Page 46 of Off Limits Daddy

Agent Pinsky narrowed his eyes at Gibson.

Gibson shrugged. "I'm just saying that somebody who has experience with kids might have better luck in getting the information we need."

"What makes you think I don't have experience with kids?"

He rolled his eyes. "One, you're not married and two, you're not a mother, and three… well…"

I arched a brow. "No. I want to know.”

Agent Pinsky and Agent Watson and I all had our eyes on Gibson, who apparently realized he was about to step into it. "Never mind.”

"I'll have you know that I've raised four kids practically on my own. And they're all living on their own. And very successfully, so you can keep your?—"

"All right, that's enough. I'd make you apologize, Gibson, but I know that you can't help yourself when it comes to being a misogynistic jerk. So let's just go on."

Gibson frowned but didn't say anything. I didn't like having Agent Pinsky stand up for me. It was misogynistic in its own way. But since he had seniority, I let the issue drop.

“Share what you’ve learned, Marsden.”

“As you know, it’s possible that Aiden Brennan witnessed the murders of Detective Donovan and Darcy Patrick. There could be a third murder. Aiden overheard Wally talking about someone swimming with fishes.”

“God, that guy watches too many Mafia movies.” Watson rolled his eyes.

“Any idea who?” Pinsky asked.

“No. I was hoping you might have an idea. Has anyone in Wally’s orbit turned up dead since Donovan and Patrick’s murders?” I asked.

“Not that we’ve heard,” Gibson said. “What about the girl Donovan kidnapped? Does she know anything?”

"Just what I sent you in my report. The best that I can tell is that Darcy wanted to take the information that they had gotten in the exchange, sell it, and run. Detective Donovan apparently wanted to use it. It's unclear how or why."

Agent Gibson shook his head. "I doubt it was because he was doing his job as a Boston detective. That guy was about as dirty as they came."

“He must've thought being a detective would offer him some protection. Or maybe make Wally think twice about offing him," Pinsky said. "It's pretty ballsy of him to think that he would somehow get Wally."

"One thing that I have not been able to figure out is how they're getting the socials of the kids. I mean, I understand that as a foster parent, Wally likely has documents that have his kids’ socials on them, but the list that Oliver obtained had a ton of names on it. And almost none of them had been in Wally and his wife's care. So, where is he getting them?"

"Maybe he's hacking into the system," Watson said.

I thought about that for a minute. "I suppose it's possible. But it appeared that their technical person was Detective Donovan. He was the one who was able to bypass the alarm system on Lindsay McKinnon's home in search of those documents. But if Olivia is correct, Donovan said he had a source for those names. I got the impression it was a person. I suppose it could've just been his ability to get into Social Services’ computers."

"Do we know if the computers between Social Services and law enforcement are somehow connected? Would it have been easy enough for Donovan to get them that way?" Agent Gibson asked.

"No. And even if it was, there’d be a trail. Donovan might have overstepped in taking on Creighton, but he wasn’t dumb. It appears he’d been working on the inside for the Crew from the beginning. He wouldn’t have jeopardized that."

“We’ll let you know if any of Wally’s Crew show up in the river, or elsewhere. You keep us posted on anything further the boy shares with you,” Pinsky said.

“Will do.” I left the meeting and returned to my desk. As I sat, my phone rang. Looking at the screen, I saw it was Detective Riker.

“Good timing. I was getting ready to call you,” I said by way of answering.

“I have something you might be interested in related to your case.”

I picked up my pen and notebook. "What have you got?"

"Couple weeks ago, we got a call from a guy named Jonny Walter’s wife. He was a former member of the Crew who did some time, and then when he got out, he appeared to go legit. He got a job and got married, has a baby on the way. Apparently, he's disappeared."

The hair on the back of my neck started to stand up as I wondered if poor Jonny was swimming with the fishes.