And here is the last chapter. I hope you enjoyed the journey, and were able to channel the guy's frustrations of not always getting the closure they want. One more thing before I leave you; Linus does indeed exist and lives a happy life with his little brother Diego. He now demands royalties though…
As days turned into weeks and their work schedule once again filled with new murders that took precedence over cold cases, the investigation into Reverend Joe's death slowly faded into the background, the practically nonexistent evidence leading absolutely nowhere.
The sad reality was that after all this time, finding any sort of eye witness would be harder than finding a needle in the haystack.
It was a depressing and downright frustrating fact that still nagged on Steve's nerves, even three weeks after the case was officially put on ice.
Judging by the lack of a media storm surrounding their chili cookoff, Tenpenny had been able to soothe the local homeless population and do damage control, all thanks to Ricky's quick thinking. He still couldn't help but smile at the Catholic priest's face upon hearing the other man's side of the story even though it had been…polished up a bit to take the blame off the two San Francisco Homicide detectives.
Then there was the fact that the arsonist placing the explosives into the elevator shaft earlier had finally been caught, his motive having little to do with following in Osorro's footsteps and a lot more with some misguided anger about an assortment of parking tickets for his company vehicles, a manufacturer of chemical compounds for local paint shops and larger scale operations, of all things.
At last he'd been caught, a promise of things to slowly return to normal, if there ever was such a thing.
"Hey, did you get anything back from the APB on the red Fairlane?"
Mike's voice came from a few feet back, the Lieutenant having just returned from a meeting with Olsen. With a decisive pace, he headed for the coffee machine, tossed a dime onto the plate and refilled his cup, before heading over to his partner's desk.
"Nothing yet. If you ask me, Roland ditched the car somewhere in the Bay."
"Yeah…yeah, you're probably right, Buddy Boy…", Mike agreed and sat down on the corner of his desk, staring at the coffee cup in his hand deep in thought, "You know, I wonder if he truly loves this…this Elaine or if he's just another gold digger, killing his rich wife when she runs out of money and then goes back on the prowl. Elaine Emerson, worth almost a million dollars. She better be careful."
"It's not like his act of the traumatized husband coming upon the scene of the crime was any good…", Steve added wearily and reached for his own coffee cup, when Mike stopped him in his tracks.
"What's that over there?"
Following the Lieutenant's glance, the young Inspector smiled faintly, his eyes stopping at the classified ad section of the San Francisco Telegraph and the small circle he'd made around one of the ads.
"Oh, just been doing some detective work myself…", he countered deliberately cryptic, enjoying the eyeroll from his partner.
"Detective work on what? The romance ads? Give me that.", the Lieutenant said facetiously and reached for the thick paper, holding it away from his face to make out the small font.
After only a few words, his expression softened, and a warm smile spread on his face.
"That's not bad, Buddy Boy, not bad at all."
"I thought I'd give it a try. I sprung the five bucks to save the department the expense. Who knows, something might come out of it."
"You never know. It's an interesting angle to it. All it takes is the right person at the right time. Good thinking."
With an amicable pat on the shoulder, Mike headed back to his office, leaving Steve to glance at the ad once again, brooding for the umpteenth time if his wording had been correct but deciding that in the end, less was more.
The case might be going on 10 months now but murder was still murder.
And Ricky had been wrong about one thing in particular.
Steve would not find peace and move on until Reverend Joe's killer was found, that much he had promised when looking at the body of a man who had selflessly given everything to help his community, somebody he'd never had the chance to meet but now wished he had.
WANTED. WITNESSES TO A DEADLY HIT AND RUN. NOVEMBER 7TH AROUND MIDNIGHT, INTERSECTION OF DOLORES AND 16TH AVE. A WELL-LOVED PRIEST WAS KILLED AND HIS FAMILY SEEKS CLOSURE. PLEASE COME FORWARD TO DO THE RIGHT THING.
