The Bones of Old Carlisle (27 page)

“Well,” said Karl Arrowroot, “thanks for telling me.”
“I just found out this morning,” said Hatfield. “Had some other
things to worry about, as you recall. Plus, the Army swore me to
secrecy.”
“They don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on, do they?”
Arrowroot asked.
“Not a clue,” said Hatfield. “If they did, I woulda had ‘em to
town hunting those roach robots. But all they’d do here is the same
thing we’re doing, run around chasing shadows, except with bigger
guns.”
“So that makes four more bodies we’re keeping under wraps,”
observed Arrowroot.
“Four?” Hatfield inquired.
“Yeah,” Arrowroot said, “drunk this morning, the two bodies in
the space capsule – that’s what the story says, anyway, it crashlanded from outer space – and the soldier that got ate yesterday.”
“Oh yeah, true,” said Hatfield. “But the only one we need to
worry about is the drunk. His name was Fredrick Chimner, but his
friends called him Ferret. Last address was in Raleigh, only been here
a few weeks. Fifty-five years old. I sent a statement to the paper,
said we thought it was death by alcohol poisoning, then some animals
got to him. It’ll probably run tomorrow, hopefully not on the front
page.”
Arrowroot hung up and returned to the website where the crystals
were being translated.
Another writer, a woman who called herself Delilah21, insisted
the story was philosophical regardless how it ended. The narrative was
intended to cast the human condition in sharp relief, by injecting
non-human personalities into full-grown human bodies. “This convention
enables the author to focus on the things we take for granted,” she
wrote, “the pain and happiness, the mystery and triumph of everyday
existence.”
Delilah21 pointed to the following passage, written about a time
late in the narrative when Tamani and Drune snuck off to be together
in the woods:

The wind was stirring the trees overhead, and they moved slowly
back and forth with long sighs as if they were breathing. I tried to
match my breath to theirs and felt a wonderful softness wash over me.
Trees were a happiness, I told myself. Or trees in the wind. Or trees
in sunlight and wind. Or the trees were irrelevant, and I thought with
a start that it was me. I was the happiness, and the things that I
thought were happinesses were reflections of what was already in my
mind. And the sorrows were already there too, waiting until I had
something to be sad about, or until I thought I had something to be
sad about. Perhaps all my emotions were being directed from inside,
from that same hidden place where the calculations were done, and I
felt what I felt for reasons I did not know and must not know.

Among the fans of science fiction, another theme was beginning to
emerge. Who created the survey? Tamani described life on her native
planet at some length, and it didn’t make sense. While capable of
complex mathematical calculations, her people were simple agrarians
and used their math for harvesting and production. They didn’t even
work with metal. How could such a people have created an intergalaxial search for intelligent life, or a system for growing bodies
in bus-sized capsules in outer space, or the roach robots?

Arrowroot called Art. A weary voice answered, “National
Microscopy.”
“Art, it’s Karl, how you doing?” Arrowroot said.
“Karl!” Art said, his voice picking up a little. “Quite a yarn
you got spinning.”
“You gonna do your microscope thing to the second crystal?”
Arrowroot asked.
“Trying to now,” Art replied. “A little tricky, they put the data
down a different way, and I’m tired as hell. Haven’t slept since
yesterday morning.”
“Can you get the rest of it done tonight?” Arrowroot asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Art replied. “Was just about to
check out for the night, pick it back up tomorrow.”
“You got a lot of people waiting for it, you know,” Arrowroot
said. “And I’m one of them.”
“I thought you wrote it,” Art said.
“Hell no,” Arrowroot laughed. “I’m not sure who wrote it, but it
wasn’t me.”
“Maybe Tamani?” Art offered.
“Maybe,” Arrowroot said. “But I need it. I’m asking you as the
mayor of Heligaux.”
“Yeah, Danielle told me about that, sorry I didn’t recognize you
last night, I’m not much into politics,” Art said. “But— look, what’s
up with this thing? Unknown alphabet, unknown language. And whatever
they used to make that crystal, that’s unheard of.”
“All valid questions,” Arrowroot said. “I wish I could answer
them.”
“And Tamani,” Art said. “What a trip. She’s not your daughter, is
she?”
“No, no,” Arrowroot said. “The other one is my daughter. Tamani’s
just a friend. She your girlfriend yet?”
“Depends on how you define girlfriend, I guess,” Art replied. “Is
she really from France? ‘Cause I don’t think she’s from France.”
“Well,” said Arrowroot, “that’s where she’s telling people she’s
from.” Arrowroot drew in his breath. “What do I have to do to get that
second crystal scanned tonight?”
Art was silent for a moment. “A hundred fifty?” he said, more as
a question than a statement.
“I’ll give you $200 if you can get it done by 8 tomorrow
morning,” Arrowroot said. “I’ll drop the check off then.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” Art sighed.
Arrowroot hung up and, with what felt like an epic force of will,
he shut off his computer and returned to his inbox. More
solicitations, more copies of things, more inconsequential stuff. By
quarter to six, he’d made it through the entire stack. Almost
everything had gone into the trash, the exception being a few items
that required follow up on his part, or that needed to be handed off
to someone else.
His last official act of the day was a note, written on the back
of a piece of scratch paper. “Have that railing on the stairs cut into
the mountain looked at,” he wrote. “Just off Nander Lane. Little
wobbly last time I grabbed it. Rusty as hell too.”
Everyone else in City Hall had gone home, so he slipped the note
under the city manager’s door and headed out the building’s back way,
to a small parking lot. Dr. Susan Schaumberg was already waiting for
him.
“Hello, Doc,” he said.
“Susan, please,” she replied. “I’m only Doc when I’m working, if
you don’t mind.”
“Heh,” he said. “I’m always Mayor. Day and night. And I probably
don’t work half the hours you do. Mind if I drive?”
Schaumberg had ditched her fatigues and put on a yellow sundress
and a white sweater, her black hair tied back in a ponytail. He
wondered what she’d put in her hair today, if it would make the rain
bead up like it had before.
“You okay ridin’ in an old truck?” Arrowroot asked, wishing he’d
driven his convertible today.
Schaumberg answered by hopping into the passenger seat.
“You ever get your hat back from Mr. Smiley?” he asked, cranking
the engine up.
Schaumberg laughed. “No, I let him keep it.”
Arrowroot nodded, backed out of his parking space, and then he
went silent and stared at the sky. “When you lose a child,” he said
slowly, “that’s the kind of thing you think about. You think about
everything they did, all the times, good and bad, what they said.
Memories come back you didn’t even know you had, and they get mixed up
with other things. I’d hear Robert’s voice, and think about something
he did, and then I’d see you putting your hat on Mr. Smiley’s head. In
the rain. With that rainbow and all. And it got me through. Or it
helped. I don’t know.”
Schaumberg touched his arm. “I can’t imagine,” she said. “I’m so
sorry. You lost a wonderful child.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Arrowroot said, and he looked out the
window on his side, toward the sun. “I’m not trying to talk about sad
things, I just wanted to let you know you helped. You never know when
something you do will make a difference. I guess there’s a lesson
there somewhere.”
“Of course,” she said. “So you wanted to ask me for something?”
“Oh,” Arrowroot said, and he put the truck in drive and hit the
gas. He’d completely forgotten that there was another reason for
dinner. He was going to ask her to search the Army’s records for clues
to Robert’s killer. Danielle had already found the culprit, so that
wouldn’t be necessary. And now that she was in his truck and he was
driving her up to Traxie, the request seemed ridiculous.
“I forgot about that, got too much else going on today,” he said.
“But it’s been taken care of, this is just saying hello, if that’s
okay, no business to attend to.”
“Of course,” Schaumberg said. “But if I can help with anything,
let me know. The Army owes you.”
“You mean because they killed my boy?” Arrowroot asked.
“Not just that,” Schaumberg said. “That day at the fort. At that
house. Connie said you helped.”
“Connie?” Arrowroot asked.
“Constance Stapleton,” Schaumberg said. “Criminal Investigation.
She talked a lot about you. She said your information was helpful, but
you were very funny too.”
“Funny?” Arrowroot repeated. There was very little that was even
remotely funny that day at the Carlisle place.
“She said the four of you had quite a conversation on the drive
out,” Schaumberg said.
Arrowroot searched his memory of that day. Yes, he’d ridden out
to Fort Shergawa with Stapleton, Hatfield and the injured Bonaventure.
He’d provided some information on the drive. But he’d done more than
that. He’d talked about his search for the big answers. About the
dream that made him end the quest. He’d made fun of Hatfield’s
atheism. Overall, it had been a ridiculous performance, a parade of
bluster, arrogance and certitude by a man very different from the Karl
Arrowroot of this evening. He was no longer certain about anything, he
realized.
“Oh, God,” he said, and he felt his face burning. “Not one of my
finer moments. I hope she didn’t tell you too much.”
“She said you were curious, and you read a lot,” Schaumberg said.
“Those seem like good things.”
“I don’t know anymore,” Arrowroot said. “I don’t know anything
much. I thought a lot more of myself that day than I do today, I can
tell you that.”
Railroad tracks separated the commercial district along the
Mittelkopp from the area colloquially known as Traxie, and the gate
dropped just as Arrowroot reached the intersection. He stopped, put
his truck in park and turned to Schaumberg. “How’s that Bonaventure
fellow, anyway? I thought he was gonna die out there.”
“Had a triple bypass,” Schaumberg said. “All they found at first
was bruised ribs, but then they looked harder, found a real mess in
there, everything about to pop. Your friend did him a favor.”
“What friend?” Arrowroot asked, and he noted to himself that his
and Schaumberg’s memories seemed to have been filed differently.
Things that were current events for her were ancient history to him.
Loss of a child will do that, apparently.
“That girl, or that woman, or whoever punched him,” Schaumberg
said. “Didn’t someone hit him at your house?”
“Oh, of course, yes,” Arrowroot said. “Or something happened,
anyway. One second, he’s about to hit her with a taser, the next
second he’s sitting down trying to draw a breath. I still don’t know
what she did to him.”
“What was the story with her?” Schaumberg asked.
Arrowroot, unsure where to start with his answer, noticed a city
truck waiting beside him on the train.
“Aw, hell,” he said, grabbing his phone. “Pardon my French, gotta
call the chief of police.” He hit a few buttons and raised the phone
to his ear. “Floyd, it’s me. Looks like you went with my plan. Yeah,
whatever, listen. I’m stopped by a train, trying to get into Traxie,
damn truck just pulled up next to me. Yeah, you buy that thing out at
Quaker farm like I suggested? Okay, two things. First of all, cover
the damned thing, got a headless cow being driven through Traxie, it’s
gonna scare people. And second, why’d you have ‘em take the head off?
I don’t know, but I’m thinking lay ‘em down whole. You know, that’s
how the people were. Okay, okay, bye.”
Schaumberg unbuckled her seatbelt, got on her knees and put her
hands on Arrowroot’s shoulder to look out his window. “Oh my god,
they’re hauling a cow carcass!” she exclaimed.
“That was my idea,” Arrowroot admitted. “One of the few decent
ones I’ve had lately.”
The train had come to a complete stop, the traffic trying to get
into Traxie growing thick behind them. Two men in the light blue
shirts of Heligaux’s city maintenance department, one with a phone to
his ear, stepped out of their truck and walked back to look into the
bed.
Arrowroot rolled his window down. “Hey, Archibald, goin’ to a
barbecue?”
“Hey, Mr. Mayor,” Archibald replied. “Not tonight. Haulin’ meat
for the police. Not sure why.”
“You wanna cover that thing up?” Arrowroot asked.
“Chief just called me, said the same thing,” Archibald replied.
“You got a tarp or something? We got nothing.”
“I do, look in back,” Arrowroot said. “Tablecloth or whatever in
there, just bring it back when you’re done with it.”
“Thank ya,” Archibald said. “Will do.”
The train started moving in the other direction. Arrowroot rolled
his window back up and he and Schaumberg watched as the men from the
city wrapped up their cargo.
“Okay,” Schaumberg said quietly. “Are you going to tell me what’s
going on?”
“I’m not sure I can,” Arrowroot admitted. “Since I’m not clear on
it myself. I can tell you what I’ve seen and heard, but when I try to
put it together, it’s all just nonsense.”
“Try me,” Schaumberg said. “I’ve seen some things.”
“What do you think it is, then?” Arrowroot asked.
She looked at him and bit her lip in silence, so he spoke again.
“You said something about their teeth. Like from another planet or
something.”
“That’s not quite how I put it,” Schaumberg countered. “But,” she
added, and then she paused.
“If you had, I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Arrowroot said. The
train finally cleared, the gate lifted and they rumbled over the
tracks. He went right at Highway 6, headed for Little Chihuahua, which
Arrowroot knew lay somewhere in the vicinity of the Matterhorn ice
rink and the Traxie branch of the city library.
“Let me start this way,” Arrowroot said. “The thing that got
those people out at the fort, they weren’t animals, they were
machines. And I have it on good authority they’re damned smart. And
basically, they weren’t made on earth as far as anyone knows. And now
they’re in town.”
“Okay,” Schaumberg said slowly, clearly trying to work through
everything Arrowroot had just said. To Arrowroot’s surprise, her next
question was the most logical one she could have asked: “Have they
killed anyone yet?”
“Just one so far,” Arrowroot said. “Old drunk sleeping under the
bridge. We’re gonna lay cows out for them tonight, and that buys us
one more day to figure out what’s going on.”
“Do you need any help?” Schaumberg asked.
“I’d hate to get you involved,” Arrowroot said. “50-50 chance I
get shot, arrested or impeached by the time this is all over. Or all
three.”
“But you asked for my help last night,” Schaumberg said. “What
was that about?”
“It was about Robert,” Arrowroot blurted. “I was hoping you could
dig up some paperwork about who killed him.”
“Oh, you mean the one they’re court-martialing?” Schaumberg
asked.
“Exactly, that’s what I want,” Arrowroot said. “Court martial,
followed by dishonorable discharge and several years in the brig.”
“I guess it will depend on the hearing,” she said. “Of course,
that’ll be months from now.”
“No doubt,” Arrowroot said.
“I think they said July,” Schaumberg said.
“Well, if we can catch him now, maybe,” Arrowroot noted.
“He’s been caught, or charged already,” Schaumberg said.
“Who’s been charged?” Arrowroot asked.
“Well, he’s still a suspect,” she said, “but the person who the
Army thinks killed your son. He’s already been charged. I thought you
knew.”