LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE PATROL CARS WERE GONE from the front of the former Marmack Bed & Mattress Company when Claudia parked the Lumina along the curb. The yellow crime-scene tape had been stripped, as well, except for one broad band fixed over the suite door. James Silver’s office was clear of technicians and officers; the only remaining pieces of evidence that a crime had occurred were the black powder smudges and the dark stain on the floor behind the desk.

      They spent an hour going through the PI’s file cabinets and drawers, sifting through endless paperwork on the remote chance they might uncover some lead. They listened to the incoming messages on Silver’s answering machine, but there were no obvious links to the man’s brutal slaying. Even so, Claudia confiscated the machine and its tape, boxing them up with several other items of possible relevance.

      “Looks like you might have a next of kin here,” Claudia said eventually, breaking the silence.

      Gavin glanced from the files he’d been searching to where she sat at Silver’s oak desk.

      “Eileen Silver. Probably his mother.” She handed him the address book she’d just thumbed through. “It’s a Key West address. You might want to contact authorities down there to break the news to her, instead of telling her by phone. That’s about it though. No other Silvers or anything else that appears to be family.”

      It was the most she’d said to him since they’d left Jimmy’s. From the moment he’d asked about Frank Owens, Claudia’s reserve had grown. Her response to anything he’d asked had been clipped and to the point, leaving him to wonder if perhaps he’d made his move too soon.

      In retrospect, he might have done better to not bring up the subject of her former partner during their very first encounter. On the other hand, the conversation over breakfast had taken a natural turn in that direction. It might have seemed even more obvious had he not asked for her opinion regarding her partner’s death.

      He watched her continued exploration of Silver’s desk. As the morning sunshine slipped through the wooden slats of the blinds behind her and touched the highlights of her cropped hair, Gavin thought of angels. The imagery struck him as ironic, especially considering the fact that Claudia Parrish was as likely a suspect as anyone in the ongoing corruption within the Homicide unit. After all, the evidence tampering hadn’t ended when Owens’s life had. And the most recent involved one of Claudia’s own cases.

      Gavin hadn’t been surprised to learn of Judge Warner’s dismissal of the Brown case yesterday. Reports of the missing gun were in the file Gavin’s lieutenant had handed him five weeks ago—a thick file compiled by the previous IAD agent who had failed in his attempt to expose the corruption. Failed like the two IAD investigators before him. And it was because of their failures that Lieutenant Randolph had at last caved in to Gavin’s request to be reassigned to the case. Only this time, Gavin vowed, it would be different.

      A year ago, Gavin had been appointed to oversee the first investigation into the corruption that seemed to surround Baltimore’s Homicide unit. Back then, however, the direction of the investigation had been dictated by others. By the time he’d come on board to head the probe, Owens was already IAD’s primary target.

      From the start, Gavin had been uncomfortable with the case. He’d tried to turn it around, slow it down, anything to give him time to prove that Owens was truly guilty. He’d tried to reopen past investigations into Evidence Control and Violent Crimes, suspecting the problems might come from there instead, but the brass had only come down on Gavin for straying—Owens was their target. IAD had increased their pressure on the seasoned detective, stopping only once Frank Owens had killed himself. IAD didn’t seem to care, but Gavin had never been able to rest easy. He’d spent the past ten months wondering…suspecting Owens’s innocence and knowing that the man had died because of the investigation he had led.

      He’d demanded to be taken off the assignment, and Lieutenant Randolph had complied. Since then, the probe had practically ground to a halt. Gavin had watched the blunders of the next three agents, until finally his conscience had forced him to step in. But he’d insisted they would now do things his way.

      “I want to start from square one, Lieutenant,” he’d told Randolph. “I want to look into everything, not just Homicide.”

      “Monaghan, you’d be wasting your time. We’ve done all that. The corruption stems from the Homicide unit. There’s no doubt. Weapons and critical evidence in murder cases are going missing, and someone’s taking a payoff. It has to be a detective, someone with connections to the street and the capacity to reach, and deal with, the suspects. No one in Evidence Control would have that kind of access.”

      “Fine. Then put me undercover. Let me work within the unit.”

      Lieutenant Randolph shook his head. “We don’t operate that way, and you know it. Only for extreme—”

      “This is extreme, Lieutenant. A man lost his life. A good detective.”

      “Let it go, Monaghan.”

      “I can’t let it go. Frank Owens killed himself because of the allegations against him. And honestly, I don’t know for certain they were valid allegations.”

      “Yeah, well, we also don’t know that he wasn’t guilty, do we?”

      “No? Then how do you explain the

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