Power Struggle

by Carolyn Arnold

  She ran out of the room and went to McAlexandar, who was being held at the front door.

  “What’s the combination for the safe in your office?”

  An arrogant smirk lifted the left corner of his mouth.

  “May I remind you that I have a search warrant.”

  McAlexandar tightened his jaw and glared at her.

  “The combination,” she demanded. “Now!”

  He rattled it off for her, and she ran back into the office and joined Terry.

  “Try this,” she began and gave him the combination.

  Terry punched in the number, and the tumblers gave way. He pulled on the handle. “Moment of truth…”

  She moved in closer to Terry, practically hanging over his shoulder. Inside the safe, there were stacks of cash. “There must be sixty to a hundred grand in here.”

  Terry went to reach inside.

  “Let me,” Madison said.

  “Okay.” Terry stepped aside.

  She slipped her gloved hand into the safe and passed the cash to Terry, one bundle at a time. When all the money was out, the safe was empty except for one thing: a Ruger 9mm with an attached silencer.

  -

  CHAPTER

  42

  THE WEAPON WAS HEAVY IN Madison’s hands. Emotion crashed over her as she looked down at it. The serial number had been scratched off. This could be the gun that had taken her grandfather’s life…

  “Madison?” Terry prompted. “Are you okay?”

  She let the shiver run through her and nodded. “I’m good.”

  Madison proceeded with a visual check of the gun and confirmed that the magazine was loaded. She released it, observed what rounds remained, and handed the mag to Terry. She went on to clear the chamber. She angled the gun toward the floor and drew the slider back before doing a physical inspection. She saw a bullet and placed the gun upside down, still conscious of where the barrel was pointing, and the round dropped into the palm of her hand. She inspected the gun one more time just to ensure it was clear, and it was.

  “We’ve got to get all this into evidence bags and back to the lab for prints and a comparison to the bullet that killed Yasmine,” she summarized.

  Terry slipped the magazine into an evidence bag and then held it open for her so she could put the gun and single bullet inside.

  “He did it, Terry.” She was struck with sadness and grief, and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was just because of Yasmine’s murder or if the loss of her grandfather was mingling there, as well.

  “Hopefully we’ll find out.”

  “No. We will find out.” She jutted out her chin and left the house with the evidence bag.

  She headed straight for McAlexandar and held up the gun. “This was in your safe.”

  His eyes fixed on the weapon as if it was an apparition. His face blanched, and his jaw dropped. He snapped it shut.

  “Really?” she asked. “That’s how you’re going to play this? That you’ve never seen it before?”

  “Where did you—” He shook his head, seeming dazed.

  “In your safe,” she repeated. “You murdered a twenty-three-year-old woman.”

  “I told you, I didn’t do it. Someone must be framing me.”

  “Yeah, because I’ve never heard that one before.” She rolled her eyes. “Did Dimitre order you to kill her?”

  “What?” he spat. “No!”

  “So you are in communication with Dimitre?”

  “No.”

  She wasn’t accepting his answer. “I said, are you—”

  “No! Not since you moved him to Mitchell County,” he said.

  There would normally be a sense of satisfaction that would come with believing she’d limited Dimitre’s connection to the outside world, but she wasn’t buying it. “Bullshit.”

  “Someone’s got to be setting me up.”

  She cocked her head.

  “No, I swear to God.”

  “And you expect me to believe you’re on speaking terms with God?”

  “That’s a little harsh, Detective.”

  “Is it? You killed Yasmine Stone while she was sleeping in her bed.” Her entire being was full of contempt for this man. All the wrongdoings and slights from their past were hitting her progressively.

  “I’m telling you the truth. You’re just not listening to me.”

  Rage was boiling over within her and making her lightheaded. Thoughts of her sister being held by Constantine weren’t helping. “Tell me where he took her.”

  “What?” McAlexandar eyes widened. “I don’t—”

  “Constantine Romanov abducted my sister.” She stared at him as she spoke the words, scrutinizing him for any tell that he had known.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  She moved toward him, her face mere inches from his. “Tell me where she is,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t know!” Spittle flew from his mouth, and she moved away and wiped her face in disgust.

  “Turn around,” she barked out and spun her finger. “You are under arrest for the murder of Yasmine Stone.”

  He jerked away from her, but she gripped his shoulder.

  “I didn’t kill that girl!”

  “I said, turn around.”

  “Oh, this must bring you a lot of pleasure.”

  “Turn around,” she ground out.

  McAlexandar puffed out his cheeks and they shot bright red, but he complied. She pulled out her cuffs and slapped them on him. “Anything you say or do—”

  “I told you I’m innocent,” McAlexandar pleaded, anguish setting into his features.

  Madison finished reading his Miranda rights and addressed the officer who had been standing with McAlexandar. “Get him out of my sight.”

  “You got it.” The officer hauled him off and loaded him into the back of a patrol car.

  The second officer stayed behind. He’d leave once they’d cleared the place.

  Terry was watching her but didn’t say a word.

  “We’re leaving,” she said to him.

  “What about the rest of the place?”

  She was shaking her head. “We’ll make a call, have others take over. Or you can stay if you want. But I’m going back to drill McAlexandar. I’ll take the evidence we’ve collected so far with me.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Terry stepped in line with her.

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” she fired back.

  “I know that,” he hissed. “I’m just… We’re partners, and we stick together.”

  She blinked and nodded.

  -

  CHAPTER

  43

  MCALEXANDAR WAS IN INTERVIEW ROOM ONE, and Madison and Terry were observing him through the two-way mirror. She wanted to get in there and start into him, but that’s what he’d expect. So she’d let him simmer a bit first.

  They’d already dropped off the gun, magazine, and bullets to the lab where Cynthia and her three employees were racking their brains still trying to figure out the mystery of the ten digits.

  “Are you waiting on his lawyer?” Winston came into the observation room.

  “He hasn’t asked for one,” Madison stated drily, keeping her gaze on McAlexandar.

  “That surprises me.”

  The man who represents himself has a fool for a client.

  She shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  Winston came up close to the two-way mirror beside her. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” She tapped the file folder she held in one hand in the palm of her other hand.

  “I’m not buying it.”

  “What do you want me to say, Sarge?” She’d blurted it out and had to stop herself before she added something else
that didn’t have any immediate bearing on what she and Terry were about to do. But she’d been especially on edge ever since handling the gun that had likely killed her grandfather. It was the right type of gun anyhow, and its serial number was scratched off—just like the one used in her grandfather’s murder. And it was more than coincidental to Madison that it was locked in a hidden safe behind a pile of money. When Sam had laid her eyes on the bullets, she was certain that they were the same brand as the one extracted from Yasmine’s body. She was excused from brainstorming on the letterhead digits to run her tests, and Cynthia was focused on seeing what she could get in the way of fingerprints.

  “There’s nothing to say, apparently.” He stepped back and gestured toward McAlexandar. “When do you plan on going in there?”

  “Right now.” She left the observation room with Terry, and they went to join McAlexandar.

  “I’ve been cooperative,” McAlexandar said as she sat across from him.

  She didn’t say anything and neither did Terry as he made his way to the far wall and leaned against it.

  “Is this where you play the silent game?” McAlexandar’s brows knitted together. “You’ve left me sitting in here for hours.”

  Madison dropped the folder onto the table in front of her and pulled out a video still. It showed McAlexandar in the lobby of Yasmine’s building after the time-of-death window. She slid it across the table in front of him.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” he asked.

  Madison pursed her lips and nudged her head toward it.

  He picked it up. A few seconds later, he said, “Yeah, that’s me. So? I told you I was at her apartment two days ago.”

  “That’s yesterday.” Madison pointed at the time stamp.

  “Yesterday at five in the morning? No.” McAlexandar rapidly shook his head. “I wasn’t there then. Someone is setting me up.”

  “And let me guess, that gun magically appeared inside your locked safe?”

  “I don’t know how that got in there. I have a gun safe, but it’s in another part of my house.”

  While she was stalling coming in here to talk to McAlexandar, one of the officers who was continuing the search on McAlexandar’s house had texted that highlight, and the finding of a rifle and two handguns.

  “And all the money,” Madison began. “It was just in there for a rainy day?”

  “I hadn’t made it to the bank yet,” he said snidely.

  She held his eye contact and said nothing.

  “I don’t like how you’re looking at me.”

  “Where did you get all that money? Did the Mafia pay you to kill Yasmine? Did Constantine?” She thought she’d just toss that out there and see if it stuck.

  “No. I told you I haven’t been in contact with Dimitre since—”

  “Since he changed prisons. Fine, fine. But I didn’t mention him.”

  The silence rode out for about a minute.

  McAlexandar’s gaze kept going to the picture of him in Yasmine’s lobby.

  Maybe it was time to switch things up a bit. “Did she threaten to tell your wife about the affair?”

  “Yasmine?” A rhetorical response, really. The former police chief didn’t seem to be thinking clearly. He shook his head. “No, she didn’t.”

  “A man like you has money,” Madison pointed out, “but maybe you were tired of paying for her silence.”

  “That’s not the case at all.” He sat back in his chair and shook the picture in his hand. “I was at her building, but the afternoon before.”

  “So you said.”

  “But you don’t believe me.”

  “I’ve never trusted you,” she said frankly. “Why should I start now?”

  “Maybe I could offer you something…” He spoke low, in contrast to his usually loud and brash nature. What he was probably going to say next would be probably good, but she couldn’t let her guard down.

  “I guess that would depend on what it was,” she said coolly.

  “Constantine is back in town.”

  She guffawed in derision. “We know that much.”

  “What you don’t know is that he visited me last night after you came by.”

  The skin at the back of her neck tightened. “Why was he there?”

  “The truth?”

  “Always a lovely notion.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Madison leaned back in her chair, and she regarded the man. Sweat was beaded on his forehead.

  “What did he say or do?” she asked, only half-interested but certainly curious.

  “We drank some brandy in my office, and I passed out. Or at least that’s what my wife told me.”

  “Your wife factors into this how?”

  “Constantine saw himself out, she told me later. I woke up with a migraine and a foggy head.”

  “Do you remember what you talked about?” Madison ventured but wasn’t hopeful. If he was drugged, often these types of pills didn’t grace the user with a strong memory of events.

  “Only bits and pieces, but none of it really meant anything. Just idle chitchat.”

  Madison shook her head. “You really expect me to believe—”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I have no idea why he came by. But I think it’s starting to come together.”

  If he was going to claim Constantine had set him up, she might laugh out loud. What would be his motivation? Then it struck her. McAlexandar had a relationship with Dimitre, not necessarily this new guy in power, and maybe that guy didn’t want Dimitre’s hand-me-downs and wanted McAlexandar out of the picture. As she’d thought previously, pinning a murder on McAlexandar would be a surefire way to go and wouldn’t draw as much attention as murdering him would.

  “Why do you think he came by?” Madison asked, humoring McAlexandar.

  “I think he drugged me and planted that gun in my safe!” he roared.

  Madison didn’t let him see that his baritone and rage had shaken her. “The video—”

  “Had to have been messed with!” McAlexandar took a few heaving breaths, his chest contracting and expanding swiftly, but then it slowed down. He looked her in the eye. “Did you even wonder why I haven’t asked for a lawyer yet?”

  “I can say it’s crossed my mind.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask for one because I know how you work, Madison.”

  Her hatred toward him thawed—just a fraction—despite wanting to deny that fact. The man had never called her by her first name once in their entire working relationship.

  “And how’s that?” she asked, bracing herself for his response, not sure what he was going to say.

  “You find the truth, and you don’t stop until you get it.” He opened his arms, palms out, and pressed his lips together. “I trust you to get to the truth, no matter how damning the evidence against me might be.”

  His words struck her with such sincerity that they stole her breath. What she would have given to hear that when she’d reported to him as her first sergeant or when he went on to become police chief. But she couldn’t allow herself to become a victim of his manipulations. She had to remember all the times he’d come after her badge and did everything in his power to derail her career. Saying all this could just be his way of bringing down her guard. But what if that wasn’t the case?

  -

  CHAPTER

  44

  MADISON’S HANDS WERE BALLED INTO FISTS, and she was pacing the hall outside the interrogation room. Terry stood in front of her and stopped her with two hands on her shoulders.

  “We’ll figure all this out,” he said.

  She summoned her patience, which was a shallow well on the best of days. But if she heard one more person tell her that everything would be all right, she might literally scream. It was taking all her resolve just to remain calm and obje
ctive enough to do her job, and sometimes she even wondered if she was pulling that off.

  “Listen, we have enough on him,” he said, meaning McAlexandar.

  “Yeah, and I should be happy about that,” she sprang back.

  “But you’re not. And why is that?”

  She stared at him. “Who are you, my shrink?”

  “I’m just trying to figure you out.”

  “Well you can stop.”

  Terry dropped his arms. “We have him on video, the gun in his possession, the bullets…”

  “All of which still needs to be compared and confirmed a match to the murder weapon.” She stopped talking, but when Terry didn’t say anything, she added, “He claims not to have put the gun there, not to even have known about it.”

  “And if that’s the case, it won’t show his prints,” Terry finished her line of thought.

  “But if he is being framed as he claims…”

  “They’ll be all over everything.”

  And if they were, Madison was more willing to accept that McAlexandar was telling the truth about being framed. Rarely did everything fall together perfectly in a murder case, if ever. But try stringing together that fraying thread for a jury to accept. All they’d see was what was in front of them: the damning evidence.

  She walked toward her and Terry’s desks, haunted by McAlexandar’s faith in her morality: I trust you to get to the truth.

  “We should get him tested, see if any drugs show in his system,” she said.

  “It couldn’t hurt,” Terry agreed. “You wanting to question him more, though?” He was trailing a few steps behind her.

  She stopped and shook her head. “I really don’t see the point. Not right now. Let’s have him taken down to holding.”

  “Your sister’s location? I thought—”

  “I don’t think McAlexandar has a clue,” she interrupted. “I really don’t.”

  “And what makes you think that? Just because he hasn’t opened up about his relationship with the Mafia?”

  “Actually, Terry, just the opposite.”

  His brow furrowed. “Huh?”