Chapter 5 #2
“Okay, okay. The forensics lab is still working on the DNA collected at the crime scene. I know it feels like it’s been a long time”—she kept one hand up to fend off Chloe’s frustrated exhale—“but it’s a process, and one we want to be sure is done by the book.
Plus, they’re analyzing a lot of blood samples. ”
Chloe had made the mistake of Googling how much blood was in the average human body. Since the answer had turned out to be just under a gallon, there was really no arguing Addison’s point. “Fair. How about the sketch?”
“That’s where things get kind of knotty,” Addison said. “Camila’s sketch bore a lot of resemblance to a man everyone in Intelligence recognized. After some back and forth with the D.A.’s office, we put his photo in an array and Esme positively IDed him this morning.”
Wait… “You know who this guy is?”
“We do.” Addison nodded. “His name is Leo Navarro.”
Shock burst through Chloe’s veins. “I don’t understand. If you know who he is and Esme identified him as the guy she saw in the warehouse, why is this complicated? Why can’t you go arrest him?”
Addison blew out a breath. “Because reasonable doubt requires hard evidence, for one. We can’t even get a search warrant with what we have, which means we definitely can’t get an arrest warrant.”
“Esme saw him,” Chloe said, one of her whirling thoughts sticking hard. “If you guys recognized him, he must be pretty bad, right?”
“He’s been on our radar for some serious crimes for a while now, yes,” Addison said after a beat, and hell if that didn’t just strengthen Chloe’s argument.
“Okay, so aren’t there exceptions for things like this? This Navarro guy is clearly dangerous if he’s done other bad things. What if he tries to hurt someone else?”
“First of all, I want you to know that no one, including Esme, appears to be in danger right now.” Addison’s eyes lit with a fierceness Chloe knew well enough to believe on sight.
“But even in exigent circumstances, where we think someone could be in immediate danger, we still have to meet the burden of proof to do a search or make an arrest.”
“So, more than the ID,” Chloe said slowly, and Addison nodded.
“Yes. Otherwise, it would be too easy to wrongly charge someone with a crime. I believe Esme’s ID is legit, and so do Sinclair and Tara. But we can’t take chances on any charges being thrown out because we couldn’t back them up with more when we made the arrest.”
At the mention of A.D.A. Tara Kingston-Matthews, Chloe’s stomach buckled. “This guy is really bad, isn’t he?”
Addison hesitated, but Chloe wasn’t in the mood to be tiptoed around. “I can handle it, Addison.”
“Yes,” Addison said. Chloe waited out the silence that followed, even though it almost drove her batshit, but was rewarded for her patience when Addison continued.
“Leo Navarro has been on Intelligence’s watch list for about three years.
He’s well-known in Remington’s business circles.
He comes from an absolute shitload of money.
His mother was a socialite who married well and inherited even better—twice.
She left him her very sizeable estate when she died, and Navarro has turned it into an empire.
Tons of investments. Involvement in very exclusive organizations.
He even owns a few local businesses. A restaurant, a bakery, and a dry cleaner’s, to be precise, plus a few others where he’s more of a silent partner. On paper, they’re all legit.”
Chloe could practically hear a narrator’s voice following up with, “The businesses were, in fact, not legit.”
“But Intelligence thinks they’re a front,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, they’re definitely a front.” Addison paired the words with knowingly raised brows.
“Drugs, weapons, people—you name it, and Navarro has moved it illegally across at least one set of borders. We’ve circumstantially tied him to over a dozen major crimes, but he didn’t get this far by being dumb.
Even though all signs point to him as the head of the whole operation, there’s no actual evidence to back up so much as a parking ticket.
Nothing ever directly connects him to any of the crimes, so all we end up with are suspicions that Tara can’t prosecute. ”
A fresh batch of dread brewed in Chloe’s gut, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth for a second before asking, “You don’t think he’s going to get away with what Esme saw, do you?”
Steel flashed through Addison’s eyes, reminding Chloe exactly how good a detective she was. “I think we’re going to do everything in our power to use this murder to take him down,” Addison said. “But he’s smart and his lawyer is slicker than snot, so we are going to earn our paychecks.”
“Okay,” Chloe said, bolstered by Addison’s clear determination. “So, what happens now?”
“Well, first thing’s first. Everybody wants their mitts on Navarro. Both Vice and Homicide were particularly vocal about getting dibs on this case, so we had to do the jurisdiction dance. Thankfully, that’s not a fight Sinclair usually loses, and having Tara on our side helped.”
That tracked with what Chloe knew about the A.D.A.
, who, in addition to having a zero-tolerance policy for bullshit, was also exceedingly dedicated to getting justice.
She’d even put her life on the line for a case she’d worked with Xander a few years ago.
The two had gotten married earlier this year.
“That is a good thing,” Chloe agreed, her mind shifting gears. “What kind of evidence do you need for a warrant?”
“Well, DNA would get us a search warrant, at the very least, but we’re obviously waiting on that. For now, we’re trying to connect Navarro and Brinkman. Remington Vice has a pretty hefty file on Brinkman. Frankie spun us up on that yesterday.”
Francesca Rossi was one of the best Vice detectives in the state. The fact that she was also Maxwell’s wife was another plus for this case. “Let me guess,” Chloe said. “Navarro and Brinkman were ‘business partners’?”
Her tone delivered the last two words with air quotes, and Addison nodded.
“Give the redhead a gold star. Brinkman worked for a real estate firm on paper, but he had a history as a mid-level heroin dealer—busted twice on felony charges, sprung both times on technicalities. Since you’re on a roll, want to guess who his attorney was?”
“The same person who represents Navarro?”
“Same firm,” Addison said. “They’re partners.
Still, those are some pretty hefty legal fees for a guy like Brinkman, even when business is flush.
Vice has suspected that Navarro was Brinkman’s supplier for about a year, and that Navarro bankrolled the lawyer to keep him clean.
They just couldn’t prove it. They can’t even get the low-level dealers to flip. ”
“Wow. No wonder they wanted in on this case,” Chloe murmured.
“That’s not the half of it,” Addison said.
“We were able to pull the footage from a couple of street cams around the warehouse from the night of the murder. There’s not a lot to go on,” she added when Chloe’s head sprang up in reply.
“Nothing of Navarro—like I said, he’s slick.
But we do have video of Brinkman going into the warehouse with a duffel bag at ten fifty-two P.M.”
Chloe’s pulse escalated. That tracked with both Esme’s timeline and what she’d overheard. “So, it was a drug deal that went sideways.”
“It definitely looks that way. Sinclair’s trying to convince Tara to let me and Maxwell knock on Navarro’s door, just to see how he reacts when we tell him Brinkman is dead.
It’s a bold move, but not a bad one. Capelli’s doing a deep dive into Brinkman’s phone records and financials, trying to prove his connection to Navarro.
The team is also working on the knife, since it’s pretty distinct.
We’re going to kick every single rock we can to find enough evidence to charge him, but it’s going to be an uphill climb. Plus…”
Addison trailed off for only a second, but it was enough to put Chloe on high alert for what followed. “Navarro has a lot of resources and even more power. When we do find enough evidence to charge him, he’s going to fight back. Tara will have to bring everything to the table.”
Realization sank its teeth into her, sharp and swift. “Esme will have to testify.”
Logically, Chloe had known this was a real possibility.
But, since logic had never been her strong suit, it pinched anyway.
Esme already felt unsafe, and Chloe knew the particular brand of fear that came with knowing the person you were scared of was out there.
Watching. Planning. Just waiting to strike, and oh, God.
“He wouldn’t…you don’t think he’d hurt her, do you?”
“We aren’t going to let that happen,” Addison said quickly, and Chloe was tempted to point out—just as quickly—that it wasn’t a no. “There are precautions to keep her safe, especially since she’s a minor, and Tara is going to take every single one of them if it comes to her testifying.”
Chloe frowned, sitting back against the park bench. “Like protective custody?”
“That’s one option,” Addison said. “But right now, it’s moot. Navarro doesn’t know Esme saw him kill Brinkman, and until we arrest him, we don’t have a legal obligation to disclose anything about a witness.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Until he’s formally charged, it’s all just part of the investigation. We had to put Esme’s name in our database along with her statement, obviously, but that’s super encrypted by, like, nine RPD firewalls and one brainiac of a tech expert, so…”
“No one’s getting in without Capelli’s say so,” Chloe finished, and at least that made her feel a tiny bit better.
“Exactly,” Addison said. “Look, I know this part is tough. But real cases don’t come together in a matter of days, like they do on TV. It doesn’t mean we won’t get him, though.”
“Okay,” Chloe said. As antsy as the unknown made her feel, she trusted Addison. So much, that she didn’t see the next question coming until it had popped her in the gut.
“So, how’s everything going with Tyler?”
“It wasn’t a date,” she blurted, and God, she knew she shouldn’t have let him give her a ride. “Like he said, we were just…not on a date.”
Addison’s brows went all the way up, and she laughed. “Riiiiight. I meant, how’s everything going with party planning.”
“Oh.” Chloe cleared the tightness from her throat, adjusting her voice to its easiest, breeziest setting. “Of course. Party planning. It’s going totally fine.”
This wasn’t a lie. As promised, she’d sent Tyler a few pre-wedding tasks from the master spreadsheet she’d created, making sure they were all things he could take care of without them needing to communicate via anything other than text.
The fact that she’d never told Addison about the Kiss That Shall Not Be Named was a little more of a lie, but a necessary one.
Under no circumstances could Ryan find out that Chloe had kissed Tyler.
She hadn’t wanted to keep it from Addison—after all, her best friend knew all about her mission to lose her virginity…
again. But telling Addison meant swearing her to secrecy, which could put her in a bad spot with Ryan.
Plus, the whole thing was mortifying. Yes, Chloe had only had sex once, and it had been so bad, it shouldn’t count.
Yes, that had been more than two years ago.
Yes, she was finally ready to rectify her situation, and super yes, she wanted to forget that she’d kissed Tyler in the hopes that he’d give her an assist and also a couple of orgasms.
Addison, however, had finely tuned radar.
Damn her. “Okay. I can’t stand it anymore.
You’ve both been incredibly weird lately, with all your ‘please pass the peas, Mr. Gates’ and ‘here you are, Ms. Ferguson’ at Sunday dinners, and don’t get me started on whatever that cinnamon roll thing was the other day.
Seriously. What the hell is going on between you two? ”
Chloe’s snort was out before she could squelch it. “Nothing. Believe me.”
Of course, she did not. “All that blushing and denial doesn’t look like nothing,” Addison said pointedly, adding on an expectant stare that put a thousand tiny cracks in Chloe’s resolve.
“Oh, my God, are you ever the good cop?” Chloe muttered.
“Absolutely not. Now, spill.”
Another crack. Then another, and before she could stop herself, her mouth was opening, the words “I kissed Tyler” locked and loaded on her tongue.
Addison’s phone rang, crashing them to a halt just shy of delivery.
“Oh, come on,” Addison cried, but her expression grew instantly serious when she saw the caller ID flashing over her screen. “It’s Sinclair.”
Chloe’s heart catapulted against her ribs as Addison lifted the phone to her ear. “Hey, Sarge.” After a brief, mostly one-sided conversation Chloe couldn’t follow, Addison said, “Copy you. I’m on my way,” and hung up.
“Looks like you’re off the hook, for now. I’ve got to go be the tough cop somewhere else.”
“What? Where?” Chloe asked, not sure if she should be grateful, or worried, or both.
Addison’s smile said both. “Downtown. Tara’s on board, so Maxwell and I are going to pay Leo Navarro a little visit.”