Max Collins - Skin Game

“You have to let me look into this,” Max pleaded.

“No way. No way! If you can help us from inside, fine. Otherwise this is a police matter and we’ll take care of it.”

“My guys did not kill those officers.”

Clemente put a hand out and touched hers — a shockingly intimate move meant to reassure her. Which it did.

“I know that,” Clemente said. “In fact, my guess is, somehow they either found... or stumbled into the killer. Whoever it is, he’s the dangerous one. I mean, Max — this guy got the drop on... and nearly killed... two transgenics.”

“Which is why you should let me hit the streets and find out what is up with this!”

“No — Max, the bottom line here is, this is a police matter. You have to go back inside and be the leader those people need right now.”

She sighed. “Yeah... Yeah, I know. People I trust keep telling me that.”

“And I’m one of them?”

“You’re one.”

“Then I hope you’ll take this the right when I say... I’ve got more bad news to share with you.”

Max again locked eyes with him, wondering if she could take any more.

“Someone,” Clemente said, “has pulled some strings.”

“What now?”

“A clock has started ticking. We’ve got till Friday. The feds say, if we locals can’t settle this within a week, they’ll come in and take over.”

“Ames White,” Max said.

Nodding, Clemente said, “My best guess, too. But who pulled the strings doesn’t matter — all that matters is, if this standoff isn’t settled by Friday, the Army will move in on Terminal City — tanks’ll come rolling right through those fences.”

Max said nothing.

“So how do we settle this thing, you and I?” Clemente asked.

“We find that killer.”

“I’ll find him — but I see your point. As long as the media is filled with a transgenic Jack the Ripper, negotiating with Terminal City gets lost in the alarmist shuffle.”

“Well put. Where are you with the investigation?”

With a shrug, Clemente said, “We’ve searched the apartment where your friends were found. It’s been cleared out. It’s a squatter’s flat, like I said, so we have no name, and the neighbors didn’t ever remember seeing the guy. We got some skin cells from the shower drain, could be the killer, could be skin from one of the victims. We won’t know for a while.”

“What about the DNA evidence White gave you?”

Clemente started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. “I won’t bullshit you. How did you figure that White shared DNA evidence with us?”

“It wasn’t exactly the Enigma code, Ramon. You guys wouldn’t have put the word out that this was a transgenic killer if you didn’t have something... and White would be eager to provide that, I’m sure.”

Nodding, Clemente said, “White’s team got skin cells off this piece of top secret equipment that the killer took from his first victim.”

“Oh, you mean the shoe salesman?”

Clemente took the bait. “Yeah — the shoe salesman... who really worked for the NSA, only I never told you that.”

So, Logan had been right: the first victim was one of White’s people.

Max asked, “Why didn’t White give you this key piece of evidence immediately?”

Clemente gazed at her with respect. “You’d have made a good cop, Max. That was my first question too.”

“And the answer?”

The cop shrugged. “White said the killer stole the piece of equipment, and it had only been retrieved recently.”

“Retrieved?”

“White was a little vague on that part,” Clemente admitted.

“You believe him?”

“Don’t really have a choice. Anyway, under a press-blackout restriction, he did give me possession of that gizmo for twenty-four hours. It was smashed up, and covered in blood — the victim’s blood — and it matched up perfectly. The lab also found more skin cells from the killer, and we ran our own DNA tests and the killer is definitely transgenic.”

“According to evidence provided by Ames White,” she said.

He shook his head. “If this evidence is faked, it’s head and shoulders above anything I’ve ever come across. I’ve seen the government try to cover shit up before and they suck at it. Your little community across the street comes to mind as an example.”

“Point taken,” she said. “What about fingerprints?”

“None anywhere. Not at the scenes of the crimes, none on that piece of equipment, none on the stun rods, and none in the apartment.”

Frowning, she asked, “How is that even possible?”

Clemente sat back in the booth. “I have no idea.”

Max decided that the best way to show her sincerity would be to level with Clemente. “Suppose I told you I already knew that the first victim worked for White?”

“How?”

“By putting the pieces together from what you told me, and the computer work of a friend. And I also know that our dead NSA ‘shoe salesman’ had a young partner who left the agency at the same time — with full disability.”

Clemente was sitting forward, scribbling this in a small notebook. “What’s the partner’s name?”

“You’re not going to find him. He’s gone to ground.”

“Tell me anyway, Max. I have my sources, my ways to find people. This guy’s a material witness in a homicide.”

“I’ll tell you his name, Ramon, because I want to build trust. And in the days ahead we’ll need that. If we’re going to get this fixed before the tanks roll in, we have to promise to tell each other the truth from now on.”

The detective studied her, his face serious. “You have my word.”

“Mine too. But here’s the thing. If you do a big high-profile manhunt, then Ames White will get to your witness first, and then neither of us will ever get to talk to him.”

“I can protect him.”

“The police can’t protect him from White.”

Clemente’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say the police. I said, ‘I can protect him.’ ”

She considered that; then she took the leap of faith, of trust. “His name’s Sage Thompson.”

She gave him the agent’s last known address as well.

Clemente scribbled the information in his notebook. “If you’ve been inside Terminal City, how do you know he’s not home?”

A half smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Well, I have my sources, too — including a nontransgenic friend, who visited the house and said it’s vacant and for sale.”

“I’ll find Thompson,” Clemente said. “Now, we better get you back inside. Here’s my cell number.” He handed her a slip of paper. “You find out anything, you let me know.”

“You’ll do the same?”

“I’ll do the same.”

They walked slowly back to the gate in silence. The night had turned chilly again and Max saw no stars. By tomorrow it would be raining again. Sometimes she wondered why she’d left L.A. in the first place, earthquakes or not. She was tired of being cold and wet. When this was over, she promised herself, she and Logan were going somewhere warm for a while.

In spite of herself, she smiled.

“What?” Clemente asked as she stepped through the gate.

Turning back, she asked, “You ever been to Florida, Ramon?”

He nodded. “In my Army days.”

“Warm there?”

Now he smiled too. “Most of the time.”

“Be nice to see the sun again,” Max said, then she trotted away.

Otto Gottlieb sat in his car and stared out at Puget Sound in the darkness.

Discovery Park was vacant at this hour, the West Point Lighthouse poking holes in the blackness as it swept back and forth. Agent White and the detective, Clemente, were in the middle of some kind of pissing contest, which White of course was determined to win. Toward that end, White had talked Otto into being evasive with the police about how, when, and where the NSA had come back into possession of the imager.