Prodigal Son
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The ambulance came, along with Nicky Elder's meat wagon from the city morgue, Chief Strenlich, and a few other officers, a couple from the 101st and a few from the 84th precinct. While the paramedics were taking care of Matthew Caine, Chief Strenlich gave orders for the area to be secured. Once the area was roped off, he walked over to where Kermit stood and began the verbal part of the investigation.
"What happened here?" Chief Strenlich questioned.
"Do you want the long version or the short?" Kermit questioned.
"I want the truth. Why does that man have a knife sticking out of his back and that one have a bullet in his chest?"
"Well . . ."
"You know IA is going to have a field day with this, so you better be careful with your words. You're a witness to two homicides and I want to know what happened before the reporters get wind of this."
Kermit cleared his throat then explained to Strenlich what happened. He didn't leave anything out.
"So, what Captain Simms' said about McGuire was true. She knew about the kidnapping of Kelly Blaisdell and didn't tell anyone about it. She let Peter Caine, who is a civilian, and a priest handle the situation where he could have been killed."
"Oh yeah," Kermit replied. "Not only that she insisted that it was her case and she wanted him to report to her every step of the way. And she gave him 12 hours to do it."
"Twelve hours isn't a whole lot of time. Sounds to me she wanted someone to blame if Kelly turned up dead. Oh by the way, we discovered that leak. As soon as you and Peter left the precinct and Captain Simms called me into her office, one of the two rookies went over to McGuire's desk. We later found him dialing Sandra Mason for an exclusive."
"Who was it?"
"Officer Horn. Seems his salary wasn't paying the bills so he did a little moonlighting. He was selling information to anyone who could pay, not only to Sandra Mason, but to any other crime boss in this city."
"What about McGuire. Did she know?" Kermit questioned.
"Actually, she seemed very shocked that she was being used for that."
"I don't believe McGuire would be that naive. She had to be getting something out of it."
"Well . . . I don't want to gossip, but you know how she likes to talk about her extra curricular activities, if you know what I mean."
Kermit changed the subject after that. "What about the other rookie?"
"He was clean, though I can't for the life of me figure out why he would be interested in someone like Jordan McGuire. I think she spent far too much time working on Vice. She was starting to act more like the hookers and the johns she was supposed to arrest."
This time it was Chief Strenlich's turn to change the subject. "We're going to need to get statements from Peter and his grandfather."
"You think Peter could be in real trouble over this?"
"I'm not saying, Kermit. I don't want to believe that Peter was involved with killing one of those two stiffs in the back of Nicky's meat wagon, but . . . It doesn't look good."
"You have me as a witness and Matthew Caine as well. You know what I told you. Peter did not kill Masterson. He fell on his own knife. And I will testify to that."
"Very well, but I am going to have to talk to both of them."
"I'll drive you to the hospital."
Continues with Part 26
Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2006.
This story cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from
the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.
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