"I'm going to do a quick twenty twenty-two sheet on them," she told the state cops. "I'll send you a copy. And thanks for your help."
The two policemen put on their jackets and hats, handed Lisa their business cards, and left. Lisa threw both cards into the waste basket, then activated the microphone to the interrogation room.
"Do you have a spare room I can borrow?" she asked the man with the earplug. "I want to talk to these guys alone."
Ten minutes later, Lisa and the three strange men were sitting in a large hall on the third floor of the Betaville police station.
It was close to nine o'clock by this time, and having quickly made some overnight accommodations, Lisa was now intent on asking the three perps a few questions for her criminal assessment file — the famous 2022 sheet. After this, she would turn the case back over to the local cops. There was no need for a federal investigation here. Mentally challenged vagrants carrying a few sticks of dynamite — it didn't go much beyond that. She would leave it to the locals to figure out how the trio got the explosives and why they chose to blow a hole in the ground while dressed in Halloween costumes. Her guess was the men would get ninety days, either in the local jail for trespassing and destruction of property, or more likely, under observation at the state mental facility in Palmyra.
The hall was an old basketball court that had been cut in two by a brick wall. It held the town's only voting machine, a small army of old target-practice dummies, and a mountain of boxes containing the police station's Christmas decorations. While one of the Betaville cops insisted that he stay just outside the door while Lisa talked to the suspects, he also didn't bat an eye when she offered to buy the coffees all round. He took her money and was off like a shot.
There was a long table in the center of the hall; it was surrounded by many old wooden chairs. This is where Lisa had the three men sit, up at one end, facing away from the door. She took a seat directly across from them.
She thought twice about unhooking her service revolver; these guys were harmless enough, but her academy training had emphasized the wisdom of having a gun ready at all times. So she undipped it from her jacket holster and placed it on the table with a thud. The three men stared at it for several long, intense moments. Had Lisa not known better, she would have thought the trio had never seen a handgun before.
She looked up at them, smiled, and then got her tape recorder ready. The three men sat rigid in their creaky wooden chairs. Their eyes were off her revolver now and zoned right in on her. It was strange how they did everything in unison sometimes. She smiled again, and so did they, and suddenly, a very warm feeling came over her; it was almost like a glowing sensation. She reached into her briefcase to get a pen and caught a glimpse of herself in her makeup mirror. She was astonished at how attractive she looked. Her blondish hair was tousled and her makeup was fading fast. Yet the face staring back at her was the prettiest she'd seen it in a very long time. What a strange feeling.
It was almost as if…
She shook away these thoughts, pushed the tape recorder on, and began.
"Well, I've heard a lot about you three," she said. "And—"
"How?" the priest interrupted her.
"How what?"
"How did you hear about us?"
Lisa was stumped for a moment. She couldn't very well tell them that she'd been sitting behind the two-way mirror.
"News travels fast around here," she said instead.
The men just looked at each other, digesting this bit of information. Then all three nodded slowly, as if they'd just been given some bit of universal truth.
Lisa explained that she was an FBI agent and wanted to get a bit of background on them for her files. The questions would be nonintrusive and off-the-record; however, if they so desired, an attorney could be present.
"What's an attorney?" the muscle man asked her.
Lisa just stared back at him for a moment.
"An attorney," she repeated for him. "You know, a lawyer?"
"What's a lawyer?" the priest asked.
Lisa looked up from her sheet and took off her glasses. Were the three kooks goofing on her? Would they dare? She was an FBI agent, the last person they should be dicking around with. What were these guys up to? It was hard to tell. They looked too old to be in college, so she could dismiss a fraternity prank. And they were good actors; they were wearing their costumes like it was their everyday attire. But it also seemed as if they really didn't know what an attorney was.
"I'll take that as a no," she said, making an indication on the 2022. "So then, is it OK if we all have a talk?"
The priest replied, "If that's what is needed here, certainly… but I must tell you, we are all about talked out."
Lisa unbuttoned the top clasp in her blouse, then untied her hair and ran her fingers through it. The warm feeling remained.
"So let me see if I have your names right," she said consulting her notes. "You are Mr. Hunter… you are Mr. Zarex. And you are Father Tomm?"
All three nodded.
"And you claim that you are from outer space, correct?"
Again, they nodded.
"And, did you get here in, what? A spaceship?"
"We are not really sure," the priest answered. "As we told the officers downstairs, one moment we were on a planet very far from here; the next, well, we were here."
"Just like that, huh?" she asked with a smile.
The priest snapped his fingers. "Just like that…"
Lisa scribbled something on her sheet.
"So what about the explosion then?" she asked them. "Judging by the burn marks on your clothes, it's obvious you were very close to it when it went off."
"Close to it?" the priest replied with some amusement. "My child, we were right in the middle of it."
She smiled at him, but in a crooked sort of way. "Really?"
"I'm a priest," he replied. "It would be very bad luck for me to lie to you."
Lisa unconsciously undid yet another button on her blouse.
"So, what you're saying is when you landed here, that's what caused the explosion?"
The priest nodded. "Somehow the poof shot us right across the Galaxy, at an incredible speed. When we landed here, well, our arrival was heralded by a blast of no small proportions. Probably had something to do with a slight fracture in the time-space thing, that's my theory, anyway. But it certainly came as a great shock to us."
Lisa began playing with her hair. What the heck was a poop She was almost afraid to ask him. Plus, the priest was almost a little too smooth for her, and he'd done most of the talking already. She turned to the guy in the superhero costume.
"All right, it's your turn," she said to him. "Tell me your version of everything that's happened since you arrived here. And I mean everything."
Hunter almost laughed in the pretty girl's face.
Everything? What did she want to know exactly? How they had made a very hard, very undignified landing on some very hard ground.
Or maybe he could tell her about the certain unpleasant smell that surrounded him after he'd popped in, and how his eyes had been nearly sealed shut by soot and mud, and how it took him a second or two to draw in a real breath? Or how he saw the tiny red stars dancing around him, shrinking into infinitly as his jump became final. How these stars — yes, they were real — stung his face and hands as they slowly faded from view. Or how he sneezed and felt his whole body shake in response, confirmation that all of his vital organs had arrived intact?