Detective Ln; An Adam Ruzek Love Story

Brother's Keeper

Yn's POV

As soon as I walked into the office, I realized that Adam only had an undershirt on. "Hey Adam? Where's your shirt" I ask. "Well, first I spilled coffee on it, and then blood got on it" Adam said. "Yeah, so where's your new shirt" I ask. "I don't have an extra in my locker, so I'm just waiting for my old one to dry" Adam said. "I have an extra for you in my locker. Come on" I say and grab his hand.

I dragged Adam into the locker room, and right as I shut the door, I pressed my lips to Adam's. He reacted by kissing me back and backing me up into a row of lockers. "What is up with you today? You hate us making out at work" Adam said and pulled away from my lips. "My hormones are off the charts, and seeing you just made things even worse" I say. "Of course it did. Now, do you actually have an extra shirt for me" Adam asked. "I actually do. Its in my locker. You know the combination" I say and pat his chest before leaving the locker room.

"All right, where are we at on this" Voight asked. "We knocked on a few doors but came up dry" Adam said as he came back into the room. "You would have thought that somebody would have looked out the window or heard the shots or something, but nobody saw anything" Kevin said. "Or if they did, they aren't sharing" Vanessa said. "All right, so street PODs" Voight asked. "Most of them have been vandalized and made inoperable by the locals" Hailey said. "Patrol did say this neighborhood is notorious for not cooperating. It's been like that for years" I say. 

"All right, I'm going to go back and talk to this Vasil, maybe encourage him to work with us. Meanwhile, it looks like we're back at square one, so let's restart at the beginning" Voight said. "Hey, I just got a call from a CI who's been asking around. He said he got word that a silver SUV with patches was just dropped off at an auto salvage yard on the South Side" Kim said. "Okay, well, that might be our offender's ride right there" Adam said. "All right, so you and Kev chase it" Voight said.

A bit later, after Jay and I had done some digging, we found some new information. "Who's this guy" Voight asked as Jay put a new picture on the board. "Gregory Barnes. He's 26, no criminal record. We think this is the guy that dropped off the SUV" Jay said. "It was his Uber account that requested the pick-up at the auto salvage yard" I say. "Does he have family or work ties to Albany Park" Voight asked. "None that we can find" Jay said. "Let's bring him in" Voight said.

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"I mean, Barnes grew up in Chicago, but since he's got no criminal record, there's no associates in our database" Adam said to Voight. "The guy flies under the radar. There's no social media footprint either" I say. "And the gun he tossed" Voight asked. "It's not reported stolen, and the ballistics doesn't match, so unless we can tie him down on the robbery in a more specific way, we've got nothing but a misdemeanor gun charge on him" I say. "What about Vasil's son? I mean, he said he saw one of them taking off his mask" Adam said. "All right, arrange for a lineup" Voight said.

A bit later, Vanessa found something. "Boss, I found something interesting when I was transcribing the restaurant employee statements. Vasil's bartender, Chelsea Roberts, shared the same street address as Barnes, an apartment complex over in Canaryville" Vanessa said. "Well, that's huge" Adam said. "It was years ago and they lived in separate apartments, but they knew each other" Vanessa said. "Take a look at Chelsea Roberts' social media account. This is her with Barnes like three months ago" Kim said. "Huh, call down to Trudy. Put a hold on Barnes. Have Halstead and Upton bring her in" Voight said. "Platt just said he bonded out an hour ago" Adam said as he put down the phone. "All right, you and Kev go grab him" Voight said.

Barnes was in the wind, but with Chelsea's help, we were able to get a location. Good news, we found Barnes. Bad news, he was dead. "All right, what do we got" Voight asked. "The techs couldn't find any comparable prints in the motel room" Jay said. "Ballistics confirmed that it's a 9-millimeter, but it doesn't match any in the system" Kim said. "So we've got nothing" Voight said. 

"I might have something" I say and walk up to the white board with a file folder in my hand. "I took a deep dive into Barnes' cell records because I figured if he's got a new friend like Chelsea said, that number would have just started popping out on his cell phone." "You get a name" Voight asked me. "Yes. Jack Cranston" I say and put his picture up on the white board. "He was recently paroled from Stateville for armed robbery, and he exchanged gunfire with cops last time they arrested him." "All right, let's get his address from his parole officer. I want a confirmed visual before we grab him" Voight said.

Cranston ended up escaping because we had no patrol officers for backup. The whole time we've been working on this case, patrol has not had our back, and I recently found out why. Adam got into a little argument with one of the older patrol officers, and in response to that, the other patrol officers took the side of their fellow patroler.

I soon stumbled upon some new information, and as soon as I did, I walked into Voight's office. "You got something new for me Ln" Voight asked. "Yes sir" I say. "You're taking this staying in thing very seriously" Voight said. "Well, if I can't go out for case work, I'm going to do everything I can from inside. Take a look at this. I pulled the POD footage to find out how in the hell Cranston broke containment" I say and show Voight a video of Cranston taking someone's car with a woman still inside. 

"Did you zoom in on the plate" Voight asked. "I did. It's registered to a woman named Gina Morales" I say. "Did she and the car resurface yet" Voight asked. "No, and the GPS is disabled, so he probably still has her. I put out a BOLO already" I say. "Okay. Get Atwater and Rojas to check her home address" Voight said. "Copy that" I say. Kevin and Vanessa ended up catching Cranston, and they brought him back to the district so that someone could interview him.

When interviewed, Cranston said he didn't know anything about someone stalking Barnes, so that means he probably didn't kill Barnes. "Look, either this guy is a hell of an actor or he really doesn't know Barnes is dead" Voight said. "Maybe he doesn't. His cell phone GPS puts him at home during the time of Barnes' murder" Vanessa said. "Are you're sure about that" Voight asked. "Yeah, she's right" Kim said. "You said the landlord saw a guy stalking Barnes right after he bailed out" Voight asked Kevin and Adam. "Yeah, but we couldn't confirm with the footage from the street PODs outside Barnes' apartment. There was no sign of Cranston or his car" Adam said. "Well, maybe we're not looking for Cranston. Let's pull all POD footage from in and around that motel" Voight said.

In the end, we found out that Peter, the nephew of the deceased victim, murdered Barnes, but his father Vasil took the blame for it. "Hey, I'll meet you at home, okay" Adam said to me. "Okay. Where are you going" I ask him. "I have to deal with my problem with patrol" Adam said. "Right. I'll see you later" I say and kiss him quickly.