Happy Policeman by Patricia Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

belt. “You will go away now.”
    “No, damn it. I won’t go away. Where’s Kol Seresen and what are you doing?”
    DeWitt took another step. With a startled jerk, the Torku aimed the stick. DeWitt dropped the bat.
    “You will go away now. It is good for all that you will be going away,” the nearest Torku said in a hurried, inflectionless voice.
    “Goddamn it, where’s Kol Seresen?”
    “Danger here. There is danger here.”
    “Danger? As in sickness? Is there disease in that water?”
    “I do not understand.” The Torku went back to his work.
    DeWitt watched as the metal cap was fastened down. “I’m ordering you to stop. You’re destroying evidence in a murder investigation.
    “The Kol’s orders. Seresen’ s orders. You must speak to Seresen.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Soon,” the Torku with the stick said as he turned to help his co-workers.
    DeWitt sat down on a stump. In a little while a white postal truck drove up. Seresen and two other Torku climbed out. Seresen handed DeWitt a bill of lading. When the paper was initialed, he gave him the new jacket.
    “You’re capping the well. I wanted Doc to study the water,” DeWitt said, sniffing dubiously at the jacket before he put it on.”
    “You should not be here,” the Kol said.
    “This is part of my investigation into Loretta’s death.” DeWitt watched the Torku unload the white truck.
    “Why should the doctor study the water? He has water in town to study.”
    “Maybe the water here is different.”
    “Why should it be different?”
    The Torku, working in unison, were placing canisters around the foundation of the house. “You’d know best why it’d be different: Maybe that’s why you’re capping the well.”
    “I do not understand. There is plenty of water for everyone.”
    “What are your workers doing?”
    “We will erase the house.”
    DeWitt jumped to his feet. “Erase? You mean destroy?”
    “Destroy in a clean manner, yes.”
    “I can’t stand by and let you destroy more evidence. Something happened in there.”
    Seresen walked away.
    DeWitt followed, close enough to see the coffee-with-curdled-milk color of the Torku’s brindled skin. A Winter, he decided. The Torku were all Winters. “Are you afraid of what I’ll find?”
    “I am not afraid of you,” Seresen said over his shoulder.
    A chill wind worked its way inside DeWitt’s jacket. “This is the kids’ house now. You’re destroying private property.”
    “Perhaps I will build them another in another place.”
    “Far from the Line?”
    The alien swiveled, his expression unreadable. “Perhaps.”
    The Torku workers ran back for a whispered conversation with the Kol. When Seresen finished his instructions, which included gestures and a great deal of grunting Torku speech, he looked at DeWitt. “We are ready. It would be safe if you would go now. The light that is given off is harmful.”
    “Why destroy the house?” DeWitt asked. “You need to tell me, because right now it looks like you’re covering up something. Don’t do this.”
    “And you expect me to answer your why, because if I do not, you will suspect my silence, too?”
    Startled, DeWitt said, “Yes.”
    “Then learn to imagine things differently. Suspicion is what comes of linear thought.”
    “Seresen, look,” he said patiently. “There’s always a why.”
    The Kol sighed. “It makes you unhappy, then. Not my intention. So. If I tell you what you wish to hear, you will go? The light given off at the time of erasure is strong. We have no wish to hurt you.”
    “I’ll go. Now tell me.”
    “The woman is trapped in the house.” Seresen’s blank gaze moved to the darkened doorway.
    DeWitt opened his lips to speak. Cold entered his mouth like a possessing spirit.
    “You do not understand,” Seresen said.
    DeWitt shook his head.
    “There are universes where the woman is attached to place. To what has happened. We must unattach her.”
    “Are you trying to tell me the house is