Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent (32 page)

Angie sighed. “Well, at least this is narrowing down the possibilities. If Grazer thinks he’s familiar, the mystery man has got to be somebody from ‘worthwhile’ television.”

“Impossible,” Sikes said. “I never watch anything worthwhile, and I recognize him, too.”

Angie shrugged. “Grazer, how about sticking the picture up on the bulletin board by the can with a sign asking if anyone can identify this guy?”

Surprisingly, Grazer shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. I have an excellent memory. I took the Ryan Memory Control Course three times.”

Angie made a face. “If you have such a good memory, why did you have to take it more than once?”

Grazer looked wounded. “Practice,” he said in a hurt tone. “Practice.” Then he took the photograph into his office.

“How
did
he manage to get his own office so fast?” Sikes asked as he watched Grazer leave.

Angie sat back at her desk. “What can I tell you? The guy knows how to fill out a requisition form just the way the Resource Allocation Office likes to read them.” She made a rude kissing noise. Grazer spun around in his doorway. But he was too late. Both Sikes and Angie had their heads down and appeared to be working furiously at their desks, successfully hiding the snickers that threatened to escape them.

Sikes whistled as he made his first phone call to the Astronomy Department at UCLA. It was a good start to a good day.

But by the time he had finished that first call, he had no desire to whistle at all.

“Nothing makes sense,” he reported to Angie as they stood by the ready room’s decrepit Mr. Coffee. “The university says that Amy’s specialty was”—he glanced at his notebook—“planetary nebulae.”

“So?” Angie said. She stared intently at the spout of the electric kettle beside the stained coffee maker, watching for the first appearance of vapor.

“So she didn’t use optical telescopes to study them. She used radio telescopes. In fact, she didn’t even use them herself. She used computer tapes of what other astronomers observed.”

The kettle began to make a sighing noise, Angie didn’t look up. “I’m not getting it, Sikes.”

“She couldn’t have taken those photographs she showed me. They were optical plates.”

“Then you were right. Petty took the photographs, and she stole them from him.” She glanced at Sikes. “If she wasn’t a suspect before, she sure is now.”

“But Petty didn’t take the photographs either,” Sikes said. “He gave lectures in the history of astronomy for first-year students. The university says he didn’t have any viewing time on any of their telescopes. Spent all his extra time helping people lobby the government for research funds.”

Angie gave up on waiting for the kettle to boil. “Then where did the photographs come from, Sikes?”

“I don’t know.”

“In other words, a third party.”

“With a humongous optical telescope,” Sikes said. “I saw the plates. They were crisp, detailed. Whoever took them was using a major piece of equipment.”

“How major? We talking a billion-dollar NASA thing?”

Sikes checked back through his book for the few notes he had taken in his first talk with Stewart. “Here it is. Amy said there was only one other telescope devoted to tracking Earth-crossers . . . a thirty-six-inch Newtonian at Kitt Peak.”

“And have you phoned Kitt Peak, wherever and whatever the hell it might be?”

Sikes didn’t bother to say no. He went back to his desk, stared at his phone for a moment, then yelled over the din of the other detectives working their own phones, “Bryon! Where’s Kitt Peak?”

Grazer’s muffled voice came from his office. “The observatory?”

“Yeah!”

“Arizona!”

“What’s the area code?”

“Six oh two!”

“Thank you!” Sikes picked up the receiver and called Arizona information. “Who needs a computer?” he muttered.

By the time Sikes had finished his brief conversation with the Kitt Peak National Observatory office, Angie had returned to her desk with her tea.

“So?” she asked.

“The Spacewatch telescope has been shut down for the past ten days. Have to recalibrate it or something, Amy said the photographs were taken six days ago. That was three days ago. So it was shut down when the plates were made.”

“Did you ask them if another facility could have taken the photos?”

“They’re the only ones doing active asteroid tracking. They’re really into it, too. You know you have a six-times-greater chance to be killed by an asteroid than in a plane crash?”

“Then we’re all safe,” Angie said. “I never fly. Where else could the photos have come from?”

“The guy I talked with said most asteroids are picked up by accident when they cut across exposures being made of other things, so there could be hundreds of telescopes that photographed . . . well, an asteroid. I told them I was trying to track down the source of some photographs I had seen of an asteroid.” Sikes drummed his pen against his notebook “You know, we’re going to have to make a decision here,”

“What’s that?”

“Either we’re actually dealing with astronomical photographs or we’re not.”

“You saw them.”

“If it’s up to me, then I’d say that’s what we’re dealing with.”

Angie carefully lifted the tea bag from her tea and placed it on a folded-up paper napkin. “You realize that’s moving us dangerously back to E.T. and his friends.”

“What else could someone photograph with a telescope?” Sikes said.

“Like your old partner said: aircraft.”

Sikes closed his eyes with an expression of pain. “Which brings us dangerously back to government involvement.”

Angie turned her chair sideways to face Sikes. “Government involvement? That’s what Stewart said. So all of a sudden she’s gone from suspect to victim again?”

“I don’t know.” Sikes sighed. He flipped through his notebook. So far he had only used the first ten pages. The rest were blank. He shivered as he realized that there were people alive in the city today whose deaths would take up the rest of those pages. And how many more notebooks to come?

“Earth to Sikes,” Angie said.

“All we have is a dead astronomer. No leads on the ballistics. No witnesses from the parking garage. The only person connected to the victim who might know anything about his death has disappeared. Past that, all we have is a mess of possibilities.”

“But E.T.’s not one of them, right?”

“Of course not.”

“And the government?”

“Theo said it just didn’t make sense. And it doesn’t.”

Angie sipped her tea. “How many more phone calls do you have to make?”

Sikes looked at his list. “I thought I’d try the daughter in Australia.” He looked up at the ceiling and yelled. “Bryon! What’s the time difference to Australia?”

“Which city?”

Sikes looked at his notes. “Woomera!”

“It’s in the middle! Seventeen hours ahead!”

“Thank you!” Sikes looked over at Angie. “You gotta admit he can be pretty impressive at times.”

“As long as he’s locked up in the next room, sure.” She slid her chair back into place. “Tell you what. Talk to the daughter. See if she’s come up with anything about anyone her father might have had a problem with, then give me a hand on the restaurant shootings till Stewart’s picture goes out on the news. Otherwise, you’re pretty well stuck.”

Sikes made the call. He got an answering-machine message telling him that Isabel Petty had gone back to the United States for the funeral of her father. Sikes decided they mustn’t have a lot of burglaries in Woomera if she could leave that kind of invitation. But just in case someone else was picking up her messages, he left his name and number.

“Okay,” Angie began when he had finished. “We got two brothers-in-law. Both fifty-fifty owners in a sit-down catering joint on Robertson. We found ’em in the back room this morning. Both nailed. Both with a gun. Each gun had been fired, but—”

“I got it!”

Sikes and Angie turned to see Grazer come rushing out of his office, photograph in hand. “What did I tell you?” Sikes said to his partner. Grazer laid the photograph on Angie’s desk so everyone could see it.

“This guy,” Grazer said as he tapped the mystery man. “I remembered where I saw him.” He smiled and nodded in self-contentment and rocked back on his heels as if he had nothing more to say.

Angie smiled and nodded back. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

“Come on,” Grazer said excitedly. “What’s throwing us off is the sweater he’s wearing. Picture him wearing a black outfit.”

“He’s a ninja?” Sikes said.

“No, no.” Grazer drew three fingers across his forearm. “Three gold stripes on a black jacket. You can do it. It’s easy.”

“Grazer,” Angie said calmly. “I have a gun. Tell me what this guy’s name is right
now.”

“I don’t know his
name,”
Grazer said defensively. “I only said I remembered where I saw him. Where we
all
saw him.”

“And that is . . .”

“Desert Storm!”

Angie rested her head in her hand. “Grazer, this is not a game. This is a murder investigation. If you waste one more goddamned
second
of my time, I’m going to write you up.”

Grazer looked as if Angie had struck him in the face. “I told you. He was in the Desert Storm briefings. You know. Every day from the Pentagon. General Kelly would get up and talk about what had gone on in the past day. Then there’d be all these nameless guys standing around behind him, putting charts up, answering technical questions. Naval Intelligence guys in black uniforms. He was one of them. Three stripes on his jacket. That’s a naval commander.”

“You’re sure about this?” Angie asked.

Sikes took the photograph for a closer look. “You know, I think he’s got it.” He felt as if someone had fired a gun two inches from his head, but he was convinced that Grazer was right. He really did know everything.

Angie stared at Sikes as if she were reading his thoughts again. “It doesn’t have to mean what you think it means.”

“A coincidence, right?” Sikes said without conviction. So much for Theo, he thought. So much for Angie. So much for my career.

“Could be,” Angie said.

“What’s that mean?” Grazer asked.

Sikes and Angie both turned to Grazer and said “Stay out of it” at the same time.

But Grazer slammed his fist on Angie’s desk. Then winced as if he had done it too hard. “Now look here,” he said with a quaver in his voice. “I helped you two out, and I expect a little cooperation in return.”

Angie jumped to her feet the instant Grazer’s fist made contact. “You want to help us out, Mr. Detective Three? Go find out what this guy’s name is.
Then
you can expect some cooperation.”

Grazer snatched the photograph from the desk and bustled out of the ready room. He was back in under two hours.

“His name is Franklin Arthur Stewart,” Grazer announced as he reentered the ready room. “Commander, Naval Intelligence. Just as I told you.” He tossed the original photograph down on Angie’s desk, then dropped another photograph—a black and white 8 x 10—beside it. The new photo showed Desert Storm’s General Kelly in front of a podium. Behind him was a large graph on an easel. And beside the easel was the mystery man.

“How?” Angie asked as she looked at the black-and-white print.

“I have a friend in the photo library at the
L.A. Times,”
Grazer said smugly. “All their catalogs are on computer. Just punch in Desert Storm briefings, Pentagon, General Kelly. Took less than five minutes to find a shot with Stewart in it.” He smiled, giving full vent to his air of superiority. “Such contacts
are
necessary for the efficient investigation of crimes, and I have cultivated them diligently.” He folded his arms and waited by the two desks.

“Stewart,” Sikes repeated. “You think it’s her father or uncle or brother?”

“Looks too young to be her father,” Angie decided. “Younger uncle or older brother.”

“Now do you let me take part in this case or not?” Grazer asked with a hint of a threat in his tone.

Sikes shook his head. “I don’t think you want in on this one, Bryon.”

“And why not?”

Sikes was forced to say the very words he dreaded to hear. “We could be looking at some covert, government-sanctioned involvement.”

Grazer’s smug expression melted instantly. “Government-sanctioned involvement?”

“It really could be a coincidence,” Angie said. “Especially if our suspect is related to this guy.”

Sikes pushed himself away from his desk and stood up. He’d been sitting too long. “You’re always telling me to go with my gut, right?” Angie agreed. “Well, my gut says it isn’t a coincidence. My gut says I should go home and put on my blues and get back in a patrol car before Naval Intelligence comes looking for me.”

Angie stood, too. She had abandoned any attempt at cajoling Sikes into feeling better. “Look, Sikes. If there is some sort of government connection to this, we’ll take it to the captain and leave it in his hands. He deals with the political shit. That’s his job.”

“Good,” Sikes said. “Let’s go see him now.”

“Uh-uh. First we need to be able to show that it’s
not
a coincidence that an astronomy student’s got some apparent contact with a government intelligence agency—especially since she was the one who said she was frightened of becoming involved with the government in the first place.”

Sikes didn’t like the sound of that. It felt like digging his own grave just a bit deeper and a bit faster. “How do we do that?” he asked.

Angie turned to Grazer. “If you can take the pressure, you can come on board.”

“But we turn it over to the captain if things get out of hand, right?” Grazer spoke quickly and nervously.

“I’m not interested in getting anywhere near the feds,” Angie said.

“What do you need?” Grazer asked with a barely concealed gulp.

Angie handed him the black-and-white photograph. “This was back during Desert Storm. Find out where this Commander Stewart is now, what his duties are. Whatever you can get. Can you do that?”

Grazer’s eyes fluttered as he considered his options. “Well . . . I can phone the Pentagon and . . . and ask for him.”