Chapter 7

“Mother fucker,” Sinead swore, slamming her desk phone back into its cradle.

“Still nothing?” Jules asked, looking up from her computer.

Sinead rubbed both hands on her face and groaned. “Nothing. It’s like Financial Forensics is a black hole.”

“You’re lucky the Captain even let you continue on the case,” Jules said. Sinead’s partner had been covering their day-to-day work again for about a week after Sinead had found out that nothing had progressed on the Le Français case since she’d orchestrated the raids. There had been a handful of petty charges and a bunch of fines, but nothing big. No leads that hooked the money laundering network to whoever had been organizing and using the whole thing. “What if there isn’t anything else to find?”

“There has to be something else,” Sinead said. “We know Le Français is still active on the street. There isn’t a CI on this side of Brampton that doesn’t have a rumour about him. Most of them are worthless because they’re too old.”

“Sinead, you’re spiralling,” Jules said with a deadpan expression.

“I’m not fucking spiralling,” Sinead grunted. “I’m just getting fucking cockblocked here.”

Jules leaned forward over her desk, lowering her voice. “What are you saying? You think Financial Forensics is covering something up?”

“To say that I’d have to know if they are doing anything at all,” Sinead said. “I mean, seriously. I don’t even get e-mails back, and there’s an admin who takes my messages but I never get a call back.”

“Could just be they are actually understaffed,” Jules said.

“Maybe,” Sinead said, chewing the inside of her lip. “Either way, it’s dumping this case in the fucking toilet.”

“Well, what did you do last time?” Jules asked. “Just do more of that if you really can’t make Financial Forensics put out work product.”

Sinead took in a deep breath and blew it out. Jules still didn’t know what Sinead had done to get the last break in the case. It had been three weeks since the raids, and the night that she’d ghosted Marc Fornier. There was no way that she could go back to him for more help.

“I’ll try,” Sinead growled more to herself than Jules. It was just numbers, right? How hard could it be to figure out a few tips and tricks?

“Well, I got one answer at least,” Sinead said as she flopped onto the couch and picked up the beer, taking a big swig of it.

“Please, come in,” Jules said, still standing at the door of her little two-room apartment. “Help yourself to a beer.”

“Sorry,” Sinead said.

“What’s the problem?” Jules asked, shutting the door and heading into her little kitchenette to grab another beer from her fridge. “What did you find out?”

“Financial Forensics isn’t just understaffed. They have two guys covering everything across the entire Greater Toronto Area. I guess it was some sort of budget cut issue, along with low wages compared to the private sector. No one with the know-how wants to stick around for a Cop’s pay.”

“Bastards,” Jules sighed. It wasn’t clear if she meant the people who quit because of the pay, the higher-ups who decided where budget cuts went, or the politicians who fucked with the Police budgets to begin with. It was usually a mix of all three when the issue came up. “At least that means there probably isn’t a mole or something.”

“Or it means that one of the guys sticking around is a mole and is supplementing his shitty pay to make it worth sticking around,” Jules said.

“You know you can’t investigate that,” Jules warned her. “That’s an OIPRD issue.”

“I know, I know,” Sinead said. “It’s not like I have anything but suspicions to report to the Independent Review pricks anyways.”

“So what now, then?” Jules asked. “Maybe you should take a break. You know, go out and have some fun or something. You’ve been head-down on this for almost three months now in total.”

“The money is going to disappear,” Sinead said. “If I don’t break this soon, Le Français is going to be a fucking ghost all over again.”