Read Online Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent by Judith Reeves-Stevens - Free Book Online Page A

a look of cool calculation in Angie’s eyes that said maybe she was willing to gamble that a guy hung up on getting back with his wife would be a guy who wouldn’t hit on her each time they went out on stakeout. So she had agreed to his request to be her partner. Of course, one month after all the paperwork had been dealt with, Sikes was still trying to figure out how to tell Victoria that he had a female partner again. Especially such an attractive one, even if she was a few years older. The gender of his partner had been a sore point in the past and, Sikes knew, would be again.
    “So what are we looking at?” Angie asked him as they stood looking at the victim’s car, ten feet away.
    Sikes was confused by the question. “I just got here. How should I know?”
    Angie jammed her hands into her front pockets and frowned at him. She was shorter than Sikes, slender, and quite appealing in her jeans, white Reeboks, Gap shirt, and loose linen jacket. But her gold badge flashed from the folded-over case jammed in her jacket pocket, and her suddenly serious manner told Sikes that the lesson was about to begin. With any luck, it probably wouldn’t last more than a year or two.
    “You should know because you’re a detective, detective.” Angie nodded her head at the victim, slumped behind the wheel and just visible through the car’s open driver’s-side window. “Examine the scene and tell me what happened.”
    Sikes glanced at the others near the car, ignoring the parking garage attendants who stood fifty feet away, held back by another yellow tape strung across the ramp entrance to this level. Two S.I.D. technicians grinned back at him. Their standard-issue Scientific Investigation Division cases were open at their feet, so Sikes knew they had already examined the scene. The crime photographer was no longer taking her pictures, so her job was done as well. And Angie had been here at least a half hour before Sikes had arrived, so that meant that all the police work was finished, and it was up to Sikes now to duplicate that work and come to the same conclusion everyone else had come to before the M.E. and the meat wagon arrived to cart away the stiff.
    Okay, Sikes told himself as he pocketed his sunglasses and squinted in the bright morning light. It’s just like a test at the academy. He ran his hand over his bristled hair and had the pleasant thought that now that he was in plainclothes he could finally let it grow again. He walked over to the car and began to study the scene.
    The white Continental was a model from the early seventies, back when they were the size of a small yacht and got about three miles to the gallon. It was in cherry condition, no sign of dust, maintained by someone who appreciated it. He stated his first conclusion. “I’d guess that this is the victim’s car, not stolen.”
    “Why’s that?” Angie asked.
    “A car like this, wouldn’t make any sense to steal it. Not enough demand for it. Miserable gas mileage. Obviously owned by someone who loved it and who’d report it gone in a flash. Plus it’s too noticeable for someone to steal to use in a crime.”
    “Could it be the killer’s car?”
    Sikes studied the Continental. Whoever owned this car would be just as likely to kill someone in it as Sikes would be to kill someone in his limited-edition Mustang. Too messy. An act of disrespect for a superb piece of machinery. But just before he started to speak he realized that Angie had asked him a trick question.
    He glanced back at her. “Do we know it’s a murder?”
    Angie licked her finger and marked off a point on an imaginary scoreboard. “That’s one for the rook. Take a look inside and tell me what you think.”
    Sikes held his nostrils shut and leaned in through the window, being careful to keep his feet away from the chalk circles marked off underneath the car door. Blood spatters, he assumed.
    After a few seconds he pulled his head out again and took a deep and cleansing