CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The task force was immediately disbanded by the Chief of Detectives. A special investigator from the Internal Affairs Bureau was assigned to see if any professional or financial irregularities had taken place within the task force's history. All the detectives that had joined the task force to work with Eva and Jimmy were also separately under investigation. There were not many official actions the Chief of Police could take without exposing himself to accusations of retaliation. But the Chief of Detectives, who oversaw all the detective bureaus in the NYPD, was free to "supervise" his subordinates in any manner that he deemed to be necessary.

"Why in the hell are we getting punished for doing our job," Jimmy asked.

"It's bullshit, Jimmy," Eva said. "But you know as well as me that this is how the department works. We keep our heads down for a little while, take our spanking, and keep our jobs."

"But this whole thing makes no sense," Jimmy said. "We acted in good faith. Even the people working with us are getting it up the backside just for being associated with us. How can he do that to us? His wife was cheating on him. We didn't do anything wrong. Why isn't he taking out his anger on her instead of us?"

"Because," Eva explained. "They have one of those open marriages where either spouse can sleep with whomever they want. They were both pretty discreet about it up until now. My guess is that neither one of them are too happy with a bunch of reporters getting pictures and video of it all. On the one hand, it was not a huge secret to begin with. On the other hand, when a bunch of NYPD detectives escorted the reporters to the motel to get the pictures… Well, I Can see why he's a little pissed at us right now."

"Open marriage? What kind of dumbass idea is that? And did you know the Chief's wife was going behind his back? Did you know about Preston?"

"No, of course, I didn't know about Preston," Eva said. "How in the hell could you ask me that? You think I'd have let us get set up like this? You think anyone would have worked with us if they knew who Preston was? Do you think your father would have knowingly got mixed up in something like this? No, Jimmy. Nobody fucking knew about Preston. And, yes, everyone in the NYPD knew his wife was fooling around with someone else. Some detective you are!"

"What in the hell, Eva? Now, even you, too, are mad at me for not knowing?"

"No, you arrogant fuck," Eva slowly said. "I'm mad at you because you just fucking asked me if I knowingly let us both commit career suicide, you selfish fuck. Stop whining and be grateful we still have our jobs."

"What the hell, Eva," Jimmy growled. "I've been compared to him and expected to be him every step of the fucking way. Not only that, but I've probably had to work harder than any of you because of his reputation. And this situation right here is what a lot of people have been waiting for all along. Maybe what you've been waiting for. Well, here it is, Eva. I blew it big time, and I did it without even trying. So, take your conspiracy about legacy cops versus real cops and fuck off!"

As Jimmy got up and stormed out of the office, Eva turned back to sorting through the stack of paperwork on her desk. She might have been caught in the blast from a political landmine, but she still had a job to do and a case with three unsolved homicides that needed some answers.

Jimmy tried to reach out to DEA Special Agent Michael Seibert only to find out that Seibert's cellphone was no longer in service. He called the local NYC office of the Drug Enforcement Administration and discovered that there is no such agent in that office, or in the whole DEA, with that name. They asked him to stop in to the local office and make out a report so that they could start their own investigation. He reached out to Marcus before visiting the DEA.

"Well," Marcus said. "If someone was impersonating an FBI agent, we'd certainly want to know about it, and we'd certainly start our own investigation. So, I Imagine the DEA is pretty much the same."

"Great," Jimmy said. "Is this going to take up the rest of my day or what?"

"Can't answer that," Marcus said. "No idea how they do things over there. I imagine a few hours, at least, for paperwork, questions, etc. Oh, also, they might not be in the best mood."

"Why? This is something that happened to me, not something I'm doing to them."

Marcus chuckled and said,"Because their investigation is going to lead to someone from the Inspector General's office showing up to do an official Federal audit. That's the equivalent of people from Internal Affairs showing up to investigate you guys."

"Too late, we're already there. Not because of my mystery agent, but rather the whole damn circus."

"Ouch," Marcus replied. "I heard things had blew up over there. That was a bad situation. I know most of the details, and I can't say that I would have done anything different than you guys did. And, you already know that if there's anything I can help with, I will."

"Well," Jimmy said. "That's the only thing I do know for sure. I don't trust anyone else outside the department except for you, right now. And, ironically, nobody in the department trusts me right now. Plus, we still got the original case with the three stiffs we found in the house, and I have no idea where to even begin… I mean, the whole case is a bunch of smoke and mirrors right now."

"Okay," Marcus agreed. "Let's start there. We'll get together tonight and start gaming this thing out. I know what you've told me, but I've never really looked at any of the details. So, I got fresh eyes. I'll treat it like I would if it were my own case. We'll start at the beginning and go from there. See if I can help you sort out some stuff."

"That's just what the case needs, actually," Jimmy said. "Fresh eyes and a complete restart. Just one issue…"

"Damn, brother," Marcus said. "It gets worse?"

"Well, Eva and I sort of had a thing this afternoon. We're both frustrated, both stressed out, and we had some words. And I sort of stormed out and left things pretty bad with her."

"Well, you've got to fix that shit. The only prayer that this case has is for both of you to be at the top of your game. More importantly, you guys are more than partners, you're family. So, you've got to swallow whatever shred of Irish pride that you have left and make things right with her."

"I hear ya," Jimmy said. "Let's put things off for a day, if you're cool with that. Let me get this shit with the DEA done today. Then I can start gathering case materials and make sure we got a decent pile of crap to start combing through."

"Roger that, brother," Marcus said. "If we start tomorrow, then we can grind right through the whole weekend on this. I'll pack a bag, you buy some beer. Hopefully, we can camp out at Eva's place for the weekend."

"Yeah, about that," Jimmy said. "Tomorrow is also good because it gives me time to get right with Eva. We both said some bad stuff. It was pretty brutal."

"Well," Marcus said. "Don't wait too long to make it right with her. Time is not on our side."

Later that day, even though Eva hadn't yet spoken to Jimmy or Marcus, she had arrived at the same conclusion about starting the investigation over from the beginning. At the same time that Jimmy was headed over to the DEA office, Eva was on her way back to the house where they had first discovered the three dead drug dealers. She wanted to start over with fresh impressions and ideas as best that she could.

The longer a former crime scene sits after being fully processed, the fewer clues and evidence that remain for reexamination later on. That's the most important reason for all the video, pictures, and measurements that investigators initially obtain. Some people believe those things are just for court cases. However, what those people don't realize is that over 80% of felony cases in the United States conclude in plea bargains rather than trials. Furthermore, even at trial, only a small part of evidence from a crime scene ever makes it to a courtroom. The majority of evidence and information collected is actually an investigator's attempt to capture a moment in time before things begin to change and fade away.

There was so much evidence and information that they had collected from this crime scene that Eva could never have physically brought all of it with her. But, with her laptop and her notes, she could pretty much re-create the parts of the scene that interested her the most. The first thing that she did after arriving was to grab a handful of pictures from the case file. She started around toward the side of the house where she had found a broken window and pieces of glass on the sidewalk. This was one of two broken windows that bothered her. As she studied the pictures, she had forgotten about the lone tennis shoe that was right below this window. The shoe was long-gone now, and so was the broken glass.

Jimmy was convinced that the broken window was due to typical inner-city vandalism. As best as she could remember, there were no other signs of vandalism in the house. Actually, there were no signs that anyone else had even been anywhere in the house besides the main hallway and the dining room. She thought about that as she walked further down the side of the house to the kitchen window that had a brick thrown through it from the outside. There were no outside pictures of this window. She just stared at it and again wondered what type of vandal only broke one window?

Then it hit her. One of the things that had been bothering her. She turned her back to the house and looked around in every direction. Where in the hell had this brick come from? Every building in sight was either a modern build with modern materials or a nicely restored classic structure. There hadn't been any demolition anywhere in this neighborhood for almost ten years. The area was up-scaled, modernized, and over-priced. The lack of vandals, and even the lack of crime in general, was the reason Eva came alone instead of requesting an escort from patrol. If a vandal had broken this window, then they must have brought the brick with them.

As she walked around to the back of the house, she was stunned when she turned the corner and noticed a pile of bricks scattered haphazardly next to the back porch. The pile seemed to be the remnants of a long out-of-use coal-chute which led directly into the basement many years ago. She stood staring at the pile of bricks for a full minute.

Now she couldn't help but wonder what other small details had been missed. She thought back to that day when it was still a new crime scene. Like all detectives, when she arrived with Jimmy, they began trying to chisel out a narrative about what, how, and why something had happened here. Apparently they had reached some conclusions a little too quickly. This pile of bricks was nowhere to be found in her notes or photographs. Yet, clearly it had been here for many years.

Eva headed back around to the front of the house so that she could retrieve her notebook and her laptop from the car. Feeling a new sense of urgency, she now wanted to go over every inch of this house, looking for other small details that might have been missed. She was only a few feet from the car when she heard the noise.

Instinctively, she wheeled around with her pistol in one hand while still clutching a stack of photographs in the other. Someone was in the house. Probably teenagers who had seen a story about the murders on the news. Or some "True Crime" junkie that wanted to make a podcast. Either way, she was sick of crime junkies, and so was the city. They had shown up trespassing at so many other crime scenes that they were now an officially recognized nuisance in NYC. There were actually orders from the Chief's office that anyone found inside the tape at a crime scene without an official reason was to be immediately arrested on multiple felony charges — no more warnings.

Eva leaned over toward the car and dumped the stack of photographs through the open passenger window. Then, with her pistol trained on the front door of the house, she began to slowly climb the steps onto the porch. The crime scene tape was still in place, forming an X across the front door. She swiped her hand forward and tore the yellow tape away. The doorframe was still broken, so no need to wonder if the door was locked. She pushed on the large wooden door, praying that it didn't squeak.

The door floated open with barely a whisper. She stared down the empty hallway that ran the length of the house. For just a moment, she wished she had brought a patrol escort with her. Maybe she should just wait and call for back-up. But if these were a couple of teenage thrill-seekers, she would never hear the end of it from her fellow cops. So, she pushed forward.

She was slowly making her way down the hallway when she heard a scuffling sound in the dining room. Damn crime junkies. She took three swift strides and entered the dining room with both hands on her pistol.

"Police! Don't move a fucking muscle," she said as she quickly continued moving to her right to avoid being framed by the doorway.

She found a middle-aged white male, unshaven, clothing disheveled, skin dirty, hands empty, waistband empty, nothing within reach, and apparently taken by surprise.

Eva said, "Slowly raise your hands into the air and do not make any other movement."

While she kept her pistol aimed straight at the man who was only a few feet away from her, she reached her left hand down behind her back to find her handcuffs. As she grasped the cuffs and prepared to bring them forward, she thought she heard another sound off to her right side, near the doorway into the kitchen. Shit. She immediately realized that she should have cleared the…

She was dead before she could finish the thought.

As soon as he had stepped outside the large Federal building, Jimmy felt the warmth of the sunshine mixed with the weight of Manhattan air. The interview process with the DEA hadn't been particularly hostile. They had immediately begun looking into things just after Jimmy called them, so they already knew that he had been duped by a fake agent. But they were still exhaustive in their questioning about details. Understandably, they wanted every possible scrap of information that they could obtain for their investigation.

As he exhaled, and felt some relief that the interview was finally over, he pulled out his phone and turned it back on. The DEA had requested that he turn it off to avoid distractions. As soon as the device came to life, it began sounding off with beeps. He hesitantly looked down at his phone, a little annoyed that his moment of peace had been so quickly interrupted by reality.

He was shocked to see a message on the screen informing him that he had twelve voice-mails and twenty-six unread text messages. Was this some kind of prank or something? He was about to begin checking the messages when the phone suddenly started ringing. It was the number for the Brooklyn North Homicide Bureau. Great. More dead drug dealers?

"Hello?"

"Jimmy, where the fuck have you been? We've been trying to get hold of you for two hours."

It was the lieutenant, their supervisor at the bureau.

"Sorry, boss," Jimmy replied. "I've been over here at the DEA with my phone turned off. What happened?."

"Fuck! You haven't heard , yet, have you?"

"Heard what?"

"It's Eva, Jimmy. She's gone. Some crackhead got the drop on her and… She's gone, Jimmy."

Jimmy tried to speak, but his voice suddenly didn't work. He could remember hearing his heartbeat pounding in his ears. But he didn't remember dropping the phone or sitting down on the steps of the Federal building.

A couple of passing attorneys had alerted the security guards inside about Jimmy as they entered the building. The guards quickly recognized him and brought him back inside. The DEA sent an agent down to check on Jimmy. The agent called the Brooklyn North Homicide Bureau. Then, the agent offered to drive Jimmy back to the homicide bureau after the lieutenant explained to the agent what had happened.

Jimmy began to regain his composure on the trip back to the office. He thanked the DEA agents after arriving. Then he went inside to find the lieutenant. About twenty people apologized to him, expressing their concern over Eva, before he finally found the lieutenant.

"What the fuck happened," Jimmy demanded.

"So far, what we have is that she went by herself back to that house where you guys caught the triple. There were two crackheads inside that had heard about the empty house a few days ago and were trying to find anything of value left behind. Eva drew on one guy, but left her back exposed to the kitchen. The other asshole stepped around the corner and shot her in the back of the head."

"Oh fuck, oh Jesus, oh fuck… Do we have the fucking guys yet?"

"Yeah, we got 'em. About twenty minutes after it happened, the guy she had drawn on showed up at the precinct, asking if there was any reward for information about the lady cop that was shot. We had no fucking idea what he was talking about, so we tossed him in a holding cell and sent a patrol unit over there. Around the same time that the first guy showed up here, we got a call about some homeless guy trying to sell a laptop with a big NYPD logo on the front. He still had the gun on him when he was arrested."

"What the fuck," Jimmy asked, "Why the fuck was she there alone? Why didn't she call for backup?"

"That's what we want to know, Jimmy. She was your partner. Why did she go there alone? You guys both know not to go anywhere like that alone. What would possess her to do that? Whatever it was, it must have been pretty damn important, since she couldn't wait for you."

Without a word, Jimmy started to go past the lieutenant, toward the booking area of the precinct. But the lieutenant pivoted and grabbed Jimmy by the arm.

"It's no use, Jimmy. He was taken straight over to holding as soon as the cuffs went on him. The captain heard about all the cellphones filming the arrest at the coffee shop and ordered the scumbag to be put into protective custody immediately. He's worried about another wrongful-death lawsuit. So, ESU is babysitting the asshole and nobody can get near him now without the captain's permission."

"Well," Jimmy said. "I can't just wait here doing nothing."

"For what, Jimmy? She's gone, and we got the asshole in custody. There's nothing left to do except figure out why she was there by herself. And Internal Affairs is already sniffing around this, too. They say it's just in case she was trying to cover up something."

Jimmy shouted, "What?"

"I know, I know. But those idiots think half of the department was in on the Kennedy assassination. But they do have one important question: Why in the fuck did she disregard the rules and her own safety to be there alone, Jimmy?"

Eva had gone alone because of him, but he was too ashamed to tell anyone about that. He wanted to apologize to her earlier today, but his pride told him to wait until tomorrow. If he had just apologized earlier, things would have happened differently today. But he didn't, and now she is gone forever.

The lieutenant was asking another question, but Jimmy couldn't hear it, couldn't hear anything but his heartbeat, again. He began shaking all over as the tears flowed and his vision filled with a white haze. Jimmy knew that Eva was gone and that it was his fault. Then, as sudden as the tears and rage that overtook him, his mind simply gave up and shut down.