Part 3 (2/2)
”And you sure don't want to be beholden to a man for anything,” Tishner said.
She glared at him, but did not debate it. It was evident that they didn't like each other any better than Geode liked either of them.
As they trekked back toward the cars, Tishner repeated what he had said to Geode. ”So I think you're better off working with me than against me,” he concluded. ”If I have to run down the rest of this myself, I won't owe you anything.”
By the time they reached the cars, the Flowers woman had evidently made up her mind. ”All right, I'll talk to him,” she said to Geode. ”You may stay or go, as you choose.”
Geode was relieved. ”I have to check the rest of the ranch.” He mounted his bike and rode off, back into the forest.
* 6 - FRANK SAT IN his car with the woman, running the motor and the air conditioning. She did indeed seem to have suffered heat exhaustion, and he knew that something extremely compelling must have brought her out there in her good clothing, as she obviously hadn't been forced. Demerit was hardly one to force a woman, anyway; as far as he could tell, the man was either h.o.m.os.e.xual or as.e.xual, having little interest in other people of either s.e.x. It didn't matter, as long as he stayed out of trouble, and apparently his job as caretaker of the Middle Kingdom suited him just fine. But the presence of this woman indicated that something significant was afoot, and it was just Frank's blind luck that he had arrived in time to catch her.
The woman's color improved as she got cool. She became more alert and relaxed, sizing him up. He was sizing her up too, as he did routinely with anyone he encountered; it was part of his business. She was evidently no dummy. She was about his own age, heavyset but not really fat, like him. Her hair and eyes were brown, like his, except that they were rich instead of pale. It was as if she had emerged from the mold more recently, and had not been so far faded by the sun and heat. She was about five-six in height, and despite her age and heft, healthy. Probably only the unaccustomed heat had brought her down; she had simply misjudged how hot it was this far south in summer, with the humidity of the lake region making it worse.
”I do work for Middleberry,” she said. ”And there is something important afoot. I was going to interview you anyway, in due course.”
”Oh, you know who I am?” He was accustomed to dealing with folk who saw him as an anonymous figure in a uniform.
”I make it my business to know with what I am dealing.”
With what, rather than with whom. He suppressed a flicker of irritation. ”Okay, I'll play. Tell me something about me that doesn't show.”
”You're a whistle-blower,” she said. ”You suffered the usual fate of the kind. They couldn't actually fire you, so they relegated you to the hinterlands, and if you give them any pretext at all, they'll can you. Your wife has little sympathy with your att.i.tude.”
Frank was amazed. ”You do know! But how?”
”There are files on everything, if you know how to get at them. I checked the records on the local authorities, and you were the most recent transferee. I checked your prior record, and it was outstanding-until you turned in your department for graft. You learned about what pa.s.ses for justice the hard way.”
”Just the way you learned about men,” he said, taking a flyer on her att.i.tude.
”Bad marriage,” she agreed. ”Not exactly the same as your experience, but perhaps the effect was similar. Mr. Tishner, I do have information I think will interest you, but I do require confidentiality. Can you guarantee it?”
”As you say, Miz-what's your name?”
”May Flowers.”
”As you say, May-and you can call me Frank. I'm not being friendly, I'm being off the record, okay? Let's leave the full names out.”
”Frank,” she agreed with a chill smile.
”As you say,” he said once more, ”I've been through the grinder, and I guess you have too. If I rock the boat one teeny bit, I'll be out, and this is the only job I know, let alone like, and I've got a family to support. So I'm on a close leash. When I came up with this thing about bags of bones-and I think that's what we're talking about-I got the word: I can investigate it all I want, mostly on my own time or as part of legitimate activity, but I can't go public with it on my own. I have to report it, and someone else will decide what to do with it. Probably it'll just be buried, because they're trying to encourage tourism, and bones don't necessarily do that unless they're ancient. In fact, I think they'd be just as happy if I never reported at all. But if there is a threat to the folk here, I'd better be on it, because we both know who'll get the axe if I hide something that then embarra.s.ses the tourist bureau. So I can guarantee confidentiality right up until something blows, and then I can't guarantee anything. Not for you, me, or my marriage.”
”I think we understand each other sufficiently,” she said. ”Tell me what you know of the bones, and I will tell you what I know-off the record. We may indeed profit by pooling our resources.”
Frank told her about Demerit's rabbit and the Brown woman's racc.o.o.n and the prior pattern of cases. ”Now a fool hunter's disappeared,” he concluded. ”I traced it back to this region, and I figure it could've happened here, and Middleberry told Demerit to cover it up so's n.o.body would come poking around the Middle Kingdom. If the same thing that got the animals got that hunter, this is a live case.”
”Mid,” she said. ”We call Middleberry Mid, off the record. You're right; it did get the hunter, and Mid did make the caretaker hide the body and move the truck. Neither Mid nor Demerit has any complicity in the death, merely in the concealment of it and its locale. Mid sent me to investigate, and that is what I am doing. We were just returning from a viewing of the body.”
Confirmation! Frank tried to mask his excitement, but knew it showed anyway. ”You actually saw the remains?”
”I did. Definitely a hunter's clothing, but only bones remaining, with a thin webbing covering them. No flesh at all. A faint, peculiar odor. And-” She hesitated.
Something clicked. ”An erotic reaction?”
”That's it. I conjecture that the monster uses pheromones to lure its prey, and to pacify it. Such chemical substances can be extremely powerful as agents to modify behavior, and if the monster somehow manages to emulate or manufacture pheromones that cause its prey to relax, or sleep, or to become s.e.xually agitated-”
”You're saying it doesn't have to have big teeth!” Frank exclaimed. ”I wondered how it could go from rabbit to man! Either the one would be too little for it, or the other too much. But if it could make any size prey just lie down for it-”
”Precisely. There was no sign of violence done to the body, paradoxical as that may seem in the circ.u.mstance. The bones were not separated or broken; the skeleton appeared to be intact, as was the clothing. The, uh, trousers were open, as if-”
”As if he was urinating-or trying for s.e.x!” Frank finished. ”Maybe he thought it was a super-s.e.xy woman!”
”Apparently the pheromones are generic and non-s.e.x specific. They seem to affect a number of species who should have different, um, tastes, and to have similar impact on male and female. I'm no biologist, but that strikes me as unusual. Either some extremely sophisticated chemical technology is involved, or the monster has an organic capacity of emulation beyond anything we have encountered before.”
”Maybe so,” he said. ”But even so, some of this is hard to swallow.
”An animal might be tricked or caught, but a man's no dummy. There may be stories of the old sirens, who lured sailors to their destruction, but in real life even the s.e.xiest woman won't tempt a man to his immediate death. Not if he sees it coming. A hunter out poaching's got to know that if he sees a nymph out here in the brush, something's got to be fishy. He's not just going to grab her unless he's pretty sure she's human. So does this monster talk? Does it kiss? If it can do that, what's it doing out here instead of in the big city, where prey is a lot more common?”
”Could it be alien in origin?” she asked. ”A literal flying saucer, I with equipment to project something tempting, visually, audibly, and olfactory? All that would be required would be the semblance of something desirable, enough to cause the man to investigate. Then he I could be caught in a net or whatever, and, um, drained.”
Frank shook his head. ”Won't wash. If aliens came in a saucer, they wouldn't just hover it in place while they checked out a man, then leave him where they found him. Either they'd take the whole thing, and dissolve the bones too, or they'd talk with him and let him go. They wouldn't stay in sight any longer than they'd have to, and they wouldn't leave such grisly evidence of what they'd done. I don't see any intelligence or technology operating here, but I can see some sort of animal eating its fill and leaving what it couldn't eat.”
”I agree,” May said. ”But what sort of animal could it be? I saw no sign of eating, no blood. How could it get all the flesh out without breaking the skin?”
”Maybe the lab report on that racc.o.o.n will tell,” he said. ”But I think we've got more to worry about than exactly how it's done. Something's out there, and it used to feed on animals, but now it's tasted human flesh, and that could mean real trouble. Middle-Mid may not want a commotion on his ranch, but this thing could blow up beyond anyone's power to control.”
”If no more hunters come on the property,” she said evenly, ”there will be no more deaths here. Mid won't mind if a scandal blows up somewhere else. There is no tangible evidence to tie that hunter in to this property. Would justice be denied if that body turned up somewhere else?”
Frank considered. ”Like where?”
”Like where do you want it?”
”In the brush near where his truck was found?”
”Perhaps in two days?”
He nodded. ”Could be.”
She smiled grimly, but with less chill than before. ”However, that is merely one episode. There have been others, and may be more. I believe we should remain in touch.”
”Where can I reach you?”
She dug in her purse and produced a business card. She wrote the local number on the back. ”I'll be out and around, but a message left there will catch me in due course. Where can I reach you?”
He pondered. ”Sheriffs office isn't safe. Better be at home. My wife generally knows where to reach me.”
”Your wife may not appreciate calls for you from a woman.”
<script>