Chapter Eleven #2
Will watched his boyfriend work, and it was fascinating to see this from his perspective. By the time he got involved, the police had already had a case built, and were ready to arrest.
Corbin was curious.
“Who was the agent who called?” he asked. “Was it Blackhawk or Cantrell?”
The man had scribbled it down, so he rustled through some papers to find it.
“Greyson something or other. I didn’t catch his last name. I was surprised that the FBI was asking questions regarding the case they were told to hand back over to us by a judge.”
Corbin didn’t like this.
Oh, and for a couple of reasons. If it smelled like shit, it wasn’t a rose garden.
That was for damn sure.
“So Jarod Shand, an FBI agent, died investigating the killing of a police officer, and was the officer working on a case?” he asked.
The man nodded.
“Yes, he was working on the death of a businessman,” he stated.
Corbin took a stab at it.
“Jaden Mendin?” he asked, thinking on the fly as he tried to piece this all together. It was crystal clear that his partners in this were doing the same thing.
Oh, and this really stunk.
The man nodded.
“Yes, that was the case that Aaron was working before his death. Do you know anything about it?”
Oh, well, it appeared they were starting to figure this out, but he wasn’t going to give the man any reason to want to keep jurisdiction.
Now, Corbin’s allegiance wasn’t with cops, but with the FBI.
“Honestly, Captain, we’re just starting this, since Jarod was found dead last night. I can’t give you much more than I have already, since we don’t have anything.”
When he glanced over at his boyfriend, it was clear that even Will knew this was sketchy as shit, and dangerous. Someone was trying to stop an investigation.
That was clear.
This killer looked to be taking out people who were working these cases, one-by-one.
That was ominous.
“You’re right. I’m just anxious. I want to find out who hurt our detective. He was a good man. I’m sure the FBI feels the same about Jarod, too.”
They did.
“We’ll handle it. I promise. Can I ask you a question?” Corbin inquired.
The man nodded.
“With Jaden Mendin, did Aaron mention if he had markings all over him? Did Aaron, too? We haven’t seen the official reports yet.”
The man nodded.
“Yeah, they did. Voodoo markings. Aaron was working that angle,” he said, pulling up his last report on the system. “We have a lot of Sanse that goes on here on the island. It’s a blend of Voodoo and local spiritualism. He was pretty sure it was connected. That’s what he put in his last report.”
Oh, well, he needed that report.
“Do you know if there are any other missing person reports or John Does that ended up the same way?”
The man shook his head.
“No, I would have heard about them and handed them out to my detectives. There were neither.”
Okay, well, that helped.
So far, it was only three victims.
“Can you get me copies of anything you have so I can make sure the FBI hits the ground running?” he asked, not thrilled it was a Voodoo-related case.
What he’d learned from Gene and Ethan was that religious cases tended to blow up in your face at some point.
The homicide captain nodded.
Then, he printed it out for the man.
Corbin knew what this meant.
“I hate to do this to you, and trust me, I’ve been on the side where the FBI takes my cases before, but if the businessman was killed, and then the cop was killed, and now the Fed was killed…”
Adrian knew where this was heading.
“The FBI is going to want jurisdiction back because it’s three bodies, and the latest one is from their house. I know.”
Corbin was glad he understood, but still, he was waiting for the fight. If they went to a judge before, he expected a battle.
Only, there was none.
Surprisingly, the man didn’t even argue.
Which was new.
Corbin knew how much of a fight he put out each time a Fed tried to usurp a case out from beneath him.
Well, unless it was Ethan and Gene. When they took a case, he went along for the ride.
Thankfully.
“I’m going to say you want the reports for Jaden Mendin’s murder, too.”
Corbin nodded, taking the final report Aaron had worked on and submitted.
“Yeah.”
The man sighed.
“I lost a good cop,” Adrian admitted. “Aaron had a good nose for sniffing out bad shit. He came to me before, and he said it was off. I wish I wasn’t busy and had been paying attention. I blew it off as just him being paranoid. Now that he’s dead, I can see that’s not the case.”
Well, shit happened.
People made mistakes.
Unfortunately, Corbin was learning he couldn’t live in the past. When you did, it fucked up your future. At some point, you had to move forward.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “What I can offer you is that the two agents that are now handling it, will find who did this. They’re damn good at this.”
He laughed.
“I hope you’re not talking to that office full of idiots,” he said.
“The Feds here are about as helpful as a second ass cheek, and a third asshole. I hate asking them for help. The only good one is Jarod Shand…I mean, the only good one WAS Jarod. That’s why we asked a judge to give us jurisdiction back. I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Corbin was making notes.
“I was good with Jarod handling it, for the most part, but as for the rest, I don’t like how laid back they are. It’s like their job is to be beach bums, not agents. As for Jarod, I’m sorry for your loss, too,” he admitted.
Corbin thanked him, and he was learning plenty about the people in the office. He couldn’t wait to report it back to the two men.
“Thank you. I’ll pass that on to the other Feds,” he admitted. “Do you by chance have any of the autopsy reports?” he asked, continuing down his mental checklist that he had in his head.
There was no way he wasn’t being thorough.
Lesson.
Learned.
He was pretty sure that was one of Gene’s rules, but he kept tossing them at him left and right, and he didn’t write them down.
Across the desk from them, the man shook his head.
“No, I don’t, but you can head down to the morgue. The ME will give them to you. I’ll call down and tell him the FBI is taking over this, and to cooperate. If someone is targeting good cops, that’s a problem for both of us.”
Yes, it was.
His willingness to clear the way would be incredibly helpful.
And Corbin was grateful.
Hell!
When you flashed an FBI badge, you got a lot done, so much easier than when you showed a detective’s badge.
This was nice for a change.
“Thank you,” he offered.
The man stood and shook his hand as the printer finished printing out the file on Jadin Mendin that the detective had submitted before his death.
When he passed the printed off files, he pointed across the room.
“If you go through that door, you can follow it down the stairs, and it’s a shortcut to the morgue. My guys use it all of the time, so just follow them if you get confused. Everything that leads down eventually gets you to the morgue.”
And he appreciated that too.
Corbin was handling this just like he had before he’d been hurt. It was like riding a bike.
And that was good to know.
Heading out, they crossed through the room, and it wasn’t lost on him that the cops in there were staring.
On his hip, he had his FBI badge, and on the other side was his detective’s shield.
“Uh-oh, the Feds,” one said, spreading the news to his other co-workers.
The other laughed.
“Someone’s case is getting taken away,” the other stated. “Sucks to be them.”
Since they were engaging him, slightly, Corbin stopped.
“Hey, since you’re here,” he said, knowing how to deal with a room full of detectives, “maybe you can help a guy out.”
This was an area he excelled in, since he was one.
“I’m Detective Corbin Price,” he said, flipping the badge over so they could see Philadelphia police ID, and then back over to the FBI side. “I work in tandem with the FBI. Can you guys answer some questions for me?”
The men shrugged.
None of them looked like they wanted to do that, but he’d just come out of the captain’s office, and as a detective, he knew the last thing a detective wanted was to piss off the homicide captain.
“That depends,” one cop offered.
Corbin focused on him, already hearing the tone. Well, he had news for him.
He could play games with the best of them. The FBI made him work for it more times than not. Gene was NOT an easy teacher.
He rode ass hard.
“What’s your name?” he asked, curiously.
At his question, the man laughed.
“Oh, no. It’s one of my cases that’s getting pulled. The captain pointed him at us,” he joked with his buddies.
Corbin had to stop the runaway train before it picked up speed. He knew that Detectives, while mostly good at reading a room, liked to gossip like the best of them. The second he was gone, they’d start sniffing around, speculating.
And that wasn’t good for any investigation.
“No, actually, it’s the death of one of your co-workers, Aaron Figueroa. We’re getting the case back,” he stated.
The one cop sighed, and Corbin knew that sigh anywhere. He’d done it himself a few times, too.
“Goddamn it. That’s my new case. Why the hell is the FBI fighting so goddamn hard to get this case back?” he asked. “We were just handed it. I swear to God, if the FBI spent half its time actually working and less time playing judge roulette, the crime on this island would be so much lower!”
Oh, hell, no.
He wasn’t sure what the problem was, but the FBI agents he worked with were balls to the wall, and they didn’t fuck around.
They dug in to find out.
So, Corbin was honest, and defended them.
“The agents handling Aaron’s case aren’t from the island,” he offered.
The men didn’t look any happier.
“But why are they yanking jurisdiction. We just got Aaron’s case back. This is lame as shit.”
Corbin went there.