I leaned forward and opened my mouth, hoping that none of the hair or blood they found was mine, or if it was, that all the mixed evidence would be corrupted into one great soup of undistinguishable DNA. Max swabbed the inside of my cheek, then carefully placed the swab into its little cardboard box and closed it. With a pen he marked a number on the box, rather than my name. I didn’t mention I noticed, but I was grateful for that small favor.
He put the box in his shirt pocket and said, “You and I know some things about each other, don’t we?”
He didn’t have to elaborate. I could tell he was referring to some very specific thing, the questionable circumstances of my shooting the perp, and wondering if he had a vigilante on his hands.
“I suppose we do.”
“Well, those things might make us think differently. Here’s something. Something you might not know about me yet. I can take a lot before I go over the edge. I can take stupidity, for example. And even disrespect. Sometimes people think that because I’m always quiet and slow that I never get upset at all. But you know what really burns my ass?”
“What’s that, Max?” I said gently, trying not to fan his flames.
“The feeling that I’m being suckered. Like somebody doesn’t think I’m smart enough to know when I’m being suckered.”
Twenty-eight
I couldn’t blame Max for thinking I was holding something back, but I kept telling myself it was a long way from not reporting the van to actually killing the guy, and my story about hesitating before I called it in was plausible. Still, he would have to think that if I lied about one thing I might lie about others.
I had at least four days and probably more until the DNA tests were done, even if Max could discreetly pull some strings and bump my sample higher up in a long queue. But then the other trace would have to be analyzed, too, to make a match, and maybe there would be none placing me at the scene. One thing I could count on, Max would extend me the friendly courtesy of not voicing his suspicions to anyone until he had some solid evidence. I knew I could expect that from him.
For now I needed to focus on two things: finding where Peasil lived so I could make sure there wasn’t anything more linking me to him, like the photo and news clip I found in his van, and tracking down Coleman, partly because I was pissed at her for going off the radar the day before, but also to find out what she might have discovered that made her send me the cryptic e-mail BTW you were right! Sort of. Right about what? And if she had evidence, who was she going to present it to before Lynch made his plea twenty-four hours from now?
I was already in the downtown area, so I drove the couple of blocks from the medical examiner’s office to the Bureau. I pulled into the parking garage to keep the car at a temperature that would support life and took the stairs up to the sixth floor, partly for exercise and partly because I don’t like the thought of being surprised in an elevator. I told Maisie I was going to see Morrison, and she buzzed me through the door without calling him first. She wouldn’t do that with someone who hadn’t worked there as I did.
I asked someone in a cubicle where Coleman’s office was, went down the hallway, and found it open. No one seemed to be around so I spent a few seconds glancing around on her desk, in the top drawer, for something that seemed like an address book, or even a phone number scratched on a pad. In the course of doing that I bumped her computer and the screen saver appeared. Like any typical office worker, she had left it on.
Within a minute I had keyed Gerald Peasil’s license into the vehicle registration site and come up with his address. Not quick enough to get out without notice, though. Special Agent in Charge Roger Morrison walked into the office just as I was backing out of the site.
“Maisie said you were here to see me,” he said, and frowned at my hands hovering over the keyboard.
I slowly pulled my hands into my lap but didn’t bother to come up with a reason for asking to see