The situation with the car was still eating away at Mike's nerves as he returned to his office, ready to grab his overcoat and fedora before heading to the Cow Palace. An in-depth conversation with McAllister was quickly becoming overdue.
Even an hour after he left, he was surprised to find Norm, Tanner and Lenny still deeply engaged into the case discussion. Moving their work station over to Bill's desk, the crew was taking notes and drawing circles on an oversized sheet of paper, hoping to connect the dots still holding them back from solving this case.
When the three men saw him return, they glanced up in eager anticipation.
"Aldarez was under IA investigation.", Mike said and reached for Art's chair, before pulling it closer and sitting down, "Seems that he switched sides at one point and began working for Moreno, feeding him information to keep him out of jail. Our cases interlocked when Sally Howard was killed and IA used that opportunity to attempt to track his connections down."
"I knew it.", Norm growled and pounded his fist on the desk, "Something wasn't right about that guy."
"It gets worse.", Mike continued and leaned forward, "Aldarez is dead. They found his body this morning when Olsen sent a uni out to check on him. I just called Bernie on the way back; he's headed there right now to do the examination. Norm, can you and Dan drive over there and check out the crime scene? We want to make sure that his apparent suicide wasn't aided by somebody. Because I am starting to have a bad feeling about all this."
"You have got to have the worst luck in the world when it comes to murder cases.", Lenny mumbled in frustration and shook his head, "So where does that leave you and Steve?"
Swallowing hard at the mountain of new information beginning to trickle in, Mike slowly shook his head.
"The same spot we were in before I saw Olsen. I am planning on heading out to the Cow Palace now to talk to McAllister. See if I can get him nervous enough to trip up. I'll try to get a hold of Steve to let him know that we're pulling the plug on this undercover sting tomorrow. At this point, this situation is becoming too volatile and I don't want him in any danger whatsoever…"
"Mike, I've got something you might like to hear…"
Dan Haley came hurrying through the glass-walled vestibule of the bullpen, steering toward the group of men at a frantic pace that suggested a long overdue case break.
"I just came down from the lab and then I did some research, made some calls…", the middle-aged Inspector explained out of breath, "On that bracelet."
"Let's hear it."
At the excitement of a new lead, Mike met Haley halfway, feeling the rush of adrenaline run through his body. The rest of his men mirrored his movement.
"I called several jewelry shops in the area to track down where it was purchased and I hit the pot of gold…literally. 'Cause this is getting interesting."
Nervously fidgeting with the plastic bag in his left hand, containing the bracelet and a lab ID sticker, Dan took a deep breath, as if to calm his nerves.
"This one was bought at Wilson's Fine Jewelry down on Geary. Like we figured, this isn't some cheap rip-off somebody bought off a shady street merchant, this is expensive jewelry. When I talked to the owner, he was very…circumspect about his clients because of the money being spent there and all. Treated it like he was some damn doctor who couldn't release medical information. Well, I prodded and prodded and finally he hinted that the owner of a large local entertainment venue had purchased it for his horse-loving girlfriend."
"Oh this is rich…now the question is whether she truly was his girlfriend or he just wished she was.", Mike mumbled and watched Lenny shake his head skeptically, before speaking up.
"I know it looks like your motive for murder, Lieutenant. Unreturned affection. It still doesn't jive with the post-mortem rape though. Considering everything we learned from him, somebody like McAllister wouldn't engage into a personal relationship like that. Especially if it would include courting behavior. That's too much bother. He doesn't expect to have to work for what he wants; he just grabs it, like an item off the shelf. I don't think he bought that bracelet as a gift. I think he bought that bracelet to mark her as his property, like you would do with a…with a beach towel you put on a chair along the beach so nobody else grabs it. A dog marking his territory in a sick sort of way."
"Mike, Lenny is right I think.", Dan said, his cheeks flushed as his excitement filled the entire bullpen, "Because there's two other things I gathered from this conversation. Wilson mentioned the dark gray Jaguar as the vehicle McAllister was driving when he was back there yesterday evening."
"The one he claims was stolen? Why would he claim his car as stolen, and then drive it around? And the timeframe…that was well after the murder and after we found the bracelet. What was he doing going back there?"
Dan's face turned ashen as the three other men stared at him intently.
"He bought another bracelet."
