He glanced over the rest of the report, the look of skepticism on his face growing more secure. "I'll ... give this to Murphy for you, Mr. Dresden," he said, then nodded to me and turned to walk toward the SI office.
"Oh, hey," I said casually. "Phil."
He turned to me and lifted his eyebrows.
"We're both on the same team here, right? Both of us looking for the killer?"
He nodded.
I nodded back. "What is it that you're not telling me?"
He stared for a long moment, and then blinked slowly. The lack of reaction gave him away. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Dresden," he said.
"Sure you do," I told him. "You know something you can't or won't tell me, right? So why not just put it out on the table, now?"
Denton glanced up and down the hall and repeated, in precisely the same tone of voice, "I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Dresden. Do you understand?"
I didn't understand, but I didn't want him to know that. So I just nodded again. Denton nodded back, turned, and went into the SI office.
I frowned, puzzling over Denton's behavior. His expression and reaction had conveyed more than his words, but I wasn't sure exactly what. Except for that one flash of insight the night before, I was having trouble reading him. Some people were just like that, very good at keeping secrets with their bodies and motions as well as with their mouths.
I shook my head, went to the pay phone down the hall, dropped in my quarter, and dialed Murphy's number.
"Murphy," she said.
"Denton's dropping off my report. I didn't want to wander in on you with Internal Affairs hanging around."
There was a note of relief in Murphy's voice, subtle but there. "Thank you. I understand."
"The investigator is in your office now, isn't he?"
"Right," Murphy said, her tone neutral, polite, professional, and disinterested. Murphy keeps a great poker face when it's necessary, too.
"If you have any questions, I should be at my office," I said. "Hang in there, Murph. We'll nail this guy." There was the sound of a deeper voice, Denton's, and then the slap of a folder hitting the surface of Murphy's desk. Murphy thanked Denton, and then spoke to me again.
"Thank you very much. I'll be right on it." Then she hung up on me.
I hung up the phone myself, and realized that I was vaguely disappointed that I hadn't gotten to really speak to Murphy, that we hadn't had the chance to exchange our usual banter. It bothered me that I couldn't just walk into her office anymore, made me feel a little queasy and tense inside. I hate politics, but it was there, and as long as I was being held in any amount of suspicion, I could get Murphy in trouble just by being around.
Brooding all the while, I stomped down the stairs and out the front door of the station, toward the visitor parking, where the Blue Beetle waited for me.
I had gotten in and was preparing to coax it to life when I heard footsteps. I squinted up into the morning sunshine at the skinny form and big ears of the redheaded young FBI agent from the scene in Rosemont last night. I rolled down the window as he stepped up to my car. He glanced around, his face anxious, and then knelt down beside the window so that he could not be easily observed.
"Hi there, Agent ..."
"Harris," he said. "Roger Harris."
"Right," I said. "Can I help you, Agent Harris?"
"I need to know, Mr. Dresden. I mean, I wanted to ask you last night, but I couldn't. But I need to ask you now." He glanced around again, restless as a rabbit when a fox goes by, and said, "Are you for real?"
"A lot of people ask me that, Agent Harris," I said. "I'll tell you what I tell them. Try me and see."
He chewed on his lip and looked at me for a minute. Then nodded a jerky little nod, his head bobbing. "All right," he said. "All right. Can I hire you?"
My eyebrows went up in surprise. "Hire me? What for?"
"I think ... I think I know something. About the Lobo killings. I tried to get Denton to let us check it out, but he said that there wasn't enough evidence. We'd never be able to get a surveillance put on them."
"On who?" I asked, wary. The last thing I needed was to be getting involved in any more shady goings-on. On the other hand, as an independent operator, I could sometimes go poking my nose where the police couldn't. If there was a chance that I could turn up something for Murphy, or find the killer and stop him outside of legal channels entirely, I couldn't afford to pass it up.
"There's a gang in Chicago," Harris began.
"No kidding?" I asked, affecting puzzlement.
It was lost on the kid. "Yeah. They call themselves the Streetwolves. They've got a really rough reputation, even for this town. A spooky reputation. Even the criminals won't go near them. They say that the gang has strange powers. Streetwolf territory is down by the Forty-ninth Street Beach." He stared at me intently.
"Down by the university," I filled in. "And by the parks where last month's murders took place."
He nodded, eager as a puppy. "Yeah, right, down there. You see what I'm getting at?"
"I see, kid, I see," I told him and rubbed at my eye. "Denton couldn't go there and look around, so he sent you down here to get me to do it."
The kid flushed, his skin turning bright red, until his freckles vanished. "I ... Uh ..."
"Don't worry about it," I told him. "You didn't do a bad job with the act, but you've got to get up pretty early in the morning, et cetera."
Harris chewed on his lip and nodded. "Yeah, well. Will you do it?"
I sighed. "I guess you can't go on record as paying my fee, can you?" It wasn't really a question.
"Well. No. Officially, you are a suspect source, as a consultant."
I nodded. "I thought so."
"Can you do it, Mr. Dresden? Will you?"
I was regretting it even before I spoke. "All right," I said. "I'll check it out. But in exchange, tell Denton I want any of the information that the FBI or the Chicago police has on me."
Harris paled. "You want us to copy your files?"
"Yeah," I said. "I could get them through the Freedom of Information Act, anyway. I just don't want to spend the time and postage. Do we have a deal or not?"
"Oh, God. Denton would kill me if he found out. He doesn't like it when someone bends the rules." He chewed his lip until I thought it would fall off.
"You mean like he's doing by sending you here to me?" I shrugged. "Suit yourself, kid. That's my price. You can find my number if you change your mind." I coaxed the Beetle to life, and it rattled and coughed and started running.