The parcel wasn't waiting in the lobby or the doorway. Instead, the delivery was suspended in front of the building by his ankles, which were duct-taped together. His wrists were behind his back, also duct-taped, and he wriggled and writhed like a caterpillar trying to emerge from a cocoon. A gun was in his hands and a large square of paper was taped to his chest.
"What the..." began Garrett, trailing off in disbelief. "Put your weapons down," he said, waving to the semi-circle of officers surrounding the struggling, upside-down man.
"Can't do that, Lieutenant. He's armed," said one of the officers, training his gun on the human cocoon.
"What do you think he's going to do?" asked Garrett. He walked over to the man and removed the gun, dropping it into a plastic bag he pulled from his jacket pocket. He stopped the man from rotating any further and pulled off the paper and walked back to us. "Someone stuck a stamp on his forehead," he said, biting back a smile.
"Who is he?" I asked.
"According to this note, he's our wannabe syringe assassin and the hospital shooter," said Garrett. He looked back at the man. "He's more upside-down than I thought he would be."
"That's the man who shot at me?" I gasped.
"Yep. Seems someone took a dislike to him, or to his contract, and decided to hand him over to us, weapon and all. Wonder how they got him up the flagpole without anyone noticing?" he asked, in what I hoped was a rhetorical question. Several uniformed officers were sheathing their weapons and puzzling about what to do with the man, who was now rotating again. A few civilians had stopped to gawk and take photos. It couldn't be long before a reporter from the Montgomery Gazette would show up.
I looked around, noticing a car idling at the curb. The only thing interesting about it was the blackened out windows at the rear. As I stared, the window cracked a little bit and a finger beckoned me. With Garrett and Maddox both mesmerized by the duct-taped man, I walked over and the window lowered. "Get in," said Duncan O'Malley.
"I'm a little busy right now," I said. "Are you enjoying the show?"
"It's very entertaining. I don't often get to indulge in such spectacles."
"Sooner or later, someone is going to start looking around for the culprit," I answered. "Hi, Donny," I said to the driver.
"How’re you doing, Ms. Graves?" said Donny.
"My day just keeps getting better," I told him before turning back to O'Malley. "My point stands about everyone's attentions will be turning away from the spectacle soon."
"Let's hope they don't waste their time. I think you'll find you have everything you need here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help."
I was rarely thanked by criminals and I wasn't sure what to make of that, so I said, "My pleasure."
"I'm sure it's been very difficult to be separated from your husband-to-be," continued O'Malley. "Perhaps you'll feel more comfortable in returning to the hospital now?"
"I will, but there's still work to be done. Did you get a chance to talk with..." I nodded to the dangling man. Three officers now steadied him and someone was working on untying the flagpole rope.
"Not as much as I would have liked, since I prefer to present my gifts in good condition. I think you'll find he's quite chatty."
"Oh? Your previous gift wasn't."
"That's a shame. It often happens when there isn't sufficient leverage. This man has a family. Lovely-looking wife and a pair of charming boys. Apparently, he likes them and is strongly opposed to having his house burnt down."
Cold washed over me. I might have appreciated his efforts but there was no escaping what he was suggesting. "How do you know all this?" I asked. "How did you know who was involved?"
"I recognized a signature in his style and it appears I might have considered hiring him," he said, picking his words carefully. "I think it's best that he retires now. I don't want to alarm you, but he did mention the attempt was a warning. My intel tells me there is something to do with a very large payment that is past due and if it's not made, the third attempt won't be any warning."
"A past due payment?"
"Since you asked, I don't believe it's a warning to you. However, there was some mention of it being involved with drugs. That's not my line of work so I'm not as informed as I'd like to be. You should be careful with whom you share this information. I've already seen one crooked cop stroll out of this building today."
"Who was it?" I asked.
"I'm not sure of his name but I recognized him from Boston. Maybe he transferred here. He's in deep with a gang up there and that gang has connections with the Niners here. Keep the card. You never know when you might need it. Let's go, Donny," The window rolled up and the car slid away, leaving me alone on the sidewalk. I turned away from the road and blew out the anxious breath I didn't realize I'd been holding before I walked back to Maddox and Garrett. Duncan O'Malley's warning weighed heavily on me and it worried me. He intimated about a worrying link within the MPD but not in the way I suspected it. Could that link have something to do with Mooch's reluctance to talk? Or was it about hiring this hit man?
"Garrett, do you know any cops who've recently transferred here from Boston PD?" I asked.
"No, don't think so."
"It might have been very recently."
"No, why?"
I drew him and Maddox to one side, away from the gathering gawkers as the officers still struggled with the rope. "Maddox and I were concerned how the hit man got a gun into the hospital last night. I just got a tip-off that a crooked cop was seen here today. A cop linked to Boston PD."
"There's only one cop I know from Boston and that's Damien," said Garrett. He stilled as I stared at him.
"Oh, no," I said, freezing. "No, no, no!"
"Lexi? You don't think..." started Maddox.
"Is Damien behind this?" I spluttered, hardly believing what I suspected. It couldn’t be true. "What if the warning was for him? That would account for why Solomon got targeted. Anastasia lives too far away but Solomon doesn't."
"His own brother? What the hell for?" asked Garrett.
"I don't know. I only hope I'm wrong."
"I'll call his captain in BPD and get this cleared up. I don't want us suspecting him on top of everything else that’s going on." Garrett shouted a few orders before we dashed inside, jogging to his office. He grabbed his desk phone and asked for the Boston switchboard. As soon as he was connected, I waited breathlessly as he spoke. When he put the phone down, he was pale. "Damien Solomon isn't on vacation, nor is he up for any promotion. He was suspended last week in connection to a string of thefts from the evidence locker."
My jaw dropped. "What is he supposed to have stolen?" I asked.
"The cash evidence turned in from a crime scene that occurred a couple months ago. A hundred grand is missing. Damien was the only one in possession of the evidence but, according to his captain, he swears it wasn't him."
"Maybe it wasn't!"
"There's more. He was caught taking a bribe a couple of months ago but he said he was working on a new criminal informant so the captain let it slide even though it didn't sit right. This is bad, Lexi! No wonder he was so keen to get us looking at all kinds of other angles. He probably thought he could drown us in the detective agency's case files and distract us long enough to cover up whatever is really going on."
"It's not just bad, but terrible!" I said. "We sent him over to pick up Lucas's research!"
Maddox punched in the numbers before I finished speaking. "Lucas, it's Maddox," he began. "Did Damien Solomon arrive at the agency? Damn!" Maddox looked up. "Damien just left with all the research."
"What do we do now? Sit and wait until he comes back?" I asked.
"If he comes back," pointed out Maddox. "He has to know he couldn't keep this up forever."
"I don't know what else we can do if he doesn’t return here," said Garrett. "It will take hours, if not days, to get a warrant to tap Damien's cellphone and find a signal. By then, he could be out of the city."
"We don't have to wait that long," I said. I took Maddox's phone. "Lucas, find out where Damien went."
"Is something wrong?" asked Lucas.
"Yeah, very wrong. I think Damien is caught up in this somehow."
"He looks kind of familiar," said Lucas. There was a long pause, then, "I think he resembles a man in one of the photos, but I can't be sure."
"What was the man in the photo doing?"
"He was talking to the boss, one of the Copleys, and handing him an envelope."
"Are you sure it's Damien?"
"No. I only met him for a few minutes and the photo wasn't exactly perfect. It could have been him."
"Let's find him first and work out the rest later," I said as I hung up. "Damien must have freaked out about something. If he thinks we're close, he might try and sabotage the investigation."
"I think that's already happened," said Garrett, palming his face as he groaned. "He's had access to everything. We took him at his word when he said the Niners weren't of any interest. What if everything he told us is a pile of crap? I can't believe he played me!"
"Hey," I said. "Not one of us suspected Solomon's brother. Who would have?"
"I should have called his captain regardless of that stuff he said about a promotion and not wanting to look like he was trying to get an unfair advantage."
"Do you think he knew someone was going to hurt his brother?" asked Maddox. He stood by the door, his arms crossed.
"He seemed upset about it when we first met him," I said.
"We didn't just meet him," pointed out Maddox. "He was following us. He never explained why, not properly. If he knew the warning was for him from the start, then he probably wanted to know what we knew before he approached you."
"That might be true but I can't imagine him hanging Solomon out for target practice, no matter what he did. Like Mooch and Mikey both said, shooting Solomon was a warning. One that obviously wasn't heeded or they wouldn't have sent a second hit man." A thought struck me. "Lily and I looked through Solomon's phone and there was a series of text messages between him and Damien. Damien asked for a loan and Solomon said no. What if it was to pay someone off?"
"He must owe someone a lot of money if he stole the hundred grand and it still wasn't enough," said Maddox.
"To risk losing his job, he must be pretty scared of whomever he owes it to," said Garrett.
I paced the small office, walking in between my brother and Maddox. "He must be desperate to get the rest now that a second hit was attempted. And he might not know we have that shooter in custody. Where could he find that much money so quickly to pay them off? Do you think he owes money to the gang?"
"It's connected to the Niners somehow so we should definitely assume that," said Garrett. "Now that we know where to look, I think we'll find the connection."
"I hate to say it," said Maddox, checking his watch, "but Damien should be back by now. I think we need to assume he's not coming back."
"What's he going to do now? He's got a gang on his back who want their money and a brother in hospital. What's his next move?" asked Garrett, but I didn't get the impression he was asking either of us.
"Lieutenant Graves?" This time, a detective I recognized stepped into the room. "Your delivery just opened his mouth. I think you're going to want to hear this."
"Let's go," said Garrett.
"We're coming too," I said. "If he implicates Damien, I want to know."
We followed the detective out of the office. In the squad room, Garrett barked orders to detain Damien if he turned up and focus the whole investigation on the Niners. With every minute that passed, I was sure Damien wouldn't risk returning to the station. If he saw the "parcel" outside MPD, it could have spooked him, or maybe he read what was contained in the packet Lucas gave him. If he read it, and realized there was evidence connecting him, there was no way he would have returned with it. He could have possibly gotten rid of whichever piece implicated him, but that would only have bought him a short time until we discovered that the research he delivered was incomplete.
I wished I could call Anastasia and ask what she knew but I didn't want to worry her more. I was sure she'd been just as blind to Damien as I was. I didn't doubt he cared about Solomon, but now everything he said or done was tainted. Plus, if I called her, what were the chances of her believing me that her older brother had been shot because her younger brother had gotten into the kind of trouble he couldn't extricate himself from? It would only cause more pain and upset.
"We'll find him," said Maddox.
We stepped into the now familiar room to watch Garrett enter the interview room. The man on the other side had regained his color but he still had wisps of tape stuck to his clothing and his short hair was standing at odd angles. He wore a leather jacket over pants and a shirt and looked more like a businessman than a hit man. I wouldn't have noticed him in the street. His face was oddly easily forgettable.
"He can't have gone far." Maddox's phone buzzed and he read the screen. "Lucas said Damien's phone went offline a couple minutes ago but it pinged in the downtown area."
"Why would he be there?"
"Robbing a bank?" Maddox quipped.
"Don't even joke. I'm afraid he will." Another thought occurred to me. "Solomon was looking at a possible bank heist before he was shot. He thought the manager was paranoid, but what if he wasn't?"
"It was a joke, Lexi!"
It did seem far-fetched and I couldn't see Damien pulling off a complex heist. "Where would you go if you caused all this?" I asked.
"If no one else was in any jeopardy, I'd lie low, but that's not the case. I think we need to go through everything Damien touched and try and work out what he might have removed, as well as finding anything he threw in or deliberately omitted."
"That could take weeks!"
We stopped as Garrett's voice filtered through the speakers. "I don't have time for beating around the bush. I have the syringe. I have a gun with your fingerprints on it, and any time now, I'm going to get a ballistics report back that proves you also shot at a PI and an FBI agent. Anything to say for yourself?"
"It was me. I did it. I confess."
"Okay," drawled Garrett. "That was easy. Anything else to confess to?"
The man nodded. "I tried to inject a man named John Solomon with a drug. Not to kill him, however, so you can’t charge me with attempted murder."
"I'll decide the charges."
"Really, there's nothing to charge me with since nothing happened," said the man, "but I'll admit shooting at the woman and her guy. Again, not a murder charge, or even attempted murder. I'll do some time, but not for that."
"Who put you up to it?"
"Don't know his name but I met him at an auto bodyshop on Ninth Street. His choice of venue. Didn't look like he worked there so it was probably just a convenient location. He paid me five grand to shake up some guy and cause a big scare."
"You sound pretty scared," said Garrett.
"I am. I have a family. Please, you have to help me. I'm confessing! What more do you want from me?"
"Tell me what the man at the bodyshop looks like."
"Five-ten, dark hair, Caucasian. Got a birthmark the size of a dime on his right hand. Dresses like he's into stocks or some other kind of profitable business. Expensive clothes and shoes. Nice watch. He got into a Mercedes afterwards."
"That sounds like Grant Copley," said Maddox. "This finally connects the dots."
"Which is great, but it doesn't help us find Damien," I said.
"No, it doesn't but we’re getting very close to finding out what is going on."