“Which leaves only the entire human race, plus thirty extraterrestrial races,” Pete put in. He, too, is familiar with Martin’s tendency to over-theorize.
“Well, no,” I said. “Actually, it cuts the number of suspects rather sharply.”
Pete has learned from experience that I can separate the wheat from the chaff more efficiently than many. “OK, Victor, spill it.”
“Obviously, this was someone who was well acquainted with Hooth. They knew, at least roughly, where he slept. Granted, even if the Erintie are helpless once they go to sleep, it would take too long to search out Hooth by shining a flashlight in the face of every other Erintie out here. If he was killed not long after dark, then obviously the killer didn’t take long to find Hooth.”
“It could just be a coincidence,” Martin pointed out. “They could have just happened on Hooth.”
Pete shook his head. “Possible, but not probable. We’re a fair distance from the road. If someone wanted to kill just any Erintie, they passed a bunch of them on the way here from the road.”
“Hmmm. What if they came from back thataway?” Martin suggested, gesturing back into the woods behind us.
“Benait says that there are a goodly number of Erintie who sleep out that way, too. Hooth was surrounded by other Erintie on all sides.”
Martin nodded. “OK. So it was someone who knew Hooth, and presumably Wheelau, too. I hate to say this, but what if it was Boyce Coleman?”
The look on Pete’s face spoke volumes. “I’m coming around to that point of view.”
I asked, “Has anyone told Boyce about Hooth yet?”
Pete shook his head.
“Martin and I just volunteered to do so. I want to watch his reaction when he hears about this.”
The rising Sun was glaring down on the field as Martin and I trudged back to his car, leaving the police to see what they could glean from Hooth’s corpse. The dew was evaporating off of the grass, hanging in the air like a veil.
It was strangely silent. Even the songbirds couldn’t muster the energy to push a call through the heavy, humid air. Then again, maybe they, like everyone else, were mourning the passing of another nice guy.
It took a while to track down Boyce Coleman. His wife said he had left the house earlier than usual, citing errands to run. We could catch him at work around ten, she thought. He was the manager at the gym where he worked out.
Martin and I arrived just after they opened. Even at that hour, there were a surprising number of people straining at the weight machines. We found Boyce in a tiny office. A man his size made it seem positively claustrophobic, just by inhabiting it.
He received us cordially enough, then quieted when he read the serious expression on Martin’s face. “Bad news, huh?”
“Boyce, someone killed Hooth last night,” Martin said gravely.
Very slowly, almost gently, Boyce lowered his head into his hands. “Why is this happening? I saw Hooth just yesterday. He was…” He sighed deeply, then raised his head. “Hooth was older than Wheelau. Less playful. He was sorta like somebody’s favorite grandfather. Just a quiet, peaceful soul who couldn’t do harm if he tried.”
Martin cleared his throat. “Where were you around dark last night?”
Boyce’s eyes flashed, then he grimaced. “Yeah, I guess that would be the logical thing, wouldn’t it? I was over at the park talking to Hooth and Benait until it was time for them to go to sleep. Then I went home.” He looked at Martin imploringly. “Does that help any?”
Martin shook his head. “Actually, it’s about the worst possible thing you could have said. The only way you could have made it worse is if you had said that you walked Hooth to his sleeping spot.”
Swallowing hard, Boyce said, “I did.”
“So you knew where he slept?” I asked.
Boyce shrugged. “Sure. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything. Sometimes friends of mine go over there with me. I can think of probably a dozen people who’ve been there with me at one time or another. And I’m not the only human friend the Erintie have.”
“Any of them show up over there consistently?” Martin asked.
“Not as often as I do, no.” He looked up from where he sat. “What happened to Hooth?”
As Martin told him, I watched his face carefully. In the past, I’ve been able to observe minutiae in the behavior of humans that gave me hints as to guilt or innocence, but I learned nothing from Boyce’s face.
On the way out, Martin looked across the room filled with grunting men fighting gravity to raise pieces of iron. Then he turned to me and said, “You know, Victor, it occurs to me that it would take a fair amount of physical strength to lift Wheelau’s body and put it into a dumpster—”
“And Boyce has strength to spare,” I finished grimly.
Meanwhile, Pete had managed to piece together the route of the garbage truck which had brought in the load containing Wheelau’s body. By comparing the items of trash found in close proximity to the body, the police had been able to determine that the body had been in one of two dumpsters, both in the same city block.
“And I’ll bet you can’t guess where those dumpsters were located,” Pete said.
“Near the gym where Boyce Coleman works?” I offered.
“Give the man a cigar, make that a moldy banana,” Pete replied. “There’s a large parking lot behind the gym with a dumpster on each side. Since the gym is roughly midway between them, sometimes they use one, sometimes they use the other.”
Martin scowled. “Pete, this doesn’t look good at all.”
“Granted, it’s all circumstantial evidence, but it is beginning to look pretty damning,” Pete agreed.
“You going to bring Boyce in?” Martin asked.
Pete sighed. “I hate to base a case on such flimsy evidence, but it looks as though I’d better do something. The Erintie embassy has begun raising a fuss, and you know what that means.”
“You need to produce results, pronto,” Martin supplied.
He nodded. “Want to go with me to pick up Boyce?”
Twenty minutes later, we were told that Boyce had left work unexpectedly.
Pete managed to contain himself until he got back out to the patrol car. “That sonovabitch skipped out! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” he yelled, pounding on the steering wheel with his fist. “Why in hell didn’t I nab that gorilla the very first time I laid eyes on him?”
I waited until he paused to take a breath before trying to insert a suggestion. “Pete, shouldn’t we check his house? It could be simply that he wasn’t feeling well.”
He quieted immediately. “Leave it to an alien to teach me my job. Thanks, little buddy.” He turned the key and started backing out of the parking slot.
“Can I make another suggestion?” I asked.
The car came to an abrupt halt. “Go for it.”
“Wouldn’t it be wiser to go to the Erinties’s field? If Boyce is on the loose, he might try to kill another one. They trust him, and he could get right up to one of them before—”
Pete slapped his forehead. “Right again, Victor!” The car was in motion before I could brace myself. I fell sideways across the back seat, scrambling madly to grab something so as not to roll off into the floor. As we sped down the road, I heard Pete radio in for someone to check Boyce’s house in case he was there.
When we arrived at the meadow, the three of us walked over to the nearest Erintie. With the pitifully few phrases I had at my command, I attempted to ask for Benait. The Erintie looked alert while I was speaking, then turned and galloped off.
While I had been speaking, the radio in Pete’s cruiser had squawked. I turned and hurried back to the car to see what Pete had found out.
“It’s Benait, Victor. Two boys were fishing under a bridge when his body came over the side. They heard a car speed off, but don’t know anything more,” Pete told me.