11. Ronan
Chapter 11
Ronan
R onan slapped the cruiser door shut hard enough to make his hand ache.
“So, she knew the deceased,” Paddy said, the autumn air ruffling the orange mop on his head. “They were together at Last Stop two days ago, the night before he died.”
Last Stop Tavern. The place was grimy in the light of day, the sloppy proprietor in a T-shirt that said “Kiss the Cook,” a stain in the left armpit. The building probably looked better at night, when Garrick Vinder had seen the couple, her in jeans and a sweater—“Downright conservative for this part of town,” he’d said.
Vinder had no idea what Mercer had been wearing. He’d been sure the blond man was with her but had no other information outside of that she’d left suddenly. He hadn’t been surprised, had thought the woman was too good for Mercer. Ronan barely knew her, but he definitely agreed. Every curve on her body was downright perfect.
“We also know that she kissed him,” Paddy went on, yanking the precinct door open.
“No.”
Paddy raised an eyebrow.
“She said he kissed her and that she pushed him away. That meshes with what the Last Stop owner saw, which was a pretty woman trying to get away from a man who wanted more than she intended to give him.”
Paddy nodded and followed Ronan through the door toward their desks. “I stand corrected, brother. But Jennifer Crandall feels suspicious to me, even if she didn’t do the deed herself. What if she kissed him to distract him while someone else stabbed him in the back?”
He’d floated a similar theory in the car when he was driving her home, but her face said that wasn’t how it had gone down. “We’ll talk to her again.”
“ You want to talk to her again,” Paddy fired back but kept his voice low. The bullpen was bustling with other officers, the air thick with the stench of stale coffee, cardboard files, and the macabre heaviness that comes with too much death. “That’s what you mean.”
“We still need a reason for Mercer to end up dead,” Ronan said instead of responding to Paddy’s sniping. “We know she didn’t stab him. We know Waylon didn’t stab him. But what if someone besides Jenny didn’t like that he kissed her?”
“Jenny?” Paddy blinked, then went on, “You think this was jealousy?”
“I have no idea what to think. He had no reason to be there outside of her. He’s never robbed a business during working hours or had any involvement in the sex trade. Petty theft, house burglaries— empty houses—and drugs. That’s it.”
They’d spent the morning putting together Jason Mercer’s last week on earth. He was an off-again-on-again mechanic—off this week. His mother had been less than welcoming; she’d said two other officers had come by the house in as many months to speak to her son, seemed to blame the department for his death.
But there was no information about that in the system. Mercer’s mother didn’t have the other officers’ business cards, didn’t know what they’d questioned him about, but he was clearly into something shady. Was that why he was dead? And what did it have to do with The Velvet Cage? Was that club simply where the killer had caught up with him?
“He’s been staying with his mom three blocks over,” Paddy said. “If he was dealing drugs again or acting as a fence—both things he’s done before—maybe someone followed him to the club, waited until he was alone, then stabbed him and stole whatever he was slinging.”
“We have another witness, too,” Ronan said. “Whoever was in the office with Waylon.”
“I know, you keep saying it, but he keeps denying it. We questioned him for a damn hour.”
Ronan rolled his eyes and slumped into his chair. “You know as well as I do that he’s a lying asshole. Not a single one of his girls likes him.”
“That might be true.” Paddy collapsed into his own chair across the way and leaned over the desks, voice almost a whisper. “But if you keep saying that shit, people will want to know how you’re so sure that these girls don’t like him. You really want to tell them it’s because you’ve been watching them interact for weeks? A month?”
Longer , Ronan thought. But he said, “I think Brittany Sinclair, or should I say Dorothy Kensington, lied about the argument. She’s new, thinks there’s someone better to take Waylon’s place. She’s also na?ve enough to believe that we won’t tell him who ratted him out.”
Paddy shrugged. “To be fair, we didn’t.”
“Any other working girl wouldn’t make that assumption. She’s pissed at him. And he clearly has a reason to hide what he was doing in that office. Like I said yesterday, it’s not against the law to get a blow job. He’s not worried about an HR complaint. He’s worried about something else.”
Paddy’s eyes narrowed. “You think whoever was in his office was underage.” Not a question.
“I do. He has a history.” Ronan’s cell jangled, and he pulled it from his pocket. “And you know as well as I do how some of these club owners audition their girls.”
The cell jangled again. He glanced at it, but it wasn’t Jenny—he hadn’t realized he’d been hoping for that until he looked. The morgue? He’d call them back. Those guys weren’t going anywhere.
“Either way, we have no proof,” Paddy went on. “We interrogated every dancer and customer in that place. Everyone said that Waylon was alone. And he doesn’t have security cameras out back—we looked. We can’t hold him much longer just because one of his girls said he was arguing with the deceased. Hell, he even had the balls to ask if I’d arrested you for being there.”
Ronan tried to suppress a smile but failed. For the last six months, he’d been peppering the club with false information through Ellen, then Yasmine, then Shonda. Rumor was that a new law had been passed after a sting exposed several high-ranking police officials engaged in sexual activities at strip clubs.
The fabricated Officer Conduct Act made it illegal for officers to visit adult venues without written approval from their department. Any officer caught inside for personal pleasure could face arrest.
“What the fuck are you grinning about? The fact that he’s willing to tell any and everyone that you were in that club is a black mark for you, buddy.”
Ronan cleared his throat. His partner was right. He had spread the rumor as a cover—to ensure Waylon wouldn’t kick him out even if he realized Ronan was a cop. Guys like that loved to have blackmail fodder. He’d also hoped Waylon might let his guard down a little because of it—enough for Ronan to catch him red-handed with an underage girl.
When Ronan didn’t reply, Paddy pushed himself to his feet. “Until we have something more… I’m going to cut him loose. Do me a favor and find something that’ll stick, eh?”
Ronan watched Paddy meander through the bullpen and into the hall. When he cut a right toward the interrogation rooms, Ronan called up his email. The information he’d requested from their tech guy had come through. He clicked the link and frowned.
Someone had stolen Mercer’s phone—his mother had confirmed he had one. And that cell had been at the library today. Huh. Were they trying to figure out how to open it? He’d have to stop over there, get the feeds from the library cameras. But first…
He shoved himself to standing.
The main elevator was on the far side of the bullpen, opposite the direction Paddy had vanished. There was also a freight elevator that went from one end of the morgue to a dedicated bay in the garage where funeral homes picked up the deceased.
Ronan tapped the button on the wall, wishing he had a cigarette. He’d quit ten years ago, replaced that particular vice with weight lifting, but damn if he didn’t miss it like an amputated limb on days like this.
The elevator binged. Ronan stepped in and punched the button for the basement.
“Afternoon, Detective.”
Ronan glanced over. The woman who’d followed him into the lift wore a smartly tailored navy suit, a string of pearls around her throat—a lawyer, based on her Jimmy Choos. Not defense attorney heels either. High-priced criminal law was her game.
“Afternoon.” He couldn’t remember her name. Olivia? Octavia? She’d sat beside him once at a posh hotel bar where they served gold-infused Negroni spheres—alcoholic Jello covered in gold leaf. He’d walked away before she could say more than, “What are you drinking?”
“Got anything new on the Sandabal case?” she asked now.
Ronan’s hackles rose. Julius Sandabal. Child trafficker. Killer, though he farmed out the homicide. He was currently looking at sixty to life, which meant he’d be out in thirty… or less. Ronan needed to ensure he’d never see the outside of that prison.
“You’ll know when we know,” he replied.
But she wouldn’t, not until such disclosures were required by law. He despised criminal attorneys, especially ones who tried to keep kidnappers out of jail. Ronan himself had been kidnapped when he was four, but the kidnappers had overestimated what he’d be worth. His father had told them to go to hell. They’d discarded him, bloody and cold, in a gutter like the trash his side of the family had always been.
Charles was the only one who’d seemed to miss him.
Guilt pricked in his chest—he’d been hard on his brother earlier. Ronan was the one with the gun, but Charles was still trying to protect him. He suspected this was the main reason his brother didn’t want him working with the police. This job came with the very real risk of death.
Ronan finally turned to meet her gaze. “Are you heading to the morgue to look into the eyes of your client’s victims?”
“I came here to see you, actually.”
“Well, you can fuck off then,” Ronan said.
Her smile fell. Her eyes tightened. “We aren’t enemies, Detective. Your own family is known for toeing the line between legal and illegal.” His jaw clenched, and she amended, “I don’t blame them—just business, right? And I want this to be more of the same. I hoped we could speak about what it would take for you to cut a deal with my client. There’s no need to be impolite.”
The elevator slid to a stop. “Oh… sorry about that.” He touched the first-floor button and stepped into the basement, then turned to meet her gaze. “You can fuck off… Ma’am .”
He smiled at her furious eyes until the doors slipped closed, then headed up the hallway. The cold hit him three steps in, twenty degrees cooler here than upstairs. The chatter hit him next—barking from the exam rooms at the end of the hall.
Ronan frowned—it was almost always quiet down here. Had there been a huge pileup? Had someone unearthed a serial killer’s mass grave? Something had happened for the medical examiner to call in reinforcements.
“Ortega! Where you at, brother?”
The medical examiner was one of the nicest people Ronan had ever met—downright jolly, friendly even when he was cracking open someone’s rib cage. He was also the only one who ever called Ronan’s cell instead of his desk phone. And Ronan had asked to be notified immediately about anything related to Jason Mercer.
He’d also asked Ortega to call him about any bodies with brands on the feet—Sandabal’s calling card was a dollar sign burned into the pinky toe. Maybe that was why the lawyer was here.
He hooked a right into the first office, the one Ortega usually worked out of, but stopped short in the doorway.
Ortega stood behind a long stainless table, a brain balanced in his gloved hands. As Ronan watched, he lowered the glistening mass onto the scale.
“Brain’s little light,” Ortega said, squinting at the numbers. “Must have been a racist.”
Normally, Ronan would have smiled—gallows humor was par for the course in a police station, ditto in the morgue. But Ortega wasn’t the only one in the room.
Jennifer Crandall turned slowly from her spot opposite Ortega, her hazel eyes wide, her platinum hair pulled back in a tight bun—not a hint of those blue tips in sight. A white sweater that one might mistake for a lab coat if they were in a hurry. She looked like another person entirely.
Because she was—he was almost sure.
Jennifer Crandall, my ass.