Both men stopped. Three walls were tiled floor to ceiling with gold-tinted mirrors. The fourth wall faced the lake. It was all glass, and curtainless. Life-sized statues of topless mermaids flanked a king-sized bed that was suspended off the floor on heavy gold-colored chains. A recessed wall unit was lined with the same mirrored tile, each shelf adorned with a variety of nude female figurines.
Kaz walked past the bed to the closet. Pulling open the sliding doors, he was somewhat relieved to see familiar single-man’s items on the hangers and shelves, shoes tidily aligned along the floor. There was a flight suit, along with a couple of jackets, trousers and crisply pressed shirts. He slid the doors closed and came back to Al, shaking his head. “This place would give me the creeps,” he said.
They heard a voice echoing off the stone-tiled floors. “Hey, guys, c’mon back here.”
They found the two cops standing at the foot of the staircase, and as soon as they reached them, the sheriff ushered them back out to Kaz’s car, leaving his deputy by the front door. Heard said, “We found some things in the bedroom that Major Miller was using as his home office. Beyond the deviant dentist furniture, I mean.”
He glanced back at the house. “I’ve called for a couple more deputies to help do a thorough search. We’ll use an unmarked and guys out of uniform, to keep the profile low for as long as we can.” He eyed the neighboring houses. “We can be thankful for small mercies that there’s a media blackout on the mission.”
He looked at Kaz. “I still need to have a quick look at the other crewmen’s homes, if you can let me into them.”
Kaz nodded. “Of course.” He glanced at Al. “Have you briefed the sheriff on what’s been going on?”
“Yeah, Jack knows about Luke, in strictest confidence.” Al glanced at Beauchamp, standing mutely by the front door. “But nobody else.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Kaz,” Heard said. “This is going to escalate. But my job is pretty clear. A civil-registered helicopter flying from a Harris County airport crashed on county land, the pilot died, and indications are that there was sabotage. So I’m investigating a murder. The fact that one suspect is dead and two others are off the planet doesn’t bother me.” He briefly stuck out his lower lip, considering. “In fact, it’s better. I know exactly where they are, and when they’ll be back.”
But Kaz was thinking beyond the investigation. He was going to have to tell Sam Phillips that the man who was about to walk on the Moon, to find out what the Soviets were up to there, was now a viable suspect in a murder.
37
Mission Control, Houston
“FLIGHT, EECOM.”
Gene looked over his console. “Go ahead.”
“FLIGHT, my back room has been working the numbers, and we’ve got a revised status.”
This was interesting. EECOM handled oxygen consumption. With the leak in Luke’s umbilical at Almaz and the need to repair the hatch seal, Gene had been waiting to see whether and how much it would impact the planned mission.
“I’m listening, EECOM.”
“Now that the tank temps have stabilized and we’ve got an update on current consumption with the LM hatch open, it looks like we lost considerably more O2 than we thought. It’s very tight for full duration.”
Oxygen wasn’t just the sole gas used in the spaceships for breathing, it also fed the fuel cells to generate electricity.
“How tight?”
“It depends how much we take from the LM tanks. Assuming we’re still protecting for multiple spacewalks with two crewmembers, it takes us well into the red.”
Gene had already been thinking that the military would have to be happy with just one moonwalk. A short one.
“If you model for just one, five-hour lunar surface walk, how do the numbers look?”
EECOM countered with a question. “Both crewmembers working outside the whole time?” It would increase oxygen consumption.
Gene pictured Chad’s and Svetlana’s likely tasks on the surface. Better to assume worst case. “Yes.”
EECOM had a quick side conversation with the technicians in his back room. “FLIGHT, with that revised plan, and if we start using oxygen from the Bulldog tanks now for cabin air, we have green margins through splashdown.”
“Good to hear, EECOM, thanks.”
Kaz spoke up quickly. “FLIGHT, Michael’s just gone to sleep in the LM, and the repress valve in there makes a loud bang. If EECOM can wait, I recommend we delay tapping Bulldog’s oxygen until he wakes up.”