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Turning it around to expose the back, I grin. “I knew it!”
Luca’s brows pinch together as he stares at the manila envelope taped to the back. “The fuck?”
“The pennies marked the spot.” I tear it from the portrait and, without caring to ask if I can, open it.
“What is it?” he asks, leaning over the sheets I pull from it.
“‘It’s been confirmed that the body found last week near the bank of Lake Michigan belongs to Stephen Black,’” I read from the copy of the newspaper article dated October 18, 2009.
Luca points to the date. “That’s the year that all the pennies placed on the bodies were minted. All except Tony’s. Is there anything about 2006 in there?”
Handing him the article, I begin to go over the other sheets. They’re mostly stories related to the death. But among them, there are also statements given during interrogations.
“Oh my God,” I whisper when I realize what I’ve got.
“What?” Luca looks up from the paper.
“Check out the list of names of the men believed to be involved. They were turned in by an anonymous source. Francesco Gianni, Giuseppe Tadesco, Bryan McKenzie, Sergio Ramos, Clive Maxton, Sean Murphy.”
He snatches the list from my hand. “Shit. Some of these families have been targeted. Maxton and Murphy…” He shakes his head. “I haven’t heard anything regarding them.”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t be,” I say. “What if they were involved? What if they somehow all came together to kill this one man?”
“Why would they do that?”
I shrug. “You tell me.”
“A common enemy,” he whispers, more to himself than to me, but I nod in agreement nonetheless. “The Sinacores are not on here.”
He rubs the scruff on his chin as he frowns thoughtfully.
“You said the woman made it clear she wasn’t there for you.”
“Not for me. My uncle. Why would they go after him, then?”
“Maybe it’s personal with him,” I offer.
“What else is in there?” he demands and goes to sit behind his desk.
I bristle because he’s suddenly treating me like one of his men, ordering me to do his dirty work. But I’m too intrigued to argue the point.
Sitting across from him, I begin to dig. And boy is there a lot of dirt to go through.
The FBI had to be brought in because they were crossing state lines. But according to the transcript recorded by the two lead detectives on the case, they all had the same answer as to why they’d been in Chicago at the same time. A neighborhood watch convention.
If the police found this to be suspicious—and how could they not?—it didn’t matter. The case was closed by the prosecutor and ordered sealed by a Judge Marin.
“Wow, they really didn’t want this to get out,” I note.
“The name Marin sounds familiar to me,” Luca says.
I tap my fingernails on the desk. “Do you have any techy guys on your team?”
“What?”
“A hacker. Someone who can access that sealed file. I doubt the judge or prosecutors will talk unless you can get something on them. But if we can figure out who the lead detectives were, we might be able to question them. In fact, they might be eager to see the case properly closed.”
He nods. “I have someone.”
