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Chapter 49 - Horvath & Rage To The Rescue?
“I assume Lindsey is at home with Gus. At least I hope to hell that’s where she is,” Mel confessed, standing up from where she’d been cowering on the couch in a futile attempt to avoid Brian’s righteous wrath. “I’ll go with you and we can tag team her. Hopefully, with the both of us hounding her, she’ll finally come clean and tell you whatever she knows.”
Brian was so anxious to go already that he'd turned and taken a step towards the door before he remembered either his bare feet or the broken glass that was all over his floor. As soon as his foot landed on the first cutting shards, though, the situation was brought painfully to his attention.
“FUCK!” he screeched, more angry at the delay than the pain.
“Shit! Don’t move, Brian. Let me go get you some shoes. Just stay still for one minute,” Mel directed as she scurried off towards the man’s closet. “Fuck, Brian, you have more shoes than most of the women I know,” she yelled back over her shoulder. “Damn label queen. Which ones do you want?”
“I don’t fucking care right now which shoes I wear, Mel. Just bring me whatever you think would look best while I’m kicking Lindsey’s ass,” Brian ordered, trying to stay upright while balancing on his one uninjured foot and holding the other up so he could tweeze out the glass slivers with his fingers. Then, after a moment’s further thought, he added, “the chocolate Prada boots by the foot of the bed would probably work well.”
Mel was shaking her head in amusement when she came back a minute later holding out the requested footwear. “Here you go, your Highness,” she ribbed him as he took the proffered boots.
“Damn, my foot is still bleeding. I’m going to get blood everywhere and ruin these boots.” Brian cringed at such a sacrilegious act. Of course, he then recalled what he had been about to do and the crushing fear about what was happening to his Sunshine made him feel like slapping himself for the unhelpful, stray thought. “Fuck it. Let’s go. The sooner I kill Lindsey, the sooner I can get Justin back.”
Brian managed to hop into his boots and was already limping towards the door, when his cell phone started ringing. He was tempted to ignore it, too focused on getting some answers from Lindsey to bother with anything else, but then again, what if it was Horvath with some news? He paused long enough to fish the phone out of his pocket and distractedly tapped at the screen to accept the call.
“Kinn . . .” Brian started to answer but was immediately interrupted by a rush of words.
“Brian, it’s Ted. I’m at the Diner. Debbie's here and she’s got Justin on the phone. Or, at least, we think it’s Justin. He hasn’t said anything yet, but Debbie says she’s sure it’s him on the line. You need to get down here right now. You’re the only one he’ll talk to.”
“Holy fuck! I’m on my way. DON’T let him hang up. Tell him I’m coming. And somebody call Detective Carl Horvath at the Liberty Avenue precinct and get him to trace that fucking call,” Brian shouted into the phone, running to the door at the same time.
“Michael’s already calling the police on his phone. I’ll make sure Debbie knows you’re on your way and tells Justin. Just get here fast, Brian,” Ted pleaded, sounding almost as desperate as Brian felt.
Brian terminated the call and reached out to pull open the door. He felt Mel at his back - she must have heard enough of Ted’s phone call to understand what was happening and was apparently coming with him to the Diner. They didn’t make it out of the loft though. Standing right outside the door, her hand raised as if about to knock, stood an irate-looking Lindsey Peterson.
“What the HELL is this shit, Brian?” Lindsey bellowed angrily, shaking a sheaf of papers in Brian’s face. “How DARE you sue me to get custody of Gus! You fucking piece of shit! We had an agreement, Brian. You were going to donate your sperm so that Mel and I could have the family we’ve always wanted and then you were going to bow out. You SAID you’d sign over your parental rights as soon as the baby was born. You SWORE you wanted nothing to do with being a father, so why the hell are you now asking a court to award you joint custody? You CAN’T do this, Brian! It’s not fair!”
“What the hell?” Mel pushed past Brian and grabbed at the paperwork.
“There was a process server waiting for me when I got home just a few minutes ago. This is the crap he gave me. I want an explanation, Brian, and I want it now!” Lindsey explained to her partner while planting herself obstinately in Brian’s path. Only after which did she all of a sudden realize that her partner was unexpectedly there in the loft with Brian. “What are you doing here, Mel? Did you get served too?”
“Fuck this shit, Lindsey,” Brian tore the papers out of Mel’s hands and tossed the lot of it down the stairwell. “We don’t have time for this crap right now, you sanctimonious, lying CUNT! Because of you, the man I love is being held against his will by a bunch of sadistic savages who are probably, right now, torturing him to within an inch of his life. And YOU are going to tell me where he is RIGHT THE FUCK NOW! Do you hear me, Lindsey? Cause if you don’t start talking in the next five seconds I’m going to beat your head against the fucking wall until you do!” Brian screamed, grabbing hold of Lindsey's shoulders with both hands and shaking her so hard her teeth were chattering. “NOW START TALKING!”
“Brian . . . Brian, I don’t . . . . I don’t know what . . .” Lindsey began, having a hard time getting the words out while she was being so violently jounced around, even assuming she could figure out how to spin the lies she’d been trying to hold onto.
“Do NOT lie to me, Lindsey. Don’t even TRY and tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. I seriously don’t care if I completely lose it this time. I will fucking beat your damned brains out if you even try to lie to me,” Brian threatened, and for the first time in his life he knew that was true - he really didn’t care if he turned into his father, not if it would uncover the truth and help him save Justin. “Mel told me everything. She told me you were lying when Horvath came to question you. We all know you weren’t at home like you said and we also know you still have the key to my loft. Now, just do the right thing and tell me what you know so I can get to Justin before it's too late!”
“Stop, Brian! STOP!” Mel ordered, prying the man’s hands off Lindsey and stepping between their bodies to physically separate them. If Lindsey thought she was being rescued, though, she was quickly proven wrong. Mel turned to face her partner with a determined frown. “You heard him, Lindsey. Start talking. If you don’t, I swear, I’ll step aside and let him beat the truth out of you.”
For about half a second, Lindsey looked like she was still thinking about lying again. However, a quick glance at the barely held back fury in Brian’s countenance and the stern resolve in Mel’s stance, easily persuaded her that she would not get away with it. Not this time.
“I . . . I really don’t know much of anything,” she grudgingly began, only to recoil again when her longtime friend and the father of her son LITERALLY growled at her. “I swear, Brian, I don’t know where they took the boy. And I didn’t mean for him to be hurt or anything. I just thought . . . I thought you’d be better off if the little gold digger wasn’t around to . . .”
“I’m going to fucking kill her, Mel. If she says one more word against Justin, rather than telling me exactly what she’s done, I’m simply going to fucking kill her,” Brian warned, looking at Mel instead of the woman that was pushing him to his breaking point.
“I’ll join you, Brian,” Mel asserted, almost as angrily. Turning towards the trembling blonde, she advised, “cut the moral commentary, Lindz, and get to the fucking point. What. Did. You. Do?”
“I . . . I . . . I just . . .” Lindsey hesitated again, unwilling to admit her wrongdoing and hoping that somehow she could still get out of it . . . until she noticed that Brian’s fists were rising up from his sides, and she caved. “All I did was mention to a friend that I wished Justin would just go back to wherever he came from. I didn’t really mean anything by it. I wasn’t going to DO anything. But then the guy called me back a few days later and said he might have some friends that could make it happen. He said they’d take Justin away and resell him to another owner. I thought it was the best solution for everyone. You’d get back all the money you’d wasted on him and the insolent little slut would be out of all our lives.” Lindsey realized her excuses weren’t getting her anywhere when Brian started growling again and Mel shook her head with obvious disappointment, so she hurried on. “Even then I wasn’t really going to do it. I was GOING to warn you about what they were planning, Brian. But then you were such a shit to me that morning when I called you. So I . . . Well, I called Simon back and told him I would do it.”
“Do. What? What did you do, Lindsey? You’re wasting time here. Time that Justin may not have. Fucking tell us already!” Brian demanded.
“All I did was come over to the loft and open the door for them. I thought that Simon was going to meet me here and take the boy to the new buyer. He promised me that the boy wouldn’t be hurt. But . . . Well . . . Instead of Simon, there were these three scary guys who sort of pushed their way in . . . And, when the boy saw them and started screaming, they kinda grabbed him . . .”
Lindsey noticed that Brian’s tension level was again ramping up and, despite her resolve, she edged back towards prevarication once more. “I told them not to be so rough, but they didn’t listen. And the leader threatened me and told me to mind my own business, so there was really nothing I could do, you know? And the boy was making so much noise and screaming and fighting them, so the leader guy, he grabbed this electronic gizmo thing that was sitting on your counter and he did something with it. He said he just needed to shut the boy up and stop him from raising such a fuss. I don’t know what it was, but the leader pointed that thing at the kid and he just . . . dropped to the floor.”
“FUCK!” Brian sobbed, grabbing hold of his hair with both hands and falling back against the door jamb, his face contorting as if he was in physical pain. “Not the fucking Enforcer . . . Shit, Justin . . .”
“After that the two big ones just picked the boy up and they all left,” Lindsey finished, not knowing what else to say or do. “I . . . I was a little freaked out, so I just ran back to my car and drove around for a couple hours, until I realized how late it was and then I hurried home. I’d just arrived and was going to go pick up Gus when that detective rang the doorbell and then you came in . . .” Lindz turned to look at Mel, hoping to find some sympathy but seeing only contempt, so she fell silent.
Brian gasped a huge lungful of air, scrubbed at his face and pinched back the tears he didn’t have time for, then turned back to his former friend to try and squeeze out any other information he could.
“Did they say anything, give you any clues to where they were taking Justin?”
“No. Nothing,” Lindsey answered.
“Did you get their names?” Brian pressed. Lindsey shook her head, ‘no’. “Didn't they call each other anything, use any nicknames even?”
“I think the two big ones called the other guy ‘boss’, but that’s all I remember.”
“Can you describe them? The Boss guy - what did he look like?” Brian pleaded, even though he knew he was grasping at straws.
“I don’t know . . .” Lindsey started off timidly, trying to think of a way to describe the thoroughly average-looking guy. “He was about as tall as me, maybe a little shorter. Longish, curly hair. A sort of nondescript, dingy, blond color. Not very attractive. Sort of smarmy. Greasy . . . He looked like a used car salesman, you know?”
That last phrase finally struck a chord with Brian and an idea clicked in his brain. He dashed across the loft to the dining table and picked up Justin’s forgotten sketch book. Flipping furiously through the pages as he carried it back to where the two women were still standing next to the open door, he finally found the one he’d been looking for. A horrible picture. A nightmare. A picture of the man who’d been allowed to beat and torture Justin for more than a year under the guise of ‘training’ him to become a Personal Companion. Justin’s Handler . . . Gary Sapperstein. Who really did look a bit like a used car salesman.
“Is this him?” Brian asked.
“Yes! That’s him. That’s definitely the guy,” Lindsey confirmed.
“Fucking hell,” Brian tossed the sketch pad backward so that it flew through the air and landed on the kitchen counter. “Mel, get ahold of Carl Horvath. Tell him Justin’s old Handler is the one that has him.” Brian already had his keys in his hand and was running down the stairs, calling out over his shoulder. “Tell him to fucking hurry. I’ll meet him there.”
“Meet him where, Brian?” Mel yelled after the retreating man. “Where?” But Brian was already down two flights of stairs by that point.
Brian sprinted to the Jeep, pausing only long enough to fumble the keys into the lock. He climbed in and started the engine while juggling his phone in his left hand. With one tap to the correct icon - as he was simultaneously pulling out into traffic and only barely avoiding being wishboned by an oncoming truck - he had Cynthia on the line.
“Cynthia!” Brian hollered into the phone before the woman had said even one word. “I need the address for Gary Sapperstein. It’s on Justin’s paperwork from the auction. NOW!”
Cynthia, smart woman that she was, didn’t bother questioning why he needed the information, she just ran to her computer, pulled up the Internet file where she’d saved PDF versions of all Brian’s important papers, and found the needed address.
“Got it!” she crowed about thirty seconds later. “I’m texting it to you now so you can use your map app to get directions . . . Done!” Only then, once the job was complete, did Cynthia start to ask questions. “Did you find him, Brian? Is that where Justin’s being held?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. But I hope I’m wrong. Because if Sapperstein has him . . .” Brian couldn’t bear to finish that sentence.
Brian hung up on Cynthia, tapped on the text link for Sapperstein’s street address, which automatically pulled up the correct map, groaned because he’d been driving in the wrong direction for five minutes, pulled a u-ey and then headed off into the fading afternoon.
********
Carl walked out of the PCRA building in downtown Pittsburgh, grumbling as he paged through the notes he’d accumulated already on this case.
He was completely pissed off by the fact that he’d rushed all the way across town on what now appeared to be a wild goose chase. Not that there was anything he could do about it. Although, based on what the PCRA folks had just told him, he might need to rethink his strategy a bit.
He was still reading through the notes when he arrived at his car. Carl climbed in behind the wheel and then paused while he thought through things. He’d actually covered a lot of ground considering the fact that he was still without a partner - which really didn’t bother him much since most of the youngsters they had tried to hamper him with over the years were more trouble than help. Sometimes, though, an extra body did help with the leg work. As a veteran, Carl knew that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it was the boring leg work that solved the crime. And one hundred percent of the time, it was what actually got the criminals convicted.
So, what had he accomplished in the past day or so? Well, he certainly had managed to get all the ants scrambling. Between questioning that Peterson woman yesterday afternoon, Taylor this morning and Bellweather at lunchtime, Carl thought he’d managed to hit all the key players. Well, all that he could get to for the time being, at least.
Stockwell’s status as a Senator made him off limits for now, but hopefully not for long. Carl had already got those pictures of Taylor visiting Stockwell’s offices. And he was pretty sure that once he’d looked over the phone records he’d ordered, he’d find a lot more contact between those two. Probably more between Stockwell and Bellweather too, if the rumors around the precinct and in the tabloids were to be believed. Once Carl had all those contacts documented, he felt sure he’d have enough to convince a judge to give him a search warrant on Stockwell - even if he WAS a high and mighty U.S. Senator. Carl didn’t want to jump the gun though. It was to his advantage to let old Jimmy Boy think he was going to get away with it again, so that he didn’t bother to try and hide anything that might be incriminating.
Looking back over his notes, it seemed to Carl like his best bet was to go back and take another stab at the Peterson woman. Taylor had already done his bit by running to Stockwell’s as soon as he got the chance. Horvath assumed Taylor had got his marching orders from the Senator and would be obediently lying low for the time being. Bellweather had been patronizingly evasive, and Carl hadn’t got much at all out of him - although Horvath HAD noted the two goons loading what appeared to be an unconscious PC into a van parked out back of the house as he was leaving. He’d noted the license number and thought it might be worthwhile to do a search for traffic violations and hits off local traffic cams for that vehicle around the time of the PC’s disappearance. These days, not much happened that didn’t show up on camera somehow, you just needed to know where to look. Bellweather might think he was being cagey by refusing to talk, but Carl would just get to him another way. The art teacher, however, seemed like she shouldn’t be too hard to crack.
And that’s all he needed. One nice, big, easily manipulated crack, that would lead to another crack, and another and another . . . Until the whole fucking damn broke apart and took them all down.
He’d hoped that the GPS tracking on the missing boy would have been that crack, but unfortunately, that didn’t look like it would be happening. The fucking PCRA was again proving useless. It had taken them almost twenty-four hours to actually get around to executing his tracking request and then, unsurprisingly, it ended up being useless effort. The report they’d handed him just a few minutes ago - the one Carl had angrily crumpled up and then shoved in his pocket - read simply ‘No Trace’. Of course, if the fuckers at the PCRA had just sent him that information first thing in the morning, like they were supposed to, instead of claiming that their fax machine wasn’t working and forcing him to drive all the way over to the office to pick up the damned thing, Carl wouldn’t have had to waste more than an hour of his precious time.
At least he could now be sure that the PC hadn’t just run away or been hurt and unable to return home. Not that he really thought that in the first place, especially not after having talked at length with Kinney. But, if that HAD been the case, the PC’s chip would have shown up on the GPS tracking. Nope. Only a professional or someone who knew how to hide from the GPS scanners could have pulled off this little caper. And it was also reassuring to the extent it told Carl that whomever had taken the boy, most likely intended to keep him alive. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble. They would have just killed him and dumped the body, right?
All of which reinforced Carl’s opinion that Brian was more than likely correct about who he suspected had taken his boy. Only somebody like Bellweather, who wanted the boy for himself, would have done it like this. There wasn’t any other rational explanation. Now it was just up to Carl and his boring leg work to prove that fact.
So, the next logical step would be to take another try at Lindsey Peterson. He had a gut feeling that she was the key, but hadn’t yet sussed out how she was connected to Stockwell, Bellweather and Taylor. He knew it was there but he’d probably have to force the woman to confess her part in this shitstorm before he found it.
But first, he’d better head back to the precinct, check in with his CO and make sure somebody got a start on slogging through the phone records, running the tags of Bellweather’s van and ordering the traffic cam search. While he was at it, he thought he might try sending one of the department’s uni’s back over to the PCRA again and have them go through any complaints filed against Bellweather. You never knew where you’d get a lead. And from the way Kinney talked about Bellweather, the guy had to have a load of complaints against him.
Satisfied that he’d come up with a good plan of action, Carl stowed his notebook back in the breast pocket of his jacket and started the car. He’d made it almost halfway to the station, when the radio bleeped, alerting him that dispatch was forwarding an incoming call. It sounded serious enough that the detective quickly pulled over to the shoulder of the road so that he could devote all his attention to whatever new emergency was heading his way.
“Horvath here,” the cop answered.
“Uh, yeah . . . Hi, um, this is Michael Novotny. I’m a friend of Brian Kinney’s and he said to call you,” the man on the other end of the line stuttered and stumbled through a half-assed explanation.
“Well, you got me, son. But was there a reason you were calling?” Carl prodded.
“Yeah. Yeah, of course. Um, so I’m here at the Diner . . . That’s the Liberty Diner on Liberty Avenue, and my mother, who’s the manager here, got a call from somebody who didn’t say anything into the phone, right?” Michael fumbled on. “And, well, at first she just thought it was a prank call, you know? But then whoever was on the phone made a noise, like, and Ma thought she recognized Justin’s voice, even though he didn’t actually say anything. Because, you know, Justin doesn’t really talk to anyone except Brian. Brian says it’s, like, Post Traumatic Stress shit or something, and the kid’s getting therapy for it and all, but he still doesn’t talk to anybody else yet. So, that’s why Ma thought it was Justin. And when my friend Ted called Brian, he said, yeah, it HAD to be Justin and that we should call you. So, um, can you, like, trace the call or something, so we can see if it is Justin and find him?”
“What’s your mother’s phone number,” Carl asked, as soon as he got the boy to stop babbling.
Horvath jotted the number down and also got the street address of the Diner. He told Michael to keep the caller on the line as long as possible. He also advised he would be there as soon as he called in the trace, but if anything else happened, to call him back on his cell immediately.
It only took two minutes to call in to the station and order the emergency trace on the incoming call to Debbie’s phone. This was a remarkable break, and Horvath was thrilled at the prospect that he’d be wrapping this case up with minimal effort. Of course, the fact that the boy was actually calling in sort of undermined Kinney’s theory that Bellweather had hired pros to kidnap the boy. But, it wouldn’t be the first time Horvath had been wrong about his initial take on a case. As long as he got the kid back and closed out the file, his LT would be happy and that was always a plus.
Horvath didn’t bother trying to find parking on the crowded block in front of the Diner when he finally arrived ten minutes later. He just turned on his flashers, double parked in the street, hopped out of the car and sped into the restaurant. Inside, the place was buzzing like a hive. There was a shapely, red-headed woman wearing a colorful vest plastered with buttons and pins, who was standing in the middle of the room and yelling at everyone around her. When she wasn’t yelling at the bystanders, the woman was talking comfortingly into the bright red-encased phone that she held to her ear. The patrons of the Diner were mostly all standing around watching the woman and listening in on her call. Those that weren’t running around doing her bidding that is.
“Hang in there, Sunshine! We’re doing what we can on this end to get you found and get you out of there, Honey,” Big Red stated into the phone. Then, to the dark-haired man hanging by her elbow, she added, “where the fuck is that cop? Did he tell you when he’d be here? We don’t have all day, you know. The fucking phone is gonna die at any minute.” Moving back to her phone, Red’s tone changed immediately, getting all soft and supportive. “Rex & Luke, if we get cut off you boys try and stay by Sunshine and make sure he’s okay, please. I’m doing my best but I don’t know where the fuck the police are. I’m sure they’re working on tracing the call though. You boys just stay safe and . . .” Red Mama pulled the phone from her ear and stared at the screen with a horror-stricken look. “Fucking hell! Well, that’s it. Their phone battery died. Now what?” Big Red turned towards her audience and bellowed, “where the hell is that FUCKING COP?”
“Well, ma’am, I'm not sure about the ‘fucking cop’,” Carl responded, stepping forward so that he was standing right in front of the woman and smiling at the vivacious manageress, “but I'm right here.”
“Oh! Oops. Sorry about that . . .” Red Mama apologized, blushing as prettily as a girl, and then smiling at Carl. “Well, then, welcome to the Liberty Diner, Detective. But I'm afraid you're a little late to the party. You just missed our missing PC.”
“So I heard,” Carl returned the smile with interest. “Don't count me out, yet, though, Red. I called the trace in before I headed over here - which is why it took me an extra five minutes to arrive, by the way. It might take a bit, since we’re trying to track the incoming call through your phone - which basically means we have to do a double trace - but we’ll get it,” Carl assured the lively woman and couldn't help but add a wink to the end of his statement just because he wanted to try and tease out another blush. “My people know to call me as soon as they get an address.”
“Well, okay then,” Deb relented, way too easily. “How about, in the meantime, I pour you a cup of coffee?”
“Sounds delightful.”
“Are Deb and that cop flirting?” Ted asked in a stage whisper as he sidled up next to a frowning Michael. “I only ask because I'm not familiar with the mating habits of heteros.”
“Shut up, Ted!” Michael snarled, crossing his arms and standing there glaring while Carl and Deb chatted over the cup of coffee.
Carl was just about to suggest that Red let him take her out sometime for a coffee that she didn't have to serve, when his phone beeped. He expected it would be the call he was waiting for from the tech guys, but the caller ID registered as Brian Kinney. He accepted the call immediately, wondering if the man was just calling for an update or if there was something new.
“Whatcha got for me, Kinney?” Carl answered.
“Sorry, Detective, it's actually Melanie Marcus,” a woman's voice replied. “I was over here at Brian's loft when he got some new information and he thinks he knows who's got Justin. He said to tell you it's Justin's old Handler.”
“Great! What’s the guy’s name?” Carl asked, getting to his feet, ready to bust out of there as soon as he got the intel.
“Unfortunately, the asshole ran off like a bat out of fucking hell before I could ask that,” Mel groused. “I was hoping you’d know what he was talking about . . . Because the only other thing Brian said was that he’d meet you there, which I think means he’s going to go get Justin by himself.”
“Damn it to hell! Who does Kinney think is he? Some kind of gay fucking superhero or something?” Carl yelled to no one in particular as he ended the call and immediately dialed the station. “Horvath here. Somebody get me the name and address of the former Handler for my missing PC. Now,” he screamed into the phone.
After listening to somebody who’s name he didn’t recognize explain that they’d have to go through the PCRA for that type of info and, with the agency's procedures it would take at minimum an hour or two, Carl felt like his brain was going to explode.
“Listen to me, Jenks. I don’t give a flying fuck what the PCRA’s policies are. I’ve got a potential hostage situation here and I need that name and address YESTERDAY! So, Jenks, you are going to get off the phone and get me that information NOW. I don't care how you do it. If you have to storm the PCRA personally or drag the National Director out of his Washington DC bed, that’s what you will do. Because if somebody gets hurt because I don’t have that information in time, I promise you I will make sure you’re assigned to answer the department’s Customer Complaint Line for the rest of the decade. Got it, Jenks?” Carl considered the lack of response from Jenks a good sign and hung up.
When he still didn’t have a fucking name or address five minutes later, though, he was ready to drive back to the PCRA offices himself and threaten to shoot the first fool he saw there. The rest of the Diner’s denizens were similarly anxious and Red was nervously chewing on her pencil so hard that she was likely to get splinters. Thankfully, his phone rang again right before he completely lost it.
“This better be good,” he warned as he accepted the call coming in from the precinct.
“What is it? Are Brian and Sunshine okay? Tell us!” Debbie begged when she saw the frown on the detective’s face turn to a grin in two seconds flat. “Did they find the Handler guy?”
“Not yet, but the trace on that phone call you got, finally came through. I’m hoping it’s the same place that Kinney was heading . . . Hang tight for just a sec, Red,” Carl held up a hand to quell her questioning while he listened to a few additional, very important and very exciting, facts. He knew his smile was probably reaching from ear to ear at this point. “Excellent! You sure the phone belongs to Bellweather? ‘Cause, if so, that should be more than enough to get us a search warrant for his house too. Great. Send it up to Bill in the ADA’s office and ask him to put a rush on it. Thanks.” Carl patted his pocket until he located a pen and quickly jotted down the address he’d been given. “Okay, I’m on my way there now and I’m going to need back up . . .”