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

fact, possessed. Santiago’s spirit—it has to be. John’s constant level of heightened stress jumped a few more notches at the possibility of actually coming face-to-face with the spirit who had not only possessed El Gordito but also caused a man to stab him.

“This arrest is preposterous. You have gone too far this time, Lazlo!” the lawyer snarled at the one-way mirror.

“Despite all his power and threats, it’s that scumbag lawyer that allows him to thrive,” Lazlo muttered to his companion. “Let’s make them sweat a while longer.”

Ten more minutes passed before Lazlo and his colleague leisurely walked into the interview room. John stayed in the viewing room.

As they entered and sat down, Lazlo introduced himself and then his colleague, Detective Peter Markle, for the record.

A snide smile appeared on the lawyer’s puffy red face as he returned the courtesy. “Raul Gomez, Attorney-at-Law, known very well to your captain. Now, let’s not waste any more time, shall we? Mr. Sanchez and Mr. Gonzalez are otherwise indisposed but will join us as soon as possible—but I suspect my client will be out of here before they arrive.” He paused to stare at both Lazlo and Markle. “Both your careers are over!”

“Cut the shit, Gomez. We need a DNA sample from your client and all his men. Now, he can give it voluntarily, or we can take it by force,” Markle threatened.

“You have no right to do that,” Gomez interjected.

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Counselor,” Lazlo explained. “The police are allowed to take DNA under a Supreme Court decision in 2013. Should I send you the case law?”

“That only applies when the arrest has been lawful. This isn’t a lawful arrest.”

“Probable cause,” responded Lazlo.

“We’ll let the judge decide,” Gomez countered, and his eyes burned a brighter orange now.

Suddenly, El Gordito intervened, his black eyes shining with anger. “Take your sample, detective. If you think you can link me to anything you are more stupid than I thought.”

Markle opened the pouch he had on the table in front of him, took out what looked like an oversized Q-tip and swabbed the inside of El Gordito’s mouth, placing it in a test tube, which he then sealed.

Lazlo and Markle went out of the room and came back within the space of a couple of minutes. They could hear the muted sounds of a scuffle, shouting, and a metal chair falling to the ground in another interview room.

Minutes later, Cousins entered and nodded to Lazlo to indicate he’d been successful in what he’d had to do.

“Thank you, Officer Cousins,” Lazlo turned to Vargas. “Seems like your colleagues were less than voluntary in providing their samples.”

“That’s outrageous. This whole arrest is a blatant misuse of police power!” Gomez protested. “Where’s your captain, Lazlo?”

“He’s in Colorado. A family emergency. He’s not answering his phone,” Lazlo said without hiding his satisfaction at being able to deliver this news.

Gomez got up, and John noticed his eyes burning with fury. “Rest assured your captain will hear of this as soon as I can get through to him. But now I’m going to get a judge to rule this detainment unwarranted. My clients will be out of here in a matter of hours and you, detective, will be out of a job!”

“Officer Cousins here will shortly take you to a holding cell,” Lazlo informed Vargas with a broad grin as he and Markle left the interview room.

John waited a while before venturing out of the viewing room. He had braced himself for a confrontation with Santiago, but it looked as though the spirit had left the station with his host, Gomez. Instead, he found Markle and Lazlo alone, talking in the corridor.

“I’m going to get a rush on those DNA tests. You stay here and see if you can get anything more out of El Gordito,” Lazlo informed Markle as he grabbed the pouch of swab samples from his hand.

“Damn it, Lazlo! Follow procedure!” Markle shouted after him.

Lazlo didn’t respond.

As John followed the detective out of the station, he tried to work out how Lazlo was planning to make the arrests stick. It was obvious that Gomez would undermine their validity. The fact that Tom Stevens, and not the official M.E., had obtained the samples from the chef’s body could render the evidence useless. Lazlo was sticking his neck out and making his friends do the same, but why?

When Lazlo pulled up in his car outside Genna’s lab, he already had four missed calls from the captain on his mobile and a message from Markle. Sitting in the front passenger seat, John listened to Markle’s recorded message as Lazlo played it through the speaker on his phone. The captain had spoken with him and had said that he was under a lot of pressure from his superiors, urging him to justify the detention of El Gordito. Apparently, the captain was furious that Lazlo wasn’t answering his calls. But—and it was a positive ‘but’—the captain had agreed to allow El Gordito and his men to be detained for the maximum-possible time without charging—thirty-six hours. Given that a DNA match was being attempted to identify one of Vargas’s murder victims, he had figured that it would be more of a risk to free them than to keep them in the cells.

Lazlo took a deep breath. He felt a sense of vindication. He wondered if the captain was beginning to trust him again.

With John invisibly in tow, Lazlo found Genna in the basement of the lab, near the scene of the previous mouse carnage. The scientist was preparing for analysis of the DNA samples using two new RapidHit DNA testing machines. Without wasting a moment to greet Lazlo, Genna loaded the DNA sample from Mario Cervantes into one machine and the sample of Manuel Hernandez’s DNA into the other machine.

After an hour of waiting, which Lazlo and Genna filled with general conversation, the sample from Mario Cervantes came back with no matches to the police database, which was expected, but there was also no match