Alien Blues

by Lynn Hightower

  “A few days ago.”

  “That shirt looks like you washed it in a sink.”

  “I did.”

  Haas sighed deeply. “This conversation is most difficult to follow.”

  “Perhaps if my wife would let me finish a sentence—”

  Rose leaned back and folded her arms. “You know, David, you’re not the only one who’s had a rough week. I almost got my butt fried, Haas and I are getting no backup—as a matter of fact, our people have pulled back entirely! You know how long I’ve been working for these—these idiots?” Rose shoved hair out of her eyes. “What I’ve risked?”

  “We, Rose,” Haas said. “What we’ve risked.”

  “What do you mean, you almost got fried?” David asked.

  “I am the one who is fried,” Haas said.

  “David, you know you’re not supposed to ask me stuff like that. Besides, you haven’t told me about your explosion.”

  David spoke quickly, before she could go off again. “Puzzle’s car was wired, and Mel and I—String too—we got caught when it went off. Mel’s pretty banged up, bad laceration on his leg, some internal stuff they wanted to watch.”

  “And the Elaki?”

  “Smeared across the sidewalk.”

  “String’s dead?”

  “No, Puzzle. String is fine. Too fine.”

  “Another dead Elaki,” Rose said thoughtfully. She looked at Haas.

  “Tell him,” Haas said.

  “Tell me what?”

  “There isn’t any connection with our Elaki and his Elaki,” Rose said.

  “Tell him anyway. He deals with them.”

  David sat back and folded his arms. Rose frowned.

  “Talk, Rose.” Haas’s accent was thicker than usual. “And do not hop from point to point. I am very tired.”

  Rose took a gulp of coffee and curled her feet under her in the chair.

  “The labs are Elaki connected, no doubt there. And they’re not just using animals. They’re using people.”

  David leaned forward. “People? What do you mean using?”

  Rose threw up her hands. “What do you think?”

  “In the labs,” Haas said. “Experiment subjects.”

  David chewed his lip.

  “You take it coolly enough,” Rose said.

  “You got any evidence? Hard evidence?”

  “I am sharing information with you, David, against my better judgment, and I—”

  “We screw it up,” Haas said. “Got caught before we were finished. But is Elaki operation. There were high desks, no chairs. Elaki accommodation, if you will.”

  “Did you see any people there?”

  “No. But we know they were there. Were signs unmistakable. We went through research results—saw them. Some kind of drug experimentation. We have tracked telespondence and linked to name Horizon.”

  “Project Horizon?”

  “This means something to you, then?”

  “How could it?” Rose said. “He’s tracking a serial killer. Machete Man has nothing to do with this.”

  “What are you going to do?” David asked.

  “I have a news connection.”

  “The press?”

  “Best way to go. Nobody gets to drag their ass that way. They’ll have to move quick.”

  “Look, Rose. There’s a link here—with my Elaki. It looks like a drug connection. Dyer was in it somehow, and Dyer was vice.”

  “What are you saying, David?”

  “I’m saying I don’t want the whole world in on this till I figure what’s up.”

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. You accuse me time and again of worrying about animals more than people. It wasn’t very nice, David, up at that lab. You want details, you want—”

  “Blow it open now, and they’ll just go underground, move the location, deny it all. You know how these things work, Rose.”

  “Oh, I know, David, I know. I did it for the DEA, year after bloody year, circling around and building a case and going after the people in charge. Meanwhile the victims get screwed right and left—that’s why I left the business, David. I don’t care about cases, prosecution, snagging the big perp. I go straight for results.”

  “She is upset,” Haas said.

  David bit back the reply that came to his mind.

  “I told you we run into trouble. From the looks of things, maybe old enemy involved here. Not sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Rose said.

  “Is Santana, we think.” Haas looked worried.

  David was quiet a long while. He noticed a hole in the flooring. He would have to get a kit and grow it back together.

  “Perspective, Rose,” he said finally. “Give me some time. I’m asking you to trust me.”

  “No.”

  “Just no?”

  “Okay, how about fuck no.”

  David slammed his coffee cup on the table. “You must have been fun to work with, in your DEA days.”

  Haas put his head in his hands. “Am going home.” He stood up slowly and touched Rose’s shoulder.

  “Best to wait, you know this. Give him time.” He headed for the back door, nodded at David, and went.

  Rose didn’t meet his eyes.

  “There are people at stake this time, David. Don’t drag your ass.”

  David leaned back in his chair. He should be grateful, he supposed, that Rose listened to somebody.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The dog was barking. David rolled over and groaned. Dead Meat snarled—frantic, fearful. David opened his eyes. A light flashed across the bedroom window, then was gone.

  “Rose?” he whispered.

  He put out a hand in the darkness. No one was there.

  The dog barked and whimpered. From the sound of it she was in the hall, outside the girls’ room. David heard footsteps. No time to load the gun. He reached for the baseball bat under the bed.

  The dog snarled and yelped, and David heard the high-pitched screams of his little girls. He ran, saw the flash of blade just as he reached the doorway, and dropped and hit the floor. He felt a swoosh of air and the blade sliced the space over his head.

  The man was medium height, chubby—the details hard to make out in the gloom of the dark hallway. But David recognized him—he had seen his actions simulated time and time again, on the screen of his computer. Machete Man.

  Why here? It made no sense. But he knew the man’s next move.

  The machete arced, and David rolled. His chest was bare and vulnerable, and sweat gathered under his arms. The blade chunked into the floor. Something soft hit his head, and a rain of stuffed animals came like scattershot from the girls’ room. David looked up to the nightmare comedy of his daughters, clad in short nighties and T-shirts, throwing stuffed animals at Machete Man.

  The dog snapped at Machete Man’s ankles. A vicious kick sent her up against the wall. She yelped and snarled weakly. David grabbed the baseball bat and hit Machete Man below the knees. He went down, sliding on a pile of Legos that had spilled from a bin. But he was up again, quickly, and David realized he should have hit him on the shins. The man lifted the machete and swung.

  The bedroom window shattered and Rose burst through the glass. Like magic, red streaks of blood blossomed across her arms, but she kept coming, and Machete Man whirled toward her, arcing the blade.

  She twisted sideways and kicked, shattering Machete Man’s elbow. He howled and the machete dropped and clanged on the floor. Rose reached for him, but her foot slipped on an open book, and she landed hard on one knee.

  Machete Man ran. Rose was on her feet in an instant, but she was limping.

  “God damn it.”

  David grabbed the baseball bat and went after them.

  He heard the front door slam into the wall, and the pounding of footsteps. The security lights were up now, and the front lawn was bathed in brightness. Machete Man was moving, holding his shattered elbow with his good hand, breaking stride only once to look back over his s
houlder.

  Barefooted, unarmed, wearing a cotton T-shirt and a pair of grey sweats, Rose was oddly formidable. She wasn’t limping now. Her legs, lean and sure, cycled with the kind of fierce grace and energy David had only seen in ball players running bases.

  And she was gaining.

  David ran hard. The grass was cool, and rocks pierced the calluses on the soles of his feet. A giant moth swooped in front of him, fluttering thin black wings. He waved it away. He tasted sweat on his upper lip. A cramp grabbed his side, but it was a small one and he kept going. They had to get the bastard before he slipped out of the light, into the darkness and the woods.

  David saw Rose lunge, and he ran faster. She would need help holding him, but by heaven the monster was caught. Machete Man was a pawn. If they cracked him—and he knew he could do it—they would get their connections.

  Rose slammed into Machete Man and brought him down. He landed hard on the broken elbow and his cry echoed with a peculiar animal intensity. Rose’s movements were fast, practiced, graceful. She rolled Machete Man to his back, lifted his shoulders, took his left ear in her right hand, and jerked his head, hard, to the right. David heard the neck snap, saw the wide fearful eyes of the dead man. Rose sat back on her haunches, panting, Machete Man’s head lying at an awkward angle in her lap.

  David stared at her. The cramp in his side tightened and ached. Rose stared back, chest heaving, sweat shining on her face. The girls were crying, and their wails rode the air like the cry of small birds. David turned his back on Rose and went to the house.

  THIRTY

  The kitchen was full of bright light, radio transmissions, and people David didn’t know. The floor was dirty, and getting dirtier. He saw lab people walk by, toting plastic bags full of Legos, stuffed animals, torn books. The air was acrid with the smell of the nano machines that had been unleashed in the girls’ room. They had grown and picked up every molecule of evidence, and then been dispersed. No expense was being spared on this one.

  The smell of the nanos mingled with the scent of rewarmed coffee and the lingering dinnertime aroma of garlic and tomatoes.

  They would be forever, getting things cleaned up.

  In spite of the racket, the girls were asleep, snug in his arms. His butt was numb; he was sitting at an angle. He shifted position carefully. Someone had thrown a big wool blanket over the lot of them, which mostly hid the fact that he was still in pajama bottoms.

  David studied the round, smooth faces of his daughters. Their eyes were tightly shut, lashes long and dark and beautiful. Anything could happen to a child, and often did. He could understand Rose’s cold fury, and envy her the satisfaction of breaking the killer’s neck. But it was an indulgence they could not afford. There was more to this than Machete Man—much, much more.

  What did the attack mean? Was it connected to the work Rose was doing, or had he just come after the cop on his heels? And, more importantly, would there be another?

  He had lost the direct route to the answers when Rose had snapped the man’s neck. He would lay awake at night, now, listening. When he tried to concentrate on the work, he would be jolted by visions of his daughters at the hands of killers wielding sharp blades with honed gleaming edges.

  He avoided Rose’s eyes, watching, instead, the paramedic swab the blood off her arms.

  “That hurts.”

  “Don’t wake the girls,” David said coldly.

  The medic gave him a quick, puzzled look. “Going to need to glue this one.”

  “Please don’t use that stuff on me,” Rose said. “It itches. Ouch.”

  “Sorry. Listen, it wasn’t that long ago, they used to sew stitches in people.”

  “Tell me another one.”

  Mel walked into the kitchen, followed by Captain Halliday. Halliday studied Rose glumly. She looked small, perched on the edge of the chair, the men towering over her. Her eyes were wide and innocent.

  “I’ll be putting it down as self-defense,” he said. He glanced at David, and David kept his expression bland.

  Rose nodded. “Any questions now?”

  She looked too young, David thought. Did killing leave no mark on her?

  None visible.

  Then he realized there was something different about her. It was an air of distraction, an intense preoccupation. The smiles were slow and forced, the eyes bland, emotionless.

  So it was there, if you knew to look for it. And it bothered him, knowing he had seen that look about her before.

  David shifted in his seat. Halliday was suspicious, but he was keeping it to himself. Machete Man’s execution had been swift and professional. Halliday wasn’t stupid.

  “No questions right now.” Halliday put a friendly hand on Rose’s shoulder. “You’ve had enough for one night.”

  He was giving them time to get their stories straight, David decided. Unnecessary. They’d done that before the cops got within a mile.

  Mel laughed. “Listen, Captain, anybody messing with Rose is the one going to be sorry.”

  Shut up, David thought.

  “Hell, it’s a wonder I survived growing up with her.”

  The wind chimes hanging outside the kitchen window tinged in the small breeze. The red pulse of an emergency flasher battered the window at regular intervals. The red swatch of light hit Lisa’s face, and David eased her sideways in his lap, so that she would not be disturbed.

  David was tired. Machete Man was dead, the case would be closed, and they hadn’t scratched the surface. God damn Rose. She hadn’t had to kill him. He wished everybody would leave. There was a lot he wanted to say to her.

  A tall, slender man walked into the kitchen and Rose looked up.

  “Haas!”

  “You are all right?” Haas looked at David. “The children?”

  “Bad scare, but not hurt.”

  Haas took a deep breath. He had cleaned the blood off his face, but the bruise was livid. He looked exhausted.

  Halliday came into the room from the hall. He studied the bruise on Haas’s face. “Who the hell is this?”

  “I called him,” Rose said. She turned her back on all of them, leaving Halliday openmouthed, and the medic dripping skin glue on the table.

  “Look here, friend, this is a crime scene,” Halliday began.

  “He’s here to see to the dog,” Rose said. She took Haas’s arm and pulled him out of the room.

  Halliday stared after them. “Silver, maybe you better explain what crime scene means to your wife.”

  “Explain it yourself,” David said. He stood up, staggering under the weight of his daughters. Mel took Kendra from him and followed him down the hall.

  “Don’t get pissed, David,” Mel said. “Roger’s trying to help you, in case you ain’t figured it out. And he don’t know Rose like you and me.”

  “Lucky Roger.”

  Mel’s look was sharp and speculative.

  “Put them in our bed,” David said.

  Haas and Rose were in the hallway, bending over the dog. Dead Meat whimpered and licked Haas’s hand.

  David nodded curtly, edging around them. His home looked so much the same, so intimately familiar, that the out-of-place things struck him all the harder—glass scattered over the girls’ bedroom, coworkers going through the familiar routines in familiar surroundings, a surreal combination of work and home. No escaping this one.

  Machete Man had crept down the hallway, stalking his daughters. David’s shoulders jerked.

  He laid Mattie and Lisa on the bed. Then he peered around the corner of the bedroom and watched. Haas was gentle and expert, but the dog whined weakly.

  The blankets and sheets rustled as Mel tucked Kendra in beside her sisters.

  “Listen, David, you better—”

  “Shhh.”

  Mel crept quietly behind him and looked over his shoulder.

  “… please, Haas.” Rose was pulling on his jacket.

  “We talk later. The dog I take home. I need to make the tests, but I thin
k she will heal. And please, we call her Hildegarde. This ‘Dead Meat’ is not name for brave little dog.”

  “Thanks, Haas.”

  “Of course. Rosy, if you are right … if this is Santana—”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not making sense of all this.”

  “And you’re not going to,” David muttered. “Now you killed my boy.”

  “What are you mumbling?” Mel asked.

  “Shhh.”

  “You will need help,” Haas was saying.

  “Not on this one.”

  “My help, Rosy.” Haas touched her cheek. “I …” He looked up and saw David and Mel peering around the corner. He grinned and touched Rose’s shoulder.

  David would have given a lot not to be wearing pajamas.

  Haas smiled at him. “I will take Hildegarde here, and see to her for you. I am good vet for animals.”

  “She answers to Dead Meat.”

  “Hilde is much better name, David, do you not think?” The dog licked his hand. “Yes, she thinks so. Could I have a towel, please, to wrap her in?”

  “Sure. Rose, where …”

  “Rose,” Haas said. “Go finish in the kitchen. You are bleeding on this dog. Surely David can get me what I need.”

  Rose headed for the kitchen, obedient twice on the same night. David went to the linen closet for an old towel. The baseball bat, unfortunately, was being tagged as evidence.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Haas was gone, as were the uniforms, the ambulance, the medic, the ME, Machete Man’s body. Della Martinas was browsing through the refrigerator. The sun was coming up, taking away the dark edge of the night and the nightmare. The kitchen window glowed with pink light. The wind chimes were still now. The house seemed quiet, empty. David wondered where Rose was.

  Della unwrapped a foil package. “Umm,” she said. She closed the refrigerator and picked up a pork chop, biting a hunk of meat off the side. “We got us a connection, Silver. Between Machete Man’s victims.”

  David clenched and unclenched his right fist. “No good. Halliday will close the case.”

  “Don’t think so,” Della said. She took another bite of meat. “Hey, these are good. You grill these?”