Alien Blues (20 page)

He avoided Rose's eyes, watching, instead, the paramedic swab the blood off her arms.

“That
hurts
.”

“Don't wake the girls,” David said coldly.

The medic gave him a quick, puzzled look. “Going to need to glue this one.”

“Please don't use that stuff on me,” Rose said. “It
itches
. Ouch.”

“Sorry. Listen, it wasn't that long ago, they used to sew stitches in people.”

“Tell me another one.”

Mel walked into the kitchen, followed by Captain Halliday. Halliday studied Rose glumly. She looked small, perched on the edge of the chair, the men towering over her. Her eyes were wide and innocent.

“I'll be putting it down as self-defense,” he said. He glanced at David, and David kept his expression bland.

Rose nodded. “Any questions now?”

She looked too young, David thought. Did killing leave no mark on her?

None visible.

Then he realized there
was
something different about her. It was an air of distraction, an intense preoccupation. The smiles were slow and forced, the eyes bland, emotionless.

So it was there, if you knew to look for it. And it bothered him, knowing he had seen that look about her before.

David shifted in his seat. Halliday was suspicious, but he was keeping it to himself. Machete Man's execution had been swift and professional. Halliday wasn't stupid.

“No questions right now.” Halliday put a friendly hand on Rose's shoulder. “You've had enough for one night.”

He was giving them time to get their stories straight, David decided. Unnecessary. They'd done that before the cops got within a mile.

Mel laughed. “Listen, Captain, anybody messing with Rose is the one going to be sorry.”

Shut up, David thought.

“Hell, it's a wonder I survived growing up with her.”

The wind chimes hanging outside the kitchen window tinged in the small breeze. The red pulse of an emergency flasher battered the window at regular intervals. The red swatch of light hit Lisa's face, and David eased her sideways in his lap, so that she would not be disturbed.

David was tired. Machete Man was dead, the case would be closed, and they hadn't scratched the surface. God damn Rose. She hadn't had to kill him. He wished everybody would leave. There was a lot he wanted to say to her.

A tall, slender man walked into the kitchen and Rose looked up.

“Haas!”

“You are all right?” Haas looked at David. “The children?”

“Bad scare, but not hurt.”

Haas took a deep breath. He had cleaned the blood off his face, but the bruise was livid. He looked exhausted.

Halliday came into the room from the hall. He studied the bruise on Haas's face. “Who the hell is this?”

“I called him,” Rose said. She turned her back on all of them, leaving Halliday openmouthed, and the medic dripping skin glue on the table.

“Look here, friend, this is a crime scene,” Halliday began.

“He's here to see to the dog,” Rose said. She took Haas's arm and pulled him out of the room.

Halliday stared after them. “Silver, maybe you better explain what
crime scene
means to your wife.”

“Explain it yourself,” David said. He stood up, staggering under the weight of his daughters. Mel took Kendra from him and followed him down the hall.

“Don't get pissed, David,” Mel said. “Roger's trying to help you, in case you ain't figured it out. And he don't know Rose like you and me.”

“Lucky Roger.”

Mel's look was sharp and speculative.

“Put them in our bed,” David said.

Haas and Rose were in the hallway, bending over the dog. Dead Meat whimpered and licked Haas's hand.

David nodded curtly, edging around them. His home looked so much the same, so intimately familiar, that the out-of-place things struck him all the harder—glass scattered over the girls' bedroom, coworkers going through the familiar routines in familiar surroundings, a surreal combination of work and home. No escaping this one.

Machete Man had crept down the hallway, stalking his daughters. David's shoulders jerked.

He laid Mattie and Lisa on the bed. Then he peered around the corner of the bedroom and watched. Haas was gentle and expert, but the dog whined weakly.

The blankets and sheets rustled as Mel tucked Kendra in beside her sisters.

“Listen, David, you better—”

“Shhh.”

Mel crept quietly behind him and looked over his shoulder.

“… please, Haas.” Rose was pulling on his jacket.

“We talk later. The dog I take home. I need to make the tests, but I think she will heal. And please, we call her Hildegarde. This ‘Dead Meat' is not name for brave little dog.”

“Thanks, Haas.”

“Of course. Rosy, if you are right … if this is
Santana
—”

“I'm not sure. I'm not making sense of all this.”

“And you're not going to,” David muttered. “Now you killed my boy.”

“What are you mumbling?” Mel asked.

“Shhh.”

“You will need help,” Haas was saying.

“Not on this one.”

“
My
help, Rosy.” Haas touched her cheek. “I …” He looked up and saw David and Mel peering around the corner. He grinned and touched Rose's shoulder.

David would have given a lot not to be wearing pajamas.

Haas smiled at him. “I will take Hildegarde here, and see to her for you. I am good vet for animals.”

“She answers to Dead Meat.”

“Hilde is much better name, David, do you not think?” The dog licked his hand. “Yes, she thinks so. Could I have a towel, please, to wrap her in?”

“Sure. Rose, where …”

“Rose,” Haas said. “Go finish in the kitchen. You are bleeding on this dog. Surely David can get me what I need.”

Rose headed for the kitchen, obedient twice on the same night. David went to the linen closet for an old towel. The baseball bat, unfortunately, was being tagged as evidence.

THIRTY-ONE

Haas was gone, as were the uniforms, the ambulance, the medic, the ME, Machete Man's body. Della Martinas was browsing through the refrigerator. The sun was coming up, taking away the dark edge of the night and the nightmare. The kitchen window glowed with pink light. The wind chimes were still now. The house seemed quiet, empty. David wondered where Rose was.

Della unwrapped a foil package. “Umm,” she said. She closed the refrigerator and picked up a pork chop, biting a hunk of meat off the side. “We got us a connection, Silver. Between Machete Man's victims.”

David clenched and unclenched his right fist. “No good. Halliday will close the case.”

“Don't think so,” Della said. She took another bite of meat. “Hey, these are good. You grill these?”

“Yeah.”

“Where's the beer?”

“Bottom right. Get me one.”

She handed him a can, got one for herself, and rustled in the foil package for another pork chop. “We never have leftovers at my house.”

“You got to cook it first.”

Della wiped her fingers on a dish towel. “Don't you want to know what the connection is?”

Mel walked into the kitchen and helped himself to a beer. “What connection?” He took a large swallow and belched discreetly into the top of his fist. “What you eating, Della?”

She handed him a pork chop.

He bit into the edge and looked thoughtful. “These are good. You grill these, David?”

“What connection?” David said.

Della smiled. “Health care.”

“Same doctor?”

“No. Nothing that direct. Some of them—about sixty-five percent—have the same insurance carrier.”

“It's got to be one of three anyway,” Mel said.

“S'why we didn't pick up on it right away. Taking under consideration the trends of this city, Americana Health should have about forty-seven percent of them. It has sixty-five. Did a little thinking, and the thing is, Americana does a lot of government business. And they give price breaks to your family. Immediate and otherwise. And guess what I found out.”

“What?”

“A lot of the victims have a relative on a government project. A cousin, nephew—something like that. None of them immediate, all of them secondary.”

“Any particular project?”

“Project Horizon.”

David looked at Mel.

“Boys, I see that pulls your chain.” Della opened the refrigerator, leaving greasy fingerprints on the door. David got up and wiped them away with the dish towel. Mel crowded close to Della and they both stared into the refrigerator. David wasn't about to tell them where the girls kept their stash of candy bars.

Della shook her head. “You eat too healthy, Silver.” She swung the refrigerator door, and Mel jerked his head out of the way. “Got to go home to my boys.” She paused in the doorway. “I want to know, Silver. When your wife hears a noise in the middle of the night. She ask you to go see?”

“No.”

“No. I guess she don't.”

David curled his lip and Mel handed him a beer. It had been at the back of the refrigerator and it was ice-cold. David took a large swallow.

Mel sat beside him at the table.

“How's your leg?” David asked.

“It's bitchy. Too close to my crotch for comfort.”

David swallowed beer. “You been in the hospital too long, Mel.”

“Yeah. What you thinking, there, David? You got a mean look.”

“Women.”

“Oh yeah. Them.”

“Why are women so
violent
, Mel?”

“Just Rose.”

“No. It's all of them. You should have seen my girls, pelting this pervert with stuffed animals.” David laughed suddenly, sputtering beer on the wall. “You know Rose believes in reinstating the death penalty?”

“Lots of people do, David.”

“Even my mother.”

“She believe in the death penalty?”

“No. But look at how she kills herself. Hammers in a hook, strings up a rope … I mean, she probably went down to a hardware store, bought all this stuff, and then went right home and hung herself. No second thoughts. No agonizing. So goddamn direct. One minute, baking in the kitchen. The next, hanging from a rope. I just don't understand the mind-set.”

“A shame about Machete Man, David, but we'll get it figured. It's connected somehow—Machete Man and this Project Horizon. Halliday won't shut us off.”

“I don't care what he does, I'm not letting go of this.”

“Me neither. Not after what they did to Dyer. Not to mention here.”

“Damn straight.”

Mel got up and found two more cans of beer. “So,” David. Tell me.”

“Huh?”

“What about Machete Man, really? Was it self-defense, or did Rose just off this guy?”

David belched.

“I knew it,” Mel said.

THIRTY-TWO

David's bladder woke him. His neck was stiff and sore from sleeping hunched over in the easy chair. Mel was asleep on the couch, a beer can clutched in his hand. David stood up and stretched. He ran a hand over his face. Almost a beard. Maybe he wouldn't shave.

He showered and put on clean jeans and a T-shirt, moving quietly around the room to get his clothes. The girls, looking like a pile of exhausted kittens, were asleep in the middle of the bed.

He heard the crackle of gravel in the drive and he went out front.

Rose was asleep on the porch swing, nestled so deep in a blanket he could barely see the top of her head. They ought to have talked. He wiggled his toes. The sun was high; it was late. The warmth of the plank porch felt good on his bare feet.

The car stopped a hundred feet from the house. It was a maroon and silver Audi, and it had the Elaki adaptation. David shaded his eyes. The car door swung up and an Elaki flowed out into the yard. It was a handsome Elaki, one he'd never seen. The color was vivid—the trim coal-black, and the front deep pink. The side pouches were loose and pronounced, so the Elaki was a female who'd borne children. She was taller than average and her eye prongs curved gracefully at the top. Reflections glanced off her scales, like sunlight on water.

David waited for her to come to the porch. The Elaki did not move.

He headed across the drive, rocks and tufts of dirt hurting the soles of his feet. Unlike Rose, he rarely went barefoot. The Elaki acknowledged him with a ripple spreading from fringe to waist. David stopped in front of the car, feeling the warmth of the engine radiating through the hood.

“You are the David Silver?”

“Yes.”

“I come to you from the Solver of Puzzles.”

“Sheesha?”

The Elaki jerked.

“How is he?” David asked.

“He is … here.” The Elaki held up a small leather case.

For a short moment David was sure that the case contained Puzzle's ashes. Ridiculous. Cremation was a human burial custom.

“You have a message?” David asked. An ant crawled over his big toe and he bent down to scratch.

“A message? Yes, it is that.” The Elaki handed him the case. “Have you received a probe before?”

David looked blank.

“My apology. Question stupid. Please accept me to advise. It can only use once, then it is gone. So very important, the lasting impression.”

David scratched the back of his head. “Who are you?”

“One Sheesha trusted. It is most frowned for, this probe. Like your suicide.”

“What are you talking about? Look, maybe I better talk to Puzzle.”

“You
cannot
do that. He is here. This is all. You must understand this.”

David leaned against the car. He had a bad feeling and he kept his hands off the leather case.

“Please,
take
.” The Elaki touched his arm.

“
What
is it?”

“You must not refuse.” The Elaki began to sway from side to side. “The sacrifice is most extreme, David Silver.”