Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series) (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-five:
 
Noteworthy

Julie and I shared a
quiet supper at my place, then I took her home. It was about ten o'clock when I
pulled into the Laker driveway. I wanted to talk to Penny, but Julie thought it
could wait until morning. We compromised by agreeing that I could talk to her
if she'd not yet gone to bed, otherwise it would wait.

Turned
out to be a waste of argument because Penny was not even at home. The houseman
did not know where she'd gone and there was no note, which disturbed Julie very
much. There was a message from Ted Branson, though, and that disturbed Julie
even more.

She
told me, "He's arriving on American at twelve- thirty and wants to be
picked up. That means I have to drive down to LAX tonight."

So
I volunteered my services. Wanted to talk to the guy, anyway. Julie was
physically and emotionally exhausted so I did not have to offer twice. She
kissed me and went off to bed. I turned on all the patio lights and went out to
the pool. Things were very quiet out there. I again searched for the manhole
cover and again could not find it. I decided that they had either moved the
operation or moved the access to it. I hung around out there for about five
minutes, thinking maybe I would get another telepathic contact but I did not.

There
was about an hour and a half to kill before I would have to leave for LAX to
pick up Bransen. All was definitely quiet at the Laker mansion, however, and I
could see no point to hanging around there, so I drove down to Wilshire and
found an all-night coffee shop, ordered coffee and took it to the pay phone,
tried my luck on some long shots.

Grover
Dalton, the deputy sheriff who'd come to UFO grief, had been discharged from
the hospital.

My
friend the Associated Press stringer did not answer either of his telephones.

Ditto
for my other friend at the radio station.

So
I bought a Times from the newspaper box and took it to the table with my
coffee. That is when I learned of the two marine incidents involving dolphins
in the sky and a swimming pool in the ocean. Such a simple solution, when
you've got that kind of power, that was my reaction, anyway. Then it reached my
funny bone and I chuckled through a further futile search for other UFO
reports. It seemed that the gods did not command much newspaper space in Los
Angeles—and what the hell, it's the City of Angels.

Not
funny, no, but at least I was recovering my sense of humor about the whole
thing. I wondered if Deputy Dalton had recovered his. No need to wonder about Ted
Bransen; the guy had never had a sense of humor that I could detect.

I
would have liked to talk to Dalton again. I was a lot more curious now than
before about the actual circumstances of that encounter in the canyon. Maybe
the guy had a different angle on it now. But I had no good contacts at County
and I knew that a casual inquiry would get me nowhere. So I brainstormed it and
again went to the phone, called the records section at the hospital, and gave the
girl a pitch. Deputy Dalton had left some personal effects in his room when he
checked out. I wanted to send the stuff on to him, so I needed a home address
and hopefully a phone number. A cheerful female clerk happily provided both,
and felt good doing it. I felt good getting it, especially since the address
was only about ten minutes away and on the route to LAX.

I
reached Dalton’s apartment complex a few minutes before eleven but then it took
me another ten minutes to find the apartment in that sprawl.

It
was obviously a bachelor pad, and the young deputy had company—two other
guys—obviously cops also. They were drinking beer and watching a fight on
television.

Dalton
looked okay, relaxed, confident. I knew by the way he looked at me that I was
familiar but he did not have me pegged. I knew also that I had to say the right
thing at the right time or get the door slammed in my face.

So
I introduced myself by name only and told him, "I need your help. I saw
the same thing you saw in Malibu Canyon the other night. No one will believe me
either."

He
stared at me for a moment then threw the door wide and beckoned me inside. It
was a small apartment, and the TV fight was on low volume. The other guys heard
my pitch at the door and they were giving me an interested inspection as I
joined them.

Dalton
introduced us. One was Sam and the other was John; I got no last names. Someone
handed me a can of beer then they all sat down. I popped the top and took a
taste as I took a chair off to the side. We sat there and watched the fight,
with no conversation other than comments on the fighters. Everyone but me got
up and peed between rounds, so it was a lot of traffic and no conversation to
amount to anything. There was a knockout in the next round, though. Dalton
turned the TV off and we all just sat there nursing our beers for a couple of
minutes.

I
had the drift of it. Misery loves company, everyone seems to think, so Dalton's
buddies had come over to cheer him up. But misery is also contagious and I
think the thing was working in that direction. It was a very sober group, beers
notwithstanding.

Finally
one of the other cops—John or Sam, I don't know—looked at me and said,
"You saw it, eh?"

I
said, "Yeah. Big as life. Damnedest thing I ever saw."

"Did
you file a report?" the other buddy asked.

I
said, "You kidding? Look at the way they're treating Grover. Who needs
that?"

Dalton
shot me an oblique gaze and quietly asked, "How'd you know where I
live?"

I
said, "I tracked you from the hospital."

He
said, "Okay, I gotcha. What the hell is this? Are you a doctor or
not?"

I
said, "Not. Right now I'm a UFO investigator. I take

you
for a very bright young cop and I know your story is true because I picked up
the woman."

There
followed a very long silence.

All
eyes were on me.

John
or Sam, whichever, broke the silence to ask me, "Exactly what is a UFO
investigator?"

I
replied, "If you're asking for credentials, forget it, I don't have
any." I placed a business card on the coffee table. "I'm a private
contractor. Right now, I am my only client. Look, I saw the saucer and I found
the woman up above Pepperdine. She was blown clear out of her mind and knows
nothing about what happened up there."

All
three men were checking out my card, though none touched it.

I
went on: "I'm just trying to put the thing together for my own
satisfaction. I am not filing any useless reports or talking to any assholes in
government. But I'm like Grover. I saw it and I can't forget it. So I thought
maybe we could compare notes."

Dalton
picked up the card and handed it back to me. "I already told everything I
know," he said quietly.

I
said, "Sure you did. But you don't see it in the papers, do you. The
department will never release that report."

He
lit a cigarette and stared at me across the glowing tip. "Who's the
woman?"

"I
can't tell you that."

"Then
get your ass out of here."

I
said, "It's confidential and she'll deny it. I'll deny it, too, if I'm
ever asked. So it's strictly between us. The woman is Penny Laker."

That
drew a snicker, a grin, and a wide-eyed look.

The
wide eyes were on Deputy Dalton.

I
saw a truth dawning in that look, a remembrance, a recognition. "Jesus,"
he whispered. "I knew she was familiar, but it was all so..."

I
told him, "I chanced upon her while you were chasing the saucer. Her mind
was blown, temporarily. I naturally assumed that she'd had an encounter with
the saucer, maybe she'd been abducted and then set free. She fought me like
crazy at first. But now I'm wondering if I had it right. I can't give you the
details because I don't have any details, but it just doesn't feel right, now,
that she was running from the saucer. I think she was running from something or
someone else. Since you were in the area ahead of me, I thought maybe you saw
something I didn't."

"Like
what?"

"Like
another vehicle, another person, anything."

"There
was a car," the cop said slowly. "Making a U- turn in the Pepperdine
drive. Fancy. Like a Rolls."

I
let out my breath and asked, "Or a Bentley?”

Dalton
flashed his eyes at me and replied, "Could be, yeah."

I
said, "Thanks," and handed my card back to him.

He
took it, dropped it in his shirt pocket, asked me, "Does Miss Laker drive
a Bentley?"

I
told him, "I understand that Miss Laker doesn't drive, period. But there's
a Bentley in the family."

He
said, "I see."

I
said, "Well don't go looking for it. It's in Argentina."

"What
does that mean?"

"I'm
not sure I know what it means," I lied. "It was parked in front of my
house a short while before your incident. I live in Malibu, on the beach. Miss
Laker's husband came to see me about a personal problem. The last I saw of that
Bentley it was headed south on Pacific Coast Highway and a saucer was following
it."

I
had the full attention of the house, now. Whatever else, these guys were cops
and their cop instincts were at full extension. John or Sam quietly asked, The
same saucer?"

"It
was the only saucer I saw that night," I replied, not yet ready to spill
all of my guts. "I didn't see Graver's saucer—I mean, not in the same
area. But his saucer sounds exactly like my saucer."

"Twelve
to fifteen feet in diameter," Dalton said quietly.

"I
called it at twelve feet," I told him. "That's a ballpark
guess."

"Same
ballpark," he said, smiling at me for the first time.

"Same
ball, probably," I replied, smiling back.

"What
was that bit about Argentina?"

"Miss
Laker's husband is also her business manager. His name is Ted Bransen. We're
not exactly friends because I'm more choosy than that but I've known him for
several years. His wife, too. I told you that Bransen came to my house that
night on a business matter, something to do with his wife. He wanted me to
counsel her, some career matter. I agreed to discuss the problem with him over
lunch the next day. Instead he called me from Buenos Aires in a panic. Claims
he started off for his office that morning and found himself in Buenos Aires
eight hours later, still in his Bentley and with no memory of those eight
hours."

The
cops exchanged looks with each other. I got up and went to the door. Dalton
came over and shook my hand. Thanks for the information, Mr. Ford," he
said soberly.

I
shrugged and replied, "For what it's worth, sure. Thanks for yours."

"For
what it's worth," he said with a grim smile. It was worth a hell of a lot
to me. I just needed to decide, now, what it all meant. And maybe I needed to
reach that decision before I reached LAX.

Chapter Twenty-six:
 
Mission Possible

The flight was right
on time and Bransen was one of the first passengers off. Things were sort of
quiet at LAX that time of night so I had not been worried about missing him.
Just the same, I was glad to see him coming off the ramp and I was positioned
to snare him as soon as he stepped into the terminal.

I
put an arm on the guy before he actually saw me, and it really startled him. I
could see the whites of his eyes as they rolled toward me and he gave a little
involuntary gasp and stiffened as though to pull away from my grasp, but he
recovered quickly in recognition and tried to laugh it away but it was more
like a dry rattle in a throat constricted by terror, not humor.

I
pulled him out of the stream of traffic and directed him toward the escalator
as I told him how I'd volunteered to make the pickup, but the guy was damned
near a basket case. He didn't even inquire about Penny and apparently had no
interest in local happenings during his absence. He had no baggage so we went
straight across to the parking garage and we were on our way and moving in thin
traffic just minutes later.

Only
then did Bransen seem to relax a little and make a stab at conversation.
"Thanks for, uh, your help down there."

I
said, "Sure."

"I
could have been tied up for days trying to straighten that mess out by
myself."

I
grinned at him and told him, "Just be glad you're not locked up."

"Right,"
he said, "or in a straitjacket. So I owe you. Remember that when you're
making out your bill."

"There's
no bill, Ted," I replied. "But I would like to know what the hell is
going on."

"Tell
me about it," he growled.

"Well
let's tell each other," I suggested.

"I
already told you all I know about this craziness. I guess you're the expert, so
maybe you better tell me."

I
said, "Okay. I think you're maybe married to an alien."

"What
do you mean?'

"I
don't mean a European immigrant, pal."

"Well
that's crazy."

"Sure
it's crazy, but it's a crazy time. I'll give you some more crazy. A flying
saucer followed you away from my house the other night. A little while later I
think I was directed into the hills above Pepperdine where I discovered your
wife staggering naked along the highway. At that same time, a sheriff's deputy
was chasing a low-flying saucer through the canyon. What do you make of that?"

Bransen's
eyes were getting a bit wild again but I could also feel the defenses rising as
he replied, "Do a treatment on that and I'll sell it to Spielberg. What do
you mean you were directed?"

“Telepathically."

"Uh-huh.
I thought that's what you meant. Look, I don't buy that stuff, Ford."

"But
you do buy your wife wandering a lonely highway in the middle of the night,
naked and defenseless."

"I
don't get you."

"I
got you, though, pal. You weren't surprised to hear about that because you
already knew about it. So tell me: why did you drug your wife and turn her out
of your car up there in the wilds?"

"You're
out of your goddamn mind! What is this? Stop the goddamn car! I'm not going to
ride with a maniac!"

I
ignored all that. "And what were you setting me up for?—an alibi in
advance?—the poor worried husband consulting a psychic quack as the only route
to his wife's dementia?"

"Look
who's talking about setups! Your Mission Impossible stunt was damned neat,
Ford, damned near had me convinced!"

I
told him, "You've been too close to the business too long, Ted. All of
life is just another hackneyed script to you, isn't it, embellished with
special effects and razzle- dazzle. Well you've run into a real one now, my
friend, and you're fucking around with some real power. You'll know what I mean
when you get home and find the new swimming pool and a pod of dolphins in your
backyard."

He
yelled, "Stop the goddamn car!"

"You
don't really want me to do that," I replied mildly,

but
I
pulled to the curb anyway.
 
We had reached that section of Century
Boulevard just short of the freeway, where the airport hotels were clustered,
and I knew what the guy was thinking; it was a good spot to bail out.

Or
so he thought.

He
opened the door and put one leg outside then froze, looked into the sky
directly above the car, pulled his leg back inside, and gently closed the door.

"Let's
go," he muttered.

“You
sure?”

"Let's
go, let's go."

So
we went on.

With
a twelve-foot saucer tracking us from about two hundred feet up.

The
guy was already at the breaking point. It took very little persuasion to move
him on into total surrender and docile cooperation. I feel that he came
entirely clean with me, if you discount the normal and even understandable
residual of self-serving alibis and rationalizations, which are entirely
transparent anyway.

And
it was a hackneyed script, yeah—the ancient human story retold through all the
ages, revolving on greed and selfishness and the lust for survival in a competitive
world.

"Look,
I worked for that money, too. I mean I humbled myself and humiliated myself and
kissed every ass in town to get her the very best deal every time. She didn't
care. She never cared about any of it. The money meant nothing to her. She gave
it away faster than I could claw it together for her.
 
Well, hey, it's a community-property
state—right? We file joint returns—right? Half of it was mine, and I was just
trying to protect what was mine."

I
said, "Sure."

"Right."

He
leaned forward to peer up through the top of the windshield, flinched, and
quickly withdrew with his head pressed against the backrest. "Anyway I
started writing the contracts with deferred payments. We have about ten mil
outstanding now. I was trying to protect it for her too, Ford. I figured
someday she'll come to her senses and realize the value of a dollar. I didn't
want her to be broke when that happened."

"'Course
not."

"Right.
Look, I knew she was not responsible. But it can be tricky as hell trying to
convince a judge that it's true. I didn't want to hurt her."

"No
way."

"No
way is right. I was just trying to protect her, in her own interests, in both
our interests. Isn't that a husband's obligation?"

"Sure
it is."

"That's
the way I saw it."

"So
you just did a script for her."

"Right.
That's the way to look at it. She's so damned dingy, Ford. I just needed to
document it."

"Well...and
maybe set the stage a little. A few props."

"Props,
right. You have to have evidence when you go to the judge."

"Even
if you have to manufacture some."

"Right,
in her best interests."

"Uh-huh.
So when you took her up into the Malibu hills...”

"Well
it was just...I mean, it was a setup, sure, but I didn't see that I was
endangering her. I mean, the college was right there. I figured she'd wander in
there and some kids would find her and..."

"But
you didn't stick around to make sure it turned out that way. You didn't figure
her to stagger along the road, instead, and try to flag down passing cars stark
naked."

"'Course
not."

"And
you couldn't be expected to know about her alien past, so how could you know
how the drug would affect her?"

"That's
right."

"You
couldn't know that she would run from her own guardians."

"Did
she?"

"I
think so. It's the only logic I can draw. Whatever you gave her, it really
screwed her up."

"It
was just a little acid."

"You
never know what that stuff will do. Even on a human."

He
shivered. "Well she is human."

I
said, "Maybe not."

"I
know damn well she's human, Shared her bed for years. Don't tell me she's not
human."

I
shrugged. "Well, mammalian at least."

"What
are these things? What are they doing here? What do they want?"

"The
saucers?"

He
peered into the sky again. "Yeah."

I
told him, "I don't know what the hell they are, Ted. I don't know why
they're here and I don't know what they want. But they are here. So it must be
for something important. And you can bet your ass they'll get whatever it is
they want."

"I
keep thinking I'll wake up," Bransen replied weakly.

"I
guess that's what everybody thinks," I said. Sure. I suppose I kept
expecting to wake up any minute, myself. But even my dreams knew better.