6
Tennyson
After a quick lunch at Greek Life, Ten, Jude, and Ronan sat outside of Cisco Jackson’s office waiting for the chief of police to call them in.
“Tell me again what happened when you called Cisco. How the hell did we end up here with him pissed at us?” Jude shook his head.
“When I told him about Jones and the letter, he demanded we get our asses into the station immediately. That’s all he said, Jude. I swear. I don’t understand what he’s angry at any more than you do.” Ronan’s eyes were on Tennyson. “Are you getting anything?”
Ten shook his head. “Just that he’s really pissed, which let’s face it, the entire restaurant knew from the way Cisco was shouting at you through the phone.”
Cisco’s door flew open. “In my office. Now!”
Ronan and Jude exchanged a silent look. Ten knew both detectives were expecting to have their asses handed to them.
“What the actual fuck were you thinking?” Cisco shouted as soon as Tennyson shut the door behind them.
Ronan, looking confused, opened his mouth to respond when Cisco shut him off.
“This isn’t a cold case. Why the hell would you get involved with it? Why the fuck didn’t you call the lead detective?” Cisco demanded.
Ronan held his hands up in an innocent gesture.
“What are you talking about? A stark, raving man came into West Side Magick this morning screaming that he was going to die at midnight. He was waving this letter around like a fucking white flag. Jude and I brought him into the conference room and that’s when we found out the man was former warden, Paul Jones.
How the hell were we supposed to know Jones had been harassing his ex-wife and her new husband to the tune of ten police reports in the last twelve weeks? ”
“Wait! What?” Cisco shouted back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Let’s go back to the beginning, Cisco,” Ten said, feeling exhausted. “What case are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?” Cisco asked, his voice much softer this time. He looked back and forth between Ronan and Jude, as if he were waiting for them to tell the truth.
“Haven’t got a clue,” Jude said.
“Me either,” Ronan agreed.
Ten shook his head.
“Roderick Cruise was murdered last night. He was found dead on his front door step by an overnight delivery driver.” Cisco sat back in his seat, as if what he said explained everything.
“I heard something about a man being found on his stoop, but who the hell is Roderick Cruise?” Ronan turned to Jude who shrugged. Ten had never heard of the man either.
“He’s the head of the Massachusetts Parole Board.
Cruise is a hardliner on crime. During his first year on the job, he voted to deny parole to every inmate who came before him.
The parole board is manned by a committee of three who decide an inmate’s fate.
There were some people who were granted parole based on the votes of the other two, but Cruise was steadfast about not letting inmates go free.
He believed an inmate should serve every last second of their original sentences. ”
“It sounds like there are a whole lot of people who might be gunning for Cruise, family of denied prisoners or even former cons themselves, but at the risk of you giving yourself another heart attack, I have to ask, what the hell does this have to do with Warden Jones and his whack-a-doodle letter?” Ronan asked.
“Cruise got one too,” Cisco said. He shuffled papers on his desk and handed one to Ronan.
“Your time on this earth is near its end. Make amends, pray for forgiveness, for you die when the midnight bell tolls.” Ronan frowned as he read the words.
“This is the same exact letter Warden Jones showed us this morning. I bagged the letter, and dropped it off at the crime lab, but Jones had already handled it. I didn’t expect much would come from it. ”
“The second the lab entered the letter into the system, it flagged, letting the tech know a similar letter had been received earlier in the day.”
“Okay, so that’s why you think we hijacked this case,” Ronan said.
“Yeah, something like that. Tell me what happened this morning.” Cisco grabbed his water bottle and took several sips.
“I was in with a client when I heard shouting in from the shop,” Ten began. “When I left my reading room, I saw a man shouting at Carson and waving a piece of paper in the air. He was screaming about needing to speak with one of us because he was going to die at midnight.”
“That’s when Jude and I walked in. We took the man into the conference room in hopes of calming him down,” Ronan continued. “It wasn’t until he told us his name that we realized he was the former warden of Walpole Prison. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, and time has really taken a toll on him.”
Jude nodded. “When Ten and Carson joined us, Jones let Ronan read the letter. It sounded like some gothic novel bullshit to me. We asked him who he thought might be out to hurt him and Jones’s answer was his ex-wife’s new husband.
He’s apparently trying to woo her back to him and the husband wasn’t very fond of that idea. ”
“We went to see Janet and her husband Steve, who had a very interesting tale to tell about how Jones has been harassing them,” Ronan said.
“At least once a month for the last year or so, he’s made false police reports against Steve Robinson.
None of them stuck because they were all bullshit.
Jones had also been sending people to threaten Robinson at his job.
He told us that if these uniformed and armed men kept coming to the office, they were going to have to fire him, which would mean the loss of his benefits and pension. ”
“We thought that was the motive for Robinson to come for Jones, which is why Ronan called you,” Jude finished.
“Jiminy Cricket on a cracker.” Cisco sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“We had no idea that the letter Jones received was related to the Crews murder. How was he killed?” Ronan asked, sitting back in his chair.
“The ME isn’t sure. His death was caused by acute cardiac arrest. There was no sign of heart disease. Crews’s blood pressure was in check.”
“If that’s the case, how do you know Crews was murdered?” Ronan asked.
“There’s a pin prick on his neck.” Cisco grabbed a pile of photographs and after flipping through them, handed one to Ronan.
“Something was injected into him that stopped his heart. Was there any sign of poisons or toxins?” He handed Jude the photo.
“The ME ran the standard blood panel, but it offered no smoking gun.”
“What poisons stop your heart?” Ten asked, having a feeling the list was going to be a long one.
“Cyanide, arsenic, oleander, foxglove.” Ronan said, ticking them off on his fingers. “Not to mention street drugs like heroin or cocaine.”
“Right,” Jude agreed. “There’s my old friend propofol, which nearly killed me, not to mention things the human body makes like insulin and adrenaline.
If I were going to kill someone it would be with adrenaline because it has such a short half-life in the human body.
That might be the reason nothing was found in Crews’s blood panel, because the hormone had already been metabolized. ”
“I’ll get with the ME on that,” Cisco said. “In the meantime. I want the two of you sitting on Jones’s house tonight. I’ll send a car to watch the Robinson’s place.”
Ronan opened his mouth, looking like he was about to object.
“Save it, Ronan. I know you think they had nothing to do with this. Putting officers on the house will prove it.”
“What about me?” Ten asked.
“Keep your gift open and let Ronan know if you learn anything. I know you’ve got Aurora for the next few days while Fitz and Jace are out of town. Relax. Have fun being with the kids tonight.”
“Sounds good.” Ten could use a night like that at home, but with this case now looming over their heads, not to mention the strange client Ten read for, who said Ronan was the reason he couldn’t connect with his loved one, there would be no relaxing for Tennyson.