Alien Heat

by Lynn Hightower

  Brevitt smiled and shredded the corner off a napkin. His manner was low-key; he was the kind of man who stayed calm in a crisis.

  “Gentlemen, let me start at the beginning.”

  The victims all had the usual thing in common—money. Family money, like Theresa Jenks; lottery money; one woman who’d hit it big in Vegas.

  Brevitt leaned across the table. “What is it that makes a man walk away from a good job, a happy marriage and two babies, in search of a lost love he supposedly knew from a prior life?”

  “Mid-life crisis?” Mel said.

  David shook his head. “Not when there’s money involved.”

  Brevitt gave him a smile and a wink, and David felt like a prize pupil. He thought of Theresa Jenks, and the Eight Ball. Of Martin, and of Markus, who had hidden in a closet and died in a fire, thanks to his parents’ greed and Theresa Jenks’s obsession.

  And what of Arthur? What made Theresa Jenks leave a living, needy, and rather delightful boy, to look for the ghost of another child whose death she would not accept? What had made her so desperate and so vulnerable, that she turned to a child’s toy for guidance?

  In his mind’s eye, David saw himself and Mel, asking the Eight Ball questions of the lovelorn.

  David remembered the women he’d talked to on the phone, the clients of the Mind Institute. “This man, the one who left the wife and two babies. His name wouldn’t be Jefferson Ford?”

  Brevitt nodded. “Put a gun in his mouth and blew out the back of his head. Wife found him on the floor of their bedroom closet.”

  Peterson set his fork down, wiped his mouth. “Bullet went right through the wall, lodged in a quilted bunny rabbit, hanging over his daughter’s crib.”

  “That’s one that went wrong,” Brevitt said. “You have to understand, this man actually had a pretty good marriage, and all the evidence showed he was a devoted father. Business stress is what sent him to the Mind Institute, as far as we can tell. He’d been getting mailings; his wife confirms it. We think they did something to him—drugs, hypnotism, something.”

  Mel shook his head. “Hypnotism alone won’t do it, Brevitt. Can’t make somebody go against the grain.”

  “Granted, Burnett, we’re hazy on the mechanism, but rest assured there is one.”

  “Elaki very good with the tailor drugs,” String said.

  Mel wadded a napkin. “He means tailor-made. And he’s right. You okay over there, String? Need another wheat biscuit?”

  String hung his head, leaning hard on the podium.

  “This guy ought to be home in bed,” Peterson said.

  “Elaki do not have the bed, is human thing. And may as well be miserable getting on with job as soon as molting at home perch.”

  Mel leaned back in his chair. “Hate to say it, guys, but unless you got evidence of drugs here, you don’t have a crime to go after. Nothing that’ll hold up, anyways.”

  String hissed. “Would not need such carefully catfooting about, if could work in Elaki Izicho police methodology.”

  “Yeah, we could send you and Wart to cho-off all the psychics, guilty or not, which might make David happy—”

  Teddy gave David a sharp look.

  “But,” Mel continued. “Is kind of beside the point.”

  Peterson rubbed his jaw. “We want to send Teddy in. Set her up as some big lottery winner or something, dangle her out there as bait.” He gave her a grin, and she rolled her eyes. “I personally think she’d be good at it, but she says it’ll never work.”

  Teddy pushed hair out of her eyes. She was wearing the khaki pants again, the white blouse. Her hair was coming out of the braid, as usual. It struck David that the objectivity he had gained with Rose was lost with Teddy. He was too close to her now and could not see her as others did.

  She sounded tired. “It wouldn’t work, Peterson, we’ve gone over this before.”

  “But, Ted, you’d be just the one to spot them. You’re the expert, aren’t you? You’re the one who can say if they’re real or not. You’re the one who can spot the scams.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Mel said.

  “That’s it exactly, Burnett. And when I spot them, they’ll spot me. Then the whole thing’ll be blown, and they’ll be warned, and you’ll never get that close again.”

  “She’s right,” Mel said. “Send somebody else.”

  “You volunteering, Burnett? You don’t think they’d be a little suspicious of a cop?”

  Mel pursed his lips, looked at David. Frowned. “Not me. But my partner here would be perfect.”

  Teddy folded her arms. “Why? He’s not a cop?”

  “He’s a cop with a history. Cops go to psychics, right? And David here—” Mel stopped. “You want me to shut up, David, I’ll shut up. But you see what I’m saying?”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t.” Peterson sounded polite, but his eyebrows were raised and he was jiggling his knee so hard the table shook.

  Mel waved a hand. “Thing is, David’s already been to psychics. His father … you sure this is okay, David? His father disappeared, see, when David was a boy, and David’s been kind of looking for him ever since.”

  “My father is dead,” David said.

  Mel nodded. “But you did look for him, right, David? You did pay that guy, that Candy Andy, and you got took for some serious money before you got your head straight. So what I’m saying is, you guys set it up to look like David comes into some big money. Something that makes headlines. And David takes some time off, now he can afford it, to settle this business of his father once and for all.”

  Brevitt looked at Peterson. Picked away at his chin. “I like it.”

  “Works for me,” Peterson said.

  Teddy bit a fingernail. “It doesn’t work for me, it’s a terrible idea. For one thing, it’s way too obvious. And you don’t know for sure what they do to people.” She looked at David. “Don’t you see what you could be getting into here? Just because these people are bad news, it doesn’t mean they’re not good psychics.”

  “You can coach me.”

  Mel looked at him. “You sure about this, partner?”

  David thought of little Martin, drowned at four, and Arthur, left behind with a man too cold to admit to fatherhood. Had Theresa Jenks finally come to her senses? Was that why she called Arthur? She had said she was coming home, but it was going to be a day or two. What did she have to do? Was she going to blow the scam?

  Of course he’d do it. Nobody knew better than he did, the kind of pain these people could inflict.

  He nodded at Peterson. “Put the bill on your expense account, and let’s get started.”

  Teddy frowned and folded her arms. “You know what I’m thinking, Grey? I’m thinking it’s a good thing you brought them in on this, or before long, you’d be eating their dust.”

  That was when David knew for sure that he loved her.

  THIRTY-NINE

  David had never seen Rose so nervous. She brushed Mattie’s hair, pulled it up on the sides, and fastened it loosely with a wide yellow bow. She straightened David’s tie, though it didn’t need it, surprising him. She rarely touched him these days.

  “Go get ready, Rose. The girls are perfect.”

  She looked over her shoulder at her daughters. “They are, aren’t they?”

  They had not stinted, he and Rose, with their orgy of spending at the expense of the FBI. David looked through the window at Kendra, sitting alone on the porch swing, wearing her first low heels and stockings. His baby. Lisa, wearing a pretty dress instead of the usual jeans, leaned against the kitchen table, elfin face clean, for once. It went against the grain, involving the children. But when it meant new shoes, new dresses, new hair bows and ruffled slips, and, he suspected, new lace panties … when it meant not looking at price tags, just this once, and indulging their every whim, it was impossible to resist.

  Anyone paying attention would be convinced that the Silvers had come into money.

  He
did not know who had originally been slated to win this year’s Racial Harmony Award given by the Elaki Benevolent Association, but whoever it was had run into bad luck. The EBA, brought around by the promise of a large donation and their own inclination to see a hate killer brought to justice, agreed that if making Detective David Silver a very public cash award would accomplish both of these things, it was an arrangement that made perfect sense. If it also won them friends and future favor with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, so much the better.

  Elaki, David thought, favored obscure and manipulative goings-on anyway.

  The EBA had been intrigued, of course, as to how that much money deposited to the account of a local homicide cop could have any bearing on a maniac who torched supper clubs, but the Mind Institute had not been mentioned. Agent Peterson had somehow made it clear that details would not only not be revealed, but that any kind of leak could easily be traced.

  “I hate having my picture taken,” Rose said.

  “Why do they want a picture of us while we eat?” Mattie asked.

  “It’s a celebration,” David told her.

  “Of the award?”

  Lisa touched her brand-new sparkley tights, and David was uncomfortably reminded of Markus with his new scooter. “Mama says you might even be on TV.”

  “Maybe. Nothing major.”

  “The Comedy Channel?”

  “Funny girl. No, the Elaki Channel.”

  “Good. None of my friends watch that one, it’s boring. So what is this EBA anyway?”

  David stuck his hands in his pockets. “An Elaki charitable group. Promoting racial harmony.”

  “So basically, they pay people who hang out with Elaki and get along?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And they give you money, just like that? How come String doesn’t get any? Or Uncle Mel?”

  “That’s just the way it works. Every year, fifty people get the award. One from every state.” David hoped the Kahaners would not be as hard to convince as his children.

  Mattie touched her hair bow carefully. “Where are we eating again, Daddy?”

  “We’re eating at Pierre’s.”

  “That costs lots of money.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “’Cause we got lots of money, right?”

  “For now we do.”

  “Forever, or for now?”

  He looked into his daughter’s face, wondering how to be straight, but not compromise the investigation. He picked her up, the frills of her dress bunching at the waist.

  “Nothing is forever, Mattie-girl.”

  The phone rang. He put Mattie down, warned her not to play with the dog. Could it possibly be Teddy calling? She had told him in a whisper that they needed to talk, but the opportunity had never come.

  “David? Mel. Just touching base. Miriam and I will meet you at Pierre’s. If we get there first, we’ll be at the table.”

  “Made up, huh?”

  “Ain’t it wonderful?”

  “I’m happy for you, Mel.”

  “David, it’s just a dinner date, okay? My nieces all fluffed up and ready to go? Rose ready?”

  “She’s still getting dressed.”

  “I’m right here.” The voice came from the hallway. David looked over his shoulder. Rose.

  “See you, Mel.” He hung up, pulled the cuffs down on his shirt. Told Rose she was beautiful and wished that he cared, thinking life would be simpler that way. “Shall we go?”

  “David.” She touched his arm and spoke softly. “I know things are as bad between us as they ever have been. For the first time since I’ve known you, I really think we might not make things work, no matter how hard we try.”

  Where was she going? he wondered. And why now?

  “But all that aside, I feel like something’s happened. To you. Something that doesn’t involve us.”

  “Nothing’s happened, everything’s fine.” He knew he sounded wooden, but didn’t know how not to.

  “Don’t tell me that, when I know better. I can’t tell if it’s this case you’re working on, or if there’s something else. And I’m not worried about me or us or the future. Just you, David, because you’re so very … crushed. I want to help you, but you’re so faraway, I don’t think I can.”

  The tears came, streaking Rose’s makeup, making the mascara run. He put his arms around her and told her not to worry, but he was the one who pulled away first.

  FORTY

  The restaurant looked the same—worn, red-checked curtains, bar painted in gold letters on the front window, RESTAURANT PIERRE on the front door. Same scarred mahogany bar, cracked plaster ceiling. There were no bloodstains on the floor where David had fallen, and the broken table had been replaced. The shocked patrons were long gone, and there was nothing left to disturb the diners who ate calmly, happily.

  Tonight David was well-dressed and clean, accompanied by his wife and daughters. Then he had been unshaven, in dirty blue jeans and a grimy shirt. Something had happened to him that night in Pierre’s, when he’d brought down an Elaki he had considered a hero, and found the venal underbelly of fanaticism gone bad. Maybe it was the aggregate of years of mind-numbing work, but in his mind, that night was the point of no return. He had lost more than blood in this restaurant.

  Mattie reached for his hand, and he looked down into the small upturned face, smiled, and led her to the back of the restaurant.

  Pierre was waiting, dressed in black as always, distracted by secret thoughts and a melancholy that separated him from the world. David met Pierre’s eyes, saw the spark of interest, wondered if the two of them were more alike than he knew, wondered if they had both crossed that boundary that set them apart—not sure he liked the concept.

  The back section of the restaurant was six steps up from the rest of the dining room. Pierre had closed the area off with battered, floor-to-ceiling mahogany shutters. David found the dark wood oddly comforting.

  He studied the menu, listening to Rose’s voice rise and fall softly as she quizzed the children on their orders. Most of the Elaki and his youngest daughter, Mattie, opted for the pannequets aux laitances—an aromatic dish of mushrooms, chopped fish sperm, and unsweetened crepes, bound by a fish-based béchamel sauce, and sprinkled with grated Parmesan.

  David felt adventurous trying canapés à la moelle, figuring that if he could eat Jell-O, he could eat beef marrow marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, and parsley. The canapés came coated in tempura and deep fried, and he shared them with the girls, who had ordered fruit cups.

  He drew the line at anticuchos (barbecued hearts) and Hjerneboller (brain dumplings) as a main course, and settled for a sedate and delicious chicken marsala that he combined, to Pierre’s displeasure, with a heavy cabernet.

  He watched Mattie eat her crepes, saw that she picked out the mushrooms but devoured the rest. The child had a palate, and he saw Pierre watching and felt a swell of pride.

  Atta girl.

  It was wrong of him to want Teddy there, but he did, and he wondered what she would have ordered from this, the most interesting of menus. He watched Lisa cock her head and imitate String, saw Kendra eating so self-consciously, so painstaking in her efforts to pass for an adult, that he wanted to hug her and tell her she was fine just like she was.

  The children were enjoying themselves—the expensive restaurant, the new clothes, the Elaki all around.

  Dessert was Elaki coffee and a simple chocolate cake. Pierre served it himself, on white china plates bordered by delicate blue flowers, and he watched David’s girls as he passed the cake around. David caught Pierre’s nod of satisfaction at his daughters’ delight over the moist and beautiful chocolate, and he guessed that the cake had been made with the children in mind.

  Teddy would have loved it.

  An Elaki, short and squat by alien standards, but much taller than David, glided to the front of the room, shedding scales as he went. He waited till he had their attention, or as much of their atten
tion as he could get, with chocolate cake on the small round tables, and he began a small speech.

  “Each year, in States every one, we of the Elaki Benevolent Association select a human who has done the advancement of human and Elaki relationships the smooth.”

  Lisa grinned at David and he winked.

  “For this year in Saigo City, we have found the human who has worked side by side with the Elaki, before the fashion is to follow.”

  David noticed that Mattie was swinging her legs. Vigorously.

  “… so we are to be the pleasure of awarding this year’s Racial Harmony Award to the Detective David Silver, of the Saigo City Police Department.”

  David stood up. Nodded at the applause. Saw the camera following his every move as he went to the front of the room. Someone took his picture and he made a little speech, talking off-the-cuff. Afterward, he had no memory of what he’d said, just that it seemed well received, that people laughed once or twice, that his little girls were smiling and looking interested, that Mel gave him the thumbs-up sign. Teddy, of course, was not there. He did not look at Rose.

  Afterward, a newspaper photographer wanted a family picture, and David sat with Rose by his side, Mattie in his lap, Lisa and Kendra on his right. Last family portrait? he wondered.

  The reporter asked if he was going to take a vacation. He said he had something of a personal nature to work out, with the help of the money and a little time off.

  “My father has been missing since I was a child,” he said. “I’m going to find him.”

  “Find Granddaddy?” Mattie asked.

  David looked at his daughter, felt a pang. But that night on the Elaki Channel, he was featured with the caption RACIAL HARMONIST. The film clip was followed by a video on “Dealing With the Difficult Human.” And the next morning’s paper had his picture with the caption: HOMICIDE COP USES AWARD MONEY TO FIND MISSING FATHER.

  Everything was going according to plan.

  FORTY-ONE

  A volcano had erupted, miles away and months ago, on an island David did not remember studying in school. For that reason and that reason only, as far as the current art and science of meteorology could divine, the day was deliciously cool, the sun hard and bright.