Erinnyes’s face darkened as he looked at the FBI agent and then back at Frank. “Get out of my way. That is a direct order.”
Frank shrugged and said, “I’m already following the Chief’s order, sir. Don’t get mad at me for doing what I’m told, here.”
“Actually, I think he might be right,” Dez said. “Too many people in there will destroy the evidence. That is, what evidence remains.”
Erinnyes sneered in agreement. “Go and tell the Chief of Police that I have arrived, and that Special Agent Dolos has accompanied me at my request to oversee the kidnapping investigation.”
Frank went back up the stairs, using the handrail to support his leg. He disappeared into the house only to return a moment later and say, “The Chief said to let Agent Dolos in, but that it’s already pretty tight in here.” His eyes lowered to Erinnyes’s bulging stomach, “They can only squeeze so many people in there at once, sir.”
Dez lifted the crime scene tape and headed up the stairs past Frank. He put on a pair of black rubber gloves and delicately opened the screen door. Vic was standing in the living room talking to the Chief. “Un-fucking-believable,” Dez said. “This is on your head, Ajax.”
“Oh, kiss my ass, you pompous dick,” Vic said. “Chief, we don’t need this asshole coming in here trying to tell us how to do an investigation.”
“Like hell you don’t,” Dez said. “If you’d done what I told you to do yesterday, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. I’ve got an entire family missing and it’s all your fault.”
“Really? How was signing Billy up as a CI going to prevent the bad guys from showing up and doing this?”
“Well maybe at the very least, if you’d reached out to him, we’d have discovered the kidnapping an entire day earlier,” Dez said. “Now, they’re probably all dead in a gutter somewhere because you were too lazy to come talk to him.”
Vic shouted something back when the Chief held up his hands and said, “Enough! Both of you shut your mouths right now!” He turned to Vic and said, “The FBI is here to conduct this investigation with the full spectrum of their resources. Is that understood?”
Vic bit his lip but managed to nod.
The Chief turned to the FBI agent and said, “This is our town, and our case. My detectives are staying with it until the bitter end. We are not handing it over, is that clear?”
“Of course, sir. We only want to help.” Dez flashed a smile at the Chief, “After all, we’re on the same team.”
The Chief fixed his hat to his head and headed for the door. “I want this situation resolved, gentlemen. Get moving.”
Frank held the door open for the Chief and turned to see Vic and Dez glaring at one another. “Was it just me or did he say Detectives?”
They walked Dez through the crime scene and showed him the bloody, ripped up mattress in the back bedroom. Dez frowned at the mass of blood, then carefully inspected the walls and furniture around the bed. He even looked up at the ceiling. “You guys see any blood spatter?”
“No,” Vic said. He quickly added, “I already looked for it.”
Dez sighed, “Well, I guess that’s a good thing.”
“Why?” Frank asked.
“It means they’re probably alive. Or at least, they were when they left here,” Dez said.
“I don’t know… that’s a whole lot of blood,” Frank said.
“Not really,” Vic said. “You ever had a nose bleed? It can pour like a faucet. Maybe Paris punched Billy in the face and threw him down on the bed.”
“Or Billy’s wife,” Dez said.
Frank bent over the mattress to inspect it. “What about all the cuts?”
Dez ran his finger along the one of the long slits and said, “He was looking for the money. He probably thought they were hiding it in the mattress.”
“He should have checked the dirty baby diapers,” Frank grimaced.
Dez looked at them both, “What do you mean?”
“Long story,” Vic said. “Listen, are we going to work this together for real, or are we going to keep bickering?”
“I only care about the case, Vic. You know that. What do you want to do?”
“We need a crime scene unit here to process, a surveillance team at Paris’ house, and somebody to do the search warrants and court orders for the phones. How many people can you spare?”
“As many as you need,” Dez said.
Vic clapped his hands together and said, “We’re gonna nail this bastard! Me and Frank will head down to Paris’ house to help out with surveillance and track his ass down. I want to see the look on his face when he sees me coming through his door.”
“Excellent,” Dez said. He looked out at the driveway where the Chief and Staff Sergeant were standing. “I left my phone in the car. Can you two stay here while I go get it in case one of those two nudniks try to barge in?”
“Absolutely.”
Frank held the door open for Dez and watched him go down the steps. “Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.”
Dez stopped in front of the Chief and spoke to him. The Chief smiled and shook Dez’s hand firmly. “Nah, he’s not that bad when it comes to stuff like this. Say whatever you want about him, he loves the job and will see it gets done. He and I are a lot alike, I think. That is why we—.” Vic stopped speaking as Dez hopped into his vehicle and peeled out of the gravel driveway, kicking up a large amount of dust as he gunned it. Vic crashed through the porch door and shouted, “Where the hell is he going?”
The Chief looked up at him in confusion. “He said he’s going down to the target’s residence to do surveillance while you two process the crime scene.”
Vic kicked the metal hand-railing hard enough that it vibrated and left a rust mark stamped on the front of his boot. He pushed past Frank to go back into the house and grabbed a stack of mail from the countertop and threw them into the kitchen.
Something buzzed in Frank’s pocket. He reached for his phone and picked it up to read a message from Dez: Tell him not to forget to photograph the scene before he collects any evidence. XOXO.
“What does it say,” Vic snarled.
“Nothing,” Frank said.
“It’s from him, isn’t it.”
“Nope.”
“Let me see it.”
“It was from my wife, Vic, and no, I won’t let you see it. It was personal.” He closed the phone and put it in his pocket. “So do you want me to take some pictures before we collect any evidence?”
They stacked bags all shapes and sizes by the front door. Frank made a trip to the local Home Depot for four packs of paper lawn bags that were big enough to stuff the pillows and comforters into. He bent down to scoop up a handful of cotton stuffing that had sprung out of the ruined pillow when he heard Vic say, “Because I’m stuck at work, Danni. It’s not like I sit on my ass all day just watching the money roll in. I have a job here and I can’t leave until it’s finished.”
Frank leaned forward to see Vic pacing back and forth with the phone stuck to his ear. “Really? So I can do what? Work construction? And who are the kids going to get health benefits from, you? Bullshit. I can’t take them tonight because I am working!”
Vic’s face grew red and he held the phone up to his face and started screaming, “Do not tell them that I don’t want to see them! Fuck you, Danni! Fuck you, you fucking bitch.” He looked at the phone and saw it was disconnected. He quickly redialed, waited, and it went to voicemail. He dialed again. It went directly to voicemail. He dialed again, and took a deep breath. “You piece of shit. If you tell my fucking children that I’m not coming to get them because I don’t want to see them, I swear to God I will—”