Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Chapter 28

The Unusual Suspects

Molina stood with her back to Temple, boot-toed cowboy mules planted wide on the sandy soil, hands on hips. The stance reminded Temple of a gunfighter poised to draw, except, instead of carrying six-guns, she probably had a fancy foreign pistol stashed in a shoulder holster or tucked in the back of her pants or strapped to an ankle. Ruined the whole look.

Still, wearing her David Caruso CSI sunglasses as she turned sideways, Molina looked ready for a shoot-out in Miami, if not Las Vegas.

Temple saw another thing that ruined Molina’s whole Metro detective hard-nose look. She was interrogating the nervous dwarf at her side. Silas T. Farnum wore a gray-and-white-striped seersucker suit reminiscent of a convict’s outfit. His polka-dot tie also ruined the whole look.

“This has been a crime scene for more than forty-eight hours,” Temple heard Molina say, the words spit out like a Thompson submachine gun spraying bullets, actually. “You have had a concealed experimental scientific device on this site and did not report its presence? I don’t know how many charges an inspired assistant DA could string together, from violated city ordinances to one big mama of an illegal parking ticket.”

“But, Lieutenant. I’m an entrepren—”

“Now,” Molina went on at the same furious but controlled pace, “some poor soul who got caught up in your UFO fever scheme has plummeted to his death. Was it a construction worker? A tourist who glimpsed the shenanigans going on here and tried to climb his way to an answer? One of your so-called silent partners or fans or detractors? Homicide wants to know.”

Temple had been ordered to “Stand there.”

So she was kept mute five feet behind Molina and her victim but every word nailed her guilty conscience as well. She’d worn her dust-shedding red patent-leather pumps to the site, but she wasn’t comfortable.

“Explain yourself,” Molina barked at Farnum. By now Temple was envisioning the woman’s dark bobbed hair above a khaki pantsuit as the black-and-tan of a German shepherd guard dog on the attack. She really must rein in her imagination.

“I—I’m an entrepreneur, ma’am,” Farnum said.

“So was Bugsy Siegel,” came the icy response, “and look how he ended up. You’d be downtown getting your pinkies scanned for fingerprints if I didn’t need you to explain your science fiction device.”

“It’s not a device.”

Molina’s face donned an Are you contradicting me? glower.

Farnum continued his explanation. “I’m trying to explain the inexplicable here. It’s a process, actually. The structure employs metamaterials with a light-bending technology. You combine polymer substratas and gold and copper, which forcibly bend electromagnetic waves around an object. Light hitting the object is diverted around it. The light is not reflected nor refracted.”

Molina absorbed this cascade of technological terms, then shoved the sunglasses up onto her head and whirled to pin her gaze on Temple’s. Temple had always found the effect of intense blue eyes in an olive complexion like being hit by a blinding blue laser.

“You’re the PR whiz kid,” Molina said. “Explain what Farnum here has said in simple English.”

Temple tried. “From what I’ve found out, researchers have been working since the early 2000s to develop a material that can bend visible light around three-D objects. And it’s working. These metamaterials can conceal small objects, but are rapidly being applied to bigger projects. The implications for the military and, uh, police departments are enormous if this technology leaked into the wrong hands.”

“That’s an understatement.” This time Molina’s gaze snapped like heat lightning between Temple and Farnum, who shrugged at each other, hoping the other won the hot spot. “So the first commercial use of these ‘metamaterials’ shows up—or doesn’t show up—in Vegas? Tell me another fairy story.”

Temple directed her own steely look at her errant sorta client.

He caved. “It could only happen in Vegas, Lieutenant Mojito.”

“Molina!”

“Molina.” Farnum doffed his straw hat and wiped his sweat- beaded forehead with the back of his stubby hand at the same time. “The hotel consortium billionaires of the Strip are the only ones who could bankroll a weird science project like this.”

“Even they aren’t that crazy,” Molina said.

Farnum turned earnest, his huckster’s enthusiasm for his con coming forward. “Look at the space program. The U.S. government? Outta there. It’s up to the Russians and Chinese now. And to entrepreneurs, billionaire entrepreneurs from the U.S. and beyond, like Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Everything. Entrepreneurs are sending manned rockets into space. You don’t think one or more of them wouldn’t mind building a real Space Mountain in Vegas?”

“So,” Molina said. “You’ve been working on this secret construction under the cover of darkness and cutting-edge technology. What people saw was not really there. It was a … reflection of all the stalled projects around us?”

“Not exactly, but it’ll do.”

“And what exactly is the real construction I’m seeing now?” Molina sighed and turned to view the unveiled Disneyland structure of space ship top and residential tower. “It’s not much of a building.”

Farnum had the answer. “It’s the biggest building yet shielded from view.”

“Not now. Now it’s a crime scene. And how do these metamaterials turn off and on?”

“Trade secret,” Farnum answered promptly.

“It’s no secret that two bodies have been found on this site.” Molina lowered her sunglasses and looked sideways at Farnum. “This entire lot is a crime scene, including your trickster building. I’m posting officers around the clock, and not even Harry Potter will slip past them.”

Temple remembered that Harry had an invisibility cloak. Molina had read Harry Potter? Probably when Mariah was a kindergartner.

“Prepare to give me a list of who bankrolled what, or I’ll get a court order to view all the permits,” Molina told Farnum. “Even invisible buildings can’t go up these days without plenty of paperwork.”

Farnum backed away, bowing like a spurned suitor, his straw hat clutched to his heart.

Molina turned to Temple. “I see you’ve been chatting up the gathering UFO Looney Tunes division. You’re coming to headquarters with me to give a full oral report.”

Yo, ho, ho and little green gray men on a dead man’s chest.