"That's it. That ties it."
Tapping his finger against Tanner's desk, Mike straightened back out, his intense blue eyes going back and forth between all members of his team.
When nobody dared to make an assumption on what was going on in his mind, he nudged Hassejian's shoulder, before continuing.
"Disregard my order. I am going to have Lessing and Derek from Narc check out Aldarez's apartment. You and Dan are coming with me. I think I figured out the car connection."
"Fill us unsuspecting minions in anyways, would you Lieutenant?", Lenny asked curiously and scratched his chin.
"I bet that his car getting stolen was a setup. A partnership even. An airtight alibi.", Mike explained impatiently, "See, a busy place like the Cow Palace would be an ideal area to disguise an elaborate drug selling operation. We found out that McAllister has been hurting for visitors in the past few months. Getting on board with Moreno might bring in enough cash to keep the place afloat. So, say he got in bed with this drug lord, but being the businessman that he is, he doesn't want to get his fingers dirty and wants to stay three steps away from the action in case the cops catch onto him. It could be that he turned a blind eye at some drug deals going on in the livestock pavilion or during the rodeos. He might have even paid off some of his security guards."
"Yeah, but suppose he gives Moreno the chance to have access to new…clients…at his place, you think taking the risk of being caught in this would be worth the money?", Norm asked and took a sip of coffee, his hand shaking slightly.
"It would, if it kept the place going long enough until the market improves. And I think this gives him something far more worthwhile, something a shady guy like McAllister would love to keep in his back pocket."
Mike hesitated, giving his detectives a chance to chime in but the room fell silent. Once again missing his partner by his side, the brilliant young man who had the uncanny ability to read his thoughts like an open book; he ran a hand through his silver hair, before pointing his chin at the map of the San Francisco bay area in the back of the bullpen.
"This business relationship is giving him the chance of committing a crime and getting away with it under Moreno's protective criminal umbrella. It's a Trojan Horse. That's what he's using his car for. Everybody down in Narc knows that Moreno's men stole it, but they never worried about returning it to the owner, after all, they have bigger fish to fry and hey, that's not their department, now is it? They're after the hard drugs, trying to get these guys busted in the middle of a huge deal; they don't care about Moreno's guys using it as a showoff toy when they visit the clubs. So as the weeks go on, our friends downstairs begin to associate Moreno's men with the car, not McAllister. After all, nobody would begin to expect McAllister to drive around in his own stolen car, the same car that pops up all over town. So when the need arises, McAllister calls up Moreno's men to borrow the car to clean up his own dirty laundry, right under everybody's noses. So while Narc shrugs the car sighting off as another errand run, it might in fact be McAllister driving it and using it to dump a body. It's a perfect shell game."
"Wait a minute, Mike, are you saying that you think that was McAllister picking up Aldarez from his apartment? Not one of Moreno's guys?"
Dan had his arms crossed in front of his chest, a deep worried scowl forming on his face at the implications of the Lieutenant's theory.
"That's my hunch, Dan. He might have needed Aldarez to identify our undercover for him…or they may have even been running drugs for Moreno that night.", Mike countered and took a deep breath, "And it explains why Aldarez showed up on our doorstep the moment Sally Howard's body was fished out of the bay. Because McAllister wanted Aldarez to derail us so far from the truth that we would never find out who really killed her."
"So what's with the second bracelet? He found a new girl to go after?"
Mike bit his lip when Norm's question came up, for it was quickly causing a growing unease to form in his stomach.
"That's what I am afraid of. For a couple of reasons. One, I think Aldarez purposefully pushed for Steve to go undercover because he hoped that the tough crowd working there would take him on, possibly get him hurt and out of the way, meanwhile keeping me distracted arguing back and forth with Rudy and worrying about my partner's safety. This way, McAllister is going to know that he's a cop, so he can avoid being seen by Steve or even help get him targeted. Two, there's really only one young woman who is similar in age, height, weight and good looks as Sally was. And something tells me that bullet fired in the arena of the Cow Palace wasn't meant for Jordan. It was meant to kill Steve, so that McAllister could get to her. Except it didn't work. But somebody like McAllister isn't going to stop after the first try. He will go after Jordan again. And with his…his newfound affinity for this girl, Steve's right in McAllister's way."
