The Stupidest Angel (16 page)

"Huh?" Lena said.

"See you tonight," Tuck said. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then sauntered out of the office, smiling apologetically at the exhausted realtors as he went.

"Merry Christmas, you guys," he said, waving from the door.

The first thing that Theo noticed when he entered Gabe Fenton's cabin was the aquariums with the dead rats. The female was scampering around the center cage, sniffing and crapping and looking rat-happy, but the others, the males, lay on their backs, feet shot to the sky, like plastic soldiers in a death diorama.

"How did that happen?"

"They wouldn't learn. Once they associated the shock with sex, they started liking it."

Theo thought about his relationship with Molly over the last few days. He pictured himself in the dead-rat display. "So you just kept shocking them until they died?"

"I had to keep the parameters of the experiment constant."

Theo nodded gravely, as if he understood completely, which he didn't. Skinner came over and headbutted him in the thigh. Theo scratched his ears to comfort him.

Skinner was worried about the Food Guy, and he was hoping that maybe the Emergency Backup Food Guy might give him one of the tasty-smelling white squirrels in the cages on the table, now that it appeared that the

Food Guy was finished cooking them. This teasing was as bad as when that kid at the beach used to pretend to throw the ball, then not throw the ball. Then pretend to throw the ball, but not throw the ball. Skinner
had
to knock the kid down and sit on his face. Boy, had he been
bad-dogged
for that. Nothing hurt like being bad-dogged, but if the Food Guy kept teasing him with the white squirrels, Skinner knew he was going to have to knock him down and sit on his face, maybe even poop in his shoe.
Oh, I am a bad, bad dog.
No, wait, the Emergency Backup Food Guy was scratching his ears. Oh, that felt good. He was fine. Doggie Xanax. Never mind.

Theo handed Gabe the sandwich bag with the hairs in it.

"What's the oily substance in the bag?" Gabe said, examining the specimen.

"Potato-chip flotsam. The bag is from my lunch yesterday."

Gabe nodded, then looked at Theo the way the coroner always looks at the cop on TV—like:
You numbskull, don't you know that you're contaminating evidence just by continuing to draw breath and I'd be a lot more comfortable with you if you'd stop?

He took the bag over to the microscope on the counter, removed a couple of the hairs, and put them on a slide with a cover, then fitted it into the microscope.

"Please don't tell me it's polar bear," Theo said.

"No, but at least it's an animal. It seems to have a distinct sour-cream-and-onion signature." Gabe pulled back from the microscope and grinned at Theo. "Just fucking with you." He gave Theo a gentle punch to the arm and looked back into the microscope. "Wow, the medulla is absent and there's low birefringence."

"Wow," echoed Theo, trying but not really feeling the low-birefringence stoke that Gabe was.

"I have to check the hair database online, but I think it's from a bat."

"There's a database for that? What, Bat Hair DotCom?"

"That was supposed to be the whole purpose of the Internet, you know. To share scientific information."

"Not a Viagra- and porn-delivery system?" Theo said. Maybe Gabe was going to be okay after all.

Gabe moved to the computer at his desk and scrolled through screen after screen of microscope photos of mammal hair until he found one he liked, then went back to the microscope and checked it again.

"Wow, Theo, you've got yourself an endangered species here."

"No way."

"Where the hell did you get this? Micronesian giant fruit bat."

"Out of a Dodge pickup truck."

"Hmm, that's not listed as their habitat. It wasn't parked in Guam, was it?"

Theo fished his car keys out of his pocket. "Look, Gabe, I have to go. Meet at the Slug for a beer tonight, okay?"

"We can have beer now, if you want. I have some in the fridge."

"You need to get out. I need to get out. Okay?" Theo was backing out the door.

"Okay. I'll meet you at six. I have to go pick up some Super Glue solvent at the Thrifty-Mart."

"Bye." Theo jumped off the porch and loped to the Volvo.

Skinner barked at him in four-four time.
Hello? Tasty white squirrels? Still in the little box? Hello? You forgot?

When Theo pulled up to Lena Marquez's house, there was a generic white economy rental car (A
Ford Mucus,
he thought) parked out front. He looked for the bat he'd seen hanging from the porch ceiling, but it wasn't there. He hadn't even filed the experience of running over the apparently indestructible blond guy, and now he was facing the possibility that he might actually be about to confront a murderer. Just in case, he'd stopped at home and gotten his gun off the shelf in the closet and his handcuffs off the bedpost where Molly had last imprisoned him when they had still been speaking. (She'd been in the yard out behind the cabin, working out with a bamboo
shinai
kendo sword she'd been using since breaking her broadsword—he'd snuck in and out without confrontation.) He unsnapped the Glock's nylon holster that was clipped to the back of his jeans and rang the doorbell.

The door opened. Theo screamed and drew his gun as he jumped back.

On the other side of the threshold, Tucker Case screamed and dove backward also, shielding his face with his hands. His hat made a little yelping sound.

"Hold it right there," Theo said. He could feel his pulse beating in his neck.

"I'm holding, I'm holding. Jesus, what the fuck is this about?"

"You have a bat on your head!"

"Yeah, and for that you're going to shoot me?"

The bat, his huge black wings wrapped around the pilot's head, gave the impression of a large leather cap with a Mohawk crest of fur that culminated in a big-eared little dog face that was now barking at Theo.

"Well, uh, no." Theo lowered the gun, feeling a little embarrassed now. He was still in his shooter's crouch, though, which now, with the gun lowered, made him look like he was posing as the world's skinniest sumo wrestler.

"Can I get up?" Tuck asked.

"Sure, I just wanted to talk to Lena."

Tucker Case was exasperated and his bat had fallen over one eye. "Well, she's at her office. Look, if you're going to get high, maybe you ought to leave the gun at home, huh?"

"What?" Theo had been careful to use some Visine, and it had been hours since he'd hit his Sneaky Pete pot pipe. He said, "I'm not high. I haven't gotten high in years."

"Yeah, right. Constable, maybe you'd better come in."

Theo stood and tried to shake off the appearance that he'd just had about five years of life scared out of him by a guy with a bat on his head. He followed Tucker Case into Lena's kitchen, where the pilot offered him a seat at the table.

"So, Constable, what can I do for you?"

Theo wasn't sure. He'd planned on talking to Lena, or at least the two of them together. "Well, as you probably know, we found Lena's ex-husband's truck up in Big Sur."

"Of course, I saw it."

"You saw it?"

"From the helicopter. Tucker Case, contract pilot for the DEA, remember? You can check me out if you want to. Anyway, we've been patrolling that area."

"You have?" The bat was looking at Theo and Theo was having trouble following his own thoughts. The bat was wearing tiny sunglasses. Ray-Bans, Theo could see by the trademark in the corner of one lens. "I'm sorry, Mr., uh—Case, could you take the bat off your head. It's very distracting."

"Him."

"Pardon?"

"It's a him. Roberto. He no like the light."

"Pardon?"

"Friend of mine used to say that. Sorry." Tucker Case unwrapped the bat and put it on the floor, where it spidered away, walking on its wing tips into the living room.

"God, that's creepy," Theo said.

"Yeah, you know, kids. What are you gonna do?" Tuck dazzled a perfect grin. "So, you found this guy's truck? Not him, though?"

"No. It was made to look like he was washed into the ocean while fishing off the rocks."

"Made to look? So, you suspect foul play?" Tuck bounced his eyebrows.

Theo thought the pilot should be taking this more seriously. It was time to drop the bomb. "Yes. First, he never came home after the Caribou Christmas party Tuesday night, where he played the joke Santa. No one goes surf-fishing in the middle of the night, wearing a Santa suit. We found the Santa hat still in the truck, and

I found hairs from a Micronesian fruit bat on the head-rest.

"Well, that's a coincidence. Jeez, that's got to make you suspicious, doesn't it?" Tucker Case got up and went over to the counter. "Coffee? I just made it."

Theo stood up, too, just because he didn't want the suspect to get away, or maybe to show that he was taller, because it seemed like the only advantage he had over the pilot.

"Yes, it is suspicious. And I talked to a kid Tuesday night who said he saw a woman killing Santa Claus with a shovel. I didn't think anything of it then, but now I think the kid might have actually seen something."

Tucker Case was busying himself with getting cups out of the cupboard, milk out of the fridge. "So, you
did
tell the kid that there's no Santa, right?"

"No, I didn't."

Now Tucker Case turned, coffeepot in hand, and regarded Theo. "You know that there is no Santa, don't you, Constable?"

"This is not a joke," Theo said. He hated this— hated being the MAN. He was supposed to be the smart-ass in the face of authority figures.

"Cream?"

Theo sighed. "Sure. And sugar, please."

Tuck finished preparing the coffee, brought the cups to the table, and sat down.

"Look, I see where you're going with this, Theo. Can I call you Theo?"

Theo nodded.

"Thanks. Anyway, Lena was with me Tuesday night, all night."

"Really? I saw Lena on Monday. She didn't mention you. Where did you meet?"

"At the Thrifty-Mart. She was a Salvation Army Santa. I thought she was attractive, so I asked her out. We hit it off."

"You make it a habit of hitting on the Salvation Army Santas?"

"Lena said that you're married to a scream queen called Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland."

Theo nearly shot coffee out his nose. "That was a character she used to play."

"Yeah, Lena says sometimes that's not so clear to her. My point is: Love is where you find it."

Theo nodded. Yeah, that was true. Before he drifted into a wistful state of mind, Theo reminded himself that this guy was, in an offhand way, attacking the woman he loved. "Hey," Theo said.

"It's okay? Who am I to judge? I married an island girl who had never seen indoor plumbing until I brought her to the States. Didn't work out—"

"Fruit-bat hair in the truck," Theo interrupted.