Fitzgibbon steepled his hands in front of his face. He was silent for a few seconds. “Okay, this is what we’re going to do, Jude, go back to the autopsy, see if there’s mention of a mark on McGrath’s abdomen. Reach out to the medical examiner’s office and find out if there are any tissue samples left that we can have tested. Ronan, look into prisoner deaths not only at the Salem City Jail but at county lockup as well. All people who are arrested in Salem pass through the precinct during the booking process.”
“What are you going to do?” Jude asked.
Fitz sighed. “I’m going to look into the people who were on duty that night. Not just officers, but the jailer, dispatch, the cleaning crew, anyone who had access to the building that night.”
“If that’s the case, add public defenders to your list,” Ronan suggested. “McGrath died on a Monday night during football season. There are always people getting arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, assaults, or DUI, during those games. When I worked patrol for the BPD there would be several attorneys trolling for clients on those game nights.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that.” Fitzgibbon turned to Ten. “Work with Ronan. If he identifies others who died in the jail, reach out to the spirits.”
“Sure thing.”
“I know I don’t have to tell you to keep your mouths closed about this investigation. Not one word to anyone. If your conclusionslead you to Cisco or anyone else working for the department, come to me in person. No emails. No texts. We keep this in house. Got it?”
“Got it,” Jude and Ronan chorused.
“Get to it,” Fitz said. “Not you!” He pointed to Ronan as the others left the room.
“I know you’re pissed at me,” Ronan began, when Ten and Jude left the room.
“Pissed doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling. You realize that if you’re right and one of us was responsible for McGrath’s death, that it’s going to bring a shitstorm down on us? People will come for us. The department, city officials, the mayor, hell the governor will be all over our asses. Not to mention what the fucking media will dig up. Are you ready for that storm?”
Ronan nodded.
“Your work needs to be flawless. Beyond reproach. Checked and double checked,” Fitzgibbon said. “Anything Ten tells you must be backed up by hard evidence. He also needs to prepare for people to come at him and West Side Magick when this story breaks. Make sure he understands. Cole, Cope, and Carson too.”
“Okay. Cap, I-”
Fitz held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say. You shouldn’t have gone behind my back last night, but if you’d told me, I wouldn’t have approved of your little fieldtrip. I might be angry at the methods you used, but if one of our own is killing innocent people right under our noses, we need to be the ones to catch this fucker. We’ll deal with the fallout later. Understood?”
“Understood,” Ronan agreed. He left Fitz in the conference room and practically ran back to his desk. The absolute last thingRonan wanted was to prove Cisco or another member of the SPD was a murderer, but if he found evidence that pointed in that direction, God help the killer.
8
Tennyson
After Ronan’s brief one-on-one meeting with Fitzgibbon, Ten had a client appointment. It was with one of his regulars, a sweet older woman, who liked to keep in frequent touch with her husband, who’d passed nearly five years ago. Ten enjoyed those readings. Karl was a hoot, and Wilma loved him more now than the day he died.
When the reading was over, Ten met Ronan in the cold case department to see where the investigation stood. “Hey, how’s it going?” Ten took a seat across from Ronan and plugged in his laptop.
“You’re not going to believe this, but over the last fifteen years, five people have died in the Salem Jail and another eight at the Essex County Jail. Seven of those deaths can be ruled out of ourresearch. Four of them died from drug overdoses and the other three from strokes.”
“Thirteen people have died in custody? How did we not hear about this?” Ten shook his head. In his mind, this was big news. “I can’t believe one of those investigative reporters on the Boston news stations hasn’t picked this up and run with it.”
“As much as I love living in Salem, Essex County is just not as flashy or as important as Suffolk County. If these deaths happened in Boston, you can bet the news media would be all over the story, but up here in the ‘burbs, we’re the poor country cousin.” Ronan shrugged, as if to say there was nothing he could do about the situation.
“Did you have time to look into these six cases?” Ten asked.
“No, I’ve been busy gathering information.” Ronan tore off a page from his legal pad, jotted something down and handed it to Tennyson. “You read through those three cases, and I’ll do the other three myself.”
“What am I looking for?” Ten asked. He didn’t have as much experience as Ronan when it came to reading police reports or autopsy findings.
“Look for situations similar to McGrath. Were any of the deaths suspicious? Do the autopsy findings match up with the physical description given by the officers or detectives on the scene?”
“I can do that. Doesn’t sound too hard.” Ten wasn’t looking forward to death scene or autopsy photos, but he would look at them to catch a killer or to exonerate Cisco. Ten was the one who’d pushed to open this investigation, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see Cisco go to prison, unless of course, he was a killer.
“One last thing, Ten, I need you to look for commonalities between your three cases and McGrath. Were these people arrested by the same officers? Arraigned by the same judge? Represented by the same attorney? Autopsied by the same medical examiner? Were their death scenes similar? A lot of times there are medical records and witness interviews in the file. Did they share the same doctor or dentist? Go to the same gym or auto mechanic? We need to find as many connections between these people as possible, so that when we bring this information to Cisco or the deputy chief, the results of our work are crystal clear and indisputable.”
“Gotcha.” Ten took the paper from Ronan and saw that it listed three names and their dates of death. The first name was Craig Ott. After he’d logged in to the system, Ten typed in the name. There were three people with the same name in the database, but only one shared the death date.
