Alien Rites (20 page)

Mel gave her a sour look. “Get real, Della. This is a fatal disease.”

“Not always,” she said quickly, looking at David.

Mel leaned forward in his chair. Motioned for them all to come close. He seemed so clearly confident, so in control—in contrast to his recent mental state—that they all drew toward him, to hear his low-pitched advice.

“Sentimental crap isn't going to help, is it, David?”

It was a rhetorical question, but David nodded anyway. Maybe a
little
sentimental crap would have been nice, but he liked the way Mel was setting the tone. It was comforting to find himself still in the everyday world, relationships the same as ever. He didn't really want everyone to be kind and tiptoe around him. He didn't want Della's chocolate.

Mel scratched his nose. “Had a long talk with the captain yesterday. Sooner or later this virus thing is going to blow sky-high. He's already letting the Feds in on it, going through channels, whatever.”

“Be nice if he could wait till we get this case solved,” Della said.

“Cannot let the raging of infection take hold,” String said.

“The fact is,” Mel said, “and I got this from Halliday—the fact is, they're more than likely to be slow on this. Nobody's going to want to step on any Elaki toes—fringes, whatever. We'll probably have a free hand, we get on this. David, we all know you're sick. You work when you want, we carry you when you can't. We know you had that shot. I got no problem working with you one way or the other, and I just want to say that right out. You, Della?”

“Hey, I'm female, in case you forgot. It's nothing to me, but for the record.” She put her hands on her hips. “I ought to smack you for even having to ask.”

“Have been Elaki vaccinized, but ditto the Della,” String said.

Mel looked at David. “You want to work this Sifter over, you and me?”

FORTY

Mel stopped on their way down the corridor. “How are you really?”

David shrugged. “Hell, I don't know.”

“Rose and the girls?”

“Stiff upper lip. Kids don't really get it. How are you doing?”

“Thinking about Miriam night and day. Hoping I don't have to go to
her
autopsy.”

“Maybe later we'll go get a beer.”

Mel paused. “You know, I haven't had a drink since I read that list Miriam made. You remember, when she brought out all my bad points?”

“Sure. Forget I asked.”

“Nah, hell, we got to do something when the world turns to utter crap. What do women do, when they're upset?”

“Eat. Eat chocolate.”

Mel looked at David. “We could at least try it.”

David followed Mel into Interview Room 3. Sifter Chuck was in a corner of the room, and David caught the side-angle view before the Elaki turned and faced them.

He knew he was a long way from being able to read Elaki as well as he read people, and yet. He still liked Sifter Chuck, even felt sorry for him. The Elaki was nervous, that frozen stillness had settled over him, but he turned toward them affably enough, waving a fin in the comradely Elaki Hi-sign.

“Much the greets, Detectives.”

“Yeah, right.” Mel headed for the Miranda-Pro, which hung over the edge of the table. He scooted it backward.

“How you doing?” David said. He gave Mel a wary look. He'd seen that intense attitude before.

David was tired, but feeling better than he had been. Aslanti had given him something to boost his immune system. Maybe it was helping. Maybe he was getting better. Maybe he wasn't as sick as everyone seemed to think.

“I have been done the rights advisement.”

Mel nodded, checked the machine. Sat on the edge of the table. He spoke very softly.

“Mr. Sifter. Sir. I wonder if you have any objection to donating a scale or two for analysis by our crime-scene people?”

“I had been to think that here I was questions solely.”

“Should I take that as no?”

David willed Sifter to agree. They could get scales from him through channels. It would look better for him if he agreed.

“I do not wish to submit with no explanations.”

David felt his stomach drop. He still didn't believe Sifter Chuck had killed anyone.

Mel swung one leg. “You think we owe you an explanation? Let me ask you a question, then. What were you and Luke Cochran doing out at the Bailey Farmstead Preservation the day he disappeared?”

“Was not there.”

David shook his head slowly. The Elaki twitched an eye prong, looked from David to Mel and back to Mel.

“You don't want to change your mind about that answer, do you?”

“Was not there.”

“Was Cochran still alive then, or did you haul his body there yourself?”

“Isss dead? The Cochran isss dead?”

“We got a witness, saw you out there. We got a statement from Cochran's car, putting the two of you there.”

One false, one half-true, David thought. Business as usual.

“We got soil samples and digging tools, and blood we've identified as Cochran's. We got Elaki scale samples I got no doubt are going to match with yours. So hold out if you want, but you can't change your DNA, my friend. Soon as we get the match, you're going to be charged. You got nothing to say, that's fine.” Mel looked at David. “I'll get the ball rolling. You coming?”

“Give me a minute.”

Mel nodded. Left without a backward look.

Sifter Chuck was swaying slightly, as if buffeted by an invisible wind. “Big macho tough guy, that one.
You got nothing to say, that's fine. I'll get the ball rolling.
”

David had never heard an Elaki imitate a human before. Sifter was good, very good. David tried not to smile, couldn't help himself. Bad cop, he thought. Bad policeman.

“How long have you been waiting here anyway?” David asked him. “You hungry, want something to eat? Taco?”

“Elaki want a taco? Polly want a cracker? Have never seen with law trouble, Detective. Have been truthful all out with you on the statement. Do not understand why the treatment. Isss good cop bad cop this?”

David leaned back in his chair. “My partner has a personal relationship with the woman who's missing. He's upset. He thinks you're it. I don't think there's any way we're going to talk him out of that, unless you've got something you haven't given me?”

“Isss maybe time to up the shut.”

“That's your best bet. Unless … Never mind.”

“Unless?”

“It's not difficult, Sifter. If you killed Cochran, you ought to keep quiet, don't talk to us. Make us work for that scale sample, come up with our own motive, the whole drill. But here's what worries me.” David got out of the chair, sat on the edge of the table, and leaned in toward the Elaki. “I've worked homicide a long time. Talked to a lot of people, been lied to regularly, stonewalled—and I'm not saying that's what's going on here, I'm just giving you a little friendly advice, Sifter. Most people we talk to have things they'd rather not discuss with the police. Everybody has secrets. The problem comes when these secrets make them withhold things we need to know. Even if you were innocent of anything else, withholding is obstruction of justice. And whatever it is somebody might be hiding, it might be something we'd be willing to overlook—if somebody deals with us on the up and up. But if not, if we don't get the real story without a lot of time and red-tape rigamarole, we come down hard.”

Sifter slid from one side of the room to the other.

David gave him a moment, then started up again. “If there is a scale match, you're going to look pretty bad. I already explained, didn't I, that my partner has a personal interest here? That's going to make things pretty intense. We got tools out of Cochran's trunk. We've got blood, we've got soil samples. And we've got Luke's employer and supposed protector—that's you—who admits being with him the night he disappeared. I'll tell you the truth. We've gotten a lot of media attention on this thing. We're under pressure from our captain to wrap this up. And what we have, the best thing we have, Sifter Chuck, is you.”

The Elaki's inner belly quivered, then went rigid. David kept his voice gentle.

“Tell me.”

Sifter reared up on his bottom fringe, teetered for a moment, then let himself down slowly.

“Isss as you say. Some things would prefer to leave under the hide.”

“This is a murder investigation, Sifter. The only thing I'm interested in is Cochran's killer, because I know, the way a cop knows, my friend, I know this kid is dead.” And as he said it, David realized it was true. “I'm interested in one thing only. Finding his killer. Anything else comes up, I could not care less. You understand me?”

“Understand thisss, Detective. I do not have the knowledge of the Cochran eternal fate.”

“Did you go to the Bailey Farmstead with him the day he went missing?”

“Yesss. In afternoon.”

David waited.

“He left this place most alive.”

“What were you doing out there?”

Sifter did not answer.

“Look, Sifter, I need an explanation. We have soil, we have blood. I can only think of one reason for those two substances. In my mind, I see Cochran dead and buried.”

“Cochran will do the burying.”

David looked at him, not quite sure what the Elaki was confessing to. “Go on.”

“He and me together we did, with his work more of the tough physical.”

“What about the blood?”

“Him be cut.”

“Come on, Sifter, that's flimsy and you know it.”

“Isss truth, flimsy or no. He feel not well, and get careless. Hand me shovel tool, cut him palm, all way cross. Bleed on tools, and into dirt tops. Keep dig, keeps bleed, and sweat in this head.”

Sweat in this head? David kept going. “Why were you digging?”

“Make the deep hole.”

David waited.

“Burying object.”

“What object?”

“Bear.”

“
What?
”

“Teddy bear.”

FORTY-ONE

It was nightfall by the time they got their permissions, subpoenas, and crime-scene crew in place. It was raining again.

Mel looked at David. “I don't believe for one minute we're going to find any damn stuffed bears down there.”

David coughed, huddled under the umbrella. “It's a sleeper scam, Mel. I talked to the guys in Art Theft; they said it's older than the antiques.”

“They bury the loot, then discover it later?”

“That gives it authenticity. It's a twentieth-century farmstead, these are twentieth-century bears.”

“Who'd believe somebody buried a damn teddy bear?”

“People who want to believe it. Dealers, Elaki dealers. We're talking about a lot of money, Mel.”

“Yeah, right.”

The ground was soggy, and Sam Caper and his people moved slowly in the soupy mud, preserving the dirt in layers, in case they found the worst.

David slogged through the grass onto an asphalt walkway and looked around. It was pretty here, providing you could tune out the police cars, the CSU van, men and women removing layers of mud, waiting for something nasty to turn up. Mel was in the car, talking on the radio. Keeping in touch with Halliday most likely. Sifter Chuck had come over in the CSU van with String and Sam Caper. The two Elaki were deep in conversation. Sifter Chuck had that loose-limbed slump that signaled Elaki depression.

David walked through a puddle, wetting his feet. It was too much like the night they'd found Cochran's car, the night he'd become infected. No more than three or four days ago. It seemed longer.

Sifter Chuck and Luke Cochran had done their digging between the weathered grey barn and the bright yellow farmhouse—both under preservation and open to the public weekdays from ten to four-thirty. On weekends, the hours were extended till dusk.

It was peaceful out here, or would be, and well-tended, like David wished his place was. He liked the orderliness, though he knew it was dearly bought by government funds, and that the farm had looked nothing like this in the twentieth century, when it was a working operation.

There was a vegetable garden that made him think with a pang of the tender green plants in his own would-be garden, chewed to pieces by Dead Meat, the pretty good dog. Behind the house were the orchards, apples trees mainly. The path led that way. On his left was a small wooded area—trees fat, tall, and mature. David veered off the path, heading for the trees.

The rain stepped up just as he ducked under the tree cover. He could hear the roar of the raindrops as they launched a major onslaught, mercifully screened by the foliage. A steady drum of water thudded into his heavy black umbrella, but he was not deluged.

His feet were already soaked—not a great idea for a man as sick as he was supposed to be—but he couldn't get any wetter than he already was, and he wanted to walk.

It was like being in another world. The beat of the rain and the spread of trees shut out the noise of the city, and the CSU generators. It was dark, here in the trees, and David had not walked far down the rain-sloppy path when he had to call it quits. He leaned up against a tree and closed his eyes.

He felt hot and he couldn't quite seem to catch his breath. The hair at the back of his head was drenched with sweat and rain mist. He took his jacket off, breathing in the damp air, feeling chilly now. Sweat pooled under his arms and made the cotton shirt stick to his back. Hot and cold—he wished his system would settle on one or the other, and quit the continual switching that made it impossible for him to be comfortable.

The virus had not seemed real until now. He hadn't gone more than two hundred yards, and his heart was pounding, his head aching. He was strongly considering sitting down at the base of this tree in the sticky mud for the pure joy of being off his feet.