Chapter Twelve
Fitz left E.J.'s house in a controlled rage. Controlled because he was headed home to Livvie, in a rage because of the information E.J had just relayed to him.
The Great Eli Pope was as dirty as the day was long. Chief Wright too.
He walked across the street to his car and quickly took off from the residence. E.J said he was to be trusted and based on the information he had shared, he would appear to be, but Fitz wasn't taking any chances especially when it came to keeping Liv safe.
She wasn't going to be happy with him …he was going to have to do something he had promised her he wouldn't do in the beginning. He was going to pull her off the case.
He got back to the apartment late.
It was funny; when Gary asked him where he was earlier in the day, he had been at his house on the Potomac so he had easily answered, he was home. As soon as he got out of E.J.'s house and headed to the apartment, he had placed another call to his field supervisor who had asked him where he was headed he responded, again easily…home.
It wasn't a difficult to figure out. Home was wherever Livvie was.
He sat out in the parking lot trying to steel himself for the scene that was about to occur. She was going to hit the roof when he told her she wasn't going to Colorado with him. Especially because he couldn't tell her why. It was a promise he had made her brother.
E.J. wanted Liv protected until he did what he needed to do. Until he finished building the case he had began months prior. A case to put their father in prison. A father they had all loved and admired for years.
Fitz felt a rush of anger as he remembered his conversation with E.J. earlier in the evening. He knew things were bad but…he hadn't imagined it was this bad...
"I found out a few years back. We had a witness in protective custody. Someone witnessed Eze going ape shit on a lower level rival. Took a baseball bat to him and beat him till there was nothing resembling a human being left on the ground. This witness saw the attack and lived to tell about it"
Fitz watched E.J. walk back to his bar and refill his glass, he lifted the bottle to ask if Fitz wanted a refill. He shook his head no
"So, this guy witnesses Eze make some guy into soup and can't live with it anymore. He could go to the cops, but he's not stupid. He knows there are too many dirty cops out there for him trust the APD. So, he gets smart and decides to go talk to an Assistant U.S attorney he had read about. This assistant attorney had actually tried to prosecute Eze and failed. Harold Pope" he turned and Fitz noticed the moisture in the mans eyes…the guilt in the sloped shoulders.
"So, Harold is of course excited and knows he needs to put this guy in Wit Sec as soon as possible. He knows not to use APD to provide protection, they are too tainted…he couldn't trust them, except for two of them. He tells the witness there are two APD officers he knows are not dirty. He would stake his life on it. He tells the witness he knows this because the two officers are his Pop and his big brother"
Fitz sighed already knowing where this was headed
"Harold calls me first and I am excited. I do everything outside of APD purview. I called an old roommate of mine and had him book a room for me in MD under his name. I used every trick in the book to hide the witness. It was bullet-proof. There were only two people who knew where that kid was going to be stashed; Pop and me. Not even Harold knew, he asked us not to tell him. We honored that request. I figured we stash him and move him every few days alternating between us. Pop would stash him one night and I would stash him the next night; neither of us telling the other where the guy was"
E.J. gulped down the rest of the liquor and headed back to the bar for a third time for a refill. Fitz didn't try and stop him. He'd be in the cups himself if Eli Pope was his father…
"Anyway, all that would happen while Harold worked with the Feds to get him into Federal Witness Protection so he could stay alive till the trial. So that night, the first night, we had the guy and Pop and I took point together to get him stashed. I am the one who drove him to the hotel. Pop however went in earlier to do a sweep through to make sure the room was how we wanted it. Near the highway, multiple exits. He even dropped off the bag of clothes we discussed. Couple of things for this guy to have with him while we moved him from location to location. I dropped him off and assured him that…that we would be there the next day to get him. "Your safe" …I told him. "Get some sleep and I will pick you up tomorrow. Don't open the door to anyone. Only me and Pop" …. then I left…I left. We never even got to the next day…I went to get him in the morning and he was…"
E.J. paused trying to check his emotions that were too close to the surface
"Let's just say Eze has a flair for the dramatic. He did the same thing to the witness…he just pulverized him. There were only two people who knew where that guy was…I would bet my life on that…the other guy was my Pop!" Fitz could fill the anger vibrating of the man.
"I knew I needed to talk to him…find out what the hell was going on…I couldn't do it at first. Harold was heartbroken. He felt so guilty. It was like he had killed the witness himself. He assumed Eze had managed to breach a file in APD or something obscure like that had happened that had caused the witnesses name to leak…but I knew different. I knew…I knew.
So, I wait a couple of days…I wasn't working up courage. I was trying to calm down so I didn't do something stupid to my old man. Anyway, I wait a couple of days and finally I confront him and of course he denies it. Starts hemming and hawing about having a fucking traitorous son who would accuse him of something so…heinous. That's the exact word he used…heinous"
E.J laughed humorlessly. He was looking at the wall, unseeing. He was trapped in the recall of the moment he found out who his father really was.
"So we go on like that for a while and I swear to god, he's actually starting to convince me that I am WRONG!..but I hold out, I don't let him break me and suddenly he changes and there is this fucking… monster standing in front of me telling me all the reasons why he did the things he had done over his illustrious career" Fitz was shocked at that piece of information
"That's right Grant. He has been dirty from the get go. Eze is just his latest…benefactor on the job. He said it was better that the witness was dead, because that meant that Harold wouldn't be prosecuting the case. If Harold tried to prosecute the case, he would have been on a list to be taken out. "So, you see E.J. it was a good thing I did…"
Fitz finally spoke "What about Bryan, is he involved?"
E.J. Shook his head violently "No he's not, you leave him and my sister the fuck alone Grant. They had no idea" Fitz held his hands up in a gesture of peace
He nodded indicating he would. It was a lie, as soon as he left E.J.'s house he was going to have Bryan Pope vetted to within an inch of his life.
"Why have you taken this long to turn him in?" Fitz asked him
E.J stood up from his chair like an eighty-year-old man. He shuffled out to the hallway and came back carrying a banker's box.
"I've been gathering evidence against him, trying to make sure the rest of the family didn't get ensnared when he went down. Trying to minimize the damage for when we all get destroyed by his deceit and lies"
He put the box down by Fitz's feet
"It's all in there. I found out where he's keeping his money. I couldn't find anything on Eze, but I located on of his old benefactors through a payment that was paid into his Cayman account a decade ago. See, one of his earlier benefactors was Barry Capizzi and he was an encyclopedia of my dirty cop, Eli Pope"
Fitz's head snapped up at the name. Barry Capizzi was a long-forgotten mobster who used to run Baltimore back in the day, but he had been brought down by a hooker with a phone that recorded conversations. It had almost been too easy.
"Well Barry is dying in federal lock-up. I went to see him on a lark and he was a treasure trove of information. He knew times and dates of every little dirty thing my dad did for him. He knew it because he kept a record of it, in his head. The guy has like a photographic memory or something…anyway I visited him for days. Writing down every little thing he told me. I cross checked everything, every little fucking detail. I even…I even…" he stopped chocked up.
"I even managed to confirm two kills. The bodies were found, in the vicinity of where my father's patrol car log said he was stationed. I managed to scare up an eye witness who remembers seeing a police car parked outside the night the two men were killed. He called in a tip, which was of course never followed up on…but I found a recording of the call, buried in the basement of APD. He gave the dispatcher the license plate number of the police car. My guess, is that they weren't too worried about cleaning up all of the evidence back then because they were running the whole bull pen at APD"
Fitz looked at the box in front of him. It was good information, it could be used to build an airtight case against a lot of bad people; but it still didn't give him Eze.
"Pull her off the case Grant. Despite my father knowing that the two of you are going after Eze …He knows his daughter is involved, but he was still feeding him information as early as last week" E.J. fists were clenched in anger
Shit thought Fitz.
"Has he told him about me and Liv...our involvement?" Fitz was almost loath to hear the answer to the question.
"No…he's still pretending to be a half-way decent father on that front. He's actually been trying to put the kibosh on the bankers meeting in Durango" Fitz tried to hide his shock but wasn't very successful. They knew about Durango! This was bad, If Eli Pope told Eze that the police knew about the Durango meeting. Well…that would be treacherous …shit!
This as bad as shit could get. The father of his partner in an undercover sting operation to bring down Eze criminal enterprises was a fucking dirty cop. A dirty cop in Eze's own freaking pocket!
He needed to get out of here, pass the information to Gary asap. they could talk next steps. He turned to E.J.
"How do you know he hasn't told Eze about Liv and me? He could have slipped him the information when you weren't looking"
"Grant, I have had the old man wired for months. I have bugs on everything…I know he's talked to him a few times and he's been casually trying to get Eze to not go forward with the Durango meet. I think that's him trying to protect Liv, since he couldn't threaten off the job"
Fitz thought for a minute "Chief Wright was on board with me having Liv assigned…hell he practically handed her to me" Fitz said thinking about that first meet
E.J. head popped up shocked "What do you mean handed her to you?"
"I went into APD and asked for a woman detective who looked good who could work with me to infiltrate Eze's gang. Chief Wright recommended Livvie" Fitz told E.J
E.J cursed under his breath "That goddamn son of a bitch!" he hurled the glass against the wall and it shattered.
"If there is anyone dirtier than my dad in this shit show, its Wright. Him and Pop had a falling out a year ago about a payment Eze made to the both of them…their squabbling like children about who should have gotten paid more for tuning over some name's to Eze. Pop won out. He got about one hundred and fifty K and Wright got seventy-five. I guess this was his payback"
Fitz thought back to the first meeting in Wright's office. The two men squaring off against each other. The dynamics had been off, he should have picked up on it…but he hadn't. He had been too busy reeling… he had just met the love of his life. He had just met Livvie.
"This is going to ruin all of us. Not just Pop" E.J. said breaking into Fitz's thoughts
"None of us can stay in law enforcement after this. Once everything is out in the open…the Feds are going to sweep in and clean house at APD and my family will become pariah's. Bryan, Liv,…me…we're done. No more Law enforcement. We're all ruined" E.J.'s voice broke
Fitz didn't argue…it was true. No one would be able to work with E.J. he would be considered a snitch…worse still, a snitch against his own father. There was no coming back from that. Bryan and Liv would be rejected by the law enforcement community too. They would become the notorious children of an infamous dirty cop. Nobody was coming out of this unscathed. Perhaps Harold had a chance…but even that was uncertain.
Fitz heart broke. He didn't know all the Pope family members but they had seemed happy. Liv had shown him pictures on her phone. The Pope family on vacations, Christmas together…Thanksgiving…
Shit.
Fitz stood up and grabbed the box.
"I'll pull her off the case. Not because I don't think she is not capable, because I think she is amazing…I will pull her off the case, because…because I can't have her involved in a case that will not only bring Eze down, but also her father. Her involvement would weaken the case" It was true
E.J. looked ecstatic at that piece of news. Tears of gratitude gathered in his eyes. Fitz's hunch about the man was right. He really loved his sister.
"This is going to kill her. Its going to destroy her self-worth. I hate doing it to her…especially because I can't tell her the truth" He was going to have to do something terrible to someone he loved more than life itself.
Fitz walked over to E.J., his body language changed. He appeared larger, more menacing as he walked over to Liv's brother
"Listen to me, because I am not going to repeat myself and you are going to want to hear every fucking word I say. Liv is mine, she is the love of my life. I will not let anything…anything, destroy that! So, we take down your Dad and Eze as soon as possible because I don't lie to the woman I love. Understood!"
E.J. nodded, quickly acquiescing
"And if I find out any fucking thing you said here tonight is a lie I will fucking destroy you…and if Liv is hurt in any fucking way by something your father does, you tell him to eat his gun before I find him, because there will not be enough of him left to bury in a fucking matchbook…"
With that he walked out. He placed the call to Gary as soon as he was in his car. Gary was stunned
"Why didn't you tell me your suspicions?!" Gary asked angrily
"Because they were just that Gary, suspicions!" Fitz responded in kind
"Listen, I need to go check on Liv and then me and you need to Kibitz on our next move. Meet me at the loft in about three hours"
Gary signed off. Fitz got out of the car and walked up the staircase to the apartment. He was near the door when he heard Liv laugh out loud. She must be watching T.V.
Then he heard her speak and a male voice respond. He couldn't catch the words through the walls. His heart stopped. He opened the clip to the holster on his side firearm but didn't draw his gun. He put the key in the lock and walked in and down the hallway to the den.
He smiled at his guests "Well this is a surprise"
Eze and Sarmango smiled back at him as they sat on the couch "Conner come join us"
He turned and looked at Liv and she smiled back at him, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Come join us babe" she said affectionally
Shit.
