Alien Heat

by Lynn Hightower

  Della tilted her head from side to side. “Sometime in the next twenty-four hours. Or at least forty-eight.”

  “Hours? Not days?”

  David looked at his watch. He’d tried all day and still couldn’t get Teddy on the phone. Maybe it was time to try again.

  Della’s voice went up an octave. “You think a month is soon, Burnett?”

  “What’s the big hurry?”

  “So she knows whether or not you’re really going to call. So she can quit wondering one way or the other.”

  Mel threw up his arms. “Then why can’t she pick up the phone? ’Cause if you do call, it just starts back over again. What’s the point, here?”

  “The point is that men are—”

  “Yeah, yeah, men are pigs. Women say that all the time, it gets old, Della.”

  David shifted his weight, receiver in his ear. The first floor was a zoo, no surprise. He put a hand over his other ear. The phone rang four times. Pick it up, he thought.

  “Hello.”

  David took a deep breath. “Teddy?”

  The chief at the front desk looked up. David turned his back.

  “David?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hi.”

  She sounded strange.

  “You okay?” David asked.

  “Fine, sure. You?”

  “I’m wonderful. I was thinking about dinner tonight. There’s a—”

  “David.”

  Something in her tone made him wary. “Yeah? Is everything … I mean, you’re not having regrets, are you?” David kept his voice low, hoped no one was listening.

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “No. You?”

  She didn’t answer.

  David had not realized how happy he’d been till it went away. He cleared his throat. “You are, aren’t you?”

  “Look, David, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for me to start something up right now. I’m sorry, I know I’m not explaining this very well. We should talk, but I just can’t right now.”

  When, how, where, why, what, he thought. She had seemed so close last night. How could he have called this one so badly?

  “David, are you okay with this?”

  Jesus, what a question.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, David, I’ve got to go.”

  “Of course. Good-bye, Teddy.”

  David hung up, rested his head on the wall, saw the chief looking his way.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  David closed one eye, then the other.

  Mel opened a bottle of aspirin. “I could send her flowers. If I had money, I could. David—”

  “Broke.” David rummaged in his desk drawer for the bottle of Tylenol Twelve.

  Della stopped humming and looked up. “David, you are pale. You sick?”

  David’s phone rang and he ignored it. Mel reached across the desks, letting the phone cord cut across David’s chest.

  “Homicide, what? Yeah, String. No. No kidding? Where?” Mel made a notation on a pad. “That’s great, String. Really? I didn’t know Elaki threw up. Nah, go on ahead, we’ll meet you. Yeah, I’ll bring it, don’t worry.”

  Mel hung up and grinned at David. “String found it. Been to just about every pancake place in town, but he found where Theresa Jenks was hiding out.”

  David tried to look pleased.

  “Quit making faces, will you, and come on. We got to make a stop on the way, pick up some Shredded Wheat and Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.”

  Della waved at them. “Don’t come back without chocolate.”

  Mel waited till they were in the hallway, then glanced back in the bull pen. “I say she definitely got laid last night.”

  They found String draped over the steering wheel of the van, cushioned by pads that had been installed to give increased traction to Elaki fins. The van looked good—nicks smoothed and painted over, freshly washed.

  String hissed.

  David peered in through the window. If it hadn’t been for the hiss, he would have thought the Elaki was dead. A scale fell off String’s soft outer hide and got wedged in the rubber lining of the window sill.

  “Pleasse to see I become deceased,” String said.

  Mel walked to the front of the van, knocked on the hood, waved. He raised a bag. “Yo, Gumby. Got your Shredded Wheat and spearmint. Hey, you okay in there?”

  String lifted his head, hissed again, and slumped back over the steering wheel. “Am not okay, Detective Mel.”

  “What did you do, Gumby, eat your way through every pancake house in town?”

  “But yes, it is the necessary. Pleassse, a biscuit of wheat, most quickly.”

  Mel ripped open the box of cereal. “String, nobody said you had to eat there.”

  “But she, this Jenks, she says the pancakes are most of the delicious, yesss?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “So thorough investigation requires to taste.”

  “Better make sure he never works vice,” Mel said.

  David shook his head. “You sure about that biscuit of wheat, String? I don’t think you should eat anything else.”

  “Is not to eat.”

  Mel took a step backward. “I’m not sure I want any details on this.”

  String straightened up and pressed the wheat to the lowest slit in the happy-face pattern on his inner belly. He made a whistling noise, and his muscles relaxed.

  “This like an Elaki antacid?” Mel asked.

  “More direct. Please, Detective David, another biscuit.”

  “Where’s this place Theresa Jenks was staying?”

  String took the biscuit out of David’s hand and plastered it over the one on the slit. “Two places down on the side with streetlights is rental room. Possessions still intact.”

  The room was clean and small, and not what Theresa Jenks was used to. According to the landlady, Ms. Jenks had walked by, seen the sign, and stopped in on impulse.

  Not a bad impulse, David decided. The bed was narrow, tarnished brass, covered by a beige lace spread. There was a padded Victorian rocker, a mahogany dressing table, an electronic center. No one was likely to track her here, not her husband, or the Mind Institute. She had paid in cash, and the landlady had been leery of taking it.

  David opened the closet. The clothes were still there—simple, expensive; cotton whites, khakis, a camera. David checked. No film. The pictures were the instant kind, they’d be around somewhere.

  “Look at this.” Mel held up a child’s Eight Ball and tucked it under his chin. “Will we find Theresa Jenks’s killer?” Mel turned the Eight Ball over, squinting at the answer.

  “What’s it say?” David asked.

  “Without a doubt. Will Miriam forgive me? Message unclear, try again later.”

  David opened the dresser drawer. Bras. Lipstick. Paperbacks, zigzag lightning on the covers—books from the Mind Institute. He opened another drawer. Interactive CDs. Socks. The third drawer held the treasure.

  “Mel, look at this.”

  Mel put the Eight Ball down. “Pictures? Isn’t that—”

  “Yeah. The Hart’s house before it burned. This must be the little boy that died in the fire. Markus.”

  David frowned, thinking the boy looked familiar. He flipped through the stack, found the boy posed in front of the supper club, one foot propped up on a brand-new scooter. He wore expensive new shoes and a pricey ball cap. Every picture showed him standing near the project house or the supper club. All except one.

  This one was older, and it showed another child, a boy who wore jeans with the knee torn out, a boy who stood next to a large, expensive house, a miniature football tucked under his arm.

  David felt Mel’s breath on his collar. “It’s the same kid?”

  David held the picture up, comparing it to one of the others. “No. This is Martin. Theresa’s first son.”

  “The one who drowned? Yeah, right. One with the football’s got a dimple in his chin. He’s built sturdi
er too.”

  “Amazingly alike, though, aren’t they?”

  Mel nodded.

  David studied the older picture, thinking that this chubby-cheeked child would be the apple of any parent’s eye. The child looked to be four or five—the picture had likely been taken just before he died. David flipped the photograph over, found an inscription written in neat, upright block letters.

  MARTIN ON FOURTH BIRTHDAY, CHECKING OUT THE NEW FOOTBALL.

  A FUTURE LINEBACKER!!

  David flipped the new stack of pictures. Found one inscription.

  MARTIN?

  Same handwriting.

  “Here’s our scam,” David said.

  Mel’s voice was flat. “They convince her that her little boy’s been reincarnated, right? They getting money out of her?”

  David picked up the Eight Ball. “She’d been withdrawing large sums of money a while before she died. Probably buying things for the boy, and giving money to the Institute. Look how they can work it, Mel. Find a child that looks like Martin—same age as he was when he died, so she gets that sense of recognition, that emotional jolt. Then they say, hey, the kid’s in a bad situation here, needs help.”

  Mel was nodding. “Pay off the boy’s family, pocket the rest.”

  David tucked the Eight Ball under his chin, thinking of Teddy. Will I see her again? he wondered. He turned it over, looking for comfort.

  UNDOUBTEDLY SO

  “It’s a beautiful little scam, David; they can hit her up indefinitely. But here’s what I don’t get. Didn’t Jenks say she was dreaming about the kid? How do they do that?”

  “Maybe they don’t. But remember, it’s Elaki we’re dealing with. Maybe when they do the psychic ‘scale’ reading they hypnotize her, make her open to suggestion, give her some kind of drug.”

  Mel frowned. “You hear something?”

  David listened. Footsteps, women’s voices, deep male resonance.

  “String?” Mel said.

  “Not unless he brought friends.”

  The footsteps got close, and the hallway darkened.

  Teddy Blake walked into the bedroom, and David dropped the Eight Ball on his foot. The black plastic casing cracked open, spilling thick syrupy liquid on the slated wood floor.

  Teddy nodded at David, gave him a cold professional smile. “Good to see you, Detective Silver. I hope your foot’s okay.” She waved a hand at Mel, then turned to the two men who hung back in the hallway. “Looks like they’re here ahead of us. I told you they were good.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The pancake house was not crowded this late in the afternoon. They’d snagged a large round table, tucked privately into a corner. Everyone had coffee, and there was food on the way.

  It had taken all of Mel’s wiles to coax String inside, then he had propped the Elaki against the wall, giving him a podium to lean on. It was a family-run restaurant—a sick Elaki brought out the paternal instinct in the owner’s husband, and he’d been happy to help String out.

  Teddy sat across from David, wedged between two agents of the FBI. One, John Brevitt, was a traditional—six two, short sandy hair, green eyes, and chiseled jaw. The other was the surprising Agent Peterson—tall, overweight, thick black hair, small brown eyes, and a diamond pinky ring in the shape of a horseshoe. His voice hit the lower registers, and when he smiled at David, one of his teeth glittered with small diamond chips.

  Not a style David associated with the Feds.

  Peterson told them to use his first name, which was Grey. He wrapped a huge hand around a mug of coffee, tasted it, added sugar. He winked.

  “Teddy’s been wanting to bring you in on this awhile now.”

  Brevitt nodded and scratched his smooth-shaven chin.

  David did not look at Teddy. He knew she was not looking at him.

  Peterson shrugged. “We couldn’t get the go-ahead from—”

  “Aw, cut the crap, Grey. You were the one didn’t want to bring them in on it.”

  Peterson smiled good-naturedly. “Don’t you just love our Teddy? She doesn’t put up with much, does she?”

  David did not like the man’s possessive air. He allowed himself to meet Teddy’s eyes and kept his voice matter-of-fact. “You’re an FBI agent?”

  “I’m what I told you I was. A psychic.”

  There was something there, in the way she said it. Or maybe he was reading too much into everything.

  “David?” Mel pointed over his shoulder. The waiter was barely hanging on to a platter of hot blueberry pancakes and a bowl of hash brown potatoes. David moved his elbow and coffee cup, and the waiter smiled with relief. A waitress set a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice on the table, made sure they all had a glass.

  “Teddy and I go way back.” Peterson poured maple syrup over four pancakes.

  “You worked together in Virginia,” David said.

  “Been checking her out, have you?”

  “That’s my job.”

  Teddy nodded, but did not look friendly. “And only fair. They were checking you out too.”

  David took a sip of orange juice, but it did not sit well. He noticed Teddy wasn’t eating either.

  “What’s the connection?” he said. “Between the Mind Institute and the supper club fires? How did Theresa Jenks get in the middle?”

  Peterson and Brevitt exchanged looks. Brevitt smiled, and David was instantly wary. Any cop would be, when a Fed smiled that smile.

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  David gave Brevitt a hard look. “I already know the Mind Institute holds the mortgages on the supper clubs, and I know it’s not an insurance scam. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make sure both properties were uninsured, I assume to keep the insurance companies off their backs.”

  “That’s one part of the plan you can admire,” Mel said.

  Teddy tapped a spoon on her coffee cup. David looked at her, thinking she could not be still. “David, you ever hear of a group called the Kahaners?”

  Peterson frowned and hunched forward in Teddy’s direction, but she seemed unconcerned.

  “I told you, Grey, it’s all or nothing with these guys. No mind games here, and no secrets.”

  String hissed. “Kahaners. Isss Elaki hate group.”

  “They hate Elaki?” Mel asked. “Like the SCAE?”

  “No, isss Elaki group that hate the human.”

  “It’s the racial mixing that tears them up,” Peterson said. “We’ve had targets burned out all over the country. Supper clubs. Restaurants with open seating. Churches with mixed congregations—not too many born-again Elaki, but there are a few, mostly in the South.”

  David thought of Pierre’s. Worried about it.

  Mel scratched his ear. “If they’re out there, and they got that much presence, how come they aren’t taking credit, like all the other terrorist groups? How come Tatewood’s getting that mail from the SCAEs?”

  “Isss not Elaki way,” String said. He was upright now. Interested.

  “Feeling better?” Mel asked.

  “Be wary of these Kahaners, Detective Mel, isss dangerous grouping. Many Kahaners in Izicho, try to keep the track. Is suspicioned one or two have become to infiltrate. I myself have been warned to take much care.”

  “You’ve been threatened?” David asked.

  “No, iss the warning, by friendlies. Am known to consort with the human overmuch, so could be target. Not likely, just the maybe.”

  Peterson poured salt in his palm, licked it. “Their focus seems to be twofold. The fires are set with maximum carnage in mind. That way you get punishment, and what they call ‘cleansing.’ They buy the property afterward, if they don’t already hold the mortgage. Then they leave it sit, burned-out, and it becomes a message, a sort of haunted, holy place.”

  “And they hire a torch to do the dirty work. Set the property owners up, throw the blame that way, that right?” Mel said.

  Brevitt nodded.

  “Which means Tatewood,” David said.
>
  Peterson leaned back in his chair. “We’ve been after Mr. Tatewood for longer than I want to count. Same MO every single damn time. Dresses up like a clown, delivers balloons full of sulfuric acid and fire fudge. Calls in a bomb threat to tie up the grids, so the fire fighters can’t get there, and the place burns to the ground.”

  David looked at him. “You could have stepped in a whole lot sooner, Mr. Peterson. Maybe kept the second place from going up.”

  “Yeah, I got the same line from Ted here, Silver, but you know how it works, even if she doesn’t.”

  “Why bring us in now?”

  “Hell, you’re one step ahead anyhow, and Tatewood is a great big prize.”

  “And ATF is breathing down his neck,” Teddy said. “They been after Tatewood for years. Grey’s just decided he’s got a better chance of bringing Tatewood down, with you and Burnett at his back.”

  It made sense, David thought—the acid burn of interdepartmental rivalry, with the local guys caught in the middle, taking the risks but left out of the glory. At least he knew where he stood.

  “I don’t care what you want with Tatewood, so long as we get him and get him good. He’s my killer, isn’t he, Peterson? He strangled Theresa Jenks?”

  “He’s your man, Silver. Don’t know why he killed her, but she was obviously some kind of threat. And it’s the mistake we’ve been waiting for. I’m hoping it’s the one that’ll bring him down.”

  “We have his DNA from the crime scene. Got it off the tooth of a dog that bit him.”

  Peterson grinned and shook his head. “No match in your records, right? That’s an old one, he’s pulled it before. Up in Oakland, and other places. Likes to plant DNA that belongs to some hapless John Q. Tatewood’s smart, Silver. He’s nasty, and he enjoys his work. Playing mind games with the cops is just part of the fun.”

  String tilted back on his fringe. “Is very Elaki, these Kahaners. The circle within the circle. Study human at Mind Institute. Read his secrets and take him money, for use to kill the mixers.”

  Teddy looked at Peterson. “We already made up our minds on this, Grey. Quit dragging it out.”

  Peterson put a slab of butter in the center of a stack of pancakes, then dribbled syrup down the sides. “Let John tell it, I’m eating.”