11
Ronan
After a quick lunch at Ronan’s favorite taco place, he, Jude and Ten went back to the office.
A familiar face was sitting at the conference table waiting for them.
“Fitz, thank God.” Ronan hugged his boss.
It wasn’t like him to be touchy-feely with his best friends, but right now, Ronan could use all the strength he could get.
If there was anyone who could help unravel Damien Rhodes’s connection to him and the dead men, it was Kevin Fitzgibbon.
“Nothing could have kept me from Salem. Jace had gotten a sunburn when we were hiking on the first day in the mountains and he’s been miserable ever since. All he wanted was to come home. Hearing what was going on at home with you and the dead men, Jace insisted we come home.”
Ronan pulled away from Fitz. “If I survive this mess, I’ll make sure to take Jace out for a fancy dinner.”
“I spoke to Cisco on our way back from New Hampshire. He caught me up on everything that’s happened, including what Everly said about the public defender being next and then you on the killer’s hit list. What happened when you spoke to Miller?”
“He didn’t believe he was in danger, not even after we showed him his letter. It had been sent to the law office instead of his house. I offered to put him in protective custody, but he declined. Jude showed him the picture of Ten’s unknown client from the other day, and Miller knew who it was.”
“Holy shit!” Fitz broke into a wide smile. “Who is it? Let’s go get his ass.”
“I convinced him to give us the name of the man, but none of us know who he is, which is why we came back here to do some research,” Ten said.
“Okay, well, who is he?” Fitz wore an excited look.
“His name is Damien Rhodes. Does his name ring a bell for you?” Ronan asked, hoping Fitz knew who he was.
Fitz’s face fell. “I’ve never heard that name before.
Damn,” he muttered under his breath. “Okay, let’s dig into this case.
Jude, look into Roderick Crews. Find out what his connection was to Rhodes.
Tennyson, you look into his connection to Paul Jones.
Ronan, you take Michael Miller, and I’ll work on your connection to Rhodes. Any questions?”
The room was quiet.
“We’re the best at what we do, guys,” Fitz said, looking around the room. “Let’s prove why that’s true. We’ll reconvene when we have some answers.”
Ronan plugged in his computer and turned it on.
He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of working with Rhodes’s connection to Michael Miller, he’d much rather be trying to figure out what the unknown man’s connection was to himself.
Fitz knew what he was doing. If Ronan were tasked with looking into himself, he would have ended up diving into rabbit hole after rabbit hole, accomplishing nothing.
The first step in working this case was finding out who the hell Damien Rhodes was. Obviously Michael Miller had represented him in the manslaughter case that saw him get convicted and sentenced to Walpole State Prison, but what else was there to this man?
Pulling up Google, Ronan typed in Damien Rhodes and hit search.
Several newspaper articles appeared at the top of the results.
Two were from The Salem News, while the third was from The Boston Globe.
The Salem articles dealt with the crime and results of the trial, while the Boston article was a mishmash of both.
Ronan clicked on the article written when Rhodes had been arrested.
As he scanned it, Ronan remembered the crime.
A twenty-five year old man named Brock Hower had been found dead in his apartment by his mother.
She hadn’t heard from him for several days and had gone to check on him.
What she saw was something no mother should ever have to see.
Her son was found in his kitchen, lying naked in a congealed pool of his own blood.
At least ten stab wounds were visible and the gory knife lay near the body.
Ronan shivered. He couldn’t help but think about Everly finding his murdered body. His stomach heaved at the thought of anyone seeing him that way. God, I know I’ve been a dick in my life, but please don’t let my family find me dead in a pool of my own blood.
Turning back to his computer, Ronan read that several prints and DNA belonging to Rhodes had been found in Hower’s apartment.
Ronan pulled up the police database and ran Rhodes’s name.
The man had a long rap sheet including arrests for assault and battery, trespassing, and weapons charges, which he’d been convicted of.
Since the crimes were felonies, Rhodes had been compelled to provide a DNA sample.
According to witness statements, Rhodes had been dating Hower. A fight between the two men had been heard by several neighbors, none of whom called the police. Brock’s mother was certain that had someone called for help, her son would have survived.
Rhodes, who was no stranger to being arrested, quickly asked for a lawyer, and was provided with Michael Miller from the public defender’s office.
Thanks to aggressive plea-bargaining on Miller’s part, the charge against Rhodes was knocked down from second-degree murder to manslaughter, in what Ronan knew was a sweetheart deal.
If he’d been convicted of second degree murder, Rhodes would have faced life in prison with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years.
Getting sentenced to fifteen years and only serving nine and a half was one hell of a deal in Ronan’s eyes, but not in Rhodes’s or he wouldn’t have killed two men associated with his time behind bars and had his eyes on taking out at least two more.
What Ronan didn’t understand was his own connection to Damien Rhodes.
He read through the trial transcripts and noted every person mentioned in connection with the case.
Ronan hadn’t been involved in the murder case at all.
In fact, he had still been working for the Boston Police Department and was living in Dorchester at the time Brock Hower was murdered and the case against Rhodes was adjudicated.
Ronan didn’t know anyone affiliated with the case at the time.
Not the judge, bailiffs, court clerks, or members of the jury.
Ronan turned his attention back to Michael Miller.
In the time he’d worked for the Salem Police Department only one person the cold case team had arrested had been assigned Miller as their public defender.
He hadn’t even made the arrest, Jude had, while Ronan and Fitz were recovering from being shot in the line of duty in a case they’d worked in conjunction with their old friend Faulkner Hayes, who was the captain of the Boston cold case unit.
“None of this makes any fucking sense,” Ronan muttered.
“Same on my end,” Jude said.
“What did you learn?” Fitz asked, from the doorway of his office.
“Roderick Crews was one of the three members of the parole board who presided over Rhodes’s hearing. He voted no, while the other two members voted yes. Rhodes was granted parole, but he obviously didn’t forget how adamantly against his parole Crews was.”
“In terms of a vendetta, Crews being on Rhodes’s hit list makes sense.” Fitz sighed. “What else have you got?”
“Not much,” Jude said. “None of the suspects we arrested and were later convicted have come up for parole yet. So, in terms of connecting Roderick Crews with us, it’s a no-go.
I also looked up instances of Ronan coming into contact with Crews through various degrees of separation and there’s nothing.
Do you know if you ever met Crews somewhere?
At a police fundraiser or that shindig the governor invited us to a few years ago? ”
“I never met him in my life,” Ronan said. He’d seen pictures of the murdered man and his face didn’t look even remotely familiar.
“What about you, Ronan? What did you learn about Miller?”
“I’m in the same boat as Jude. Miller is connected to Rhodes, but not to me. Only one person this unit has arrested was assigned Miller as a public defender and that happened when I was out on leave after being shot in that case we worked with Faulk.”
“Who arrested that suspect?” Fitz asked.
“It was Jude. With the two of us recovering from gunshot wounds, Jude was the only one left able-bodied on the team.”
“As for you, Ronan, I can’t find any connection between you and Damien Rhodes.
We were both still working for the BPD when the man Rhodes was accused of killing was murdered and when Rhodes was sentenced.
Like you said, none of this makes any sense.
” Fitz sighed and took a seat at the conference table.
“What if the connection is Tennyson and not Ronan?” Jude suggested.
“I don’t understand. How?” Ronan hadn’t given Tennyson’s connection a thought.
“I’m not sure, but killing you would be a good way of getting back at Tennyson for something he did or Rhodes thought he did.”
“Shit,” Ronan muttered. “You might be right.”
“No,” Ten said. “He’s not.”
“Do you have proof to back that up, Ten?” Fitz asked.
Ten nodded. “There are several men Ronan arrested over the course of his career who served time at Walpole when Paul Jones was the warden. There are a dozen more men who served time in the jail when Jones was still a corrections officer. None of those cons are connected to Ronan with the exception of one.” Ten took a deep breath.
“I also went back and looked at the times we visited the prison since Jones took over as warden and there’s only one case we worked that’s connected to Ronan and Jones. ”
Ronan scanned his terrified brain. He had no idea what case Tennyson was talking about. “Who is he?”
“Josh Gatlin,” Ten said.
“No,” Ronan said. “It’s not possible.” He turned to Fitz. “Tell me this isn’t possible! That fucker is dead and out of our lives.”
“Explain, Tennyson,” Fitz urged.
“You were the one who arrested your ex-husband for the murder of Michael Frye and for kidnapping and assaulting me. Josh had no connection to Crews or to Miller. The only connections are you and Jones, who was a guard and the warden during Josh’s incarceration.”
Ronan was still confused. “You said there’s a connection to a time we visited the prison to work a case. I never met with Josh while he was inside.”
“I know you never met with him, Ronan.”
“Oh, shit. We worked Josh’s murder at the prison.” Jude’s mouth hung open like a fish out of water. “But I still don’t understand the connection between Josh, Ronan, and Rhodes.”
“When Rhodes came into West Side Magick the other day he taunted me about not knowing who he was or why he was there,” Ten said.
“A few seconds before Warden Jones burst into the shop screaming, the man we now know is Damien Rhodes grabbed my hand. I felt his rage and then he showed me images. One of them was of a man lying prone and another man kneeling beside him. The man kneeling was you, Ronan. The dead man was Josh. I saw the flash of a headstone, but couldn’t read the name on it.
I looked up Josh’s grave online and it’s the one I saw through Rhodes.
He said that the reason he couldn’t connect with the person he loved was because of you, Ronan.
You were the one who arrested Josh. You testified against him.
You read a victim impact statement at his sentencing.
You were the reason he was in prison, hence you’re the reason he’s dead. ”
“You’re right. I did all of those things, but none of that explains how Josh was connected to Damien Rhodes.”
“Yes, it does,” Fitz said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Josh and Damien were lovers.”
“And cellmates for the first five years of Josh’s time at Walpole,” Ten said.
Ronan couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Let me make sure I have this right. Damien Rhodes killed a man, was assigned Miller as his public defender who worked out a plea deal on his behalf, Jones was the warden while Rhodes was in prison, Crews denied his parole, and Rhodes is coming after them one at a time to exact his revenge. Last, and by no means least, Rhodes is coming for me because of my connection to Josh as his ex and as the man who arrested him. Is that what we’re saying here? ”
“It all makes sense,” Jude said. “You all connect together through Damien.”
Fitz nodded. “I agree.”
“And this is what your gift is telling you, Ten?” Ronan asked, feeling weak in the knees.
“Yes.”
“What about the outcome? Is Rhodes going to win?”
Ten nibbled his bottom lip. His eyes shined with unshed tears. “I don’t know. I can’t see the outcome. Maybe Everly will have a better idea, but I don’t want her to see-”
“You don’t want her to see my dead body either in person or with her gift,” Ronan concluded.
“Right,” Ten agreed.
Ronan felt as if his heart were about to shatter into a million pieces and not because his life was in danger.
If, God forbid, anything did happen to him, Ten, Everly, and Ezra would be left to pick up the pieces.
The only goal Ronan had in his life was to protect his family and he was failing miserably at the moment.
“Okay, everyone. Let’s take a ten minute break and then we’re going to find this fucker and make sure he can’t hurt anyone else. ”
Getting up from the table, Ronan headed for the bathroom where he splashed water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror.
Now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for himself.
Now was the time for action. He was going to find Damien Rhodes and fucking end him before he could come anywhere near his family.