JOSIE
Five days later
Josie and Bender were at the gas pumps, and she was excited. Bender was going to let her drive their black and white for the first time.
An unmarked detective vehicle pulled up behind their patrol vehicle. Ferrari exited.
“Hi, guys. I just wanted to stop by with a quick update on what’s going on with Chloe. Do you have time for a quick cup?”
Bender looked up from the window he was washing. “You buyin’?”
Ferrari chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I can spring for a cuppa joe.” His face turned serious. “I don’t have a lot of time, so let’s support your station fund, and grab a cup here.”
Josie almost laughed at the disappointment on her partner’s face but didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize her being the driving officer for the day.
“I’ll meet you inside,” the detective said.
Ten minutes later, the trio was situated in the roll call room—one of the quietest places in the station when roll call wasn’t being held.
Each of them had a cup of coffee on the table in front of them.
“So, we had orders from the chief’s office that we had to let Chloe rest and recuperate over the weekend. We interviewed her on Monday. Here’s the short run of what we learned.”
He took a sip from his cup. “First, we got a warrant for her phone, and it was clear that Beglaryan was blackmailing her. That’s how he got her to participate in the burglary at the department store.”
“Why didn’t she just tell us?” Josie asked. “We could have helped her.”
Ferrari sighed. “Beglaryan told her that if they were caught, they were going to prison…for life.”
“Let’s get down to what’s important,” Bender said. “Which one of them ran over Dolby?”
The detective made a face. “She said she was driving, but that Beglaryan pulled a gun on her and told her to drive toward Sinclair. At the last second, he grabbed the wheel and hit the officer.” He shrugged. “We enhanced the video as best we could. We can see there are two people in the car, and that the driver is a blonde female…but that’s all we’ve got.” He shook his head. “We have no way to know if she’s telling the truth or not—although a Glock was recovered from his backpack in the Jeep.”
Josie spoke. “Was Chloe any help when it came to identifying who else was in the Mall Mob?”
“Not at all. As far as she knew, he was running the whole show.”
Bender scoffed. “What about the guy that was part of the crew who got run over?”
Ferrari took another sip from his cup. “He wasn’t much help. He said his contact was only through texts, and he thought it was a female, but he couldn’t articulate why that was.” The detective sat straighter. “The one thing we did learn was that the drivers and the suspects inside the store didn’t know one another and had no contact with each other. If Beglaryan was the ringleader, he did a good job at keeping under the radar.”
Bender drained his cup. “Is the girl going to be charged?”
“Nope.” Ferrari shook his head. “We have no way to prove she wasn’t a victim throughout the whole thing. The DA refused to file.”
“That’s bullshit,” Bender said loudly. “So, no one is going to pay for Sinclair’s death?”
“Just the thief who got run over. We’re hoping that when he realizes he’s going to take the fall all alone, his memory might improve.”
The detective smiled. “We do have one potential lead. Beglaryan had two kids with a woman named Neema Otis. Poor Neema wound up dead last week at a flop pad in Van Nuys. Originally, her death was ruled an overdose, but we’re going to go back and take a second look. We’re hoping maybe through her we can learn more about the organized burglary crew.”
“I don’t know how you detectives do it,” Bender said. “You beat the bushes, you come up with a suspect, you know she’s dirty—hell she admits she was there, but the DA won’t file.”
Josie nodded. “Yeah. It’s kind of discouraging.”
Ferrari looked at Bender. “You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
Bender was clearly puzzled.
The detective continued. “Price, we don’t think of it as discouraging. We think of it as job security.”