Alien in the House

Chapter 20



REYES WASN’T LOOKING at me any more, and his hand felt limp in mine when he’d been holding tightly only a moment before.

Someone put their hands on my upper arms and moved me gently away as the paramedics started slamming the pads onto Reyes’ chest and doing the electroshock thing to make someone’s heart start beating again.

A few minutes of this dragged on. Then Prince threw back his head and howled. The rest of the dogs in the K-9 squad took up the cry. I’d heard this before, during Operation Assassination, when Prince had determined one of the squad and his dog had been killed.

While Prince and the other dogs were howling, the head paramedic and Tito had a brief, quiet conversation. The head paramedic shook his head. Tito slid his hand over Reyes’ eyes, closing them. The paramedic covered Reyes with the sheet. The dogs quieted.

“He can’t die. He can’t be dead. He’s a good guy.”

“Even the good guys die, baby,” Jeff said softly. I realized he was who was holding me. “I’d like American Centaurion personnel accompanying the body,” he said to the paramedic in charge.

“We can’t allow anyone to leave,” Melville countered. Prince strained against his lead, but Melville kept him under control.

“We’ve locked off this floor from the walkway and the Embassy,” Jeff said. “Security personnel aren’t allowing anyone to come or go, other than authorized police and paramedics, who are already inside. However, we don’t have a morgue here, so we need to have the . . . body removed for examination.”

“That’s what the paramedics are for,” Melville said.

“No offense to them, but I want someone I know I can trust protecting Representative Reyes’ body.” Jeff said this calmly, but his tone insinuated he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“We can have agents from another base come over,” I suggested. “Our people, but who weren’t here at any time.”

“I want people we can trust witnessing the autopsy,” Tito added. He looked grim and upset. Lorraine and Claudia looked ready to cry. The rest of the Dazzlers looked no better, including Camilla, who looked more upset than Tito. Had a feeling she felt she’d just failed at her job.

“It’s irregular,” Melville said.

“We’re on American Centaurion soil.” The positive about being angry was that it stopped me from crying. I pulled out of Jeff’s hold and turned on Melville. “Someone murdered Santiago in our home, and they did it in a way where he suffered horribly. And that someone probably wants to frame American Centaurion for this, too. I called you for help. You either help or you get out.”

“You can stop snarling at me,” Melville said calmly. “Irregular doesn’t mean ‘no.’ It means we need to make arrangements, that’s all.”

“And you’ll make them quickly, and quietly, without advising the press,” Chuckie said, voice set at his deadly level, as he joined us.

Melville didn’t even bother with trying to stare Chuckie down—he’d already lost that battle during Operation Assassination. “Fine. I assume we’re giving the C.I.A. jurisdiction on this one?”

“No, the P.T.C.U. The head of which is upstairs already organizing the questioning of the witnesses and ensuring no one touches anything. Helped by A-C Security.”

“Does everyone know?” I asked. Because if they did, inevitably someone upstairs was texting to the press.

“Yes, because Camilla gave me and Angela the head’s up and your mother knows how important ensuring all the attendees are rounded up and held is to an investigation. The dogs’ howling made it clear we have murder, versus attempted murder, on our hands, which is why I’m down here. Your mother already confiscated all cell phones and other PDAs, so we’ll have a short time before the press descends on us.” Chuckie looked at Jeff. “You need to get back up there.”

“Not until I know Santiago’s body is going to be protected and we have assigned Centaurion personnel guarding his body along with Doctor Hernandez and his medical staff.” Jeff almost never called Tito anything other than Tito, and he never called Lorraine and Claudia “medical staff.” However, times like this demanded official titles and I completely approved of the sneaking in of Centaurion Division personnel.

“They’re suspects,” Melville pointed out.

“How so?” Tito asked. “We were nowhere near the head table.”

The head paramedic nodded. “Arsenic poisoning of the level we believe we have here would have taken no more than thirty minutes to react. From what the doctor’s told me, you were all eating dinner by the time our victim would have been poisoned.”

“That means kitchen staff, wait staff, and members of the head table,” Chuckie said.

Melville cleared his throat. “Ah, that means the Ambassadors are suspects.”

“Really? Because we’d be stupid enough to kill someone at our own dinner party, in our own Embassy? And kill off someone who wholeheartedly supported us to boot?”

“Perfect crime,” Melville said. “If you got away with it.” Everyone shared looks of outrage as Melville put his hand up. “I’m not saying you’re involved. I’m saying that I’m the head police officer on the scene and you’re suspects. I can allow you to wander off, and then people can question, or I can treat you as suspects right now, get your statements, search you, and let you go on about your business.”

“Do it, quickly,” Chuckie said.

Melville had two of the other K-9 officers pat me, Jeff, Chuckie, and the others down. Thankfully, none of us were hiding bottles of poison on our persons. Fast statements were taken. They all corroborated each other—nothing had seemed amiss, no one had acted oddly, particularly toward Reyes, and no one else’s food had caused any kind of reactions other than gastronomic happiness.

Wanted to tell Jeff about everything that had happened now, more than I had before, but this was absolutely not the time or place to mention Clarence and his mystery package, assassins lurking about, the return of Colonel Hamlin, or the disappearance of Hamlin and Buchanan. None of them were the likely murderers, either, though Clarence would have had the best shot of getting inside without being spotted. But why would he want to kill Reyes?

“Who besides the servers came by your table once you were seated?” Melville asked.

“No one came by our table once we were seated, not even before Kitty arrived,” Jeff answered.

A bad thought occurred to me. Someone had indeed come by, in that sense. “And he said he was sorry . . .”

“What? Who?” Chuckie asked.

Prince whined and nudged against me. I looked down, Prince whined again, louder. We were on the same wavelength. “Ah . . . Prince wants to, um, smell the body. Please.”

“What?” Melville sounded shocked.

“Let him,” Jeff said, and he had his Commander voice on. He didn’t use it as much these days, but he still possessed the ability to let anyone and everyone know he was the man in charge in less than three syllables.

Melville handed Prince’s lead to Jeff, who took it and handed it to me. Prince and I went to the gurney, Prince sniffing like mad. He put his front paws up onto the bed and sniffed Reyes’ body. Tito pulled the sheet back before I had to ask him to, which was a relief.

“Be careful,” I said quietly. “It can kill you, too, if you get any on or in you.”

Prince stopped sniffing for a moment to look at me derisively. I’d gotten this look from cats, Poofs, and Peregrines, but it was a first from a dog. However, I got the point—Prince was a highly trained professional and he knew better than to put his paws, nose, or tongue onto a body that was toxic, thank you very much. He snorted at me, then went back to sniffing.

After a couple of intense sniffing minutes he got down. “You can cover the body again,” I told Tito, who did as requested. Prince whined and looked around. “He wants to check out the room where this happened.”

To everyone’s credit, no one asked me how I knew what Prince wanted. One tiny favor in a night full of badness. Chose to enjoy the moment.

“You sure you’re up to this, baby?” Jeff sounded worried.

“Yes. You figure out who’s going to go with Santiago’s body. Chuckie, you come with me and Prince.”

“Me? Why?”

“I think you’re going to be helping Prince make an arrest.”