PsyCop 3: Body and Soul by Jordan Castillo Price Page B

the stress of the job. Maybe he really didn't mind scoping out all the properties by himself. Probably.

Chapter Ten
    I made it to the station first, about two forty-five. Zigler showed up a few minutes later—looking puffy, but otherwise unremarkable—as Warwick walked me through a map of the alleyways where the wallet had been discovered. Zigler and I went back to our desks, though I obviously didn't need anything from mine, and I watched him while he flipped through his files, making sure he had everything.
    Zigler wasn't such a bad guy, was he? He'd dragged me out to the hot dog stand without telling me why, but given how broken up he was about the whole thing, maybe I could cut him some slack. And he never mentioned me being queer.
    I was fine with that. I told him my big, scary secret, he voiced absolutely zero opinion, and we moved on.
    "I need you to drive," I said. "The ghosts are thicker in the middle of the night."
    Zigler's eyes widened briefly, then he nodded. I guess he didn't know if he could talk to me about the things I saw any more than he could about my living arrangement with the hottest Stiff in Chicago.
    "If you could do more of the talking with the witnesses," I said to his back as we headed downstairs. "That would be good. You could introduce us and all. I think you're better.
    With people. You know?"
    He paused at the front doors and turned to look at me. He was slowly getting less puffy, but I'd hardly call him bright eyed and bushy tailed. "All right."
    Zigler was probably a better cop, too. I didn't think I'd need to lay that on the table. That was the sort of thing that would prove itself over time.
    We were both pretty groggy as we headed over to the scene, but I figured I should get some business out of the way. "There's gonna be other cops there. Techs, photographers, uniforms. You've gotta run interference for me, keep some distance between me and them the way you did with Lopez's brother. And if they start acting funny ... they're not usually too keen on the PsyCop unit barging in on their scene."
    "Understood."
    I thought about the silence that usually settled over a crime scene the second I showed up, all the regular, subdued banter that happened between co-workers draining away, replaced with only the bare minimum of information. Did that happen when Jacob and Carolyn showed up to announce to the world that, yes, their suspect was definitely lying?
    I doubted it. I think Carolyn's co-workers may have silently hoped that she'd never ask them a point-blank question, even at a cocktail party, but they were probably pretty damn happy to see her when she walked in the door. Her presence on the job meant they'd be going home to their families that much sooner.
    "It's, ah ... it's more that I'm a medium—instead of a precog or empath—than just the whole ... y'know. PsyCop thing."
    Zigler glanced at me, then put his eyes back on the road.
    "I heard."
    He seemed prepared. No sense in me beating it into the ground. He'd get to witness it first-hand in a few minutes, anyway. We parked and picked our way down the icy alley in our protective plastic shoe covers and gloves. I couldn't imagine a worse crime scene than a snow covered alleyway after dark. I'm sure one existed somewhere. I just couldn't imagine it.
    "How fast should we walk?" Zigler asked.
    "Pretty much regular." I tested the snow with my plastic-wrapped foot. "Uh, slow enough to stay upright."
    The perimeter seemed wide, barricades manned by uniformed officers—big, burly ones, many of them with mustaches like Zigler's—enough of them to do some serious crowd control. I saw a guy with a camera having a heated discussion with an officer in a cruiser, and I figured all the security was there to keep the press out of our way.
    "Jesus," Zigler muttered. I guess he thought the cops were laying it on a little thick, too.
    Spotlights shone on the alley from one end to the other, focused mainly on the Dumpster, while Non-Psychics walked a