Chapter Eighteen #3
“I think we’re going to need to lean heavily into any forensics that may pop up with Samuel Padilla. Since he wasn’t put in the water, we might have a chance.”
When Ethan didn’t answer, Gene focused on him. He was intently staring at the computer screen, saying nothing. It was clear he was reading something.
“What did you find?”
Ethan glanced over.
“I think I found it.”
Gene lifted a brow.
“Found what?” he asked.
Ethan turned his laptop and showed his partner. When he did, Gene looked confused.
“What is that?” he asked.
Ethan explained.
“I’m running businesses, and I found one that Rodrigo Cruz owns.”
Okay, but that didn’t answer as to why Ethan looked excited and perplexed all at one time.
“Gene, that’s a sugar cane processing plant. It’s not operational right now, but it’s literally on the water,” he said, showing him the aerial view where they could see a dock where boats came in, and a sandy beach.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
Ethan clued him in.
“The sugar burns had sand in it. What if the killer dragged the body to-and-from the boat, into the sugar processing facility, and out, and the sand was hot, so the sugar was hot?”
Gene paused.
“Where is this?”
Ethan put it on a map, and then he knew what his partner wanted.
He triangulated where the bodies turned up on shore, and they were all in the same area.
“Shit,” Gene said.
Blackhawk did his due diligence.
“It’s been out of business for a while,” he admitted.
“Is this where Rodrigo might be planning to start his real estate venture that he’s bribing officials over?
This would make a good place to take a body in the middle of the night, torture them, and then have easy access to dump them.
There’s an access road that leads up to it, and MILES of sugar cane and palm trees around it. ”
That was a good find.
“EJ, you might have just given us a good piece of the puzzle. We need to go look at it, and on the DL. Maybe we can snoop around, and see if this fits.”
They definitely needed to.
Scribbling a note on some paper, Gene left it for Greyson for when he came back.
‘Grey, got a lead. Tell you later. I think I’m about to crack this wide open. Gene.’
When they both stood up, they clipped their badges and guns back onto their hips.
Now, they were excited.
“Let me get the system running something,” Blackhawk said, setting the parameters. “I want to see if anyone on our list lives nearby that, or has a boat.”
That worked for Gene.
As he got the system running, Gene was thinking through this plan. When Ethan stood, they headed toward the door.
“If Rodrigo owns this business, and it’s where the killer is doing the deed, that makes him look damn bad.”
Oh, Gene was well aware.
“Maybe he’s not as innocent as he says. Maybe he’s willing to burn his girl in order to stay out of jail. We all know there is no honor among thieves.”
Damn right.
Now, they just needed to build the case.
“Tonight, when we go to that club, we need to be suspicious, and keep in mind that this put him at the top of our suspect list,” Ethan stated. “Because now, if people are being tortured at his business, and he’s tied to this—that looks bad for him.”
Yeah, it did.
As they reached their rental, Gene hopped behind the wheel, but not until he looked in the back seat.
That made Ethan laugh.
“You can teach two old dogs new tricks,” he joked, as he had just done the same thing.
Gene was to the point.
“I’ve only been abducted once. You’re a two-fer on this one.”
Blackhawk snorted.
It wasn’t like he was wrong.
Now was he?
* * * Blackhawk & Cantrell * * *
En Route
The Sugar Cane
Processing Center
Using his phone, Ethan was still researching as Gene listened to the directions on his.
He was researching the place, and wanted to get them everything he could.
Just.
In.
Case.
“This is exactly his new property venture,” Blackhawk admitted. “This was supposed to be renovated, and turned into vacation condos,” Ethan added. “There’s a news article. But unfortunately, it floods, so that’s why he needs approval from the local council.”
Oh, someone was in some trouble.
He’d bet on it.
“And the mob man owns it with his now dead business partner?”
Ethan nodded.
“Yeah, it’s not even hidden in a shell corporation.
Could this be what kicked it all off?” Ethan asked.
“We were told gun running, but what if Rodrigo is covering his ass, and this is more about not having to share profits with Jared Medin? We don’t have proof he was running weapons or that this was someone he’d double-crossed. ”
Ethan was one hundred percent right.
They only had what he and Esmeralda had said, and criminals were good at lying.
“Let’s scope it out, and see if we can find something.”
That worked for Blackhawk.
Together, they moved down the road, leaving their car behind in case they had to duck into the trees.
It didn’t take long to get there, and thank God it was daylight.
Gene saw a bunch of spiders, a few snakes, and what sounded like a monkey screaming.
Were there monkeys in Puerto Rico?
He wasn’t sure, but when you heard screaming from the woods, you didn’t go into them.
That was for damn sure.
He was Mid-West white, but not that white.
Together, they walked around the building, and once there, they saw the dock.
And it’s the ONLY thing in good condition.
“This person could have absolutely pulled up in a boat, and dumped the bodies onto the sand,” Gene stated.
Ethan got down, and he found what he was looking for, and that helped them out.
There was something sticky on the sand. Like old sugar had congealed and had been dragged here.
“We have the sugar. It’s small traces of it, but it’s everywhere,” Ethan admitted, poking some with a stick so Gene could smear it inside an evidence bag he kept in his pocket.
“Well, that can be traced,” Gene admitted. “We’ll see if Ben, and his team, can match this to what was on the victims.”
This was turning out to be a good find.
“Let’s head in.”
Together, they headed inside the building, with their guns out.
Hot.
Damn.
That’s when Gene saw it.
Inside, they found symbols, but this time, they were old. Like a bunch of high school kids got bored and were having a party here. There were beer cans, spray paint, and all kinds of used condoms strewn all over the place.
Teenagers had to be wild, and they’d chosen this place to do it.
“How much do you want to bet that the killer used this place, and copied what they saw. Out of desperation, not to be seen, they kept making sure to hide the truth in the fake bullshit?” Ethan asked.
Gene shook his head.
“I’m not taking that bet. This might be where this person does the deed, and how they got the idea to let it point at Rodrigo.”
They searched a little longer, but they didn’t find anything that showed where the person was tied up.
“With all the broken bones, there has to be a place where they do the deed. I don’t see one,” Ethan admitted.
Gene looked around, but the hair was standing up on the back of his neck.
“I think we should get out of here. I don’t like the feeling I’m getting.”
Ethan glanced over.
“What’s happening?” Blackhawk asked.
Gene was to the point.
“We likely nailed this, but there’s a hidey-hole here somewhere. These victims were tied down, and their bones were shattered. There’s no place that we’re seeing that happen. I think we need to regroup and maybe tomorrow, we should revisit this, if we feel it’s prevalent, but we bring backup.”
Ethan was good with that.
He trusted his partner’s gut.
“Really, EJ. We should go. I don’t like the vibe of this place. It feels…off.”
That was the last thing he needed to hear. There was no way he was fucking around and finding out. Gene had an excellent gut.
That meant they were vacating.
NOW.
“Okay, Gene. Let’s regroup away from here.”
Gene wasn’t sure if it was the bad mojo coming off this place, or all the deaths that likely happened here. All he knew was he felt…off.
They weren’t being watched.
This was a different kind of feeling.
It was one of dread.
And for the life of him, he didn’t know why.
* * * Blackhawk & Cantrell * * *
The Morgue
Check-In
Forensics
When they showed up, it was clear that Ben was wrapping up the autopsy that he’d been working on. Samuel Padilla was being put in the cooler, and the ME was sitting on a rolling stool not far away.
As soon as he heard them enter, he looked up.
“Gentlemen, I was wondering when you’d show up. Great timing,” he admitted.
When he stood, Gene and Ethan headed his way, and all of their fingers and toes were crossed that the man found something.
Anything.
They were lacking forensics, and that was making this case more difficult. This victim hadn’t been in the water, so the chances were they might get lucky.
“What do you have, Doc? Anything that’s going to help us solve this?” Gene asked.
The man flipped open his chart, and shared.
“Samuel Padilla died of BFT to the head. He was hit hard in the temple area. It was fast, and it was what did him in seconds later. The fracture to his skull is COD.”
Well, that was what the others had, so, there was nothing surprising or shocking here.
“Anything else?”
He flipped pages.
“TOD is around five in the morning, give or take thirty.”
Gene was making note of that, and he was going to assume the others had about the same TOD. That meant that wherever he was killed, it was going to be close to the man’s home.
And it was.
The killer likely went from the sugar cane facility directly to the man’s home.
It checked out.
Ben continued.
“He had seven broken ribs, both kneecaps were dislodged, and he had multiple breaks in his arms, fingers, and toes.”
“So, he was tortured,” Gene admitted.
The man nodded.
“And he was alive for it. There’s swelling in his knees, showing that there was blood flow there when someone kneecapped him. I’d like to say I’ve never seen that before, but back home in Miami, I’ve seen gangs and mob men do that.”