Alien in the House (13 page)

The paramedics' conversation with Tito wasn't boding well, either. I heard phrases like “massive amount of arsenic for these reactions” and “you've done all the right things.” If we'd done all the right things, then why didn't Reyes look better?

The paramedics joined the Dazzlers, but didn't have most of them move off. More medical things were perpetrated on Reyes. He still looked awful.

“Kitty,” Reyes gasped. “Promise me . . .”

“Yes?” I leaned closer to him. “What do you need, Santiago? Whatever it is, I'll handle it.”

“Promise . . . my desk . . . you'll clean . . . it out. You . . . not . . . someone else.”

“I promise.” Wondered just what kind of porn Reyes had hidden he didn't want the press or other politicians getting their hands on. “Do you need anything else?”

“Like to . . . see tomorrow.” Reyes managed a twisted grin. “Dinner and . . . a show. What a way to . . . go.”

“You're not going anywhere, Santiago. Other than to the Georgetown Medical Center.”

He squeezed my hand again. “Tell James . . .”

“Yes?”

“I hope . . . he's . . . right and . . . ready.”

“Right about what? Ready for what?”

Reyes didn't answer.

R
EYES WASN'T LOOKING
at me any more, and his hand felt limp in mine when he'd been holding tightly only a moment before.

Someone put their hands on my upper arms and moved me gently away as the paramedics started slamming the pads onto Reyes' chest and doing the electroshock thing to make someone's heart start beating again.

A few minutes of this dragged on. Then Prince threw back his head and howled. The rest of the dogs in the K-9 squad took up the cry. I'd heard this before, during Operation Assassination, when Prince had determined one of the squad and his dog had been killed.

While Prince and the other dogs were howling, the head paramedic and Tito had a brief, quiet conversation. The head paramedic shook his head. Tito slid his hand over Reyes' eyes, closing them. The paramedic covered Reyes with the sheet. The dogs quieted.

“He can't die. He can't be dead. He's a good guy.”

“Even the good guys die, baby,” Jeff said softly. I realized he was who was holding me. “I'd like American Centaurion personnel accompanying the body,” he said to the paramedic in charge.

“We can't allow anyone to leave,” Melville countered. Prince strained against his lead, but Melville kept him under control.

“We've locked off this floor from the walkway and the Embassy,” Jeff said. “Security personnel aren't allowing anyone to come or go, other than authorized police and paramedics, who are already inside. However, we don't have a morgue here, so we need to have the . . . body removed for examination.”

“That's what the paramedics are for,” Melville said.

“No offense to them, but I want someone I know I can trust protecting Representative Reyes' body.” Jeff said this calmly, but his tone insinuated he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

“We can have agents from another base come over,” I suggested. “Our people, but who weren't here at any time.”

“I want people we can trust witnessing the autopsy,” Tito added. He looked grim and upset. Lorraine and Claudia looked ready to cry. The rest of the Dazzlers looked no better, including Camilla, who looked more upset than Tito. Had a feeling she felt she'd just failed at her job.

“It's irregular,” Melville said.

“We're on American Centaurion soil.” The positive about being angry was that it stopped me from crying. I pulled out of Jeff's hold and turned on Melville. “Someone murdered Santiago in our home, and they did it in a way where he suffered horribly. And that someone probably wants to frame American Centaurion for this, too. I called you for help. You either help or you get out.”

“You can stop snarling at me,” Melville said calmly. “Irregular doesn't mean ‘no.' It means we need to make arrangements, that's all.”

“And you'll make them quickly, and quietly, without advising the press,” Chuckie said, voice set at his deadly level, as he joined us.

Melville didn't even bother with trying to stare Chuckie down—he'd already lost that battle during Operation Assassination. “Fine. I assume we're giving the C.I.A. jurisdiction on this one?”

“No, the P.T.C.U. The head of which is upstairs already organizing the questioning of the witnesses and ensuring no one touches anything. Helped by A-C Security.”

“Does everyone know?” I asked. Because if they did, inevitably someone upstairs was texting to the press.

“Yes, because Camilla gave me and Angela the head's up and your mother knows how important ensuring all the attendees are rounded up and held is to an investigation. The dogs' howling made it clear we have murder, versus attempted murder, on our hands, which is why I'm down here. Your mother already confiscated all cell phones and other PDAs, so we'll have a short time before the press descends on us.” Chuckie looked at Jeff. “You need to get back up there.”

“Not until I know Santiago's body is going to be protected and we have assigned Centaurion personnel guarding his body along with Doctor Hernandez and his medical staff.” Jeff almost never called Tito anything other than Tito, and he never called Lorraine and Claudia “medical staff.” However, times like this demanded official titles and I completely approved of the sneaking in of Centaurion Division personnel.

“They're suspects,” Melville pointed out.

“How so?” Tito asked. “We were nowhere near the head table.”

The head paramedic nodded. “Arsenic poisoning of the level we believe we have here would have taken no more than thirty minutes to react. From what the doctor's told me, you were all eating dinner by the time our victim would have been poisoned.”

“That means kitchen staff, wait staff, and members of the head table,” Chuckie said.

Melville cleared his throat. “Ah, that means the Ambassadors are suspects.”

“Really? Because we'd be stupid enough to kill someone at our own dinner party, in our own Embassy? And kill off someone who wholeheartedly supported us to boot?”

“Perfect crime,” Melville said. “If you got away with it.” Everyone shared looks of outrage as Melville put his hand up. “I'm not saying you're involved. I'm saying that I'm the head police officer on the scene and you're suspects. I can allow you to wander off, and then people can question, or I can treat you as suspects right now, get your statements, search you, and let you go on about your business.”

“Do it, quickly,” Chuckie said.

Melville had two of the other K-9 officers pat me, Jeff, Chuckie, and the others down. Thankfully, none of us were hiding bottles of poison on our persons. Fast statements were taken. They all corroborated each other—nothing had seemed amiss, no one had acted oddly, particularly toward Reyes, and no one else's food had caused any kind of reactions other than gastronomic happiness.

Wanted to tell Jeff about everything that had happened now, more than I had before, but this was absolutely not the time or place to mention Clarence and his mystery package, assassins lurking about, the return of Colonel Hamlin, or the disappearance of Hamlin and Buchanan. None of them were the likely murderers, either, though Clarence would have had the best shot of getting inside without being spotted. But why would he want to kill Reyes?

“Who besides the servers came by your table once you were seated?” Melville asked.

“No one came by our table once we were seated, not even before Kitty arrived,” Jeff answered.

A bad thought occurred to me. Someone had indeed come by, in that sense. “And he said he was sorry . . .”

“What? Who?” Chuckie asked.

Prince whined and nudged against me. I looked down, Prince whined again, louder. We were on the same wavelength. “Ah . . . Prince wants to, um, smell the body. Please.”

“What?” Melville sounded shocked.

“Let him,” Jeff said, and he had his Commander voice on. He didn't use it as much these days, but he still possessed the ability to let anyone and everyone know he was the man in charge in less than three syllables.

Melville handed Prince's lead to Jeff, who took it and handed it to me. Prince and I went to the gurney, Prince sniffing like mad. He put his front paws up onto the bed and sniffed Reyes' body. Tito pulled the sheet back before I had to ask him to, which was a relief.

“Be careful,” I said quietly. “It can kill you, too, if you get any on or in you.”

Prince stopped sniffing for a moment to look at me derisively. I'd gotten this look from cats, Poofs, and Peregrines, but it was a first from a dog. However, I got the point—Prince was a highly trained professional and he knew better than to put his paws, nose, or tongue onto a body that was toxic, thank you very much. He snorted at me, then went back to sniffing.

After a couple of intense sniffing minutes he got down. “You can cover the body again,” I told Tito, who did as requested. Prince whined and looked around. “He wants to check out the room where this happened.”

To everyone's credit, no one asked me how I knew what Prince wanted. One tiny favor in a night full of badness. Chose to enjoy the moment.

“You sure you're up to this, baby?” Jeff sounded worried.

“Yes. You figure out who's going to go with Santiago's body. Chuckie, you come with me and Prince.”

“Me? Why?”

“I think you're going to be helping Prince make an arrest.”

W
E HEADED UPSTAIRS.
“Kitty, who do you think did this?”

“Tell you if Prince and I agree.” It made no sense, and a part of me didn't want to believe it. But only one person had acted weird—weird on my scale, which was a pretty heavy-duty scale—all night.

“No, tell me now, so I'm prepared.”

Chuckie had a point. “Fine. Eugene practically broke my chair fighting with both Santiago and Edmund Brewer to be the one to help me sit down.”

“He wasn't sitting at your table . . . I can see why that could be suspicious. But how could he have poisoned anyone moving your chair in?”

“He practically fell onto Brewer, slammed me into the table, water spilled . . . it would take sleight of hand of some kind, but it would have been doable.”

“This is Eugene Montgomery you're talking about, right?” Chuckie didn't sound convinced. Couldn't blame him.

“Right. I know, he's not exactly Mister Smooth, but maybe he got lucky.”

“Or maybe he practiced. But what's his motive?”

“Beats me. We get to find out, if I'm right. And if not, we're back to square one anyway.”

“Oh good. Routine.” Chuckie opened the stairwell door for me and we headed back into what I hoped I wouldn't now always think of as the Pretty Room of Death.

I was surprised to see everyone still at their tables. Well, almost everyone—obviously some of the guests weren't in the room and we had a lot of Security A-Cs and most of the K-9 squad up here, but they were all hovering on the edges. The guests were seated, looking worried, bored, or outraged, depending.

People started talking. Not to me—at me. My name and title were being spoken, called, and shouted. Amazing how fast a relatively quiet room had gone to bedlam.

Looked at Reader for support. “Ignore the rest, do your thing, and let me know when, Kitty,” he said softly as I went past. That I could hear him over everyone else was most likely because I was looking right at him, but it helped. Reader was being kept in his seat by Cliff—I could tell Cliff's hand wasn't merely resting on Reader's shoulder, but pressing down. Wasn't sure why, but assumed Cliff had his reasons.

Prince ignored all of this, and I chose to listen to Reader and follow suit. We aimed for the head table, which, in addition to the Brewers, Armstrongs, and McMillans, held my mother. Kevin was standing behind her. Mom had her In Charge and Pissed to Be Here face on. I couldn't blame her.

Reyes' seat was empty—Mom was sitting in my vacated chair. “You brought a dog?” she asked without preamble.

“I brought the Top Dog of the K-9 squad. Prince and I need to do some work, Mom.”

“I'm not even going to ask. Do you need us standing up?”

“Only you. Everyone else is still in their original seats.” Mom obliged as I brought Prince over to Reyes' seat. “Search and seizure time, Prince.”

He sniffed Reyes' chair, then my chair, then he sniffed Brewer for a good little while. Initial investigation done, Prince jumped into Reyes' chair and started sniffing what was on the table. His nose reached one of the glasses and Prince snorted. Prince looked around the table, sniffing like mad. He sniffed the one glass again, snorted again, looked at me, tossed off a third snort, and jumped down.

“Wow. Mom, the poison was in that glass. And, I think, only that glass.”

Mom motioned a couple of A-Cs over. “Find out who put that glass on the table.”

“Run it for fingerprints, too,” Chuckie added. Mom nodded approvingly. Kevin motioned for a couple of the K-9 cops in the room to come over.

I was going to pet Prince and give him praise, but he wasn't done. He started sniffing the floor around the table. He was moving fast, and I was in heels. Decided this was the best trained animal in the Zoo right now and dropped his lead. Prince didn't even seem to notice. He was intent on his sniffing.

It didn't take long—after all, the table in question was right by this one. Prince sniffed around Reader's table and ended up next to Eugene, who looked nervous and mildly terrified as Prince stuck his snout right into Eugene's crotch.

Eugene's expression went to fully terrified when Prince started to growl. Chuckie, who'd been hovering nearby, moved in his super fast and highly trained way that showed why he was able to take out an A-C if he had to and grabbed Eugene. “Let's see what the dog's upset about.”

“N-nothing,” Eugene stammered. “I'm not really good with dogs.”

Prince backed off to allow Chuckie to stand Eugene up, but he started barking. This wasn't friendly barking. This was teeth-bared, fur up, growl-barking meant to indicate the barkee was bad news and should be taken out by the pack immediately if not sooner.

Chuckie patted Eugene down with great prejudice while Prince barked his approval and support. It was clear that, if Eugene so much as breathed wrong at Chuckie, Prince was ready to remove one of Eugene's limbs, at the very least.

“You're also not good with lying,” Chuckie said as he took a napkin off the table, then pulled a small packet out of Eugene's pants pocket. He held it toward Prince, who barked his head off at the packet. Chuckie nodded. “Angela, I think we'll discover this packet contained arsenic.”

There were gasps from a variety of people, Lydia foremost among them. “My husband would never hurt anyone!”

Apparently Kevin didn't agree, because he slapped cuffs on Eugene. “You want to search him some more?” he asked Chuckie.

“We'll strip search him later. We need to verify if he had any accomplices first.” Chuckie eyed Lydia. “Such as his wife.”

“Lydia didn't do anything!” Eugene exclaimed. “And neither did I.”

Lydia looked shocked and confused, but Eugene looked trapped and panicked. He also looked guilty. I stepped up to him. “I get how you did it, sort of. I don't get
why
you did it, though. What had Santiago ever done to you?”

“Nothing! I didn't do anything to him. I don't know what that packet is—your friend here must have planted it on me.”

Cliff let go of Reader, who stood up and came to our side of the table. He looked furious. “Right,” Reader said as he reached us. “Of course he did. We'll listen to more of your lame and completely ridiculous accusations of innocent people later. You're on American Centaurion soil. And that means that, as Head of Field for Centaurion Division, I'm putting you under arrest—our kind of arrest.”

“I want my lawyer,” Eugene said weakly.

“Do you?” Reader asked with a pleasant smile. “That's nice. American Centaurion doesn't really do lawyers. And yours isn't allowed to come visit at this time.”

“You can't do that,” Lydia protested.

“Actually,” Cliff said, “they can.”

“Particularly when you, an American citizen, have perpetrated an unfriendly act on American Centaurion soil,” Kevin added.

The room went quiet. Wasn't totally sure why. Assumed Kevin had said some code word that meant something to everyone else. Perhaps this information was in the Briefing Books of Boredom and the Diplomat's Handbook that was more like the Diplomat's New York City Phone Book. I'd been trying to read through them. Hadn't gone quickly.

“Are you officially stating that you believe an unfriendly act was committed by an American citizen?” Armstrong asked carefully.

No one spoke. I had no idea why, it seemed clear to me. “I think murdering Santiago Reyes, in our Embassy, in cold blood, counts as an unfriendly act, if anyone's asking me.”

Chuckie and Cliff both winced in unison. Uh oh. Risked a look at Mom. She had the same expression as she'd had when I'd come home after two in the morning without calling her first. I'd never done that again, and I had a feeling I was never going to use the term “unfriendly act” again without a lot of thought attached to it.

“Um, what does my saying that actually, ah, mean?”

Reader shook his head. “Oh, nothing much, Ambassador. You just shared that American Centaurion is considering this to be an act of war. As in, we're considering war with the United States.”

Whoops.