He could tell he was calculating.
“You’ve been following me for years, and here I have a stalker killer. You have a bone to pick with me, and I have no idea why. I think you need to fess up before I do at a makeshift press conference.”
He had no choice.
“I have been getting leads.”
“From?”
“I don’t know. Someone has been leaving tips in my mailbox about where to look and who to look for regarding this case.”
She didn’t speak.
“I got this,” he said, pulling the paper out of his pocket. “I found it about an hour ago.”
She pulled gloves out of her pocket.
‘Suzie Golden.’
“And at no time did you think maybe you should contact us and let us know you were dealing with love notes from a serial killer?” she asked.
“Uh, my job is to report, and yours is to catch.”
“Well, I caught you. Why is your blood there?”
“I got the last note with the message ‘head behind ‘McCory’s’. I got there, saw her, and I wanted a better shot for the paper.”
She stared at him.
“So I broke in, climbed in the window, got shots of her hanging from above, and then called it in. All I knew was others called, too, so I hightailed it out of the building.”
“And how do I know it’s true?”
He pulled out his phone and handed it to her.
She scrolled through the pictures.
“All this tells me is you like to take pictures and hang up the girl. You could be the killer.”
“Check my call to nine-one-one. I called it in and I used my name. Why would I do that if I was a killer?”
Okay, he had a point.
“You screwed me over with that bottle story, and I was still honest with you.”
“And?”
“Help a guy out. I have to redeem myself.”
Elizabeth handed Ethan his phone. “He broke into a building, took pictures, and likely destroyed evidence. I think he’s going to be arrested.”
“WHAT?”
She didn’t even smile.
“You played the game, Alex. Oh, you’ll be out in a few hours, but until then, you’re going to pay the price. You bribed a city worker for details too. Ouch!”
He moved toward her, ready to hit her. Ivan was there first, and he leveled the man.
“You don’t hit girls.”
Then he looked over at Elizabeth.
“Well, one’s playing ones.”
She laughed as she stared at the man out cold on the ground.
“Thanks, Ivan. Detective, here you go. Book him,” she said, stepping back.
“That was awesome,” he said.
Yeah, but it didn’t get her any answers, and still there were a few out there.
Who was ‘The Puppet Master’?
Why was he playing this game?
And would she catch him?
Before it was too late.
Chapter Sixteen
Tuesday Afternoon
A s the team did the legwork, Elizabeth and her husbands headed toward the courthouse. Since they knew the woman’s home was under control and in Christina’s capable hands, they were heading to the judge’s workplace to deal with anyone who knew her.
When they arrived, they saw the very familiar man’s car. Tailing them.
“Come on!” she said, feeling the irrational need to slap the shit out of a cop.
She pointed at her husband and then the cop’s ride.
“If you love me, you’ll call the commissioner, and you’ll get him to pull his pain in the ass off this case. I’m working with the detective. I’m following the rules. Why are the jackassery Gods cursing me with more than my share?”
He laughed. “Okay, breathe. I’ll handle it for you, okay?” he said, pulling out his phone.
As Ethan talked, she was getting more and more irritated. Callen figured it was a good time to change the subject.
“Ethan’s birthday is coming up. I want to get him something special.”
She glanced over.
“Are you trying to distract me?” she asked, staring him down.
“Absolutely. I don’t want you having a stroke. The kids need their mother, and you’re getting red.”
The mentioning of her children calmed her right down.
Speaking of which…
“Did Dad get home?”
“I can check,” he asked. “I know he was taking a cab to the airport. Ethan hooked him up with the jet. Gabe needed it back for a trip.”
She was good with that.
“We just may be flying the very public friendly skies home.”
That would be amusing. All of them on a flight?
“Yeah, the women will be tossing their bag of nuts at you to get your attention.”
He laughed.
“About Ethan’s gift.”
“Don’t ask me. I was going to ask you. He’s so hard to shop for anymore.”
“We should do something fun.”
“Like what?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you, Elizabeth.”
Ethan headed their way and they stopped discussing it. She was clueless what to get the man who had everything.
“Well, here’s a little tricky mess,” he said. “The commissioner told his detective to back off.”
“Clearly, he’s not.”
“No, he’s not because he took vacation time. We can’t get rid of him. The commissioner said he’d call him, but…”
“Then I can put my fist through his skull,” she said. “Then I can pull out that peanut he has for a brain and shuck it.”
Both men stared at her.
That was quite the picture.
“Or you can ignore him, which will likely make him more insane.”
Okay, she could do that.
She guessed.
They headed toward the courthouse, and they found him taking notes and talking to some people.
Elizabeth walked right over to him and snatched his notebook away. She was out of his reach before he could even do anything about it.
“What the fuck?”
She stared at him.
“I could ask you the same since your boss told you not to be here. In fact, when we called him, you were called off this case.”
Ethan added, “Because you’re letting it get personal.”
Elizabeth tossed his notebook into the fountain not far away.
“Oops. My bad.”
He went bright red.
“Listen, Detective. You’ve been trying to manhandle me since the first day. You need to back off. I have an investigation to run. For someone who couldn’t help dropping his DNA all over the scene when he leaned and stood in it, you’re certainly hell bent on actively working this case.”
“I don’t think you can do it.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“A woman has her place, and being an investigator isn’t one of them.” he said.
Both men cringed, and then prayed that Elizabeth didn’t flip her shit and kick his ass.
It was going to be close.
“Yeah, well, we all have our opinions. I think that you have very tiny hands and feet. Your dick must be about this big,” she said, holding up her fingers. “That must make it interesting with the missus.”
The man snapped.
They all saw it coming.
If you wanted to really push a man over the edge, all you had to do was insult the size of a man’s junk.
It worked every time.
Tom Nealson rushed her, grabbing her around the throat. Only, she didn’t fight him.
Ethan and Callen pulled him off of her.
“And that’s assaulting a Fed. It looks like you’re going to jail. Call for the police. I’m filing a report against him.”
Callen pulled his cuffs.
“Did he hurt you?” Ethan asked, trying to stay calm. He knew what his wife was doing, but st
ill…
She was the mother of their children.
“I’m good,” she said. “I will get a chance to interview this asshole, so while I’m doing my questioning of these people, run him. I want to know everything. This killer is playing a game, and I want to know why Tom Nealson has a big old hard on over me being on this case.”
Ethan could do that.
As a cop took the man away, Ethan headed out with him. He left behind Heath and Ivan, but took Rory. If his wife was going to get into a fist fight, he wanted the biggest guns with her—just in case.
As he left, she pointed at the one woman.
“Were you discussing the case with that detective?” and she used the term loosely. He couldn’t detect if a light bulb worked.
“Yes.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Morgan Lyter. I worked with Judge Golden.”
Callen began taking notes.
“What happened?”
“She was coming in later today, since we had a late court hearing. She likes to be in about an hour before so she can review the dockets. She’s a hands-on judge.”
“And who are you?” she asked, pointing at the man in the suit.
“I’m Brent Stanton. I’m the attorney who was up first for the judge. She asked to see me before the trial began—something about my request, so I showed up early.”
“And?”
“I waited for her. I asked Morgan what the hell was going on, and she sent a cop to her house when she didn’t answer her phone. Judge Golden has been doing this a long time,” he offered. “And she never misses an appointment.”
“Yeah, she’s never late, she never misses court, and I’ve seen her come in with the flu when we couldn’t get a pending on a case. I knew it had to be bad.”
Elizabeth listened to them.
Then she had to ask, and she was pretty sure it was going to be a big, fat, no.
“Was anyone bothering her?”
“No. She would have told me,” Morgan said. “I handled everything for her from calling to make sure her dog went to the groomers, to her laundry being ready at the cleaners.”
Speaking of which…
“Did she have any hired help at the house?”
“Just a local maid that came in every other day to do the light work. She pretty much cleaned her own space. Judge Golden liked to be in control of her environment, and she made sure she micromanaged everything.”
“What kind of judge was she?”
“Tough. She tried everything from mob to murder. She didn’t take shit from anyone. I’ve seen grown men cry when she hands down the sentence.”
Elizabeth asked where her office was.
“I can take you,” Morgan stated. “Did you really find blood at her house?”
“Yeah, but no dog.”
“Today is the groomer’s day. She has a pet sitter come. Felix would go out the doggie door in the back and Leslie would take him to the groomers for the judge.”
“What time?” she asked, as she followed the woman.
“The pet sitter would come around six forty. The standing appointment for Felix is seven in the morning.”
Callen kept making notes.
They headed up the marble stairs in the courthouse, and they stopped at an office. There was a nameplate on the door.
“Here we are,” she said. “Please, ma’am, you’ll find her, right?”
“Yes, we will.”
Yeah, but would she be dead or alive?
That was going to be the question.
“We’re going to look around. Can you wait out here?” she asked.
“But…”
Elizabeth pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. The woman got it.
“You’re going to treat it as a crime scene?”
“More like we’re going to look around for anything that’s out of place. Stay right here.”
The woman did what she was asked to do.
Elizabeth and Callen moved around the woman’s office. They looked in her desk and on the shelves. They found her planner. She’d scribbled in court cases.
Her dog’s groomer.
Her nails.
It all looked normal.
As she was rustling through the woman’s things, Callen found something.
“You’re going to want to see this,” he said, getting her attention.
She headed his way.
Callen was staring at some photos on the shelf.
When she got there, he pointed at one in particular one.
“Is that…?” she asked.
“Yeah, she’s with the congressman and his daughter. They knew each other.”
Finally, she’d found her first real solid link outside that bar.
That was a start.
Now they were going to build from there.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Hotel
Two Hours Later
They were digging.
They needed to find a way to connect all the people, and it wasn’t going well.
“Anything?” Brody asked, getting frustrated.
“Nothing,” Johanna stated.
“I can connect Lucy and Kellie to an arrest that was made once. They were both picked up for hooking.”
“Where?” asked Max as he logged into his account to pull up the arrest records. He was glad he could drop the reporter off and still get back to the team.
“They were tagged about three blocks from the pub at some hotel. They both have the date on their records. I don’t see an arresting officer. It must have been one of those stings,” Blue stated.
Max began typing.
“It was a while ago,” he stated. “Lucy didn’t look that old,” he offered.
“Whoring must be the fountain of youth,” Joey stated.
Then she pointed at her husband before he could make a comment.
“Divorce is hard when you only have one good leg.”
He laughed.
“Uh oh,” the cop beside him stated.
“What?” Johanna said. “What did you find?”
“I have the cop who arrested those two women. You’re not going to believe it.”
He turned his laptop around.
“Was it Detective Nealson?” Blue asked. “He’s riding tail on this one. He’d be the perfect suspect for this killing. He hates women—well, Elizabeth.”
“No, it was Detective Patrick O’Brien.”
They didn’t get it.
In fact, they stared at him.
“Who is that?”
“He’s now the police captain of homicide, and we can tie him to two people.”
Blue began Googling.
She searched his name and all of the victims.
When her laptop beeped, she pulled up the information. “I can tie him to the judge. Here he is at a function beside her. They are both smiling.”
She showed them the local paper’s story that they’d run on the gala.
Well, that was inconvenient for him.
The man was a line connecting three people.
That was likely not a coincidence.
“The boss wanted anything we found, so we have to call her and give her the heads-up. She’s going to want to know about this guy.”
Johanna pulled out her phone.
She sent a simple text.
Then she pointed. “Now let’s tie him to that pub. See if he’s a patron. Dig through his financials.”
They got down to work.
Their number one suspect was a cop.
The head of homicide.
This was bad.
Boston was about to blow up.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
When she got the message, they were on their way to the precinct. Her phone beeped, and she pulled it out.
“The team?” Callen asked.
“Johanna.”
She read it.
‘Boss, we found an interesting tie
. We can tie Captain Patrick O’Brien to the judge, and he arrested both Lucy and Kellie about seven years ago when he was a detective. We’re trying to tie him to the pub. We may have a cop behind this.’
Well, that both thrilled and irritated her. Now she recalled why she hated Boston. The place was filthy with cops that did illegal things.
Here was proof.
She told Callen.
He whistled.
“If you can tie him to the pub, you can question him.”
She was well aware. “While I’m doing this, we have to walk a very fine line. I’m about to question a cop, and you know that’s going to go south fast. Every cop is in there waiting for me.”
He was aware.
“I’m not letting anyone hurt you.”
She leaned over and kissed him.
“I’ll break someone’s head,” Heath stated. “I’m allowed if they touch you, Mrs. B. Mr. B said I can put lead in them or hollow them out like a cantaloupe for brunch.”
Uh, they didn’t need that.
“Heath, not in a police department. You have to be silent. Promise?”
“Okay, but if I let anyone put a scratch on you, Mr. B is NOT going to be amused. He likes you without any marks.”
Callen laughed at the look on her face.
She looked horrified.
“You realize I’m not a car, but a living, sentient human being who carries a gun around for a living.”
“You’re sweet. You don’t have a mean bone in your body. Ivan told us you’re a pussycat.”
If a pussycat had claws, a chip on its furry shoulder, and a rabid case of rabies—then, yeah, she was one of those.
“I’m going to hurt Igor the Terrible.”
Callen changed the subject to save the man’s life.
“What are we going to do?”
Here was Elizabeth’s plan to kill two birds with one stone. “I’m going to bet that Detective Dickwad is going to have his boss in there.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to interview him instead of stupid. Let Tom stew. I can’t tie him to anyone yet, but the captain…he’s mine.”
Callen knew how hard this was going to be. She wasn’t going to be questioning a criminal—that they knew—she was about to go headlong into a cop.
Discarded by Fate Page 49