CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Jimmy, got more good news for you. I was able to get the blood from the alley guy's clothing typed, the stuff that we knew wasn't his. And it matches all three of your original victims. So, no matter how he got to the alley, we can place him at your scene during the murders."

"Finally," Jimmy said. "That's the first ray of hope that this case has seen. I can't wait to tell…"

Jimmy choked on his words. Once again, he began to realize how finely-tuned Eva's instincts were. He wished he could tell her just how right she was.

"What's that," Romero asked.

"Nothing, George," Jimmy said. "Thanks for the update. I'm still waiting to hear back about those shell casings. Though, you probably don't care much about those anymore."

"Oh no," Romero said with a chuckle. "Let me know if you find out something. At this point, I've got way too much curiosity invested in those damn things."

"You and me, both."

"Hey, is this Detective Sergeant Ortiz?"

"Yes, it is," Replied Ortiz. "Who's this?"

"Yeah, ah, Bronx Narcotics, right? You in charge over there?"

"Yes, I'm in charge. Who am I talking to?"

"Fuck. This is Pete Mastromo, Manhattan North Homicide. I got one of your guys over here. Detective Gil Martinez, took a GSW to the neck. We don't know where he was killed yet, but his body was found over here in Harlem."

"Hold the fuck on," Ortiz shouted. "Are you telling me Martinez is dead?"

"Yeah, Sarge," Mastromo said. "Sorry to tell ya, but yeah. We confirmed visual, DNA, and prints. It's detective Gil Martinez."

"What in the fuck is he… Why was he…" Ortiz tried to ask. "Fuck! I'm on my way over, detective."

"We also need information, anything he was working on, a list of people that stand out as likely suspects for this, the whole laundry list, Sarge."

"Fine," Ortiz said. "He might have picked up on something from one of our investigations, you know how it goes. I just… I don't know why the fuck he was over there, but I doubt he was working somebody else's sector."

"Well, sarge, to be clear," Mastromo said. "This is only where we found him. We got no idea where he was actually killed. But this is where he was left. So, we need whatever help we can get from you."

"Yeah, okay," Ortiz said. "After I get the rest of my guys updated, I'll have them put together everything for the last year — people, cases, etc. And I'll be over there myself within the hour."

"That would be great, sarge. Again, sorry to hit you with this."

"Hey, Marcus, what's up?"

"Jimmy," Marcus said. "Just a heads-up in case you hadn't heard, yet. One of the detectives from the Bronx Narcotics Bureau was found dead in Harlem today."

"How," Jimmy asked. "What happened?"

"No idea, and no idea what he was doing over there, either," Marcus said. "We just got a basic bulletin notice this morning."

"Shit," Jimmy said. "Do you know who it was?"

"The bulletin says it's a Detective Gil Martinez from the Bronx Narcotics Bureau."

"Shit," Jimmy said, again. "I can't stick my nose in stuff without drawing a lot of attention. There's going to be political landmines all over the place. Shit, this might even halt everything for me before I even get started looking into those guys over there."

"Well, then I should probably give you another heads up," Marcus said.

"About what? What in the hell else could happen today?"

"Well, we got some results from those shell casings you brought over. Plus, we have some other stuff. And, at this very moment, we have someone heading over to Harlem with a Federal subpoena to get a blood sample from Martinez's body."

"Wait, why…" Jimmy said. "What the fuck is going on over there?"

"We're looking around to see if there's a Federal case in the Bronx Narcotics Bureau. Racketeering, murder, corruption, collusion — pretty much the entire Federal Criminal Code. You may not have to lift a finger to see these guys go down. Which means your career will be fine."

"Yeah, well," Jimmy said. "I've been thinking less and less about my career these days and more about just getting this case solved. What's with the blood sample from Martinez?"

"We want to know if we can place him at that botched home invasion in Jamaica last night. DNA might tie him to the scene. If so, we'll get to work on the other guys after that."

"Holy shit, how do you guys know about that already," Jimmy asked. "I just found out about it myself about an hour ago."

"We're the FBI, Jimmy. Sometimes we know about shit before it even happens. I've got more news for you. But, before I say anything, you have to promise me that you're going to behave if I tell you."

"That's fucking cryptic."

"Jimmy, we got partial matches on the shell casings you brought us. The same partial match is also found on the shell casings from outside your apartment. Same print, same guy, Jimmy. A detective from Bronx Narcotics. But you've got to leave it alone for now. Nobody else knows about this, and right now there's no other connection."

"That motherfucker," Jimmy exclaimed. "No wonder his story didn't match up that night. He wasn't at the bar, he was crashing his fucking car. This all makes much more sense now. But why would he do things so sloppy? If they wanted to take me out, they could have done it cleaner and quieter than that."

"It's probable that they weren't trying to take you out at all," Marcus said. "More likely, they were trying to disrupt the investigation. Look at everything else they've done to distract you guys. But now we've got at least one of them connected to two different shooting scenes."

"Ah, fuck," Jimmy said. "You guys don't have anything, Marcus. You've got him being sloppy with evidence at my place."

"We're not building a case on that, Jimmy," Marcus said. "All we needed was a valid connection so that we knew we were on the right trail. Same with the detective they found in Harlem. If we can place him in Jamaica the other night, then we'll know this was a group thing and most likely the same guys that you're looking for."

"Well," Jimmy said. "I've had a few new developments myself. There's a solid connection between the missing victim and the body that was found in Queens. Our lab confirmed that the blood found on his clothes matches the blood of all three of the other victims that we found in the house."

"Great," Marcus said. "All of this shit is about to be put away, Jimmy. It's taken a while, but things are moving along now. And, if these are the guys that did all of that shit, then they are going to pay for it."

"I can't wait until this whole episode is over. I just want to go back to doing normal police work."

Ortiz was exhausted. He had taken a huge stack of files and computer discs over to the Manhattan Homicide Bureau. His other two narcotics detectives printed out some carefully edited pages from the database that they had created for their own use in the office. Then he sat down with two of the detectives and started answering questions for a few more hours. He didn't have to fake any emotions, as he was still frustrated and devastated over the loss of Martinez.

Roman and Hodges were waiting on his boat when he arrived at the marina.

"Well," Ortiz said. "They don't have any leads pointing to anything we've done. They do have enough leads to keep them busy, including two people who were recently released from prison but have dropped off the radar. Gil had busted both of those guys a few years back, so each of them looks like they have a motive."

"So, what do we do now," Roman asked.

"Tonight we say goodbye to our brother," Ortiz said. "And tomorrow we go back to work — as cops. We have to let everything play out in their investigation. If we try to send them off chasing their tails like we did with that task force then they'll see right through it. They've got too many good people working the case. But right now, they've got absolutely no leads unless we give them some. So, this time, we leave it alone."

"Hey, boss," Hodges said. "Did Gil have anyone we could contact? I mean, I know he didn't have any family, he told me about being raised in foster care and all that. But do you know of anyone he was close with?"

"No. We were his family," Ortiz said. "So, we just go on the same way that we would if something had happened to him on the job. We plan a funeral, we say goodbye, and we keep getting bad guys off the street."

"What we'd normally do is go take care of the fucker that did this," Roman growled.

"Well," Ortiz said. "They actually have those guys in custody."

"What? Seriously," Roman asked.

"Yeah, they grabbed them early this morning," Ortiz said. "Somebody called 9-1-1 after all the gunshots last night. Eventually they called in ESU and threatened to raid the place. The guys inside finally came out and the house was full of guns and meth."

"We shouldn't have anything to worry about," Hodges said. "Just another day in Queens. Nobody is thinking about them, and I'm willing to bet they ain't talking."

"But still…" Roman said, looking off into the distance.

"No worries, Rome," Ortiz said. "Those guys are not even on the radar over in Harlem."

"Yeah, but you got to admit, that shit is pretty close," Roman said.

"Look, they don't know we are cops," Ortiz said. "Also, they don't know Gil is dead. And, even if they knew those two things, the last thing they want to do is admit to shooting a cop."

"Especially when they're already in custody," Hodges added.

"Exactly," Ortiz said. "That whole thing will go down as a rival bike gang trying to rob the house."

"So, now we can go pay those chumps a little visit," Roman said, with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"Rome! We can't do it," Ortiz said.

"Bad idea, Rome," Hodges said.

"What? So they just get a fucking pass on killing Gil," asked Roman.

"For now, they have to," Ortiz said. "As far as the rest of the department goes, we don't even know that those guys exist, much less do we have any reason to be interested in them. We show up over there and people will start wondering why. How long do you think it's going to take any decent detective to start putting together clues after that?"

"Fuck! This sucks all over again," Roman growled.

"Yes," Hodges said. "Yes it does."

The three detectives from the Bronx Narcotics Bureau spent the night out on the boat, drinking and saying goodbye to their friend.