Free Shadows of Doubt by Mell; Corcoran

and your unfortunate troll here, out. A jet is waiting to take you immediately to your new station where you will be assisting the agent in charge.” He let go of Gilroy and turned before the idiot hit to the floor with a solid thud. “If I so much as hear you blinked in the wrong direction, you’re next assignment will be to fish your head out of your own ass.” Max turned his attention to Vito this time. “As for you, I strongly recommend you pick your employers more carefully in the future. Frank will see you out.”
    Frank appeared out of nowhere behind Vito and firmly took the man by the arm. The four well-suited men yanked Gilroy to his feet and dragged him out the door while Frank followed with the unlucky Vito. Martin Gilroy was a moron on so many levels that it upset Max deeply that such a twit had ever been given a position as an agent. Correcting his error, Max had arranged for Gilroy to be shipped directly to Alaska and the agent stationed there had assured Max that Gilroy’s existence would be made a living hell, albeit a very frozen one.
    As for Vito, it had been another brilliant display of bad judgment for Gilroy to hire an outsider without Council vetting. After some checking, they had learned that Vito had come into Gilroy’s employ several months ago, was new to the area from Brooklyn with no family on record. Max could trust that Frank would give Vito a good enough crack to the back of the head that it would give medical feasibility to the amnesia Vito was about to suffer. It was messy, it was so unnecessary, and it would sure as hell never happen again.
    Glancing at his watch Max noted that he had approximately twenty minutes before an instant-replay of recent events would take place, only with a few different cast members. There were several more agents on schedule this evening. Max was looking forward to it. He was seriously pissed now.

Caroline took another bite of the fresh baked croissant and considered the situation carefully while she chewed slowly, savoring the flaky goodness. It was an excellent bribe, but really unnecessary.
    â€œI don’t know what I can tell you here Lou.” She took a sip of coffee to wash down the rest of the croissant. “I’ll put whatever I can in the report to help but the bottom line is it’s weak as hell. Degraded saliva on two bodies found three months apart does not a serial killer make.”
    â€œI know! I know!” Lou was exasperated and she was running out of time. “I know it’s weak but it might give me just enough to convince the Captain to let me follow up on this and not have to hand it over to LAPD.”
    â€œLou, you also have to consider that the other case belongs to LAPD. To them its closed and long put to bed.” Caroline eyed the pink box where the other half-dozen croissants waited, quietly whispering her name. Instead of giving in to their call, she shoved the box to the other side of her desk and focused on Lou. “Fat chance in hell they are going to let you keep a case that should have been theirs in the first place, then hand over a closed case based on some suspicious drool. It would be different if I could come up with something to explain why the saliva was degraded and the explanation was consistent for both of the bodies. You get what I mean?”
    Even though she hated what she was hearing, Lou nodded in understanding. “This is almost as weak as LAPD’s theory on how Marjorie Scott wound up near the lake with zero blood anywhere. I know they are going to pull the same crap with Angela Talbott and just write her off too.” She sighed with resignation. “Well, thanks for trying. I better get this over with.”
    Muttering some choice expletives under her breath, Lou stood up and opened the pink box she had brought for her friend. She quickly snatched one of the baked goods and stuffed half of it in her mouth as if