Chapter Thirty
Emily
"Don!" I shout. "Can you come help me?" I hear his footsteps and I walk out of the closet and lean against the frame as I lounge in sexy maternity lingere that Stella got me when she found out I'm pregnant. He sees me right when he walks in and then he's practically drooling. I give him the flirty nod. "How you doin'?"
I giggle.
He takes three long strides over to me and swoops down and presses his lips to mine. He pulls me towards him and lifts my leg to curl around his hip. I smile and giggle. He pulls back. Playful confusion lines his face.
"What?"
"Nothing. I just love doing this with you and it makes me happy. Even though I'm pregnant."
"Even though you're pregnant. I still find you sexy as hell." I smile.
"Thank you babe. Now come back here and kiss me." He does. Don presses his lips to mine and lifts me up and presses me against the wall next to the closet door. Even though I'm 33 weeks pregnant and I'm a whale, this is still easy as ever.
As he's sliding my panties off and pulling his pants down, there's a buzz indicating that someone wants up. It's right next to the closet door so I press the button while he kisses my neck.
"Who is it?" I ask.
"Your sister dummy!" My eyes go wide and Don stops.
"Damn it." I press the button again. "Thought you weren't coming for another couple of weeks," I say.
"Decided to come early. Are you okay? You sound out of breath."
"I'm 33 weeks pregnant Anna. I'm out of breath getting up sometimes. Any way, come on up." I buzz her in and Don drops my feet to the ground. "Donnie, I'm sorry. I had no idea she was coming."
"It's okay. Delayed gratification is sort of becoming our thing." He chuckles. I can't help but laugh along with him. "We'd better get dressed."
"Well it is early morning. We can just go out in our pjs." He smiles. "It is our house. I don't know about you but I'm gonna walk out there with my lingerie on. Pull up your pants though. That's for just my eyes to see." He smiles widely.
"I'm just fine with that. I have to get ready for work."
"Then stay in here and get dressed." I stand up taller and I kiss him. He smirks and I walk out with the short robe that came with the lingerie. I open the front door and there's my sister.
"Oh my goodness! You're so pregnant!"
She hugs me and I laugh.
"I am. I like it too."
"Where's Don?" She asks coming in.
"Getting dressed for work." We go and sit on the couch. "He has to go in for a couple hours to do some paper work then he's gonna come back and hang out. Originally I was going to go with him but you just happen to show up."
"Sorry."
"It's fine."
"Em, where's my..." Don says walking toward us.
"Counter," I interupt.
"Thank you." I look at him and he's wearing black pants and a white shirt with a blue and thin red striped tie, untied, without his jacket or coat. I almost melt. I stand and I go to him and I tie his tie.
We've grown to have this routine where I always tie his tie for him and where I always tie his tie for him and then at night he has to help me take my shirt off because my bell is much too big. I always see him out even if I'm not working and he has to leave in the middle of the night. During this routine of ours we just exchange little glances and laughs and it's our version of personal time in our world of chaos.
"Finished." I say.
"Thank you Em." I kiss him quickly.
"Are you sure you even remember how to tie a tie anymore?"
"Nope. I'm too bust looking at my beautiful wife." I blush like crazy.
"All right handsome. Go to work. I need to spend some quality time with my sister."
"Whatever you say." He presses his lips to mine and then holsters his gun and puts his badge on his hip.
"I love you."
"I love you too Em." And then he leaves with his jacket and coat.
"You two are so super cute!"
"I know. Everyone tells us all the time."
"While I'm ecstatic for you, I still can't get over the fact that he calls you Em and you are okay with it. That was dad's thing and everyone knew never to call you Em. But you let him like it's no big deal. How long?"
"Since the first day I met him."
"Wait, what? Last time I heard that someone called you Em, you punched them. You don't even let Mac call you Em."
"I know Anna. But with Don, it's different. I know he's using it as an endearment and while it reminds me of dad, it reminds me of the good things and not the horrible ones."
"Okay, okay. I get it. It just still shocks me. I heard him call you Em at the wedding but not so much otherwise since I haven't been around. Sorry about that. But I'm kind of glad you let him call you Em."
"All right. Now you can stop calling me Em. I don't really like hearing it come out of your mouth. It was dad's thing and now Don calls me it. End of story."
"Okay, different topic. What happened with..." My phone starts ringing. It's Don. I hold up my finger.
"Hey babe, what's up?"
"You get dressed yet?"
"No, why?"
"DB in a motel room. You need to come process."
"All right. Text me the address and I'll be there soon. I love you."
"I love you too." I hang up.
"Dead body, gotta go process. I love you Anna."
"Love you too, Emily."
"Talk to me," I hear Mac say to Don as I take pictures of the dead body. I've seen her somewhere, I know I have.
"Motel manager went looking for his missing cleaning lady. Found this instead. No forced entry."
"Could mean our vic knew her killer. Let him in herself. We know who she is?"
"Initial search of the ro turned up no ID."
"Nothing on the body, either," I say. "Hey, Mac, does she look familiar to you? I feel like I've seen her somewhere before." Mac's face contorts to puzzlement.
"We know who rented the room?" I stand and look around.
"Yeah. You're going to love this. The desk clerk described him as male, early 30s, medium build, baseball cap and sunglasses. And he paid cash."
"Other motel guests hear anything?"
"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith next door checked out two hours after they checked in, and the room over was a girl's night. They left this behind."
"Bikini wax party."
"Apparently not all their customers are women."
"Ouch," I say.
"Do we have an ID on the missing cleaning lady?"
"Yeah. Lila Wickfield. Nobody's seen or heard from her since she started her rounds at 7:30 this morning. I already got an alarm out."
"You think she may be a witness?" I ask.
"Or another victim."
I move to the bathroom and I dust with Danny for prints. He's on the door and I'm on the window. He finds a shoe print and I find a couple prints, probably the vic's though.
"Got a boot print. Bathroom door's still locked from the inside."
"Window's open," I say.
"So our Jane Doe runs into the bathroom, locks herself inside and tries to escape through the window."
"Still doesn't explain what happened to our missing housekeeper," Don says.
"Hey, Mac. Looks like our victim couldn't say no to drugs."
"Purple? That's heroin, right?" Mac asks.
"Or some other kind of opiate. We'll have to confirm it back at the lab." I walk out and stand next to Don. I hear the finger print machine beep at Sheldon.
"Now I know why she looked so familiar. It's Anabel Pino." My eye brows raise. I see it.
"Wasn't there a Dr. Pino at the ME's office?"
"Marty Pino," I say.
"Right," Don says.
"You're kidding me. We worked a bunch of cases together. I actually met her once. He used to talk about her all the time," Danny says coming out of the bathroom standing next to Don with me.
"He's been gone a while," I say.
"Marty liked to gamble," Sheldon starts. "He dug himself into a deep hole. Sid caught him falsifying his overtime slips."
"He had no choice but to let him go," Mac says.
"I did talk to him about a year ago. Sounded like things went from bad to worse and that Anabel wanted him to move out."
"So, Marty Pino could be our guy in the baseball cap and sunglasses," Don says, writing his name down.
"No, no, wait a minute. He got into some financial trouble, but murder? There's no way he's capable of this."
"I think a guy who's hit bottom is capable of anything."
I'm with Don in the interrogation room and I sit with him while he talks to Marty. I always liked Marty, he was a good person. "I know a lot of my colleagues worked cases with you, including my wife," he says gesturing to me. "And they all say that you're a good man. And, Marty, I know you know how this works, so I'm just going to come out and ask you. Did you shoot your wife?"
"Of course not," he says. Marty looks so beat up over it but he also looks like he's coming down from the high of his life.
"The only problem that I have with that answer is that you can't tell me where you were last night."
"I told you, I was at the house."
"But no one can verify that. If you had at least made a phone call, I could confirm that with a phone record."
"I'm sorry. I went to bed early."
"And you didn't wonder where your wife was?"
"Sometimes she'd take off for a couple of days after our arguments."
"How big was the last one?"
"I didn't kill my wife."
"We found size nine boot prints at the crime scene. That's your size, isn't it?"
"I didn't kill my wife."
"Then, who did?"
"I don't know."
"Marty. Your wife was a grade school teacher who never even got a parking ticket and we found her shot dead in a motel room with traces of heroin on her blouse." I put my hand on Don's arm. He calms his voice a bit. "Was there another guy?"
"She wasn't having an affair." There's a knock at the window, must be Sheldon.
"I'll be right back," I say. "What's up?" I ask Sheldon.
"Come on. What are you doing? The man just lost his wife."
"He's lying about something."
"He's scared, confused."
"And he's your friend, Sheldon, so I understand why you're hearing something different."
"There's no doubt Marty's made some mistakes. But I know he loved his wife. He couldn't have killed her."
"Okay, then prove it," I say. "I knew him too. I know he did. But you need to prove it instead of standing her telling me what your opinion is, okay?" Mom voice is coming out again. Oops.
I walk down to the ME's office to see Sid, since he knew the family better than anyone. As I walk in he's walking out.
"Sid, where you going?"
"I told Marty when he was dating Anabel that she was the one. She was perfect for him. He just didn't know it. Once I told him he couldn't come back to work until he popped the question. And at the wedding, during the ceremony, I remember Anabel turned to me and whispered, 'Thank you'." He takes a deep, shaky breath. "I can't cut her open, Emily. I'm sorry."
"Okay." I place a hand on his arm.
"I'll have to get someone else to do the post." He walks away. I stare at her dead body. I walk over and I cover her back up. I take a shaky breath and I look around. I never knew her but she was always talked about so it seemed like I did.
Someone walks in eventually and gets me the bullet that killed Anabel.
"Thank you." I walk to the elevator and I go upstairs to Mac's office. "Hey, just got back from the ME's office. The nine-mil that killed Anabel," I say holding it up to Mac.
"Hollowpoints. Looks like the nose didn't mushroom on impact."
"Exactly, because it entered the body backwards."
"Must have hit an intermediary target before it hit Anabel. That's the only reason a round would do that, except we didn't find anything with a bullet hole in it at the crime scene."
"Then what'd it hit?" I ask. "Mac, Sid isn't doing well. He's really messed up over this." Mac sighs.
"Go figure out what the white powder is on Anabel's blouse. I'll check back in later." I nod.
"Baby boy," I say as I wait for the powder to get analyzed. "It's momma. How are you?" I feel him kick the top of my stomach at the sound of my voice. "I know, you wanna hear daddy's voice, don't ya? He's searching a missing girl's apartment right now. He's miles away baby. I'll get him to read you a bed time story tonight, okay?" He kicks once more as I hear Mac's voice and the computer's beep.
"Heard you found something."
"Results on the white powder from Anabel's blouse." I point.
"Diacetylmorphine. Confirms what we thought: heroin."
"Almost pure. No cutting agents were detected, so it probably never hit the streets."
"Well, if it was pure, what are all these other peaks?"
"GCMS couldn't ID them, so I went to the XRF. Elemental analysis indicated the building blocks of DNA."
"Heroin's man-made from morphine resin extracted out of the opium poppy, so the DNA could be from the opium flower itself."
"That's what I thought at first, but take a look at this."
"Protein Spectra?"
"In addition to the DNA, the sample also contained protein components; that one in particular caught my attention. I'd been searching for an ID right now." I search through the database and I find something. "Hmm. Here we go." I tap it.
"Looks like you found a match. 'PrPSc'."
"Yeah in its mutated form. The prion that causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative neurological condition. Highly transmissible. So if this prion is mixed in with those drugs, then our heroin wasn't just made by a human. It was made out of a human."
"I think I know who the donor was," Mac says. "Come with me." I take off the lab coat and I follow Mac. "Were you talking to the baby when I came in?"
"I was. I think he wanted to hear Don's voice. We haven't been talking to him much the past couple of days. With work and my sister coming into town this morning."
"Wait, Anna's in town?"
"Oh yeah, Mac. Anna's in town." I smile. "Come by for dinner later. The five of us can have dinner. And yes I'm including the baby. I've been eating for two for the past seven and a half months." Mac chuckles. We get down to the ME's and Mac asks Sid for the DB.
"Mike Stevenson came in a couple days ago, a floater. Washed up with a zip tie still cinched around his neck."
"And whoever killed Mike cut him open and removed several pieces," Mac informs me.
"Organ harvesting?" I ask.
"Well, that's my original theory, too, but that's where these come in." Sid lifts the arm. "Track marks. Tissue distribution levels indicated the victim shot up immediately prior to death," Sid tells me.
"If you're in the business of supplying transplantable tissues, why would you go after organs loaded with potentially fatal contaminants?"
"You wouldn't." He leads us to the really cool machine that spins and the victim's skull and brain appear. I want one. "The victim's brain. The caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia. You see these holes?" I nod at Sid.
"Spongiform encephalopathy." Mac looks at me. "I took a few bio-med courses. Got into a med school. Turned it down to become a cop though. Anna taught me a lot of it too since she was a doctor."
"The physical manifestation of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease," Sid points out.
"It's caused by the same prion you found in our heroin sample. It's extremely rare," Mac says.
"First case I've ever seen."
"This means that the heroin we recovered at the crime scene was extracted from this victim's organs," I say.
"The killer knew this victim was an addict and that his organs would contain high amounts of unmetabolized drug."
"But why would someone go through the trouble of harvesting a junkie's organs to make heroin when you can buy it on the street?" Sid asks.
"Maybe some dealer's supply dried up and he got creative. This city is full of addicts walking around the streets with plenty of viable drugs circulating in their system."
"If that's the case, what's it have to do with our missing housekeeper And Anabel Pino's murder?" Mac asks me, regarding my previous statement.
As I'm with Danny comparing the heroine he found in Lila's apartment with Don and the heroine from Anabel's blouse, I get a call from Stella.
"Hey Stel."
"Come meet me. It's about the coins we asked Stan to forge."
"Okay text me the address. On my way. I'll call him. See if everything is good." Oh yeah, I'm helping Stella with this little adventure thing about the Greek coins we found during that case with the greeks where the garbage fisherman died.
She gets in the car when I get to the address. "Hey, Stan Trovato called.
The coins we asked him to forge are ready."
"Good. Contact Kolovos, tell him that our sellers are ready to make the deal."
"Stella, before we go forward with this, I have two things that I have to ask you."
"Mac doesn't know. He can't. He already asked me to stand down."
"You said he called Diakos your Moby Dick- the one that got away. If you don't show up for work for a couple of days, he's gonna figure out you're whale-hunting."
"Yeah, well, I told Mac I needed to take a couple sick days."
"And after that?"
"I don't know. Look, Emily. This sting is the only way we're gonna get Kolovos to tell us where Diakos is."
"Which brings me to my second question: Even if Kolovos takes the bait, we make a deal for the coins and catch him in the act, the man has diplomatic immunity in this country and no reason to cooperate."
"You're right. But what if I told you we weren't gonna arrest him in the United States?" I look at her. Wait, what?
I sit and I pass a bag of the coins to Kolovos. "Like I said, there's more where those came from," I say in a meeting with Kolovos.
"How many exactly?"
"200. Give or take."
"I'll take. What's your price?"
"$600,000."
"Let's make it five and you have a deal."
"I said six." My mom voice came out again. Shit.
"Then six it is."
"How long do you think it will take you to put the money together?"
"You just worry about delivery." I hand him a piece of paper with a ready made number on it, written by Stella.
"It's the number for a shipping container. Brooklyn Yards. Tomorrow, 2:00 P.M."
"We have a deal then."
"Just make sure you're alone. If this turns out to be a setup, I'll kill you." I say, then get up. I walk out and to where Stella is. "All right Stel. I'm going home. Wanna drop me off since Don has the car now."
"Sure. Thank you for doing this."
"Of course. Anything for you."
Stella drops me off. I walk into the apartment and Don isn't home yet, it's just my sister. "Hey sis. How was your day?"
"Good. I got a lot of snooping done." I glare at her and she starts laughing.
"Sorry I didn't get to be here all day with you. Case. It's a member of the family. More specifically a former ME's wife. Everyone knew her. Sid is taking it the hardest. And Mac is meeting us for dinner."
"Good. I'll get to say hi. But it's fine that you weren't here. There's no harm. It's like you visiting me while I was a doctor. Sometimes I just had to leave and stay gone all day." I nod.
"What do you want for dinner?"
"Surprise me." I roll my eyes. She always does this.
"I'll just call Don instead then." I get my phone out of my bag and I call him.
"Hello?"
"Hey babe. What do you want for dinner?"
"What's at the house?" I stand up from my leaning against the counter and I open the fridge.
"Uhm, nothing."
"I'll pick something up on the way home?"
"Sounds good to me. Mac is coming over for dinner. Thought I should mention that."
"All right. I love you."
"I love you too Donnie." We hang up.
"Anna!" Mac says when he sees her.
"Mac! Oh how I've missed you."
Don leans over to me and whispers in my ear, "I still can't get over the fact that Mac knows your entire family intimately."
"He's our godfather. My brother's too. He took care of us all when dad died." Don stares at me and then kisses my cheek before looking back up to Mac and Anna.
"How've you been?" Mac asks Anna.
"Good. The kids have been rude and crude and it's good to get away but I miss them."
"I'm surprised you're here earlier than expected."
"I thought I should surprise Emily and Don."
"Yeah right in the middle of some very intimate conversation, Anna," I say.
"What can I say? My timing is impeccable."
As Don and I are turning down the comforter to the bed, he starts the conversation. "So I've got a mini raid tomorrow. There may be some shooting."
"Wear your vest babe."
"I will. I just want you to know. That way you don't worry if someone else tells you while I'm in the middle of it."
"Don, I'm always going to worry. It's my job as your wife to worry about you when you're in dangerous situations like that." He lays down. "I love you."
"I love you too." I crawl up onto the bed and I touch my nose to his.
"I will never tire when it comes to saying I love you."
Don smiles and brings my lips down to his to kiss me. "And I'm glad for that because I feel the same way."
The next day, I go with Stella to the ship yard. I found an extra large vest to put on and I get it on but my sides are open. Damn it. Stella's first instinct is to not let me do this. But I want to. I go anyway and I meet her. She has me lock her in the storage container. When Kolovos comes he opens it to meet her.
"Not who you expected?" He murmurs something in Greek. I put a gun to his side as I check for weapons or a phone.
"Take a seat." He does. "Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves." He does that and Stella puts a heart monitor on him.
"What do you want?"
"Sebastian Diakos. We've got your partner tied to two homicides."
"A homeless man and a pawn shop owner. No one's going to miss them."
"Where's Diakos?"
"You do know I have diplomatic immunity."
"In this country, yes. We may not be able to put you away as an accomplice to murder. But in Cyprus, you're wanted for the smuggling and trafficking of stolen antiquities," Stella points out.
"I'll be sure to keep that country off my travel itinerary."
"Unfortunately, you don't have a choice," I say.
"Mr. Kolovos, this container you're sitting in, it belongs to a freighter out of Cyprus. Once it's loaded onto deck, you're under that country's jurisdiction."
"We've already contacted the authorities over there. They've got a jail cell waiting for you," I tell him. His heart rate goes up.
"I don't know where Diakos is."
"You remember what we said about lying? You give me Diakos, I let you walk," Stella yells.
"Diakos will kill me."
"Not if we get to him first," I reassure him.
"Fine. Some Dramamine, just in case you get seasick." Stella says tossing something in his lap.
"Enjoy the cruise."
"No, he's, he's in Jersey City. Place is rented under the name of Frank Davis.
I'm telling the truth." Stella picks up the heart monitor and she nods.
"Yes, you are." She says something in Greek. She takes the heart monitor and walks out.
"Wait. Wait. Where are you going? We had a deal!" We close and lock the doors quickly.
"I lied." He pounds on the door.
"Wait! Get back here! Let me out of here! Let me out!"
"He's all yours," I say into my walkie talkie.
"Let's make a deal!" We walk away and Stella drives us to where Diakos is and we get lunch and take pit stops on the way.
"Sebastian Diakos, NYPD!" We bust down the door, our guns are raised and we both have flashlights on, six hours later, at least.
"You smell that?" I ask.
"Cordite. Somebody fired a gun in here." She busts down a couple doors and there is Diakos' dead body with Greek coins over his eyes. She bends down. "Rigor's minimal. He's been dead for four hours, tops."
"That rules out Kolovos. He's been on a slow boat to Cyprus for at least six. What's with the coins?" I ask.
"The ancient Greeks would put coins on the eyes of their deceased to pay the passage from the land of the living to the land of the dead."
"Why would our shooter go through the trouble?"
"Maybe he's Greek, superstitious. Saw Diakos as a friend and wanted him to have a proper passing. Professor P said that Diakos and Kolovos weren't just after their antiquities, but partners that had double-crossed them."
"Looks like that war is over."
"And another just beginning." Stella calls it in annonymously.
I go back to the lab and Sid calls me.
"So they found Marty. You want to come with me to see him?" Sid asks.
"Sid I don't know if that..."
"Emily, please? You're the only one who is there when times get rough and times are rough right now."
I nod. "Sure." I grab my jacket and I head out with Sid.
When we get to the warehouse in Queens, we get out and Sid walks in.
He screams Marty's name when he sees that Marty has a gun to his head and one aimed at every one else. I stand behind Sid as he holds my hand for support. Everyone is here.
"Marty, no! No. There's been enough death already." There's a pause.
"Marty, just put the gun down, man. Put the gun down. Come on, Marty. Marty, just put the gun down, man. Put the gun down. Come on," Sheldon begs.
"Come on, Marty," Danny says. He does. Everyone moves in and takes the guns. "Hey, hey, hey. That's it. That's it."
"Drop the bag! Turn around! Turn around, now!" Don says, moving in to arrest him. Unis arrest everyone else in the room.
As Don walks him out, they stop next to Sid. "I just want to know something. How many were there? Marty, look at me. After you left the ME's Office, how many people did you kill? To make your drugs?" There's a long pause. "I-I Get him out of my face." His grip on my hand tightens as Don walks Marty out.
"Hey, hey, hey. Sid. Come here." I say as I pull him in for a hug. I close my eyes and hold him close.
"Thank you Emily."
"Of course."
"You know Em, you shouldn't have been there tonight," Don says and it makes me jump. I'm at my locker in the crime lab and I turn towards him.
"Sorry Don, but a friend needed my help and support."
"But you're pregnant, does that mean anything to you?"
"Of course it does Don. You know this baby means more to me than anything. It goes without saying, but when a friend is in need and you're the only one there to help, it's something that you need to do."
"Emily, I understand that you needed to help a friend out, but you should have helped from here, the safetly of the lab."
"Don, I know. But I went. Can't change that fact."
"You need to be more cognisent of your choices. You've got a baby to look after."
"I know. This is the first time I've gone somewhere where there have been guns in the last seven and a half months. You really think I'm just going to sit here on the sidelines and watch? No, I'm going to make a difference and I'm going to make this world safer and teach our son how to be compassionate and take into acccount other people's feelings."
"You're the only one that I know that would ever come up with that kind of excuse." Don chuckles and shakes his head slightly. "I'm only fighting with you because I care too." He walks over to me. "I'm being compassionate too and I need you safe."
"I need me safe too Don." He wraps his arms around my waist.
"I'm still mad at you."
Nodding, I respond with, "Shall I sleep on the couch since I'm in the dog house?" I ask, smiling slightly.
"No, I'll get cold without you and the baby." I laugh.
"Are we ever going to come up with a name?" I ask. "Or are we just going to keep calling him the baby? Or our son?"
"Eventually. But let's discuss this after I've kissed you." I smirk and I stand on my tip toes, sliding myself against Don, and I can feel the affects in his gaze. "Though if you kiss me now, I may just need to lock the door to get you alone with me."
I smirk. "That what we have home for."
"Your sister."
"She knows I'm married. Just be a bit quieter. She does it with her husband all the time. She doesn't get to say anything about that." He hesitates. "Just kiss me Don. I want this. I want you. Right now." He presses his lips to mine and his hands slide up my sensitve body and they tangle themselves into my hair, his palms on my cheeks, his lips crushing against mine. I moan. He pulls back minimally.
"I'm ready to take you home right now."
"Then do it."