“We’ve got a DNA hit,” Nate says when I call in.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“I don’t know; all I know is we got a hit. In fact, the message was that we got two hits, whatever the hell that means. They’re sending me the information now. By the time you get back here we’ll have it.”

I head back to the precinct, but I think I know what “two hits” means. It’s likely that the DNA was on two different lists, independent of each other. Most likely that means it was in both a criminal database and a military one.

Nate has already received the information by the time I get back. “His name wasn’t Sean Connor, it was Connor Shawn, if you can believe that. Real smart guy; if he didn’t do it that way, he would probably have had to write his new name on his arm so he could remember it.”

“Who was he?”

“The two hits were military and criminal,” Nate says, confirming my expectation. “He was in the Marine Corps, left with a dishonorable discharge after being court-martialed on multiple assault charges. Been living in Las Vegas ever since.”

“What about the criminal hit?”

“Four arrests for various offenses, none of them very nice. One conviction for domestic assault. But here’s the kicker: the latest information we have is that he works for Salvatore Tartaro.”

“Who’s Salvatore Tartaro?”

Nate shakes his head either in disgust or frustration, maybe both. “You think your memory deal is annoying to you? You should see it from here; it’s like somebody dropped you from another planet.”

“Just tell me who the guy is.”

“He’s head of a crime family in Vegas, and he used to do a lot of business with Nicholas Bennett. You know who that is?”

I know very well who Nicholas Bennett is. He was the leading crime figure in New Jersey. You could accurately say we had been enemies; he killed a teenage boy that I cared deeply about, and he was also responsible for me being shot. He was, in my humble, unbiased opinion, a piece of shit.

But I am responsible for him being dead, which effectively ended our rivalry.

“Which brings us to Joey Silva?” I ask. Joey Silva is the hood who took over Bennett’s operation. Bennett was a smooth operator, a guy who fancied himself a respected citizen of charm and manners who could reliably be found at elite charity dinners. Silva, on the other hand, wouldn’t know a salad fork from a forklift.

Nate nods. “He’s the leader in the clubhouse. If Shawn was still working for Tartaro, then he wouldn’t be here unless Silva was in the loop on it. And if Silva is involved, then we are dealing with something much bigger, and much different, than we thought.”

“But if Silva is behind it, and Tartaro sent Shawn here, then why the hell is his head sitting in the morgue? Somebody killed him, and did it in a way to send a message. Shawn didn’t disappear; his death was engineered in a way to be as noticeable as possible.”

“Maybe we have a war going on.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But that’s not what we should be looking at. That’s not the key factor.”

“What is?”

“Rita Carlisle. The only role Shawn had in this whole operation, as far as we can tell, was to bring us into an investigation of Carlisle. He was lying about the scrapbook bullshit, but what he set out to do was clear. He wanted us to look into Carlisle. And he accomplished his goal, because that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

“Captain Bradley is not going to like it,” Nate says.

“He’ll just have to deal with it. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To his office. He asked to be updated, so we’ll update him.”

We go to Bradley’s outer office, and as soon as his assistant tells him we’re here, he calls us right in. “I hope you’ve got something for me, because I’m tired of telling the chief it’s too early. He’s called three times already, and the last time he mentioned something about me sitting around with my thumb in my ass.”

“We’ve got an ID on the head.”

“Talk to me.”

So we do; we tell him everything that we know so far. He doesn’t say a word, just listens as we tell him about Shawn, and Tartaro, and Silva.

When we’re done he asks, “So how do you read it?”

“Everything they’ve done has been in full daylight,” I say. “They practically … hell, they literally … begged us to come in. And the trigger is Carlisle. It has to be.”

I expect an argument but don’t get one. Instead Bradley nods and says, “I know.” Then, “Shit.”

“It doesn’t mean that Nicholson didn’t do it,” I say. “It just means that they want us looking at Carlisle. There could be other reasons that we don’t know about.”

Nate says, “So they bring Shawn in from Vegas to bullshit you about his amnesia and his scrapbook. Then when he does his job, they kill him, and make sure you know that they did it. And they had to know we’d get a DNA hit, which means you’d know the whole amnesia story was faked.”

I nod. “That seems to be where we are.”

“What do you need from me?” Bradley asks.

“You can contact the Feds. They may know things about Tartaro and Silva that we don’t.”

“But then they might want to come in on this. Once the door is open a crack…”

I shake my head. “You can finesse it and not let on why you’re asking. If need be, just tell them it has to do with an ongoing investigation of Silva. They would have no idea it’s related to Carlisle. Besides, nothing I see in the files mentions that the Feds were even involved in Carlisle.”

He nods his agreement. “Okay. What else?”

“Full permission to follow this wherever it goes, including Carlisle.” I’m asking because I want him to think he’s making the call, since we’ll need his support down the road. But I’m going to do it anyway, and he probably knows that.

He nods. “You got it.” Then, “With one condition. At least for now you don’t go public with the fact that this might be about Carlisle.”

That seems reasonable enough, especially with the “for now” attached, so we agree to it.

Bradley has one more inspiring message for us before we leave. “Don’t screw this up.”