+18 - eps 28-32 - On the sixth installment of the Blackbird series, Cassidy sends Gillian and her team with Brock and Russel to Tampa, Florida, to look into the death of a girl while winter storm Jonas beats the East Coast. But this seemingly ordina...
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The police station was only ten minutes away, and the uniform at the front desk directed them to the squad room and one Detective Ramirez, who turned out to be a young fit man in his thirties—not as good looking as the poster boy, but enough to stir all of Brock's territorial alarms. Especially when he and Gillian traded a smile while shaking hands. The federal respect and distance Brock's suit used to impose was seriously damaged by Gillian's jeans and her friendly ways. Wasn't there some old detective, days away from retirement, to take them to the crime scene? Not even a young-but-misogynist fool like Barnes?
"We sent our case file to your field office yesterday," Ramirez said. "Did you guys get it?"
"Yeah, thanks. The photos from the crime scene were not included, though," Gillian replied.
Ramirez smiled wider—Brock's scowl deepened in a direct proportion— and raised a finger, then hurried to a desk where a pretty woman his age worked. The way she looked up at the young detective worried Brock. Plain to see they had something physical going on, but Ramirez pretended to ignore it. So he wanted to look available. Great. The man was a player.
On his way back to them, Ramirez grabbed a folder from another desk.
"Here," he said, giving the folder to Gillian. "We're sending the pictures to your tech as we speak, but here you've got prints, so you can take a look at them now."
"Would you give us the location of the scene?" asked Brock, both to get rid of the young man and to distract his attention from Gillian. How did she do it? Did she have some kind of magnet to attract fit, handsome men in their thirties?
Ramirez nailed his smile to his mouth to face Brock's scowl. "It's sort of messy if you don't know the area. I'll take you there."
Like hell, Brockner. You better don't let her get into his car. Not even with you there.
Gillian's phone buzzed on their way out of the station.
"Fred?" she said, a little surprised.
Brock saw her stop by the SUV and he unlocked it as he hurried to the driver's seat.
The sniper spoke in a whisper. "Reg, we've got a situation here."
"Wait." Gillian climbed in the SUV with Brock and put the call on speaker. "What is it?"
"We got here just in time. They're about to release the body."
"What!?"
"A judge signed the order to send it back to Virginia right today."
"They wouldn't even let us see it," said Hank, keeping his voice low too.
"Well, act fed! Scowl and bark. Get five minutes alone with the body and take a good look at it. Take pictures of anything odd."
"What about the tests you wanted?" asked Fred.
"I'll get a sample of her blood. I can run the tests at any lab," said Hank.
"Good. Keep me up and call me if they still won't let you in," said Gillian.
"We will."
"Oh, and get me the name of whoever signed the release order."
They disconnected as Ramirez stopped his car by Gillian's window and flashed one of his smiles to signal them to go. He drove away and Brock followed in silence.
"I don't like this," muttered Gillian.
Brock nodded. "Too soon to release the body."
"They had a judge do it."
He noticed she was outraged at the notion. "Graff's been in the Congress for two decades. He's bound to know the right people in the right places."
"Fly the body back to Virginia today? No plane will fly there in the storm!"
"So the body will be stored until airports are open again. But anyway out of reach for tests or a second autopsy."
"Jesus! What're they trying to hide?"
Brock shook his head slightly, grimacing. Graff was certainly pulling all the strings to get the dead girl six feet under as soon as possible. That alone was enough for an educated guess: whatever the Senator's dirty secret, it could be traced from the girl's body. That was why he wanted a friendly agency to handle the case and close it soon. Leaving it in local hands might backfire on him.
"Let's not jump to conclusions," he said, mostly to himself.
Gillian snorted under her breath, eyes out on her window. He was right, of course. But it didn't change the fact that all the cheap corruption underlying the case made her sick.
