re ready to fly or something.”
“I don’t like mysteries,” Sikes said. “And thanks to you, this one looks like it’s on its way to being solved. That’s making me feel good. Like at least something in my life’s under control . . . or something.”
Angie glanced at the photograph she was still carrying—Amy Stewart, the mystery man, and two others. “Let’s hope so. Got time for a beer at Casey’s before you get started?”
Sikes checked his watch. He still had two hours before Kirby would be home from school. “Why not?” he said. “We can celebrate this case finally getting back to earth.”
Angie tossed the photograph into the Mustang’s backseat. “Let’s hope so,” she said.
C H A P T E R 7
IT HAD BEEN YEARS since Moodri had been forced to use the complex network of half-size service tunnels to move undetected through the ship, and his ancient joints creaked with the strain of his doubled-over gait. But he had no choice. In time, as it was measured on the planet the ship was approaching, fewer than four days remained until the moment the Elders’ plan must be set in motion, and without even knowing it, the Overseers were successfully counteracting that plan by searching for all who bore the markings of Moodri’s lineage in their spots. Moodri was certain the goddess would share his appreciation of the irony of his predicament.
At last he saw a dim glow up ahead and knew that he was near the eight-way intersection where the meeting had been set. Melgil and Vondmac—the other two members of his cell of conspirators—were already there waiting for him. He had moved more slowly than he had estimated.
Vondmac smiled wistfully as Moodri gathered his simple skirt around him and settled on a wide pipe. Moodri’s customary robes had proved too cumbersome for easy movement in these confines. He had abandoned them near the hidden entrance hatch he had used to escape the pair of Overseers who had appeared at his dormitory to question him.
“Doesn’t this remind you of our youth?” Vondmac asked. She gazed around at the spherical intersection, which was lit only by the eight dull lamps that glowed by each tunnel entrance, over the timeworn signs written in alien script. “The whispered secret meetings? The fervent plans for an armed revolt?”
“The ease with which we were infiltrated,” Moodri added. “The quickness with which the Overseers identified and executed the conspirators.”
Vondmac nodded in sad remembrance. “But in the end, the Overseers didn’t succeed. They simply accelerated the evolutionary pressure that would inevitably force the birth of a conspiracy that could overthrow them, just as their breeding program has created family lines of workers that are naturally resistant to the gas.”
“Exactly,” Moodri said. “And while an armed revolt by the masses is not practical in these circumstances, a single act by a lone individual—”
“Will not happen,” Melgil stated flatly.
Moodri turned to Melgil. As soon as he had entered the intersection Moodri had seen that the old binnaum’s mood was foul, but he had assumed it was the pressure of the decision they would soon have to make that had affected his colleague and friend. It was often difficult for Moodri to judge the moods and thoughts of those of his own generation who had achieved the same oneness with Ionia that he had, and apparently he had misread Melgil badly.
“What do you know?” Moodri asked calmly. At his age, after all this time in these circumstances, there was little that could disturb that calm.
“I have talked with your great-nephew.”
“His interrogation by the Overseers went as we had hoped?” Moodri asked, though he had few doubts that it had.
Moodri was pleased. “Then the operation at the water hub was successful.”
“Seven of our best people were killed,” Melgil said.
Moodri closed his eyes. “They returned to the mother so their people could have a chance at freedom. Even now they move within the currents of stars in the fields of home.”
Reflexively the three Elders touched their fingers to their hearts in a sign of blessing.
“Rest easy, Melgil,” Moodri said reassuringly. “We knew the Overseers could not help but discover that we were planning diversions in the water hubs all through the ship. All of our workers who volunteered to be the visible part of the operation and be caught knew what risks they faced—death in the hub or in the Game. But because of their heroism our other diversions went as we planned, and the Overseers obviously feel no need to search further. We are in control of the ship’s water system, Melgil. Our plan will succeed.”
But Melgil looked more despondent than Moodri had ever seen him look before. “Not if we are to depend on Finiksa.”
For a moment Moodri sought the peace of the goddess. Then he asked his old friend to explain himself.
“I told him about the key,” Melgil recounted. “I told him when it would be given to him and how he was to use it when he was on the bridge.”
“And you told him those were my wishes?” Moodri asked. With the Overseers patrolling for him he had not been able to risk moving through the open corridors into the service tunnel system that linked the infirmaries to reach his great-nephew himself.
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