Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense by Fynn Perry (popular romance novels TXT) 📗

Lazlo found himself at home much earlier than normal, in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. His badge and service firearm had been taken away from him. It didn’t matter that he had arrested Manuel Hernandez, who was now detained, awaiting trial. What mattered, apparently, was that his unauthorized acquisition of Hernandez’s DNA evidence from the body of one of the dead chefs at the morgue had finally come to light. The department would probably be sued again by El Gordito’s lawyers, and the captain was understandably furious.

It wasn’t the first time that Lazlo had been suspended. He had gotten through previous suspensions in the past and been reinstated, but this time it was different. He could lose his badge. Being an NYPD detective gave him status. Status allowed him to keep the balance of power in his favor when it came to his contacts in the criminal underworld. This was more important now than ever.

As he stared silently at the box of files he had surreptitiously retrieved from his desk at work, he heard footsteps approach the front door. They sounded louder than he would have expected. Immediately, he played back in his mind how he had entered the house––carrying in the box with both hands. Preoccupied with thoughts of his suspension, he had given the door a kick to close it. Not only had he forgotten to go back to lock it, but it seemed that it hadn’t closed fully.

The footsteps stopped as if somebody was assessing a door that had been left ajar.

The next few seconds would betray the visitor’s intentions, good or bad. There was no knock on the door, or ring of the doorbell. Instead, the door creaked open.

Lazlo got to his feet and inched his way along the wall separating the living space and the hallway. He stopped at the edge of the large archway connecting the two areas. Devoid of his service weapon, his own guns were, excruciatingly, just out of reach across the hallway, in the secret room where he stored his research on El Gordito. His heartbeat became elevated as he heard just the barest sound of shoe grit being crunched underfoot on the granite flooring of the hallway. He pressed his back and the side of his head against the wall and waited. The gun of the intruder didn’t appear first in his line of sight, as he had hoped. That would have afforded him the opportunity of surprise and a chance to disarm the trespasser. But the intruder was a professional and had scoped out the view into the living area from the safety of the far wall of the hall, only coming into Lazlo’s view at a safe distance with his gun pointing at him.

The detective immediately recognized the face behind the Glock 17M handgun favored by the FBI. It was Lee Chapman.

“What the fuck, Lee? Out of the blue you call about fake IDs, and the next thing I know, you’re sneaking around my house and pointing a gun at me?”

George Cromwell appeared next to Chapman, holstering his weapon in unison with Chapman. “We saw the door open and wanted to make sure you were fine,” Cromwell said, extending his hand. Lazlo’s handshake, in addition to his greeting, was noticeably warmer to his old friend Cromwell than to Chapman as he let both through into the living room. “I’ve had a lot on my mind. Guess I forgot to close the door.”

“We know about the suspension,” Chapman said, eyeing the box of files.

“I guessed that’s why you’re here,” Lazlo replied. “So what is it? Good news, I hope?”

“Yes and no,” said Chapman.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“We couldn’t trace whoever it was who ordered the counterfeit IDs associated with El Gordito’s money laundering operation, but it wasn’t too hard to lean on the New York residents whose faces were on the ID cards. They were part of a ‘smurfing’ or ‘mule’ network hired to open bank accounts under fake identities, to receive funds into those accounts, and then pass them on to other accounts overseas, minus a nice commission. They were recruited from ads, which targeted people in debt with the promise of easy money.

“Like I said on the phone, it sounds like a regular setup. How is this good news for me?” demanded Lazlo.

“The people on the IDs gave descriptions of three handlers they had to report to on their laundering targets. We saw all three of these men at multiple meetings with Hernandez and Gonzalez who, I am sure you know, are two of El Gordito’s henchmen.”

“Sure… and?”

“We can’t prove the link yet,” Chapman said. “We’re drilling down into the accounts.”

“That’s it?” inquired Lazlo.

“No. There’s been one hell of a crash out of town, on the I-84 between Albany and Saratoga Springs. Witnesses say the truck suddenly jackknifed. Amazingly, the driver got out alive but pulled a gun on the police and was shot dead. Initial identification seems to indicate it was Alberto Gonzalez. The state police are running a check to find the registered owner of the truck.”

“What? El Gordito’s third-in-command was driving a truck and overturned it? Why the hell would he do that? What was on the truck?” interrupted Lazlo.

“He was transporting washing machines packed with pills. Not opioids or ecstasy, but Spider’s Bite pills. It’s the first time we’ve seen such a large shipment of these new pills. Scrub that—any pills. El Gordito must be a major distributor, if not the main distributor. The delivery manifest shows they were being transported from a fulfillment center in New Jersey.”

Lazlo looked furious. John, who had just returned to the house five minutes earlier, was both surprised at seeing Lazlo at home and delighted to see him being informed of the crash by men in suits who, he assumed, were FBI. But then he began to stare at Lazlo with astonishment. El Gordito was finally about to get what was coming to him