Chapter 19
NINETEEN
GABE
“It sounded like Peter. I’m not sure what else it could’ve been. Like I said, I figure Spurring meant my ex,” Gabe told Knute again, feeling a tad annoyed. He hated having to repeat himself. “Just this morning, Case told me not to find another body, and I went and did it anyway. Dammit.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Elton said. “I called the hospital while you were in the bathroom, but they wouldn’t tell me anything except he’s in intensive care.”
“Well, I guess it’s the principle of the thing, then,” grumped Gabe, reclaiming his seat at the table.
“What I’m wondering is if he could’ve said Petyr. P-e-t-y-r.” Knute spelled out the name.
Had Knute been at all paying attention to what Gabe had said?
“And? Sounds pretty much the same to me. Maybe Spurring was confessing.”
Knute squinted at him in a way that suggested Gabe needed to quit talking and listen for once. Remarkable since Knute hadn’t known Gabe that long.
If only, Chance.
“Peter and Petyr aren’t the same, but we don’t have time for a linguistics lesson. The Petyrs are a crime family. Their home base is out on the coast, but most LEOs know they’ve had fingers in pies across all of Western Washington.”
“Huh.” He was tempted to add, “And so fucking what?” but manfully resisted.
“A few years ago now, the FBI caught up with the eldest Petyr, the Don if you will. He and his gang are behind bars now, and we all thought that was the end of it, but it didn’t take offshoots of the family long to fill the leadership void and get back into the game.
Roy Wilson has a connection because his mother was a Petyr.
That’s one of the things about him that caught my attention back in the day. ”
“Ah, the poor soul from Aberdeen was part of a crime family?”
Knute nodded.
“So, what are you thinking?” asked Elton, scooting forward, elbows on the table.
Gabe couldn’t help but notice that Knute leaned a tad closer to Elton as well.
“The Petyrs have never hesitated to remove anyone who stood in their way, threatened their livelihood, or balked when told to jump higher. If Spurring is involved with them and trying to get out—I’ll just say, they don’t let their people go easily.”
This sounded familiar to Gabe, a bit like the Colavito family. “But we don’t know for sure that it’s these bad guys.”
However, they did know. Because Gabe’s Fucking Luck meant he’d somehow stepped right in the middle of a—he struggled to find the right word—power struggle.
Spurring and Wilson had probably decided to liaise with this homegrown crime family since Wilson had that tie through his mother.
Perhaps Rizzi had been the point man originally, and Spurring had only been a sidekick, so he’d floundered and fucked up?
“Spurring told you,” Knute spoke through gritted teeth slowly, as if Gabe was trying his patience.
It’s like he’s getting to know you, Chance.
“Okay, fine, Spurring fingered the Petyrs. So now what do we do?”
“Let me think for a minute,” Knute replied.
While Knute took his minute, Gabe checked his phone to see if Casey had texted. Nothing. Then he stood up, grabbed the empty plates and glasses, and ferried them into the kitchen, where he rinsed the plates off and stuck them in the dishwasher.
He wasn’t quite ready to take his seat again. What if this Petyr family and the Colavitos knew each other? It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
“Anybody want something more to drink?”
“I could use another glass of water,” Elton said. “Bring one for Knute too. He’s probably dehydrated.”
If the families did know of each other, Gabe reasoned, they wouldn’t work together.
Would they? They’d be competitors. Gabe honestly couldn’t see the Colavitos trusting much of anyone outside their circle, and the Petyr family was probably the same.
They probably survived on paranoia and energy drinks.
“Three waters coming right up.”
Knute snorted, and although Gabe wasn’t in the same room, he knew that eyes had been rolled. He filled the glasses back up with water and then took them out and set them down on the table. Once that was done, he figured Knute’s minute had gone on long enough.
“Well?” he said, sitting back down at the tiny table and taking a sip from his glass.
Knute pursed his lips, tapped two fingers against the tabletop, and said, “We can do this the right way, which will inevitably require a lot of paperwork, interviews, fact-checking, and time we may not have. We don’t know what, if anything, these people may think Spurring told you.
Alternatively, one of you two could call the FBI’s Washington State hotline and leave a message flagging Regional Director Adam Klay.
His team took the last Petyr head down, and they’ve undoubtedly kept an eye on rest of the family since. ”
“And say what, exactly? A disgraced and maybe dying cop whispered Petyr at me? He isn’t Orson Welles and this isn’t Rosebud,” Gabe said. “Also, why me? Why not you?”
Elton cleared his throat and coughed.
Knute glared at him. “Maybe drink some of that water you asked for.”
“Sorry, continue.” Elton didn’t look particularly sorry, but it was the thought that counted.
“Tell him that you believe Mikal Petyr, or one of his known associates, was involved in a recent murder in the area.”
“Why can’t I just tell Sheriff Eagan? She knows me, she’ll believe me. Seems like I’d be going over her head.” Gabe wasn’t whining, but it was a close thing. “I bet Deputy Choi would love to take care of this, too. She seems to love paperwork.”
Knute shot him a long, hard stare. Elton shifted in his seat.
“Right. Dreaded paperwork. And it would take too long, I’m guessing.”
“Authorities will want to talk to you anyway. There’s no point in me calling and then having to hand the phone over.”
Elton coughed again, into his hand this time.
“I thought I was going to get to be anonymous,” Gabe grumbled.
“Very little is truly anonymous these days,” Knute pointed out in an extremely annoying tone of voice.
Throwing his head back, Gabe stared at the ceiling for several seconds.
“Me, calling the FBI. That would be like…” He searched for a comparison Knute might relate to. “That would be like Frodo calling up the orcs and asking for a hand getting the Ring of Power into Mordor.”
Nothing.
He tried appealing to Elton. “Can you even imagine me calling the fucking feebs? My mother would reconstitute herself and return to Heartstone just so she could give me a lecture.” He whispered, in a decent imitation of Heidi Karne, “Karnes do not call The Man.”
Elton crossed his arms in a way that told Gabe he had an idea.
“What?” Gabe demanded.
“You want this taken seriously, am I right, Knute? Because if it is the Petyrs, they could be trying to move back in up here before anyone realizes. Or they’ve already done so, but no one has caught on. But do you really think the FBI isn’t already aware of them?”
Knute nodded, looking pleased, as if Elton was his star pupil.
Gabe sniffed. He was the one who had started the conversation.
“So, what you need is someone credible to make the call about what happened today. Someone the FBI would take seriously, not an anonymous tip that they may track down but also may ignore.”
“Yes,” Gabe interjected. Elton needed to hurry up and spit it out. “And that person is not me.”
“I have a couple of ideas.” Elton looked at Gabe.
“Why are you still fucking looking at me?”
“You have connections, Gabe. Good ones. First, there’s Shay Delacombe, and if not him, then suck it up and call Niall.”
“UUUUUUGGHHH.”
“Who are these people?” Knute asked.
“You tell him,” Gabe said, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t.”
“They’re Gabe’s half brothers. Shay Delacombe is a semi-retired defense attorney who worked for the City of Seattle at one point, highly sought after.
Niall Hamarsson was a homicide detective with SPD, works for West Coast Forensics now.
I can’t imagine that one of them doesn’t know this Adam Klay. ”
Lowering his hands, Gabe asked, “How come you know all this?” Having his recently found relatives be law enforcement adjacent made him feel itchy.
Elton side-eyed him. “I pay attention.”
“Well?” said Knute.
“Well, what?” asked Gabe.
“Who are you going to call?”
Ghostbusters was not the right answer, even if it was on the tip of his tongue.
“Shay, I guess. He’s not as scary.”
Elton laughed and tried to cover it up with yet another cough, but Gabe was on to him.
“Something stuck in your throat? Need more water to wash it down?” Gabe snarked, reaching for his cell phone.
He scrolled through his very short list of contacts and found Shady. Shay’s partner, Ryder, had entered Shay’s number, cackling when he handed Gabe’s phone back to him. Apparently, that had been his nickname at one time.
Pressing Call, he was rewarded with one, two, then three rings and briefly thought he might get away with leaving a message. His hope crashed and burned when Shay picked up.
“Gabriel, long time no see.”
“Hi, Shay,” Gabe said, perhaps a bit glumly.
“Don’t sound so excited. You’re the one who called me. What’s up?”
“Who’s that?” he heard Ryder ask in the background.
Gabe would have much rather dealt with Shay’s husband, Ryder, but he figured that wasn’t going to fly.
“Gabe,” Shay said to Ryder. “So, I ask again, what’s up?”
Even relaxed, Shay sounded like the successful defense attorney he was. Like ripping off a bandage, Gabe rushed the words out. “Do you by chance have connections to the FBI? Specifically, to an agent with the last name of Klay?”
He wasn’t asking for a favor without first learning if it was even possible.
Shay grunted. “Yeah, I know of Adam Klay. Why?”
Dammit. Gabe had hoped that Shay would say no, he didn’t know the guy, and that would be the end of this fucking fuckery. He sucked a bunch of oxygen in through his nose and blew it out again.
“We have kind of a situation over here—”
Shay interrupted him. “I heard some religious figure was murdered. Is it something to do with that?”
Gabe snorted. Religious figure seemed like a stretch. Wilson had been more like a glorified used car salesman from what Gabe had seen on the church website. Was there such a thing as used religion?
“It’s likely.” More than likely, but Gabe just wasn’t ready to fully admit it.
“There was a second attempted murder earlier today. For various reasons, I happened to get to the victim first. Before he lost consciousness, he said the word Peter and also that he had tried to get out. My new friend Knute Bakke, who’s a retired cop from Westfort, seems to think the victim may have meant P-E-T-Y-R, and I guess they—”
“Are a major crime family out of Aberdeen, which really isn’t far from you. Hold on a second. Do not hang up.”
Oh, he was tempted, he really was. Gabe could hear chatter in the background, making him wonder just where Shay was. Elton and Knute were both scowling at him. Old man twins.
“What?” He took the phone away from his ear and raised his eyebrows at the two men. “Shay said to hang on.”
Just then a different deep voice came over the line. “Gabriel.”
Fuck. Niall. His other half brother. Niall was intense, like double ristretto intense.
Gabe often wondered how his partner, Mat, managed it.
Seeing them together was the definition of opposites attract, which Gabe guessed had to be the explanation.
He had a note in his calendar to give Mat a case of his favorite beer for his birthday. The guy deserved it.
“Yep, it’s me. Gabe.”
“I understand that you have some information about the Petyr family.”
“Um, yes?”
“Explain.”
Gabe took a deep breath and explained. Niall asked more questions. Gabe went through everything with Spurring and the Peter-but-not-Peter again. At the end, he said, “And Knute thinks we should call the FBI hotline, but Elton suggested calling y’all instead.”
“I’d like to speak to Bakke.”
Gabe held the phone out to Knute and mouthed, He wants to talk to you. Then he knocked back the rest of his water and waited.