Chapter Sixteen #3
That’s when he saw it.
The papers had one location for the man, and lo-and-behold, it was Dark Spirits.
Esmeralda’s club.
And there it was again, popping up in neon lights.
“I’ll get these back to you,” he offered, knowing they might need them. “I just have to make copies for the file,” he added, handing them to Ethan so he could see the name of the club too.
Oh, and he did.
His eyes got big.
That wouldn’t be a coincidence.
As for Margie, she shrugged.
“I don’t need them. The dumbass is dead, and I actually loved him. I know you’re thinking I didn’t, but I did. I let him put his tiny, shriveled, old dick in me. And for what? To have a decent life. Well! I’m the one laughing, BICHO!”
Oh, someone was big angry when she was breaking out the profanity toward the dead man.
It was telling when a widow was calling her dead husband a dick. Gene had a Puerto Rican partner who was a firebrand like this one. She taught him all the fun words.
Mostly as she called him them in jest.
“And you were home all night?” he asked, just wanting to get through this interview. Family members were unpredictable, and they still had to talk to the deceased cop’s family too.
She nodded.
“He called me, I bitched at him, he muttered uncomplimentary things under his breath, and then, I woke up this morning. I take sleeping pills so I can’t hear the freight train snoring next to me.”
Gene went to ask something, and she went there.
“How does an inheritance work? Do I get a call, or do I have to go somewhere? I’m about to get me a hot pool boy to rub my feet and suck on my toes.”
Oh, boy.
Someone was definitely ready to move on.
What horrified Gene the most was she glanced over at Ethan, and smiled at him.
Only, before she could even harass him while on duty, he cut that off.
FAST.
“Pass,” he said. “One, I’m not into ladies, and two, toes are NOT my kink. I’m more an ass man, and while you’ve got one of those, it’s the front package that matters in my bed.”
She laughed.
“Thanks, I needed that. I did love him,” she said, sniffling. “I gave up my job. When I met him, I was serving him drinks.”
As soon as she said that, both men perked up.
Now, Gene was curious.
“Can I ask where you met him?” inquired Gene.
She wiped her eyes.
“At Papi’s. It’s this waterfront restaurant.”
As she was talking, Ethan was researching the name of the place—just in case.
Margie continued.
“I slung booze there for ten years. Then, he came in and I became his sugar baby. He was married before, but his wife died four years ago. He picked me up, and the rest is history.”
She glanced over at him.
“BICHO! We could have gotten old together, you idiot!” she shouted at the dead man’s corpse being loaded into a body bag.
Gene shook his head.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I’m sure it wasn’t all bad times.”
She smiled at him next.
“Well, I’m really good at great times…”
He ended that there and then.
“Honey, barking up the wrong tree. He’s an ass man, and I’m a dick man. We play for the same team.”
She got it.
Only, that didn’t stop her.
“I’m rich.”
That made Gene laugh.
“Lean into that, but also go with your sense of humor, Mrs. Padilla. You’re really funny.”
She patted his arm.
“Can I go in? I don’t want to look at him anymore. He’s making me so angry I could kick the hell out of a corpse.”
Yeah, well, the ME wouldn’t like that.
Now would he?
“Go ahead,” they offered, and she did.
When she was gone, Gene was curious.
“Do you think she could have killed him?”
Ethan shook his head.
“The dude is a good three hundred pounds of rich-man fat. She couldn’t carry him. This is going to have to be someone strong enough. There are NO drag marks from the car to where he was dumped.”
Yeah, he was likely right.
“This person clearly ambushed him while he was out, likely in his car. What concerns me the most is he was at the same bar that we’re thinking of hitting due to ties to this case. Esmeralda Barada is all over this case.”
Yes, yes, she was.
Still, Gene grinned.
And took the opportunity to bust his ass.
“People don’t look in the back seat like they should,” he joked.
AGAIN.
“Still?” he asked. “We’re going to ride my ass over that still?”
Gene laughed.
“I mean, I like riding that ass,” he said. “And I’m definitely an ass man too.”
Oh, well, thank God for that.
“If you’re done busting my balls,” Ethan said, “not that I don’t thoroughly like it, I have something you just missed and isn’t going to be a coincidence.”
He lifted a brow.
“What?” Gene asked. “More than the fact that the dead man took a little visit to Dark Spirits?”
Ethan handed him his phone.
On it, there was the name of the restaurant that she’d just mentioned.
‘Papi’s.’
“Uh, okay. And?”
Ethan clued him in.
“Papi’s in the name of Jaden Medin’s restaurant. The widow worked there. We never got the name, and look at that. There it is, showing up now.”
His eyebrows went up.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
Ethan nodded his head.
“Yeah, I am. She might not have been able to cart three hundred pounds of man around, but she connects to the same place Esmeralda Barada worked and likely around the same time. That in combination of the man being there last night...”
That hung there.
“We’re going to have to research her at some point,” he admitted. “Did you add her to our list of suspects?”
That made Ethan laugh.
“All four of them? Yeah,” he admitted. “We have Rodrigo Cruz, simply because he’s the mob man in this little fun case.
We have Margie Padillo, since she connects to the first victim who died.
Adrian Marrero, the homicide captain, who saw Jarod last, and the Voodoo practitioner herself, Esmeralda Barada, since her name keeps coming up like a bad penny. ”
Gene sighed.
“That’s not much, but at the same time is way too much,” he admitted. “Like overwhelm us with coincidences.”
Oh, he was aware.
This was definitely set up, and overkill at that.
Ethan reminded him.
“We’re on the first day. That’s four people we didn’t have five hours ago,” he reminded him. “And we’ll weed through them today.”
Yeah, Ethan was right.
As the techs were wrapping up, Gene caught the ME before he could load up.
“About the dead man’s home,” he began.
Ben broke it to him.
“Which would you prefer? They work the agent’s home or work the trace on this victim? Again, shorthanded, so…”
Damn.
It.
There was no choice, and Gene knew it.
“The victim here,” he stated. “It’s our best chance to get some evidence we can use forensically.”
That’s what he thought.
“Then, check-in later, Gentlemen. See you at the office.”
And with that, he hopped into the ME van, and the body was driven through the gate, leaving them, and the techs to stand there.
“I miss Philly,” Gene admitted.
That made Ethan laugh.
“Said no said Fed ever,” he stated. “Listen to yourself. You’ve lost your mind.”
That he had.
“Let’s walk and talk,” Gene said, wanting to think this through as they got to their car. “We have to go interview Aarron Figueroa’s family at the police precinct.”
He was aware.
“That works for me,” he stated. “Maybe he mentioned something to them.”
That was all they could hope.
As they were walking back to the car, they headed out from under the tape, and down the street. They were parked at the end of the block in front of another house.
“I’m going to text Corbin,” Ethan said, “while you mull this over.”
He was good with that.
Gene was thinking about how the man had been to Dark Spirits, how Margie worked at Papi’s, and how Esmeralda seemed to be the tie to all of this chaos.
But why?
Now, it was seeming less mob-related, and back to the usual suspects.
“Yeah, go ahead. I want to get to the police station to talk to the family of the dead cop so we can knock that off of our list of things to do today.”
Well, at least they had a plan.
Rattling off a text, he hoped both Will and Corbin were staying out of trouble. The last thing they needed was to find out Corbin fell down a well, or something else that was Corbin-like.
‘Checking in. Are you guys good? We’ve caught another body, and this one wasn’t in water. We are going to the police station. What are you doing?’
He hit send, and as they walked, Gene was making notes, and Ethan heard his phone chime.
And it wasn’t Corbin.
It was Will.
That told him something was up when the man was using his phone and replying instead of Corby.
‘We’re by the pool. We tried the sex toy route, and Corby freaked out. We’re just going to stay here until we go out tonight for dinner. He needs a distraction. Can we come with you guys, even if you’re working?’
Uh-oh.
He tapped Gene’s arm and showed him. When he did, the man looked concerned.
“Now I feel bad for pressuring him. Clearly, he’s not ready. I already said this, but tell him yeah, they can come. We don’t mind. We’ll be safe. We’re only hitting up Dark Spirits. What the hell could happen?”
Ethan rattled the things off.
“We get haunted. Possessed. We get abducted. We fall into another mess. A woman hits on me. A woman hits on you. Two drunks start a fight, and those two drunks are us. Oh, and how about that’s the den of killers and we are stupid enough to walk in with dumbass grins on our faces?”
He laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
It wasn’t like he was wrong on any of those things. In their world, pretty much any of that particular list was possible.
“Someone’s far calmer now,” Gene said. “I shouldn’t have let you cum. Now you’re not spicy and angsty.”
He laughed.
“I’m not calm,” he admitted, as they approached their car, and opened the doors. “I’m just good at hiding it.”
When they sat down, that’s when Gene’s radar went off, and Ethan’s too. They both smelled a foreign smell in the car.
They’d left the windows down because it was hot as fuck, and it was crystal clear that someone was waiting for them.
They both pulled their guns, and turned around. Only, they didn’t get to say anything. They both felt the touch of cold steel against the back of their skulls from someone on each side of the car.
Well, shit.
They should have looked in the back seat, or locked up their damn rental.
The man in the seat warned them.
“I wouldn’t put your finger on that trigger. My friends here don’t want to splatter your brains all over the inside of the car, but they will. For now, you’re going to drive. The boss wants to see you.”
Oh, shit.
That couldn’t be good.
For them.
Because they doubted ‘the boss’ was Gabe.
Funny how they’d rather be meeting with him for interrogation than this situation.
Son.
Of.
A.
Bitch.
They’d done fucked up.
Good.