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“Capta—”
“Detective.Haveyou had CSI search those jets?”
“No.” I straighten my spine and rein in my temper before I get my ass fired. “No, we have not yet searched the planes. Each time we get a moment to run down a lead, a new identity pops up. Following up on everything has kept us busy.”
“I assume you know what to do next, then.” He picks up his phone and holds it between his hands, but he doesn’t bring it to his ear just yet. He doesn’t dial. “Get the job done, Detectives.”
“Will you at least consider that this could be operative related?” I question. “If we search the planes, and clear them, will you get us authorization to search higher up?”
“You want to nail this to law enforcement and dance with men more powerful than you?” He chuckles in the back of his throat as he dials. “Ridiculous and foolhardy. And speaking of ‘higher up,’ the mayor has reinstated your rank as Detective III.”
I jerk back in shock—confusion, disbelief—but he doesn’t even look at us. Doesn’t so much as give us the chance to see his eyes.
“Your demotion has been lifted,” he says blandly, “and the notes in your files deleted. Hi, Ms. Guthrie,” he speaks pleasantly into the phone. “It’s Captain Bower at the Copeland City Police Department. Can I speak with him please? Sure,” he adds too-sweetly. “I’ll wait.”
Aiming the mouthpiece away from his lips, he glances up at us and flicks his wrist in dismissal. “You have your orders. If I feel you’re not working the angles of this case as I see appropriate, I’ll assume it’s out of your depth and have it reassigned. Yes, Mayor Lawrence.” He brings the phone closer and speaks with an entirely different, much more pleasant, inflection in his voice. “Thank you for taking my call. I only wanted to inform you that the thing we spoke about has been done. Yes, Your Honor.” He meets my eyes and stares venomously, a look completely at odds with his calm tone. “Yes, I understand. I appreciate your grace on the matter.”
* * *
“The Davieses own four jets,” I inform the team of CSIs who stare back at me.
We stand on the blacktop of Copeland’s private airport, seven planes lined up in a row behind me.
“And three more are regularly leased. We need every single one turned inside out and searched. We have sniffer dogs coming through, too, to ensure we miss nothing. The Honorable Judge McArthur has signed a warrant for the three leased jets, and Mrs. Davies has given us written permission to search the owned four. We’re looking for guns, drugs, money… anything that might be out of place.” I lift my head to give them the signal. “Let’s get started. I’d like to be done before dinnertime.”
As they fan out and head toward planes, Fletch looks to me and wrestles with his temper. “We’re treating our vic like he was a criminal.” He wears a ballcap on his head, the brim shielding his eyes from the early afternoon sun. His jaw ticks with frustration, and his hands remain rooted firmly on his hips.
It’s where he puts them when he’d rather hold his gun. When he’d rather take a more direct route to action, but isn’t allowed.
“Dude was murdered, Arch. Tortured. Mutilated. And now Bower wants us to pin illicits on him, like that justifies the end.”
“It’s not entirely useless,” I admit grudgingly. “If the dude was mafia, chances are his killer comes from another family. Ifthat’sthe case, and we find some shit on his planes, then we can narrow down our target and find who ordered the hit.”
Fletch bobs his head, then looks around us warily as CSIs set out their gear and start their search. His shoulders bulge with adrenaline, and the holster he keeps across his chest strains from his stance.
Satisfied no one is close enough to overhear, he brings his gaze back to me and lowers his voice. “What did Felix say?”
“That it wasn’t him.” I glance down at my boots. “I asked where he was and what he was doing, and he confirmed he was somewhere else, doing something else. He didn’t say it wasn’t another family pulling strings and making a mess, but I figure if he’d heard whispers, he would’ve said so.”
“And hewouldhear the whispers, right? All the way over in New York?”
It pains me to do so, almost physically hurts, but I drop my head in a kind of nod. “Yeah, he’d have heard. He’s Cordoza’s fuckin’ pet right now, all because the old man decided he likes my wife. He’s taken my whole family under his… protection, as a favor to her. Without Minka, he’d have lopped my brother’s head off and taken advantage of the weakness in the Malone ranks when my father died.”
I finally lift my head and meet my best friend’s eyes. “Cordoza runs that city. He runs the entire fucking country, so if there was a hit in Copeland, Cordoza and Felix knows about it.”
“So we’re wasting our time here.” He turns to study each plane in line.
They have differing sizes, differing shapes and designs. Some have twin engines. Others have more. Wingspans vary. But one thing they all have in common is the fact we’re spending our afternoon searching them for something that doesn’t exist.
“Let the crews sweep each plane and find nothing,” he rumbles. “It keeps the captain off our backs and the chain of command happy. But while they do that, we need to look someplace else. Who the fuck is this dude, and who does he work for?”
“I don’t know,” I groan. “And with our limited clearance, we can’t even find out which identity was the original. All three go back far enough to screw us over, and the captain won’t even entertain a discussion about digging deeper for us.”
“So who can give us more clearance?” He drops his hands in his pockets and kicks a small rock on the tarred road we stand on. “Bower won’t let us through, so do we speak to the chief instead? To the mayor? He’s sweet on Minka too, and as her husband, I figure it’s your right to use that relationship to your advantage.”
I scoff and reach around to my back pocket for my cell; not to call the mayor, but to exercise a different relationship. Exploit a different connection.
However, I don’t have their number. I’ve had no reason to call before—not directly. So I unlock my screen and simply… stare for a moment. I study the background image, the fluffy white cat Minka loves to hate, and peruse my apps and the countless calls and texts I’ve yet to acknowledge.
