Alien Heat (28 page)

“Beat it, kid,” David said.

“What?”

“Go on. We have people to look for up here. Other cops. We're not coming down without them.”

String lifted a fin. “Detective David, you are alive?”

“Not for long,” the kid said.

Wart moved close. “Yo Free is here?”

David swallowed. “Not that way. Over there.”

Wart aimed the light. It did not look good. A fallen support beam, rubble, what might be a foot.

“It is quiet, this,” Wart said.

The Elaki moved ahead, going up and over rubble like top-heavy snakes. David went behind them on all fours, listening. He heard creaks, muted voices outside, the soft slide of Elaki scales and his own awkward scrabbles.

No faint voice, calling for help.

They found Brevitt first. He was on his back, hand thrown across his face, and David thought at first he must be alive. He was uncovered, and even as David pulled the arm away from the face, he knew there had to have been a reason the rescue workers passed him by.

Brevitt's eyes were open, and a dried streak of blood and spittle stained his chin and the corner of his mouth. David remembered him in the pancake house, methodically explaining the hunt for Tatewood. Clean-cut, probably had been a good boy all of his life. David lifted the left hand, saw the wedding ring, wondered if there were kids and sufficient life insurance.

Teddy was okay. He held the thought, right at the edge of awareness, and selfish or not, it comforted him.

David looked sideways at the rubble. No movement, no noise, no sign of Yolanda. He saw her again as he ran with Teddy, leaving them all behind.

And then String froze, bottom fringe quivering. “This I believe. Here.”

Wart slid sideways, and David reached out to steady him, their shadows crossing String's light. David heard a crack, felt the shift of rubble.

“
Slow
,” he told the Elaki.

Wart twitched, and they moved carefully toward String.

It was David who pulled the boards and plaster away, making quick work of what would have taken the Elaki long precious minutes. He found her hand, streaked with blood and dirt, felt the flutter of pulse in her wrist.

“Is dead?” Wart's eye prongs were rigid, his voice a strained whisper.

“Alive,” David said, though the pulse was lazy and faint. He moved a board away, saw her face safe and sound and beautiful in a dark pocket of space. Her eyes were closed, and her head rolled from side to side. Tears leaked down the soft cheeks, and she cried silently, unaware, trapped in some dark agony of her own.

Wart touched her forehead, fin shedding scales. “Yo Free?”

Something roused her—his voice, his touch, the three of them crouched close, afraid to breathe. David pulled another board away, and she winced and cried out.

“Calib,” she said.

David saw blood in her mouth. He bent close, and she opened her eyes. Her voice was strained, but cranky.

“Don't know fuck-all about fire scenes, do you, Silver?”

He laughed softly. “No, ma'am.”

“He's not safe. Help me. Help me find him. Not safe.” She tried to sit up, and David took her shoulders, felt thick wet blood on the back of her beautiful, blue-sequined dress.

“Light,” he muttered.

String arced the light. Wart stayed still, his own light useless by his fringe. David saw the thick and wicked splinters of wood driven deeply into Yolanda's back, and shuddered. He saw a black well of blood beneath her, and death in her eyes.

He held her in his arms, unwilling to let her fall back. Could he not have taken just one moment to warn her? Could he not have caught her sweet warm hand as he ran by and saved them all?

He looked at Wart, shook his head. The Elaki jerked, and String looked from David to Wart, left eye prong drooping.

Clements looked up, face contorted. “Silver, damn it, help me find … help me find—”

“We have him,” David said. “He's in the car with String, playing with the radio.”

Clements smiled.

“He's safe,” David said.

“Safe,” she echoed. “Got to take him to the concert. I can't find those tickets.”

“I have tickets, Yo Free.”

“Wart,” she said. Just his name. And smiled.

The animation left her eyes, and David knew that she was dead. He put a gentle hand into the front of her dress, checked her heart, found it still. She had lost enormous amounts of blood, and her skin was cool to the touch.

“Is gone?” String said.

David nodded.

Wart pulled away, emitting the high-pitched whistle of an Elaki in distress.

FIFTY-THREE

David muted the sound on the television, watched as Peterson mouthed the usual press conference platitudes and the Federal Bureau of Investigation took full credit for the arrest of one Eugene Tatewood, a serial arsonist responsible for a series of supper club fires and arson deaths across the country, including Saigo City.

A quick clip showed Tatewood in handcuffs and chains—all for show—hair slicked back, doing that stiff-legged ex-con walk with Agent Peterson at his side. Tatewood looked at the camera, ducked his head, smiled the secret smile. David clenched his fists. A picture of Agent John Brevitt flashed across the screen, and the view cut to a funeral procession down the streets of Washington, DC.

No mention, no picture, of Arson Detective Yolanda Free Clements.

David heard a flute. String glided into the bull pen, followed by Calib and Wart.

“Must watch this pouchling most of the careful,” Wart said.

String waved a fin. “Have the experience of human pouchlings.”

“You will be the meet arrangements with this female emergency medical? You are certain she has not already the chemaki?”

String skittered sideways. “Sure, this is the yes.”

Calib wore jeans that were too long, bunching over the tops of his shoes, dragging at the heels. He looked at every desk, frowning.

Looking for his mother, David thought. It would take time for this child to understand.

He raised a finger at Wart. “How long are you looking after the boy?”

“But always. Is the legal pouchling. Yo Free and I the agreement makes times and times ago.”

String cocked an eye prong. “Pouchling needs the chemaki, so I am to arrange.”

David looked from one Elaki to the other, wondering what he should say. Congratulations?

“Is the time, you are the ready?” Wart asked.

David nodded.

“Be wary of Wart's command of the van,” String muttered.

“We'll take my car,” David said.

String found a pair of handcuffs, handed them to the boy. David looked away.

David walked through the Psychic Fair with Warden at his side. No one gave them a second look.

“I appreciate this a lot.”

“Isss my small pleasure.” Even for an Elaki, the voice was toneless. Warden was faraway.

The dead were buried, and David knew he had been lucky. Rose and Mel were long gone by the time the bomb exploded. He and String and Wart had gotten out minutes before what was left of the second floor had come crashing down.

Peterson had literally sat on Tatewood until he'd gotten help. Tatewood had only been able to plant one of the three bombs in his possession, and if the FBI could keep their hands on him, he'd go down forever. He might not fall for the murder of Theresa Jenks, but he'd fall hard enough so that it wouldn't matter.

David paused in front of the familiar glass door while Warden studied the building with an educated eye.

“It will be okay, this.”

David nodded and led the Elaki up the stairs. They went slowly. Narrow staircases were not Elaki-friendly.

David knocked at the scratched wood door. It was early; it took a while to get a response.

The door opened slowly, at last, and a man started at them, eyes blurred with sleep, hair mussed, movements slow and zombie-like. Candy Andy had aged since David saw him last, and he looked vulnerable in soiled white boxer shorts.

“What is this, any—” He gave David a second look, leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his bare bony legs. “Haven't seen you in a while, Officer. It's a little early to call. Make an appointment and come back.”

“We have the warrant of investigation,” Warden said.

Andy froze. “Investigation of what?”

“Building fire code violations. Please to let us in. You may get dressed if you wish. You are in the process of being arrested.”

“This is ridiculous. Come on, Silver, you know I can beat this with the grandfather clause. This is pure harassment.”

David nodded. “Yes. It is.”

“Pleasse to get dressed or come to arrestment in underwear. Which?”

“Silver—”

David's radio went off, and he picked up the headset.

“Silver? Captain Halliday. Meet me on Bonheur Street, on the corner, right by the bridge.”

“Can it wait?”

“No, it can't.”

“I'm sorry, sir, but—”

“You can get here in about fifteen minutes, if you hustle. I know where you are, and I'm timing it.”

David cut the connection. Thought about it.

“Who?” Warden said.

“Halliday. Unbelievably bad timing.”

“I will take the care of thisss for you.
She
should be here. Would find this most to amuse.”

David thought of Clements and Brevitt. Another incidence of bad timing. Death in police work often came down to bad timing.

David looked at Candy Andy, shivering in the hallway in spite of the heat, and wished, just a little, that he was the kind of cop who hit.

Instead he put a heavy hand on the man's shoulder. “Be nice to my Elaki,” he said.

FIFTY-FOUR

David looked down into the water beneath the bridge, the brown muddy rivulets that had kept the secret all these years. He heard footsteps, felt Halliday's hand on his shoulder, was vaguely aware of a woman in a wet suit, wiping her hair with a towel.

“David?”

He was mesmerized by the water, the flow, the hidden depths. He turned reluctantly, looked at the captain, saw pity in the man's lean, hungry face.

“Sorry to get tough with you earlier. I didn't want to explain on the radio, and I thought you'd want to be here when they brought up the car.”

David nodded.

“I couldn't call till we were sure. Diver brought up the car's records. You want to know what happened now, or later on?”

“Tell me.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Just … tell me.”

“Sorry. Evidently your father was at a hamburger place, no more than a block away, on Clairmont.”

“It was a doughnut place then.”

The captain nodded. “Anyway. He came out to the parking lot. It gets a little garbled here, but evidently he saw a wreck. Sounds like nothing more than a fender bender, for Chrissake. Car says a Cadillac was at the stoplight and got rear-ended by a white van—knocked it all the way across the intersection.

“Man in the Cadillac got out. Guy in the van got out. Guy in the van was carrying what the car thinks was some kind of high-powered automatic pistol. Van guy aims the pistol at the Cadillac man across the road. Your father was there, in the parking lot—”

David did not need to hear the rest, though naturally he listened. He knew his father was not the kind of man to sit quietly by.

David could see it, see how it would go. His father would try to talk the man out of the gun. A maniac with a gun, angry over nothing, looking from his father to the man in the Cadillac, trying to decide who to shoot.

David heard the groan of gears, saw the arm of the crane. The captain was looking at him. “David? You going to be okay?”

“Why now? How'd you know the car was down there?”

The captain pointed. “Her.”

David looked to the other side of the bridge. Teddy came toward him, braid loose and messy. She wore the blue jeans with the knee worn through, one shoe was untied, and her shirt was too big, cuffs down to her knuckles.

He was so glad to see her he almost cried.

She took his arm and led him away from the others. Getting right to the point, as always.

“After that night, where you saved my butt? It came back, David. You know.”

He touched a loose strand of her hair, aware that he should not do such things, not with his coworkers watching.

“And for some reason, I started thinking about your daddy, and one thing led to another. Your captain was really great about the whole thing. He thinks a lot of you.”

He nodded.

“Is this okay, David? You wanted to know?”

“I wanted to know.”

“That's what I figured. Oh God, I was so scared I'd be wrong, and it wouldn't be him.”

“Not you, Teddy. I'm glad for you, you know that, don't you?”

She smiled at him. “I feel like I been put back together.”

He wondered if he would feel that way, given time.

She gave him her sideways look. “So, David. We friends, or aren't we?”

“We're friends.”

“I didn't want to go, the way we left it. I been thinking a lot, about things. I want to go home and take a few days off, fool around in my garden, which has probably gone to hell. Get centered, you know? And then, can I call you, David? To see you again, if you know what I mean?”

The sensible thing to say would be no. He had let her get close, and he had gotten hurt.

“Call me,” he said.

She looked over his shoulder, took his hand, and squeezed it. “All your buddies are watching, so pretend I am giving you the most passionate kiss ever.”

“Now you pretend.”

“What?”

He bent close and whispered in her ear. She blushed, and so did he.

“She's coming up!” came a shout.

David heard the gurgle of water. He closed his eyes.

“David, should I stay or go?”