Bertelli Investigations Volume 1: Noteworthy Mysteries

Chapter 23

            Wednesday, May3rd,2024  |  2:00pm

The Bertelli brothers obtained a search warrant for a couple of different places. One was to check out Mitch Thompson's house and the other was for Malcom's house. In Malcom's place they were going to see if they could match them to any of the bullets. They were also going to try to find the diamond ring that was on Jade after she was murdered, so they had to find out if it was her wedding ring, or if it was the diamond ring Malcom gave her. They might have cleared Malcom previously, but the edge he gave and how much he was okay with Jade being dead, they thought he could somehow have something to do with her murder. And they were going to also look through any electronics to find out if he had a secret connection to Tia.

"2367 Beachview Drive. This is it." The boys came across an old beat down trailer park. It had trash outside of some of the trailers, making them look like a trash dump. The trailers looked like they were starting to fall apart as well. The trailer park reaked of cigarette smoke and cocaine, which only got worse as they came upon Malcom's porch. The trailer park didn't really match the pretty, appealing, street name.

"It's hard to see why it's called that", Tino said."But this is the right address. I've checked twice."

"Maybe they get a flood when it rains?",Tony joked.

They knocked on the door, which had a pounding sound to it although knocking normally. A big dog came barking and looking fierce as he put his paws on the door and looked out the small window that was a part of the door. He was probably part Great Dane and Doberman . Malcom grabbed the dog and told him to settle down. He answered the door,looking at Tony and Tino with much regret. His face got angry and he puffed up."What do you guys want now?!,he yelled.

Tony held up a paper."We have a search warrant."

The man started to get furious,throwing his hands up in the air. "Oh my god for what?!"

Tino stared the guy in the eye and gave a very serious tone."To obtain your guns."

"You're going to take away my guns?",Malcom asked, shaking his head.

"It'll only be temporarily.",Tino reassured him."And we want to look around."

Malcom started getting defensive as he crossed his arms and tried to be intimidating."I can't believe this! You can't just come in here and start looking through everything!"

"If you don't let us in we can arrest you for not cooperating with the police.",Tony smirked.

Malcom punch the side of his building and bursted out in anger."You intolerant,foolish,spineless,cops. Let me tell you,I did not kill Jade!"

"Then let us in to check your place.",Tony said." Unless you're scared of something?"

"You shut up! I'm not scared of anything!",Malcom yelled, taking a breath."Fine! You know what? Go ahead, go through everything. But you won't find anything. You're gonna feel really stupid!"

As the Bertelli brothers walked in,Malcom had a hold of his dog for a seconds,who was growling profusely at them. " It's okay. I won't have you attack them yet."

As the guys walked in,the trailer matched the outside of it. It was completely trashed, with cans and garage everywhere. The furniture was all torn up. And the stentch of cigarette smoke and cocaine was almost unbearable. They knew this was a house they didn't want to be in for long.

"Where do you have your guns at?", Tino asked?

"They're all under my bed. There should be two shotguns and a handgun.", Malcom smirked,"Be careful. They're loaded."

As Tino went to find the guns,Tony was looking through everything with a flashlight."We're just going to come right out and ask you about this: Do you have the ring that you gave Jade? Or what happened to it?"

"Yeah I had it. She gave it back to me after we broke up. I pawned it."

Tony couldn't believe it. Of course it was never easy.. Why could the simple answer not have been : yes I have the ring?

"Do you have any receipts from the pawn shop?", Tony asked hopefully.

Malcom laughed. "No because I don't save receipts. But I have a picture of her wearing it if you need to see what it looked like."

"Show me.",Tony demanded.

Malcom pulled out his phone,scrolling through pictures for a minute. "Here it is.",he said as he let go of his dog, who was walking up and sniffing Tony in a leery sense.

"This was when I gave it to her." The picture was of Jade. She was smiling in a sexy way, her long blond hair flowing, with her hand gently on her face, showing off her ring. The ring was tiny and sparkly. But it didn't look like the one that was on Jade when she was killed. The one Jade had on had a gold trim around the diamonds, and there was several diamonds on the band. The one she was wearing in the picture had just one plain diamond on the band, with no gold trimming.

Tony knew right away that they had made a mistake. Malcom wasn't the guy, no matter how much he acted like it. Tony sighed, looking away and rolling his eyes."Tino, come here. Look at this."

Tino came back carrying the guns. He set them down the broken down sofa. He looked at the picture and immediately looked over at Tony. "Did you check his computers yet?", he mumbled.

"No but I can just to make sure", Tony replied.

"The only kind of computer I have is this cell phone", Malcom reassured them.

"Can I see it real quick?", Tony asked.

"Why not?", Malcom replied sarcastically, handing it to him roughly.

He quickly scanned through the phone, finding any websites that might be on the dark web, as well as looking through social media accounts and messages. All he found was some messages about selling drugs and a couple pornographic websites."Thank you for cooperating with us", he said apologeticly.

Tino grabbed the guns on the way out, reassuring Malcom he'd have them back soon."We're just going to take your guns to get them examined. You should have them back in no time."

Malcom laughed in anger." I told you guys. You're looking in the wrong place."

Then where do we need to look?", Tony asked suspiciously.

Malcom smiled in a mischievous way."I've been raised on the streets. What I know is that you guys are just looking at me because I seem like the guy. I'm not Mr tidy and perfect, so you think I did it. You guys need to be detectives and quit acting like the typical cop. I can gaurantee you that whoever killed her is sitting pretty in his or hers little cottage."