Chapter Sixteen
Samuel Padilla’s
Home
Monday
Two P.M.
When they followed the directions on their phone, they found themselves in a very wealthy section of San Juan. This was definitely where the rich people lived, and that told them this was going haywire.
They were back to normal civilians, as far as they could tell, the dead cops being over and done.
That meant chaos from the media, and a little relief for both Gene and Ethan.
After all, they were the ones working on this, and the last thing they needed was to be targeted.
They had work to do.
Parking, they flashed their badges, and the cops at the yellow police tape let them under it. When they ducked and were in the man’s gated yard, they saw a couple detectives with gold badges on their hips.
They had to be the ones who caught the cases.
“Hey,” Gene said, his glasses on, and his badge hanging around his neck. “You guys called the FBI?”
The two detectives focused on them.
“Yeah, I’m Yandriel Potter, and this is my partner, Luis Patron. We definitely called.”
Gene made the introductions.
“Agent Ethan Blackhawk,” he said, pointing at his partner, “and I’m Gene Cantrell. What do we have?” he asked.
Detective Yandriel Potter clued him in, as his partner, Luis Patron, stood beside him.
“We got a call from the man’s wife, and she was screaming about him not responding in the front yard. When EMTs got here, they thought he was passed out, but as they got closer, they saw the markings, and he was cold to the touch.”
Oh, goodie.
The markings.
Now, Gene was making notes, and said nothing. He didn’t want to let on what he knew. If they were being watched, then it was time to be lowkey.
Their well-being might depend on it.
“Is that the widow?” he asked, pointing at the Hispanic woman waving her arms wildly as she was on the phone with someone.
Both men laughed.
“Yeah, good luck,” Luis said. “How did you guys get unlucky and catch this case. You’re not from around here.”
Yeah, tell them about it.
“Our boss sent us in,” he said, saying nothing else.
Only, Luis had more to say.
“Aaron was my best friend. We grew up together. We went to school together, and we became cops together. I want whoever hurt him handled. In fact, I want to help with your case.”
Gene lifted a brow.
First, that wasn’t happening. Gene didn’t work with cops—other than Corbin.
Why?
Look how that worked out?
Yeah, he loved the Crotch Goblin, but he didn’t need to spoon-feed a second detective. He was already doing that with Corbin.
Secondly, he wasn’t sure of the implications.
“If by ‘handled’, you mean arrested and brought in for a trial, yeah, this person will be ‘handled’.”
The man was bright red.
Instead of exacerbating it, Gene caught a glimpse of backup heading his way.
God bless Greyson.
He was there, and he had an agent with him. It was clear that the second shift had arrived to the office, since it was Agent Mayfield.
At least there would be FBI witnesses for when the cop said something stupid, and Gene had to put his ass in its place.
“What do you have so far?” Detective Patron asked, wanting an update.
Gene wasn’t sharing shit with the cops.
Why?
It was no longer their case.
He didn’t care that this cop was a dead guy’s friend, or that Yandriel had caught the case after the fact.
This was FBI territory now, and it would stay that way. As long as they were chasing a killer, it would be the minimum sharing possible.
“You know what we know. We just got here,” he admitted.
The man didn’t look happy.
Only, before he could say anything, Yandriel put his hand on his partner’s back.
“How about we get out of your way?” he offered. “If you have anything, we’d appreciate an update,” he offered. “You know, cop to cop.”
He just nodded, not giving them a definitive answer on that one.
That shit wasn’t happening.
Bet.
On.
It.
As the men walked away, Greyson got to their side, and jerked his head toward them.
“He looked angry. What did you do to piss him off, Gene?”
Yeah, well, that happened a lot when someone was killed. Then again, he did tend to make people cranky.
It was his sunny disposition.
“The dead cop was his BFF, and he wants updates. We all know that’s not happening.”
Lucas laughed.
“Yeah, they don’t think we can handle shit. Whenever we get a case, Yandriel is generally up in our business, or he sends his boss over to our office to try and shake us down for information.”
That was interesting.
For Ethan, he knew who was on their suspect list—the very scant one. Adrian Marrero, the homicide captain, was the last person to see Jarod alive.
That they knew.
“Well, he can come visit me all he wants,” Greyson said. “He’s not getting any information.”
For them, the less information circulated, the better—particularly in this case.
“Anyway, Lucas gave me a ride over here. I thought you might need help,” Greyson said. “I see I was right,” he added, wanting to talk to them alone.
If possible.
“Well, you know us,” Ethan said.
Oh, he did.
Lucas was checking out the scene.
“So this is weird,” Lucas admitted. “He was dumped in his front yard and left here with the gate open? This place is close to the water, but not that close.”
They were both aware.
“Yeah, unfortunately for the wife,” Ethan said, pointing at the woman.
When they all glanced over, she was wearing stiletto heels, and aerating the yard with them. Not only that, but she was pacing back and forth, angrily talking in Spanish.
Gene spoke some, so he was trying to listen.
“She said something about the bastard was out last night whoring around, or he was out last night, being a whore. Conjugations suck,” he said.
Lucas laughed.
“She said he was out whoring around,” he said. “When you work here, you need to know the language or you can’t get half the population to talk to you.”
Yeah, well, they wouldn’t be working here long. As soon as this was over, and their vacation was done, they were heading back to sunny Philadelphia.
The city of perpetual crime.
And no brotherly love.
Still, that was a far better option for both of them.
Together, they all watched the ME do his thing, and while he did, Gene was checking out the place.
The man’s car was there, and when they went over to it, the doors were unlocked, and the keys were hanging in the ignition.
“Do you think he was dumped from his own car?” Greyson asked.
Ethan nodded.
“Yeah, likely. The killer would want to ensure that there was as little trace passed off from himself. This person is going to be curious. They are working so hard to keep us off track, that they will make sure they mitigate the trace transfer.”
Gene agreed.
“I know for a fact that this isn’t a real Voodoo case, and all those marks are bullshit. This killer pointed us at that angle, expecting us to follow the lead. Only, how many cases like this have we worked, EJ?” he asked.
Ethan ticked a few off of his fingers.
“You worked more without me, but at least three to seven, depending on if you count them as faux or legit.”
Greyson was curious.
“And you’re banking on that?”
Gene nodded.
“We have a dead restaurateur, who was killed, and then a cop was killed investigating it. After that, the fed who was investigating the cop being killed, was murdered. Now, we have a banker. I’m going to bet dollars to donuts that this dude is going to tie to the first victim, and the middle two were just to slow the investigation down.
I’m leapfrogging the cop and agent, and skipping over the roadblocks. ”
Lucas was confused.
“Roadblocks?”
Ethan explained.
“They were to slow us down, or stop us from investigating. We can spend a whole day researching them, or we can focus on the victims that will tell the tale. It’s going to be Jaden Medin, and now this guy,” he said. “Do we have ID?”
Greyson pulled out his notebook.
“The cops did ID off of the wife’s identification. They gave me his information when they called us. His name is Samuel Padilla,” Greyson said. “I did some quick research. He’s a banker, and in fact, he runs the biggest bank in San Juan.”
Lucas whistled.
“That explains the house and MUCH younger woman,” he said. “That’s a Bentley,” he added, pointing at the car that the techs were currently pulling apart to photograph and collect evidence.
Yes, yes, it was.
The guy was flush.
“Maybe that’s why he got murdered,” Lucas offered. “The restaurant guy might have been wealthy, too.”
Maybe.
“We’re leaning more toward mob issues. We’re still working through it, though,” Greyson admitted.
Only, Gene and Ethan stared at him. Yeah, he’d said over the phone that everything he’d said about the mob issue was wrong, but he’d yet to elaborate.
For now, they’d give him time.
Lucas didn’t look thrilled about that, and no one doubted why.
He lived and worked here.
If they stirred shit up, they got to leave. This man did NOT.
“Well, that’s not going to be good.”
Yeah, it wasn’t. If the mob was involved, that meant this was going to get…messy.
When Ben waved at them, they knew it was time to talk to the ME.
Together, they headed up to the body and were getting their first up-close-and-personal look at what had been done.
And it wasn’t good.
That was for damn sure.
“I know you’re going to be curious,” Ben said, expecting the question free-for-all to begin.
Agents were consistent if nothing.
“What do we have, Doc?” Gene asked.
The man wiggled his finger, and they crouched down to his level since he was kneeling on the ground beside the body.
“Uh, are we having a meeting?” Gene asked.
He laughed.
“No, I need you to smell him.”
Gene lifted a brow.
“I don’t know what you heard about me and my kinks, Doc, but that’s not one of them. I can assure you that.”
Both Ben and Lucas laughed.
“No, legit. Smell him and tell me what you smell,” he said.
Sadly, Gene would like to pretend this wasn’t his first time sniffing a dead body, but it wasn’t. Arsenic smelled like almonds, and he’d gotten a whiff or two of that in his time with the FBI.