I could appreciate that hugely. Why worry people if you didn’t know you had something to worry about or not?
Shaking it off, Hurst smiled up at us. “But her boobies are clear, so that’s what matters. Now, what are you going to do to help Tamsin?”
“We’ve been told just to watch and be aware. Her name change wasn’t based on a family name in any way, so she won’t be found that way. She literally went online, typed in random girls' names, and chose Zuri, and she got her last name from a magazine that was on the table in the station it was all decided in,” DB informed us.
I’d been meaning to ask her about it, hoping it wasn’t one associated with a grandmother or something, so this was a relief.
Still, that didn’t mean she didn’t have to use her real social security number. “What about her qualifications and identity?”
“Tamsin majored in psychology. All of the shit with Gjorka went down a couple of days after she graduated from NYU and was deciding what to do with it all. She’d taken an accredited phlebotomy program while she was at college and had been working as a phlebotomist, so she had money to live on. So, when she moved here, we discussed her doing it at the hospital, and I spoke to them about it all, and she got a job because they were short-staffed. So long as she maintains her certification annually, she’s fine.”
I knew all of this, but it still didn’t answer the last bit of my question.
“And her identity—how does she have the relevant paperwork for it?”
“Her dad’s been in the NYPD for thirty-one years, man. He’s owed favors everywhere and knows everyone. What do you think?”
I thought that was great for him, but it didn’t mean her identity would stay hidden. “And how trustworthy are these people he knows? Is there a chance anything will come out by accident or be bought from them?”
Rubbing his chin with his hand, he didn’t say it, but I knew he was thinking it—they could be bought.
Cracking his knuckles, Hurst twisted his neck from side to side. “Just as well she came to the right town then, hey, boys?”
Rapping his knuckles on his desk, DB started laying out a plan. “I’ll distribute photos of Gjorka and anyone associated with him to us all. Dad has a way to contact her father, Wilton Waite, so we’ll get an up to date list from him. Anyone who’s unknown in town will be flagged and followed.”
“My boys can do that,” Hurst offered. “In fact, I think most of the town would be happy to do that. We just won’t tell them why, just to be on the lookout.”
My brain was running quickly through ways of keeping her safe, so I added, “If someone comes in that we don’t know and we can’t establish what their intentions are, we put her in the safe room or lock her down until we have answers. She’ll hate it, but it’ll keep her breathing.”
“Dad’s knows some of the people working on getting evidence against Gjorka for some of the shit going down,” DB told us both. “Over the weekend, the police vehicle her dad was meant to be in had a brake failure as it left the precinct it’d been parked at. He moves between the precincts every day so that they can’t pin him down, but one of Gjorka’s men had been spotted in the area that day, so they set up a decoy. Fortunately, it was being followed by an unmarked one that managed to get in front of it and slow it down before there was an accident.”
“Holy shit.”
Looking between the two of us, he ground out, “It’s not the first time. Her parents are staying in one of the FBI’s safe houses because of a fire in their apartment.”
Blinking at him, I asked, “Why an FBI safe house?”
“Because they’re in on the case. Gjorka’s suspected crimes aren’t limited to just the people involved in his daughter’s death. He has shady business dealings all over the country, and pretty much every organization is involved in the case against him. The problem is, with money comes power, and if they don’t have their investigation tied up nice and tight, he’ll get away with it all.”
Hurst frowned at this information, looking pissed off. “They can’t just arrest him and throw what they’ve got at a judge?”
DB gave him a humorless smile. “Not when some of his associates are in high power positions.”
Glowering at the floor, Hurst muttered, “I hate it when that happens. What the hell happened to an honest democracy? Corruption was meant to have been cleaned out of politics and our systems years ago, but there it is, festering like a pussy boil on the—”
Holding up a hand, I choked out, “Stop it. Please, don’t continue that sentence.” Then, with my hand still in the air, I said to DB, “Okay, distribute photos and get us as much information as possible. If someone new comes into town, we investigate and vet them while locking Tamsin down. In a weird twist of fate, her broken arm makes it easier for us to keep her safe, so we use that to our advantage. We need updates as often as we can get them, and we need a list of people who may be helping him out.”
I felt slightly more in control with a plan in place, but not knowing more than I did and the fact he was still out there making fuck knows what plans made me twitchy.
As we were leaving DB’s office, Hurst stopped and clapped his hands together. “I knew this sort of thing sounded familiar. Lindee loves those late-night murder investigation shows, right? So, it’s been bugging me this whole time where I’ve heard this before, but now I remember a case on one of them not long ago where the secretary of a businessman found information on her boss who was part of the Mob or something. Anyway, she went into hiding, and while he made sure he was visible to the Police watching him, the house she was in was hit by RPG’s and shit. The ammunition they found was registered to a small village in Russia, so none of it fit together.”
DB and I looked at each other when he stopped and waited for him to finish the story.
When he didn’t continue, I snapped, “And? How did they find him?”
“Oh, they didn’t. Come to find out it was a hit on the wrong place by another Mob gang.”
“And how does this help us?” DB ground out.
“I don’t know. You know, I might have gotten the stories mixed up, I’ll ask Lindee when I get home.” And with that, he left with a wave over his shoulder, leaving the two of us staring after him.
“Tabby’s at home today,” DB muttered, picking up his phone. “I’ll get her to contact Linda to find out what true crime shows she watches. She might even remember the exact details of the episode.”
Not for the first time since I moved to Piersville, I found myself asking, “I doubt it’ll help us, but now I’m curious about it. Does Hurst Townsend keep getting weirder, or is it just me?”
“It’s not just you, man,” he sighed as we started walking toward the meeting room. “Wanna hear something even weirder?”
“I doubt it’ll be weirder, but hit me with it.”
I shouldn’t have said it. I knew as soon as I did that I was daring the world to prove me wrong.
And it did.
“Mark Montgomery just passed the academy. He’s decided that he’s staying here and joining us next week.”