Her pit was deserted when she cut through on the way to Malone’s office, where Archie was waiting to show her the video.
They had it cued up on Malone’s computer.
Sam stood behind the captain’s chair to watch the playback that showed Curtis Henderson and Sergei Ivanov walking along a well-lit path, both talking and gesturing as they went.
“Watch this,” Archie said.
Three people dressed in black materialized out of the shadows and took both men into chokeholds. One of them injected something into Curtis’s neck, while the other two grabbed Ivanov and took off in the opposite direction. The third one left an unconscious Curtis on the ground before chasing after the others.
“Do we have film from the other side of the park?” Sam asked as she buzzed with adrenaline. There was nothing better than catching murdering scumbags.
“We do.” When Archie pressed a few keys and brought the second video up on Malone’s monitor, they watched the three men load Ivanov into the back of a black SUV and drive away.
Archie zoomed in on the back of the SUV to show her a clear image of the diplomatic plate. “We traced that back to the Russian Embassy.”
“Holy shit,” Sam said. “Make it make sense, though. They grabbed Ivanov and killed him, dumped him in the street and then bombed us to get his body back. Why’d they dump him only to risk a war by setting off a bomb that killed people?”
“The only explanation I can think of,” Malone said, “is Petrov ordered him killed but didn’t give clear instructions about the body. The goons dumped him, thinking that’s what he’d want, and freaked out when they found out otherwise, and plotted the bombing to get him back.”
“So they were never supposed to dump him, and once they did, that opened up a whole other can of worms,” Sam said.
Malone nodded. “Exactly. The Kremlin probably flipped out about losing custody of the body that could be used to further undermine Petrov’s regime and ordered them to get it back. Apparently, they didn’t specifically say not to bomb MPD headquarters.”
“What do we have on how they killed him?”
“The theory is some sort of poison,” Malone said, “but we haven’t gotten anything conclusive on that yet.”
“What do we do with this theory of ours?” Sam asked.
“I did some research on that very question and found that we should turn over everything we’ve got to the Diplomatic Security Service at State and the Office of International Affairs at Justice,” Malone said. “Apparently, the president negotiated with Petrov to waive any immunity in the bombing portion so the perpetrators can be prosecuted here, which takes the temperature down substantially. I’m not sure what they’ll do about Sergei’s murderers, but that’s not our problem since we can prove the Russians did it.”
“I love how you speak of the president like he isn’t her husband,” Archie said with a grin.
“How else should I talk about him?” Malone asked.
“Just like that,” Sam said. “So that’s it? Off our plates?”
“That’s it,” Malone said. “Great work to both your teams in getting to the facts of the case, which we can now present to our federal partners for next steps, and they can figure out exactly how Ivanov was killed.”
“Is it okay to say that sometimes I like it when we have to involve the Feds?” Sam asked.
Archie laughed. “My thoughts exactly.”
“My mother used to love to give us stuff from her house,” Malone said. “She’d say, ‘Out of my house and into yours,’ every time. Became a joke between her, me and Val, who wanted nothing to do with any of it.”
“That’s funny,” Sam said. “I’m with Val on that one. We’ve all got enough of our own crap.”
“That’s what we said, too. So, let’s send this case, locked and loaded, out of our house and into theirs.”
“We’ll get the reports taken care of tomorrow.” Sam took a look around. “Did we just close two cases, or is that my imagination?”
“I believe we just closed two cases,” Malone said.
“Hot damn!” Sam wished she’d gone on the trip with Nick. “I’m going home.”
“Before you go,” Malone said, “do you want to give Thelma Robinson the news that she’ll be charged with a misdemeanor count of failure to report a crime and released?”
“I’d love to tell her that, plus let her know that Louis will be charged with first-degree murder.”
