“Our shooters?” Webb asked, looking up from his desk.
“Yeah.”
“You take lessons from that magician we busted?” Vic asked. “Got a rabbit you pulled out of a hat?”
“I don’t care if it’s magic,” Webb said. “I care about results. Who are they?”
“Three Irish guys,” she said, going to the whiteboard and picking up a marker. “Pat Maginty, Lonnie Burke, and Twitchy Newton.”
“How good is this info?” Webb asked.
“They’re the men in a photo from McIntyre’s apartment,” she explained. “Vic’s got the picture.”
“They’re not all the guys in that pic,” Vic said. “We got a couple of old friends there, too.”
“Corcoran and Carlyle weren’t shooters,” she said. “Hell, neither of them even carries a gun.”
“Carlyle?” Webb said sharply. “Our buddy the bar owner?”
“Yeah,” she said wearily.
“Who gave you the names?” he asked.
“A CI.”
“One affiliated with the O’Malleys?”
“I don’t want to reveal anything about him,” she said.
“Our good friend Anonymous comes through again,” Vic said. “Best source the department has.”
“Anyway, Rojas was positive he recognized the guys in that pic as men McIntyre had with him,” Erin said. “Rojas is sure McIntyre shot up his deal, ripped off his heroin, and tried to screw him again on the re-sell.”
“And that’s why Rojas popped McIntyre,” Webb said.
“He’s a murderous asshole,” Vic said. “But at least his motive’s understandable. Crooks hate getting robbed. It’s ironic, don’t you think?”
“Ironic or not, it’s the best lead we’ve got,” Webb said. “Take these names and see what you can find. I’ll shoot them over to Johnson at Homeland Security and see if he’s got anything. As long as we’ve got the Feds breathing down our necks, we might as well get some use out of them.”
Erin looked up Pat Maginty and Twitchy Newton. Unsurprisingly, both of them had fat files with the NYPD. Maginty was an O’Malley enforcer with a long string of drug, weapons, and assault charges. He’d spent half his life in jail and the other half doing the things that had landed him there. He’d just gotten out of Riker’s Island four months ago, after serving eighteen months for aggravated assault. Apparently he’d gotten upset at a café, jumped the counter, and bludgeoned another patron with a hot waffle iron of all things. According to the police report, it had left some unique scars.
Newton was cut from the same mold. His real name was Timothy. The “Twitchy” handle had stuck after his first major felony conviction. He’d been robbing a payday loan joint, practiced poor trigger discipline, and accidentally fired a revolver twice into the ceiling and once into the leg of an accomplice. That little stunt had landed him five years. Erin was surprised he hadn’t gone down longer for armed robbery; five years was the minimum sentencing. She guessed the judge had thought he was as much a danger to his fellow criminals and himself as to law-abiding society. He’d been in and out of prison ever since.
She and Vic compared notes and found more depressing similarities. Burke was suspected in a double homicide, but the charges hadn’t stuck.
“Lack of evidence,” Vic said. “They never found the murder weapon, and the eyewitness had a change of heart. Standard organized-crime dead end. God, I hate mob hits. What do you think?”
“I think they could be our guys,” she said. “They’ve sure got the pedigree.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But we don’t have evidence on them.”
“But we can do surveillance,” she said. “Maybe get warrants for their phones, check their cars, see if we can find something.”
“They’ll have got rid of the guns already,” he said. “But McIntyre getting popped probably rattled them. They’ll either spook or go to ground.”
“I’ve got addresses for Newton and Maginty,” she said. “Through their parole records.”
“Same for my guy,” Vic said. “It’s a start.”
When they showed Webb what they had, he agreed. He’d just gotten off the phone with Homeland Security, but that hadn’t done any good.
“They’re not on any watch lists,” he said. “The only O’Malley guys the Feds have on their radar are former IRA associates: your buddies Carlyle and Corcoran, the Finneran girl, and some guy called Pritchard who’s in Jersey as far as they know. As far as they’re concerned, the rest of them are just garden-variety thugs. By the way, Homeland Security apologizes about Finneran slipping through. Apparently, she got misfiled somehow. Could be corruption or could be garden-variety institutional incompetence. Hard to tell with the Feds.
“Anyway, we’ve got some extra NYPD bodies to throw at this, so I’ll get the Captain to give us some plainclothes guys. We’ll stick them on all three of these mopes and see where they lead us. In the meantime, draw up some warrants and we’ll see if we can get Judge Ferris to sign off for home searches. Shouldn’t be too hard. They’re all on parole or probation right now.”
“Whoa,” Vic said, nudging Erin. “Look what just wandered in.”
Kira Jones was standing in the stairwell, hesitating. She put one foot into Major Crimes, paused again, and made eye contact with Erin.
“Hey, stranger,” Erin said.
“Hey, Erin.”
“Whatcha doin’ here?” Vic asked. “Decided to do some police work for a change?” He hadn’t forgiven Kira for transferring out of their squad into Internal Affairs.
“I need to talk to you,” Kira said to Erin. “Well, not me. My boss.”
“Lieutenant Keane?” Erin asked.
“Yeah. Can you step upstairs for a minute? It shouldn’t take long. You’re not in trouble or anything.”
“Just what I needed to make my day complete,” she muttered. “Okay, Rolf. Komm.”
“Don’t worry, Erin,” Vic said behind her. “Internal Affairs says you’re not in trouble. Don’t you feel better knowing that?”
Erin didn’t like Lieutenant Keane, but that wasn’t unusual. As far as she knew, no one liked him. That was fine with “Bloodhound” Keane. The head of an Internal Affairs office wasn’t supposed to be popular. He was the youngest lieutenant in the NYPD: smart, ambitious, and completely ruthless. And Erin knew he’d gotten her the gold shield she
