Once they had driven for awhile Kirk unlocked the cuffs. "What brings you to the streets, Kirk?"
"You know me; I just need a little info."
"On Mike Black I take it."
"Am I that predicable?"
"No just consistent. And Mac mentioned that you dropped by this morning askin’ about Black," Fields said. "What can I do for you?"
"I’m investigating a string of drug murders, and Sanchez mentioned something about an alliance between Black, Angelo Collette and Bruce Stark. You heard anything about that?"
"All I can tell you, Kirk, is that Black is so far out of the game that it’s getting boring out here. One thing I’ll say for Freeze, he kept it interesting. Since Freeze got popped, they’ve been moving to go completely legit," Fields said. "Hey, make a left here and I’ll show you what I mean."
Kirk drove down the block and Fields pointed out a storefront window.
"See that place Fast Cash?"
"Yeah, I see their commercials on TV all the time."
"Yeah, well, Black owns them. So tell me, why would he bother with the loan shark business when he can do the shit legally?"
"Okay, you convinced me," Kirk said.
When Richards got to the station, Kirk was sitting on the hood of his car in front of the building. "Isn’t that what you had on yesterday?"
"Yeah."
"Did you go home at all?" Richards asked as he got behind the wheel.
"No."
"Did you at least get some sleep?"
"Yeah."
"I feel better now."
"Good. Can we go now?"
After a day of not making any progress on their case, Kirk and Richards needed something to break their way. Operating under the assumption that PR was a Hispanic male, they concentrated their efforts in those communities. They were becoming increasingly frustrated because nobody seemed to have any idea what they were talkin’ about.
For the next couple of hours the detectives rolled around the city trying to get a lead on the shooters. They got a call that one of the bodies had been identified. When they got back to the station, they were informed that none of the victims had any priors. Rain made sure that most of her people were clean. She made sure none of them had a record of any kind.
The one that had been identified was reported missing by his mother; he was only sixteen years old. The detectives went to talk to the mother hoping that she might be able to identify some of the others he was found with.
When they arrived at the apartment, they were met at the door by a young woman. "Yes."
"I’m Detective Richards-"
"Yeah, I get it. Y’all the po-po. What y’all want?
"We’re looking for Mrs. Betty Evans. Is she here?"
"She here. What y’all want with my mama?"
"We’re investigating your brother Andrew’s murder and we’d like to ask her, both of you actually, some questions," Kirk said. "May we come in?"
"Who’s at the door, Seline?" came a voice from another part of the apartment.
"Po-po, mama."
"I’ll be right out," Mrs. Evans said and she came in the room shortly thereafter and sat down at the table with her daughter. Kirk sat down and Richards stood behind him.
"First of all, ladies, I want to say that I’m sorry for your loss," Kirk began. "I wanted to show you some pictures of the other men he was found with."
"He wasn’t no man! He was just a boy. A good boy," Mrs. Evans cried.
"Yes, ma’am, I understand."
Seline patted her mother on the shoulder to comfort her. "Mama, you just foolin’ yourself. Whether you wanna admit it or not, Drew wasn’t the good little boy you thought he was. Not no more, mama; hadn’t been for a long time. You just didn’t wanna see it."
"Don’t matter. They didn’t have to kill my baby."
"Like I said, I’m sorry, but I was hoping that you could help me find his killers," Kirk said and both women looked at each other. There was something about helping the police that made both of them apprehensive and just a little scared.
Kirk took pictures of all of the victims out of his jacket pocket. He slid them across the table. "Can I get you ladies to look at these pictures and tell me if you recognize any of them?"
Once again, the women looked at each other for awhile before Seline picked up the pictures. She spread them out in front of her and they both looked at them. Mrs. Evans sat back and looked away.
"These two," Seline said and pointed at two of the pictures. "They been here to pick him up a few times."
"You wouldn’t
happen
to know what their names are?"
"No. I didn’t want to know nothing about what he was doing," she said and shed a tear.
"Did you ever hear your brother or these other two mention somebody named PR?"
"He said PR was gonna put him on top."
"Nothing else? Who he is; where we can find him?"
"Nope. Just that they was makin’ stupid money at their spot."
"I can’t listen to this," Mrs. Evans jumped up and said. She went very quickly back to her room and slammed the door.
"She in denial for real about Drew. Since his daddy left she been doing the best she can, but with her being gone all night workin’ for years, she didn’t know what he turned into."
Kirk got up from the table. He gave Seline a card. "If you have anything else, or need anything, please let me know." Kirk and Richards left the apartment and went back to looking for PR.
Then they got a call about another possible robbery/execution. "That’s all we need," Richards said. "Another case we got no leads on."
"It’s strange that not even the usual more talkative people have the slightest idea what we’re talking about. Maybe our assumption that our mystery player is Puerto Rican or even Hispanic, is wrong."
"But it was at least worth a shot. I mean it was so obvious," Richards said.
"And maybe that was by design. Whoever it is wants to keep their name off the street."
"A baller who doesn’t want street cred?"
"If that’s true, where does that leave us, Pat?"
"Walking through this thing blind as bats."
"As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. So let’s look at what we got."
"Okay. We got bodies. All tied up, all shot in the head-executed. Those are the hard facts. Beyond that, what we got is that we assume they were executed during a drug robbery. We got a crack head who gave us the name PR. That was confirmed by the Evans girl. But so far, finding him hasn’t turned out to be shit."
"You’re right. Other than the bodies, all we got are a bunch of assumptions," Kirk said.
"So what we got is zip," Richards added.
When they got to the apartment they found detectives Goodson and Harris standing in the hallway. "Not these two assholes," Kirk said to Richards.
"Hey, what was that you told Black; they’re good cops."
"I was lying. Bobby was right, they couldn’t find pussy in a ho house."
Richards laughed. "Be nice."
"I am," Kirk said.
It wasn’t that they were bad cops; they were just more than willing to take the shortest, easiest route to closing a case. And if that meant dumping a tough case on some other detective, they wouldn’t hesitate.
First thing Kirk noticed as they approached the door was that it appeared to be kicked in. In each of the cases there were no signs of forced entry, which suggested that the shooters were allowed to enter. Either because they knew them, or they were expecting to do business.
Kirk pointed the door out to Richards. Harris started trying to push the case off on them as soon as they were close enough to hear. "I know you guys been workin’ these drug-related robbery murders. I think this might be another one."
"Tech’s been here yet?" Kirk asked.
"Not yet; busy day. Reyes and his team are on their way," Goodson said.
"Pat."
Richards went in the apartment while Kirk stayed in the hallway with Goodson and Harris. Not that he thought they would leave, but there was no point running the risk. Besides, since the CSI team hadn’t been there, he didn’t want to take the chance of inadvertently disturbing what might be evidence. The fewer people entering the crime scene, the better.