A Hard Rain Read online

  Dix turned and moved away, then stopped and put the information she had given him together. If what she was saying was the truth, then Slippery Stan Hand was eliminated as a possible suspect in the taking of both Redblock and the Heart of the Adjuster. That information would save him some time.

  And it wouldn’t hurt, if he did find Redblock and got what he needed, to promise to tell this woman Redblock’s location. It was a fair trade for the information he had just gotten.

  “I’m looking for Redblock, as well as a gizmo he might help me find,” Dix said, staring into her cold eyes. “I will tell you when I find him, if you stay out of my way in the process. And if the information you have given me just now is on the level.”

  “Understood,” she said.

  The gun in her hand vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she stepped toward him, smothering him in her honey and flower and wet-dog smell. He couldn’t move out of her thankful hug, but there was no doubt he was going to have to change suits after she left. It was going to be questionable if that smell would ever come out.

  At that moment, over her shoulder, he saw the door open.

  The look on the Luscious Bev’s face was not pleasant. Or happy to see him in the embrace of another woman.

  Six hours before the Heart of the Adjuster is commandeered

  Captain’s Log.

  Thirty hours remain until we enter the edge of the Blackness and the subspace forces tear the ship apart. Even at this distance from the phenomenon, we are having troubles with many ship’s systems. Chief Engineer La Forge has managed to protect environmental controls, but in the last hour, every door to almost every room on the ship opened and stayed frozen open. Except for the operation of the lifts, we have ignored the problem. Privacy is not an issue at the moment. Survival is.

  Section Two: He Dances Like He’s Named Fred

  Dixon Hill pushed the perfume-rich Jessica Daniels to arm’s length and then released her like he was dropping a hot potato. He resisted the impulse to try to brush the smell off his jacket and nodded to Bev and Mr. Data. Then he did the two-step side-shuffle to move farther away from her as he did introductions. “This is Ms. Jessica Daniels, girlfriend of Slippery Stan Hand.”

  Bev gave her a very cold look and said nothing.

  Mr. Data went into his mobster stance. “Glad to meet you, toots. What’s shakin’?”

  “Oh,” Jessica said, dropping back into her seductress role like butter melting in a dish, “you’re a cute one.” She turned away from Dix and moved to Mr. Data.

  He stood there, frozen like a white statue as she ran a fingernail along his cheek and along the top of his collar.

  “Nice skin,” Jessica said, her voice as sickly-sweet as her perfume. “Firm and hard, just the way I like it. But you could use a little sun, doll.”

  Dix rolled his eyes at Bev, which broke through her shell and made her smile. Then when Jessica wasn’t looking, he waved his hand in front of his face, as if trying to fan away the bad smell.

  Bev snorted and had to turn her back. She moved to the window. “Warm in here, isn’t it?” she said as she slid the old wooden window upward, letting in the sounds of the rain, the cars on the street, and the city beyond.

  The fresh air felt wonderful. Dix took a deep breath. He desperately wanted to go to the window beside Bev and stick his head out, just to try to clear his nose of the cloying smell. But instead he stepped toward Jessica.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” Dix said, taking Jessica’s elbow and trying to move her away from Mr. Data. “I will be in touch the moment I find anything. And I hope you will share information you discover as well.”

  “Glad to,” she said, her voice soft and in the falsesexy mode. She touched Mr. Data’s nose with the tip of one finger. “See ya, you big white stud-muffin.”

  With that she swished out the door, her purse swinging, leaving behind a trail of too many dead flowers.

  The three of them stood, saying nothing, until the outer office door closed, then Bev turned to open a second window. “She must bathe in the stuff.”

  “I might have to have the entire office fumigated,” Dix said.

  Mr. Data touched his nose where she had tapped him. Clearly he had never had a woman do that before. “Stud-muffin?” he asked.

  Dix decided there would be time to explain later. Right now they needed to get on with the task at hand. And that was finding the Heart of the Adjuster.

  He was about to ask what Bev and Mr. Data had discovered when a scream echoed through the building.

  Then one shot.

  It rattled the glass in the door and the concussion seemed to bounce around the room.

  Dix knew that shot had been close. Very close. Maybe just outside in the hallway.

  Dix was right behind Mr. Data, gun in hand, as they headed through the outer office. When Mr. Data threw open the outer door, the smell of Ms. Daniels’ perfume greeted them, along with two other smells.

  Gunpowder and blood.

  Jessica Daniels lay sprawled on the floor in a very unsexy position, her head tilted against the baseboard, her purse over her head. Blood was smeared down the wall and was flowing from under her body.

  She was clearly dead. A simple bullet hole between her eyes made sure of that.

  There was no one else to be seen. Even the stray cat that had been haunting the hallway earlier had vanished.

  “Check downstairs,” Dix ordered. “Whoever did this has to be close.”

  Mr. Data nodded and dashed down the stairs.

  Bev stepped up beside Dix and stood looking at the late Jessica Daniels. “Someone didn’t like her talking to you.”

  Dix nodded. He was thinking the same thing. But there just hadn’t been anything she had said to him that had been worth dying for. She had told him her boyfriend, Slippery Stan Hand, had been taken. But nothing beyond that.

  The key fact was that someone thought she knew something, and had to be stopped.

  He glanced at Bev. “Better call Detective Bell. He’s going to want to see this before she comes back to life.”

  “If she comes back to life,” Bev said.

  Dix only nodded. The way the reality of this city by the bay had been changing, nothing was certain. And that uncertainty was the only sure thing.

  Four hours before the Heart of the Adjuster is pirated

  Captain’s Log.

  Mr. Data and Chief Engineer La Forge have come up with what might be a solution to our problem. Mr. Data’s device was intended to adjust screens to match some of the subspace effects pounding us from the four quantum singularities that are forming the Blackness. But the device can only block a limited and set pattern of such subspace waves. Not enough to allow restarting of the impulse drives.

  The Auriferite that La Forge has been working with also screens out a limited number of such subspace waves, but not enough to allow the restarting of our engines. What they have come up with is a way to project a shield to block almost all of the subspace effects using both Mr. Data’s device and the mineral Auriferite.

  I have given them permission to test the device first, before taking any chance on burning out or destroying our only supply of Auriferite. For the next two hours they will run computer simulations, then a final simulation on the holodeck, before installing the shielding on the impulse engines. Engineer La Forge and Mr. Data both assure me the extra few hours will make no difference in their chance of success.

  Section Three: It Takes a Woman

  Dixon Hill waited beside the dead body of Jessica Daniels as Bev went back into his office to call Detective Bell. A few moments later Mr. Data came back up the stairs.

  “No one in sight, boss,” Mr. Data said.

  Dix nodded as Bev came back out and stood beside him. “Detective Bell is on the way.”

  “Thank you,” Dix said.

  Bev moved over and kneeled beside the body, avoiding the growing pool of blood. Then she gently picked up Jessica’s purse. The short strap was st
ill clutched in Jessica’s dead fingers, and it took a moment for Bev to get it free. After she did, she stood and moved back to Dix and Mr. Data.

  “What are you doing?” Mr. Data asked.

  “If you want to get to know a woman,” Bev said, “look in her purse.”

  “Good thinking,” Dix said. It was lucky Bev was here. He would not have come up with that.

  Mr. Data glanced at Bev, then at Dix. “Wouldn’t you just ask her questions, or find out where she was from?”

  Dix shook his head. “Difficult to do when she’s dead.”

  Mr. Data glanced at the body. “Oh.”

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Data?” Dix asked. “No mystery character quotes for this situation?”

  Mr. Data went into his gangster pose. “As Johnny Aysgarth said, ‘Circumstances alter women.’ ” Mr. Data then looked as if he was thinking for a moment before he said, “Actually, Claudio Howard-Wolferstab expressed it better when he said, ‘One should never allow one’s illusion of woman to be destroyed by a mere accident.’ ”

  Bev smiled at Dix. “Now aren’t you sorry you asked?”

  “I am, actually,” Dix said, holding up his hand for Mr. Data to stop with any more quotes for the moment.

  Bev opened the purse and looked inside, holding it slightly sideways to let the light in.

  “Let me guess,” Dix said. “Perfume?”

  “Small bottle,” Bev said, picking it out with two fingers and handing it to Mr. Data like it was a snake that might bite.

  She kept digging. “A compact,” she said, also handing the round item to Mr. Data, who looked almost uncomfortable holding them.

  She dug in deeper. “A couple of letters.” She handed those to Dix.

  He could tell at a glance they were both bills with her address on it. It appeared she lived about six blocks away and closer to the wharf.

  “And these,” Bev said, holding up a small ring with two keys on it. One looked like a door key, the other some sort of lockbox key.

  “Nothing else besides two different lipsticks, a hankie, and a license of some sort,” Bev said, shaking the small purse.

  She exchanged the keys for the two letters and put them back in, then took the compact and bottle of perfume from Mr. Data and replaced it as well.

  “I think we need to pay her apartment a visit,” Dix said, swirling the keys on his finger before slipping them into his pocket. Chances are they wouldn’t find anything, but it was better to be safe than sorry at this point. He could return her keys to the station later, saying he found them. Detective Bell might raise an eyebrow, but he wouldn’t say anything.

  Bev nodded, snapped the purse shut and replaced it above Jessica’s head, just as footsteps were heard on the stairs.

  Mr. Whelan came bounding up the stairs, clearly breathing hard. “Cops parking outside. I got the rest of our people spread out up and down the street, just in case. Anything wrong?”

  Then he saw the body and stopped.

  “Any information on Benny the Banger?” Dix asked as the sounds of the door opening downstairs filled the stairway.

  “Nothing,” Mr. Whelan said. “Not a clue where his headquarters might be.”

  “Then for the moment, she’s our only lead,” Dix said, nodding at the dead woman.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask what happened,” Mr. Whelan said.

  “So am I,” Detective Bell said as he rounded the corner of the stairs and climbed up to them. He stood staring at the woman for a moment, then turned to Dix. “People are ending up dead around you a lot lately.”

  “Ghost Johnson still in that state?” Dix asked.

  “Nope,” Bell said, “Came back to life in handcuffs and facing a long stretch of jail time just before I got this call.”

  Bell moved over and looked closer at the woman. “What did she do? Fall on a bottle of perfume?”

  He waved a hand in front of his face as if that would help get rid of the smell, then he knelt down over her. A moment later he glanced back at Dix with a surprised look on his face. “This wouldn’t happen to be Jessica Daniels, would it? Slippery Stan Hand’s best girl?”

  “The one and the same,” Dix said.

  “Oh, just peachy,” Bell said, standing and moving back to face Dix. “You got any idea what this is going to stir up?”

  “I have a hunch,” Dix said. “And I didn’t do it, just for the record.”

  “And, I suppose,” Detective Bell said, “you didn’t see who did?”

  “Nope,” Dix said. “We were inside my office, with both doors closed when we heard the shot.”

  “I checked downstairs a few moments afterward,” Mr. Data said. “There were no suspicious characters in sight.”

  “Thanks,” Bell said, staring at Jessica’s body. “I guess.”

  “If the second chance at life is still working,” Dix said, “you can wait a few hours and just ask her who did it.”

  Detective Bell nodded. “And if she doesn’t do the resurrection bit, and I don’t do this crime scene right, my head will be on a platter.”

  Dix knew exactly what he meant. There was no depending on anything at this point. It was better to stay with the old methods that were proven to work. And for him, that meant good old-fashioned detective work.

  “So any idea why someone did this?” Bell asked, staring at Dix. “Like what she was doing here, outside your office?”

  “She wanted to hire me,” Dix said. “To find her boyfriend.”

  “Find him?” Bell asked, stunned. “When did he go missin’?”

  “When Cyrus Redblock snatched him,” Dix said, telling Bell what he knew from Jessica, “right before someone snatched Redblock. And Jessica presumed her boyfriend as well.”

  “This is givin’ me a headache,” Bell said.

  Dix could only agree. Someone shooting her just didn’t make sense. At least not yet. But there was clearly a lot Dixon Hill didn’t know about what was happening in the city.

  Ten minutes later they had given Bell and the other cops their statements and were headed down the stairs for Jessica Daniels’ apartment. There weren’t many hours left before this world and everything around it came to a sudden end. Dixon Hill was starting to feel the pressure of every lost minute. Somehow, some way, they had to find the Heart of the Adjuster.

  But in a big city, finding something no larger than a child’s ball was going to be hard. And doing it with no real leads, and only hours left, seemed impossible.

  Dixon Hill, Bev, Mr. Data, and Whelan reached the street and stepped into the cold, hard rain. The darkness and the wet didn’t help his mood.

  Clues from Dixon Hill’s notebook in “The Case of the Missing Heart”

  • Cyrus Redblock kidnapped Slippery Stan Hand before he was snatched himself.

  • Benny the Banger is going to be hard to find.

  • Jessica Daniels was killed, more than likely by someone who thought she had information she shouldn’t be spreading around.

  Chapter Six

  Something Smells Like A Red Herring

  Section One: A Woman’s Home is Her Mess

  Dixon Hill glanced back through the rain at the group following him down the sidewalk toward Jessica Daniels’ apartment. Bev and Mr. Data were right behind him, then Whelan and the four others who had offered to help. They all knew something about this city. But eight was too many people to go directly into the apartment at once. They would all be tripping over each other like a crowd trying to climb on a bus. Dix waited until they were two blocks from their destination before holding up his hand for everyone to stop and gather around him on the sidewalk. The three- and four-story buildings on both sides of the street were dark, full of people sleeping through this seemingly perpetual night. Cars were parked along the curb, landmarks to a time of daylight and movement. Nothing stirred on this cold, wet side street except a stray cat that ran down the gutter and then ducked into a side alley. In the distance a dog barked, then stopped, followed by a distant siren
that quickly faded.

  As everyone stopped moving the street’s silence pounded into Dix like a hammer, taking his breath away with the idea that soon everything would be silenced in a much more permanent fashion if he didn’t succeed in this search. He could feel the weight on his shoulders, pressing him down into the concrete.

  Bev noticed the oppressive silence as well, looking around, clearly not comfortable. “I never knew a city could be so deathly still.”

  “Maybe this isn’t normal,” Dix said, his voice a whisper just loud enough for Bev to hear. “Maybe the reality is shifting again.”

  Bev said nothing, letting the silence rule.

  The rain had slacked off just after they left the office and then stopped a block or so back, but it had already done its damage to all of them. Dix was wet and chilled. Bev’s hair was flat on her head, and all their coats were soaked through.

  Dix waited until everyone was gathered around closely so he didn’t have to speak loudly, as if he was in a funeral home and afraid to wake the dead. Even trying to keep his words soft, his words seemed louder than they needed to be. “Mr. Whelan, I want you to take your people and spread out along the street, taking up positions at both intersections on either side of Ms. Daniels’ apartment and around behind as well.”

  “Got it,” Whelan said.

  “And be careful,” Dix said. “Someone killed Jessica Daniels for a reason. That person may be watching her apartment. I want to know at once if you see anything suspicious.”

  Whelan nodded and turned, indicating the four others should follow him.

  Dix, Bev, and Mr. Data waited until the sounds of footsteps had died off against the black windows. Then Dix took Jessica Daniels’ apartment keys out of his pocket and jingled them, the noise clear in the cold night air. “Let’s go.”

  “Right behind ya, boss,” Mr. Data said.

  To Dix it seemed an eternity to walk the two blocks, their heels clicking on the blackened concrete, every window a dead eye staring down on them. The air between the buildings didn’t seem to move and Dix wished for a wind or even the slightest breeze to break the oppressive stillness.