Page 52 of Spark
“You owe me,” he said, folding his arms over his fifty-gallon barrel of a chest as he delivered a masterful frown.
Funny, it didn’t faze Addison one bit—not that much did.“Negative, my friend.I happen to know that Chloe brought you two Boston cream donuts from Sweetie Pies, and I know this because that’s what she does every single time she comes to visit, without fail.Now, I can come back there and show you the evidence, if you like, or we can just agree that you and I are, in fact, even right now because I hooked you up with your supplier.It’s your call.”
Riordan stared her down for a minute before scaling back on his frown, although he wasn’t about to let go of his grumpy bluster entirely.“Goddamn detectives,” he muttered.“Now go do whatever it is you’re doing before I decide to argue with you.And Chloe?Thanks for the thing.Notan admission of guilt,” he told Addison, who held up her hands in pretend surrender.
“Of course not,” Addison said, guiding Chloe and Tyler down the hallway toward the security check-in.Once they’d hit the bottom of the stairs leading to the Intelligence Unit’s office, Addison quietly asked, “How’s Esme?”
“Still a little chilly.Probably more scared than she’s letting on.Other than that…” Chloe tilted a hand from side to side in a “so-so” motion.“How’s the investigation?”
“No news on the DNA yet.”Addison gestured in the direction of the office.“Come on, let’s get you two looped in on the rest.”
They headed past the double doors leading into the Intelligence office.Maxwell and Garza sat at their adjacent desks, murmuring back and forth about something on each of their desktop monitors.Capelli, Sinclair, and Xander examined something on one of Capelli’s screens, everyone looking up as Addison led Tyler and Chloe all the way into the room.
“Gates.Chloe.”Sinclair lifted his chin once in greeting.“Thanks for coming in.We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, if you’re okay to jump right in?”
“Of course,” Tyler said, and Chloe’s nod echoed the sentiment.
“Let’s start with the Brinkman murder.”Sinclair turned to the monitors on the array over Capelli’s desk, and Chloe steeled herself with a deep breath, relief splashing through her when the images that popped up were of Sal Brinkman and Leo Navarro, both very much alive.
“We dug back into the evidence, and unfortunately, it’s slim.We still haven’t been able to prove a definitive connection between Brinkman and Navarro, either business or personal,” Sinclair started, and Capelli took his lead.
“Everything Navarro told Maxwell and Hale checks out.The two mendiddo business in the same circles, but mutual contacts are as close as we can get.I checked everything going back to last year, and phone records and online activity both come back clean.No direct calls, no texts, no emails between them.”
Chloe shook her head, confused.“None at all?”
“They probably used burner phones to communicate,” Garza said, his dark stare as serious as his voice.“But without numbers we can trace back to either of them…”
“Right.Dead end,” Chloe said.Damn it!
Tyler spoke up.“How about the knife?Anything there?”
Addison’s expression said they were at least getting warmer.“Sort of.”She waited for Capelli to pull up an image of both the sketch Camila had made per Esme’s description and a photograph of a knife bearing very strong resemblance to it.“We found a match.This beauty is a hand-crafted seven-inch dagger with a custom-crafted pearl handle.The blade is folded Damascus steel with a core of VG-10—not your average weapon—and the handle is made of exhibition-grade Australian silver-lip pearl.”
“I’m guessing you don’t just find those at your local superstore,” Tyler said, and Maxwell shook his head.
“Lucky for us, it’s one of a kind.Literally.This one was made as a collector’s piece by a well-respected bladesmith in upstate New York, about four years ago.But it sold at a private auction right here in Remington last winter for the bargain price of sixty thousand bucks.”
“Whoa,” Tyler said, at the same time Chloe blurted, “To who?”
“The auction company refused to disclose the name of the buyer.”Addison made a sound that matched Chloe’s irritation.“According to them, they have—she paused to adjust her tone to something prim and snobby—“discerning clientele who expect a high level of privacy, darling.”
“In other words, they’re catering to a bunch of rich people who don’t want anyone to know how much green they dropped on a potential murder weapon,” Chloe said.
Xander lifted a shoulder.“They’re probably trying to avoid the lawsuit that goes with disclosure.We’re working on a subpoena to change their minds.In the meantime, the medical examiner said Brinkman’s wounds are definitely consistent with a dagger of that size.With that, plus Esme’s ID, there’s no way that wasn’t the murder weapon.”
“But the only way to connect it to Navarro right now is Esme,” Chloe said, dread squeezing her stomach.
Addison nodded.“Until the subpoena comes through, yes.Even then, it didn’t turn up in the search.The best we’d be able to do is prove he bought the knife, unless Esme testified that she saw him use it to kill Brinkman.”
“Or unless we found it,” Capelli put in, his face turning apologetic as he looked at Chloe.“But the chance it’s not at the bottom of the Red Run is statistically…uh, small.”
The river bordering the entire east side of North Point was rivaled only by the Hudson in New York.Anything in there, whether purposely tossed or fallen overboard, was lost forever.“So, even if there’s proof Navarro bought the dagger, it’s still not proof he committed the murder.”
“He could, and probably will, claim that it was lost or stolen,” Garza reasoned.“Without us finding it in his possession, Tara can’t prove that it wasn’t.But still, if thereisproof Navarro bought the dagger last year, and Esme comes forward to ID itandhim?That might be enough for an arrest warrant.”
“On its own, it’s a gamble,” Sinclair said.“I’d be a hell of a lot happier if we had the damn thing.But if the forensic evidence in the DNA kit survived the fire, and we had proof of Navarro’s ownership, plus Esme’s testimony that she saw Navarro use the knife to kill Brinkman?Thatwould definitely be enough for Tara to bring him in.”
Chloe couldn’t have asked for a much better segue.“Any word on the analysis at all?”
