Chapter Seventeen #3
“Rodrigo Cruz mentioned he has business with the dead man, and that he’d been in Dark Spirits last night, but if he left alone…”
Greyson went there.
“He could have had a goon go after him.”
He could have.
“But why would he implicate his girl? And when I say they are definitely a couple, you can tell. He watches her with love, and she does the same. Someone else is behind this.”
Greyson was standing in front of the whiteboard.
“So do you want me to mark them off your list of suspects?” he asked.
Yeah, that would work.
“We’re going to focus on one, single person. This started with him, and it would end with him. This is going to be all about Jaden. He didn’t ‘see’ something that got him killed. He was involved in something. Period.”
Oh, well, when you did dirty things, that happened.
All.
The.
Time.
Moving the man from the victim list, he also put him on the suspect list for the men. Someone had to connect to him, and once they found that out, they’d have this solved.
Jaden Medin.
When he circled it in red marker, that said it all. This investigation had taken a turn for the better, and it was now on track.
“Thank God you guys figured out this was bullshit or this would take forever.”
Oh, they agreed there.
“Well, good job, guys. Are you headed to the police precinct now?”
That was the plan.
“We want to see if Aaron asked questions or mentioned something to his family about Jaden Medin. Once we can eliminate that, we’re good.”
Greyson was covering his bases.
“Where are you going after that? I don’t like playing these games where agents go missing.”
Them.
Either.
“We’re heading in to do some research. Then, we’re going to wait on the ME to give us what he can.”
That worked for Greyson.
“Please be safe,” he said, staring at the big red circle around the man’s name on the board. “Oh, and play nice with the homicide captain.”
They both laughed.
It was likely neither of those things was going to happen—not when it came to their luck.
Bet.
On.
It.
“Catch you in a bit,” Gene said, hanging up.
When he looked over at his partner, Ethan was laughing.
“One of these days, we’re going to get our asses handed to us,” Ethan admitted.
Yeah, he was right.
All Gene could hope was that today was NOT that day because no one had time for that.
* * * Blackhawk & Cantrell * * *
The Police Precinct
San Juan
Monday
One Hour Late
When they walked in, they were directed to the homicide division on the second floor.
Once there, Gene and Ethan found a bunch of men standing around, and they recognized two of the detectives who had been at the crime scene.
“Hey,” Gene said, but before he could say anything else, the homicide captain jumped down his throat.
Like all the way down.
“You’re late!” he barked. “I don’t know what is wrong with the FBI, and why they can’t have competent people working for them, but you made the family of a victim sit around and wait for you to FINALLY get here.”
Ethan put his hand on Gene’s arm, seeing the bright-red flush moving up his neck from beneath the collar of his shirt.
Oh, he was about to blow.
“I have this,” Ethan said, squaring up with the audacious cop who was about to regret that little outburst.
Ethan stood toe-to-toe with him.
“For your information, Captain Marrero, we weren’t out playing games. When we left the crime scene to come to the interview, we were taken at GUNPOINT by your local mob man to have a goddamn conversation about this case.”
That did what he’d intended.
It caught them all off guard.
“What?” Adrian Marrero asked. “Did you just say you were abducted?”
Blackhawk wasn’t playing.
“Yes, we were. So you can take that cocky attitude, bind it up in a nice ball, and shove it, and your condescending behavior, up your ass with the stick that’s currently shoved up there.
What gives you the right to come at my partner like that?
Is that how you teach your detectives to behave?
And you have the audacity to call us incompetent? ”
No one spoke.
Why?
He was right.
That was a foul shot, and they all knew it.
Captain Marrero regrouped.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you guys okay? Do you need us to go pick Rodrigo Cruz up?” he asked.
Ethan took a step back.
“No, thank you. We handled it. In the process of speaking to him, we also figured out that this isn’t about Voodoo, or Sanse, or anything other than dirty deeds done by the first victim.
So while we get that you’re all antsy to get your cop justice, we’d like for you to remember that we, too, would like justice for our fallen brother. ”
That hung there.
“You’re right,” Adrian admitted. “That was a bad shot, and I know better. I’m sorry I went at you both. You didn’t deserve that. We’re all edgy, and angry. I let that come out, and it shouldn’t have. The competency comment was dirty, and I apologize, agents.”
Gene shrugged.
“We get it. Only, we’re not the agents who work here. We handle back-to-back homicides that are a million times harder than this one. We knew right away that this wasn’t what it seemed.”
The one detective was curious.
Luis Patron went there.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Ethan was just glad the whole bullpen had calmed down. No one wanted a fight with Gene. He could get vicious when poked.
Gene was a ‘burn it to the ground’ kind of a guy.
“Like I said,” Gene began. “We found out that Jaden Medin was running guns. Samuel Padilla was his money man at the bank. We think that he either double-crossed his partner, or something went foul with a sale, and that’s how he died.
The next two victims were killed because they were both good cops,” Gene stated.
“This has nothing to do with woo-woo shit like Voodoo or Sanse. It’s a cover to misdirect, and we’re picking apart the storyline. ”
The cops there got the hint.
Yandriel went there.
“And you’re going to trust a mob man to tell you that?” he asked.
Ethan took over.
“No, I’m going to trust my gut, and the science I use to profile. I knew immediately that this was bullshit. The arrows are all pointing at one thing, and if this case was that cut-and-dry, you don’t think your cop would have figured it out?”
That hung there.
“Point made, Agent,” Captain Marrero admitted. “What do you know about Rodrigo Cruz?”
Ethan shared.
While they normally wouldn’t, they needed everyone to be on board.
They might need help.
“We know that Rodrigo Cruz owns a portion of Papi’s,” he stated. “We know that he and Esmeralda Barada are a couple. If it was Rodrigo, he wouldn’t point it at himself or his woman. If he’s being dirty, it’s not killing cops. His bodyguards couldn’t even walk us in without fucking it up.”
Gene took over.
“It’s too much,” he stated. “The symbols are above and beyond, but when we went to Jarod’s home, it was tossed, but the theme wasn’t carried through.
If this was a religious fanatic, then he or she would have written on the walls.
Instead, they were looking for a laptop—which is still missing.
Someone is afraid of what Jarod has on that laptop. ”
The men listened.
“Whoever did this is cleaning up any people who might figure out who this is. Aaron was asking questions, and someone didn’t want him to do that. Now, we’re going to ask his family if he said something or mentioned anything.”
The captain had bad news.
“We told them to go.”
Gene lifted a brow.
“I’m sorry, pardon?” he asked.
He was to the point.
“They had little time, and when I called the FBI office, they didn’t know where you were. I had one of my detectives ask them questions. We recorded it,” he offered. “That way you can go over it.”
Oh, Gene looked pissed.
And Ethan couldn’t blame him.
The captain went to his office and came back with a disc.
“They didn’t know anything,” Rodney Paz admitted. “Honestly, they only said that Aaron mentioned he was onto something, and that was it. He never said anything specific about what he was digging into on his case.”
Gene rubbed the bridge of his nose, and once more, he was going red.
That couldn’t be good for his blood pressure.
So Ethan handled this.
“Thank you for the disc,” he said, taking it from the man.
Gene wasn’t amused.
“We’ll be taking that, and we’ll go watch it,” he said, wanting to get the hell out of there before he said something incredibly uncomplimentary about how they were fucking with his investigation.
Ethan agreed.
He put his hand on the back of Gene, and signaled they needed to head out.
His gut was screaming.
This was off.
“Oh, well, if there’s anything else, keep us up to date,” Adrian said.
Ethan just smiled.
“Will do, Captain. Thank you for handling the interview.”
As they turned around, Gene muttered under his breath when they were out of the bullpen.
“I don’t like him.”
Ethan didn’t say anything.
UNTIL they were outside.
“We need to go back to the office and do some research on the homicide captain and his cops.”
Gene came to a dead stop.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Ethan kept his voice down, but clued him in. One big thing was bothering him.
One.
Huge.
Thing.
And he couldn’t shake it.
“Gene, how did he know the name of the mob man we met with?” he asked. “We never said Rodrigo’s name—not at first, and in fact, we had to get that information from Gabe. How did he know the man’s name when Rodrigo is a new player in Puerto Rico?”
That hung there.
Gene blinked, and Ethan could tell he was replaying that in his mind.
All.
Of.
It.
“Son of a bitch,” he hissed. “You’re absolutely right! How did he know?”
Ethan shrugged.
“I mean, maybe everyone from here knows who the local mob dude is, but that was suspicious. Not only that, he cockblocked an interview. The cops in that precinct were more than happy to send Aaron’s family home.
Was it because they felt bad for them, or was it to slow our asses down—like this killer has been doing the whole time? ”
Oh, Gene didn’t like this.
Not one bit.
“We might have a dirty cop, and while we don’t know that the captain works for Rodrigo, the mob man knew RIGHT where to find us. So we’re either being tailed, or…”
Gene knew what this meant.
This just got trickier.
A dirty cop was a big problem.