Chapter~15~The road to nowhere.

Harley~

Pilot gave me a shut your mouth, Missy, look before leading me down one hall of mystery to his office. He closes the door, sits at his desk, gesturing for me to sit as well.

“Is Cervantes one of the stalker victims?”

“I can neither deny nor confirm yet; until now, Mr. Cervantes has been nameless. The police department must inform his family of his death, so if you make me a copy of his personnel file, I’ll be out of your way.”

“I can’t do that, Detective, not without a warrant. We also have a confidentiality clause, and I could lose my job for breaking it.”

Oh, really? I narrowed my eyes at him and shifted in my chair. “Did you miss the part about him being dead?! Mr. Piolt, I can take the time to go all the way downtown, stand in line at the clerk’s office during lunchtime, wait for the judge to come back to chambers, and present them with a warrant to be signed. Then, I promise to dedicate the same time when I shut down your office to conduct a thorough forensic sweep. Why don’t you save us both some trouble and give me the damn file?”

That’s what I thought! He made a copy of the file and handed it over. I took it with a smile as I stood up from the chair.

“Have a good day, Mr. Piolt.”

Back in my car, I typed the address into my GPS and headed toward Cervantes’ home. It’s never easy to tell a loved one that a family member is deceased. The death announcement was the worst part of the job, but it won’t be an issue today, I see as I pull over to the curb. The GPS led me to an empty lot.

Just fucking great, I kill the engine and get out. An older couple sitting in the breezeway of the neighboring building catches my eye, so I approach them; they are so endearing, still holding hands in their early 70s. I’m loving it, and I’m jealous too.

“Good afternoon.” I showed them Cervantes’s pick. “Have either of you seen this man?”

They look at the photo and then up at me. “No, Detective.” The gentleman said.

My phone rings. I thank them for their time and get back into my car. Before accepting the call, I turn over the engine and connect my phone to the Bluetooth.

“Yeah, Captain.”

“Where are you, Detective?”

He sounded ready to come through the cellar waves and grab my ass! His urgency, hand me rubbing my aching forehead, because I know I will not like where this goes.

“I was following a lead that led me nowhere; on a positive note, thanks to the glove, we know the ID of our third victim.”

“That makes it two so far for the day. We have just identified the first victim. He has used several aliases, but the fingerprints match an Edward Tolley.”

“Where did the IAFIS hit come from?”

“Oklahoma State Police, Mr Tolley, then Mr. Atkins, did a couple of years in McAlester for holding up a convenience store. Also, we have visitors here. I’m going to need you back ASAP!”

You can’t make this shit up! I shake my head; humans never fail to amuse me. “I am on the way.”

So much for searching for the van; it would have to wait, though I was hoping maybe the stalker had left me something else behind. The first thing I saw when entering the squad room was another bouquet of peonies and baby’s breath sitting on my desk. They took my breath away, and I hurried to get the card from the little plastic fork and read, “I will forever love you.”

Though I wished he wouldn’t, I rubbed my thumb across his handwritten words as tears stung my eyes, which in turn locked onto the phone as I was thinking about calling Ben.

‘You can’t do that, Harley; you know it isn’t fair to tease him. Are you willing to give me up and, being a werewolf, to be with Ben? Because that’s the only way it could ever work.’

The answer is no. Rae is my best friend, and I wouldn’t want to be without her. Nor could I ever be happy living a lie and denying what I am. That is a sacrifice I wouldn’t make for anyone.

‘I know, Rae, I have done enough damage already.’

I wiped away the tears from my cheek and returned the card when I sensed my Captain coming up behind me. He, too, focuses first on the flowers, which would be hard to miss, and grunts with a roll of his eyes. He doesn’t look thrilled to see me.

“Come with me!”

We go down the hall to the conference room. Detectives from the DEA, Nelson and Sikes, and Dr. Lyles, our resident psych profiler, already sat at the table.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I locked eyes with my Captain, nodding toward the two DEA agents. Mitch already knows I don’t work well with others. “Why are they here?”

“They got the same correspondence we did, but for a different reason.”

“It’s good to see you again, Detective.” Nelson is wearing his signature cowboy hat. I still haven’t figured out how such a country bumpkin wound up in LA.

I shift my chair up to the desk. “Yeah, likewise. Can we get on with this?”

Nelson produces a jacket as thick as I have ever seen and slides it across the table to us. Captain Howard does the honors and opens it.

“Meet Kevin Coalds, another alias of our Mr. Tolley.” Nelson pointed toward the mugshot on the front page. “Doctor Jekyll hasn’t got shit on this guy! Whatever Kevin did that got him killed wasn’t paying the bills. The DEA had eyes on him for running drugs.”

“What did you find on the other victim, Detective?”

I first handed Dr Lyles the coroner’s report on Cervantes, and she put it beside Kevin’s for comparison.

“Joswa Cervantes, and not much. I tracked him down to his employer, but the address on his personnel file was a vacant lot. Big shock there. The phone number he listed as his home phone belongs to the dry cleaner over on the boulevard. However, I don’t think he is involved in your drug ring.”

Lyles looked up from the files. “I agree with Detective Gibson.”

“How can you be so sure?” Sikes raised his eyebrows at Lyles. “One can run them without partaking.”