The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes

Chapter Two: Cops

Chapter Two: Cops

Two weeks later, Mykol Ranglen’s solitary life and mild temper could not prevent his involvement with a murder.

Ranglen was “in transit,” as he liked to call it. He had returned to Annulus (the “High Ring Above New Worlds”) after exploring a planet from which he’d get an article, several poems, and maybe even the setting for a novel. But in order to work on them, he first moved into an unimpressive hotel room. The feel of displacement in such rooms—of release from time, of living “in hiding” or “drop-out mode”—allowed him to focus on the task at hand. He often said he didn’t mind his alienation as long as he could use it to his advantage.

But then late at night two police detectives knocked at his door. A big male, a small female, and their two sour, irritating moods.

“Are you Mykol Ranglen?” the female asked.

“It’s pronounced ‘Michael.’” She had moved the accent and called him “Mih-KOL.” He wondered if the mispronunciation was intentional.

They opened the classic black billfolds and waved their Annulus Security badges. The woman said, “We’re police investigators, homicide. Hussein Hathaway, Pia Folinari. May we come in?”

Ranglen shrugged and stepped aside. Since he was a sometime novelist, he liked the name “Pia Folinari.” He wondered if he could use it.

The man entered first, cutting across the woman’s path and making her glare at him. He had a big face, no chance of a neck, a block of jaw that even his short beard couldn’t soften, olive skin, short black hair, and he wore a black shirt with gray sports-jacket—to hide his shoulder holster, of course—and casual dress-shoes that could double as fast trackware in a chase. He bulked a head over Ranglen and his chest made an imposing wall. Mykol felt intimidated already.

The man lumbered past, surveyed the room and looked insulted by its bareness.

The woman, about half her partner’s size, faced Ranglen and said, “You’re the writer? A consultant for alien-import companies?”

“Yes, I’ve done that work.”

He studied her and felt she looked fragile for a cop. Her pale skin and slight frame, greenish dirty-blond hair hanging in shags just below her ears, made Ranglen feel she should model clothes for elves instead. Yet her gray eyes probed him unashamedly, in a raw deep-six search for guilt that was more threatening than the man’s bulk. She didn’t care what he thought of her, nor her off-the-rack screw-you outfit of black jeans, tight-breasted fuchsia-and-purple top with flimsy brown leather jacket. And she dared you to ignore the gun-butt in her armpit, all exposed for you to see.

While Hathaway walked about the room, Folinari—God, how he loved that name—pulled out her cellpad and kept Ranglen’s focus on her and the questions. “Do you know a Henry Ciat?” she said.

He nodded. Mileen’s fiancée.

Folinari waited, stared back at him, tapped her cellpad. “How do you know him?”

“He’s a business associate. As you said, I do consulting on extraterrestrial products. He worked for the same company I did.”

“Montgomery Imports?”

He nodded again.

Though Hathaway still “wandered aimlessly,” Ranglen assumed he listened with attention.

She checked through several uploaded notes. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“He came to me a week ago, with some questions about geological conditions on an alien planet and how they would affect an industry that was to be built there.”

“What world, and what industry, please?” She looked down at the screen of her cellpad and seemed only half interested in the answers. Ranglen felt he was taking a lie-detector test, that the questions were just calibration for already established facts.

“I’m sorry, but I’m sworn to secrecy with all the business companies I work for.”

Folinari gave a light sneer. “We can subpoena this information.”

“Then you’ll have to. Until a court orders me, I can’t break those agreements.”

Her eyes narrowed. She muttered, “All right. We’ll deal with that later. How close were you to this Henry Ciat?”

He repeated, not close at all.

“If that’s true, then it’ll be easier for me to tell you this. Henry Ciat is dead.”

Ranglen had no trouble showing surprise—for he was surprised. And regretful, though perhaps not for the reasons that the investigators sought. Ever since the detectives arrived, Ranglen had wondered what Henry might have done. But he hadn’t expected him to be dead, or…Wait—these cops were homicide. “How did he die?”

She started to say something but Hathaway stepped in front of her again, as if in a planned switching of roles that she had forgotten. Folinari looked annoyed, but she turned away and walked about the room, stabbing glances into its corners.

Hathaway said, “He was murdered.”

Ranglen said nothing. Then, finally, only, “How?”

“I’m not at liberty to share those details. His body was found earlier today at Hatch Banner’s landing field.”

Ranglen didn’t nod or change his expression.

“Mr. Ranglen, we’re hoping you might clear up some details about this case.”

“I can’t see how. Our relationship was mostly professional.”

“Yes. But there is a peculiar twist.”

Ranglen stared back and waited.

“We of course searched the body. And we found one of your business card-links on him. Written on the back of it, in hand-writing that matched Mr. Ciat’s other documents, was the phrase, ‘Mykol knows’…with an exclamation point.” Hathaway paused for effect, his gaze steady on Ranglen.

Folinari stopped wandering and watched him too.

The room became ominously still.

“So, Mr. Ranglen, what we want to know is…why would Mr. Ciat write that?”

Folinari added, with more accusation, “Or, given that note, what exactly it was that Mr. Ciat believed you knew?”

Ranglen glanced at Folinari, then back to Hathaway. “I said before, he was just a business acquaintance. He came to me with questions about the geology of an alien planet. That was all. The card could have been in his pocket for weeks—months even.”

Both detectives waited. They were good at waiting.

Ranglen summoned the strength to out-wait them.

Hathaway said, “Yes, that card might have been there for a while, though it looked new. But the problem is that…those words could be the last words he wrote before meeting his killer—or even what he wrote after he met the killer. In either case, they’re very important. For if they were his last words…and they refer to you…then that makes you very important.”

Ranglen looked appropriately unsettled.

Folinari added, with unprofessional zeal, “Will you talk to us now, Mr. Writer? Mr. Big Writer?”

The gloves are off now, Ranglen thought. “Are you trying to implicate me in this? Should I have a lawyer here?”

Hathaway dropped his stare—Folinari did not—and tried to reassure him. “I don’t believe that’s necessary.”

“Then what are you accusing me of?”

“We’re accusing you of nothing. We want only information.”

“I’ve told you all I can. The business side I can’t talk about. And he was just an acquaintance.”

Folinari broke in, “Mr. Ranglen, where were you late this afternoon?”

“Do you mean where was I when the murder might have occurred?”

“I mean, where were you late this afternoon?”

Ranglen lacked an equally good comeback. “I was here, working. But I made several inquiries that I’m sure can be corroborated. I checked for the schedule of some upcoming lectures I have to give at University Hill.”

Hathaway said, “Yes, we’ve already confirmed that. I wish you’d understand that we’re not accusing you.”

This information jangled his nerves—they already tested his alibi.

Folinari took a different approach, more personal and prodding. “You’ve been in this hotel for three weeks, ever since you returned from that newly opened planet you visited—that’s right, we know about your trip. You have at least two homes we can find, both of them comfortable. Yet you never seem to stay in them long. Why are you living now in a hotel?”

Ranglen’s irritation grew. They were infringing on his private life. “Where, and how I live, is my business.”

Folinari ambled about. “Well, your cellpad is open here, and I can see you were writing an article.”

Dammit, she had scrolled through the file while Hathaway occupied him. “That document is private and you have no permission to read it.”

But Ranglen knew that Annulus Security had broad powers.

“You do a lot of writing, don’t you?” she said. “Novels, essays, even poetry. Do you have another file for the poems? I’ve checked your stuff and it’s interesting…though I’ve read better.”

Now she was goading him! He told himself she probably hadn’t read a poem in her life until now. “I have nothing that would interest you.”

“Everything about you interests us, Mr. Ranglen. You haven’t had a formal ‘job’ in years. Is consulting and publishing that lucrative?”

“I don’t have expensive tastes.”

She laughed. “Yes, this hotel isn’t exclusive. But your ‘homes’ are nice. And you’re quite the interstellar traveler. It’s hard to tell but you seem to overstep many travel restrictions and customs requirements. That’s not easy, you know. Just how many people have given you clearance?”

God, they had checked. He wondered at the number of business cases they must have reviewed. Ranglen believed in taking full advantage of his freedoms—of which, granted, he had more than most people. “It’s part of my work,” he insisted. “Each company provides clearance, and I have a number of academic associations.”

“Yes, we’ve made a list of all your contacts. It’s a long list.” Her off-hand tone made the words menacing.

But she changed the subject by leafing through a set of painting reproductions lying on his desk. He had been making comparisons between nineteenth-century art from Earth and embellished photographs of the world he had visited—you’d swear the British Romantics had been there. She scowled. “Why are there no people in these pictures?”

“Actually, each one does have a person.”

She looked at him and awaited explanation.

“The observer,” he said. “You could say there’s more ‘person’ than ‘picture’ in each of them.”

She tilted her head and half nodded. Ranglen, if not so damned annoyed, might have been complimented.

Hathaway grunted.

Folinari ignored him. “Look, off the record, what’s your angle? I’m just curious. The writing, these pictures—what are you after?”

Ranglen pondered. Maybe she was trying to avoid the cliché of single-minded just-get-the-crook cop, or maybe she worked a variation of good-cop/bad-cop—or dumb-cop/dumber-cop. Whatever it was, he answered truthfully. “It’s an interest of mine, how people react when they see an alien landscape. All sorts of preconceptions and assumptions arise, and yet, for once, they’re facing something new, different…other.”

She stared back at him. “And you write about it?”

“I write about many things. But about that, yes.”

Hathaway loudly cleared his throat, as if he were jealous of his partner chit-chatting with the suspect.

She didn’t meet his eyes. A creepy tension filled the room.

She said to Ranglen, “You must encounter many alien artifacts, valuable finds.”

“That’s why so many companies want me as a consultant.”

“Have you ever been tempted to keep those artifacts and sell them on your own? Collectors would pay.”

“No. Never.”

“Mmm,” she said, as she leafed back through the pages on his desk. Had she really expected him to admit to anything?

Hussein reminded Folinari, “We’re not here for artifact theft.”

And Ranglen felt a touch of sympathy. Their awkwardness masked the difficulties that all police faced now. With the Airafane Clip drive, “leaving town” was simple: just incorporate a light-space engine into a ground car. Of course, stellar freedom still required time, privilege, and money—technology changed a lot faster than dogged human social structures—but suspected criminals could now travel light-years without being tracked. This made the police, plus many governments used to regulation, less sure of themselves, and thus less polite to their public.

But he felt something more was going on, something particular to just these two.

“Only a few more questions,” Folinari said. “How did you meet Henry Ciat?”

“Through Anne Montgomery.”

“The head of Montgomery Imports, correct?”

“Yes.” They knew that.

“And how did you meet her?”

At a college party where she was so drunk she made a spectacular pass at him. “In college,” he said.

Folinari maybe knew of the incident for a smirk appeared briefly on her face. “And Hatch Banner at Banner spaceport, where the body was found—you’ve known him too. For how long?”

“Since my teens.” Hatch was quite illegal then and did whatever he wanted, but Ranglen wouldn’t go into that.

“Do you realize, Mr. Ranglen, you’re at the center of all the people involved in this case?”

“That’s coincidence. Most transport to Annulus comes through Hatch’s spaceport. And both I and Henry worked for Anne. The connections are predictable.”

She disregarded his comments and looked down at her cellpad. “Do you know of the last business venture that Henry Ciat was involved with for Montgomery?”

“No.”

“A short business trip to Ventroni?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

She stared at him now. “But you said you talked to him a week ago. That would have been right after he returned.”

“He didn’t discuss it.”

“You said he asked you questions. So wouldn’t they have been connected with the trip?”

“The questions were vague. That’s standard in consulting. The people only tell you as much as they need to. And I can’t repeat what he said for the legal reasons I mentioned before. But I will say this—all he spoke of did not involve Ventroni.”

Her gaze hardened. He felt she was giving him a radiation search.

Hathaway grumbled. “We’re almost done here for now, Mr. Ranglen.”

Folinari wasn’t near done. She shot her X-rays at him too, but she fell short of disagreeing with a partner in public. “All right. But know something, Ranglen. We’ll be talking to you again.”

“I’ll be glad to help you further.”

“You’ve hardly helped at all.”

Hathaway added, “We’ll expect you to stick around. Don’t leave Annulus.”

“I understand.” He wondered if they noticed he did not agree to follow that order.

Folinari said, with a false cheeriness, “In that time you can finish your article, even write a few poems.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.” He added, taunting, “What kind would you like?”

“Don’t all of you poets write love poems?” Her tone was venomous.

Ranglen seized the opportunity. “Well, Ms Folinari,” and he took his time reciting,

“On love I would write

If only this were true:

There be only one reader,

And that reader only you.”

This was so ludicrous that everything went still.

Then she gave a loud mocking laugh, while Hathaway seemed offended. ‘That’s enough! We need to go now.”

Folinari glared at both of them and moved toward the door.

But she stopped, remembered something. “Oh yes, one more question. Almost forgot.”

Ranglen knew there was nothing careless or “last minute” about the question at all—which he was meant to realize. The little addition of “almost forgot” proved that.

And it was exactly what Ranglen feared.

“Henry Ciat was engaged to be married to a Mileen Oltrepi. We tried to contact her but we were unable to. You know her, don’t you?”

Yes, he knew her.

“In fact, you brought them together, right?”

Where the hell had they gotten that? “She attended my lectures. She wanted to do field work for an interstellar company, more for her art than any business interests, so I introduced her to Henry. They needed the assistance and she could travel with them, see the things she wanted to e-paint.”

“And after that, they stayed together, right? Even became engaged.”

Ranglen nodded.

Folinari’s stare remained knife-like, but Hathaway spoke the main point, “You and Oltrepi, you were once involved with each other, correct?”

You want a motive, don’t you? “We were close.”

“It was a romance, though.”

He hesitated only briefly. “Yes.”

“You didn’t think they should get married, did you?”

“Who have you been talking to?”

“Please just answer the question, Mr. Ranglen.”

He said, but in a tone that seemed pried from him, “I wasn’t sure it was in their best interests.”

“And you told her that?”

“Only because she asked me. It was not my business, nor my agenda if that’s what you mean. Otherwise I’d have said nothing.”

Folinari chimed in, “You were just the helpful experienced advisor.”

He looked at her with what he hoped was a derisive glance. “What do you think?”

She just laughed.

Hathaway said, “You wouldn’t know where she is, would you?”

“I have no idea.”

But here he lied.

And they obviously knew it. The room took on a death-like quiet.

After a while, though, Hathaway relented. “If you hear from her, please contact us.”

“I haven’t talked to her in months. I doubt if she’d call me.”

Folinari teased. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s an old scenario. The lover dead, the woman returns to an old flame, a helpful and advising old flame—who writes poetry yet!” She gazed briefly but piercingly at Hathaway. “Hell, I’d call.”

Hathaway, Ranglen thought to himself, looked like the universe right before the Big Bang.

But the cop said only, through clenched teeth, “Let’s go.”

Pia’s fit and smartly-wrapped body glided smoothly toward the door. Hathaway followed it, watching it.

Ranglen concluded that whatever once passed between the two had been either very foul, or very romantic, and then ruthlessly suppressed. He wanted to say, if only in a meager attempt to help, they should just break the rules and run off together. All their restraint didn’t give them an edge. It only made their interrogating sloppy.

They maintained a careful distance between them as they walked down the hall.

Ranglen watched without moving.

But immediately after he closed the door, his resistance faded—his whole body shook.

My God, he thought. How much did they know?

Was Mileen dead or just in hiding? She was smart enough to realize she’d be in danger even without Henry murdered.

And Henry…just how the hell did he get himself killed? Why did he have to drag in Mileen? And Ranglen too!

Damn it! Damn it!—Henry really did find a Clip.

Not caring if he was watched, by his two star-crossed fascist police or anyone else, Ranglen grabbed his cellpad and hurried from the hotel room.