Got Your Six

Chapter 35

Captain Bennett

"Uhh, sir," Gonzales says, standing in the doorway to my office. The look on his face makes me think whatever he's about to tell me is pretty urgent.
"What is it?" I ask, somewhat concerned.
"There's been another murder, and it's at Jenkins' sister's house. The same house we were at yesterday," he tells me with a worried look on his face.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," I mutter under my breath. This is the third murder in the past week, this town is getting out of control. And every single murder seems to be linked to Gavin in one way or another. I can't let this guy roam free any longer. It's time to take him down and everyone that works for him. "Let's go," I say to Gonzales, getting out of my chair and pushing him out of my office.
The bullpen is practically empty, besides one single officer working on a case report. Everyone else must either be at the crime scene or trying to prevent another murder from happening. Gonzales leads the way to the parking lot, taking me to his patrol car and hopping in the drivers seat.
"Take me there," I tell him after I get in beside him, as if he doesn't already know where I want to go.
Gonzales pulls out of the lot and stops at the stop sign at the end of the road.
"Run code, let's go," I order him.
"But sir, there's already officers on scene," Gonzales informs me.
"I know, and I want to get there before they move around too much evidence. Now, let's go. Run code," I tell him again, flipping on the lights and sirens for him.
I know it's not procedure to use lights and sirens when it's not really an emergency, but I want to look through everything before too many other people touch the evidence. Gavin had to have left something behind to be able to pin this on him, and whatever it is, I intend to find it. This has gone too far and I intend on putting an end to it before any other people die.
Gonzales speeds up the car and gets us to the scene within ten minutes. The house is already surrounded with yellow tape and several other police cars are scattered along the side of the road and the alleyway. An ambulance sits parked right next to the back door. Officers and medical personnel are walking around everywhere, as if they can't decide whether they should be inside or outside.
I'm making my way towards the house before Gonzales even takes the keys out of the ignition. He comes running up to me as I duck under the yellow tape, telling me to slow down.
"There's no time to slow down," I tell him. "This has gotten too out of hand."
I slip into the house through the back door, squeezing past an officer who's on his way out. There's three more officers inside the house, presumably looking around for any evidence.
"Somebody get me a pair of gloves," I call out.
Gonzales taps me on the shoulder, causing me to turn around. Then he hands me a pair of black latex gloves that I immediately slip over my hands.
"Thank you," I say quietly as I make my way to the center of the living room. A woman's body lies limp in a lounge chair, her throat slit open from end to end. "Christina?"
"Christina Jenkins," says a man dressed in a casual tan suit. He lowers a camera from his face and turns to face me. "Caucasian female, age thirty-five."
"And you are?" I ask him, not seeing any sort of nameplate on his suit.
"Oh, Detective Duran," he says, holding out his latex glove covered hand.
I shake his hand and then continue to evaluate the scene. "Has anyone been notified about her death?" I ask him.
"Well, we didn't find any next of kin and we haven't looked into her family yet," Detective Duran informs me.
"She has a brother," I say quietly.
"Excuse me?" He asks, not quite hearing what I said.
"Never mind," I say, disregarding the thought. "Who called it in?"
"It was called in anonymously," Gonzales says from behind me, reminding me that he's still here.
My guess is Jenkins. Of course he wanted to remain anonymous, especially after I just fired him this morning. I'm sure the last thing he wanted was to be questioned by his former co-workers. I don't think he's responsible for this at all, he wouldn't have killed his own sister. I just feel bad for him having to see her like this.
"You've got pictures of the body already?" I ask, looking at the man with the camera.
"Yes, sir," Duran confirms.
"Okay, then let's get her out of here," I call out to the paramedics I saw waiting outside when I got here. "No one deserves to just sit here like this, having everyone stare at them." I know if it was me, that would sure piss me off, dead or not.
I spot a yellow place-marker on the floor next to a plain white envelope and walk over to get a better look. The name 'Jenkins' is written on the front in big black letters. There's no address of any sort, just a last name.
"Have you taken pictures of this?" I ask Detective Duran.
"Yes, sir," he replies after looking to see what I'm referring to.
"Good," I say, reaching down and picking up the envelope. It's already been torn open and the inside is completely empty. "Do we know what was in here?"
"We haven't found anything that might've been in there. My guess is that who ever opened it, took the contents with them," Detective Duran informs me.
"Clearly," I mumble under my breath. It's odd enough that the letter doesn't have an address and just has a name written on it instead. That means whoever wrote the name on the envelope would've had to hand deliver it. If Christina opened the envelope, then the letter would be around here somewhere, unless Calvin took it when he came and found her like this. If I had to make a guess though, I'd say the letter was left here for Calvin to find, which would be another reason for him to leave here in such a hurry. He took a piece of evidence with him.
"I want this envelope checked for fingerprints immediately and I wanna know the results as soon as we get them," I tell Gonzales, handing him the envelope. "Detective Duran, thanks for your help. If you find anything new, let me know right away."
"Yes, sir," he replies as I follow Gonzales out of the house.
As soon as we get back outside, I see the two paramedics still waiting next to the ambulance. "Get the body cleaned up," I yell in their direction. "She doesn't need to sit there all day."
The two young men scramble to the back of the ambulance and pull out a gurney, bringing it towards the house. Meanwhile, Gonzales and I get back into our patrol car and head back to the station.
"I'll let you know the results of the fingerprints as soon as we get them," Gonzales assures me as we walk back into the station.
I give him a simple nod and head off to my office, closing myself inside. There's no doubt in my mind that the results will come back to Calvin. I'm sure he took whatever was inside while he was there. Maybe Gavin's fingerprints will show up on that envelope too, that is if he wasn't smart enough to wear gloves when he wrote it. Gavin has been at the center of all of this and I need to find something that will help me finally put a stop to him.

I spend several hours at my computer, searching through criminal records, hoping to find any records of a safe house Gavin might've been caught at in the past. Nothing comes out of it. I even try searching through other people's records that he's been known to work with like Manny and Johnny but I still come out with nothing. Gavin has done a good job at covering his tracks, I'll give him that, but it all has to come to an end sometime.
It doesn't occur to me until I see the night shift coming into the station that the sun has gone down and I should be heading home soon.
"Gonzales," I call out from the doorway of my office. He spins his chair around to look at me from his desk. "Got those results yet?"
"Not yet, sir," he tells me regretfully.
My attention is called back into my office when my desk phone starts to ring.
"Hello?" I say after picking up the phone.
"Sir, you have a call from someone named Kayla Jenkins," Anna informs me.
"Okay, go ahead and put her through," I tell her, wondering what could've happened now to cause her to call me. I can't say the call isn't welcome, I did tell her to call if she had any concerns with Calvin before I left her house this morning. I guess something concerning must have come up.
"Hello?" I say again into the phone after Kayla is transferred through.
"Mr. Bennett?" She says into the phone.
"Yes, is something wrong, Kayla?" I ask, trying to think of what could've happened this time.
"I don't know exactly," she says, sounding somewhat confused. "Calvin hasn't been home since he left this morning and I finally checked his location and he's just sitting on the side of the highway."
"Where, Kayla? Can you give me the exact location of where he is?" I ask, pulling up a map on my computer.
"Uhh, yeah," she says, pausing for a brief moment. "His location is saying he's right on the corner of Highway One-Sixty-Nine and Two Hundred Fiftieth West Street."
I zoom into the location on my map and begin scrolling around, looking for anything nearby that might catch my attention.
"I don't know if he's been in an accident or what. I thought about going up there to check it out but with everything that's been going on lately, I thought it might be best to call you first," Kayla tells me.
"No, don't go up there. I'll get some officers together and we'll look into it for you," I assure her, not wanting her to get in the middle of something dangerous.
"Okay, thank you sir," she says, sounding like she might be about to cry.
"No problem," I say before hanging up the phone.
There's a couple buildings around where Kayla said he was but after typing them into the address search, they come up occupied. I keep scrolling around the map, moving it all over the place until I finally see it. Across a short field is a small house that sits all alone. I type the address into the system and it comes back with no known occupants. It's an abandoned house. Jenkins must have found Gavin. In my mind, there's no other reason for him to be sitting on the side of a highway all day unless he was scoping something out. And that something is Gavin's safe house.
I immediately jump up from my seat and rush out to the bullpen where the night shift is still getting ready to take over. Gonzales is still sitting at his desk working on a case.
"Gonzales, get your gear on, we've got some shit to go take care of," I tell him.
He doesn't even respond before getting up and heading to the locker room to grab his gear. I know his shift is just about over but Gavin is his case, so he should be there when it all comes to an end. A few other officers look over at me, clearly wondering what's going on. That's when I decide to take a few of them with me. The more manpower we have going into this, the better.
"Officer Perez and Officer King," I call out across the room, getting their attention. "Hurry up and get your gear on, you're coming with me.