Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (18 page)

“But the son wouldn’t have agreed if he didn’t know there was a possibility.”

“That’s my take on it too. Very few men, no matter how responsible they might be, are anxious to claim the kid that belongs to another guy, especially if the woman is married. She’d slept with him and there’s obviously a chance it is his.”

Uneasy now, Ellie shook her head. “Can we define just what family we might be talking about here?” There was some big money in Milwaukee. There was big money in any city of its size.

“Henley.”

Ellie took in a breath. “All right. Wow. Henley. Grasso’s source said something about drug money filtering through their corporation.”

Santiago grinned in that cocky way he had, like life was one big joke and they weren’t talking about murder. “This isn’t my investigation, or even my guess, but it is kind of intriguing, right? I feel positive in the great United States of America no one has used liquor stores as money laundering to further a criminal cause.”

Ellie held up her hands palm forward, all ten fingers spread. “Give me a minute. Okay. So Danni Crawford thought that Fielding’s wife had an association with … what’s his name?”

“Garrison.”

“Garrison Henley. She’s pregnant with his child when she marries Officer Fielding, and
he
thinks the baby is his, but Garrison also thinks he might be the father and at first agrees to have a test, then says no. Then he has her husband killed? I’m pretty confused on that point. What does that accomplish?”

“Close, but no cigar, Detective.”

He needed to work on his happy face. It just made her want to kick him.

Testily, she said, “I’m sitting right here if you’d care to clarify.”

“It sure could be why Fielding, if he was feeling some pressure, called the DEA. He was trying to get Garrison Henley to keep his word. What if that backfired and just ticked the Henleys off?”

Okay, she could buy that … though she actually had never heard of a link between the Henley family and organized crime and wasn’t positive Grasso’s one source was pure gold, but it wasn’t her area of expertise either. “Please tie it to Chad Brown and Danni Crawford, and I’m in.”

Her partner smiled again in a lazy way, but there was nothing casual about the look in his azure eyes. “Chad confided Fielding had told him that the Henley fortune was not solely based on fine whiskey and wine coolers. Suddenly the name Henley is tied to two deaths, and it looks like they went after her too.”

“That is weak.”

“But it is a connection, right?”

He had a point. Fielding and Henley, Brown and the Henley family business, Crawford and Brown. She admitted, “It’s interesting. Any facts to back this up? Proof is always so nice when you try to run an investigation.”

He shook his head, his blond curls as disheveled as usual. “We have hearsay, and that’s it. So now what do we do? Share with the detectives assigned to the first two murders? This is a sort of buyer beware situation. If Hamish and Rays start poking around…”

“… three cops have already been killed,” she finished for him, her voice somber. “The alternative is to poke around ourselves, and that sounds a little dangerous if we have no idea what we are really dealing with—”

The sound of the explosion ripped through the building.

It was startlingly loud, and before Ellie could even react, her partner had jumped from his chair and knocked her not too gently off the couch, covering her body with his. He said through his teeth, his face inches away, “What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know,” she responded curtly, at the last minute remembering his injuries before she shoved him off, hearing car alarms going off
everywhere
. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

“Sorry.” He stood up and one hand went to his chest. In the hallway outside, people were shouting, and she didn’t know about him, but her ears were ringing.

She scrambled to her feet, her hand going reflexively to her Glock, pulling it out. “I’ll go look. You sit down. You’ve gone pretty pale.”

He was definitely white under what was left of a decent summer tan but he shook his head.

“I’ll go with you. For all I know someone is about to come through that door. The last person I had dinner with is dead.”

He had a point there.

For punch, he added, “The Henleys live about two doors down from Grasso, just in case you are still wondering why I kept my mouth shut in front of him.”

Chapter 17

No one knew.

That was the hardest thing to accept.

Human life reduced to a simple equation of loss and acceptance.

But life wasn’t simple. He understood that so very well; more than most. So he mourned, not with others, but with her.

Because so few questioned her absence and he wondered about himself.

Were he gone, would they believe just any story?

It was all too easy.

*   *   *

“Police officers.”

He and MacIntosh edged by some confused people in the hallway, all of them alarmed by the sight of their drawn weapons. Fire trucks were on the way already, he could hear the sirens.

It took about two seconds to figure it out once they burst out the doors into the parking lot.

His car
.

The spots weren’t assigned but out of habit he always parked in the same place, and other people in the building fell into the same routine, so that there was a natural ebb and flow of those who went to office jobs, took kids to school, and worked other schedules …

But hell … his
car.

That cherry Mustang he’d sunk a lot of money into, and really was about all he owned that mattered to him, and …
fuck
.

The driver-side door was on the sidewalk right in front of them, so in case he hadn’t known exactly where it was parked, he would still be aware that he was the one targeted.

For the first time since he’d signed the lease, he was sorry he’d decided to move into a family friendly building. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know he didn’t exactly fit in, but at this particular moment, it hit home how much he
didn’t
fit in. His presence had put everyone in danger.

“Better stay inside,” he said grimly to a few people who had followed them out and were staring in horrified fascination at the smoldering shell of his vehicle. “I feel confident we are going to have officers and the bomb squad swarming all over this parking lot in minutes.” He turned to Ellie, who stood silent, weapon now lowered. “I think someone did hear I had dinner with Danni Crawford. How about you?”

“I’m sorry … your car.” It sounded like she understood his sense of loss and violation.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too, those sons of bitches.” With an inner fury he surveyed the blasted bits littering the parking lot, the shell still smoking. The acrid smell of burned plastic hung like a pall. “I wonder how insurance companies deal with car bombs. Maybe I should call Ireland and find out.”

“At least you weren’t in it.”

“If you tell me there’s a bright side to everything, I might say something very ungentlemanly, MacIntosh.”

Her delicate eyebrows went up. “No. You? I’m still waiting for you to
say
something gentlemanly in the first place.”

Her phone started to ring and she answered it before he could reply, which could be just as well.

The cars next to his were both badly damaged and the light pole was slightly bent, like a drunken person trying to stay upright, which told him something about the blast.

The first rescue vehicle pulled into the parking lot a minute later, the tires loud on the pavement. MacIntosh was still talking, her weapon holstered, blond head bent. The fire trucks were right behind, three of them, screaming in, and all he could think as he stood there was
how the hell did this happen?

She echoed it exactly as she ended the call. “How the hell did this happen?”

“Look, I don’t want to scare the shit out of you or anything, but you just read my mind.” Jason took her elbow and pulled her down the sidewalk. “I’m trying to process and analyze this as we stand here, vulnerable and in the open, and it makes me uneasy. Is it just a warning, or did someone want me to come out of the building? Maybe you should go stand about fifty feet away from me and watch what everyone else does.”

“Maybe you should—”

Testily, he pointed to a spot on the sidewalk near the edge of the parking lot. “Go stand and fucking watch. I am about to be cornered by all kinds of law enforcement because someone toasted my car. Do me a favor and just watch the crowd, okay? Someone has me on their radar, Ellie, and three cops are dead. Just get away from me.”

He never called her by her first name, so maybe his point got through. Her lips compressed mutinously, but then she did turn and walk toward where the fence for the pool began, her phone in her hand again.

He was sweating. He could feel the cling of his shirt to his chest and shoulders.

It had to be bigger than drugs. Yes, people got killed over drugs, by drugs, and because of drugs, all the time. Bad news all around. But this wasn’t the same scenario.

This just smelled bad, and it wasn’t just the fried odor of his expensive seats that he’d paid a fortune to have replicated to original condition.

Jason walked toward the fire truck that was currently putting out the few remaining flames and was immediately stopped. He flashed his badge. “I’m Detective Santiago … and that”—he pointed—“is my car.”

The young man who was holding the perimeter was maybe twenty-two, in full gear, and his eyes were alight like he was a five-year-old on Christmas morning. “Holy shit. Really? Too bad. Nice ride.”

“It was. I’d cry but it might give the bad guys the edge. We have a bomb squad on the way?”

“I think, sir, this is going to be an interesting scene. I answer to only my command and don’t know, but my guess is there are going to be lots of folks arriving soon.”

That was probably accurate.

He really wished he hadn’t left his favorite pairs of flip-flops in the back of the Mustang, but compared to the cost of the car, it wasn’t too much of a loss. Still, for whatever reason he was pretty ticked off by the flip-flops.

He slowly walked around the perimeter of the scene, aware of everything. Aware his ribs ached, aware of the chaos in general when something like this needed to be contained, aware that he had really gotten the message, loud and clear.

Worried this was like a disease … Fielding had been infected and he’d spread it to Chad, who had given in to Danni … it looked now like he had it.

This very morning he’d still been bored and dissatisfied with life.

He wasn’t bored now.

Taking out his phone he called a private number he had but had never, ever used.

“Yes?”

“I think,” Jason said to the person who answered, looking at the smoking remains of his car. “Chief, we have a really big problem.”

*   *   *

“A timer.” Metzger
paced up the sidewalk like he visited a scene every day—which he didn’t, not any longer. Just the really bad ones, so his presence really meant something. “That means they didn’t care who might be nearby. Our guys are trying to see if it is a signature piece they can finger to someone they know, but they said at first glance it was just a simple bomb set to go off at a certain time.”

“I’m not cleared yet to drive,” Santiago said, looking remarkably calm in Ellie’s opinion. She was still a little in shock he was taking it all so well.

“Then how the hell did you get to Crawford’s house?” Metzger immediately shook his head. “Let’s pretend I don’t know that, okay? Let me rephrase. Then why would someone blow up your car? Which either means that the person who did it is your best friend and didn’t try to kill you, just sent a message, or that he blew up your car not caring if you were going to be in it or not, and is your worst enemy. Can’t be both.” The chief looked up at the apartment building. “Lots of kids in this building, right? That’s a tragedy we barely avoided.”

That part of it was really disturbing.

Metzger turned and looked out over the chaos. The colored lights slid across his face in blinking patterns. “Santiago, I think you two should disappear for a few days until we figure this out here. I have some calls to make and I want to talk to the FBI. MacIntosh will be point. Right now you are no more than a potential witness.”

“What?” Ellie said the word out loud, but she’d really not meant to do so.

The chief of the Milwaukee Police Department gave her a level look. “That’s an order. Get out of town. Both of you. Obviously, Santiago can’t drive off into the sunset for two reasons; no car and he isn’t quite ready to assume full duty either. He’s targeted, and he’s your partner, and you were here. Consider yourself his protection detail. If they blew up his car because he was seen with Crawford, then I assume you were just seen with him.”

No
.

Ellie found her voice. “
You
were just seen with both of us, sir.”

“I’ll cover my ass, Detective, you can count on it.” He hesitated and then shook his head. “This doesn’t feel like organized crime to me. I once was a pretty damn good marine and if I can say so, a good detective. This is like guerrilla warfare. In and out fast, hit ’em when they don’t know it’s coming, always keep them afraid, looking over their shoulder. This isn’t New York or Chicago, but wise guys make sure you get the message. Unless the message here is that they enjoy killing police officers, I’m not getting it. Are you? The real-deal criminals don’t want the attention of law enforcement if possible, and this is not what is happening here.”

It certainly wasn’t.

She had no idea what
was
happening, but having to go sit somewhere with Santiago and his restless habits held absolutely no appeal.

Unless … maybe this would free her up—and him, since he’d promised to help—for a little on-the-side investigation.

Those missing-person cases that might link back to the neglected grave. Jason had said he’d do it. If she had to babysit him, he’d better deliver on the promise.