by G. K. Parks
“O’Connell thinks that someone fixed the fight and that I might have overheard or caught them in the act due to my hasty exit,” Fletcher said. “Honestly, I wasn’t paying a bit of attention.”
“You bet on Santos, right?” Jablonsky asked.
“Yeah,” Fletcher sounded uncertain about answering since he had no clue who was asking.
“Why would anyone think that you possessed knowledge about the fight being fixed?” Mark asked again.
“Go ahead, Mr. Fletcher,” I said, hearing his hesitance over the line, “that’s my friend Mark asking the questions.”
“Because after I left, the person I arrived with placed a substantial amount of money on Levere.”
“How substantial?” I asked.
“Twenty thousand,” Fletcher replied, “and the winnings were nearly triple that.”
“Shit,” Lucca said, and I took Fletcher off speaker before the attorney became too anxiety riddled.
“They think you discovered what was going on, made a miniscule bet, and left in order to rip off the house, even though the house always wins,” I said.
“That’s what the police think,” Fletcher affirmed.
“With whom did you place your bet?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The police hooked me up with a sketch artist, and they came up with a decent rendition. Please tell me that you don’t need anything else from me. We have eighteen hours until I drop off the money, and I’m getting the feeling you’re not even close to figuring this out.”
“The police will handle it. Don’t worry, Jack. Just do whatever they say. I’ll be in touch afterward, and if not, give me a call tomorrow night and we’ll discuss this further.”
“Why do you always have to steal my thunder?” Lucca asked, finishing his container of takeout. “May I continue?”
“Go ahead, boy scout. Impress me,” I said. Mark shot a dark glare my way but resisted the urge to voice a reprimand.
“As I was saying,” Lucca continued, looking far too smug for his own good, “if it weren’t for the women the Greenwoods coach at night, Coker wouldn’t be bringing in enough money to keep the place running. According to Linka, Tim records a larger net gain on the losing matches than he should. She knows what he makes because Ron is almost always at the fights with him, so they think he’s doing something underhanded on the side. But they don’t know what.”
“Or so they say,” Jablonsky said. “How come they were willing to open up about their boss’s practices to you?”
“I suggested that Coker was being investigated for unrelated illegal activities, and in order to avoid the gym or anyone at the gym being implicated, it’d be in their best interest to cooperate.” Lucca glanced in my direction before I could say anything about him misleading witnesses. “It’s true. The police are looking at him as part of the extortion conspiracy and probably for illegal betting based upon that phone call.”
“They’ll probably warn Coker,” Jablonsky said.
“They’re aware if they say a word, they’ll be charged with obstruction of justice and possibly accessory after the fact,” Lucca said. “I read people, and they won’t talk. They have too much to lose. From what Parker’s said and what I’ve witnessed, they have far more to gain by letting Coker take the fall. Hell, they have enough paying clients and know-how to start their own gym.”
“You better be right about this,” Jablonsky warned, pushing away from the table. “Make sure the police department is maintaining a visual on Coker tonight in case he makes a run for it. If you’re wrong, you’ll not only botch their op but the tiny shred of progress that we’ve made tonight too.”
“Aye, sir,” Lucca said, watching Mark leave the conference room.
“I’m only saying this once.” I swiveled my chair to face Lucca. “You’re probably right. The Greenwoods aren’t in bed with Tim. However, that doesn’t make them innocent bystanders or uninvolved.”
“Neither of them fits the description of our shooter,” Lucca insisted.
“No, but something else is going on with them. I’ve seen too many whispered words to think differently.”
“Maybe they want to take over Tim’s gym or take his client list and start fresh somewhere else.” Lucca looked skeptical. “One of the hazards we face is seeing crime everywhere. You don’t have to be so cynical and jaded, Parker. Not everyone is carrying a Mach 10 underneath their trench coats in order to commit a dozen homicides or something equally atrocious.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Twenty-eight
It was almost three a.m. by the time I made it back to Martin’s. Damn, I really needed to start thinking of this as home instead of his place. After my epiphany in the conference room, I elected to stay at the office and try to piece more of this daunting puzzle together, but as the hours ticked by, my thoughts continued to unravel. Finally, I called it quits around two after Lucca insisted he’d call first thing in the morning to see what the verdict was on speaking with Will Briscoe or if any progress was made once Facini was released from custody. It was a mess, but for the next six hours or more, there was nothing I could do.
Grabbing my gym bag, I headed for the stairs. Unfortunately, late hours came with a price, and three lattes later, I was far too wired to sleep. When I spoke to Martin earlier, he said he was planning to turn in early, so there was no reason why I couldn’t burn off some energy.
It had been a while since I’d gone for a long run on account of a few torn ligaments, but the treadmill held an undeniable appeal. After changing in the downstairs bathroom, I carefully stretched and stepped onto the exercise machine. After toying with the various settings, I discovered a marathon training program in the preset controls but stopped after four miles when my hip started to hurt. Checking my time, I wasn’t exactly up to my norm, but thirty minutes wasn’t too shabby.
After taking a five minute shower, I slipped into one of Martin’s dress shirts that I typically slept in and silently climbed the steps to the bedroom. The room was pitch black, and I inched my way to the closet, opening the door and flipping on the interior light in order to hang up my jacket from earlier. Just as I replaced the hangar, the room illuminated.
“I wasn’t sure you’d even come home,” Martin said, climbing out of bed, “but at least you called to tell me.”
“We had to work late. I think we’re actually making progress. Tonight, we made some headway on linking the extortion with the homicides, but,” I rubbed my eyes, “I can’t say much more than that.”
“You must be exhausted.”
“I’ve had far too much coffee in the last six hours to even entertain the idea of sleeping, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep you company while you sleep. And this way, you’ll realize how annoying it is to have someone watch you when you’re unconscious.”
He enveloped me in his arms and kissed along my collarbone. “Did you eat? You must have lost ten pounds since going back to the OIO. It’s a miracle I can even kiss you like this without breaking a tooth. God, Alex, you’re nothing but skin and bones.” He exhaled against my neck. “I’ll make you something for dinner.”
“I already ate. Mark picked up Chinese.”
“Of course, he did,” Martin growled, before returning his lips to my clavicle while his free hand reached around and began unbuttoning my shirt. “Please tell me that you didn’t go back to your apartment to shower before coming home.”
“I showered downstairs after testing out your treadmill. I didn’t know it had marathon settings.”
“And I didn’t know you were supposed to be running distances yet,” he retorted. “Are you positive that you don’t want to get some sleep or eat?”
“I’m fine. It’s four a.m. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”
“Because I already slept eight hours. These last few weeks finally caught up with me, but I’m awake now.” He continued to work on the buttons.
“What are you doing?” I leaned against him, feeling some of the
stress start to leave my body.
“You missed a button. Three actually.” He undid the three that I had buttoned and ran his hands along my shoulders and down my arms, causing the shirt to fall to the floor. “God, you’re so tense. You need to relax. How about I rub out those knots?”
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“Too many things to count,” he nipped at my earlobe, “but if you insist on unnecessarily showing your gratitude, feel free to get creative.”
* * *
I woke up with my face buried in Martin’s pillow. I had the vaguest recollection of a whispered ‘I love you’ before he left for work, but almost everything else was a blur. The shrill ring of my cell phone sounded again, and I reached across the nightstand to grab it.
“We’re interviewing Will Briscoe in two hours. There’s been no indication that Coker was tipped off, and we have a surveillance team on Facini,” Lucca said. “Other than that, Detective O’Connell called a few minutes ago to tell us not to botch the PD’s operation tonight. It’s going down around five. And lastly, I’m not your fucking secretary.”
“Did you pick up breakfast?” I asked, reluctantly pulling myself out of bed.
“Screw you, Parker.”
Yep, just another typical morning. I knew that strange quasi-friendliness we had wouldn’t last. However, given that it was barely after eight, it was unlikely Lucca had slept at all, so I could overlook the bitchiness on account of his apparent sleep deprivation. Barely managing to force myself to resemble a living, breathing member of society, I found a pot of coffee already brewed downstairs in the kitchen. Thankfully, Martin was smart enough to realize caffeine was vital to life, and if I had to spend another morning fighting with his fancy single cup brewer, property damage would surely ensue. With coffee in hand, I drove to work.
Arriving on the OIO floor, I scanned the room, but there was no sign of Lucca. After reading through the morning memos, I performed a final search for my supposed partner, but he wasn’t around. SSA Jablonsky’s office was dark, and the door was closed. I probably should have stayed home given how superb the day was already going.
Picking up my phone, I dialed Lucca’s cell. “Where the hell are you?” I asked.
“On my way to speak to Will Briscoe.”
“Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Conversation continued in the background, but I couldn’t make out the words before Lucca finally responded, “Laura Briscoe made it very clear you are not to go near him again. She filed a complaint against you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve been nothing but sympathetic. She even told Will that I was just doing my job. What changed?”
“I don’t know. Jablonsky’s with me, and he said to stay away from her too. I’ll let you know how the interview goes.”
After we hung up, I drained the rest of my coffee in one gulp and resisted the urge to throw the cup across the room. Instead, I went upstairs to have a friendly chat with our crime techs. When I walked into the room, not a single person even bothered to turn around. Computer geeks tended to have a singular focus, and since I didn’t have a monitor mounted to my face, I wasn’t even a blip on their radar.
“How long has Facini been roaming free?” I asked, startling two of the techs.
Agent Lawson spun around. “My guess is he’ll be taking the day off. I doubt he managed to get much sleep inside a holding cell.” He pointed to a monitor. “Our surveillance team has eyes on him, but there hasn’t been any movement since he arrived home twenty minutes ago.”
“That’s where he lives? Shit.”
I raced out of the room and back to my desk, digging through the contents of the case file on Facini. His address and current location didn’t match up. After a quick search, I realized the address listed on his driver’s license was his parent’s place, but that wasn’t his home.
“Son of a bitch.”
I typed in the location for information on the current occupant. The apartment was rented to Philip Dennison, and based on the driver’s license photo, it was the same man that roomed with Brad. This realization floored me, and I remained momentarily dumbfounded.
Brad had two roommates, Philip Dennison and Elias Facini. After performing my due diligence on Philip Dennison, the information proved useless. The guy was a grad student and teaching assistant. He had no connection to the fight world or to either of our victims. As far as I could tell, he didn’t own any weapons and had no criminal record. He was just an innocent bystander with at least one questionable roommate. I thought back to the uneasy feeling that Brad’s clinically clean room had provoked, and instantly, it was clear that he had tried to set Facini up to take the fall.
My phone rang, and I answered, “Parker.”
“Will Briscoe’s a bit wonky from the sedatives, but he had plenty to say. Apparently, he trained at Coker’s gym and made quite a few friends, but he was kicked out or quit. The actual dynamics seem too elusive for him at the present, but after he gave up boxing and his girlfriend walked out on him, he blamed the old man. The kid was angry and confused.”
“He still is.”
“Yeah,” Lucca exhaled, “but maybe mandatory counseling will help. Anyway, about a month ago, Will was hanging out with some of his boxing buddies, smoking pot, and shooting the shit. He said some things that he wishes he didn’t. He didn’t go into the specifics, but he’s afraid that one of them made a move on his dad.”
“Did you get names?”
“Half a dozen. Gavin Levere and Elias Facini were the only ones that stuck out though.”
“Did he mention anyone named Brad?”
“Bradley Bellows,” Lucca elaborated. “How the hell did you know that?”
“Because Bellows was either feeling me out or trying to get into my pants. He’s one of Facini’s roommates, and it explains why Elias looked good for the shooting.”
I heard shuffling and static as Lucca passed the information along to Jablonsky who must have grabbed the phone. “Wait there. Do not do anything until we get back. That’s an order, Agent Parker,” Mark snapped.
“Yes, sir.”
While I waited for the rest of the team to return, I started compiling a profile on Bradley Bellows. The worst part was Bellows didn’t exist until ten months ago. Rubbing my temples, I tried a few more search routes before filling out the requisition forms to run his photo through facial recognition, filed the paperwork, and brought the ID to our techs.
Agent Lawson narrowed his eyes at the printed driver’s license photo. “I’ve seen him recently.”
“Probably on the surveillance feed.” I pointed to the monitor. “Is he home?”
Lawson picked up the radio and passed my question along to the surveillance team which provided a negative response. Brad had left the apartment an hour ago, and since they didn’t have orders to follow him, they had no idea where he went. On the plus side, he didn’t appear to be running since he left empty-handed.
“Fair warning, it’ll probably be two days before he gets pinged, if he gets pinged.”
That didn’t seem too promising, but I thanked him anyway and returned to my desk, grabbed Brad’s number, tried to perform a few reverse lookups, discovered that the number traced back to a burner, and slammed my palms down in frustration. Who the hell are you, Bradley Bellows?
Entering the conference room, I flipped on the light, grabbed a marker, and started on our revised theory. Goddamn, if this wasn’t the twelfth time I’d performed the exact same task. I better not be doing this again tomorrow.
As I diagrammed the connection from Will Briscoe to Elias Facini to Bradley Bellows, or whatever the hell this man’s real name was, I still couldn’t fathom why or how a kid’s bitching could lead to a double homicide, especially one that was carried out with such precision and planning. If I hadn’t chosen Brad as my mark yesterday, Elias would still be our primary suspect, even though his alibi was rock solid. Did Brad make me yesterday with all the talk about guns and gyms and bet
ting? Was he suspicious, or did he think I was just some adrenaline-junkie? Regardless, the singular question that remained in my mind was what motive did Brad have for killing William Briscoe and Stan Weaver. We were missing a few vital pieces of the puzzle, and I could only hope that Lucca and Jablonsky had some answers. If not, perhaps Bradley Bellows’ real identity could shed some light on the matter.
“Where did you come from?” I asked the photo.
“The psych ward,” Lucca said, causing me to jump and nearly pull my nine millimeter. “I wanted to tell your friends you said hello, but there just wasn’t enough time. They must miss you though.”
“Bite me.”
“Now, now, I believe you know firsthand that behavior like that often leads to being restrained.” He nodded at the board. “Jablonsky will be here in a second, and we’re supposed to wait for him. But why the hell didn’t you tell me about Brad sooner?”
“I did. I just didn’t realize his other roommate was Facini. The address we had didn’t line up.”
“Excuses.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I gaped at him.
Lucca dropped into a chair. “Sorry, Parker. I get a bit irritable when I haven’t slept. I’m just ready for this to be done, so I can go home, get some sleep, and not have to think about a bunch of cyclic information that makes no sense and leads us back to where we began.”
“Then you might want to change careers,” Jablonsky said, joining us in the conference room, “because we’re about to take another spin on the merry-go-round.”
Twenty-nine
Laura Briscoe made it very clear that I was to stay away from her and her brother, particularly now that he was released into her care. Will had never been diagnosed with depression, and the professionals determined that the extreme circumstances surrounding his father’s death were the cause of his contemplated suicide. And since I was the last person to question him, it was my fault he almost went over the edge. Hell, maybe I brought him to the brink. At the moment, it was unclear if she planned to pursue any legal recourse against me or the OIO, but Jablonsky was running damage control in the meantime, hoping to avoid another debacle.
