Alien Heat (6 page)

He was missing his little girls. He'd seen them a lot, while recuperating at home from the bullet in his lung. David had had plenty of time to question the doctor's decision to go with repair (cheaper) rather than regeneration. Repair took a lot more out of you than regeneration did. It meant scars, rather than renewal. It meant weeks and months of recuperation, rather than days.

Once he made it back to work, he had lost the drive to put in the hours, unhappy with the old routine of catch-as-catch-can with the kids.

He hadn't been happy at home, either.

He and Rose had lost their ease, and it seemed less and less possible to get it back. He was not sure he wanted it back. He had that separate feeling again, the sense that a wall of glass stood between him and everyone else. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but one he did not want to lose—it gave him awareness; it gave him distance.

He pulled into the parking garage and got out, letting the car find its way.

“I should be back in—” He caught himself, feeling stupid, telling the car his plans.

David heard the screech of tires and stepped out of the way just as String's van tore into the garage. He ducked behind a concrete support. No point enduring the snide remarks about claustrophobia. No law required him to take the elevator.

It was hot in the stairwell. His cough started up again, and his chest ached. He leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Sweat coated his back, drenching his shirt. He looked down, saw streaks of soot on the cuff of his rolled up sleeve, smears of green from the garden, and blue fire-eating gel. His shower was a mere two hours old, but he wanted another one.

He took the stairs slowly, still coughing, and pushed the heavy metal door to the sixth floor. The hallway was brightly lit and so cool David felt chilled as the sweat began to dry on his back. He saw no sign of String and Mel. Likely they had stopped to argue. He heard voices and the faint hum of printers. The air had that static tang of too many computers running hard.

He pushed through the wide swing doors into the morgue. The smell of sweet soap and death was familiar. Every table was occupied. Staff was working double shifts, all hands on deck.

There were a lot of bodies to process.

A man arched his back and stepped away from the table. He nodded as a technician stuffed what was left of a blackened body into a clear plastic zip bag.

“Another piece of toast, please.”

David heard a woman call his name, turned, and saw Miriam Kellog in blue scrubs, her long, red-brown hair hanging over one shoulder.

“Miriam,” he said, coughing again. “What you got?”

“Where are the other two musketeers, David? I don't like doing repeats.”

“Should be in the elevator by now.”

She put a gloved hand on one hip and yawned. “How the kiddies doing?”

“Good.”

“And Rose?” Her look was sharp, and David frowned. Funny how word got around.

“Rose is wonderful,” he said. He heard voices and looked over his shoulder. Mel was walking fast, as if trying to get away, and String was rolling behind him at an impressive clip.

“But, Detective Mel, the paint was
not
chipped before the Warden—”

“Jesus, String, give it a rest.” Mel caught sight of Miriam and scooted close, kissing her cheek. “Been missing me, sweetheart?”

David looked from one to the other. Were they dating? If they were dating, Mel would have told him.

He felt lonely, standing in the harsh light of the morgue. He shivered, realized he was still sweating. He was aware of the murmur of voices, the gurgle of water, the feathery sound String made as he skittered sideways across the floor. The Elaki's inner pinkness was draining away, leaving him with ivory splotches. String was never much use in the morgue.

Miriam had moved to the table, and Mel was watching her, smile slow and lazy. She pushed hair out of her eyes with her arm, avoiding touching herself with the soiled gloves. She looked at Mel, seemed to lose her train of thought, glanced back at the table.

It wasn't a complete autopsy. The facial mask had not been peeled away from the skull, and the skin was a livid purple-red, blistered and bubbled and raw. She'd been slit for autopsy, Y-shaped incision reaching from the sternum to the pubic bone, ribs pruned apart, blackened skin peeled away.

No need to open her up, unless there was evidence to collect. David scratched his chin, impatient for Miriam to quit looking at Mel and focus on the job at hand.

“Jane Doe, found on the floor of the house that burned, outside the baby's room, next to the dog.” Miriam probed inside the throat with a gentle gloved finger. “Hyoid bone is broken.”

Mel looked at David. String came close to the table, then skittered away, eye stalk twitching.

“The significance is what?”

David looked at Miriam. “She was strangled?”

Miriam nodded. “Dead
after
the fire started—there's carbon monoxide in the hemoglobin.” She glanced at the computer screen. “But the levels aren't high, so she didn't take in much. Nowhere close to lethal levels.”

“Someone strangle this female during fire? This is not right of the ring.”

“Yeah, it sounds funny,” Mel said.

David looked at the wadded purple lung tissue. “You say she was found in the hall, next to the dog?”

“What dog?” Mel asked.

“There was a dog in the house, near her body.”

Mel looked at David, shook his head, then looked back to Miriam. “Any clue who she is? No DNA match? Family claim?”

Miriam shook her head. “No DNA records on the residents. She's too old to be either of the women listed as members of the household, so we think she may have been the visitor. Unless her DNA is somewhere in a listing, we may never figure it out, until somebody misses her. I'm still running it though, and we could get lucky. Won't know for sure before tomorrow. Computer time is at a premium and we got our budget gutted last year, sorry.”

“Female,” David muttered. “How old?”

“Between forty-five and sixty-five. Every sign of good medical and dental care, cradle to birth.”

“Wealthy then,” Mel said.

Miriam shrugged. “Not necessarily. She could be in a protected profession.”

“Cradle to birth, you said?” David asked.

“Yeah, because of the teeth. She's had good dental care from day one. I see your point. The best money is she's wealthy, or her parents were in protected professions. You know, a cop like you guys, or maybe a teacher.”

Mel scratched his chin. “Except lookit where she was found. What's she doing in a housing project downtown? The supper club, okay, plenty of rich people go slumming. But why the house?”

The air-conditioning cranked up, sending a rumble through the duct work. A waft of cool air ruffled the dry strands of hair left on the woman's blistered scalp. David thought of Arthur Jenks, clutching his mother's favorite old sweater when he thought no one was looking.

He had an impulse, and checked his watch. Late, but why not? He would call Rose and tell her to bring the kids in, and they would have a family night at the little carnival down the street. They hadn't had a family night in ages. He thought of his girls, hair streaming in the wind. He thought with sudden hunger of caramel apples, and how happy his daughters would be with a swirl of pink and blue cotton candy on a plastic cone.

“David? You still with us here?”

David looked at Mel, stuck his hands in his pockets. “Miriam, do me a favor. Run a DNA match on a missing person, file origin Chicago PD.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Theresa Jenks.”

NINE

They were gone—the flashing lights, Animal-shaped controls, leering pirates. Unadorned by the holograms, the Crazy Eight Wheel was a twisted utilitarian mass of metal, worn padded seats, questionable restraints. The fair had shut down for the night.

David looked at his watch, thinking that it was late anyway, that the girls were long tucked into bed. He took a deep breath, promised himself that there would be other times.

The fairground smelled just like he remembered, the sour greasy sweet smell that used to fill his stomach with butterflies of anticipation. The metal skeletons of the silent rides had an unmasked look. David jammed his hands in his pockets, thinking of the seats full of people who saw and savored what was not there. He thought of the Crazy Eight Wheel running without holograms, metal rising against the night sky, joints groaning. In his mind's eye, the people rode silently, faces tense.

He heard footsteps. Mel waved a hand; String followed. The Elaki had a plastic roller clotted with dried cotton candy snarled in his bottom fringe.

Mel shook his head. “Well, partner, who would have ever known it?”

“Theresa Jenks?” David said.

“One and the same. Some copper's hunch, David.” Mel glanced at String, then looked back again. “Behold, the Elaki equivalent of toilet paper stuck to the shoe.”

David tried not to smile.

“Shoe is human fringe cover? I see no toilet paper streams, Detective Mel.”

Mel grinned at David, but the smile faded. “Tough on the kid. You want we should tell them, or put it off on Chicago? 'Cause I vote Chicago.”

David frowned. “It's too wrapped up in our fire. We'll tell them.”

“Want to see Jenks's face?” Mel asked.

David nodded.

String moved sideways. “What will the face tell you that the mouth will not?”

“Sometimes the mouth lies,” David said.

“And the face does not?”

Mel waved a hand. “Naw, I know plenty of faces that would lie to you, lots of 'em female.”

“Then why would this be the—”

“String, come on, it's a human thing.”

“Humans have many things, Detective Mel. I wish to learn.”

“Okay, lookit, let's make this as simple as we can. It's like your magic tricks. You got to coordinate.”

“Is hard for the human to coordinate face and mouth lies together?”

“Depending on the human, yeah, pretty much. I know it seems complicated.”

“No. It is straight, this, I can see it.” String balanced on the edge of his fringe. “Humans capable of much in the strangenesses. It brings to my mind something that happened with pouch-sib who would be called the eccentric, even for—”

Mel yawned. “Can we go? Wait, ho, David. Look at your shirt, will you? You don't look clean enough to be calling on bereaved families.”

“That's not where we're going.”

“Where are we going?”

“The psychic.”

“Her? How come?”

“Because she predicted this.”

“I didn't hear her. String, you hear her?”

“No, I do not recall this.”

“I
did
,” David said.

Mel scratched the left side of his rib cage. “I thought you didn't believe in that stuff anymore.”

David gave him a hard look. “I don't.”

“So then—”

“So then I'm wondering how it is she knew what she knew.”

String rolled back and forth on the oil-stained pavement while they stood in the garage waiting for David's car. David gave the Elaki a second look. Yellow-brown popcorn kernels clotted the fringe around the dried cone of cotton candy.

“Mel, get that stuff off him, will you?”

“Tone down that parent instinct, David, this is a grown Elaki here.”

String rolled into earshot. “It will be okay?”

“What will be okay, Gumby?”

“The van, Detective Mel. The dents to be sure. They will have the van in the possession for some of the days is the word to be. It will heal?”

“For God's sake, we're talking fender bender here.”

“This Warden is not the good driving force.”

Mel grimaced. “Neither of you are. Shouldn't give licenses to Elaki, you ask me.”

David heard the crackle of tires on concrete, saw his car rounding the corner.

“The van is what I wish for,” String said.

Mel opened the back door of the car. “The van is out of commission. In you go, Gumby.”

“I do not like seat of the back, is most uncomfortable.”

“Get
in
, will you?”

David gave the Elaki a kind look. “They'll fix the dent, String. Wash it and clean it up, recoat the nicks and stuff. It's going to look great.”

String leaned sideways, scooting into the backseat on his side. Mel tucked his fringe in after him, then got in front.

“I am most uncomfortable and do not wish to be the conversationalist.”

“Break my heart,” Mel muttered.

“Find out where she is,” David said.

“Where who is? Miriam?”

“The
psychic
, Mel. I can't program the navigator if I don't know where I'm headed, right?”

“David Silver, please enter location code.”

“What's the command for drive aimlessly?”

“Meander drive,” String said.

Mel glanced into the backseat. “I thought you weren't talking.”

David raced the engine, steered the car out of the garage and onto the congested streets. He wished people would go home at night, go to bed and quit clogging the road.

The car took a curve, veering sharply. String made a soft hissy noise.

“The Jenkses are in a suite at the Rialto,” Mel said.

David nodded. He couldn't afford a drink in the lobby. He thought about Teddy Blake. “Nice work if you can get it.”

“Not her,” Mel said. “Blake's at the Continental.”

David looked at Mel, who shrugged and smiled with one side of his mouth. “The Continental? You sure?”

“Yeah, I double-checked.”

David glanced in the rearview mirror. There was a smudge of soot on his left temple. “Okay, Mel. I'm not dressed for the Rialto anyway. Drop me off at the Continental, and you and String do the bereavement thing, then come and pick me up.”