Alien Heat

by Lynn Hightower

  Mel looked at David. “You think it’s worth going through days of garbage?”

  “I want to know what the dog died of. If somebody killed it, or it died in the fire.”

  “A murdered dog, David? You don’t have enough crime to solve? Or maybe he bit the killer, and still has their hand in his mouth, or their class ring in his belly.”

  David waved a hand. “If the dog died of smoke inhalation, then it didn’t interfere in the struggle in the hallway. Which means maybe it knew the killer. And, Della, I want anything you have on this Mind Institute in my reader today. Plus, take the two names you have that disappeared from the data set and give me what background you can, quick and dirty.”

  “Okay, but David?”

  He sighed. His back hurt. “Yeah?”

  She leaned close, turned her back on Mel and String. “Can we talk a minute?”

  “Okay.”

  Della slipped into the interrogation room and closed the blinds. “I want to ask you about something.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want your opinion.”

  “Okay.”

  “This really isn’t a joke, David.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “Oh … sorry. What is it, Della?”

  “I’m afraid to tell you. You’ll think it’s disgusting.”

  “No, no I won’t. What is it?”

  “I think I’m in love,” Della said.

  David smiled wanly. “What’s wrong with love, Della?”

  “It’s not what you call a natural love.”

  “Another woman? There’s nothing so bad about that.”

  She shook her head, looked him in the eye. “An Elaki.”

  David swallowed hard. No, she didn’t look like she was joking.

  “Pretty weird, huh? You think it’s sick?”

  “I don’t think it’s sick, Della. It’s just, it seems strange, that’s all. Not String?”

  “Good Lord, no. No, he’s … don’t laugh, but he’s handsome, Elaki-style. You know, like he’s eight feet tall, and black as coal on the outer loop, dark red in the middle. Really, he’s very striking. And he is so kind. So wise and childlike, and so focused on me. He cares about me. He’s considerate.” She closed her eyes and groaned. “Oh, God. I know how this sounds.”

  Bizarre, David thought.

  “So schoolgirlish. He wants …” Della looked at her hands. “You sure you want to hear this?”

  David did not know if it was fair to judge this Elaki by the standards of men, but he had a good idea what the Elaki wanted.

  “Yes?”

  “You know.”

  “Ah. Is it … possible?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you would?”

  David swallowed. “What does he say?”

  “He says he wants to understand and experience human intimacy.”

  “Did he say how?”

  “Maybe he’s just going to read me poetry or something, I don’t know. Did you … you saw that supper club tape?”

  David cleared his throat. “Yes, Dell. Yes, I did.”

  “Everybody was laughing. They made it all seem … it seemed so dirty. God, Silver, I don’t know what to do. Do you think I’m evil? Unnatural?”

  David put a hand on her shoulder, thinking how fragile her bones felt. “I think anything between two consenting adults is their own business. And, let’s face it, women are always saying they’d like an alternative to men. Think of yourself as a pioneer.”

  He expected her to smile, but she didn’t. She looked at him quite seriously.

  “So what exactly should I do? Should I—”

  “You should do whatever you want to do, Della, whatever feels good … uh, right to you, and not worry about other people. Or Elaki. Or whatever.”

  She nodded, sighed, smiled. “Thanks, David. And David?”

  “Yes?”

  “You should do what you want, too.”

  “What I—”

  She patted his shoulder and left him sitting alone with his mouth open.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The retriever who worked the euclid trash dump had a storefront office. David saw the telltale lines of sensors—better than iron bars, unless the system was down. He glanced over his shoulder. In this neighborhood, he’d opt for the bars.

  The thick green plastic of the front door reflected cars going by on the grid. The plastic was warped, which made the cars look like they were going over a hill. A hand-lettered sign was taped over a buzzer.

  Mel squinted.

  “What’s it say?” David asked.

  “It says ring the bell.”

  A dog barked, somewhere inside, and shadows moved behind the plastic.

  “This is the Bowser I am hearing?” String asked.

  Mel shrugged. “Unless it’s an ostrich.”

  “Detective Mel, you joke me. This reminds me of a pouchmate—”

  The door was opened by a woman who gave them a wary look. She was short and thick, and wore a pink T-shirt, stretched too tight over broad shoulders and enormous breasts, and a pair of white shorts that had gone dingy. Her black hair was cut short, soft and feathery. She had dark eyebrows and big brown eyes.

  “Thank God for you,” Mel said.

  The woman raised her eyebrows. David had the feeling she was not used to people being glad to see her.

  “You looking for somebody?” The dog barked, and the woman looked down. “Hush, Barclay.”

  The dog barked louder. He was a yellow, shorthaired something or other—one ear was missing a chunk, and the other tipped at the end, giving him the look of a dog you would trust with your children.

  “We’re looking for a retriever,” David said.

  “That’s me. Come in.”

  It was cool inside, and dark. Displays showed an unpredictable array of very used items—wire hair rods, a package oven, a bent and rusty pizza slicer, an encyclopedia of Birds in the Southwest. The shop smelled like mildew and dust. There was nothing on the tables that David would not have been happy to throw away.

  Mel stopped suddenly, and String rolled into him. “Lookit here. I haven’t seen one of these in ages.”

  String twitched an eye prong. “Is it gone for the bad, or are these holes intentional?”

  Mel poked his finger through the center of the black metal. “Intentional. This is a pie composer. You just put the ingredients in the side here, see? Then the nano machines cut loose and it makes a home-baked pie. All you got to do is put it in the oven. My aunt used to have one of these.”

  “But why would the human not purchase a pie?”

  “’Cause then it wouldn’t be homemade.”

  “This is pertinent?”

  Mel put the composer back on the table, looked at the woman. “So you’re the retriever, huh?”

  “Yeah. Do the Euclid dump, right next door.” She inclined her head toward the back of the shop.

  “We’re homicide detectives, Ms.—”

  “Clay. Ellis Clay. Homicide, huh? I usually don’t get anybody but the vice guys. And even them not too often.”

  “You should do garbage in a better part of town,” Mel said.

  “I’ve put in bids. I don’t have the pull for it, no matter how much money I come up with. You want me to put this on the department’s account?”

  David nodded.

  “If it’s more than a year back, forget it.”

  “Just a few days. The night of the supper club fire.”

  “That was some roast, wasn’t it, Barclay?” The dog jumped up and licked her on the nose. “Is that cute? He’s smart, too. What you looking for, anyway?”

  Mel scratched his nose. “A dog, actually. A dead one.”

  “The dungeon’s down here.” She led them down steps thinly covered by mildewed carpet, looked over her shoulder at String. “Sorry about the stairs.”

  “Is not to be a problem,” String said.

  The small dog trotted close to St
ring, sniffing at the Elaki’s fringe.

  “Barclay, no,” Clay said. Without conviction. She shook her head. “He’s got a mind of his own.”

  “People always say that when they don’t train their dogs,” Mel muttered.

  String waved a fin. “Why does this animal wear a scarf for the neck? The Bowser hair coverment does not suffice?”

  Ellis Clay shrugged. “I think it’s cute. He looks in the mirror when I put it on him. Some people think dogs don’t look in mirrors, but Barclay does. He watches vids too. ‘LaFarge and Groat’ is his favorite show. He liked that one with the dachshund man, you catch that one?” Her breathing got deeper and faster—the stairs were causing problems. “That was a classic. You know what, if I throw a piece of popcorn in the air, Barclay can jump up and catch it in his mouth.”

  “Truly the amazing animal.”

  David looked at String, wondering if the Elaki had learned sarcasm.

  “Lights,” Ellis Clay said, moving ahead of them.

  The basement was cavernous, the single fluorescent light defeated by dank, murky corners. The computer sat on a scarred metal desk in the center of the room, placed just under the fixture. David touched a concrete wall, found it beaded with sweat. He smelled something awful too close by.

  Ellis Clay scooped Barclay up under her arm and settled him on her lap. “Computer up.” She scratched the dog’s neck. “Now tell me about this dog.”

  David gave her the times and particulars of death and location and she keyed it manually into the computer.

  David looked over her shoulder as the grid came up on the screen. At the bottom, the signal flashed: SEARCHING.

  “Just threw him away, poor little thing.” She clutched Barclay.

  String rippled his bottom fringe. “Is animal that is deceased from life. Should there be special deathwatch for the Bowser?”

  Mel waved a hand. “You do ’em up like Vikings, Gumby. Put ’em in a little boat with all their favorite bones, launch it in their water bowl, then set it on fire.”

  Ellis Clay clamped her hands over the ears of her dog. “Don’t listen to them, Barclay. Don’t listen.”

  The computer beeped.

  “List matches.” Clay squinted at the screen. Her feathery black hair fell forward, too short to get in her eyes. She kept a hand on the dog’s head, scratching absently.

  “We have about six hot spots here, guys. Let me do some eliminating. Dog will likely be dumped with some of the debris from the fire, you think?”

  David nodded.

  She keyed in a command. “Kill that one and that one. That leaves … four possibilities. Let me activate the keystroke grid, here.” She drummed her fingers on the dog’s collar. He licked her wrist and it glistened, sticky under the light.

  The computer screen went neon-blue, a white waffle of lines descending. Four red-orange dots glowed. Numbers appeared, across the dots.

  “We can do it one of two ways. I can go for a single target search, which means I get the garbage from one spot together, you look through it, if what you want isn’t there, then we try again. Or I can dump all four at once, then go through. Your first way is cheaper, if we hit on the first look. After that the price goes up and you’re losing time and money.”

  “And you recommend?” David said.

  “If you feel real lucky, and you have all the time in the world, do it one at a time. Otherwise, I say dump the whole thing.”

  “The whole thing,” David said.

  “Go get lunch, then come back. You just want the dog, or you want a look through?”

  “Just the dog.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “Most cops want a look through.”

  David got the feeling he’d failed a test.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ellis Clay led them through the basement room into a tunnel, where strong odors permeated the darkness like an echo. David was sorry he’d had lunch.

  Mel gave him a look.

  “I’m fine,” David said. He took a breath. He was fine.

  Barclay the dog tripped along happily, pink tongue hanging thickly from the left corner of his mouth, showing healthy black gums and white needle teeth. He padded close to String, running in and out of the ripple of the Elaki’s fringe. A shred of napkin had adhered to one of String’s scales, bonded by barbecue sauce from lunch.

  Mel was grimacing. String’s inner pink belly was showing ivory, the way it did in the morgue. Ellis Clay did not seem to notice.

  Garbage was her business, David thought.

  “See, it’s a great system. Trapdoors all over, big iron ones, but if they get kludgey you got a problem. That’s the major drawback to this whole setup. A door gets sticky, then you have to go in, work in the mess, or clean the whole thing out. Use scuba gear when you go in.”

  “Scuba gear?” David said it politely, proud he was able to talk.

  “Yeah, makes perfect sense if you think about it.”

  David nodded. The pork sandwich he’d eaten was becoming a problem.

  “So, anyway, all three dumps went clear, except the last one, wouldn’t you know. Man, that thing was stuck like nobody’s business.”

  “But you got it loose?” Mel said.

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t believe how. Trade secret, but think Vaseline.”

  “Rather not,” Mel muttered.

  “This way.” Clay unlocked a metal hasp, freeing two iron doors.

  David looked at the locks, knowing that outside on Euclid there were hookers who left their children alone all night while they worked. This woman guarded her garbage.

  “I sorted it for you,” Ellis Clay said, and opened the door.

  The smell rolled out in a wave. David and Mel stepped backward and String skittered sideways.

  The room was the size of an airplane hangar. Garbage had been dumped in the middle of the floor, a mountain of it, bits and pieces still clinging to the seam in the ceiling like loose teeth hanging by the root. Inside, the lights were bright but hazy, and flies were noisy and thick. David waved a cloud of them away.

  “What’s that pile?” David pointed to a slag heap, out of the way in a dim corner.

  Clay scratched her head. “That’s mine. Just stuff I found, thought I might sell.”

  “You find the dog?” David asked.

  “Something in there died,” Mel said.

  Clay grinned and chuckled. “You guys are great, you know it? Bunco cops, some of them get sick when I open that door, but homicide doesn’t flinch. Where’d the Elaki go?”

  “He had some business back down the hall.”

  “The big load here’s what I went through. And that over there is fire debris. Here’s your dog.”

  The dog was limp and wet, a black cocker spaniel with oozing fly-specked eye sockets. The fur was singed. David smelled smoke and grit, sweet putrescence, and the sour sick smell that coated every garbage dump in town. He’d smelled death before, death and garbage, but usually not on top of a pork sandwich.

  “That the one?” Clay asked.

  How many could there be? Mel roamed the room, moving toward the pile Clay had set aside.

  “So, would you like me to wrap it in plastic?”

  “Blood doesn’t do well in plastic,” David said. “Leave it here, and I’ll have a CSU van pick it up later.”

  Mel moved toward the center pile. “What the hell … this looks like a foot.”

  Clay looked over his shoulder. “That’s what I thought.”

  “You didn’t bring it up?”

  “I find all kinds of things, Detective.”

  “Definitely a foot,” Mel said. “Not too fresh.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Hard to tell, David, it ain’t got genitalia attached.”

  David wandered around the edge of the pile. “Is that a goat?”

  “Yes, it’s a goat.” Clay was sounding irritable. “Take a poke through the whole thing if you want.”

  David waved a swarm of flies on their way and wen
t to the small pile of garbage gathered in the corner—Ellis Clay’s private stash. A doll, headless, unless … no, thank God, just a doll. Tins of food, rotting packages, a bow and arrow in surprisingly good shape.

  David frowned and took another look at the delivery address on the tin. He squatted and used his handkerchief to clean something wet and yellow that he did not wish to speculate about off the top of the can.

  Fourteen Reidy Street. David looked over his shoulder at his partner. “Mel?”

  “Yeah? David, this foot looks like somebody hacked it off with a fillet knife.”

  “That’s nice, Mel. What’s the address of the supper club that burned? The first one?”

  “Something Reidy Street. Why? What you got?”

  Clay gave David a hard look. “It won’t hurt if I sell this stuff. It’s not illegal if I identify it as being retrieved. It was silly to throw it away, just ’cause it’d been through a fire. There’s no smoke damage through those seals.”

  David’s back ached and he was queasy, but that was background noise. He looked at Mel.

  “They threw it out before the fire, not after.”

  Mel scratched his head. “Another point in this case which makes absolutely no sense.”

  “It might,” David said. “If you wanted to frame the owner.”

  THIRTY

  David cradled the phone between his chin and shoulder. “We need to talk.”

  Clements sounded depressed. “Serendipity, baby, I’m headed your way.”

  “Here?”

  “I’m not dropping in at your house, Silver. Don’t you people talk over there? You and me are scheduled to do a joint interrogation of this Cromwell guy, owns the Cajun Supper Club. Your territory, of course. Homicide always takes precedence.”

  “You want me to come over there?”

  “No, but don’t go stomping through this with both feet, okay? Arson’s different. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes computers. There’s ways to ask questions on these things, and ways not to.”

  David wondered why he was getting so much flak from Mel about moodiness. Now Clements, she was moody.

  “I’ll follow your lead,” David said.