Shakedown

Chapter Forty-six

Troy turned toward the car, emphasizing that our meeting was over. He may have been finished, but I wasn’t.

“What about the gun that was found at the rail yard?” I asked.

Ammara perked up, catching Troy’s eye. She tilted her head slightly toward me, urging him to answer. Troy stopped. He was holding back. He still didn’t trust me, which made us even.

“It’s a match, isn’t it?” I asked. “The same gun was used to kill Javy Ordonez and the five people in Marcellus’s house.”

“We aren’t letting that out, so if it gets out, I’ll know how,” Troy said, his back still turned toward me.

“What about Oleta’s son? Same gun?”

Troy shook his head. “No. Grisnik sent us the ballistics. Her son was killed with a nine millimeter. The gun found at the rail yard was a forty-five.”

“What did you get on the registration for the forty-five?”

He rotated slowly around, hands back on his hips, giving me his hard look again. I waited, letting my silence force him to tell me. He glanced at Ammara who nodded again, tipping the scales in my favor.

“The gun was registered to a dealer in St. Louis,” Troy said. “He brought a pair of them to a show in Kansas City seventeen years ago. Reported them stolen along with a pair of night-vision goggles. He filed a police report claiming that a woman distracted him by?ashing her tits while her partner, some guy, snatched the guns and goggles. Cops never made an arrest.”

“What about the other gun, the mate to the one we found?”

“Still missing.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“But it’s not enough, not by a long stretch,” Troy said.

His cell phone rang and he walked out in the street to take the call. Ammara waited until Troy was out of earshot.

“I can’t get you the files you wanted on Thomas Rice. Troy has them locked up. I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Don’t sweat it. I put you in a tough spot. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

“Troy’s not doing a bad job. In fact, he’s doing a pretty good job. He’s just growing into being in charge. That comes naturally to you. It’s more of a process for him.”

“Just don’t let him leave Wendy to the last.”

“I won’t. By the way, I got a phone call from that guy who gave you the dog.”

“Latrell Kelly?”

“That’s him.”

“You find anything else out about him?” I asked.

“Nothing. One of the neighbors says he keeps odd hours, leaving the house late at night, coming home at dawn. That’s evidence of someone having a good time, not killing people.”

“Latrell strike you as the party-hearty type?”

She shook her head. “Not unless he has a secret identity.”

“You better find out if he does. I gave him one of my cards and wrote your number on it. I told him to call you if he remembered anything else. What’d he have to say when he called?”

“Nothing about the case. Just said he had some toys for the dog he forgot to give you. Asked me for your phone number. I told him that I couldn’t give it to him but that I’d pass the message on and you’d call him.”

“You think he really has some toys for the dog or that he’d just rather talk to me than to you?”

“I don’t know. I interviewed him when we did the neighborhood canvass. He seemed like one of the good guys. He doesn’t have a record. He has a regular job; his employer vouched for him. He keeps his place up and isn’t into the whole hip-hop gangsta bullshit thing. Maybe you clicked with him and I didn’t. After all, he gave you the dog.”

Managing the information?ow is key to any investigation. I had told my story to Troy in the order everything had happened, but that’s not how evidence is collected. Sometimes it comes in buckets, like at a crime scene. Sometimes it comes in dribs and drabs, crumbs picked up along the way that don’t become gems until something else gives it meaning and context. This was one of those moments.

“Latrell lived behind Marcellus and he worked at the place where Javy Ordonez was killed.”

“The rail yard is a lot bigger than his backyard. Harder to make that connection stick.”

“It sticks until it falls off.”

“What’s his motive?” Ammara asked.

“You said he was one of the good guys. Maybe he decided to clean up his neighborhood.”

“You saw him. He look like the Terminator to you? Even if he did Marcellus and his people, how does he lure Javy Ordonez out to the rail yard, get in the backseat of Javy’s car, and blow his brains all over the leather upholstery? And if he could pull that off, why would he throw the gun away under a Dumpster where it’s so likely to be found?”

“It wouldn’t have been found for a long time if Javy’s body hadn’t gotten stuck in the trash truck. Have you found anything to connect Latrell to Javy Ordonez?’

“We haven’t looked, but we haven’t found anything, either. We’ve been working the drug angle.”

“What about Bodie Grant, the meth dealer from Raytown?”

“Disappeared. We’ve questioned his people. They think he’s dead. If he is, I’d say we’re in the middle of an epidemic of dead drug dealers.”

“I’d still look for something that ties Latrell to Javy Ordonez.”

“I will,” she said with a laugh, “but I won’t tell Troy you made the suggestion.”

“Latrell wants me to call him, I’ll need his phone number.”

“He said his number was unlisted, and if I wouldn’t give him your number, why should he give me his number? So I asked him how you were supposed to get in touch with him and he said that you knew where he lived. Said you could drop by if you were interested. You interested, Jack?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

Troy finished his call, snapping the cell phone shut. “We done here?” he asked Ammara.

“Yes, we are,” she said.