Chapter 12

“Do you think he fell for it?” Kevin asked May as soon as Ogilvie left the interview room. He was referring to the documents that he had left haphazardly strewn around the table in the interview room. He made a point of hastily gathering them up when Ogilvie entered but not before he got a good look at one of them.

“He should have if you left the paper work strewn about but didn’t make it too obvious.” May replied. “Now that we’ve baited the hook, we’re gonna see what kind of fish we net.”

“I hope it’s a nice, big fat, juicy one,” Kevin replied. “I guess we might as well do some desk work while we dangle the bait for a while. I want to do some research on those missing women.”

May grabbed a newspaper. “You can play around with your computer all you want. I’m gonna do this the old fashioned way. I’m gonna check the obits to see if I can find anything about a recently deceased old white haired man.”

“What have we got here? I think I know who Denise was talking about.” May exclaimed. She was still perusing the front page out of curiosity when a headline caught her eye.

Kevin looked up from his computer. “What you got?”

May spread out her paper and pointed. Kevin leaned over and fastened his eyes on the photo his partner was pointing at. It depicted an old white haired, white bearded man which fit Denise’s description perfectly.

His eyes then fell on the headline. REAL ESTATE MOGUL DEAD. The story underneath went on to outline the story of Vladmir Demichuck. A Russian immigrant who rose from poverty to untold riches by acquiring properties with run down houses, renovating them and reselling them for high profits. The author gushingly described how Demichuck worked on the first ones himself before he began hiring help. After that he began diverting his interests and soon had his hands on all kinds of business interests throughout the city.

“It seems like we got a real honest to goodness rags to riches story here and look at the list of people expressing their sympathy for his death.” Kevin commented. “Everybody from the mayor and council to the city’s business elite.”

“Yeah but look who else is offering their condolences?”

May read off names that immediately clicked in Kevin’s head and resembled a list of who was who in the city’s underworld. He recognized some as outright convicted criminals who had spent time in jail and others who always seemed to be under investigation by the police but never actually charged with anything.

“I guess you could say he led a very full life with a lot of interesting friends,” Kevin announced.

May laughed and replied. “I’d say he lived on both sides of the tracks, if you know what I mean?”

Kevin snickered. “Let me look on my computer and see what we have on him.”

“Let’s see,” he began a running commentary without looking up from his computer. “Although he was investigated a few times, especially in his early years for white collared crimes like fraud and embezzlement, nothing seemed to stick and the charges were always dropped. There were also rumors about him being involved in heavier things like assault and murder but the investigations never seemed to go anywhere. Other than that our boy looks pretty clean except for his unsavory friends. I’d bet they’d be crawling out of the woodwork for his funeral, and slithering away again when it’s all over.”

May looked up from the newspaper to discover Andreychuck hovering over the desk.

“You got a minute. I gotta talk to you about something important,” he announced.

She took a look at his tense face and noticed the captain refused to meet her eyes. May had known the captain for years so she could read the signs. When he looked like this it meant some serious business was about to go down and she probably wouldn’t like it.

What is it this time she wondered as she rose from her desk and followed Andreychuck into his office? She could think of only two things. Either the captain had decided to abandon the safe house idea or he had decided to give her another warning about refusing to take the computer courses the department was offering her. May hoped it was the later because she could easily deal with the computer problem. On the other hand, not having a safe house for Denise would cause her lots of problems.

“I hope you haven’t decided to take away my safe house?” May didn’t waste any time. She popped the question the moment the door to Andreychuck’s office closed. “Because if you have, you’d certainly be putting her in danger. It’s only been a couple of days and The Family seems to want her back pretty badly. They’ve already gotten word she’s in our custody and sent a lawyer to try and get her released. It makes me think there’s more to this than just an escape. They are acting like the girl stole the crown jewels or something.”

Andreychuck sat primly beside his desk and smiled at May’s remarks.

“As usual you’re hitting the nail right on its head. Ever since Denise escaped The Family has been all over this and it isn’t just because one of their girls slipped away. Although I can’t give you much detail, I can tell you this is turning into a real big deal. So big in fact, I’ve got orders from above to shut this down.”

“What do you mean shut it down?” May exploded. “We’re just getting started on this and by the looks of it Denise may have hid in a room with the deceased Vladmir Demichuck.”

“Did you see the headline and photos in the paper? The paper is making him out like some kind of saint while he hobnobbed with the city’s elite as well as its criminal world. The whole thing stinks likes rotting fish. Don’t you get it? I think we stumbled on a huge criminal enterprise and Denise is right in the middle of it. For her own safety we got to keep her stowed some place where The Family can’t find her. Also, I’m become very interested in taking this so called Family down, for good.”