Alien Eyes (16 page)

“Surely got more than three,” Mel said. “I sent him one myself.”

David clenched his fist.

“We
are
close to naming names,” Ogden said.

A grating female voice rose in the air. “Are these killings done by the Elaki Izicho?”

Enid West, David thought.

Ogden paused. He gazed off to the horizon for a moment, then looked Enid West in the eyes.

“I cannot directly comment on that question at this point in time.”

“But you don't rule it out?”

“No, Ms. West.” Ogden looked solemn. “I don't rule it out.”

David stepped forward, and Mel grabbed his arm suddenly, his grip tight and painful.

“Stay out of it,” Mel said. “It won't do no good. Plus, one phone call, and he'll have your career.”

“Welcome to it.”

Mel let go of David's arm, and glanced over his shoulder at the crowd. “Where's Gumby, anyway?”

“Missing,” David said. “As usual.”

“He's getting damn hard to trust,” Mel said. “I wish I knew why I still trust him.”

A fine drizzle, barely more than mist, came in on the breeze. David hunched his shoulders and turned away from Ogden. It was then that he saw her—getting out of a limousine where she had been sitting—so human—beside Stephen Arnold. Must be a shortage of Elaki limos, David thought. If there was such a thing. Arnold held the door, and Angel Eyes touched him lightly with her fin as she rolled out.

David frowned.

“Blah de blah,” Mel said. He was still turned toward Ogden. “You listening to this? David, you—what?” Mel caught sight of Angel Eyes and Arnold. “Oh, ho. Make a nice couple, don't you think?”

“They work together,” David said flatly.

Mel grinned. “You take me too seriously, sweetheart.”

David watched Angel. She was wearing a black jacket with satin lapels—expertly cut to hang properly on an Elaki frame. The jacket had no sleeves, but billowed out on each side, something like a cape. Arnold stayed very close to her. The press pack was getting restless. They picked up Angel's scent, and moved, as one, in her direction.

Angel paused. She seemed oblivious, but David detected the stiffening beneath the scales. She could not be unaware that she had upstaged Ogden. He considered applauding.

She turned and saw him. Their gaze locked and she made a very small movement with her left fin. David nodded. She swept sideways and faced the press.

David grinned. He wished he could hear what she was saying. But the look on Ogden's face was enough. And she had been perfect. Good timing, good entrance. He'd make a point of catching her later, on Enid West's broadcast.

TWENTY-SIX

It was strange to be home. David parked the car in the barn, stopped to pet the calf, then looked around warily. No new animals. No ostrich.

Unless it was in the house.

David slid the barn door shut, noticing a mud-spattered Jeep parked behind the house. He stopped midstride, then went in through the back door.

They were sitting at the table, Rose and Haas, drinking coffee and talking fast. It seemed so natural, the two of them there, heads bent together. It was as if the last few months had never been.

“Haas?” David caught his breath.

Haas had lost weight, too much weight. There were deep circles of old dark pain beneath his eyes, and the blond hair was thinner. The deeply burnished tan on his forearms had faded, leaving the skin milky colored and splotchy.

“
David
.” Haas turned in his chair, a smile of pure pleasure on his face.

David felt a twinge of guilt. Why did the line “how the mighty have fallen” have to pop into his head?

Haas was moving slowly. But he was moving.

“You walking?” David asked.

“Show him,” Rose said. Her eyes were red; she'd been crying.

Haas lifted the bottoms of his jeans, showing ankles of flesh-colored plastic. “Artificial.” He touched both thighs. “From here to here.”

No wonder he walked funny. Haas shook David's hand, but there was something dark in his face that hadn't been there before. Something bitter.

“Couldn't you wait? Couldn't they fix it?”

Rose turned and looked at him. “
David
.”

“No, it is okay. You see, David.” Haas smiled apologetically. “It was not to be. I am at bottom of list.
No
medical priority. For each week nerves not repaired—less chance of ever working right, you see? And the farther down my chances go, the less priority I have. And I wind up back at bottom of list again. It is the old catch, you see. I have not the medical priority, they will delay the fix. And when they delay the fix, my odds go to no priority.” Haas sat back in the chair. “I cannot wait in these beds forever. In the
warehouse
hospital is a terrible place.” He smiled at Rose. “I am grateful to you, Rose, that you would try to adopt me.” He grinned at David. “It would be hard to be calling you Papa, even to get to the top of the lists.”

David grimaced. “I thought right up till the last minute there it was going to get approved.”

“Medical priority,” Rose said. “The only cop perk.”

“They'll bury me free, too,” David said.

“Speaking of which.” Rose looked at him. “How was the funeral?”

David loosened his tie. “Sad.” Haas was sitting in his chair, so he hung his jacket on the back of Lisa's chair, which, of the children's, was the least sticky.

He poured coffee. “Haas?”

“Please.”

“Rose?”

“Warm it up.”

“You've been gone a long time.” David took a sip of coffee. “We didn't hear from you. We were worried.”

“
You
were worried. Rose was not.”

“Why do you say that?” Rose asked.

Haas grinned at her. “Because I know you, Rose. You were not worried, you were angry. I think angry is better.” Haas looked at David. “For her, it is more natural.”

David's coffee went down the wrong pipe. He choked and coughed, and Rose slapped him on the back. Hard. David sat and stretched his legs, back pressed against the lapels of his best suit coat.

“Ogden was there,” he said. “At the funeral.”

Rose groaned.

“What is the Ogden?” Haas asked.

Rose pursed her lips. “Commander Ogden is now officially in charge of the investigation. I told you about it. The cho killings?”

“I have read of this.” Haas narrowed his eyes. “This Ogden. He is like the Barton Cavanelli?”

“No,” Rose said. “Not like that at all.”

David stared into space. They were cryptic as always.

“More like a Jeanette Hisle. You remember her?”

“But yes.” Haas glanced at David. “When Rose is leaving Drug Enforcement Agency, and we first work together for animal activists. The time we rescue the gorilla. Remember, Rose?”

She nodded.

“Jeanette was Rose's commanding officer in the DEA. Always holding the press conference. She would jeopardize personnel and job—jeopardize
Rose
—if she can make the DEA look good, even though what she does is pulling the plug on what Rose is doing.”

“You never told me that.” David looked from Rose to Haas.

“But yes. Rose was almost hit when we were in England.”

“England?”

“After the gorillas,” Rose said.

“But you weren't with the DEA then,” David said.

“I know. But there were still several contracts out on me. Three majors. Lots of little ones that didn't count, but three that did.”

“
Three?
” David said.

“Not unusual for visible agents.”

“Jeanette exposed her when she should not,” Haas explained. “Then claimed her
own
life was in danger.”

“Like anybody that wanted her fat ass couldn't have it,” Rose said. “She never went anywhere without protection.”

“Rose, did you never show him the T-shirt?”

David looked at her. “What T-shirt?”

“Is black, with red target on it. A good-bye gift from colleagues.”

David frowned. “This Jeanette sounds a lot like Ogden.”

“Bureaucrats,” Rose said.

“The man's got me stumped,” David told her. “We've known from day one that these killings are probably political. But the biggies haven't wanted to step on any Elaki toes—bottom fringes—whatever. And the Izicho is a tense subject. Now all of a sudden Ogden takes over, and the first thing he does is hold a conference and say he's investigating the investigators—then he hints it's been the Izicho all along. What's he up to?”

“Covering his ass, for one,” Rose said.

Haas nodded. “The change of command, and then he immediately supports what everyone already knows.”

“I'm sure he's brave and no nonsense about it,” Rose said.

“You say he cannot accuse the Izicho?” Haas asked.

David shrugged. “It would surprise me to see the department going up against the Elaki establishment.”

“Maybe,” Rose said. “Maybe he'll wave his hands and find a scapegoat. He pounding your ass? Telephone calls, pressure, looking over your shoulder?”

David frowned. “No.”

Rose smiled, but it was nasty. “Then he already knows who did it.”

“The only way he could
know
, or think he knows, would be if it is Izicho.”

Rose frowned. “Halliday understand what's going on?”

“Seems to. Up to a point.”

Rose looked at Haas.

Haas turned to David. “Watch your back, my friend. And consult with Rosey. She is most good on handling the bureaucrat.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Hold up a mirror,” Rose said. “Turn their own methods back onto them.”

“Rosey, you remember—”

David yawned. “Where are the girls?”

Rose gave him a frown that he knew meant she was annoyed. “Kendra is sleeping over. Mattie and Lisa are in their room.”

David set his coffee cup down on the table, and went down the hall to the children's room. He heard a dog whimper, and toenails scratch the wood door.

He knocked. “Open up in the name of the law.”

“Daddy?”

“You betcha.”

David heard the sound of small fingers fumbling a knob. The door opened a crack and Mattie peeped at him.

“Don't let the animals out.”

“If they want out,” David said, “let them out.”

The door swung open and Hilde burst from the room. She jumped and raked David's pants with her toenails, then sniffed and licked his fingers. Haas's laugh, deep and resonant, sounded from the kitchen. Hilde cocked her head. Her ears pricked forward and she pushed off David's legs and ran down the hall, tail wagging.

Mattie grabbed David, her arms reaching just below his waist.

“
Daddy
.”

David picked her up. She seemed heavier. He held her in the air, legs dangling.

“You
grew
,” David said. Mattie grinned and kicked her feet. She was hard to hold that way, but David hung on. “I went to work, and you grew!”

“Don't go to work so long, or I get
sooo
big.”

David hugged her and set her down. The floor was covered with plastic animals, clumped in various tableaus, as if they had gathered for group portraits. Some of them were posed in front of a box that was filled with shredded paper—a food trough, David guessed. Others were tied together with string. Some were on their sides—dead or asleep, David didn't know.

He glanced around the room, looking for Lisa. He almost missed her, asleep on the bed behind three precarious piles of clean laundry.

Mattie sat back in the floor. “No
please
,” she said, voice deep and mournful. “I do not wish to marry you. I will have my baby alone.”

David frowned and glanced over his shoulder at his youngest daughter, then looked back to Lisa. Her face was flushed, her mouth open. He could see the gap where a new front tooth was slowly growing back. There was dirt on her cheek. She looked like she'd been crying.

David touched her forehead. Warmish. Lisa opened her eyes—soft brown eyes, swollen and red-rimmed. She sat up and looked at him.

He sat down beside her on the bed. “Hey, kiddo.”

She looked at him and blinked. “Hi, Daddy.”

He put an arm around her shoulders. “Something wrong? You have a bad day?”

“I don't get to go on the honor roll field trip this year.”

“How come?”

She shrugged. “Only ones going are Elaki. Daddy, don't you think it's funny that none of
us
made it, and all of them did?”

“Who is us?”

“You know. Hot dogs.”

“Lisa.” His voice was harsh, and she shrank away from him.

“That's what they call us.”

David touched her cheek. Should he go up to the school and talk to somebody? There was a new principal this year. When would he go?

“Where were you going this year?” David asked.

“Washington. We were going to see the old FBI building.”

David grimaced. It felt like betrayal that she even wanted to go.

“
Hey
,” Lisa said suddenly. “Those are
my
animals.”

“You don't play with 'em,” Mattie said.

David heard the phone ringing. Rose appeared in the hallway.

“Mel.” She sounded distracted.

“Feel Lisa's head. See if you think she's running a fever.” David brushed close to Rose in the doorway, and she looked up and smiled. “Hello, stranger.” He squeezed her fingers.

Haas was standing at the back door. He turned when he saw David, gave him the ever-ready smile, and moved toward the living room. His walk was slow and jerky. David could not help comparing him with the old Haas—the tan, muscular build, the almost tangible emanation of physical self-confidence.