Here's a little holiday gift for you all! This chapter's a little bit shorter, but we're leading up to some major action and plot points soon, so I hope you guys enjoy it!
"Great, thanks for checking." Danny hung up his phone. "Thanks for nothing." He rubbed at his face, the stress of the past few days starting to get to him.
They only had a few hours left on the clock before their best window of opportunity to locate Eddie closed. Unfortunately, since he found Badillo Friday morning, there had been no progress. He had stabilized and the doctors were hopeful that they might be able to extubate him tonight, but Danny had been told he wouldn't be able to talk to him until at least tomorrow morning, which wasn't really helping the time sensitive factor of things. And the canvases so far had turned up nothing. No witnesses or passerby, and the video that had been obtained from local businesses both at the site of Eddie and Badillo's abduction and where Badillo had subsequently been dumped was less than helpful. It was dark and blurry, although TARU was working on trying to clean it up and get anything useful from the footage.
Sunday dinner earlier had been a small and somber affair, with key members missing from the table. There had been the obvious hole where Eddie should have been and Jamie hadn't shown up either, not that it had come as much of a surprise to anyone. Last he heard, Jamie had been ordered home to sleep last night and had shown back up at his precinct early this morning to continue helping with the search. Danny himself hadn't been there for more than an hour and a half, just long enough to eat some food, make a little small talk, and give the little updates he could on the case before heading back to the squad.
Baez had departed about an hour ago, not that Danny blamed her for it. Her babysitter could only stay until seven and she wanted to spend time with Elaina when she could. His partner had covered his portion of the investigation while he went to family dinner, so he was covering for her so she could spend time with her little girl. He thought it was a reasonable enough expectation. Besides, it wasn't like he was completely on his own.
Detective Lenin had only gone home for very brief periods of time to sleep and grab a bite to eat over the weekend. He was currently hunched over a desk going through the report from the crime scene where Badillo had been found, trying to find anything that could help lead them to Eddie or their kidnappers. If Danny didn't know better, he would've thought Lenin was taking the case personally, although he had no idea why the man would. As far as he knew, Lenin had never worked with either cop before and he was pretty sure the man hadn't said more than a few words to his kid brother before the start of the investigation.
Sitting across from Lenin was his partner, who had finally made an appearance late Friday. The man had apparently shown up to the hospital a while after Danny and Baez had left Friday and had been introduced to them when the two showed up to the five-four later that night to compare notes on the case. And while he hadn't disappeared again since then, Danny couldn't get the feeling that there was something going on with the man out of his head. That may have just been related to the man's apparent lack of interest in getting to work, however.
It might've had something to do with who Lenin's partner was overall, try as he might to ignore it. Ryan Bello was a third-grade detective, having only recently been promoted, and had already gone through a partner since then. Bello had been paired with Lenin after Lenin's old partner had retired and Bello's had transferred precincts, which was a bit odd seeing as Lenin was a first-grade detective and normally partners had the same level of experience. He was young, early thirties if Danny had to guess, and tall, with closely cut brown hair and an outstanding arrest record from his time on the beat. Lenin said that the reason Bello had taken so long to get into the city Friday was because of car troubles and because the man's wife and toddler had needed to use their other vehicle, but Bello's seeming lack of urgency wasn't the only reason that Danny found the man unsettling.
He also always wore a pin on the lapel of his suit jacket that itched at a long buried memory in Danny's brain, although he couldn't for the life of him remember why. It was a small, almost oval shaped navy blue pin with gold engravings of a crest. That crest had a pair of crossed horse heads over a pair of crossed sabers and there were four stars in the lower corner on each side of the pin. Danny could swear he had seen something similar before, but he couldn't remember where. When he had asked Lenin about it, the other man hadn't had a clue. All Lenin knew was that it had apparently been a gift from his partner's father once he had graduated from the police academy and the man wore it every day. He hadn't bothered to ask Bello.
Nevertheless, the addition of Bello to the investigation hadn't yielded much by way of information. The owners of the restaurant who had found Badillo had been surprisingly helpful and had stopped by the precinct earlier that day with additional video footage. The footage from their restaurant hadn't caught much, but apparently one of the residents of the apartments in the next building over had a bird feeder that they kept a camera on for whatever reason, and had provided the owners with the footage after learning about the events that occurred Friday morning. The video was blurry, since the main focus of the footage was the feeder, but the lower right corner showed someone moving near the dumpster that Badillo had been found next to. TARU was working on cleaning the new footage up and would let him know if they were able to get a better image.
The dispatcher who had refused to give the first officers on scene Badillo's identity when they had called in the abandoned RMP, the same one who had also hung up on Lenin when he had called about the same situation, had been interviewed and unfortunately couldn't give them anything. They were a newer hire who had since been fired for unprofessionalism and hanging up on multiple occasions without a valid reason, even after the officers had identified themselves. All Danny and Baez had been able to gather from the interview was that they had an axe to grind with first responders and probably shouldn't be working with the public.
His email dinged and he opened it up to find the updated toxicology report for Badillo from the crime lab. He skimmed it, cross-referencing it with the list of drugs from the hospital that had been administered when Badillo had first been brought in, since they hadn't gotten a blood draw until later. He couldn't pronounce half of them, but there were a few that showed up in the report that caught his attention. He noticed that Lenin was leaning back in his chair and decided it might be worth it to get the other man's input on the situation.
He turned towards the other man, noting that Bello looked to be starting to pack it in for the night, with most of his reports getting tucked away. "Hey, Lenin, I've got the toxicology report back from the lab on Badillo."
Lenin rubbed his face, likely fighting off an impending headache from the amount of time they had both spent staring at a screen over the past few days. "Yeah? Anything interesting that we might be able to use?"
Danny skimmed the report. "A bunch of meds that the hospital gave him when he arrived, which is no surprise. There's fentanyl and ketamine on here, but the notes I got from the nurse says that they were given there when they intubated him." He flipped through the notes. Normally, those two drugs would be a massive red flag on any tox screen, but the lab had indicated that the levels were consistent with what the hospital had given and when. "There is one that shows up on the report that I don't show the hospital as giving him though. Midadiz-mido-midl- whatever it is, it isn't in any of the records that they sent over as something they gave him."
Lenin frowned and got up, walking over to read the report on Danny's screen. "That's odd. I'm not going to try to pronounce that, but maybe we should give the hospital a call to make sure that they didn't just forget about it."
Danny nodded. "We could do that. Or I could just head over there and see if I can talk to Badillo myself. You know, since they were thinking they might take that tube out of his throat tonight."
Lenin gave him a look. "We could do that. Or we could just call them and go try to talk to him tomorrow, like they said."
Danny shrugged. "We could. But I'm more of an action guy than a sit around and wait guy."
Lenin's computer dinged at just that moment and he headed back over to his improvised desk. He sat down and started to read something. "One second, Reagan, I just got an anonymous email with a few video and photo attachments. Let me take a look at them quick and then we can continue this debate."
Danny rolled his eyes and got up to grab a coffee from down the hall. "Okay, you do that. I'm going to grab something to drink before we head over."
He had only taken a few sips from his cup when his phone started to ring in his pocket. He pulled it out and swallowed his coffee before answering. "Reagan."
"Hello, Detective." The voice was staticky and hollow-sounding, almost robotic.
Danny frowned and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "Can I help you?"
"Oh no, I don't need any help. But I think your sister-in-law here might. She's not looking too good. Shame, she was kind of pretty too."
His blood ran cold. Danny dropped his cup in the trash as he walked over to the side room where their in-house technical agent was sitting. He shoved the kid in the shoulder and mouthed that he needed a trace on his phone, ASAP. The kid nodded, wide-eyed, and started typing away on his computer.
Danny shifted his focus back to the phone call and scanned the squad room through the window. Both Lenin and Bello were still sitting at their makeshift desks by the wall, engrossed in their respective files. "What have you done to Eddie?"
He could practically hear the sick creep on the other end of the line smiling. "Oh, nothing much. We're just having a bit of fun here. Aren't we, Eddie?"
There was the sound of muffled protests from the other side of the line, but Danny could hardly make them out. He dropped his head and took a deep breath before speaking. "Who are you? What do you want with her?"
There was a humorless chuckle from the other end of the phone. "Oh, come on, Detective. I thought you were the best. Shouldn't you have figured out who I am by now? I've been doing my best to make things simple for you. As for what I want with my little plaything here, it's simple. Someone needs to pay for my father's death. She'll do. Her death will deliver a similar blow. And I've been thinking about this for years."
Danny caught Lenin's eye from where he was standing near the window and jerked his head for the other man to come over. Lenin stood up, a concerned look on his face and had just entered the room when Danny spoke again. "Well, I hate to disappoint you. Why don't you help me out by telling me your name? And what Eddie has to do with your father's death?"
Lenin's eyebrows shot into his hairline at Danny's words.
There was a snort from the perp. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what you did to my father. Your family killed him, and you don't even remember it!" There was a note of anger in the voice now. "You know, Duwann Wilson had the right idea all those years ago. He just got sloppy with his execution. Believe me, I won't be making the same mistake, Detective. Some things are better done yourself."
Danny glanced at the tech, who just shook his head to indicate that he hadn't gotten a lock on the location of the call yet. The mention of Duwann Wilson was news. Danny hadn't heard that name in years, but the implications of it was far worse. He took a breath before speaking again. "So, your beef isn't with Eddie then, I take it."
A cruel laugh came down the line. "Oh, on the contrary, Detective Reagan. I pity her. She was doomed as soon as she was partnered with a Reagan all those years ago. And then she sealed her fate when she married your brother. Poor woman never had a chance."
There was the sound of a muffled scream from the other end of the line. Danny shut his eyes at the sound but kept on the phone. Anything that he could get from talking to this creep would be helpful in the long run to find Eddie and take the bastard down. "Okay, okay! Just please, don't hurt her. What do you want?"
There was another laugh. "Oh, I think it's a bit too late for that. As for what I want, it's simple. I want you all to suffer like I did when your family killed my father. Poor Eddie here is just the sacrificial lamb."
Danny was wracking his brain, trying to figure out who the person on the other end of the line's father was, but he was coming up empty. Whoever it was, they obviously held the entire Reagan family responsible for his death. He grit his teeth together as he came up at a loss. "Listen to me, you son of a bitch. If you hurt her, I will personally make sure that you go down on everything I can, and you never see the light of day again. I can promise you that."
He could hear the cold smile in the voice as he got a response. "Well like I said, it's a little too late for that. Do give my regards to Detective Lenin though. He was a lot more dogged than I would've thought for this, I must say. You two still have nothing though, despite easing your way, so forgive me if I don't take your threat seriously. And I know that Officer Badillo hasn't been able to talk to you yet, if he ever will. Goodbye, Detective. Maybe we'll be seeing each other soon. I'll make sure to leave you a little present."
There was a click, and the line went dead.
Danny bit his lip and dropped his head before punching a nearby filing cabinet in frustration. "Tell me you got a lock on the location."
The tech gave him an apprehensive look. "Not an exact lock, but I did get a small area where the call originated from."
Danny chewed his lip and leaned over the kid's shoulder. "That'll have to do. Where is it?"
He pointed at his screen. "Looks like the call was coming from this area down near the Meatpacking District. A bunch of old warehouses down there, but I couldn't get a lock on any of them, so it's a three block radius."
Danny cursed. He couldn't just take SWAT out for a hike to clear a bunch of abandoned warehouses over three blocks. He was going to need a location that was a bit more specific. "Okay, listen, you keep working on this and call in some buddies to see if you can narrow the area down a bit more. A cop's life is on the line here."
He got a wide-eyed nod from the kid and turned his attention to where Lenin was still standing near the door. He gestured for him to follow him outside, where he led him to the nearby interrogation room to talk.
Once Danny shut the door, Lenin pounced. "Care to share what just happened there?"
Danny took a shaky breath. "That was our kidnapper. He was checking in on the investigation, but it felt more like he was just calling to taunt me. It sounded like Eddie is still alive right now, although I don't know how much longer that'll be true for."
Lenin arched an eyebrow. "He?"
Danny nodded and rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, it sounded like the voice was male. Hard to tell, it was all staticky and sounded robotic, almost like he was running it through some kind of system to disguise it. But we've got a bigger problem."
Lenin looked skeptical. "How do we have a bigger problem than our kidnapper calling to taunt you and not being able to lock in on his location?"
Danny scanned the squad room from where he stood near the window. There was only a skeleton crew still here, and Bello, who was finishing up a report. He didn't want to believe what was about to come out of his mouth, but there was only one way that their perp would know that they had almost nothing on him and that Lenin had been here day and night since the start. "We have a mole in this investigation."
The look on Lenin's face turned incredulous. "A mole? Like, there's a dirty cop on the case?"
Danny nodded his head. "I don't necessarily know if it's someone directly involved with it, but they'd have to be pretty close, much as I hate the thought. He knew that we have almost nothing on him, who you were, and that we haven't been able to speak to Badillo yet. Speaking of which, I'm going to put an around the clock guard on him of guys that we know we can trust."
"Did he threaten Badillo?" Lenin was back to sounding skeptical.
"More or less. And if there's a leak, I want to make sure that they don't decide to start cleaning up loose ends when we get too close and take out Badillo."
Lenin gave him an affirmative nod. "Okay, that makes sense. Did he say anything that might be useful in identifying him at all, or was it all just taunting you?"
Danny's face twitched. He wasn't really sure what to make of the conversation, but at least now he knew that Eddie had been the target of the initial attack and that he didn't need to go digging into her past for potential suspects. The mention of Duwann Wilson had assured him of that. "A little bit. Nothing that makes a lot of sense."
Lenin cocked his eyebrow again. "Well, share anyways. Maybe we can make it make sense."
"He kept talking about how my family killed his father years ago and how somebody needed to pay for it. He said Eddie was doomed as soon as she got partnered with my kid brother and that now she got to be the sacrificial lamb. Also mentioned Duwann Wilson, who I haven't thought of in years, but if this is anything like that case, it's not good."
Lenin gave him a confused look. "Who's Duwann Wilson and how does he tie into your family allegedly killing this guy's father?"
Danny sighed. "Duwann Wilson was one of the Prospect Park 6. They were wrongfully convicted of gang raping a young teacher years ago and were eventually all exonerated about five or six years back. They all got a massive payout, but Wilson said it would never be enough. His mother died while he was in prison from cancer, but he insisted it was because of a broken heart. Once he was released, he decided to take revenge on everyone who had been involved in the case by sentencing them to a fate worse than death."
Lenin's face grew confused. "I think I remember hearing something about that while I was on the beat, but I don't really recall all of it. What fate would be worse than death?"
"Instead of killing the people who had wronged him, he put out hits on people close to them. The daughter of the lead detective on the case, the mother of one of his cell block captains at Yorkville, and my kid brother. The only reason Jamie wasn't killed was because Eddie came out right when the hitman drove up. She eventually killed him when he tried to escape, but I'm guessing the thought process behind it is what our perp was referencing."
Lenin's face grew concerned and he leaned against the table. "I saw something about that in Janko's file, but I had no idea there was a story behind it. I just thought it was someone deciding to take a shot at a cop. What does that have to do with your family allegedly killing our guy's father though?"
Danny shook his head. "I have no clue. Honestly. I can't even think of something that might be related to it. Unfortunately, I think it might have something to do with Jamie though."
The other man frowned. "What makes you think that?"
Danny sighed and surveyed the squad room outside again. "Because of his whole talk of Eddie being a sacrificial lamb in combination with the whole Duwann Wilson thing. If he blamed my father for something, he would likely go after one of us kids or my gramps, and if he blamed me for something, it would be a hell of a lot easier to go after one of my boys or me. Same with Erin. It would be easier to go after anyone else. Going after Eddie would hit Jamie the hardest and this guy would only do that if it was his goal, especially given the fact that he had to go to such elaborate lengths to get her."
Lenin slowly nodded. "I see. Well, that certainly makes things interesting."
Bello chose that moment to knock on the door and cut in. "Hey guys, I think I'm going to head home now. Lisa just texted me that she's outside and my boy is only two, so he's not a big fan of waiting..."
Lenin waved him off. "Go, go. Head home, spend time with your family. We'll take care of things here."
Bello gave his partner a grateful smile and practically sprinted out of the squad room.
Danny waited a minute before asking the question that had been weighing on his mind ever since he'd realized that there was a leak in their investigation. "How well do you know him? Bello, I mean."
Lenin frowned, obviously uncertain of where Danny was headed. "Decently well. He used to grab a drink at the bar after work every once in a while, but not recently. That's because his wife is pregnant though, and he wants to spend more time with his family. Why?"
Danny ignored the question and pressed on. "How long have you been working with him? Do you trust him?"
He saw Lenin's defenses go up. "We've been partnered for a few months now, ever since my old partner retired. I'd like to think I can trust him to have my back. Where are you going with this?"
Danny hesitated. It wasn't like he could just accuse the other man's partner of being a dirty cop. Unfortunately, his face apparently gave it away because Lenin asked the next question.
"Oh my god, you think Bello's our leak?!" The man sounded incredulous.
Danny raised his hands up in an attempt to placate Lenin and prevent things from escalating. "That's not what I'm saying. I don't know who the leak is, I just think some things aren't adding up is all. Like the fact that he didn't show up until nearly twelve hours after Janko and Badillo were reported missing. He could've ridden the subway and gotten there faster. Or how he lives on the other side of Manhattan but has never tried to transfer to a closer precinct to his family."
Lenin's eyes flared. "I've never had any problems with him over the course of our partnership and I'm not about to start questioning my own partner now, Reagan. If you want to start playing that game, why don't we look at your own partner while we're at it."
Okay, so he had obviously struck a nerve. "Hey, hey, listen. It's just a thought that crossed my mind, let's not cross the bridge until we need to, alright?"
Lenin backed down a little and nodded. "Fine. Obviously, whoever is behind this wants you working the case, likely so there's a chance you could compromise it when it goes to trial. We're not going to let that happen, so if anyone asks later on, you were looking at things because Janko's disappearance tied into Badillo's case, alright?"
Danny gave him a nod and Lenin continued. "Perfect. Then I suggest we start digging into any past cases you and your brother worked. Start with the obvious ones, where the perp got killed in the takedown or a bystander or witness or someone was killed in the course of the investigation, then we can expand out from there to see if there are any that died after they were arrested or convicted."
Lenin opened the door and headed back to his interim desk, with Danny following behind. They were going to be in for a long night.
Danny rubbed his eyes as he closed out of the Los Lourdes case. He and Lenin had decided to split up who was looking at what case depending on how recent it had been and the consensus agreement had been that Lenin would look at everything that could be related since Jamie had transferred into the two-nine and Danny would look at possible cases before that. After thinking on it a bit, the first case he had looked at was Jamie's first shooting, when Gavin Bryant had committed suicide by cop and used Jamie to do so. He knew the man had had a young son at the time, so the time frame and motives could potentially line up. Unfortunately, the Bryant family had left the city soon after and now lived in North Carolina, where the kid was a senior in high school, and the trail had gone cold.
He had eaten up almost two hours trying to locate the Bryant family before moving on to Los Lourdes. If he was being honest with himself, the gang would have more of a problem with Danny than with Jamie, but they had still shot and killed Vinny, so he had figured it was worth a shot. That had also been a dead end though, as most of the gang members were still in prison and their witnesses and their families had left the area. It wasn't like you could just shoot one of the most popular mayors in recent history and not have some blowback in the court system and the court of public opinion.
He let out a sigh and opened his brother's arrest records back up, scrolling to where he had left off in 2012. He'd said it before, but it warranted being stated again. His kid brother was a little too efficient at his job. Danny glanced over at where Lenin was reading through a different case file. "You find anything that might be related yet?"
"No, nothing yet. There was nothing recent where the perp or witnesses were killed in the course of the investigation, so I've been looking into those that died after the case was closed. It takes a bit longer, but I'm still not getting very far. Only one I've found so far is an EDP that committed suicide about a year after the fact, but there was no family to contact."
Danny nodded and leaned back in his chair, studying the other man. There were a lot of things that weren't adding up on this case, but what was on his mind at the moment was the fierce commitment to which the other detective was sticking with the investigation. The man had barely left the squad since he had arrived late Friday. "So, what's your deal with this case?"
Lenin's head snapped up. "Excuse me?"
"I said, what's your deal with this case? We both know why I'm here late on a Sunday night, plus my kids are off at college, so it's not like I've got anyone waiting on me to come home. But why are you still here? There's got to be someone waiting for you at home or some reason why you're so invested in this."
That earned him a narrowed stare. "We have a missing cop. I'm not going to stop until I find her. Is that so hard to believe?"
Danny shrugged. "Not really. But I want to know your reasons. We all have those cases that just stick with us or those that remind us of past failures. I just want to know if you're trying to make up for a past mistake or loss so I can be prepared. You already know all you need to about me, but I don't know all that much about you. From what I do know though, you didn't know Eddie that well, so I'm not really sure why you're so invested in the case."
Lenin studied him for a second. Just when Danny was about to admit defeat and start scrolling through Jamie's prior collars, he spoke. "I don't know her well enough to be on a first name basis, but I've worked with Officer Janko in the past on drug stings and trafficking takedowns. She's a hell of a cop and incredibly passionate. That's why I put her name in for consideration when I heard Cromwell out of SVU was retiring."
Danny cut in. "Wait a minute. You put her name in for SVU? I didn't even know that they were going to have an opening, much less that Eddie was up for detective."
Lenin sighed. "Yeah. She's good at the job, but she's relentless when she deals with assault and trafficking cases. That's why I thought it would be a good fit for her. She's been a real asset when I needed backup on some cases. Janko just needs some guidance at times. Plus, there was no way that any of her direct supervisors would put her name in for it and I figured she deserved her shot at a gold shield." He looked Danny in the eyes. "I didn't know that she hadn't told anybody or that she was on the shortlist for the opening until I spoke with your brother Friday morning. He said she hadn't told anyone besides himself and the captain because she was afraid it might jinx things."
Interesting. Danny hadn't even given the idea that Eddie might be looking to move up from patrol much thought. The other man leaned back in his chair and fixed his gaze on him. "I also interviewed your brother Friday morning. He was so torn up, it was almost like a kid who lost their puppy. I want to do everything I can to make sure Janko makes it back home."
"I see." That at least gave Danny a little bit of background on why Lenin was so dogged. He understood feeling responsible for other cops, especially if they wound up in harm's way because of your actions. He had felt the same after Jamie had been shot last year because he was helping with one of Danny's cases. Baez had told him a million times that it wasn't his fault, but that didn't mean that Danny didn't still have nightmares about losing his last brother.
He turned back to the database search he had queued up for Jamie's collars. He was far enough back in his kid brother's career at this point that most of them had been made with Renzulli. He frowned as he noticed a string of collars in the middle of May of 2011 and tried to remember if there had been a big bust around that time. Jamie would've still been a rookie, less than a year on the job, so there was no way he would've been involved in a major sting, and the Sanfino case had happened the following year, so it wasn't related to that.
Danny selected one of the arrests to read through it, hoping it would jog his memory. He could sense that this was something he should remember, it was right there at the edge of his brain, but he just couldn't seem to grasp what it was.
The file slowly loaded on his computer. Rick Accardi. Sentenced to 25 years for grand larceny in the first degree, with an additional ten years tacked on for accessory to murder. Okay, so best guess was Jamie had brought down some sort of theft ring around that time. But Accardi was still serving time upstate, so Danny doubted that he was any relation to their kidnapper.
He scrolled down a little further into the file. A bunch of statements about what the man had had on him at the time of arrest, lawyer, emergency contact, etc. Nothing that was really giving him the impression that this Accardi guy was going to be associated with the person responsible for taking Eddie, plus Danny certainly hadn't worked on the case. He kept scrolling, trying to find the prosecutor for the trial. It was a possibility that Erin might've been assigned the case, which could fit the information he knew so far, but he doubted it.
He stopped as he reached the bottom of the arrest report. Rick Accardi was a member of the New York City Police Department, where he held the rank of detective, second-class. His position with the NYPD has since been terminated under direct orders of Commissioner Reagan, effective immediately, for his criminal participation as a member of the Blue Templar. Please see general file for further information related to the Blue Templar.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
How could he have forgotten, the biggest case of his brother's young career, one that had almost gotten Jamie killed by the same people who had killed Joe. Danny was kicking himself for it. Over the years, he had completely forgotten about the Templar and everything they had done. Even when Joe Hill had asked from time to time, all Danny, or anyone else really, would say was that he was shot by a corrupt cop. They had never elaborated, and Joe had never really tried to push the point farther that Danny knew of.
Without even opening another file, the entire case came back to him with clarity. Everything about it fit what they knew so far about the people who had taken Eddie. A case that had involved multiple levels of the Reagan family? Check. A perp dying in the process of arrest? Check. A dirty cop potentially involved in the investigation? Double check. It was almost like history was repeating itself on multiple fronts and he hated it.
Now that he had been reminded of everything that had been involved with the Templar case, he finally realized what it was about Lenin's partner Bello that had been putting him on edge. The pin that the man had been wearing every day, the one Lenin had said he wore all the time and had received from his father, was a symbol of the Blue Templar. Danny hadn't recognized it at first because it had been so long since he'd seen one, but now that it was on his mind, he knew without a doubt that's what it was. He would know too, since he'd had one himself until Mano Sangriento had torched his old house years ago.
That wasn't the only thing that had been itching at his subconscious about Lenin's partner though. If he truly had received the pin from his father, that would almost certainly mean that his father was Alex Bello, the former head of Internal Affairs who had been arrested for his involvement with the Templar all those years ago. Danny wasn't one to judge people for their parents' mistakes, but that, combined with the pin and Ryan Bello's seeming lack of interest in doing his job for this case, was raising a lot of red flags.
He glanced over at Lenin, who had engrossed himself back in his files following their earlier conversation. He had no reason to believe that the other detective would have any connection to the Templar, especially with how devoted he seemed to finding Eddie, but he also couldn't be sure. The only person Danny was absolutely certain he could trust right now was Baez and he was hesitant to bring her up to speed on this new discovery. The last time he had done that when dealing with the Templar, they had run Jackie off the road.
For now, he would just keep it to himself and see what he could find out about the remaining members of the Blue Templar. His first order of business though, would be to see if that bastard Sonny Malevsky had a kid. Malevsky was the one that had killed his brother Joe and had committed suicide rather than be arrested the night they had taken the Templar down. If he had a kid, that kid was going to be Danny's number one suspect. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure Malevsky hadn't, or at least hadn't openly claimed to have a kid, which meant he was going to have to dig through court records and see if he could locate any of the man's old bank and phone statements to see if there was any sign of him. From there, he would need to start tracking down the family of every other corrupt cop that had been taken down that night, just to be safe.
He decided to hold off on informing Lenin of his breakthrough for the time being. The guy obviously didn't want to believe his own partner could be involved, despite only being partnered with the man for a few months, and Danny couldn't be sure of how loyal he would be to Bello. He would see what he came up with by morning and run it by Baez when she got in to see what she thought of everything. From there, hopefully TARU would be able to give him a more precise location to raid with SWAT, the lab might be able to give him something on the evidence from the initial abduction site off of Newel, and he would be able to speak with Badillo if they had extubated him according to the initial plan.
