“What do we know about the wife?” Walters asked.
“Not enough yet, but it’s time to find out her deal.”
“That’s where I’d start. This was a long way from a drug deal gone bad.”
“Yeah, it was well planned and executed. Thanks for hanging in there with me.”
“No problem. I’ll put all the relevant footage on a thumb drive for you.”
“Perfect.”
“Let me know what you find out. I’m invested.”
“Will do.”
Freddie headed downstairs to the Homicide pit, which was empty except for Carlucci and Dominguez, who’d arrived for the overnight shift.
“What’re you still doing here?” Carlucci asked.
Dani Carlucci was tall, blonde, blue-eyed and fit, while her partner, Gigi Dominguez, was petite and dark-haired with soft brown eyes and light brown skin. They made for a formidable team as detectives, and even though Freddie wanted to dig into the new info himself, he decided to turn it over to them so he could get some sleep.
“You think his wife in Washington state set him up to be bumped off while he was on a business trip to DC?” Dani asked skeptically.
“It’s a theory. Maybe she’d discovered he was using again and decided he’d be worth more dead to her than alive. Let’s look at their financials and find out if he has life insurance.”
“We’ll get on it,” Dani said.
“I’m going to head home. I’ll be back at zero seven hundred.”
“See you then.”
Eager to get home to his wife after missing all day Sunday together, Freddie headed out to the used pickup truck he’d bought from a friend to hold him over until he found something worthy of replacing his beloved old Mustang that had finally died. He missed that stupid car and was thinking about the Nova he’d seen online that he wanted to check out when someone stepped out of the shadows created by the parking lot lights.
Freddie’s hand immediately went to his weapon.
Chapter Seventeen
The man held up his hands to show he was unarmed. “I mean you no harm.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re the first lady’s partner, right?”
“So what?”
“You need to tell her… This thing with her nephew… It’s a big deal. Mayfield is a big-time trafficker. He uses his kid to get to others. Check other missing-persons cases, the less-high-profile ones. You can tie some of them back to Mayfield and his organization.”
“Can you come inside and talk?”
He shook his head. “I’ve risked my neck by coming here. Dig deep into Mayfield. That’s all I can say.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nah, doesn’t matter. The info is solid.”
He took off as fast as he’d appeared, disappearing into the ether as Freddie stood there for a second, processing what he’d said. He thought about calling Sam but decided against it because he hoped she was getting some much-needed sleep. Instead, he called Malone.
“Yeah.”
