“Mitch, I—”
“Please.”
Tucker was an office agent, but from his desk he moved field agents around like a master chess player. He was well liked, highly respected, and known for his liberal use of blue language, which he utilized now before sighing with resignation. “Hold on.”
Mitch heard him tell someone that he needed to take thecall but that he would be right back. The background noise receded. On the phone again, he cut to the chase. “How much do you already know?”
“Table scraps. Only that the discovery wasn’t pretty.”
“Pretty fucking gruesome,” Tucker said.
“It’s the SO’s jurisdiction, but Darcy called our department seeking help to identify the bodies. Bowie dispatched two detectives. They came back and gave us the skinny as they knew it, which was precious little.”
“Well, the male vic was one Paul Adler. Our agents recognized him by photos from the scene.”
“Your guys recognized him by a photo alone?”
“Wasn’t a challenge. He was well known to them. Sneaky as a sewer rat and twice as filthy.”
“What about the female?”
“No name yet. Young. Sixteen, seventeen. Probably a runaway. Their landlady said she’d been shacking with Adler for a couple of months.”
Mitch glanced around. Gus was at the tap drawing beers for a pair of tired-looking construction-worker types who’d come in. The day-drinkers were nursing their neat drinks, seemingly oblivious to Mitch, to everything.
Even so, he spoke in an undertone. “Jim, was this Paul Adler one of Oz’s?”
“You know I can’t divulge—”
“Of course you can. It’s me.”
After a brief pause, Tucker said under his breath, “Likely one of Oz’s. But a no-class street hustler like Adler would’ve been near to or at the bottom of Oz’s chain.”
Mitch said, “But he ranked high enough to warrant Roland Malone taking care of him.” Tucker was too smart to take thebait. He didn’t respond; Mitch had to goose him. “A garrote? Probably wire? Come on, Jim. Remember you’re the one who first tipped me to this asshole Malone.”
That conversation had taken place six months ago on a slow day at police headquarters. Finding himself sitting idle and trying to stir up business, Mitch had called Tucker to see if there had been any leads on the investigation into the murder of his colleague, Randy Nelson. At that point in time, the case had been cold for over two years.
The consensus was that Nelson’s murder had been payback for a successful drug bust that had yielded a huge harvest of cocaine, fentanyl, and Oxy. You name it, the DEA and affiliated agencies had scored big, largely due to the undercover work of Randy Nelson and, in conjunction with him, Mitch Haskell.
Somehow—probably no one would ever know how—Nelson had been found out. The agency was certain that his murder had been a contract hit intended to make an impression that would discourage anyone else from interfering with Oz’s lucrative enterprise.
On that slow day when Mitch had asked about a new lead, Tucker had hedged, but eventually agreed to meet Mitch for coffee. After ten minutes of more hem-hawing, he’d relented and told him about Roland Malone.
“He owns and operates an Italian restaurant on Esplanade. I checked it out. Delicious food. Classy place. But it’s a front. He’s high up in the trade, hand in glove with Oz.”
“How’d you get on to him?”
“From a traitor who shall remain nameless.”
“Jim.”
“Nameless, Mitch. We have the snitch on about twelve felony counts, including conspiracy on a hit. We applied enormouspressure, he became cooperative, and then completely turned. He’s tucked away, in the protective custody of US marshals, and will be an important witness in court.Ifwe ever get Malone indicted.”
“How close are you?”
“How far’s the moon? We can’t build a case on this felon’s word alone, and if we tried to get an indictment without something substantive in our back pocket—”
“You’d be tipping your hand to Malone.”
