Castoff
part 10

Shortly after their human friends left, the turtles, who were used to sleeping during the day, went to bed. With the bassinet next to his alcove in the bedroom, both Don and Shilo slept more soundly.

The height of the portable bed meant that Don simply had to turn his head to check on Shilo. The baby turtle seemed comforted at having Don so much closer to him. Mikey had already shown them how important scent was to the infant.

Whatever the reasons, Donatello slept deeply and for longer than was usual for him. He woke with a start, his first thoughts centered on Shilo.

When he looked over though, baby and bassinet were gone.

Worried, Don scrambled out of bed, chiding himself for not hearing his child. He crossed the bedroom swiftly in order to peer over the rail into the open section of the lair.

Right away he saw the bassinet sitting next to the closed off pipe that stood in the center of that space. Standing atop it was Leonardo, going through his daily routine, his swords flashing through the air.

Now Don knew why he hadn't heard anything. Leo probably woke as soon as Shilo began to stir. Moving silently, big brother had scooped up the baby, bassinet and all.

Don wasn't exactly thrilled at seeing the bassinet that close to Leo's flying swords. He knew his brother never dropped them, but there was a first time for everything.

It wasn't until Don had gone downstairs that he saw his father seated on the couch with Shilo on his lap. He was bracing the baby with one arm and reading to him from a book he held in the other hand.

Shilo was sucking on a pacifier, his eyes focused on Master Splinter's face. The baby seemed totally enraptured by the soothing sound of his grandfather's voice. Every so often, Shilo would reach out to grab at the ends of Master Splinter's 'mustache', but the old rat had plenty of experience in dodging curious fingers.

Leo stopped spinning and leaping to address his brother as Don approached. "Hey Donnie. Shilo's already been fed and changed."

"When did he wake up?" Don asked.

"About an hour and a half ago," Leo answered. "I didn't see any point in interrupting your sleep."

"Thanks," Don said. He watched Master Splinter for a few minutes, unaware that Leo was watching him.

"You're not doing this by yourself," Leo told him, keeping his voice low.

Don glanced up. "I know I'm not. I can't help but feel an extra responsibility though. I am the one who gave him a transfusion without really thinking through the possible ramifications."

"And if you had?" Leo asked, squatting down so that he was on an eye level with Don. "What would you have done differently?"

"Probably nothing," Don said with a smile. The wisdom Leo often displayed was one of the reasons why, though they were most likely all the same age, he was considered the oldest.

Hopping down, Leo asked, "Did you and Casey decide on a time?"

Nodding, Don said, "He's bringing the vehicles at around midnight."

"He's supposed to call if the truck breaks down so we can go rescue his ass," Raph said. He was standing at the kitchen railing, looking down at his brothers. "I'm gonna heat up some chili. Who's hungry so I know how many cans to open?"

"Make enough for all of us," Leo answered.

The smell of cooking woke Mikey, who produced a couple of bags of corn chips to go with the chili. After they'd finished eating and cleaning up, Shilo showed signs of being hungry. Leo prepared his bottle and then sat down to feed the baby so that Don could spend some time at his computers.

Leo had just put Shilo down for a nap when Casey called to tell them he was five minutes away and for someone to open the hidden door that would give him access to the garage tunnel.

Raph jogged down the tunnel and had the door open just as Casey arrived. April was in the truck with him, and the truck bed was loaded down with boxes. After closing the door, Raph hopped onto the truck's back bumper and directed Casey to the work spaces that they would use as they made repairs to the vehicles.

"What the heck is all this stuff?" Raph asked after they got the truck situated.

"April and Vern bought out Ikea," Casey said with a laugh. "She wrangled him into making good on his offer to buy baby furniture."

"He's making a huge profit off of being the 'Falcon'," April said with a toss of her head. "I've decided we'll use his money for anything the baby might need in the future."

Raph chuckled as he walked back to the lair with their friends. "If he knows what's good for him, he won't even try arguing with ya'."

Mikey met them as they came up the stairs, a finger to his lips. "Shilo's asleep," he said. "He likes noise, but not too much."

"We'll keep it down," Casey assured him. "Where's Don?"

"On his computer looking up faces," Mikey said.

"I have some news on that front," Casey said as he walked over to Donatello's computer station.

"The men in the car and the ones waiting to ambush you are all in the same gang," Don said without looking up from his computer.

"The Mala Noche," Casey said.

That drew Don's eyes off of the screen. "Exactly. How did you know?"

Casey pointed at the badge hanging from his belt. "Cop, remember? That gang is controlling the entire area."

"If you need names, I've got the ones for the men we encountered, along with their faces," Don said, grabbing a stack of paper off his printer.

"This will help," Casey said. "The homicide detectives aren't thrilled to have me tagging along on their investigation, so they're sharing as little as they can get away with. They haven't directly connected Colón to the Mala Noche, but after the reception I got, I'll bet that gang has something to do with her death."

"The man you talked to is Hector Guerra," Don said. "He's got a pretty thick file in the police department's data base."

"I heard the guys discussing him," Casey said as he flipped through the pages Don had given him so he could look at Guerra's picture. "He took over as gang leader when their other leader disappeared a year ago."

"Maybe he had something to do with their old boss disappearing," Raph said.

Casey nodded. "They demand loyalty, but any show of weakness gets you dead quick."

"Would you say that if anyone would have knowledge of what happened to Colón, it would be Guerra?" April asked.

"I don't think anything happens in that neighborhood that Guerra doesn't know about," Casey said.

"Are the detectives planning to talk to him?" Leo asked.

"They'll go to him," Casey said. "We have nothing on him right now, so we can't invite him to the station. He'd decline."

"I should talk to him," April said. "My boss assigned the Colón story to me. They want an exposé on the deaths in East Harlem because residents have been complaining that no one cares when one of theirs is killed."

"That's a very bad idea, April," Casey said, frowning at her. "These people are dangerous."

"More dangerous than Shredder and the Foot?" April asked. "I'm a reporter, Casey. Dealing with dangerous situations and people is what I do. Anyway, for the most part, people don't bother reporters. They either talk to us or refuse, they don't shoot us."

"Then I'll go with you," Casey said. "I have questions too."

"He wouldn't talk to me if you're there," April said. "He already knows you're a cop."

"Were you able to learn anything during your neighborhood canvas?" Leo asked. "That is, if the detectives allowed you to participate."

"They didn't want to, but Chief Vincent made it clear they couldn't cold shoulder me," Case said. "We turned up zip on the canvas, which I expected. The residents might complain to the media that we don't help them, but they don't help themselves either. No one will talk."

"Ya' gotta expect that," Raph said. "Most of them are good, everyday folks with no way to defend themselves if a bunch of hoods bust into their homes as payback for opening their mouths."

"I realize that, Raph. It's just frustrating," Casey said. "I did find out from Yvette that Colón was killed with a .32 caliber Colt automatic. The bullet was full metal jacketed, so the entry wound was small and the bullet was still in her head. There's enough intact rifling detail to be able to match it to a specific gun, if we can find one to use in a comparison."

"I don't think the killer would keep the gun," Mikey said. "I mean, wouldn't they know the cops would track her back to the neighborhood that the gang controls?" When the group stared at him, Mikey asked, "What? You think I don't watch TV?"

"Mikey has a point," Casey said. "Most of the time the gangs use either a library gun or a throwaway."

"What's a library gun?" Raph asked.

"It's one that's shared by every member of the gang," Casey said. "The guns are kept in a particular location, one that the police will be hard pressed to find. If someone needs a gun, they check it out of the 'library'. After they've used it, they return it to the library. Makes it hard to find the gun and if we do, hard to pin it to one particular person."

"Did Colón have a cell phone?" Don asked.

It was a quick change of subject, but Casey was used to how Don's mind worked. "Yes she did, it was on her body. The detectives have pulled her call log, but it wasn't helpful."

"She probably had another phone then," Don said. "If she was involved with the gang, they would have made sure she had one that couldn't be traced to her."

"How do we find that one?" April asked.

"I'd guess that she had both the night she dumped Shilo," Don said. "If I triangulate the location of the phone we know about to a particular cell tower, I can find every other phone that also pinged off of that tower."

"What's that mean in English?" Raph asked.

"That he can find her other phone," Leo said.

"That I might be able to find exactly where she was killed," Don said, his fingers dancing across his keyboard.

From behind them the group heard Shilo begin to fuss. Don's hands stopped moving as soon as he heard the baby.

"Keep doing your thing, Donnie," April said, touching him lightly on the shoulder. "I'll take care of Shilo."

Don turned back to his screens, tossing up a string of phone numbers onto one of them. On another he began matching the numbers to people.

"The force would kill to have him in our forensics unit," Casey muttered to Leo.

"They have too many rules," Don said, his eyes locked on the various computer screens.

"The only rules Donnie follows are Master Splinter's and Leo's," Raph said. "Sometimes he don't even listen to Dad's."

Leo snorted but left it alone. He knew his brother had one particular instance in mind, but that was long over and done with.

"You need any help, April?" Mikey asked as he joined her at the bassinet.

"He just needs a diaper change," April said as she expertly stripped off his bottoms and the soiled diaper.

Mikey handed her a baby wipe and as she leaned down to cleanse Shilo, he reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair.

"Ow!" April exclaimed. "He's got quite a grip."

Chuckling, Mikey helped extract her hair from Shilo's fingers. "Yeah, we're learning to keep our mask tails away from him. Master Splinter's had his fur tugged on a few times."

"I've found her other phone," Don said. "At least, I'm fairly certain this is her second one. She was talking to someone on the phone the police found when a call came in on the other. This was the night she died. As soon as she disconnected from the first call, the other one was answered. There was only one other call active during that time."

April was holding Shilo when she rejoined them. His head lay on her shoulder, his eyes partially closed as he drifted back to sleep.

"Where was she?" Casey asked, leaning in to look at the map Don had pulled up.

"The park," Raph said, looking at the map as well. "She was in Marcus Garvey Park."

"So was the other caller," Don said. "Let me see if I can find out who that phone belongs to."

"Probably her killer," Leo guessed.

A line of code rolled across the smallest screen, Don's eyes glued to the information. In another minute he sat back abruptly, his mouth dropping open.

"Ya' got something or not?" Raph demanded.

"I've got something," Don said. "I've got the name."

"Don't keep us in suspense, Donnie," Mikey said. "Who belongs to that phone?"

"Guerra," Don said. "She was talking to Hector Guerra."

TBC…