Alien Eyes (10 page)

Unlike the living room, the bedroom was Spartan, all surfaces clear. A woman's dressing table was the only exception. Cosmetics and wadded tissues were grouped around two or three books and a notepad. A narrow oak dresser, scarred and not matching anything else in the room, had a wallet, a set of keys, and an identity badge arranged carefully on the top. A skirt and a sleeveless top had been tossed into a mahogany rocking chair, and a bra was splayed on the floor. The man was neat, David thought. The woman was not. Undoubtedly there had been words.

The phone was beside the bed, next to a glass of water that had dust scummed in the top. A bottle of capsules was open next to the water, as if one of them had been interrupted in the act of taking a pill before bed. Just before David took hold of the receiver, the answering machine clicked on.

“You've reached the McCallum residence,” a male voice said. “Leave a message, and we'll get back to you.”

David heard static, then a female voice. “Mark, this is your mom. The kids just wanted to say hi. We'll be back home tomorrow, after lunch. George caught a …
okay
, sweetheart. He wants to tell you himself.”

There were scuffling noises, then a child's voice, sweet and pure. “Hi, Daddy! I caught a big one. Grampa says it's probably eight inches. Mickey caught one too, but it was a—what you call it?—fingerling. That's a baby one. You got to throw them back, but Mickey cried. We had onions for lunch, want to hear me burp? Wait, here's Grammie.”

David sighed and picked up the phone.

FIFTEEN

Wendy and Lawrence McCallum lived in an L-shaped ranch house, red brick. The front lawn was high and ragged. The garage door was open, showing an antique gas eater—some kind of Oldsmobile, on blocks and under wraps. Recycle bins were lined neatly on one side, next to an assortment of lawn animals. Small tools were scattered amid oil stains, and a pile of stained blue rags had spilled out onto the driveway.

David's thoughts were back at the scene, with Mel, String, and Miriam. He tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. The front door opened.

“Are you okay?” A small, grey-haired woman ran out onto the porch. Her voice was thick, congested. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. The screen door shut behind her. “Did you hurt yourself?”

David's face felt warm. “Fine, yes, I'm okay. Mrs. McCallum?”

She came forward and held out her hand. The pupils of her eyes were dilated. Her chin trembled.

David took her hand. It was cold. “I'm Detective Silver. We talked on the phone? I am so very sorry.”

Tears ran down Wendy McCallum's cheeks. “Thank you.”

“I need to ask you some questions.”

“Come in.” She turned to the house.

David hesitated. He'd come straight from the scene, and he smelled of death. She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, and he could see the whites of her eyes. He followed her into the house.

The living room was crammed with furniture. He wound his way carefully between the love seats, the wingback chair, and two ottomans, then jammed his knee on a recliner. The walls were covered with framed family portraits. David took a good look at the McCallum children.

Boys, both of them, no more than a year apart. Smallish, slight, one with black hair, one light brown. Blue eyes and freckled noses now, round-faced and hairless at birth.

The portraits told him what the bodies had not. That Charlotte Arnold was plump and pretty, her brown hair short and flipped under. That there was a trace of something knowing and naughty in her eyes, even in the family groupings, where she hugged her children. And that Mark McCallum was a plain-looking man, serious and remote, oddly stilled, with a large square hand heavy on his wife's shoulder. The baby pictures of the boys were remarkably like Mark McCallum's own old-fashioned infant portraits, with their multicolored background of fake fall foliage. The older boy still resembled his father, though his eyes were impish, a legacy of his mother. The littlest boy had the father's look of serious heaviness and discomfort under the camera's eye.

David realized he'd been staring too long. He glanced at Wendy McCallum, feeling a rush of gratitude for her. She had taken her grandsons fishing, and spared them.

“The boys?” David said.

“Back in the bedroom with Law. Lawrence. Their grandfather.” She wiped her eyes. “Doped to the gills all three of them, and curled up on the bed together, watching cartoons. Anything, to take their minds off—” Her voice cracked. “Detective Silver, please. What exactly happened?”

“Someone—more than one, we think. Came in at night, probably just after your son and daughter-in-law had gone to bed.” David pictured Charlotte McCallum tangled on the floor in fishing line and blood. “And killed them,” he said lamely.

“What about Stephen? No, my gosh.” She put a hand to her mouth. “He wasn't there. He's out of town. I need to call him.” She bit down on the back of her hand. “Oh, God.”

“Who is Stephen?”

“Stephen Arnold. Charlotte's father, he lived with them. He teaches at Edmund. They both do—he and Charlotte. Oh, my God.”

“Mrs. McCallum, we found the body of an Elaki juvenile. We think maybe this Elaki may have—”

“Probably Barran. Sitter, they called him. He lived with them. Kind of greyish on the outside, and red in the middle?”

David raised a hand, noncommittal. There had been little left to ID.

“He gets room and board in exchange for helping with the boys. Kind of like an Elaki au pair, though I understand he was studying the boys for some kind of project. I … so he's dead, too?”

“If it's him. We don't have a positive ID yet.” He looked at her. Her face was blank. She hadn't taken the hint. No matter, David decided. He wouldn't ask her to look. There wasn't enough left for her to tell for sure anyway.

“How … how did they do it?”

David put a hand on her knee. “Charlotte was shot. Mark was drowned in the bathtub.”

She whimpered, swallowed hard, making a kind of gurgling noise.

“Let me get you a glass of water,” David said.

She shook her head. Her bottom lip quivered and she caught it between her teeth. She breathed hard, through her nose. “How long did they suffer?” She looked puzzled. “How long does it take to drown?”

“He would have lost consciousness fairly quickly.” David did not elaborate. She'd find out soon enough. He'd make sure Miriam talked to her before she got details from news reports. For the moment, he needed her mind as clear as possible.

“I have videos of them. Charlotte and Mark, and the boys. Do you need them?”

“Not just now,” David said. He shifted sideways in the chair. “Tell me. How were things going? Between Charlotte and your son?”

“What do you mean? Do you mean their marriage?”

“Any problems? Did either of them seem worried maybe, or preoccupied?”

“Um, no. Well. Charlotte was … had something on her mind. But it didn't have anything to do with this.”

A door opened and a toilet flushed. David heard the faint rumble of a television before the door shut.

He smiled at Wendy McCallum. “What was Charlotte upset about?”

“She … her period was late. She thought she might be pregnant. I think she was pregnant. And she hadn't made up her mind what to do about it.”

“Did Mark discuss this with you?”

Mrs. McCallum shook her head. “Mark didn't talk to me about things. He was very reserved. But Charlotte … she was close to me. Truly a … a daughter. She lost her own mother when she was so very young, and she seemed—” Wendy McCallum's voice broke. “She seemed genuinely pleased to … to kind of let me be her mother.”

“Did either of them ever mention upsetting phone calls? Crank calls or—”

“Someone had been calling and hanging up. It was traced, of course, to some kind of phone booth. They didn't think much of it. You think it had something to do with … with this?”

David shrugged. “Probably not. Mrs. McCallum, how were the two of them getting along? You said Charlotte was pregnant? Would that have been a problem, between the two of them?”

Wendy McCallum drew back. “It was Charlotte that didn't want any more children. Actually, neither of them did. But I honestly don't think Mark knew. She was only a few days gone.”

“Any other problems?”

Wendy McCallum bit her bottom lip. “They had a
good
marriage.”

David looked at her.

“There were the usual tensions, of course. Nothing major.”

“Such as?”

She curled her feet up under her on the couch and squinted. Fine lines crinkled the parchment-thin skin around her eyes. She was aging, right in front of him.

“The toilet seat thing.” She sounded exasperated. “He always left it up. Charlotte thought it was on purpose and she teased him about it, because he was usually so meticulous. And she and her father had books and papers and disks
everywhere
. Stephen was a pack rat, and Mark grew up to be a neat freak, though heaven knows I didn't raise him that way.”

David glanced at the dark and crowded living room. His sympathies were with Mark, an orderly man surrounded by a chaotic family.

“Charlotte was the same way. Messy, and kind of stacked things up. But that was just Charlotte, don't think badly of her. She was a very exuberant person, very good for Mark, who could be a stick sometimes. They drove each other crazy once in a while, but … but …”

David raised a hand. “I understand. I'm married myself.”

She sighed. “Then you know.”

“Had they been robbed recently? Cars stolen or broken into? Interference with credit, or ID?”

She shook her head. “No. Nothing like that.”

“You mentioned Charlotte's father. He lived with them?”

“Yes. He and Charlotte both worked at Edmund, both taught there. And it was a nice arrangement. He'd be there for the boys if they wanted to go out. And he liked the hustle and bustle of the household, and not having to eat alone. He's an interesting man, quite brilliant. Dotes on George and Mickey … the … the boys. He always says they keep him tied to reality. He's a very scholarly man. Quite well thought of, in his field.”

“What is his field?”

“Political science. He's a full professor at the Edmund School of Diplomacy. Chairman of the department, at one time, though he moved away from the administrative side, to have more time to write.”

“Ah. How well do you know him? How would you describe him?”

“Well, he, he's very … intense. Youngish and interested in everything. Very capable, you know. Not the professor stereotype.” Her cheeks turned pink. “But still absentminded, the way brilliant people can be. You know?”

David nodded.

“He smokes. I know that's been a problem between him and Mark.”

“Can you tell me where he is?”

“It was some kind of last-minute thing. And Charlotte and Mark had plans to go out—I think she was going to talk to Mark about the baby. So I told Charlotte we'd take George and Mickey for a few nights. We took them fishing. Out at the pay lake on Tonner Mill Pike.”

“I see. So it was a last-minute trip? Of Stephen Arnold's?”

She nodded.

“When did it come up?”

“Four, maybe five days ago.”

“Otherwise he would have been there?”

“Yes, but …”

“But what?”

“It's just good. That he wasn't there.”

“Yes,” David said. “Tell me, was Dr. Arnold political?”

“Well, of … oh, you mean
political
.” She tilted her head to one side, narrowing her eyes. “He had strong viewpoints. But he was always
very
good at seeing both sides.”

“Did he have many Elaki friends?”

“Oh, yes. Professionally, and personally. Students. He was very popular with the young ones. And colleagues, of course.”

“Did he have any affiliation with the Guardians?”

“The Guardians? Funny, now, that you should bring that up.”

David sat forward.

“He did a piece on them—some kind of paper he presented at a conference a few months ago. It was in Austria, I think. Yes. Because he said he ate a lot of pastry there and it wasn't sweet. There wasn't much sugar in it. Like here.”

David nodded.

“It got a lot of attention,” she said. “They had his picture in the papers. Charlotte said it was major work, but she did tend to … well, to exaggerate her father's importance. Which I think is sweet in a daughter.”

“Yes,” David said. “Yes, it is.”

She was quiet for a long moment. David watched her patiently. She was thinking about something. She closed her eyes, then opened them wide.

“Detective. Can I go there? To the house?”

David chewed his lip. “Just now it might be best—”

“But, you see, he'd leave his itinerary. Stephen, I mean. One of the note minder chips—these ones with the magnets on the back? Press it and it would reel off where he was going to be. Name and numbers. He always did that. He'd leave it on the door of the refrigerator. So Charlotte could find him if she needed him. I could get that for you and then we'd know where he is.”

“Why don't I take care of it?” David said gently.

“You don't want me in the house.”

David frowned. “I won't stop you.”

“Oh, but … my son. I almost think I should. Don't you?”

“No, ma'am. I don't.”

The skin of her face sagged. The veins in her neck seemed to stand out, blue under crepe-thin, white skin.

“Why do these things happen?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Why would anyone hurt them? Do you know who did it?”

The thought hit her suddenly. He'd expected it sooner.

“Home invaders?” she asked. The implications sank in, and her voice moved up a register. “The cho invaders?”