Rogers then examined the unconscious man on the table. The vital signs monitor displayed a heart rate that was slow, blood pressure that was low, and a respiration rate that was concerning. While he examined the man, Burke opened thefingerprint app on his phone and pressed each of the man’s digits to the screen to capture his prints.
“What drugs was he given?” Rogers asked.
“We’re not answering a single question until you identify yourselves,” Tom Butler said.
“We’re the people with the guns. We’re the people who Valerie called in for help as a domestic violence victim,” Burke said. “She claimed she feared for her life from her husband and that he was a member of a private militia.” He pointed towards the back hallway and the storeroom they’d been in. “Based on what we saw in that storeroom, I think the last part is true.”
Tom didn’t look surprised by what he heard, and Valerie didn’t look as though she was being exposed, nor did she look frightened.
“That’s what I thought,” Burke said. His gaze focused on Valerie. “Why the false report and request for help?”
“We need to find someone who completed the form for help this past April,” Valerie said after trading a long stare with her husband, where a silent conversation was taking place.
“And who was that?” Burke asked.
“It was a woman and two men who showed up in April, and none of you fit their descriptions,” Valerie said.
“That would have been our colleagues,” Wilson said.
“A younger woman and two older men, one Hispanic, the other with very gray hair,” Valerie said.
Burke knew she meant Briana Woods, and Bravo Team’s Tommy ‘Louisa’ Flores and Eddie ‘Needles’ Winston, as they worked several of these cases together in that timeframe. “Who was it and why do you need to find this person?” Burke asked.
“Her name was Jessica Rosenthal. I don’t know what name she’s going by since she fled Detroit or where she is now. She’s the daughter of a very good friend of mine, a friend who recently passed away. I need to let her daughter know her mom died,” Valerie stated. “I promised her mother I would.”
“We’ll take all the info on her in just a second. But first, is there anyone else in this warehouse?” Wilson asked.
“No,” Tom said.
Wilson nodded to Burke and Tessman. “Thoroughly check the place out.” Then his gaze went back to Tom Butler. “If you’re lying, you just lost any goodwill you may have gotten from us.”
“There’s no one else here. I give you my word,” Tom said.
As Burke and Tessman turned away from the treatment room, they heard Rogers again ask, “What drug was this man given and how long has he been unconscious? His vitals don’t look good.” It also came through their comms.
“We’re monitoring him,” Tom said. “It was a cocktail of klonopin and fentanyl, and he had an adverse reaction to it.”
“Why was he drugged? And who is he?” Wilson asked.
Tom and Valerie exchanged a long stare again.
“Jesus Christ, you either spill it all or you get no latitude from us whatsoever,” Wilson snapped. “His prints will come back, and we’ll know who he is.”
“You still haven’t identified yourselves,” Tom pointed out.
“That’s right, and we’re not going to either until you provide some answers,” Wilson pushed back. “Right now, just remember that we’re the ones with the guns and waning patience.”
It didn’t take long for Burke and Tessman to check out every inch of the warehouse. The closed doors in the back hallway were also storerooms. In one of them, they found a crate of automatic weapons, M4 carbines. Burke transmitted through comms what they’d found.
What they didn’t find was anyone else in the warehouse. The Butlers had told the truth about that. They weren’t answering any other questions, though. Tom Butler defiantly answered questions with questions.
Burke and Tessman rejoined the others.
Wilson nodded to them.
“Nice M4s, look brand new in their shipping crates,” Burke said, motioning to the back hallway. He held his phone up. “The serial numbers and the UID, that’s the Unique Identification barcode, if you’re not aware, will let us track exactly where they came from. This just crossed into a whole different level of serious shit you’re in. Finding this Jessica Rosenthal is the least of your worries.”
Valerie Butler closed her eyes and her lips quivered. “He’s my son,” she said after a few quiet moments. She reopened her tear-filled eyes and stared at the man lying on the exam table. “His father is the leader of a prepper group, and he is involved with a three-state private militia. They’re dangerous. I am afraid of him, of them. I only lied that he was my husband.”
