Chapter Eight
“A Day in the Life”
3:45 AM, 14 November 1990
20 000 miles above 45 degrees N, 94 degrees W
If you could see him, the Martian would look like nothing so much as a slightly shorter James Dean.
At the moment it was somewhat upset. Its reception had gotten very bad since the sudden bolt of lightning five hours and nine minutes before.
It swore often and profusely in its native tongue.
There had been no thunderstorm, you see. It had enough weather maps of the time and place in question to choke Willard Scott, and there just was no evidence of any thunderstorm activity anywhere in the area.
Therefore, something was happening down there.
And it didn't want to miss it.
It bounced up and down in its command chair in frustration and pounded its armrests.
It swore some more.
It finally kicked the bank of monitors which had been displaying nothing but static for the past five hours and nine minutes.
They all suddenly stopped displaying static. Eleven of the monitors now showed the same picture—two hands in a circle of light. The twelfth was displaying an Alka-Seltzer commercial. This was ignored by the suddenly still and silent Martian. It twiddled some controls in a practiced way. The eleven screens sharpened their focus and zoomed in simultaneously.
Two female earthling hands hovering in a pale circle of light, digging a hole. Reaching out, grabbing something—a garment. A shirt. Red. Bearing a logo which looked remarkably like "Coke."
The Martian shook its head. It had missed entirely too much.
It whispered into a nearby microphone, and the monitors winked out, their last image being one of the hands dropping the shirt into the hole. It twiddled some more controls.
The Martian's saucer, which looked like nothing so much as a 20 foot long Chrysler building, began to drop. Straight down.
The Martian leaned back in its command chair. The journey would take about eight hours.
It had plenty of time.
•
6:02 AM
The parking lot of the Dunkin' Donuts
When O’Halloran stepped out of the Dunkin' Donuts, he was a little surprised to see Flannery standing beside their cars, despite the fact that he had just bought a dozen donuts and two giant cups of coffee. Flannery appeared just as surprised to see O’Halloran, despite the fact that he had waited beside the cars rather than stepping inside to purchase his own donuts and coffee.
As their own friendship was difficult enough for the two men to acknowledge, they studiously ignored this latest of developments. O'Halloran might have muttered, "Couldn't sleep." Flannery might have responded, "Yeah."
They set to donuts, coffee, and automotive mechanics, not necessarily in that order.
"Hell of a thing," O'Halloran finally said.
"Yeah," said Flannery.
"I mean," said O'Halloran. "The body. Getting stolen from the coroner's office like that. Creepy."
"Yeah," said Flannery.
"And arranging her like that. In her room. And leaving her fingers like that. Gives me the creeps."
"Yeah. Hand me that lug wrench," said Flannery.
O'Halloran passed it over. "But, I mean, Albert. He's got an out. He was locked up in the Police Department at the time. You guys get any fingerprints?"
"No," said Flannery.
"Riley says the kid's dad was a cop. So."
"Could've been two," said Flannery.
"Two what?"
"Perps. One for the first. Second snatches body. Both still loose."
The silence was for a long time broken only by the creaking of a stubborn bolt and the nearby early-morning traffic on route 24 which became Main Street in downtown Herschberg.
"I'm going to get some more donuts," said O'Halloran finally.
"Have to go to work soon," said Flannery.
"Another dozen won't hurt," said O'Halloran.
Flannery didn't smile. "Make it two," he said.
O'Halloran ran into the Dunkin' Donuts.
•
9:17 AM
Conference Room
Herschberg Police Department
"Albania?" shrieked Cecil.
"Albania," said Dave, painted face in painted hands.
"Albania," said Cecil again, volume if not disbelief lowered.
"Yes!" roared Sheriff Jennifer Little Bear. "Albania! A little Stalinist country on the Adriatic Sea! Can we get on with this?"
"But Albania doesn't have an embassy in Minneapolis! Hell, they don't have an embassy anywhere in the States!"
"Double-headed eagles on a big, big car. Like the one I could have had if I had wanted it."
"You could have had a flag of Albania?"
"Gentlemen—" said Jennifer in a dangerous voice.
"No," said Dave. "A big car. Black. Mirrored windows. A chauffeur. Varoom."
"Since when are you an expert on the insignia of small Balkan countries? Did you spend an afternoon memorizing them?"
"As a matter of fact," said Dave, "yes."
Cecil spun his chair around, throwing his hands into the air. "Wonderful," he said, his back to Jennifer and Dave. "I am out of the action less than nine hours and what do I get?"
"Gentlemen—" Jennifer began in a yet more dangerous voice.
"A nice neck brace?" said Dave, interrupting her. "Look, Cecil. I pressed him on his lack of identification, and he just gives me this oily little smile and says, 'Diplomatic immunity!' And he whips out his passport. Albanian or Shqiperia or whatever it's called. And he makes his phone call. And the car drove up. And he got in. And they drove off. But first they give me a bill for treating his scalp wound!" Dave waved the receipt in the air. "And that's not all! Look. This one." He stabbed a finger daubed in green and yellow at a line of neatly printed handwriting. "For blood stains the guy would be leaving on the limo's upholstery!"
Before Cecil could spin around in his chair to reply, a shot rang out. Dave and Cecil ducked and spun to see Sheriff Little Bear holding a smoking .45 in her left hand. Plaster dust drifted lazily into her silken black hair.
"Now that I have your attention," she said, "need I remind you that three undergraduate students of Herschberg University have died under bizarre and unsettling circumstances, and that you, gentlemen, sad as you are, represent Herschberg's finest? So let's stop going on about Albanian nationals who may or may not have anything to do with this case, and let's start preparing for the FBI briefing this afternoon. Okay?"
Dave didn't answer. He counted his medicine bags. Cecil stroked his black neck brace for a moment.
"No," he finally said.
Dave looked up. Little Bear rolled her eyes.
"When I joined this force—" Dave began.
"Folks," said grizzled old Doc Shriever from the doorway. "Got news."
•
12 Noon or thereabouts
Hiawatha Towers
124 Lakeview Lane
Lisa Morowitz nearly tripped over the short guy in the parking lot. He mumbled something liquidly under his breath. She walked across the parking lot, ignoring him, and went through the front door of her unit. She was halfway up the stairs when she was stopped by the sudden realization that he'd looked an awful lot like James Dean, only shorter. With a ponytail.
Shaking her head, she continued up the stairs.
As she opened the door, she heard screams of rage and something which sounded like a typewriter being eviscerated.
The Mad Brit was at it again.
She dropped her bookbag on the table and herself on the couch. What a day. Schedules were going out the window as everyone, professors and students and staff, huddled behind locked doors for fear of the Piano Wire Killer.
Not that she was blaming them. But she'd run into Jack on the way back from her office last night, and he'd complained about her missing the dinner appointment, and he'd ended up inviting himself up for the night, and it had been an utterly unmemorable one. The whole point being that if she'd stayed cooped up in her apartment with him snoring away, she'd have gone completely batshit. So off she went to empty classes and to an hour and a half in her office on the off chance that a student would decide to brave loss of life just to talk to her.
So it hadn't exactly been a terribly busy day. But the atmosphere…well, it had been tense. Stressful. She closed her eyes, sighed, and opened them again.
And she saw the note taped to the TV screen.
She plowed through her purse for her glasses with a puzzled expression on her face, then stalked across the room to snatch the note from the screen. She held it up to the window to read it, but halfway there she'd already gleaned all the important information: Jack…in love…Norbert…Alaska.
Too many responses were churning through her brain. She fell back to the couch, overwhelmed. She almost settled for "At last! Something interesting!" but at the last minute decided on: "Jack, you son of a bitch! Norbert was my only graduate student!"
Next door, the Mad Brit yelled something incoherent about werewolves.
•
Various moments around 3:00 PM
Various locations around the Herschberg University campus
Christian lay curled on his bed in a fetal position. Every now and then something would scratch at his window. He would chant as much as he could remember of "When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back, three from the circle, three from the track—" It was all he could remember but it was usually enough. If the scratching persisted, he would then begin with, "I call on heaven in this fateful hour—" and then it would stop for sure.
•
Brittany was playing Rembrandt Pussyhorse over and over again and trying not to think about the intense visions she was having of all of the fingers on her left hand suddenly dropping off, one by one by one by one—
•
Bill 'n' Don were in the seventh hour of their Jill Mankevich Memorial Party and going strong. They cranked up Teenangel for the forty-second time.
•
Mark wasn't sure what exactly it was he was doing, but it involved staring out the window for hours at a time with nothing in particular crossing his mind.
•
Elgin was asleep.
•
Cordelia was standing in the middle of her room, still in her field hockey uniform, overcome with the desire to kill something and frustrated by the distinct lack of target.
•
Matilda was staring at her calendar, noting the phase of the moon for that night.
•
Stephanie was and had been for the past fifteen minutes trying to phone any of Jill's old friends. All the numbers she'd dialed had been busy. All of them.
Finally, out of what was the closest she came to frustration, she dialed the operator.
"Hello?"
"Yes, Operator? I'm trying to dial out and all I get—"
"Steph? Is that you?"
Ice water splashed down Stephanie's spine. It was Jill's voice.
"I'm not dead, you know. Not yet.. I still have things to do."
"Jill—" Stephanie choked out.
"Shh. Save it for the funeral. You will be there, won't you? Too bad it'll be closed-casket."
"Jill..." but the phone was beeping now. Busy.
•
And Albert was opening his door to see a short, portly man with florid skin and balding, sandy hair and a black neck brace standing there.
"Mister Feinstein? I've been trying to call you, but your line's been busy. We need to talk."
•
5:15 PM
Conference Room
Herschberg Police Department
"Doe," said Cecil. "Dere you hab it."
The FBI agents all sat next to each other, Johnson, Johnson, Smithfield, and Riggs. They stirred uncomfortably. Riggs, the woman, finally said, "I didn't understand a thing you just said. What the hell happened to your nose?"
"I god—"
"He was questioning a witness who got—a little hostile," said Dave. Cecil glared.
"I presume this was..." Riggs consulted her notes. "Feidteid?"
"Feinstein," said Dave. "Look. This is what we have so far.
"There are three women who greatly resemble Jill Mankevich floating around."
The FBI agents stirred even more uncomfortably.
"Three?" said Riggs finally.
Dave stood. Cecil continued to glare. This was his way of avoiding looking at Riggs, who was the sort of woman who in another, less enlightened decade would have been called a "piece."
"Could you go over this from the beginning?" asked Smithfield, who was black.
"Well," said Dave. "At first, everything was dark. Then the great god Ongawuo brought the sun to life. Then—"
"Dabe—"
"—there are, as I said, three. Body A was found at approximately midnight in 413 Saki Dormitory."
"Wait a minute," said the Hispanic Johnson, who was wearing a pinstripe suit that was decidedly not normal Bureau dress. "That's confusing. If it was discovered second, why is it Body, uh, A?"
"Because Doctor Shriever pinpointed time of death as being approximately nine hours before 10:36—about 1:30 in the afternoon of the thirteenth. Body A was killed by a single stroke with a knife, not a piano wire, across the throat. The fingers were carefully sliced off after death and then placed back into position. Body A was carried to room 413 at some point during the evening and left there. No one at this point recalls seeing anyone suspicious carrying a body across campus."
"Body B?" said the Caucasian Johnson, in a regulation rumpled blue suit. He had driven the late-model Ford.
"Now, there it gets a little tricky. The situation in Albert's room, room 236 of O'Henry, just before 10:36 was this. We have pinpointed nine students in 236 at the time: Alison Jones, Sam Kominsky, Jill Mankevich, Bobbi Roberts, James 'Pile' Pilate, Albert Feinstein, Barry Nemitz, Annabelle Lee, and Donald Herschberg. All nine had opportunity. We are currently conducting questioning so as to determine motive. Albert Feinstein is still a prime suspect, but his motive is getting awfully fuzzy."
"Is that why you haven't picked up any suspects?" asked Riggs.
"Well, we aren't sure who's been murdered. One of the odd things about this case is that Body A and Body B have both been positively identified as Jill Mankevich, down to the birthmark on the inner right knee, shaped like a—"
"Is this necessary?" asked the Caucasian Johnson, who was chivalric, and who hated working with Riggs, whom he thought of as the sort of woman who in another, less enlightened decade would have been called a "looker." Dave merely smiled sweetly and sat down.
"Dabe," said Cecil.
"Sergeant Harrison?" asked Riggs. "Could we continue?"
Dave continued to smile sweetly.
"Dabe..." said Cecil.
"Sergeant Harrison?"
Cecil took a deep breath. "Id wad shaped lag a—"
"Please, Inspector Graves. Sergeant? It would be of great—"
"Get rid of the yahoo," said Dave, still sweetly. Carcinogenically sweetly.
The Caucasian Johnson spluttered.
"Leave," said Riggs.
The Caucasian Johnson left. Still spluttering.
Dave stood. "The major difference is in blood types. Body A had enough blood left to type it at A negative. Body B had type AB positive. We have been unable to ascertain what Jill's blood type was."
"And the third Jill Mankevich?" asked Smithfield, who alone of the three of them could look Riggs in the eye because, frankly, he liked his women with a bit more meat on their bones.
"Witnesses, including myself and Inspector Graves, spotted a young woman claiming to be Jill Mankevich at the scene of the murder at approximately eleven thirty. We have been unable to locate anyone matching her description at this time. She did not bear any remarkable resemblance to Jill Mankevich. A sketch has been prepared and is a part of your files."
"About the other two deaths," said Riggs. "Olafsen and Dringenberg. What, exactly—"
"Accidental," said Dave. "A—"
"I wad dere," said Cecil.
"—but as they fell on Inspector Graves, why not let him fill you in."
"De wall," said Cecil as he stood, flashing a shy, uncomfortable smile in Riggs' general direction and trying not to notice her legs. "Id didappeared."
"What?" asked Riggs.
"Didappeared." said Cecil. "Lag poof!"
"I heard you," said Riggs. "I even understood you. That does not mean that I have any idea what you're talking about."
Cecil took a deep breath, vaguely aware that there was no way in hell after this fiasco that Riggs would ever consent to have dinner with him. Or even to see a movie with him. Or even to engage in meaningless conversation about the weather with him.
"Id. Did. A. Peared."
"Right," said Johnson. The Hispanic Johnson. "So what about this Albanian?"
•
6:30 PM
FYI Studios
Washington, DC
"So, President Hoover," said Murphy Brown. "Herschberg University has just been rocked by a horrible tragedy. How are you insuring the safety of your students?"
President Hoover smiled a lot. "I just want to remind everyone that Herschberg University is not in Florida. Remember that." He smiled a lot more.
"I see."
•
Somewhat earlier
Herschberg Arboretum
The moon.
It filled Matilda with a glorious ache.
Silver charged her blood and the delicious change began once again.
Three days out of every month. Ye gods, this was better than sex. Silver and silver and nothing but silver. The bubbles charged through her blood, careening into each other and her muscles began to shift and ripple in a warmly liquid relaxation. Her bones slowly changed, subtly changed. Like warmly molten silver.
Newly minted scents slammed through her nose suddenly, and her brain became lost in a spiral of sensation, of a whirlpool of now.
Twenty minutes after Matilda walked out into the Arb under the full moon, a wolf uncurled and loped off into the darkness.
•
10:17 PM
Greyhound Bus Station
Minneapolis, Minnesota
"Where to?" asked the clerk.
"End of the Line," said Janis.
"Excuse me?"
Janis was tired. She'd spent the day hitchhiking into Minneapolis. She could therefore be excused for being a bit testy.
"It's a town, dammit. In Utah. You go there. Give me a ticket."
"One way?"
"Yes."
"Smoking or—"
Janis waved her lit cigarette in the clerk's face. "I'll give you three guesses, bright eyes." Janis had also, the night before, had a particularly disturbing flashback. So she could be forgiven her rudeness.
The clerk handed her a thick handful of tickets and began to explain the transfer procedure. Janis shoved 350 dollars through the ticket window and didn't wait for her change.
As she was walking away, looking for a place where she could sit down and seriously begin chain smoking, she heard a small Japanese man ask, "Did a Norbert Ajax phone in an order for two one-way tickets to Nome, Alaska?"
•
2:05 AM, 15 November 1990
Hiawatha Towers
124 Lakeview Lane
The Martian stood in its newly rented apartment and stared at its only possession—a large concert grand piano standing in the empty living room. It had bought the piano that afternoon.
Now, humming, it cracked its knuckles and lifted the top. The humming proceeded to whistling as the Martian reached in with its nimble fingers and began removing the piano wires, one by one.
It briefly wondered who James Dean was.
Somewhere outside, a wolf howled.
The Mad Brit whimpered in his sleep.
•
Every phone in Herschberg had been busy since 2:45 the previous afternoon.
•
About three hours later, Cecil was shaken awake by Dave.
"Mwha?" he asked.
"There's something wrong with your phone," said Dave.
"So you woke me up to tell me this?"
"Well, it's been busy, but you've obviously been asleep, so—"
"You woke me up to tell me this?"
"Huh? No. There's been another murder."
•