Alien Heat (29 page)

“Just come and stand beside me.”

“I guess a friend could do that.”

FIFTY-FIVE

When he walked into the kitchen that night, full of news he did not know how to tell, David found his daughters drinking hot chocolate—a treat, even at the end of July.

He felt their delight in his presence, and he looked at their young faces, thinking that if it came down to a choice between their happiness and his, it was really no choice at all.

“We weren't sure you were coming home tonight.” Rose's tone was light, for the benefit of the girls.

David knew she had wondered if he was coming home at all. She was wearing blue jeans and a black sweatshirt with the sleeves ripped out. Working clothes.

“Got a job?” he asked.

“Tonight.”

“Something big?”

She nodded. “Guy Haas and I have been after a long time. Kills show horses for insurance money. Hires out.”

David thought of Candy Andy, and Tatewood, and a dozen others, and knew there were some things he and Rose still shared.

“Go get him,” David said softly.

Rose stood up and clapped her hands at the girls. “
Baths
. And make them fast, it's way past your bedtimes.” She herded the girls down the hall, then looked at him over her shoulder. “It's easier, you know, when there's two of us.”

David waited till Rose was gone, then got the girls out of bed, gathering them together in the kitchen.

“Who's sleepy?” he asked.

“Not me.” Mattie rubbed her eyes.

“
I
am,” Kendra said, frowning. Lisa stayed silent.

David made a sad face that they knew was fake. “Tooooo bad. I wanted to go to a carnival and ride some rides, but I would feel silly, going by myself.”

Mattie's eyes got huge.

“
Tonight
?” Lisa said. She began to hop up and down on the soft pink pads of her feet.

“It's
past
our bedtime,” Kendra said.

David hung his head. “You're right. We better not. Mommy might be mad.”

“
Don't tell her,”
Mattie said.

David looked shocked. “You mean
lie
?”

Kendra tapped her chin. “No, no, not lie. Just don't bring it up.”

David thought for a long moment while his daughters watched him, Mattie barely able to breathe. Lisa and Kendra knew the carnival was a given, but Mattie quaked with tension. David decided to have mercy.

“Okay,” he said. “But if she finds out, we face up to it together.”

“Daddy!” Mattie grabbed his waist and hugged him. “You don't have to, of course, but if you were hungry, maybe we would like some cotton candy?”

“You
have
to eat cotton candy, if you go to the fair.”

“And ride the Ferris wheel?”

David patted her head. “And ride the Ferris wheel. Now.
Get dressed
, and make it fast. That means you, Kendra. Shoes,
and
socks.”

“
Socks
?”

“Socks!”

David's daughters ran down the hallway, squealing as one slid into the bathroom ahead of the others. He stepped out the back door so he would not have to listen.

It was noisy out, country noises. Cicadas, crickets, traffic in the distance. Hazy too, but he could see stars. He flipped the porch light off, to discourage the moths, and leaned against the grape arbor.

David closed his eyes, thinking that peace of heart would be a wonderful thing.

He had a sudden and odd sensation that he was being watched. He turned his head slowly, and found himself eye-to-eye with the fat green iguana, nearly invisible beneath the cover of leaves.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Elaki series

ONE

David's stomach sank when he saw the spatters of brown blood in the front seat of the car. He had hoped, for no particular reason, that there might still be a chance of finding Luke Cochran alive. The uniform leaned over his shoulder, rain coursing down the slicker over his arm. He pointed his light, adding to the dim thread of brightness from the overhead dome.

“She identified the shoe.”

David looked at the dirty white tennis shoe—an Eckler, expensive brand. Cochran was a big kid, over six feet, and the shoe looked a size eleven. The laces were frayed, and there was a wad of pink bubble gum stuck to the sole. It was wedged in the hinge of the front seat door, passenger's side, as if Cochran's foot had caught and been wrenched free, leaving the shoe behind.

Someone moving the body?

David ducked out of the open door, head exposed to the downpour of warm, fat rain. “Gotten a statement from the car yet?”

Cochran's car was a sleek, shiny black Visck. It had been pristine and beautiful before it jumped the guardrail and went over the side of the exit ramp into the weed-choked thicket. Raindrops beaded on a paint job that still shone.

David backed into a tangle of sticker vines, tearing the skin across the back of his hand. Rain-diluted blood ran down his fingers. He wiped his hand absently across the back of his jeans, and tripped over an empty, dirt-encrusted carton of Jack Daniels.

The uniform put a hand out. “Steady, sir.”

David took a second look at the fleshy young face of the embryo in uniform. His ego plummeted.
Steady, sir?

He slogged through knee-high weeds to take a look at the car from the other side. He was wet enough not to care how much more rain he absorbed. The generator on the Crime Scene Unit's van throbbed, someone shouted “Lights,” and the car was suddenly bathed in bright yellow illumination.

The light turned everything sordid.

The exit ramp ran with water, coursing over a sodden grey diaper, and the pitted asphalt shimmered with the reflected glow of light. The ragged remains of a pale pink dress circled a guardrail support. David glanced over his shoulder, down the hill toward Elaki-Town. The street lights were dark here at four
A
.
M
., and the storefronts, antique stalls, small bars, and restaurants were dark humps at the bottom of the hill.

David wondered about that. No light at all? He was sure the storefronts and restaurants usually stayed lighted. Didn't they?

A car made a shark pass on the main drag, catching the hulking presence of Elaki in its headlights. David hoped the car doors were locked tight, shrugged his shoulders at anyone foolish enough to be in Elaki-Town this time of night. He wondered if he'd be called to a fresh crime scene at the bottom of the hill before he was finished with the one at hand.

He looked back at the dark streets, sensing the Elaki backed up into the storefronts. Watching, he supposed—the carnival of red and blue lights, vans, ambulances. Human drama. He was wondering where the hell Mel and String were, when he caught sight of the girl.

She stood on the exit ramp under a street light, as if seeking warmth. Her shoulders sagged low, feet turned inward—pigeon-toed, elbows out. She was worrisomely thin, arms bony and bare and running with rain. Her electric-blue tank top had a high collar, and her jeans were threadbare, sagging under the weight of water absorbed. She clutched a large bundle of blankets to her chest, and her eyes were closed.

The bundle in her arms moved, and David realized that she held a small child, a toddler, no more than two or three.

He looked at the uniform and pointed. “Who is that?”

“Oh. That's her.”

“Her?”

“The one all the fuss was about, who poisoned her newborn baby. Annie Trey.”

She did not look old enough to be out after curfew. David moved toward her, noting that the technicians, uniforms, and detectives kept a constant distance from this small young girl, as if she were contaminated. He counted five large umbrellas. Four empty cars. And no one had offered to shelter this child with a child from the wet and the dark.

The baby coughed, sounding croupy, emitting a small cry heavy with misery. The girl tucked the small head under her chin, tightened her grip, and cooed softly. She did not open her eyes. She bent forward, as if her back ached, and David wondered how long she had stood there, holding the child.

TWO

Annie Trey opened her eyes when he approached, large blue eyes. Her hair was chin-length and dark, wet and close on her scalp. There was a nasty scab on one cheek, and her lashes were brown and thin. The freckles on her nose and cheeks were faint enough that you couldn't see them unless you got close.

David did not think he had ever seen anyone who gave so strong an impression of being separate and alone.

Annie Trey had been much in the news—the unwed mother of an eighteen-month-old daughter, and a newborn son who died at three weeks of a violent and mysterious ailment that was toxic, swift, and unkind. She had not yet been indicted, except by the media, but there was talk of poison, and a simmering outrage that the toddler was still in her care.

As far as David knew, the case was still under investigation. Public opinion was unsympathetic. Annie Trey was not pretty. She was below average in intelligence. She was not married, though she had admitted wistfully on the evening news that she'd like to be. She was from the South, somewhere small and obscure in Mississippi. She was quoted saying things like “being done dirt.”

People did not like to think that newborn babies could die suddenly, painfully, and unexpectedly without someone to blame. Even those who were objective enough to reserve judgment could not help thinking there must be some reason the newspapers were after this Trey girl. And if Annie Trey had indeed poisoned her child, horrible as that might be, the tragedy kept its distance. Pregnant women could rest easier knowing such a thing could not happen to their babies.

David held out a hand. “Let's get you and your little one out of the rain, shall we?”

She looked at him. Blinked.

“I'm Detective Silver. David.”

It took another beat for the words to sink in, and even then, she was wary. She inclined her head toward a knot of uniforms and detectives next to a patrol car.

“They said I had to stay.” Her voice was in the upper registers, sharp around the edges.

David's jaw went tight, but he smiled. “Not in the rain, you don't. Let's get your baby out of this wind.”

She thought a minute, then nodded and followed him to his car, which he'd left parked in the middle of the exit ramp. The headlights cast strips of illumination across her wet jeans. Drops of rain jittered in the light.

David opened the passenger door, motioned her in. He reached for the baby. She paused, looked at him carefully, and handed him the child. The father in him applauded her caution.

He peeped under the blanket, careful not to expose the child's head.

A beauty, this little girl. Eyes big and brown, fat black curls damp and wiry. She had sweet, fine, baby skin, flushed red now, with fever. The tiny button nose dripped, and David wiped it clean with his handkerchief.

The baby coughed, croupy and deep. David handed her to her mother and closed the door on the rain. He opened the trunk of the car, found a thick blue towel, worn but clean, opened the driver's door.

Annie Trey took the towel, head cocked to one side, eyes narrow, while he gave instructions to the car.

“Ms. Trey and her baby will be sitting here for now. Please stay put and let Ms. Trey instruct you as to heat and comfort.” He smiled at the girl, who was only a few years older than his own Kendra. “Be right back.” He glanced over his shoulder, resisted the urge to tell her to lock the doors. She should be safe, cops everywhere you looked.

He had not recognized the woman in the beige raincoat, and he studied her as he approached the cluster of detectives. She was short and stocky, built like a large dwarf, not unattractive, hair short, thick, and swingy. Her eyes were brown, carefully made up, eyebrows thick.

She stood next to Vincent Thurmon, Detective, Missing Persons. This one David knew. He held out a hand.

“Vince?”

“David? I heard you caught this one. Didn't recognize you down there.”

They shook hands, Thurmon squinting through reddened blue eyes. The lenses of his eyes were milky and opaque—no surprise he hadn't known David till he was close enough to touch. Seven years ago he'd disarmed a man threatening yet another MacDonalds, eyes powder-burned in the struggle as the gun went off in his face. It was a freaky thing—the bullet missed him entirely, but his eyes were seriously infected by the time he made it through the clogged healthcare system. The routing physician made a miscall—not terribly unusual. Thurmon had lost sixty-five percent of his vision.

“I guess this is your baby now,” Thurmon said. “Let me know how I can help.”

David nodded, frowning. Definitely alcohol on the man's breath. Maybe he'd been off duty when the call came in. As always, he wore a hat, and water had beaded on the brim. He motioned for David to come under the umbrella.