Fire From Heaven: Dead Cold Mystery 9 Page 13

  “We’ll be sure to do that.”

  By the time we got back to the Jaguar and started retracing our steps, the sun had slipped behind the hills. The sky, or what you could see of it, was still blue, but it was a chilly, distant blue, and there were lots of long, dark shadows stretched out across the world.

  We found the turn off where she said it would be. But we only found it because we were looking, and because she’d said it would be there. You only knew you were on a path once you actually turned into it, then it seemed to unfold ahead of you, among the wild, twisting tree trunks, the ferns and the fallen branches. The canopy overhead was so dense it was almost as dark as night.

  Eventually, after two or three hundred yards, a luminous patch of daylight appeared ahead, where the last of the sun’s rays lay across a huge, log-cabin wall, half-engulfed by a wall of giant pines. There were two SUVs and a Focus parked out front. We pulled in next to the Ford and climbed out. The car doors made a muted echo as we slammed them. I looked up at the cabin.

  It was a cabin in the way that Windsor Castle is a house. The white pines around it rose to roughly one hundred and thirty feet, towering above the maples, beech, and spruce, but the massive cabin, at the peak of its gabled roof, must have been at least sixty feet high. Broad steps led up to a wooden veranda that stood about three foot off the ground and encircled the building. Beneath it, small windows suggested a basement.

  A second floor had a large terrace jutting out over the veranda at the front. Above that, set into the sloping roof, skylights and small windows suggested an attic.

  The entire structure was easily the size of four small townhouses set in a square and twice as tall. As we climbed the steps, the front door opened and Donald Kirkpatrick stood staring down at us. He didn’t look happy. I smiled, but he didn’t smile back.

  “Are we to have no respite, Detective Stone?”

  “Apparently not, Mr. Kirkpatrick. I thought you might be pleased to see us. We are, after all, taking your UFO theory seriously. May we come in?”

  He spread his hands. “I can’t very well turn you away, can I?”

  It wasn’t the most welcoming welcome I had ever received, but it was good enough. I stood back to let Dehan pass and we entered a very large, very comfortable living room. It was about the size of my house, with a massive, stone fireplace, not one but two bearskin rugs thrown in front of it, two leather sofas, and two leather armchairs, each the size of the Queen Mary.

  Beyond it there was a dining table of similar proportions, with room for at least twelve. It was set with plates, glasses, and bottles of wine. Beside it, a staircase rose to a galleried landing that encircled the room below, giving it a ceiling that must have been twenty or twenty-five feet high. It made it feel more like a cathedral than a house.

  Gathered around the fire, the women sitting, the men standing, all holding drinks, were the familiar faces of Paul, Colonel Chad Hait, Stuart and May Brown, and Jasmine Kirkpatrick. Donald said in a loud voice that was as unwelcoming as it was unsubtle, “We have unexpected visitors. Detectives, I believe you know everybody.”

  The Browns looked curious. The colonel smiled. Paul frowned. He was the one who spoke. “Detectives! Has there been some development? What on Earth are you doing here?”

  The door closed behind us and Don advanced toward his guests on long legs. Before we could answer Paul, he said, “And how on Earth did you find us? This place is about as remote as you can get on the east coast.”

  I gave it a moment until everybody was looking at us. Then I smiled blandly and said, “Jane told us where it was.”

  I don’t know exactly what kind of reaction I had hoped for, but whatever it was, I didn’t get it. The colonel, Stuart and May gave no reaction at all. Paul looked vaguely embarrassed. Don grunted and muttered, “…invited her and she never even answered…” and Jasmine seemed not to hear.

  She touched her husband’s hand and said, “Donald, sweetheart, offer our guests a drink.” Then she turned to us and added, “I hope you will join us for dinner. We have more than enough.”

  I scanned them all again, but could find no trace of surprise or shock. I took a couple of steps closer and said, “Mrs. Kirkpatrick, that is very kind of you, but we may not be so welcome when I tell you the reason why we have come.”

  They all froze. Don scowled.

  I glanced at Paul. “I am afraid we have very sad news. Sometime early this morning, Jane Harrison was murdered.”

  Now there was more of a reaction. May clasped both of her hands to her mouth and stared up at her husband, who looked incredulous. Don seemed to turn gray and sat slowly down on a sofa. The colonel stepped toward him, as though to help. Jasmine, in a strange echo of May’s action, clasped her right hand over her mouth while her left clasped her belly. Beside her, Paul swayed. His drink dropped to the floor and smashed and he reached for the mantelshelf to steady himself.

  Don ignored him and looked up at me with hollow eyes. “How…?” he said, “How did they…? Was it…?”

  I looked over at Paul. Stuart had stepped forward and was helping him to the other sofa, while May hurried across the room and disappeared through a door into what I guessed was the kitchen. Stuart spoke to the colonel, “Chad, a drink perhaps…”

  Colonel Hait stared a moment at Paul, then realization dawned and he said, “Oh, Lord! Yes! Yes, of course!” and he hurried to a sideboard beside the fireplace and poured a stiff whiskey, which he then carried to Paul. Paul took it with trembling hands. He took a long pull and shuddered. He looked up at me and asked the same question as Don. “How…? Was it like…”

  It was Dehan who answered him. “Like what, Paul?”

  He frowned at her, sensing her hostility, sensing that something was deeply wrong, but not able yet to put his finger on what. Don exploded, “Goddamit! Was it like Danny? Was it them? Was it the Visitors? Did they kill her?”

  I shook my head. “Oh, no. No, this murder was very human. Very human indeed.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Jasmine, apparently recovered from her shock, stood and crossed the floor to us, gesturing toward the fire, to the sofas and the chairs. Her voice was a little unsteady when she spoke. “Please, Detectives, it has been a long drive, you must be tired and hungry. Please sit, can I get you something to drink? You will stay and eat with us!”

  I glanced at Dehan.

  She shrugged and almost smiled. “We’re not on duty, remember?” To Jasmine, she said, “I’ll have a martini, nice and dry, Jasmine, thank you. He’ll have an Irish whiskey, large, no ice.”

  Jasmine went to the sideboard. We approached the fire and Dehan dropped into the chair recently vacated by our hostess. I stood where Paul had been standing, by the fire, and looked at Don. He was watching me and his expression was resentful.

  “Is this part of your commemoration? A kind of tribute to Danny?”

  He grunted and looked away. “In a manner of speaking.”

  Jasmine brought us our drinks, then hurried into the kitchen as May came out with a cloth and a dustpan and brush to clean up Paul’s broken glass.

  Colonel Hait spoke up, watching me keenly. “It was Jasmine. She had another communication.”

  Dehan sipped her drink, watching Don as she asked, “Really? When was that?”

  “After the conference. After you left.”

  Hait added, “Right there, in the hall, in front of everybody. It was chilling.” He ran his hand over his arm. “It made my hair stand on end.”

  I frowned. “There is something I don’t understand…”

  May interrupted me. “How cold are you people? How frigid and heartless are you? You have just told us that Jane has been murdered! And you sit there, drinking your cocktails, chatting as though nothing had happened!”

  Stuart went to her and knelt by her side, taking her hand in his. “Darling, they are just trying to do their jobs…”

  She snatched away her hand. “Oh, leave me alone!”

  She started t
o sob and I turned back to Don. “Your whole thesis seems to be that these Visitors, as you call them, are in fact hostile. That the big mistake of mankind is to view them as more advanced than us, benign, with our best interests at heart, when in fact they are no better than human beings, ruthless, heartless predators who view us as nothing more than game.”

  Colonel Hait was nodding as I spoke.

  When I had finished, Don said, “Yes, that is my thesis.”

  “Yet,” I gestured at them with my hand, “Your wife goes into a trance, receives a message about having some kind of a reunion, and here you all are, dancing to the Visitors’ tune.” I shrugged. “Why? Your enemy tells you to jump and you jump?”

  He shook his head. He still looked gray and drawn. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “How did she die?”

  “It’s under investigation. I can’t discuss any details with you. She was murdered. Explain to me your relationship with these Visitors, Don.”

  “We don’t know anything about them.”

  Dehan said, “That’s your answer? We don’t know anything about them!”

  Suddenly his face flushed and he was shouting. “For God’s sake! We produced both the Third Reich and Greenpeace! We produced Hitler and Gandhi! Mohamed and Buddha! Surely it is possible that an alien race would be as diverse as we are! We need to connect! Enter into a dialogue! Find out who they are!”

  His bottom lip started to tremble. He looked away and covered his face with his huge hands. The kitchen door opened and Jasmine came running with short, quick steps. She embraced his head with her arms and pressed his face into her bosom. He clung to her hard and sobbed violently.

  There was a generalized sense of embarrassment and everybody stared at the fire. Except me. I watched Don and Jasmine. “What do you think brought them back now?” I asked.

  He took a while to stop crying. Jasmine dried his face with a handkerchief, then kissed his eyes and went back to the kitchen. He shook his head. “Forgive me, Jane’s death has come as a shock. All these ghosts seem to be rising up.” He looked at me and seemed to take a hold of his emotions. “I can only return, once again, to the simile of the game animals in Africa who are hunted by helicopter. To them, these sudden swoops out of the blue must seem incomprehensible. One day it is a Jeep or a Land Rover that comes, an animal is shot with a tranquilizer, rendered helpless, tagged and released. Another day an animal that is sick or injured is perhaps cured. And inexplicably, another day, six animals are shot, apparently at random. None of these events seems to make any sense when viewed from the animals’ point of view. But from the humans’ point of view, it all makes perfect sense, because we know about the game reserves, about the hunting seasons and the hunting licenses; about the poachers and the United Nations and about the preservation of endangered species. The animals don’t know it, but they are part of a vast society that both looks after their welfare as species, and sanctions their murder as individuals. We, this primitive human species, are also part of a much vaster society that may well deal with us in the same way.”

  May spoke suddenly. “Imagine, Detective Dehan, the astonishment of the game keepers if one day one of those gazelle suddenly spoke and asked, ‘Why are you doing this to us?’”

  I looked at Dehan. She had an eyebrow arched while she listened, then said, “Thanks for the insight, honey.”

  May’s face flushed and she looked away.

  I smiled to myself and asked Don, “So what did this latest message say?”

  He was quiet for a long time. Eventually, he said, “It was very similar to that message, all those years ago. It said that we, the group as a whole, had been chosen as… as messengers. That certain individuals within the group had specific jobs or functions. It said that we were being given a second chance, that last time we had failed, but that this time we could do it better.”

  Dehan said, “And it specified that Jane was to be a part of the group?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it was quite specific about that.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “You had failed, all of you, collectively, because Danny didn’t go to the glade…”

  “No! Because I forbade it! And Danny and Jasmine obeyed me!” He glared at me. There was something fanatical in his face. “Remember! They stated that I was the rock upon which they would build! Yet when the time came, I lacked faith! I lacked belief!”

  “You talk about them as though they were gods…”

  “Aren’t they? Are we not as gods to the animals of the jungle and the savannah?”

  I shook my head. “Take it easy, Don. In the first place, animals are not stupid enough to elevate people to the status of gods. For that kind of stupid, you need to be human. In the second place, whatever we may appear to be to a buffalo, what we are is people, plain and simple. We are not insects and we are not gods.”

  He waved a hand at me, dismissing what I was saying. “Whatever the case may be! The fact is that they entrusted a mission to me and I failed them, and the result was that Danny died, and now Jane…”

  “I already told you that Jane was murdered by a human being. She was not murdered by an alien.”

  “So you say…”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “So I say? You know something I don’t?”

  “Of course not, except that they are here…”

  “What do you mean, they are here? Here among us. In this room?”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “Where?”

  He sighed. “Stop, Detective. It is not that simple. They are here, believe me.”

  The kitchen door opened and Jasmine stood for a moment, watching us. “The dinner is ready, if you will sit down.”

  Donald sat at the head. The rest of us took our places at random around the table, and Jasmine served us with plates of smoked pink salmon garnished only with lemon and parsley. She also brought small baskets of dry toast and water biscuits, while Donald poured chilled glasses of Gewurztraminer.

  We ate solemnly and in silence. Occasionally, I would catch Dehan’s eye and she would give me a look that asked what the hell was going on. I would give her a smile that told her that was what we were there to find out, and she would sigh and turn back to the salmon, which was in fact very good and very fresh.

  In fact, when the colonel eventually broke the silence, it was to look at Don and exclaim, “The salmon is superb…”

  “It’s fresh. We smoked it ourselves, with wood from the forest…”

  He said it not with the pride of a man who has done something unique or admirable, but as though he was revealing some kind of tragedy. I wiped my mouth with my napkin and studied him a moment as he stared down at his plate.

  “What is it, Don? What is it you are not telling us? You, out of nearly eight thousand million people have been chosen to host these alien beings. You are to be the ‘rock’ upon which they build. And yet…”

  He stared at me.

  I went on, “And yet, here we are: two dead, two decades gone by, the world in an even worse state than it was during the Cold War and your ‘Visitors’, in order to spread their message, in order to build upon their ‘rock’, arrange a meeting in the Adirondacks, with smoked salmon and German wine, and murder a TV production assistant from NBC. It all makes perfect sense. I can see clearly how this will all lead to…” I trailed off and frowned. “Actually, Don, that’s a point, what will this all lead to? What is it, exactly, they are building upon the rock that is you?”

  He didn’t look at me. Jasmine got up and started clearing away the plates.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Stone. And your sarcasm is frankly out of place. You are a guest in my house, you might at least have the courtesy to be respectful of our beliefs.”

  I nodded. “I am respectful of all beliefs, Don, when they don’t lead to homicide. But when people start getting killed, then I become a little less respectful.”

  “What are you implying,” he asked with
sudden heat, “That I killed Danny, waited twenty years, and then killed Jane? For what imaginable purpose?”

  I looked around the table. Everybody still looked embarrassed.

  I said, “I don’t know. But I guess the same applies to your Visitors. If you, who knew these people, who had close relationships with them, if you have no motive, then what possible motive could a visitor from another solar system have?” I turned and looked at Paul, who was staring fixedly down at the table in front of him. I went on, “The motivation to murder is, in practically every case, the product of a close, intimate relationship, usually sexual. So what motivation would interstellar travelers have to murder Danny and Jane?”

  Don sighed loudly. “Again, Stone? I have already told you! They are hunters, predators…”

  “That build churches on the animals they hunt?” I looked at the colonel, who was studying me carefully as I spoke. “That take twenty years between one hunting expedition and the next? Oh, but wait, I am getting confused, was it a religious mission or a hunting expedition? Or do they roll both into one to save time and expense?”

  Paul spoke for the first time and his voice was sullen. “You are out of order, Detective.”

  “Two people have been murdered, Paul, and there are elements of your alien hunter theory that don’t add up. Is it a spiritual expedition to build upon the rock of Kirkpatrick, or is it a hunting safari? I just don’t buy that it’s both, and I don’t buy that they came twenty years ago, killed Danny, went away and came back again to kill Jane. I’m sorry. The theory has too many holes in it.”

  The kitchen door opened again and Jasmine returned carrying a tray. On it she had two huge meat pies. She brought them to the table on rapid feet, struggling with the weight of the tray. May stood and expostulated, “Let me help you!”

  But Jasmine shook her head. “No! No, I can manage!” She placed the tray on the table and gave a small laugh. “You can cut and dish up, if you want to help. Don, we need red wine now.”