Clean: A Mindspace Investigations Novel (12 page)

“I won’t,” I said. I hoped it was true.

“
What
are you doing? Three botched interviews in a day, and I had to be called down twice. It’s the effing start of the week!” Paulsen pushed her paperwork aside and got to her feet.

I stood at attention—or the best approximation I could get without any formal training—in front of her
desk, trying not to cause any more trouble than I already had. If the captain and Branen could fire me just because they felt like it, Lieutenant Paulsen was worse. She could make my life a living hell, and maybe today I would deserve it.

“Got anything to say for yourself?” she asked. “Or are you standing there just to rearrange my neurons?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” I said truthfully. She’d find out, somehow, and do…something very bad. I didn’t know what, which made it worse.

“Good.” Her wrinkles deepened. “Now. What’s going on? You haven’t screwed up in months, and now three in a row? Is this about the phone call I got from Bellury this weekend? You’re lucky as
hell
your test came back clean.” She leaned on the edge of her desk, arms crossed in front of her. “We’ve been through this one too many times. I’ve got five cops a quarter in my office wanting me to get rid of you. Your rap sheet, your numbers—half the department’s convinced you’re playing us all. Taking secrets back to the Guild.” She paused, as if waiting for me to respond. “You can’t afford another screwup, not like the last time.”

I thought about several possible answers, and settled for polite. “No, ma’am.”

“I can’t afford another screwup like that one. The perp lost the lawsuit by a hair. Five million dollars—that’s enough money to shut all of us down. We can’t do that again. Not ever, understand? You’re making me nervous, and I’m not happy when I’m nervous.”

“No, ma’am.”

She sighed. “Do you know why I’ve kept you on?”

“Not really.”

“That confession rate of yours is twice my next-best interrogator. Branen says you’ve upped Cherabino’s close rate another fifty percent. We like results. Those
kinds of results, they’re good for the budget. But they’ve got to keep going, not like this morning. Not like before. Your results stop now, I’m not sure I can protect you. You understand me? No more leash, no more tolerance.”

I swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

She studied me. I tried to stand motionless, but I don’t think I succeeded. Finally she said, “It’s not just about you. You screw up an interview, you screw up an investigation. Sometimes it can’t be fixed—sometimes the hard cases don’t talk at all. It’s not about you. It’s about the investigation. You need a break, you take a break. You get your head in the game.”

I nodded.

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t let me catch you abusing the system. And I’ve arranged for weekly drug tests until I say different. Am I clear?”

In that moment, her mind was wide open. I couldn’t help reading the truth of her words, and a distrust that burned me, that echoed my own. “Understood,” I said. “No more screwups. I’m supposed to talk to you the next time something’s up.”

She blinked. Guess she hadn’t said the last out loud. But she continued, “That’s right. And the interviews?”

“Take time if I need it. Get my head in the game.” I was angry now, but I wasn’t going to show it, not here.

“I’d rather a delay than a screwup. We only get one shot at these guys, and you’re on the hard cases.”

“Understood.”

We faced each other for a long moment.

“You can go now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I turned around and left, grateful to go. The distrust burned like acid, and the weekly tests were just one more indignity on top of the pile. But I’d done it before. I was not happy, but it could have been so much worse. I’d expected so much worse.

I had just about reached the door when she spoke again.

“Wait,” she said.

I turned.

“Make sure you show up early for the case briefing this afternoon.”

“What case briefing?” I asked.

“Cherabino’s having her team go over the multiples case. Wants you there.
Don’t
embarrass me by being late.”

I turned to go—but she stopped me again.

“Also.” She reached behind her for a plastacard, which she handed to me. “I had Bob run a data search on the Guild in the public records. Any reference to any member with a high rating in either of the two fields you were talking about. See what you can do to narrow it down to the ones with the right skill level, will you? It would be a miracle if something pops, but we’re looking for the miracles.”

I agreed and took the card.

“Get me something I can use. Now, get out of here.”

I got.

The meeting was held
in the smaller of the two conference rooms—they called it Holmes, as in Sherlock. With four plain walls, a large bleached-wood table, and old wheeled chairs, the only real color in the place was the name. I was furious, disappointed, the scent of my own failure far too strong. But I had also had a long walk across hostile cubicles—I would keep it together if it killed me.

Finally I reached the conference room. In the back, behind the huge table, one of the junior cops was setting up two rolling bulletin boards. A mountain of papers and a box of pushpins were sitting next to him on the table, ready for him to start affixing clues. He started with a map with seven red X’s on it, what looked like the East Atlanta area.

Cherabino came in, her migraine easing but still there. She gave me a funny look, and I read fresh distrust and frustration. “You’re early.”

Great, now she knew about my slip and wasn’t happy. I held my ground. “You asked me to come.”

“Yeah.” She took a breath. “Find something useful to do.”

Branen arrived at the conference room door with a handheld notebook and a cup of coffee. After Cherabino shot him a look, he explained, “I’m just sitting in.
After the papers this weekend, I think it’s clear I’ll be answering questions from the media.” He was also thinking, if Piccanonni showed up, he wanted to be here to run interference. Whoever Piccanonni was.

Cherabino swallowed a protest and gestured for him to take a seat where he could see the board. Impatient, she gestured at me to help the junior cop.

I sighed. The junior cop gave me a stack of pages and pushpins, shooing me over to the board on the left, and I started pinning. We’d just have to put everything back in the murder book later, but maybe they thought it would spark new ideas. I’d do far stupider things to earn my way back to Cherabino’s good side.

Picture after picture went up on the board, sad morgue pictures of seven dead faces. One was an old woman who’d owned the scarf in Cherabino’s office, her face discolored with a massive bruise. The rest were younger; the teenagers, their faces stuck in sullen despair, broke my heart. They should be irritating their caregivers and getting into trouble, not laid out like carrion on a metal table.

Someone Guild had done this, had taken the information that should have been a sacred trust, and turned it on these people. Had broken them beyond repair, beyond even the hope of repair. The thought made me disgusted all over again. Anyone powerful enough to manage this should have been caught long ago by his handlers, by the Guild, and tried and executed. Murder was a big deal, but the Guild wasn’t doing anything. So now the cops had to handle it.

I pinned up footprint pictures and sketches of other physical evidence, and another few people arrived at the conference room. One was a blond woman whose thoughts were curiously ordered, laid out in rows with tags like a dictionary. The other two visitors were a cop
and a female tech, respectively. I had no idea what the blond woman was, but when I turned around, I noticed her sitting very straight in her chair, almost too straight, like she wasn’t comfortable here.

None of the crowd introduced themselves, as if everyone knew everyone else—except perhaps for the blond woman. Either way, I was the one loser left out of the equation. I stayed very quiet, determined to work, to fit in. I did find a seat, though, at the end near the techs.

Cherabino stood. “Okay, thanks for coming. This case has just jumped four levels in priority, and we’re all here to share information and try to figure out what’s going on.”

“Why the jump?” the tech asked. She was a short twenty-something with pink hair and a wrinkled shirt. “We’re backed up in the lab as it is.”

Branen leaned forward. “The captain got another call from the mayor over the weekend. He’s…upset over the story hitting the papers.”

Cherabino looked at him cautiously. Then she started again. “Let’s go around the table with our information. We’ll start with you, Michael.” She nodded to the junior cop, a slight Asian guy, and sat down.

He cleared his throat and looked at his notebook. “Um. Yes. Two kids playing in the abandoned store across the street saw a white or gray air sedan fly over the buildings and land in a parking lot two weeks ago. Old white guy who got out was carrying a heavy, long garbage bag. Lumpy, they said.”

“How old were the kids?” Cherabino asked.

Michael looked at the notes. “Nine and thirteen.”

“Old could be anything over thirty, then,” she said. “Only the one guy?” When the man nodded, she told him, “Could be one of the bodies being dumped. Good work.”

“Ma’am?” he added. “I’d like to stay on this case if you have the work.”

Cherabino glanced at Branen and shrugged. “There’s always plenty of work.” To Michael, she said, “Could you take a sketch artist to the kids and see if they remember enough to be useful? Two weeks is a long shot….”

“But a picture of the killer would be invaluable,” Michael agreed. “I’ll take care of it.”

Cherabino nodded at the next one along the table, the pink-haired tech.

“Trash bag?” the woman asked Michael, who nodded. “That would match with the bag piece we got from the sixth victim.” She straightened and looked at Cherabino: “Like you asked us, the lab reran the clothes from the fourth and fifth victims. In addition to dirt, and normal scene contaminants, we found trace amounts of a processed talc powder mix. No soap this time, though.”

“What kind of powder?” Branen asked.

The woman glanced at the notebook. “Manufactured talc. The kind used to coat the inside of latex gloves.”

“Like a surgeon?” He frowned.

“Well, yeah.” She tilted her head. “But I use latex gloves too. They’re not as permanent as skin sealant, less likely to contaminate your sample, and you can take them off if things get icky. They’re pretty common.” She held out a hand. “And before you ask, no, there’s no way to tell brand from the sample. Since they did away with cornstarch, everybody uses the same formula. Now latex, on the other hand…If I’d gotten a sample of that, I could tell you anything you wanted. But the gloves
are
kinda designed not to fall apart.”

“Anything else?” Branen asked.

By now I was tapping on the table, and Cherabino was crossing her arms, glancing at Branen when she thought he wasn’t looking. Just sitting in, huh? I made myself stop tapping.

“A couple of blue poplin fibers, fifty-five/forty-five cotton polyester. Used for a lot of things, most commonly medical scrubs.”

“So he’s a doctor?”

“Could be.” The tech shrugged. “He could also be a guy who bought a pair of slouchy pants at the local thrift shop and doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. I don’t think it’s conclusive.”

“What about the soap?” I asked. Everyone looked at me. So much for being quiet, but it was new information. If I was going to pull a rabbit out of the hat any time soon, I needed all the information.

“Where have you been? Liquid Dawn dishwashing detergent, Fresh Spring scent, very diluted traces. We identified it on the first body and all the rest.”

“Sadly, you can buy it anywhere in Atlanta,” Cherabino told me.

“But not on this victim?” asked the blond woman with the organized thoughts. Maybe forty-five, she spoke with a gravelly voice I’d never heard on a nonsmoker. “What else was different about this scene?” She was looking at me directly. “You’re the telepath, aren’t you?”

“I am. And you are who exactly?”

Cherabino’s hand came down on my arm, a warning to be careful.

“Claudia Piccanonni, the GBI lead profiler. Your department asked me to take a look at this case.” Her hard eyes studied me. “I prefer to see a staff meeting than have my own. I repeat, what else was different about this scene?”

“Me, for one. I wasn’t at the others. At this one, I found traces of two guys in Mindspace,” I told her, uncomfortably. “But the kids saw only one guy. And the second one at the scene seemed pretty angry, like something was different. Maybe he wasn’t there at the other scenes.”

“These are not where the bodies are being killed,” Cherabino put in. “We know they’re dump sites. If he set down in a parking lot, we may not have noticed the vehicle marks. I don’t think we canvassed that far out.”

Michael put his hand on the table. “The kids said the aircar was weaving a little and landed hard. The older one thought the guy might have an issue with one of the anti-grav generators.”

“How would the kid know?” I asked.

“His dad’s a mechanic and he hangs out in the shop on weekends, he said.”

Cherabino blinked. “Was this in the report?”

He shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”

She made a mental note to read reports more carefully.

The tech leaned forward, excited. “A bad anti-grav generator can compress a patch of ground pretty bad. It wouldn’t wear away for a couple weeks on soil, longer on pavement—it’d have to wait for the next paving truck to come out.” She turned to Branen. “If you’ll let me take a couple of guys back to the scenes, I’ll see if we can find the impressions.”

Branen frowned. “Why wasn’t this done already?”

“No reason to canvass that far out,” Cherabino returned. “We had more than enough to do in the crime scenes themselves.”

“Quite a few man-hours to correct it now,” he said. “Would the anti-grav generator make a positive ID on
the killer—or killers?” He added the last words with a glance at me.

Cherabino’s knuckles got white on the stylus she was holding as she struggled not to contradict her boss.
Sitting in, my ass!
she muttered mentally.
He’s trying to take over.
Then, out loud she said, “It would corroborate the kids’ stories and help us confirm how the bodies were transferred. Might eventually lead us to confirming the car.”