Chapter 25
There was still no word on Bozzard's whereabouts and Olivia began to wonder if the man had ever existed. On the brighter side, she received a call from Doctor Huang about Ellen. The meeting with her parents had gone about as well as expected. Ellen was mad at first, then sad when the interpreter explained the situation. There was a lot of learning that Ellen still needed to do and healing and Huang promised to keep Olivia in the loop but for now.
Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt had put a phone call into their older son, Peter. They hated to tell him over the phone everything that had been happening the last few days but he wasn't due back on leave for a month and they knew that they wanted him to hear it from them and not the media. Ellen's name would be kept out of things because she was the victim but her brother Ben would not be. Huang said the call was very tough and he called the base commander and asked if emergency leave could be applied for. The commander promised to see what he could do but he wasn't sure there was much he could do.
"Liv?" The knock on her office door, jarred her from her thoughts.
"What's up Fin?" She asked.
"I just got a call from Melinda. She says we need to meet her down at the morgue," he explained.
"She say what this was about?" Olivia was confused.
"Only that she didn't want to talk about it over the phone," Fin shrugged. Olivia nodded and stood from her desk. Grabbing her coat off the rack, she slipped it on and headed out of the office door, right behind Fin.
"Where are Amaro and Rollins?" She asked, noting that they were not at their desks. Officially until Bozzard was caught, they had to move onto other cases that were beginning to pile up. Unofficially, both were doing some digging on how their bad guy was linked to the Regetti Crime Family.
"They said they might have a lead and they promised to scope it out," Fin explained, knowing that Olivia had been distracted as much as she tried to hide it. She just nodded as they exited the bull pen and headed for Fin's standard issue vehicle.
"So what have you got for us?" Olivia asked as they entered the morgue. The two detectives had caught up with Melinda in her office and now were shifting to the body she had on her freezer.
"A stinky one," she smirked.
"They all smell," Fin shook his head.
"Yes but this one smells like Mob hit," Melinda admitted.
"Mob hit? You should be calling Homicide, not us," Olivia said.
"Thought you'd want first crack at him," the medical examiner shrugged as she pulled open the freezer door and pulled out the body.
"He's been in the water for about three days but you'll note that that isn't what killed him," Melinda said, the all too obvious head wound backed up her statement.
"Cement shoes?" Fin asked as he peeked under the end of the sheet where the victim's feet seemed to be a little too large for a normal human being.
"The very same," the coroner nodded.
"Still a little uncertain as to why…" Olivia stopped when she noted the tattoo on the body's shoulder.
"What is that?" She asked.
"Not sure what it once was. Decomp messes with that on the outside, I'd have to cut off the skin and see if the underlying dermis could be more helpful. You don't need the tattoo though. I ran his DNA through the system in an attempt to ID him," Melinda then handed them a file that was pretty thick.
"Darren Bozzard," Olivia couldn't believe it.
"That's what the DNA says," Melinda nodded.
"How'd they find him?" Fin asked, noting that the cement seemed pretty solid and it would have been very heavy.
"Two barnacle scrapers were working at the docks over on when they noted the increased fish activity. It was odd for that spot given its location so they swam over to investigate. Needless to say they got an eyeful," she explained.
"Where do they work?" Olivia asked.
"Over on City Island," Melinda said.
"The Regettis own a restaurant down there," she breathed.
"Yeah heck of a coincidence huh?" Fin had a slight smirk.
"Who's working this?" Olivia wanted to know.
"Major Case is until they can prove its Mob related. Then it might get kicked up to Organized Crime. Why?" Melinda asked.
"I need to call Eames and see if she can get me some help with the detectives over there," Olivia commented, grabbing her phone from her pocket.
"What's going on?" Melinda asked Fin.
"Your dead guy is the rapist we've been looking for. We think the Regettis sold him some counterfeit NYPD forms. They have Liv in the cross-hairs," he said.
"That's not good, especially considering I hadn't gotten to the weird part yet," she swallowed.
"Weird part?" Fin gave her a look.
"Yeah for a Mob hit this was odd because…" she trailed off and lifted the sheet lower down on Bozzard's body.
"They cut off the family jewels," Fin grimaced just a little bit.
"Only time somebody does that is if they're paying him back for something. And what is even weirder is that the bullet wound doesn't show much signs of blood flow," Melinda put the sheet back down.
"They were letting him bleed out before they capped his ass," Fin said.
"A little more sadistic if you ask me," she nodded.
"So is this a Mob hit or was someone trying to make it look that way?" He wondered.
To Be Continued…