Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Chapter 30

Fallout

“You don’t need to take me downtown, honest,” Temple said when Molina escorted her to a parked squad car.

“I should,” Molina answered. “I said to keep me informed, not to take us all to Oz, and your big cat too.”

Lieutenant Molina’s face wore a slightly sour professional scowl. Detective Su, Alch’s partner and a petite Asian woman who could out-scowl her superior officer, was leaning against the squad car’s door, keeping Temple sitting tight in the passenger seat.

Temple remembered she’d left Louie locked in her Miata ten minutes earlier. She needed to get him out before it got too hot, although he actually liked to snooze under the dashboard on the passenger side in the Circle Ritz parking lot … a spot that was warm, dark, and defended. And also kept close watch on her comings and goings.

Often she wished the shoe were on the other paw.

Molina was in the driver’s seat, one long leg jackknifed in the crowded under–steering wheel area, the other on the street through the ajar door.

The black-and-white’s interior was hot, crammed with equipment, and smelled like a spilled strawberry soda, thanks to an odor remover. Temple was thinking if she stayed here too long, she might throw up.

“Things,” Temple said, “went horribly wrong terribly fast.”

“Just your speed.” Molina was tapping the keys of the built-in computer. “I want to know why your cat was the only one to understand that building had a fully climbable, completed interior.”

“Legendary curiosity?”

Molina’s scowl deepened into furrows, and her fingertips beat the keys even faster. Temple decided to go for it. “Speaking of curiosity, why all the crowd rumors about the corpse being a Mayan or an Aztec?”

“Cruise YouTube.”

Temple did, pumping in the words “Mayan” and “Vegas.”

A bronze-skinned nude figure like a broken starfish came up in blurry focus.

“Ouch,” Temple said. “How’d anybody get crime scene photos to post on social media?”

“Not us. Paparazzi and wannabes. The pros have been stalking the morgue for years. Coroner Bahr has metal shades on his windows, and they still smuggle themselves in.”

“But these were taken here, where the man fell. Where did the ancient Aztec-Mayan rumor come from?”

“Profiling,” Molina said sardonically, leaning back as an actual color crime-scene photo popped onto the screen.

“Oh.” This photo was Kodak sharp from the days of yore when there was a Kodak camera and color Kodak film to boast of, like back in the ’90s. The body had landed in a swastika-sign position. The man’s naked skin was as deeply bronze as the male figures on ancient Egyptian tomb paintings, and his build was lean and toned, which, again, brought to mind the peoples of ancient empires.

The face was in profile, untouched on the revealed side. But his profile, with the strong frontal ridge over the prominent nose, looked a lot like those Mayan stone carvings of elaborately unclothed warriors UFO believers liked to identify as wearing astronaut gear instead of mere ceremonial headdresses and battle armament.

Temple had always found that claim far-fetched, but she mentioned that astronaut theory to Molina, who snorted.

“The Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans didn’t die out entirely under the Spaniard conquistadors,” Molina said. “You can still see contemporary people with faces from the monuments all through Mexico and Central America.”

“This guy sure wasn’t old, like the first body.”

“In vigorous health, Coroner Bahr says, after a fast look-see,” Molina agreed. “About forty-five to fifty.”

“Okay, so he’s super buff for that age. The tabloid sites are screaming about ‘scars of alien surgery.’ I can see some faint lines curling onto his front torso, but they’re about as clear as the canals on Mars. Did Grizzly have any conclusions on that?”

“Cozy with the coroner, are we?”

“I have a wide range of acquaintanceship.”

“Sadly, that’s sometimes of use to me. The amateur alien experts are texting that the marks are … ‘purposefully placed shallow track incisions, some in positions on the ribs almost like … gills.’”

Temple gasped. “That does sound alien.”

“According to Grizzly, they’re recent but healed. They do mark primarily the back, curve around the sides, and some are down the backs of the legs.”

“Gang initiation?” Temple asked.

“No tats. Besides, he’s too old and well cared for. This man’s teeth were in great condition. No fillings.”

“That’s rare.”

“But not impossible. There are geographical areas where the water naturally contains fluoride.”

“So Midnight Louie’s explorations managed to unveil an ancient Mayan or Aztec abductee, or alien, returned to Earth, lightly scarred but otherwise in superb physical shape, somehow concealed in Silas T. Farnum’s now-you-see-it/now-you-don’t building?”

“I’ll believe that when he shows up as Hillary’s running mate in 2016.”

Temple had to give that joke a quick smile. “How can people swoon over this poor dead guy?” she wondered. “What an awful way to die.”

“Social media swooning is unstoppable.” Molina tapped the screen with one of her seriously short fingernails. “Part of the ‘rich Corinthian leather’ skin color is self-tanning lotion. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Temple recognized the “Corinthian” phrase from an old TV car ad featuring the rich Spanish-accented voice of pioneering Latino actor Ricardo Montalbán, dead a lot longer than this guy.

“I doubt the ancients went in for tanning preparations. Hey, maybe this guy was an actor?” Temple said. “Maybe Silas T. had hired him to add some alien color to his big revelation.”

“He ever mention an ancient Mayan theme to you?”

“No, but I’ve been visiting all the UFO and alien Web sites lately to figure out what Farnum was up to, and the ancient-alien theme is a whole industry.”

Molina shook her head. “Talk about alien visitors, you are one on those Web sites.”

“True. I don’t believe any of it. You can take any image or custom or artifact from history and theorize that ‘ancient alien visitors’ left signs of giving the culture a sudden technological boost. I’m quite satisfied with the way public TV says the pyramids were built. Slave labor is a lot more likely than alien tourists who lent an ancient hand and then left us to stew in our own slow mambo to modern times over centuries of ignorance and war.”

“Mercy. You’re pretty indignant about these fringe theories.”

“I’ve been pretty mercilessly misled by Mr. Farnum and his undercover enterprise,” Temple answered. “And the sad part about all this is that his magical disappearing act is the real deal. That’s on the Web too. Scientists are learning to bend light, and time, to make our eyes fool themselves.”

Molina’s mouth went thin-lipped and grim. “That just makes my job harder. It’s bad enough Vegas is a 24-hour cabaret of crime, my friend. What I don’t need are alien interlopers. Your cat is about all I can handle, just barely, in that department.”