I gestured Collins to the far side
of the room, and dropped my voice. “Reese,” I whispered.
Collins flinched. “What?”
“Lindsey Reese.”
His face hardened, and his voice was
an angry whisper. “No. Do not fucking tell me to take this to the fucking
press.”
“We were already thinking about a
PSA.”
“How the hell will that help
things?”
“They might pack up and leave. Other
markets.”
“So we make it someone else’s
problem?”
“You want to avoid the
cluster-fudge.”
“Really, Allen?”
I shrugged.
“It won’t stop everyone from using.”
“I didn’t say it would. These people
don’t like the spotlight. They want to pull the strings.”
Collins threw up his hands. “Every
criminal pulls strings. This is no different.”
“There are, I don’t even know how to
put this, political—family—complications.”
“Like the Russians? That’s always a
possibility.”
“No, I mean like within. The
people—which is really not the word—involved are going against their own to
make this happen.”
“Internal strife. Rivalry within
their organization?”
I pointed to him, nodding. “Yeah,
that’s it.”
Collins rubbed his chin in thought.
“We release the PSA, go above board with everything. We get doctors to talk
about the effects, ME for the autopsies. Chemists will be the weak link.
They’ll tell the truth that these substances don’t cause a high.”
“Absolutely have them tell the
truth, but the whole truth. It’s not just about the substances, but the
pendant, too, and they haven’t discovered the exact process going on, but they
can chart the effects. We want people talking about this.”
“God. This is a different kind of
clusterfuck. I’ll be lucky if I stay a beat cop after this. No, you know what,
I’m running this up the flagpole.”
“They’ll never go for it. You know
that.”
He nodded. “I do, but I can’t go
behind their backs, either. I can’t speak for the entire department. But you
might be able to leak it.”
I blinked. “I go to Reese. I give
her the names of the doctors and the victims, so far. I turn over the autopsy
and other files I have.”
Collins
nodded.