chapter fourteen
Mac continued to keep the trail of bodies a secret, tracking Frankie Gerard's movements down the Richelieu. He was erratic, sometimes striking more often, and sometimes falling off the map completely for weeks. He was a master at keeping the police a few steps behind, stumbling and struggling to keep up.
With each and every body, Mac's nights got longer, his insomnia punctuated by futile attempts to put the puzzle pieces together. He could understand how Juliana had been sucked into the case like a swimmer in a riptide.
Dusk had long since fallen, leaving misty darkness in its wake, and he had lost count of how long ago he'd left Stella to sort out the details of their current case, while he managed the reports from all over the state, Vermont, and the new information the SPVM had forwarded at his request. Leclerc had been much more forthcoming than he'd expected, and from their lengthy phone calls, Mac gathered he was raring at the bit to get into the field and track the sick bastard down. It was a little out of his jurisdiction, but Mac wasn't about to turn down any help, as long as it didn't interfere with his investigation.
His door cracked open, and he smelled Stella's spicy-sweet perfume before he startled upright to find her leaning over his shoulder. Guiltily, he closed his browser, praying she wouldn't question anything she might have seen.
As with everything lately, he wasn't so lucky.
"I don't suppose you were going to tell me anything about this anytime soon?" she questioned, and Mac pressed his eyes shut for a brief moment, sighed, and hoped for the best.
"I was intending to wait until it got a little closer to home before telling everybody about it," he replied, pulling the folder he'd tried to hide onto his desktop again.
"How long?" Stella demanded, straightening up from her position, where she'd been leaning over him, and lifted herself up to sit on his desk, crossing her legs.
"A month or so." He sighed again, steeling himself for her disapproval, which he knew was coming. He knew it had been exactly 47 days since he'd picked up the first phone call from Capitaine Leclerc, whose words were clipped, heavily accented, and gruff. The files followed in short order, everything pertaining to the case since its inception three years ago.
Stella's eyes widened, and she leaned forward. "And you didn't think we'd want to know?" she asked, tucking a loose curl behind her ear.
"We can't prove it, Stella. It's all conjecture," he countered, rubbing his hands over his close-cropped hair. "I'd rather not stress Juliana out if it's not him."
"If you want to throw around legal jargon, I'd call all of this reasonable doubt," she retorted, waving her hand at the computer screen. "And besides, what if it is him? How exactly do you expect her to react?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he replied, sighing heavily. For all their sakes, he hoped that point wouldn't come soon.
She squeezed his shoulder gently before sliding off his desk, and reached into her pocket for her phone, which was vibrating. "Look, I've got to go. A case just came in."
"I'll be right there," Mac grunted, but he paused as her hand found his shoulder again and traced a comforting path down his upper arm.
"Don't worry, I'll handle it," she assured him, grinning widely at his frown. "I've got it under control, trust me."
Dead college kids always made Stella's heart sink to her toes. There was something so sinister about having young lives snuffed out that made her stomach clench in response. She surveyed the tiny apartment, hands on her hips, and instead of focusing on the body like Sid, made her way to the desk and began systematically going through the drawers. It was typical student: textbooks, and assortment of office supplies, and finally, an ID, half-buried in between packages of looseleaf and graph paper, and an empty legal-sized manila envelope.
"Anthony Lawrence," she read, comparing the young man on the floor to the fresh-faced freshman in his ID picture. "He was 21."
Sid looked up from taking the liver temperature, and paused briefly, scalpel in hand. "The younger ones are always the hardest, aren't they?"
"Yeah." Stella swallowed hard, something unpleasant curling low in her belly. She slid the ID into an evidence bag, and set it gently on his desk. Opening the door, she poked her head out into the hallway, and caught Flack talking down a distraught young man. Lindsay was deep in conversation with a group of kids about the victim's age, her kit in one hand. Beyond them, Juliana was talking to another clump of boys, and Adam was standing awkwardly next to her, nodding at almost everything she said.
Stella wove her way between the small clusters, heading for Adam. "I could use your help," she said quietly, hand resting briefly on his arm.
"Of course," he replied quickly, turning on his heel and following her into the crime scene, leaving the three to finish their interviews and round up the remaining tenants to go back to the precinct.
It didn't take them too long to pull a familiar name from the list of tenants.
"So we meet again," Danny drawled, staring at the name 'David Ciccone.' Who on Earth ordered a hit on a university student?
He'd been hoping for an open-and-shut, 'blame the mob' type of thing, but David Ciccone was at his mom's for Sunday dinner at the time of the murder, the convenience of which did not surprise Danny in the least.
"So our only link happens to have an airtight alibi?" Mac asked, leaning over Danny's shoulder to check the video footage. "I hate to say this, but what if it's a coincidence?"
"Nah, I don't think so. There's no such thing as a coincidence when it comes to the mob," Danny replied, Staten Island accent pronounced. He shot Mac a quick glance, eyebrows raised. "Do you really think it's a coincidence?"
"I don't know, but it's certainly suspicious. Stay on him. Let's find out where he's been recently," Mac ordered, getting to his feet and leaning over Danny's shoulder again, "people he's talked to, and his roommates. Bring them all in."
"I'm all over it." Flashing a pearly grin, Danny gave Mac a mock salute. "The rest is on you, bud." The latter was addressed to Adam, who he clapped on the shoulder on his way out of the room.
It wasn't too hard to find the roommates, either – Danny and Sheldon found them in between classes so as not to raise more of a ruckus than strictly necessary, but as far as they were concerned, David was a stand-up guy and a great roommate. Anthony's roommate wasn't much help, either, and he could barely gather his thoughts enough to form a coherent sentence, so naturally Stella stepped in to help.
"Just take your time, Troy," she urged gently, sliding another cup of chamomile tea in front of him.
"I just don't know why anybody would want to kill Anthony," Troy managed slowly, blowing raggedly across the steaming surface of his tea. "I know our downstairs neighbours didn't like us very much, but we weren't loud enough to deserve murder."
"Downstairs neighbours?" Stella repeated, her interest piqued.
"Yeah, Jackson, Cameron, and David," Troy replied, taking in a shaky breath. "We liked to party sometimes… they weren't our biggest fans. There was some kind of big fight down there a few days before Anthony was – I mean, I came home from class and I heard all this yelling."
"Did you overhear anything?"
Troy shrugged, then shook his head. "I couldn't understand what they were saying. I think they were speaking Spanish. I tried to ignore it and start on my American Lit paper. Anyway, it didn't last very long."
Stella nodded, jotting down notes as fast as she could. Italian, not Spanish, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. "Anything else seem unusual?"
"I don't think so," he said, frowning as he racked his brain for anything else.
"Thanks for your time," she said, giving him a comforting smile. "We're not done processing the scene, but I can get you a drive to a friend or parents' house, if you need it."
He yawned, and pushed himself out of his chair, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "No thanks, I could use the walk."
"You sure?" Stella's jade eyes were lit with maternal worry.
"Yeah, I've got a friend a few blocks away who's letting me crash with him for the next few days," he assured her, zipping up his jacket, and flipping up his hood.
"If you need anything, just give us a call," Stella offered, watching as he nodded, and shuffled down the hall and disappeared.
"I was going to tell Mac, but he's busy. I got lab results," Lindsay said, interrupting Stella's thoughts, having tracked her down to interrogation.
"And I'm the next best thing," she joked half-heartedly, turning around and mustering a smile for her friend.
"Hush, you know that's not true," Lindsay replied with a reproach-tinged scoff, handing Stella the reports. "You know that envelope you found under Anthony's ID? I found traces of cocaine in it. I tried to see if it matched anything else in GCMS, and it's similar to stuff picked up by Narcotics during a recent raid on a Fratelli warehouse."
"You look like you have more for me," Stella pressed, seeing the familiar light ignite behind Lindsay's caramel eyes.
"I found three sets of prints on the envelope, and by some miracle, all three of them got matches. One is from Angelo Zaramella, a 'friend' of the Ciccones, one is Anthony's, and one set matches Keith Nichols, which we only caught because we fingerprinted everyone in the building," she explained, noticing Flack emerging from one of the interrogation rooms across the hall, and waving him over. "Hey, I got an envelope with cocaine trace and three sets of prints. One is Anthony's, one is Angelo Zaramella's, and the third belongs to Keith Nichols."
"You mean the kid from across the hall?" Flack's eyebrows hit his hairline, and he ran a hand across his chin. "No way."
"Yes, way. I'd get your guys to bring him in," Lindsay said, and he dug into his pocket for his phone. "Meanwhile, I'd love to have a chat with Zaramella, although I suppose we'll have to find him first."
Adam hummed to himself, tapping one Converse-clad foot against the tiled floor as he finished setting up the cameras they had been installing in interrogation. He checked the video feed set up, the screen split between Zaramella and Keith. He hadn't been paying much attention to either of them as he rocked out to the Black Keys song playing in his head, but a flicker of movement from Keith's frame drew his focus.
There was a glimmer of something metallic, and Adam spun around in his chair, suddenly alert. He waited until Keith shifted his hands again, and caught a flash of steel and a glimpse of a very small, but very deadly revolver clenched between the young man's cuffed hands.
Adrenaline flooded his system, and he checked the hallway cameras. The endless corridor was empty, but he watched in horror as the door swung open, and a familiar shadow slanted across the floor. Without stopping to consider what exactly he was doing, Adam stood and raced from the room. Physical activity had never exactly been his forte – hell, he'd mastered skipping phys ed before high school, but he imagined himself as an Olympian as he sprinted down the stairs and past the bullpen to interrogation. Flinging the door open, he careened towards his target.
He paused, checked his files, and reached for the doorknob.
He hurled himself at her in a desperate, clumsy tackle. He felt his shoulder pull from its socket, and he bit his lip so hard the copper tang of blood flooded his tongue.
The door cracked a fraction, and a gunshot rattled the walls.
a/n: Thank you all so much for sticking with me, and your wonderful reviews! I'm alway interested in your opinions - who do you think Adam tackled? Have we seen the last of the Ciccones?