Boone didn’t believe that shit for a second.
“Confession,” Eddie grunted.
Boone turned his attention to him and had trouble seeing him since the curtains were closed and the phone lights were aimed low. But on the dark shadow that was his body, Eddie’s head jerked to indicate something, and he kept talking.
“Says they conspired to kill Crowley because he’d found out they were taking freebies from prostitutes and money on the side to provide protection for some pimps. Says Bogart did the kill, but it was Mueller’s idea to frame Cisco. Mueller was to the point he couldn’t live with it any longer. Bogart was not happy Mueller was trying to talk him into coming forward and coming clean. This unhappiness grew to the point Mueller no longer felt safe, because he was beginning to feel it was a certainty that Bogart was going to take him out or maybe harm his family. And so Mueller took care of the situation the only way he knew how in order to give Crowley the justice he deserved.”
Boiling that down, this set him up to be the hero in the end. Mueller did bad, was ridden by guilt, both of them serving the ultimate justice for their brother in blue.
Absolute horseshit.
Boone did not comment on this.
He remarked, “That’s a lot for a suicide note.”
“Yeah,” Eddie replied shortly.
“And how are you here and no one else is?” Boone asked.
“Because I got a text from Mueller saying the situation was taken care of and Hank and me, Mitch and Slim, and Hawk and his boys could back down.”
Boone sucked in breath.
“And Hank called about five minutes after I got my text, saying he got a text, like me, from Mueller’s number, saying the girl is safe and Cisco is clear. The girl, we’re guessing, is Ryn,” Eddie finished.
Boone felt his throat tighten so it took effort to force his question out of it.
“What the fuck?”
“You got me,” Eddie did not quite answer.
“It’s too fuckin’ tidy,” Mag put in.
“We’re right in our suspicions. It’s not just these two. It’s bigger,” Hawk said. “And it started getting messy, so they’re cutting off the dead weight and circling the wagons. If they’re smart, whatever they’ve been doing will end with the end of these two.” His shadow swung an arm to indicate the bodies. “But my gut is telling me that isn’t where this is heading.”
“Get the heat off, lay low, reorganize, come back smarter and stronger,” Boone guessed.
“Yep,” Hawk agreed.
“You unscrew the motion sensor bulb?” Boone asked Hawk.
But Eddie cut in. “What?”
“Bulb out back is there, and it’s been unscrewed enough not to make a connection,” Hawk told him.
Eddie nodded his head and Boone knew he made a mental note of that.
“And Corinne Morton and Ryn?” Boone asked.
Eddie answered.
“Forgot to mention, that was in the suicide note too. Morton, to flush out Cisco. Ryn, for the same thing. Though according to Mueller, who supposedly wrote the note, that was Bogart’s idea. A felon he’d collared and set on Ryn, and Bogart did the deed himself to Morton who Mueller said was putting pressure on them on behalf of her client because she knew they were dirty. So they not only wanted to use her as a means to an end, but also did her to shut her up.”
“I wanna read this note,” Boone said.
Eddie’s cell phone light swung that way.
Boone engaged his own, kept it to the ground, a couple inches in front of him, and moved in that direction, careful not to disturb anything.
As he moved, Mag asked, “What about the dead prostitute?”
“No mention of her,” Eddie answered.
“Forgot about her?” Mag went on.
“With these fucks, better guess, to them she just didn’t matter,” Eddie replied with unhidden disgust.
Bending over it, not touching it, he read the note.
Small, messy handwriting.
Though precise on the lines of the narrow-ruled paper.
There was a lot there, all of it that Eddie summed up, all on one sheet, including what Eddie didn’t say. That Eddie and Hank were the ones to get the heads-up because they were “good cops” Mueller knew would “see this through for Tony” and that Mueller was sorry for all he’d done.
Nice and shiny and tied up in a bow.
Boone got closer and trained his light right on it.
A man’s hand. Deep depression of the ballpoint. Could indicate written under stress, which could come from a man who knew he was about to murder his partner and shoot himself. Could be he wrote it with a gun to his head and knew his time on that earth was coming to a swift end.
Boone would tell them to go fuck themselves, though.
If he knew he’d been laid out and was going to take the fall, his blood would be on that paper, not his handwriting.
And he’d met Mueller once, but he knew in his gut Mueller was that same kind of man.