The Leon Valley PD wasn’t equipped for murder cases. It was too small, too quiet, too normal for the level of violence they were dealing with. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Someone down the hall coughed. The coffee had been sitting too long and tasted bitter.
Coop sat at a borrowed desk, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened. The evidence bag near his elbow demanded attention he wasn’t ready to give it yet. He picked up the phone and dialed Andrew Sutton, the Rangers’ senior financial investigator. He picked up on the second ring.
“Financial crimes. Sutton, here.”
“I hope you’ve got something I can use.”
A quiet pause followed, then— “I’m good too, Coop. Wife’s good. Little Eva turned three months yesterday. Thanks for asking.”
Coop rubbed a hand down his face. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep.”
“I mentioned she’s three months old, right?”
A short breath escaped him, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. Congratulations. So, what’ve you got?”
Paper shuffled on the other end.
“Wilson skimmed two-fifty from escrow over the last year. Slow bleed. Nobody noticed until an external audit.”
“Where to? A personal account?”
“Yeah. Monthly transfers. Same day every month. Same amount, but it didn’t stay there long. Then they stopped about three months ago.”
Coop straightened. “He got behind.”
“That’s my guess,” Sutton replied. “Now, the burning question. Who does he owe?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
The door opened. O’Reilly walked in with two cups of coffee. He immediately clocked the paper-wrapped box in the bag.
“What’s that?”
Coop covered the receiver. “Evidence.”
“You’re not going to open it?”
“Eventually.”
O’Reilly set a cup in front of him, muttering, “That’s not ominous at all.”
Coop grabbed gloves from the desk drawer.
Sutton kept talking in his ear. “We’re tracing the transfer accounts. They’re bouncing between intermediaries and are hard to pin down. Not impossible, but it’s going to take time.”
O’Reilly unzipped the bag. Paper crackled.
“Whoever’s behind it knows how to bury money,” Sutton added.
Coop split his attention, half listening, half watching his partner.
The twine fell away. The contents shifted, sounding wet and heavy, as O’Reilly pried open the lid.
The smell hit Coop a second later: copper, rot, and something sweet gone bad.
“Jesus Christ!” O’Reilly shot upright, his chair slamming into the file cabinet.
Sutton heard the bang. Hard not to. “What was that?”
