Ukiah - Alien Taste Part 1

Alien Taste.

by Wen Spencer.

CHAPTER ONE.

Monday, June 15, 2004.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It was going to storm soon. Ukiah Oregon could smell the rain on the wind. He felt the tension on his skin as he leaned out the Cherokee's pa.s.senger window. He saw it on the far horizon over the skysc.r.a.pers of Pittsburgh.

He leaned back in the window, brushing his long black hair out of his dark eyes. His partner, Max Bennett, was filling the cab as usual with noisy confusion. Max alternately shouted at his wireless phone, the stalled traffic, and the net pages giving him traffic updates. Over it all, the KQV news station droned on with the news of the day.

"Kraynak. Detective. Yes, I'll wait. Veterans' Bridge confusion."

"If Kraynak wants us for tracking, we're running out of time."

Max Bennett snorted at the comment, his attention divided between muscling the Cherokee into a hole in traffic and the sudden return of the Pittsburgh Police operator. "What did you say? Are you sure you're saying those names correctly? It's K-R-A-Y-N-A-K, Kraynak. Yes, I'm certain that's with a K." He tapped the Cherokee's screen to consult an Internet page. "Would his badge number help? I could give you his Social Security too. I can even get his wife's maiden name. Yes, I'll hold. I told Kraynak it was going to take us an hour to get into Oakland, but he sounded so wired that I don't think he listened."

After a moment, Ukiah realized that Max was talking to him. "And he didn't say why he wanted us?"

Back when Ukiah started to work with Max, they were usually chased away from police crime scenes, like mink chased from the wolves' kill. Even as their reputation for solving the difficult missing-person cases grew, they were never contacted directly by the police. Occasionally they would learn that the officers on the case recommended them to the desperate families. This was the first time the police had called them, even if the police involved was one of Max's Gulf War buddies.

Max shook his head. "He didn't go into details. He just said that he had a job for us and not to worry about getting paid, that he'd cleared it with his captain." His eyebrows jumped as the operator came back on the phone. "I know he's not in his office, that's why I'm talking to you. I need to be patched to his radio. d.a.m.n, why can't the man join the modern age and get a wireless phone?"

Ukiah leaned back out the window, pushing Max's confusion into the background to be examined later. His attention had been captured by a cat in the white Saab ahead of them. The Saab had New York plates, a Duquesne University window decal, and was packed full of boxes and plants. A Manx cat, looking like a small bobcat, sat on the back seat ledge, a bored veteran traveler.

In Pittsburgh, he often saw dogs in trucks, hanging out the window, nose to the wind. Mom Lara would love cats at the farm, but Mom Jo's wolf dogs had always made that impossible. Except for a short-lived kitten and a few alley strays, Ukiah's experiences with cats were ones inside other people's houses, peering contentedly from a sun-basked window. At least this cat was riding in an accepted cat fashion: paws curled under and eyes partly slitted with a mix of idle speculation and contempt. Yet it was so-odd-to see it in a car.

In typical cat fashion, the Manx yawned and started to groom, ignoring him completely. A moment later the Saab found an opening in the breakdown lane and illegally sped away. Max tried to follow, but was beaten by a bread truck that immediately stopped, unable to squeeze past the UPS truck in front of them."Max, why do people keep cats as pets?"

"G.o.d if I know."

"Why do people keep any pets? Well, I understand dogs and I guess cats kill mice, but why snakes and hamsters? Why keep turtles?"

"This is not a conversation you have with someone who was up half the night on a cheating husband stakeout. Oh, not the puppy dog eyes."

"I don't have puppy dog eyes. Wolf eyes maybe, but not puppy dog."

"Okay, okay." Max sipped at his 7-Eleven coffee, made tan by equal parts sugar and cream. "It could be that humans are pack animals. As we got civilized, the need for a pack disappeared but not the desire. If you live out in the woods with no one else around, you get lonely, sometimes even loony. Even living in the city, without family or friends, you feel alienated."

"Get a pet, instant pack. But why only humans? You'd think if it was a good thing, other animals would do it."

"There's that sign language gorilla. It has a kitten. Gorillas in the wild don't keep cats. You get civilized, you get pets. Oh Jesus, what's this?" Max frowned at the Cherokee's GPI navigator display as it beeped and added a traffic hazard directly in front of them. "What the h.e.l.l is that orange blimp supposed to be? Ukiah, can you see what's in front of us?"

Ukiah hung far out his window to see around the brown UPS truck in front of them. Fifty feet ahead, a tanker truck leaned at a drunken angle, a trail of flares set out behind it. "There's a truck broken down in this lane."

Max cursed and jammed on his left-turn signal. "I told him your bike was at the shop and that I had to run out and pick you up at your moms'. I said it would take an hour and a half, and he sounded like he was going to have hysterics. So I told him an hour and that he'd have to fix any speeding ticket I got. I should have known better. I should have said it would take two hours. No, I should have told him to forget it. I've got a bad feeling about this case. Kraynak's in Homicide now. What the h.e.l.l does Homicide want with us?"

"Do you suppose that's a mark of an intelligent race-that any aliens we find will have pets too?"

Max snorted. "Aliens? I told you not to watch those TV shows. They're all made up. They'll rot your brain."

Ukiah closed his eyes and considered what had brought aliens to mind. He relived the last few minutes, tuning out this time the cat and the car, along with Max's ranting. There, suddenly loud without the other noises to mask it, was the radio. The top news story had been the Mars mission preparing to land.

"They were talking about Martians on the radio. They said," he repeated the words now echoing in his memory, "in 1996, the first evidence of life on Mars was found on Earth. This week we might find life on Mars."

"Thank G.o.d!" Max exclaimed as the bread truck finally squeezed by the UPS truck into the breakdown lane. He pushed the Cherokee through the opening, almost touching b.u.mpers with the bread truck. "They're talking about tiny micros, Ukiah. Like that pond sc.u.m stuff."

"So, would intelligent pond sc.u.m have pets?"

Max cuffed him without taking his eyes off the traffic. "Don't be silly. Heads up, we're here."

They had swung around the Hill District, cruised along the Monongahela River, then taken the Oakland exit to one of Pittsburgh's many pocket neighborhoods growing on the hillside, competing with the determined scrub woods. Max drove to a narrow street of brick row houses backed against Schenley Park.

The street was blocked off from the main road by a police cruiser, its doors open as if suddenly abandoned, its lights strobing in the early dusk. As Max eased the Cherokee around the cruiser, the storm winds shifted and brought the stench of death their way. Ukiah went still in the close quarters, overwhelmed by thesudden chaos before him.

The narrow street was lined with abandoned police cars, their radios a crackling, harsh chorus. The row houses had identical worn faces. Everyone's attention pointed to one lone door, through which a stream of people poured. The coroner's wagon came up behind them and stopped, blocking the street.

"You okay?" Max asked, pulling up in front of a neighbor's driveway. It was the only parking s.p.a.ce on the street.

Ukiah pulled himself back enough to nod. "There's more than two people dead in there. The walls must be painted with gore."

"I hate the case already. Don't worry, I'll do the talking. Just keep your s.h.i.t together and your head down." Max muttered. "There's Kraynak."

Despite having quit cold turkey three months before, including the cigars on their poker nights, the big policeman was breathing smoke like a dragon as he jogged up to them. He motioned them brusquely out of the car.

"It's bad?" Max asked.

"s.h.i.t like this doesn't happen in Pittsburgh. New York, every other day. L.A., twice daily. But not here, not like this. Someone carved up three girls, Carnegie Mellon students, and took the fourth woman for a walk, we think. If they did, we need to find her p.r.o.nto. s.h.i.t is about to hit the fan."

"d.a.m.n it, Kraynak, a multiple homicide! Why call us?"

"Because you're the best at what you do. We've got a dozen men in Schenley Park, even flew a helicopter with heat-tracking equipment over the son of a b.i.t.c.h and came up with zilch."

Max gave Ukiah a "you still game?" look and Ukiah nodded back. "Okay. Some ground rules." Max jerked his head toward Ukiah. "He needs room to work-clear the house. He touches anything he wants, nothing hands off. If he leaves the house, he gets backup, at least two good runners."

"You don't ask much, do you?"

"If she was here and they walked her out, he'll be able to tell you."

Kraynak regarded them with angry eyes as he took another deep drag on his Marlboro. "s.h.i.t." He flung the b.u.t.t onto the pavement and ground it dead with his foot. "I'll go see if we can clear the place.

Coroner won't like it. They think they're G.o.d on murder cases."

As Kraynak stalked away, Max turned to study Ukiah. "You can do this."

"I know, but I'm starting to get your bad feelings. This is going to be a scary one."

Max winced and looked away. "You heard him, they took a woman. She might be alive. If she is, you're going to be her only hope. We've got lots of backup on this case. When you find her, we'll just step aside and let the police finish the case."

Ukiah trembled, feeling like every part of him wanted to fly in separate directions. Excitement, fear, and nervous energy rushed through him like a storm wind.

Max patted him and went to the back of the Cherokee to pop the tailgate. "Come on, let's get geared up."

Ukiah clipped on his headset and ran a VOX check. The periscope camera showed a clear picture on Max's laptop. Max unlocked the gun box and pulled out the pistol tray.

"No rifles. Take your Colt. I want you to have stopping power."

"I hate guns."

"You're going to take your .45 and your Kevlar."Ukiah frowned but strapped on his kidney holster. The bulletproof jacket, for once, felt comforting, a strong hug to keep him in one piece. The storm wind whipped dead leaves out of the park, tainted with the presence of death from the row house. His bare arms tingled with reports of punctured spleens and spilled bowels. He rubbed at them to give them something else to consider.

Max was clipping on Ukiah's tracer when Kraynak returned with his captain. She was a solidly built blonde with sharp quick eyes. She was frowning as she stopped before the two private detectives. Her eyes inventoried their gear.

"So this is the boy raised by wolves." She snorted. "Kraynak, I don't know how I let you talk me into this. Are you really that good at finding missing persons?"

This was directly to Ukiah, so he answered instead of letting Max do the talking. "On walkouts, I'm a hundred percent. If they got in a car, I'm only running at forty percent."

"One hundred." The captain whistled. "Then let's hope that they stayed on the ground. Kraynak tells me you need room to operate."

Ukiah nodded. Max added in, "He works better if there's no distractions. This is very detailed work.

Lots of people moving around will muddy the trail."

The captain sighed. "I'll give you twenty minutes to work the house. Forensics has been through, but the coroner wants to start on the bodies."

Ukiah frowned at the time limit. With multiple bodies, he would need that long just to work out who was there and which woman was missing. Surely there was a way to cut his search down. "Why do you think they walked out the woman?"

"The neighbors say that all four women were home, three blondes and a brunette. We've got three blonde bodies." The captain held up an evidence bag holding a driver's license. "The missing brunette is Doctor Janet Haze. Her purse and keys are inside. There were kids playing in the street all day. No one saw anything come or go by the front door, so the killer probably came in the back. Oh p.i.s.s, the media is here."

The media took the form of a truck with the local TV station logo painted on its side and a dish transmission tower on top. It pulled up and stopped, almost touching b.u.mpers with the police cruiser blocking the street. The captain flagged over a uniformed policeman and sent him to stall the news crew.

"We need to find her, Wolf Boy, and we need to find her fast. Once this. .h.i.ts the air, I'll have every parent of thirty-odd thousand college students in a panic."

If the killer came in the back, he probably left by the back door too. Yet Ukiah still needed a baseline on the missing woman, which meant he'd have to go into the house. "Okay, let's go."

The first woman was sprawled by the front door, a b.l.o.o.d.y trail showing that the police had shoved her sideways as they forced the front door. Her scalp hung in tatters, and she was missing fingers where she had tried to protect her head with her hands.

Ukiah swallowed a wave of nausea and fingered one of the wounds, finding traces of dense steel.

"Have you found the weapon?"

"Nope." Kraynak answered him from the porch. "Never seen wounds like these before either. Thin like a knife, but with amazing force. You usually get this amputation with axes and such."

Ukiah scanned the room, then nodded his chin toward a piece of black lacquered wood on the wall.

"Sword rack for a katana."

"A what?" Kraynak asked.

"j.a.panese sword." Max answered, stepping over the body to tap on the rack. "The sword is missing. It looks as if someone was a rabid Otaku. That's a fan of j.a.panese animation."

"d.a.m.n," Kraynak swore. "I thought that was some kind of weird coat rack. Well, we didn't findany sword, so the killer took it with him."

Max bent to point out a length of hollow wood. "Left the sheath."

"We'll dust that for prints." Kraynak pulled on a disposable glove. He picked it up and dropped it into a long clear plastic bag.

The second dead woman was in the cluttered living room. Ukiah examined it and moved on. The third was in the kitchen and the back door hung open, its doork.n.o.b b.l.o.o.d.y. He returned to the front hall, earning a puzzled look from Kraynak in the doorway.

"I'm not sure who I'm looking for yet," he explained, and detoured upstairs to examine the bedrooms. The three on the second floor were unmarked by the chaos of the first floor. He moved through them, checking the clothes and the bedsheets to establish which dead woman belonged to which empty bedroom.

"There's an attic bedroom." Max tapped a door in the hall.

"That's hers, then."

Max opened the door, revealing narrow, steep stairs leading upward. The smell of a young woman bloomed out, tainted with the odor of sickness. Pillows that had been set on the bottom step plopped out onto the hall floor. Stepping over the pillows, Ukiah led the way up into the cramped bedroom. The dormer window was thrown open, and the oncoming storm winds played with a black blanket serving as a curtain.

A desktop computer sat on a desk, its plug dangling over its dark monitor. Small dinosaurs made of K'NEX guarded an open book. A ragged stuffed rabbit sat at the head of the unmade bed, ears drooping, wearing an overlarge green turtleneck sweater. A normal bedroom of a normal woman, but there was something that sent shivers down his spine. Something was wrong. Something was out of place, but he couldn't place what.

"Our twenty minutes are almost up," Max said quietly from the attic door.

He checked the bed, closing his eyes, ignoring all background noise to focus on the sheets. They were good quality, one hundred percent cotton with a thread count of three hundred. The woman was in her mid-twenties, tall, dark hair, eyes a deep blue. She had been sick-the sheets were still slightly damp with sour sweat, and there were signs her white blood cell count had been high. He frowned as he found odd fractures in her DNA, hard twists he had never felt before.

He pulled himself up out of the focus. If he didn't find her soon, she would be dead. He trotted down the steps, murmuring "Got her" to Max as he brushed by his partner.

The wooden back porch looked unpromisingly clean of evidence. He dropped to his knees and ran his hands over the flaking gray wood. Bare wood. Dirt. Asphalt. Crushed gra.s.s. He hit a blood trace and grew still. Two blood types, mixed together. He identified the first: the woman at the front door. The second came from the woman in the living room. He hazarded a guess that the blood had mixed on the sword blade and dripped onto the wood. There was a faint smear of blood beside the first trace. He focused on the worn wood, found the faint outline with his fingertips. A small woman's shoe, right foot.

He crept forward, running fingers before him. On the rough cement steps he found the barest print from the small shoe, again right foot. He moved down to the parking pad, sniffing the still warm stone to help catch the faint trail on the broken asphalt.

Suddenly one of Max's hands was in front of Ukiah's eyes, and the other on his shoulder. Dimly, he realized Max had been talking to him. On the porch had appeared young, fit, uniformed policemen-their backup.

"Got it?" Max asked.

Ukiah recalled what Max had said, what he had been too focused to hear. "These yahoos want you to play base command since their men aren't equipped with GPI tracers. You won't be coming into the park, but I've got the promised backup. You've put one of our spare tracers on them, so you'll be able tokeep us together. I'll try not to outrun them. If we get out of the park, I'm to wait till you can move the Cherokee closer."

"Good." Max patted him on the shoulder. "What did you find?"

"She walked out." He considered the placement of the feet. "No. Ran. Her feet are far apart, barely touching the ground. She's running, running quickly."