Page 7 of Craving Vengeance
Spinelli stepped toward the desk and then shot her a glance over his shoulder. “Would you mind if we took a look around?” They’d probably need to comb through the storage unit as well at some point.
Cindy nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
They went through Mike’s meager belongings. They didn’t find much in his desk either, just a few past due notices and some employment rejection letters. Mixed among the paperwork was an envelope with a Milwaukee County pre-stamped return address. It had already been opened and the contents removed. He glanced at the return address again just to verify its origin. At a fast glance, it was easy to confuse the county and city pre-stamped envelopes. Definitely county. Curiosity nearly killed him. He set the envelope down and thumbed through the stack of papers again, looking for anything on county letterhead. Nothing surfaced. What had the county mailed to him? Spinelli couldn’t seem to clear his mind of the empty envelope. He flipped through the papers again. All the paper shuffling released a familiar scent. Where was that aroma coming from? Spinelli inhaled deeply. The envelope? He picked it up again, held it under his nose, and inhaled. The aroma was strong. It was as if someone intentionally sprayed the envelope with perfume—not just any perfume but a familiar scent to him as well.
Walker craned his neck around Spinelli’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Spinelli held the envelope in front of Walker. “Smell this.” Walker inhaled and shrugged.
“It’s an envelope from the county.”
“So?”
“Don’t you find it strange a government envelope smells of perfume?” Spinelli asked.
“I guess.”
Spinelli shifted and held the envelope out to Marsh.
Marsh took a whiff. He didn’t seem nearly as enthralled as Spinelli. “It smells familiar to me, but I can’t quite place it. Help me out, guys,” Spinelli said as he sniffed at the envelope again. A hint of unease coiled in the pit of his stomach.
Walker and Marsh both shook their heads dismissively.
Marsh flipped open the laptop. It required a password to log in. He looked at Spinelli. “It may take me a while to crack this. Why don’t you see if she’ll let us take it back to the precinct?”
Spinelli nodded. Marsh was somewhat of a technology wizard, which was part of the reason Spinelli was glad when Marsh had been assigned to his team several months ago when his partner, Mad Dog Maxwell, had retired. Spinelli had worked with Mad Dog for over six years. He really missed Maxwell, the mentor who taught him everything he needed to know about being a great homicide detective. But now Spinelli had his own team, Walker and Marsh, and things were working out better than anyone had thought they would. Spinelli was the intuitive one, Walker the analytical and politically correct one, and Marsh the technology wizard. There wasn’t a case the three of them couldn’t solve. But this case was moving fast, and they needed to get a handle on it before they wound up with another dead cupid on their hands.
They left Cindy’s house and headed over to Tony Rosso’s downtown apartment located on the lakeshore in a high rise. The building was home to mostly upper-middle-class tenants. Tony lived alone. Spinelli thought it odd that a single-income bartender could afford such a place. It didn’t make sense.What was Tony into, besides bartending?
The super let them in, and they milled around the apartment. Tony had good tastes. Large oversized leather furniture filled the living room and faced a 60-inch flat panel TV. His marble-topped end tables were lined with bronze Roman warrior statues. A laptop sat on the center of the cocktail table. They’d take that back to the precinct and search its contents for anything that may lead them to the killer.
A glass case stood in the corner of the room. It was filled with swords. Spinelli didn’t know much about swords, but he guessed they were expensive. They were displayed in velvet-lined holders and looked old.
A large aquarium lined the opposite side of the living room. It had to be at least a fifty-gallon tank. Spinelli watched Marsh as he eyed the bright colored fish. A few different species swam about.
Marsh pointed at a bright blue fish trimmed in gold. “This is a Dwarf Angelfish. It would take about two weeks of my take-home pay to buy just one of these Resplendent Angelfish, and this bartender has at least four in this tank. Something isn’t right here.”
They snooped about the rest of Rosso’s apartment. He had a lot of clothes and shoes, the expensive kind, not the kind one wears to bartend. Several thick gold chains hung on hooks just inside his walk-in closet. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d bet that Mr. Rosso is a kept man,” Walker joked.
Spinelli didn’t laugh. Judging from what he was seeing, that statement just might be true.
