often. He didn’t allow it.
After thirty years of practice, the man could make her feel guilty with a single word, or with one meaning-filled moment of silence. Even knowing she was being manipulated didn’t make it possible for her to turn those feelings off. It was easier to give in to the inevitable and try to prepare herself for the ordeal of spending an evening with him and get it over with.
Or that’s what she’d told herself. But after hanging up the phone she’d mentally berated herself for failing to stand up to him. Not for the first time she wished that she, like her older brother, had moved far away from Philadelphia. Not that Kevin had moved, exactly; fled would be a better word. If being Geoffrey Casey’s daughter was unpleasant, being his son was intolerable.
Madeline pushed aside thoughts of her family as she parked the car and strode toward the building that housed the Southwest District headquarters. She had left Martinez a message yesterday that she would meet him there. After inquiring about his whereabouts at the front desk, she made her way through the maze of desks and cabinets, and found him propped against the edge of his desk, talking to several other officers. One of the men noticed her first, and stopped in midsentence.
“Well, hello,” the officer greeted her in a drawl, his gaze sweeping her figure appreciatively. “Can I help you?”
Some women might enjoy having four men watch her approach with avid interest. Madeline wasn’t one of them. She ignored the look, and the suggestion in the man’s voice. “No.” She turned to look at Cruz. “Are you ready to go to work?”
“Sure,” he answered, a slight smile on his face. He noticed the other men’s curiosity and made introductions. “Madeline, meet Officers Brent, Nolan and Detective Ryan.” He indicated each man in turn. “Guys, this is Detective Sergeant Madeline Casey. She’s new to the district.” He allowed that to sink in before adding, “She’s also my new partner.”
“Yeah, right, partner in what, Martinez?” jeered Brent, the man who had greeted her. “This will be department business, won’t it, kids?”
Before Cruz could frame a reply Madeline did it for him. “I’m sure the department would greatly appreciate it if you men would attend to your jobs and let us do ours.” Her voice was even, but her no-nonsense manner had the three men backing off slowly.
“Yeah, sure,” muttered Nolan. He lifted a hand. “Talk to you later, Cruz.” He and Ryan sauntered off, and Brent trailed behind them.
Cruz cocked an eyebrow, his gaze slipping from her to the departing men, then back to Madeline. “That’s quite a gift. Did you have to take a special course to learn how to impress people like that?”
Madeline pulled up an extra chair to sit it next to his desk. “I wasn’t trying to impress them. I was trying to get rid of them.”
As she seated herself, Cruz walked around to his own chair. “Well, you certainly managed that.” He wondered if she was aware that giving men the cold shoulder like that would pique their interest, not dampen it. From the looks of the woman, she didn’t much care. The corner of his mouth lifted. This was getting more and more interesting. He sat down and picked up two file folders and handed them to her. “I copied everything I had so far on the drive-by shootings. Then I found what I could on the rash of other crimes lately involving AK-47s. Take some time and go through these.”
Madeline frowned slightly as she took the files from him. “I thought the drive-by shootings were being reassigned to someone else since we’re working on the supply angle.”
“They are. But we’re going to have to start somewhere. Our best chance of finding the supplier is through one of his customers.”
That made sense, so Madeline subsided and began reading through the first file. Cruz left for a short time and came back with two steaming cups of coffee and placed one of them in front of her. She reached out to take it, not looking up from her reading.
The files were thick and it took her more than an hour to go through them. When she finally finished, she rubbed the back of her neck, which ached from being bent over in her reading. She looked at Cruz, who was leaning back in his chair. His booted feet were crossed atop the desk, alarmingly close to his still half-full cup of coffee, and he was flipping through the pages of a report.
He glanced up, catching her gaze. “So, what do you think?” he asked.
“I think the sooner we nail the guy selling these guns, the sooner the streets will become a little bit safer,” she responded. At least for a while. Until the next crook came along, looking to get rich and not being too concerned about how he did it. She couldn’t help but be sickened by the reports of the bodies, mostly teens and young men, who had been shot by persons unknown. Persons wielding some of the most deadly weaponry available on this continent.
She looked at the man next to her. He was frowning slightly at the report in his hand. Was it possible that he was mixed up in these arms deals? And if he was, how would he handle having a totally unwanted partner assigned to him? Would he try to lead the investigation astray, destroy evidence or file false reports? Any of these means would be a way to deflect guilt from himself, but all would be harder to do with another detective at his side. Madeline hated the thought of having to examine his every word, every action, looking for possible signs of incrimination. But that was exactly what she would have to do if she was to complete the job Brewer had assigned her.
She wondered, for what seemed like the hundredth time, why she had been picked for this case. She detested duplicity in any form. After the fiasco that had brought scrutiny to her own private life, she’d vowed to remain painfully honest in her dealings with others. Madeline wished she could believe that it was only her capabilities as a police detective that had affected Brewer’s decision in pairing her with Martinez. But she knew the captain too well not to doubt his motives. If he’d thought that her role in the investigation would make her uncomfortable, that alone would have accounted for his decision.
She sighed silently. She should have known. Life had been going along a little too smoothly lately. Others might disagree, arguing that “boring” was a more accurate description of her life. But Madeline had had enough excitement while she’d known Dennis Belding to last her a lifetime. She would take uneventful any day.
She surveyed the file in front of her with a slight frown. She had a feeling that her partnership with Cruz Martinez was not, by any stretch of the imagination, going to be uneventful.
“So, you’ve already questioned the victim’s family in each of the drive-bys,” Madeline said, nodding at the files. “And you found that all the victims belonged to some kind of gang.”
Cruz nodded. “Each of them was wearing gang colors when they were shot. But when the families gave me the names of their sons’ friends to talk to, I hit a brick wall. All of those friends are fellow gang members, and they don’t like talking to cops. I haven’t gotten anywhere interviewing them.”
“Counting the one earlier this week, that’s seven incidents involving three different gangs,” she noted. “Sounds like we should be expecting another shooting any day.”
He eased lower in his chair and smiled a little. The lady was sharp, he’d give her that. Of course, it was just a guess, but he’d already arrived at a similar conclusion. The gangs had kept busy trading bullets with each other, but this was the first time that a member of the Lords had been shot. It didn’t require a major leap of logic to guess that it was only a matter of time before the Lords retaliated.
Cruz tossed a picture across the top of the file folder in front of her. “Have you seen one of these before?”
“It’s an AK-47 automatic assault weapon,” she murmured, picking up the picture and examining it cursorily.
“Right. And until recently, these babies would have been hard to get.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head. “So, Detective Casey, let me pick your brain. What angle do you think we should pursue first?”
Madeline ignored the way the casual pose accentuated his well- defined torso. She answered his question surely. “I’d like to talk to the perp they collared trying to hold up the bank with one of these. What’s his name? Which district is he being held in?”
“Randy Stover, and he’s in the South,” Cruz answered. “But we’re not likely to get anything out of him. I heard he isn’t talking.”
“That’s a little unusual. He was caught in the act, right?” At his nod, she continued, “They’ve got witnesses, the weapon and fingerprints. By now he should be copping a plea.”
