Alien Eyes (28 page)

“He didn't know where they were taking him. Or if they'd leave him. And.” Miriam held up the splash meter and flicked the switch. Blood drips, drops, and pools were recorded, conclusions drawn. “My friendly meter here tells me he was cut somewhere else, but bled to death in the car.”

“Missing a piece of a pie?” Mel asked.

Miriam nodded.

“What is this pie?” String asked.

“Blood splats,” Mel said. “Certain velocity, the blood makes a pie shape when it hits. Part of the pie will be at the crime scene.”

“Or on the killer,” Miriam said.

“Surely he will not have the clothes,” String said.

Mel shrugged. “Be surprised. David, you member that—”

“Scales,” Miriam said. “He was killed by an Elaki.”

“Cho killing,” David said.

Mel put a stick of gum in his mouth, then offered the box around. “Anybody?” He worked his jaws over the large wad of gum. “We knew they'd get him sooner or later.”

String took a piece of gum.

“Don't swallow it this time,” Mel said.

“The car belongs to Arnold,” Miriam said. “But the trunk was forced open when they put him in.”

“Arnold wouldn't give them the combination, huh?” Mel shrugged.

“He couldn't,” David said. “His vocal cords were cut.”

“Yeah, the killer miscalculated on that,” Miriam said.

Mel shrugged. “Easy enough to force. Cutting him keeps him from yelling for help. Most he could do would be gurgle.”

Walker came crashing down the hill toward them. She waved a fin at the trunk.

“Is cho killing,” she said.

Mel popped his gum. “What was your first clue?”

Miriam showed David striations on the lid of the trunk. “Whoever it was used a crowbar, something like that. From the angle, they'd have to be at least seven feet tall. I expect to find scales or scale fragments. Could be Elaki secretions on the lock, or the steering wheel of the car. But nothing I can pick up now—all our equipment is geared to the human perp, so, like always, I need time. And, of course, we have no central Elaki typing system. So good luck in court. It would help if somebody
saw
something. Hustling him into the car maybe.”

“Yeah,” said Mel, turning away. “Except it likely happened after dark. And all Elaki look alike anyway. If you want the impossible, hope for a signed confession.”

“Don't go,” Miriam said. “You know I said he was trying to leave us evidence and stuff?”

“Yeah,” David said.

“What do you make of this?” She flashed a penlight on the inside lid of the trunk. “It's sure not there by accident. Blood doesn't go
up
for no reason.”

David stuck his hands in his pocket. Two round smears and a line. “I have absolutely no idea.”

“He knew many languages,” String said. “Does this look like an alphabet?”

“We could ask at the university,” Mel said.

David reached into his pocket for his daughter's note. He turned it over. “Anybody got a pen?”

Mel fished in his jacket and came up with a black ballpoint. David sketched the blood smears, frowned, and handed Mel the pen.

“Get me a photo as soon as possible.”

Miriam nodded.

“Who called this in?” Mel asked.

Miriam jerked her head toward the top of the hill. “Guy named Oscar. He runs a garage in town.”

“What? He out trolling for business? Out here?”

“The car called in,” Miriam said. “No specifics or urgency. Just come when possible. This guy, this mechanic, was backed up—”

“So what else is new.”

“The order got stuck at the bottom of the list, and he just now got to it.”

“He open the trunk?” David asked.

Miriam rolled her eyes. “Yeah. But swears he didn't touch anything.”

Mel looked into the truck. He waved a fly away. “
I
wouldn't. Come on, Gumby. Let's go see what the poor sucker has to say.”

David looked at his watch. It was getting late.

Should he let the McCallums sleep in what passed for peace in their lives just one more night? He glanced sideways at Walker, knowing full well the Elaki would call Enid West at the earliest opportunity, and see that the latest cho killing wasn't kept under wraps.

And Wendy McCallum might not be sleeping. She might be sitting up late, listening to the hum of appliances, listening to silence. Best she didn't catch this on the news.

Walker pushed past him to stare at Stephen Arnold. “Game over, dude.”

FORTY-FIVE

They found the missing pie in Arnold's office. David stood on the thick beige carpet, looking at the bloodstain on the front desk drawer. The desk chair had been turned sideways. Books had been torn off the bookshelves, the desk lamp knocked over.

He had fought them, likely been pinned down near the window, considering the amount of blood smeared on the floor and the wall, then he'd broken free to go for the phone on the desk.

The computer screen, still lit, glowed white and grey.

IRRECOVERABLE MEDIA FAILURE SYSTEM HAS STOPPED

Arnold's storage crystal had cracked. Or he had split it himself.

The killers had tacked a note on the door.
FAMILY EMERGENCY
.
CLASSES CANCELED
. Then they'd locked up.

No one had gone inside. No one had noticed the dried brown stains—not big, any of them—that spotted the hall floor, the staircase, and the walls outside. Arnold's prints were everywhere, and easy to pick up. God knows he'd been perspiring. They'd found them on the blood-smeared stair rail, along baseboards where he'd fallen and flattened his hands full on the wall. And there was a lamppost in the parking lot, among the prime spots reserved for full professors, that had a nearly complete set. So they even knew where he'd been parked.

And no one had seen a thing.

All the calling cards of a cho killing. Bold. Killers striking not in a dark alley in a bad section of town, but in the midst of safety—your bedroom, your home, your Elaki meditation grounds.

Nobody ever saw anything.

Whoever they were, they did their research. They'd gotten on and off campus, no witnesses, streetlights and appliances jammed. Just like the pros who'd snatched Dahmi.

David left the office to the nano technician. He met Mel on the staircase.

“Where's String?”

“He's got a picture of those bloodstains we found on the trunk lid of Arnold's car. He's trying to run that down. And the Elaki-Three, there, are looking for witnesses, like everybody else.” Mel pointed to a student who sat, dazed and tearful, in a swivel chair. “Norman Blackmun. He may be the last one to have seen Arnold alive. Says Arnold was working late.”

“What was Blackmun doing?”

“Computer jock.”

“When was this?”

“Wednesday night.”

“Wednesday?” David frowned. The night of Angel's lecture. The night they'd had dinner at the Café Pierre. Was Arnold killed while they were eating?

“Arnold's storage crystal split,” David said. “We may be able to get something from that. Time maybe.”

Mel nodded. “Let's see what this Blackmun knows.”

David shook his head. “I'm going to talk to Angel. See if she's heard the news. Find out where Weid hangs out, see if she saw him Wednesday after dinner.”

“You arresting him?”

David bit his lip. Arresting Elaki meant a snarl of paperwork and trouble, none of which had been done yet. “I'll try to get him to come in on his own.”

Mel scratched his chin. “Don't bring him in till I catch up with you.”

“You and a couple of uniforms. Let's just hope he hasn't gotten another dog.”

“Think you can sweet-talk this Angel, huh?”

David shrugged.

“More like she'll be sweet-talking you. Make sure you wait for me before you go after that Weid.”

“Don't think he'll come along peacefully?”

“Yeah, him and the tooth fairy.”

David headed down the stairs, skirting bloodstains.

“David?” Mel peered over the stair rail. “You want to talk to her yourself, make up your own mind, okay. But watch yourself, partner. She knows.”

David kept going, dodging a technician and walking past a knot of students and teachers who watched him curiously from behind crime scene tapes.

In his mind, he pictured Arnold leaving fingerprints to mark his trail, leaving a bloody clue in the lid of the trunk. Arnold knew he was dead and he left them a trail.

Hell of a guy, David thought.

FORTY-SIX

David stopped to get his bearings, thinking that people who gave directions to places they were overly familiar with were the worst for leaving out chunks of pertinent information. Edmund University was big, old, and, like most conglomerations added onto in fits and starts, very confusing.

Angel was not in her office. David had gotten directions and information from a graduate assistant who had worked through the night in a badly lit, cramped cubicle. David checked his watch. Just after eight, and Angel's first class wasn't until ten.

He followed the brick wall until it ran out. The ground was still moist from yesterday's rain, and it was humid out. He kept going until he found the hedge he'd been told to look for—thick green leaves on tough gnarly vines, covering a rusting chain-link fence. The hedge was too high for David to see over, though an Elaki might get a look if it stretched.

The gate dragged when David tugged it open, scarring the grass.

As a visiting professor of rank and celebrity status, Angel Eyes had been housed in the small but historical residence of Annabelle Tilford, the university's first president. The house was nearly two hundred years old, red brick with black trim, interesting and ugly.

The landscaping was mature and lush. Huge old tulip trees had shed their pink and lavender flowers, and soft, fragrant petals were thick on the lawn. The sidewalk was dark grey and pebbled, and the generous network of trees and shrubs had brass plaques giving their names, genus, and botanical history.

David could not help comparing the opulent lushness to the tangle of brush, scrub, and overgrown meadow grass that populated his own seven acres.

The windows at the back of the house were tightly shuttered. Utility poles, useless now, bordered the property line. Something small and brown moved in the grass. David frowned. Lawn animal? It ran up a tree and David smiled faintly. Squirrel. A real one.

The house had a door on the side, and concrete stairs with an ugly black railing. A paved drive circled from front to back. Another flight of stairs led down a well in the ground—probably to a basement.

David's heels were noisy on the driveway. A rolled-up newspaper lay on the front porch, next to a ramp that had been newly built over the top of the stairs. The ramp was too narrow for wheelchairs. David picked up the morning edition of the
Saigo City Times
and waited for the door sensor to ask his business.

Nothing happened.

He pushed an old-fashioned brass doorbell, charmed to hear the metallic chime through the solid wood door. He rang the bell again.

There was noise and movement behind lace-curtained glass panes that framed the front door.

“David?” Angel focused on the rolled-up newspaper. “You come to deliver this paper?”

David smiled, then wondered if Elaki understood smiles.

“Must come in.” Angel did not lean forward, as he would have had to. Her fin stretched and folded, and she pushed the door wide.

David caught the warm, sweet smell of Elaki coffee.

“You have the coffee obsession?”

“Well put,” David said. “And yes, I do.”

“You take the cream.”

“Please.” She remembered, he thought.

The house felt good. The living room had impressively high ceilings, three windows, and a tall fireplace. The walls were newly painted, beige, with white molding and trim. The floor was polished wood, and the oriental rug was threadbare, intensely valuable, and had likely been there from Annabelle Tidford's time.

The only furniture was a small Victorian love seat and a marble-topped mahogany side table. Overfurnished for an Elaki. Oddly furnished for an Elaki.

His mother would have loved this room, David thought. He had the feeling she would get along well with Elaki, had she lived long enough.

“Come along in,” Angel said. “The kitchen makes good hearth room.”

The kitchen cabinets were painted bright yellow, and there was a red braided rug, oval-shaped, in the center of the floor. A table was jammed against the wall, the chairs stacked on top.

“Please,” Angel said. “Take down chairs and will sit.”

She was moving stiffly, David noticed. Slower than usual, her back almost rigid. Was this the Elaki version of early morning sleepiness? David yawned.

Angel handed him a slender white mug. She'd put the cream in herself. David took a small sip of coffee and burned his tongue. He set the newspaper down on the table.

“How long have you known Weid?” he asked softly.

Angel backed up to the counter, and her left eye prong twitched. “So long I cannot count it. Why the question?”

David sipped coffee, wondering if Elaki, like people, could not bear silence.

“I know him from beginning, when I am the young political. He is some older. Dedicated and had the experience. And taught me much. He is something of the strongman. He teach us to fight and protect—there was much need for that, in the bad old days. After a time he became my own protector. He is as a shadow to me, a part to me. He and myself the last of my own chemaki. You know of chemaki?”

“I know.” Mel was right, then. If Weid was involved, how could it be that Angel would not know?

He was married to Rose. There were times he didn't think he knew anything about her.