Free Alien Heat by Lynn Hightower

B, I’ll be with you in just a few minutes.”
    The knot of cops began to shuffle. One of the Elaki skittered backward into a desk. David heard Mel shout, “Hey, Yo!” and wondered if a fight would erupt.
    Halliday closed the door and sat on the edge of his desk. “I’m not getting through to you, am I, Detective?”
    â€œI think the mistake is mine, sir. I’m not getting through to you.”
    â€œYou’re getting through to me all right, David, loud and clear. You’ve got a thing about this woman, this psychic, and it’s affecting your judgment.”
    â€œShe knows too much, Captain, she’s got to be involved. Or do you believe in all that stuff?”
    â€œDavid, let’s think about this, okay? Let’s say you’re absolutely right. Let’s say for some bizarre reason she’s involved in the fire and the murder—”
    â€œWhat’s bizarre? She’s milking Jenks.”
    â€œSay you’re right—”
    â€œI’m right and I want a warrant.”
    â€œNo, you don’t. Not if you’re right, you don’t.”
    David frowned.
    â€œYou’re a long way from knowing what the hell’s going on, David. The Blake woman is one little thread. Watch her, talk to her, follow other lines of investigation and see where she fits.”
    David looked back at his feet. Still dusty. He glanced up at Halliday. “You’re right, of course.”
    The captain sighed. “David, you’re one of the best homicide investigators I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. So what’s up here? Because this just isn’t like you.”
    Halliday swung his left leg, sneaked another look at his watch. As always, David knew the proper attitude to take with management.
    â€œNothing’s up.”
    â€œOkay then, let’s go. Lights out.”
    The office went grey, dimly illuminated by the light from the bull pen. The computer terminal glowed white on black.
    â€œDavid? You coming?”

TWELVE
    There was a stir of excitement in the conference room. Detective Clements accepted congratulations and admiration on behalf of the arson lab techs, who had taken burnt fragments of several discs stored in sensor units interspersed around the supper club and restored them well enough that they could be shown.
    Clements should have been excited, but she was solemn. There was a hitch, as usual, and someone went out for the inevitable coffee and doughnuts.
    David wondered what Teddy Blake was doing today. Presenting Jenks with a final bill, now that his wife’s death was confirmed?
    A lot of cops went to psychics. Everybody in the department knew it; nobody talked about it. Police work was dangerous. A man could walk into a precinct, ask directions, and open fire with a weapon that should not work, except for some reason no one could fathom (or own up to) the field was not on. An oversight that cost three detectives, and one uniform. An oversight that meant the walls had to be repaired, the floors recarpeted.
    Police work meant that a woman, newly promoted to sergeant, could get caught in a grid glitch in a neighborhood that had just been taken apart by holographic troops. That this sergeant could literally be torn to death by a crowd that ripped her arms and legs from her body, right outside the tunnels of Little Saigo where David had roamed as a boy.
    Police work meant that a team of detectives could go up against a psychopath who had killed over twenty children, and stockpiled every imaginable weapon, and come away without a drop of blood being shed and the perpetrator weeping on the way to jail.
    All of this could happen and did happen, the point being you could never predict. Some cops had a hard time with that—getting up every day and going to work at a job where you couldn’t predict. So some of them went to psychics, trying to exercise a measure of control over something that could not be