Chapter 15
The Captain was sitting at his desk when Johns and Christian arrived at the precinct. They walked into his office and took a seat. He began the briefing. “I left Katrina at the house. Jason and Diane are there with her. I have a patrol car sitting in my driveway to be on the safe side,” said the Captain. “A lot of information has come in since we’ve been gone. We’ve identified the assailants from the safe house.
The assailant we thought was African American is actually Jamaican. His name is Bastian Clarke. He headed a burglary crew in England. His crew would torture the wife to get the husband to open the safe. In some cases the wife didn’t survive. Now we understand the gruesomeness of Kim's murder. Bastian is one sick psycho. Maxi and Adan probably had no idea what they were getting into when they hooked up with him. The police in England captured his crew about a year ago, but he was already out if the country when they moved in. It seems he has a sixth sense for when the police are moving in, before he evaded capture in England, he had evaded capture in Jamaica when they picked up his crew. He’s been off the radar until last night.
The other perp is Farley Edwards. He used to be one of Chicago’s Finest. He was fired from the force about five years ago after he beat a confession out of a teenager accused of rape. He got the kid to wave his rights and admit the deed. The kid was simply tired of the beating that Edwards had put on him. The parents happen to be out of town when their kid was arrested. When they were notified they flew back in town. It turns out the kid was the Mayor's nephew. The kid wasn't even in town the night the alleged rape took place. The girl had lied because they had broken up and she wanted to get back at him. Edwards barely escaped charges but he was fired from the force. The Mayor was able to keep everything pretty quiet, but it cost the city a pretty penny to settle out of court. Since Edward’s was a cop he knew about the safe houses. He also probably talked to some friends who didn’t think anything of mentioning private information to an ex-cop.”
“So you’re thinking Clarke and Edwards snatched Kim and tortured her. But what could they get from her? Have we found any connection with Kim and these two perps?” asked det. Johns.
“No, we haven’t, but I got some more information. Kim’s younger sister Sophie was on the list for the party the Lawson’s gave a couple of weeks ago. Adan was her guest,” said the Captain. “I’ve learned Mrs. Lawson loves her diamonds, besides the Chocolate Diamond Ensemble which is worth 9.2 million, she has two other sets, which combined with the Chocolate Ensemble set is worth 35 million. I believe it went down like this: When Maxi and Adan couldn’t get Kim interested in either one of them, they tried the younger sister Sophie. She's young and rebellious or she just likes disobeying he sister. Sophie becomes "their" in to high society homes. Adan cases the place while he’s at the party and they come back a couple of weeks later to do the job. Now our guys have the diamonds but something must have gone wrong because Kim ends up tortured by our friend Bastian. The search warrants on Bastian’s house and Farley’s apartment were performed while we were out. Forensics found blood and hair in the basement of Bastian’s home. It turned out to be Kim’s.”
“You’ve gotten test results back already?” asked Det. Christian.
“Yes, we’ve been rushing everything that has to do with this case. Kim’s parents are putting pressure in the right places to get it moving along faster than normal channels would allow,” said the Captain.
“Have you heard anything from Holy Crest Hospital concerning Maxi?” asked Det. Johns.
“He survived the surgery, but he’s unconscious. Doctors don’t know if or when he might come out of it,” said the Captain.
“Do you think Kim might have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see and they killed her? Maybe they thought she passed this information on to Katrina so they came after her as well?” asked Det. Johns.
“It’s possible, but why go through all the trouble. You have 35 million in diamonds. Why not cut and run? If they had equal shares in the spoils it would have set them up nice and pretty for a long time,” said the Captain.
“Have we checked their phones? With a heist this big, they had to have a way to move those diamonds,” said Det. Christian.
“None of them had cell phones on them, I’ll have to check with forensics to see if they found any at their residences,” said the captain.
“We might have figured out what this whole thing is about, but we still haven’t figured out who killed our perps,” said Det. Johns. “Have they found any evidence of where the kill shots came from?”
“I’m still waiting on the report from Bellwood. Their department isn’t as big as ours so they asked for assistance. They gave us the bodies to process, Katz is working on them now. You can get some information from him,” said the Captain.
“I’ll give Katz a call. There’s no need for me to go over there. We know how they died,” said Det. Christian.
Christian and Johns left the Captain’s office. Christian called Katz while Johns went to the restroom. Katz answered on the first ring. They talked for about five minutes. He took notes while Katz gave him the preliminaries. When he finished talking to Katz, he made a phone call to Sergeant Jones. When Johns returned to his desk, he was putting on his jacket.
“What’s up?” asked Det. Johns.
“Let’s go, I’ll tell you on the way,” said Det. Christian.
Det. Johns drove to the safe house as Det. Christian explained what he’d learned from Katz. It turns out the perps were killed with a M-16 Sniper’s Rifle. The impact and trajectory of the wound suggest the shooter was 150 to 200 feet away in an elevated position. Katz figures the shooter had to be in an attic near the safe house. Sergeant Jones was checking to see if there were any vacant houses that fit that description in the area. He was meeting them at the safe house.
When Det. Johns and Christian made it to the safe house Sergeant Jones and Officer King were waiting on them. Sergeant Jones pointed out the only house that fit the description he had been given. The house was behind the safe house on the next block. It was two stories high and had a perfect line of sight to the front of the safe house. They cut through the yard and came upon the house. They looked around the outside. There didn't appear to be any sign of disturbance around the house. They split up when they entered the house. Det. Johns and Christian entered in the back, Sergeant Jones and Officer King entered through the front. The first floor was completely deserted. The house appeared to have sat vacant for a long period of time. A layer of dust was on the floor. They climbed the stairs to the second floor. Det. Johns noticed there was no dust on the stairs or any part of the upstairs entrance. The floors appeared to have been swept recently. They moved in teams searching the second floor. They didn't find a dust mite on the second floor. They moved up to the attic. The attic was spotless as well. They swept the room looking for any clue of the shooter. Officer King spotted an envelope sitting on the window sill. The envelope had Christians and Johns names on it.
Det. Johns put on a pair of rubber gloves and picked up the envelope. He opened it. It contained a single slip of paper. Typed in big bold letters were the words:
“You’re Welcome Detectives Johns and Christian”
Hint: Follow the Diamonds
The Guardian
“Great!” said Det. Christian.
“Yeah, like we needed him added to our plate,” said Det. Johns.
“Who is the Guardian?” asked Sergeant Jones.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” said Det. Johns.