“Don’t worry, I didn’t abandon him,” Miller remarked. “He and Johnson are covering one location. I’m working with Burns on another.”
“That sounds good. You can cover more ground at a faster speed. This investigation is already stretching too long. The more time we spend on this, the colder the trail becomes.”
“Copy that, but MacKenzie and I could have covered one area. We are partners after all.” He faced me, his jaw clenched. “Did you have anything to do with that? Influencing him to distance himself from his partner? How smart is that? I’m the one who’ll have his back out in the streets.”
I frowned at him. “I think you’re making way too much of a big deal about it. I’ve no idea the arrangement he made with Johnson, but I would guess Johnson picked him because he’s been the one making the discoveries since this case started.”
He scoffed. “Accidental discoveries. Let’s admit it, Captain. Your boyfriend doesn’t make much of the uniform he wears. He won’t last long around here.”
I glared at him. “Thankfully, I didn’t ask you for your opinion, Miller. When, and if Officer MacKenzie displays signs of incompetence, I’ll deal with it. Until then, he’s here to stay. Just as you are, so get used to it.”
“Of course, he’s here to stay. He’s fucking the big bad captain.”
I barely restrained myself from grabbing him by the shirt because if I did I wouldn’t stop there, and I couldn’t allow this mess to go down because of my relationship with Mac. It was imperative that our relationship didn’t disturb the running of the police station. Miller knew that. He was trying to rile me up, but for what reason?
“I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that,” I told him. “Be very careful on that thin ice you’re walking on, Miller.”
“Are you threatening me?”
I ignored him and walked out of the breakroom, barely containing my anger. Back in my office, I sat with a heavy sigh. The first thought that rushed in my mind was that I knew this would happen, and I should immediately call off my relationship with Mac. I dismissed the idea. Miller just needed to get his shit together. My relationship with Mac was hardly impeding my ability to carry out my job properly.
My anxieties jumped around and had me in knots as I tried to get back to work and ignore Miller’s nasty remarks. What did it matter if Mac and I were sleeping together? We did so in our personal time.
When the phone rang I was about ready to throw the computer on my desk across the room. I needed a distraction to stop thinking about Mac and Miller. Was he such a sore loser he would keep a grudge because I had beaten him at the auction? I didn’t trust the sneaky fucker one bit, but I could hardly do anything about it. He had overstepped his boundaries when he confronted me and accused me of preferential treatment because of my relationship with Mac. If I tried to discipline him for it, he would only make an even bigger stink about Mac and me.
Yes, there was a side of Mac that made me worry about him being in the field. He didn’t have that hard edge and tough gut that it took to be on the streets and continue amidst the ugly that he would face. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that more experience would help him grow into the attributes that were needed to survive this job.
I answered the phone before it rang off, pressing the button for speakerphone.
“Captain Marks.”
“It’s Johnson,” the man responded. “It’s not good news, Marks. We’ve met a dead end. Literally.”
I sat up in my chair, understanding his meaning. “Damn. Soto is dead?”
“Yes, and seems to have been that way for at least forty-eight hours. The medical examiner and forensic science team are on their way.”
I rose to my feet and picked up my badge and keys. I wanted to ask him about Mac but couldn’t. “Where are you?”
“By the pier,” he answered.
“I’ll meet you there, and Johnson, try to glean as much as you can from the medical examiner.”
“Will do.”
I hit North Harbor, the siren blazing and arrived at the pier in fifteen minutes. There were people standing just outside the yellow line trying to figure out what was happening. I jumped out of the truck and slammed the door shut, ducking under the yellow tape. I immediately searched out the faces to find Mac but didn’t see him anywhere. I did spot Johnson speaking to Phil Maddison, who had to be the head of the medical examiner team who were on the scene.
“Maddison,” I greeted him, and he turned to me, extending his hand.
“Marks, it’s good to see you,” he replied with a smile. I’d never met a more pleasant man who worked around dead bodies. I was pleased he was on the case.
I grimaced. “Wish it was under different circumstances. What exactly happened?”
“White male of approximately 35 years of age, presumably drowned,” he answered. “We can’t say beyond that until we get him in the lab for examination.”
“How long is this going to take?” I asked him. “I can’t have more dead bodies showing up in our division. I need to get answers.”
“There’s no one else who loves to solve the riddles more than me. I’ll get right on it as soon as we transport the body. Latest of forty-eight hours. That’s the best I can do.”
It seemed long, but I knew it was short in comparison to how long some divisions had to wait to get word.
“Not much we can do until then,” I acknowledged.
“Come. Let me show you something.”
I followed him, Johnson at my heels, as Maddison brought us over to where the covered body was. They hadn’t bagged it as yet. I stooped beside the body as Maddison did. I always thought drowning was one of the hardest ways to go, and seeing the body did not change my mind. The ghastly sight of the body having been submerged under water wasn't easy on the eyes.
“Look.”
I dragged my eyes away from Soto’s face to pay attention to the dead man’s arm that Maddison held up. “Even if he did die by drowning, which I seriously doubt given the little marks I’ve already found, our friend here had some recent unfortunate encounters before he met his demise.”
“Restraints.” I made out the angry red marks on the man’s wrists. They were too red to have been there for long. Soto had been tied up at some point.
“They, whoever they are, knew we had him,” Johnson remarked, sounding as frustrated as I felt. “They got rid of him before he could talk.”
I had to concur. “Did we get anything from the site?” I asked Johnson, picking my way around the body. “Is this where he was found, or did we disturb the site?”
“The body washed ashore,” Johnson replied. “The tides were strong, and we had to move him, so he didn’t get washed away again.”
“Two murders,” I said in disgust. “And we still are nowhere close to finding out who is responsible.” I turned back to Johnson, my hands in the pockets of my pants. “I thought MacKenzie was with you. Where’s he?”
Johnson glanced away from me. “He-uh, he kinda got upset seeing the dead body. I asked him to sit in the car.”
I groaned. Not again. How the hell had he made it in training if he couldn’t stand the sight of a dead body? He would have to work out this side of him. He wouldn’t last long on the force otherwise.
“You should go talk to him,” Johnson said albeit hesitantly.
I stiffened and stared at Soto’s body. “I’ll deal with it when we get to the office.”
Before I could move off, he grabbed my upper arm. I couldn’t resist looking at him then and seeing the serious look of his face. “I don’t mean in the capacity of his captain, Marks. I mean as someone you care about.”
I stiffened, about to tell him he had passed his place.
“It’s fine to care about him,” he rushed to add. “I couldn’t give a damn about it, and I’m sure nobody else does either. I’ve never seen an officer react to the sight of a dead body the way he did, Marks. Not only did he throw up, but he completely shut down.”
This was even worse than I had thought. He had told me he could handle it. Cleary, he couldn’t, and I would have to step in.
“Where are you parked?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Drug overdose?” I echoed Maddison two days later. I stared at Soto’s body laid out on a table before us in the morgue. He had called me an hour ago to update me on his findings of the postmortem before sending over a formal report. I had opted to drive over just to get out of my office and the thoughts that haunted me about Mac and what I had discovered when I had confronted him about his reaction to Soto’s body.
“Yes, but was it administered by the victim?” Maddison asked, in that annoying way of his before he answered his own question. “We found large quantities of meth in his system, almost eight thousand milligrams. It’s obvious from the amount found in our friend here, he was not meant to survive this.”
I glanced from the body to him. “And?”
He smiled. “And, I found signs of trauma to the lower half of his face, most specifically his jaw. The meth was administered orally.”
I frowned. “You’re thinking he was forced to ingest the meth?”
“Aha, which leads to my conclusion that this was not an accidental overdose.” He ran his gloved hand over the torso of the body. “He was already dead before he hit the water. His body has little signs of trauma which is usually present in a drowning victim. The fight to survive, usually results in bruises and ruptured muscles, especially in the upper body— shoulders, chest, and neck.”
“Is the time of death known?” I asked him.
“He has been dead for forty-eight hours, not longer,” he answered. “Given the temperature, the hotter it is, the faster a body rises to the surface. The body has also not suffered much postmortem trauma to believe it’s been there any longer. We’ll send you a full report of course so you can go over it at your leisure.”
After asking Maddison a few more questions, I left the morgue, my head swirling with the information. Soto had been our last clue, and now he was dead. We would need to have a chat with people who were connected to him to see if we could get a lead on who would have wanted him dead. Johnson had tried to bring a picture of Soto to the Bonito Babe's next door neighbor to verify he was one of the men who frequented the house, but the woman hadn’t been certain.
I was almost at the police station when an urgent call was broadcasted by a dispatcher.
“Paging all available units. Hostage situation on 620 Tenth Avenue at Red Castle Marketing building. The suspect is a white male armed. Shots fired, and the security guard is down.”
My heart skipped a beat. Red Castle Marketing? That was where Paulie worked. In all my years of working law enforcement, we had never had a hostage situation before. It didn’t make sense that all this was happening at the same time.
“This is Captain Marks from Charlestown Police Department. I responded to the call. “I’m ten minutes away from the location.”
“Captain Marks, we have backup units heading for 620 Tenth Avenue with the SWAT team on standby. A female employee called in reporting the incident. She confirmed that the security guard in the building is down. We lost contact with her five minutes ago.”
“My brother works in that building,” I replied, searching for my phone. “I’ll try to find out more from him.”
“We’ll keep in touch, Captain.”
I turned on the sirens and sped toward Tenth Avenue, my adrenaline rushing harder than it had in a very long time. I dialed Paulie’s number, and after ringing only once, he answered.
“Connor! Thank God, Connor. Are the cops coming?”
“I’m on my way, Paulie,” I said, relieved he was okay. “I’m almost there. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Mac stopped by, and we were about to go for lunch when out of the blue a man fired at the security guard. Mac—”
“Wait a minute. Mac’s there?”
“Yeah. He’s right here.”
“Fuck.” How much more could my heart take? The two most important people in the world to me were caught in a hostage situation. “Paulie, hand the phone to Mac.”
“Connor,” Mac said my name, and I heard the fear in his tone.
“Where exactly are you guys? Can you see what’s happening?”
“We’re locked in the bathroom on the ground floor,” he answered. “When I heard the gunshot, I pulled Paulie out of sight. The bathroom was close by.”
“Great. Look, I want you two to stay there. I’m on my way, so is backup. The SWAT team is on standby in case we need them. We’ll get you guys out.”
“I have to do something,” Mac stated. “I can’t stay here and hide like a coward. I’m a police officer for God’s sake, and I ran.”
“There’s nothing wrong with ensuring you’re alive to fight another battle.”
“No, I ran like the coward you all think I am. I’m not going to run any longer. I’m going to do what I took an oath to do, to protect and serve.”
My blood ran cold. I had taken the same oath, but Mac was different. Miller was right. Johnson was right. Mac didn’t belong in the field.
“Mac, just stay with Paulie, please. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’ve got to do this, Connor, but there’s one thing I forgot to tell you face to face. I love you.”
The building came in sight, and I could hear other police units in the distance. “I’m here, Mac. Mac!”
“He’s gone,” Paulie said in my ear.
“Dammit, Paulie why did you let him leave?”
“I couldn’t stop him,” he answered. “I should go after him.”
“No!” I barked at him. The last thing I needed was to worry about my brother, a civilian facing a shooter. “Just tell me. How many of them are there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think, Paulie. Is it just the one? Two? Three?”
“We just saw the one guy,” he answered. “There may be more. I don’t know, but we just saw the one.”
A shot went off that caused me to jump. Mac. Dear sweet God, don’t let anything happen to Mac. I couldn’t lose him.
I parked haphazardly and radioed in to the dispatcher who had received several calls from people in the building. The shooter had taken down a woman and threatened to do so for every five minutes Paulie Marks didn’t surrender himself. Nothing could have prepared me to find out the shooter went to that building with the intention of finding my brother. I didn’t know what to think. Was Paulie in some kind of trouble he never told me about? No, not Paulie. I couldn't begin to think of him being involved in anything that would warrant this repercussion. He was a conscious and kind person.
A flurry of activities followed in which I was joined by other units. We tried to get through to the perpetrator in the building. It was hell trying to keep focused while not knowing if Mac and Paulie were both alive. The good thing was that there were no more shots fired. Did that mean he had Paulie? The not knowing was killing me.
We tried to reach someone in the building. Paulie had stopped answering, his phone ringing straight to voicemail. A megaphone was brought forward, but before we used it a slender figure practically bolted in the middle of the police scene, looking frantic with worry.
“Excuse me ma’am, but you can’t be here right now,” I said, trying to curb my anger. When we were dealing with a hostage situation, the last thing I needed was to add a lunatic to the equation.
The woman spun around to face me, tears streaming down her face, and her eyes wild with fright.
“My fiancé is inside!” she cried. “Will somebody tell me what’s going on?”
“Somebody needs to get this civilian away!” I spoke to one of the officers standing by his car.
“I’m not going anywhere!” she glared at the two police officers who approached her. “My fiancé owns this building, and he’s inside. I’m not leaving until someone gets him out.”
I turned toward her. O
ur attempts to get to the hostage-taker so far had been futile. If her fiancé inside could get us connected, we could find out what the situation required.
“The name’s Barbara Bradley,” she stated, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky.
“You have contact with him inside that building?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes, that’s what I said. Now will you all do your damn job and get him out of there before that ass who has them hostage shoots him.”
“Get him on the line,” I told Barbara. “We need to get to the hostage holder to find out what he wants.”
She did as I suggested and spoke to a man on the line, breaking into tears again before passing the phone to me. I requested to speak to the hostage holder, hoping he’d take the call. After a few minutes passed, an unknown voice came on the line.
“Captain Marks,” he said, chuckling. “I’ve been waiting to speak to you.”
“Who am I speaking to?” I asked.
He laughed. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t know me, but I know a lot about you, including that your brother is somewhere in this building. In the next two minutes, if I don’t have him another will be shot, and another, and another until he reveals himself.”
“What do you want with my brother?” I asked him. “He has nothing that you want.”
“But you do. You have fifty thousand dollars with my name on it.”
“I don’t have…” I trailed off as it hit me then. I knew what this was about.
“I see you’ve figured it out. Took you long enough. A lot of people have been killed because of that fifty thousand dollars, Captain Marks. How many more will have to go?”
Before I could respond I heard a scuffle then what was the unmistakable voice of Mac.
“This is the police, drop your—”
A loud explosion sounded as a shot fired. I dropped the phone and ran. All negotiations were off the table. I had one intention only and that was to kill anything that threatened what was mine.
Marking What's Mine (A Marksman's Tale Book 1) Page 10
