The Blue Line Job
Chapter Five: The Whole Picture
"All units, we have a 49S, 410 and 21B in progress, corner of 5th and Main."
Eliot glanced over at Jo and saw her face was pinched and hard. They were less than two blocks from the call. He recognized 49S, silent alarm but he wasn't sure what 410 and 21B was.
"Armed robbery and business burglary," Jo said. "There's a Sunoco station on the corner of 5th and Main."
As much as he hated to do it, he pulled out the Glock she had given him and loaded it. As soon as the cartridge locked into position, they were pulling into the parking lot and Jo was out of the car. She turned back to him and held up two fingers, tapping them against her upper arm. He nodded in understanding, two perps, both armed. He crouched down near the front door of the store, watching gunman number one, complete with ski mask, waving a semi-automatic pistol in the clerk's face. The poor girl had tears streaming down her face as she shoved what little money there was into a backpack.
"Second gunman is guarding the back door," Jo whispered, as she came up next to him.
"I'll take the second guy then," he started to move when Jo placed a hand on his arm.
"No killing. Least amount of violence possible."
He nodded and kept moving, slightly irked now. He would think about it later though, he had to take out an idiot who thought he knew how a fire arm worked. The building wasn't that big and the back door was already propped open. Eliot could hear the sirens in the distance and as soon as the robbers heard them, it would make them panic. He heard the front door open and Jo's voice carried all the way to the back of the store.
"Drop your weapon!"
Eliot charged through the open back door and let instinct take over. The second gun man had shifted his attention to the front of the store and his hand was shaking so badly, knocking the gun out of his grip was too easy. Eliot did have to keep himself from knocking the guy out, Jo's warning sounding in his head. Instead, he pushed the robber down on the floor and cuffed him before glancing up at the front of the store. Jo had the other robber face down on the counter, cuffing him too.
Eliot went back and hauled the second guy to his feet. Just as he did that, the bathroom door opened and out walked another gun toting robber. Apparently, he was a little faster on the uptake, and got off two shots before Eliot took the gun from him and gave him a broken nose instead. After that, it didn't take much to cuff him as well. With one perp crying like a little girl and the other one bleeding profusely from the nose, Eliot drug both of them up to the front of the store where the clerk was still crying. Police cars were pulling up in front of the store but Jo looked a little shaken.
"Hey," Eliot reached out and grabbed her arm. Jo's face went ash white and she dropped to her knees. Eliot pulled his hand away and found it slick with blood. He didn't know the code to call into dispatch that his partner had been shot, the clerk was screaming now and the other cops were just making their way into the store. Eliot turned to the first one through the door.
"Officer Wyatt's been shot."
The other cops took over after that. Two other officers escorted the three gunmen out of the store, another cop took the rattled clerk outside and Eliot handed the detective that had shown up the gun that the third robber had used to shoot Jo. The ambulance arrived around the same time as Chief Reilly. When he saw the Chief making his way into the store, Eliot took a protective stance over Jo who was propped up against the ice cream freezer, dazed but conscious.
"What happened?" Reilly asked.
Eliot narrowed his eyes slightly at the bored tone Reilly had used. "Three armed robbers. Jo went in the front and I went in the back."
"How did she get shot?"
Don't break any noses yet, Eliot. Nate's voice bounced around his head for a couple seconds and Eliot took comfort from the word yet. He would have his chance to take Reilly down a notch. "You can ask Office Wyatt that question. I didn't see it happen."
Reilly turned his attention to Jo. "Well?"
Jo's eyes were glassy but her voice was steady with a tinge of anger. "Third guy was in the bathroom. He came out when we had the other two in custody and got off two shots before Turner took him out."
Reilly turned back to Eliot as the EMT's settled around Jo and started to cut her shirt away from her shoulder.
"Good job, Turner. Not bad for rookie." Reilly extended his hand.
Eliot grinned and took the offered hand, squeezing it a little harder than necessary. "Thank you, sir."
"Well, better stick with your partner." Reilly said, flexing his hand now. "She'll help you fill out the paperwork."
Eliot nodded and watched Reilly walk back outside. The EMT's were helping Jo off the floor and started handing him her gun, keys, radio and what was once the sleeve of her shirt.
"You can follow us to the hospital, Officer Turner," the one EMT said.
"Or you can just go back to the precinct," Jo said. "I'll be back there later on today. This won't take long."
Eliot held the door open for her and the medics. "If it won't take too long, I can wait at the hospital. You'll need a ride back to the precinct."
She tipped her head tiredly and muttered a "whatever."
One of the EMT's came up to Eliot. "We can't release her to go back to work until tomorrow and even then, it'll be desk duty until her arm heals. It might be best to go back to the precinct and let her mother pick her up."
He waited until Jo was in the ambulance. "Trust me, I'll take her home today."
The EMT smiled. "Good luck with that."
Eliot watched the ambulance close it's doors and head down main street to the hospital that loomed in the distance. He looked around for Reilly and found him leaning over the open back door of one of the police cars.
"Hardison?"
"Yeah man?"
"Start recording on the earbud and see if you can turn the volume up to hear what Reilly is saying." Eliot wandered over towards the direction of Reilly. He tried to walk as quietly as he could but with the sirens and cops walking around, he wasn't sure how much Hardison could catch. After a minute, Reilly straightened up and slammed the door shut. He turned around and caught sight of Eliot standing there.
"Can I help you, Officer Turner?"
"I, uh, I don't have the keys to Officer's Wyatt's cruiser."
"What's on your belt, there son?"
Eliot forgot the EMT's had handed him Jo's keys. He gave Reilly a sheepish look. "Sorry about that, sir. I don't know-"
"It's alright." Reilly patted him on the shoulder. "Happens a lot when your partner gets hurt."
Eliot nodded and beelined it for the car that was still running, lights on and both doors open. He shut the passenger side one and slid into the driver's seat. He found the switch for the lights and buckled his seatbelt. "Well, Hardison?"
"Working on it. Hang on."
"How is Jo?" Sophie's voice came across the comm tight with worry.
"She'll be fine," Eliot said, pulling out onto main street. It helped that the hospital could be seen in the distance. "It looked like the bullet went clean through her upper arm. She should heal up no problem."
"Oh, hell no."
Eliot knew that note in Hardison's voice. "What is it?"
Hardison must have turned up the volume on his computer because Eliot could hear the static across the earbud but then Reilly's voice broke up the static.
"I thought I taught you how to shoot better than that."
"So, it was supposed to be a hit," Nathan said unnecessarily.
"You want me to take Reilly down?"
"No, not yet," Nathan said. "We have to find a way to get Jo's money back. We're going to investigate some leads today and we'll all meet at Jo's tomorrow for the cookout and hopefully have a plan set for the con then. Just keep playing the concerned and now, over protective, partner."
Eliot didn't want any of them to know just how badly he wanted to pummel Reilly at the moment and how, strangely enough, he didn't have to play at being concerned or protective towards Jo. He was already there.
"Alright, ladies and gents," Hardison pulled his keyboard onto his lap, "here is our last briefing. First things first, how's Jo?"
Nathan had been watching Eliot out of the corner of his eye all night. The hitter was snappy and more surly than usual. Even now, as he was telling them that Jo was home, resting and annoyed at the attention, he still had his arms crossed and was tense. He had a feeling this job would bother Eliot, the client being a harassed cop, but he didn't expect Eliot to take it quite this personally. However, having Jo shot with him being less than 20 feet away would get under Eliot's skin.
"Alright," Hardison said and turned on the TV. "Here are the major players. Chief Mark Reilly. Before he became police chief, there's not much on the man. I had to do some extensive digging and this is what I found." A mug shot of a much thinner, mustached Reilly popped up on the screen. "Meet Mr. Sean O'Malley, a wanna be mobster that none of the Irish mob wanted to take on because no matter what heist he tried to pulled off, he got caught."
"Lousy mobster, lousy Chief," Parker said. "You would think he would pick up on the pattern."
"Now, the one thing that Sean O'Malley did do correctly, was steal ten million dollars from the Moretti's in New York City."
"The Moretti's?" Sophie asked.
"Yeah," Hardison pulled up a picture of the family. "They're like the Soprano's of Manhattan. Donnelly told O'Malley if he could swindle ten million from the Moretti's, then he would be accepted as a player in the Irish mob here in Boston. Somehow, someway, O'Malley pulled it off but as soon as he did, Donnelly and the other two Irish mob families went down. Instead of giving the money back, O'Malley used some it to gain a new identity and new career."
"And now he's Police Chief Mark Reilly," Sophie said. "Who are the kids?"
Hardison enlarged the five mug shots that were floating around in the background. "We've already met Jake Henderson. This is Jake's best friend, Jeremy Voight. They're practically inseparable so it's almost a given that they're in cahoots in Step-Daddy's posse. As are these three upstanding citizens. See, Eliot, you may recognize these three gents...aw, no, you wouldn't. They had ski masks on when you had the pleasure of meeting them."
"Move it along, Hardison," Eliot answered shortly.
Hardison went to say something smart but Nathan made a cutting motion across his throat. Hardison took the hint.
"Reilly's trying to form his own mobbish type family and he's using his stepsons friends to do his dirty work."
"So Jo's not the only one he's squeezing?" Parker asked.
"Afraid not. There's two other families that are sending him checks. Nate found them when he found Jo's canceled check. One of the families are the Gregorys. They are the ones that supposedly lost their son in the car accident. Sophie called them today posing as a rep from the tuition office of UCLA and confirmed that Brian Gregory is a student there."
"So what happened to the settlement money that Jo paid the Gregorys?" Eliot asked.
"Half of it went right into Reilly's account. The other half went to Brian's college education. However, the Gregory's are still paying a monthly fee to keep it all under wraps." Hardison pulled a final picture up on the screen. "Reilly is gathering funds for something or rather, someone. The Morettis want a foothold in Massachusetts and ultimately, Boston. This fine young woman behind me is Allegra Ricci, a niece in the Moretti family, who happens to be running for mayor of Fitchburg."
Nathan nodded. "Reilly is hoping to buy the mayoral race. He can't use any of the ten million because that has to go back to the Morettis so he's fleecing families for the funds."
"Oh," Parker grinned. "I liked your use of alliteration there, Nate."
"So what's the con?" Eliot asked.
Nathan looked at the information still swimming across the screen. "We steal a New York mob family name and convince Reilly we have more to offer than the Morettis. We'll run everything by Jo tomorrow afternoon and if she gives the green light, let the game begin."