it was okay.”
“We’re pooling our resources,” O’Hara said quickly before Lassiter could object. “They needed a little help with their investigation; we needed a little help with ours. So we made a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
Gus lifted the scuba tank and tossed it to Lassiter, who staggered back as he caught it. “You need our authorization. We need your lab to analyze the contents of this tank.”
“What is it?” Lassiter said suspiciously.
“If we knew, we wouldn’t need to have it analyzed,” Shawn said.
“But we think it’s Martian air,” Gus said. “Or not. Either way, it would be really useful to know.”
Lassiter thought it through carefully. On the one hand, he hated the idea of donating precious police resources to these two frauds. On the other hand, if he agreed, he’d have a good chance to solve a murder, find a missing person, and salvage his career.
“On one condition,” Lassiter said after due consideration.
“What’s that?” Shawn said.
Lassiter heaved the scuba tank back at Gus, who managed to snatch it out of the air before it crashed on the floor. “You carry it.”
Lassiter didn’t wait for a response. He turned and marched into the showroom.
The tank was just as they had left it. The lid stood open, and there were small pools of water on the ground where the body had lain. The enormous boots still sat under the weight of the column of water.
Lassiter moved slowly toward the tank. Deep down he wanted to run to it like a child after a departing ice cream truck, but his training told him to use the approach to assess the situation carefully.
Shawn and Gus clearly had no such training. They blasted past him, and Gus was pushing the airplane stairs back against the side of the tank before Lassiter was halfway across the room.
“This is an official police investigation,” Lassiter commanded. “Stand back from the tank.”
“Or at least you make sure you share everything you find with us,” O’Hara said. Lassiter glared at her. She shrugged. “They got us in here, Carlton. It’s their investigation, too.”
Lassiter sighed. He hated having anyone else interfere in his work, but he knew she was right. There was nothing he could do to stop them. But at least he could keep them from despoiling his crime scene before he could see exactly what they were doing. He quickened his pace to a half run and got to the tank just as Shawn was beginning to climb the stairs.
“What are you planning to do?” Lassiter said as O’Hara caught up with him.
“I figured I’d jump in the water, dissolve into a zillion tiny pieces, and see where I end up reintegrating,” Shawn said. “Then I’ll come back and tell you where I went.”
“Do you know how to do that?” O’Hara asked.
“How hard can it be?” Shawn reached the top of the stairs and stuck a toe of his running shoe into the water. “I just need one favor.”
“What’s that?” Lassiter said.
“If any of my molecules don’t reintegrate with me, I need you to fish them out so I can stick them back on later.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Gus hissed up at him.
“Do I ever?”
Shawn reached down and touched the water with his hand, then shivered. It hadn’t gotten any warmer in the hours since the Martian vanished. He stood up and was about to step in when the doors to the showroom crashed open.
“Step away from that tank!”
The speaker was a tall woman in a dark suit. Even from across the room, she exuded authority. She carried her black purse as if it contained a small arsenal, and her posture suggested she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
“It’s okay,” Gus said. “We’re duly authorized agents of Benny Fleck, and we’ve authorized these two fine police detectives to be here.”
“I don’t know who this Fleck is,” the woman said. “But I am ordering you away from that tank as a duly authorized agent of the United States government.”
Chapter Thirteen
In general, Shawn Spencer did not respond well to authority. When directly ordered to do anything, his first, instinctive response was to do precisely the opposite-which might explain why his career as a waiter didn’t last any longer than its first night.
But there was something in this woman’s voice that made Shawn’s feet move back from the edge of the tank before he had a chance to refuse her command. Looking down, he saw that it had had a similar effect on Gus, who had moved several feet away from the stairs. And the two detectives, who were trained to follow orders, were all but standing at attention.
Shawn took a deep breath and strolled casually down the steps, fighting off his own desire to salute. “United States government, eh?” he said with as much jauntiness as he could muster. “Think I’ve heard of them. Big outfit, works out of a swamp near Virginia?”
The woman stalked toward them, her black eyes never leaving Shawn’s face as she came. As she approached, she seemed to be constructed entirely out of angles and edges. Her body was thin, sharp, and hard; her face a caricaturist’s delight of cheekbones and eyebrows, high and fierce.
“Step away from the stairs, sir,” the woman ordered Shawn, and again he felt his body obeying before his instincts could object.
“This is an official Santa Barbara police investigation,” O’Hara said.
“Not anymore,” the woman snapped. “Now it’s a federal matter.”
Gus noticed an odd look on Lassiter’s face. At first he thought the detective might be about to throw up. But he quickly figured out what it really meant, and the realization made him briefly consider throwing up. Lassiter was attracted to her.
O’Hara clearly didn’t share her partner’s feelings. “Federal government’s a mighty big thing,” she said. “You want to narrow it down a little for us?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Lassiter whispered to her. “Look at this woman. Everything about her screams Homeland Security.”
“If you mean she’s pushy, arrogant, and probably incompetent, I’m tempted to agree with you,” O’Hara said without lowering her voice. “But I’d still like to know who she is before I walk away from a murder case.”
“Major Holly Voges, U.S. Army, retired,” the woman said.
“You see?” Lassiter said. “She’s military.”
“She’s retired,” O’Hara said.
“Then why is she here?” Lassiter said.
“I know,” Shawn said, jumping lightly down the last few steps. “This place looks just like a Veteran’s Center. She’s looking for a cup of coffee and a game of checkers.”
Major Voges turned the depthless black eyes back in his direction. “I am retired from the military,” she said. “I am here at the explicit direction of the federal department for which I now work.”
“And what division would that be?” O’Hara said. “Or is it so classified it doesn’t even have a name?”
“I bet that’s it,” Lassiter said. “This is one of those off-the-books, black-funding operations, isn’t it?”
“If it were, I certainly could neither confirm nor deny it.”
Lassiter turned excitedly to his partner. “Did you hear that?” he said. “She just neither confirmed nor denied what I said. What does that tell you?”
“That I still haven’t seen any identification,” O’Hara said. “And until I do, she could be one of the stage magicians with a fake name and a clever schtick.”
“It’s not all that clever,” Shawn said.
“I don’t know,” Gus said. “Seems pretty clever to me. Claim you’re from the Federal Bureau of Magic, you’re
