Dream Spinner (Dream Team 3)

From the looks on faces, everyone had the same response to that.

No one knew anyone called Dynamite on the street.

So maybe it was an individual working woman.

No one in that room knew the names of all the ladies of the evening.

Which meant a chat with Knight, another visit with Brandi and everyone hitting up all their informants to find out.

“So how did you know Lance Mueller didn’t do what the bogus suicide note said he was doing with sex workers?” Ally asked. “Did Tony go into specifics about this skimming or blackmail?”

Lynn gave another shake of her head.

“No, he just said Lance Mueller was a lot of things, but he loved his wife and he’d never ‘do that.’ And there was a rumor about that which freaked Tony. Because he said it didn’t jibe. He didn’t get into it, but it was when he was talking about there being sex workers involved. When I heard about the murder-suicide, and what was in the note, that was when I knew what that was. The implication that Lance was taking freebies from working women.”

Now Heidi was looking at her lap.

“And maybe something else,” Lynn continued. “Something about some motorcycle gang or something.”

And … yeah.

Tony had made the connection.

And then he’d been whacked.

But it seemed only Tony knew who he told about this, if he told anyone at all.

Say, if he took it to his superiors, and they were involved, so they made moves to take him out, because the cops on their crew had looked into it, and they knew Tony hadn’t made anything he was doing official.

Or if whoever “they” were caught Tony nosing around, and that was enough to make moves to keep him quiet.

“Do you know who he was talking to on the phone?” Cisco asked.

More head shaking from Lynn.

“He was on the phone a lot. He had a network he was building. He said the evidence has to be there and he can’t be everywhere the evidence was. So he had to rely on people to keep tabs. That’s all he said about it. But I assumed he was talking about people in certain communities, Black and Latino, who could record incidences and report them to him.”

Everyone looked to Mamá.

She also shook her head, which meant it wasn’t her, and she didn’t know who it was.

But the way she looked at Hawk, she was going to find out.

“Most frustrating, though, was trying to get the women in the department to talk to him. He said they thought he’d make things hard for them. They didn’t want to be seen as complaining. Like they couldn’t take it. Tough it out,” Lynn continued.

“But Bogart had sexual harassment complaints lodged against him,” Ally pointed out.

Lynn shook her head. “From women in admin, dispatch. Not officers. Tony saw it happening with the female officers. But none of them would come forward. He thought they’d feel there was safety in numbers. But they just refused to make a big deal out of it.”

“Was it a big deal?” Cisco asked.

Lynn looked to him. “Tony knew what razzing was. He got razzed every day for being the kind of cop he was. And then some. He wouldn’t push it if it was just razzing. In the end, cops are cops. It’s a brotherhood, not a sisterhood. They give each other guff, and sometimes, it can seem mean. It’s a way to blow off steam. Build camaraderie. This was not that.”

For covert purposes, none of the cops on their crew had done any thorough questioning of officers.

Axl had a sense that was probably going to change.

“Lynn,” Hawk said gently, “something like this doodle of Dynamite might mean something. I know this is difficult, and it might not come to you right now. But if you remember anything like that, we’re in this until the end. We’ll follow it to see where it leads.”

“After this, I can’t … ” she looked to Heidi, “we can’t—”

“With your permission, we’re going to have eyes on your houses,” Hawk announced. “All entries, including windows. They will be monitored, and recorded, twenty-four seven. We’ll also give you panic buttons to carry with you. And we’ll install panic buttons in your homes so you can push them and have protection rolling out before you can dial nine-one-one. We’ll do the same with cameras on the day-care center. You won’t have a protective detail. They won’t know any of this is happening. But you will have eyes on you and there will be someone to intervene within minutes if you face a threat.”

Both women looked uncertain.

So Hawk kept going.

“It isn’t just the people in this room who have your back. This team is larger. We’re motivated to see an end to this not only to put a stop to what’s happening in the DPD, but to make certain you two and your families are out from under this threat.”