Scam

gun. Where’s your problem believing this?”
    “I don’t have a problem believing this. I know he did it. Still—”
    “Still what? You are the most convoluted fuck I ever met. Can’t anything ever be simple and straightforward?”
    “All I’m saying is, the gun was different.”
    “How?”
    “The gun he can do himself. He finds the gun, he hides it. He questions me, he finds my car, he plants the gun inside. Hard to believe a cop would do that, but take a crooked cop with a motivation, that’s exactly what he’d do. But this other thing—with the fingerprints—to have faked that.”
    “You can’t fake a fingerprint.”
    “You know what I mean. If that’s my fingerprint—and why would he say it was if it wasn’t—unless he’s just trying to spook me all over the place. But why he would pull a bluff that wouldn’t pan out …”
    “He wouldn’t.”
    “Huh?”
    “Trust me, he wouldn’t. It’s not in character. The guy hates to lose. Even something like that. He wouldn’t put himself in the position where he’d have to eventually concede it wasn’t so.”
    “Fine. So say that’s my fingerprint. Then the only way it gets on that desk is that afternoon when I sat there going through resume photos.”
    “Of course.”
    “Which means that picture was taken some time after that.”
    “Right again.”
    “And then integrated with the crime-scene photos. That’s the part that blows my mind. Either this guy had access to the crime-scene evidence, or there are other officers involved.”
    MacAullif cocked his head. “That’s your problem?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Let me tell you a little story.”
    “Uh-oh.”
    “No, no. It’s short.”
    “That’s not what bothers me.”
    “I know. I know. But the facts are the facts. You recall me mentioning a cop named Martinez?”
    “Don’t tell me.”
    “That’s right. Seems the guy got into a little bit of trouble. Hard to imagine, officer of his stature, but there you are. Anyway, I said I’d keep it short, so the short version is he got shot.”
    “Huh?”
    “Yeah. Not that unusual. Cops sometimes get shot. But the circumstances are weird. The way I hear it, he got shot in a drug sting. Nothing strange there—happens a lot. Only thing is, rumor has it he’s the one bein’ stung.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “Yeah. As to who shot him, big question there, still unresolved because the evidence happened to walk.”
    “What?”
    “Yeah. Bullet pulled out of his left thigh somehow disappears between the hospital and the precinct.”
    “No shit.”
    “None.”
    “What’s the idea?”
    “The idea is they can’t match up the gun that shot him.”
    “I know that. I mean why?”
    “This is all speculation.”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “Might have been a cop.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “Yeah.” MacAullif put up his hand. “You understand it didn’t have to be. But the bottom line is, Martinez is involved in a drug shootout with every indication he was on the wrong side. Whether he was shot by a cop—and that’s a big secret—or shot by one of his pals that he’s scared enough of to want to protect—” MacAullif broke off, shrugged. “It gets pretty convoluted when you’re not sure who the good guys are. I was tryin’ to make this short. The bottom line is, Martinez shot in the leg, now walks with a limp, and pulls desk duty. Wanna guess where?”
    My eyes widened. “Son of a bitch.”
    “So talk about evidence that jumps around rings a big double bell. It reminds me that Martinez once had evidence jump around on him. And, irony of ironies, the evidence room happens to be where the son of bitch is workin’ now.”
    I exhaled. Could think of nothing to say.
    MacAullif cocked his head. Looked at me. “You don’t look too good.”
    “I don’t feel too good. Jesus Christ, MacAullif, what the hell do I do?”
    “Well, like I said before, you don’t try to prove what you know. You don’t start pointing fingers and screaming frame. Because the two of them will just pull back and lay low and you won’t be able to prove a thing. Which means the evidence will stand up, leaving you in a slightly unenviable position.”
    I blinked. “Thanks.”
    “Hey, I didn’t say do nothing, I said do nothing stupid. At least now you know the way the wind blows.”
    “Big help.”
    “Hey, it’s something. The way you tell it, you’re down at the office talkin’ to the witnesses, the cops pull you in to Belcher, he hits you with the fingerprint. Is