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“Captain Bower?” I knock on his office door with a fast one-two tap and wait with Fletch until we hear the eventual ‘Come in.’
I meet Fletch’s eyes before obeying, his honey stare wary after our last run-in with the captain. But we still have a job to do, and unfortunately, we can’t move on to the next step or uncover the next layer withoutrank.
I carry a file folder in my left hand as we step into Bower’s office, and though I’d like to soothe my nerves, reach up with my right and loop my finger through the ring hanging from a chain around my neck, I learned a lifetime ago to poker up and show nothing when surrounded by men you don’t trust.
And Bower’s treatment of Fletch and I lately, thisthrow the book at ‘em and hope the shit sticks,means I intend to keep the man at arm’s length.
Technically, he’s correct in his accusations: I am a killer. But there are some caveats involved that I don’t think would matter to him. So it’s best to claim innocence.
Which I’ve done. But he wants me out, so my entire life and career are now under his telescope, and he’ll take any excuse he can get his hands on to see his goal achieved.
It’s my job to give him none. Not a single toe out of line. Not even so much as a too-loud sneeze.
“Detectives.” Bower settles his desk phone back in the cradle, then sits back in his chair so the frame squeaks. He crosses one leg over the other and steeples his fingers. And though he remains below our eye level, as we come to stop on the other side of his desk, he still manages to look down on us.
His jaw ticks and his eyes glitter with repressed dislike.
A lesser man would cower under his stare. Fold in the face of the captain’s disdain.
But fuck, my father wanted medead. There’s not much that someone else’s father can say or do to make me scared.
“You have two minutes,” Bower grunts, lifting his chin to invite us to sit.
I catch Fletch in my peripherals merely crossing his arms, so I too remain standing, and toss the folder onto Bower’s desk before setting my hands on my hips. “Roger Wilson is a forty-five-year-old real estate developer. Married, two kids, and a mortgage.”
While Bower leans forward to open the file, I watch him closely and outline what we know so far.
“Kyle Andrews is a forty-two-year-old civil engineer. Married. Two kids. He has dealings in Florida and, according to his wife, current multistory projects that had him traveling regularly.”
“There’s only one man here.” Bower flips through image after image. Crime scene photographs. That chair we’ve yet to figure out, and the bay he was pulled from. He gets closeups of our vic’s mutilated body. His broken limbs, and sliced tongue. The lacerations all over his body, and the bloating that, according to Minka, is more decomp than effects of the river water. “You gave me two names, but only one dead guy.”
“Three names, actually.” Fletch’s broad shoulder touches mine. “Aaron Davies is a thirty-seven-year-old pilot. He works privately, carrying around the rich and elite when the price is right. He has no children, but he is married, and just an hour ago, we received confirmation from the IVF clinic he and his wife used in the past that they still have samples in their fridges. Doctor Raquel at the George Stanley medical facility is in contact with that clinic now and will arrange transport so DNA can be tested and compared.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you, Detectives.” Bower snaps the folder closed and drops his foot, sitting taller in his chair. “Three men, one body?”
“Exactly.” I lean over the desk and take the file from him, then setting it down and opening it again, I tap the first image: the vic’s face. “This man is dead, and so far, we’ve discovered three separate, entirely established identities. He did not settle for throwaway documents that he could use to travel unimpeded. This man lived three full, completely independent lives—and prior to death, had not been caught out.”
“We think he might have been affiliated with either law enforcement or organized crime,” Fletch adds. “We’re trying to figure out which.”
“Those are two entirely different avenues,” Bower snipes. “Organized crime,” his dark stare jumps to me and burns, “is the scourge of the city. A bunch of trumped-up thugs who consider themselves a law unto themselves. If you’re talking mafia, then his identities will have been created in-house, and buried long before we get a handle on who’s who. They’ll have disposed of the evidence, much the same way they disposed of the body.” He pushes the image of our vic’s face aside, and instead points at the one of him bound to the dining chair. “They have their methods, and they take care of this stuff privately.”
“Perhaps,” I grit out, absorbing every blow he tosses my way and letting it go again. He’s high on power and unafraid.Good for him. “We haven’t ruled out that he’s an operative who was working undercover. His death implies he’s been caught out, and the fact no one has come forward to claim him yet, other than his wives, could be because his mission was not yet complete, and letting too much information leak would blow their operation.”
“You’re reaching,” Bower warns. “Look at the evidence! Broken bones.” He tosses one image aside. “Dumped in the river to swim with the fishes.” Another. “Mutilation.” And another. “Missing eyeballs! We’ve seen this before, Detectives. And we all know it screams mob hit.”
“It screams torture,” I counter, instead of ‘It wasn’t the mafia, my brother told me so’. “And the missing prints and multiple identities? The mob might enjoy the freedom of multiple passports, Captain, but they don’tlivethose aliases the way this man did. They don’t invest in families and careers with those names. They use them to get past customs and security at the airport, and then they abandon them.”
“You’d know,Detective.” He sits back and sneers, while Fletch’s body grows larger beside me, his adrenaline pumping in preparation to come to my defense. “Regardless, I say you bring in the players we know run this city. Shake them down and see what falls free.”
“He’s not mafia!” I bark. “This is deeper than that.”
“You seem so sure.” Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his desk, he looks up at me, smug in his confidence. “Are you telling me you’re unwilling to investigate this murder the way I’m requesting?”
I flex my jaw and exhale through my nose.Careful, Arch.“No. I’m telling you your request is pointless. No one in the business is working three day jobs, running actual projects, bonding with colleagues who know and spend time with your family, trading shots with competitors who want your client base, piloting and catching flights, andstillworking for the mob. What could he possibly contribute in the little time he has left over?”
“Maybe he’s multitasking… transporting more than rich passengers,” Bower suggests. “Has CSI gone through those planes yet? After all, guns, powder, money… they all leave traces behind.”
