Pearce Hudson: #1 My Italian Devil

33. Mole

"Are you bleeding?" I asked.

"No."

"Ross there's blood on my sofa," I stared down at the spot.

"Are you sure?" Ross took a closer look.

"Ross look," I pointed to my rug. "The beer stain on my rug is gone."

Ross jumped back. "Look see the drag marks on your floor. It looks like the coffee table was shoved or dragged."

"Let me get my UV light." I returned with it and Ross switched off the lights. The two red blood stains glowed but the same surrounding the stains also glowed.

"What the hell?" Ross moved it to the rub where it showed clearly the beer had been scrubbed off. "Are you sure it's not your blood?"

"No I haven' had a scratch or anything."

"What now?"

"Let me call Esposito see if he can get a forensics guy in here?" I dug out my phone from my jacket remembering it had died. I connected it to its charger and waited it for it to turn on. I had one voicemail from Jack. I'd call him back later. Esposito picked up on the first ring.

"Esposito sorry to wake you up but you wanted to help. And we need your help."

Esposito arrived with a forensics scientist in 20 minutes. Ross explained what happened. Esposito was skeptical at first but when we started pointing out the discrepancies he agreed it was suspicious. The forensics guy, Ray conducted his investigation taking a sample from the blood stain, the stain around the blood and a sample from where I showed the beer stain was.

"An average person looses 100 to 125 hairs a day," Ray said. "Your floor and carpets have been vacuumed recently."

"I haven't vacuumed in 2 weeks," I replied.

"Houston we have a problem," Ray commented. "Also your suspicions about the drag marks are correct. But I'd say the table was pushed off and scratched the floor. I'll get these samples tested and call you with answers." Ray gathered up his stuff and left.

While Ross spoke to Esposito I listened to Jack's voicemail. I nearly dropped the phone.

"Pearce what's wrong?" Ross rushed to my side.

With shaky hands I replayed the voicemail. At first there was silence, then there was a grunting, sounds of a struggle from two voices, then Jack yelled, 'Pearce! Mole! In team!'. He got cut of with more struggling then 'May God be with you!'. There was a loud thud and then it went silent.

"Who is that?" Esposito asked.

"Jack Bloom. An informant of mines. He's the one who gave me your name. He was here in my apartment. I just got him killed." I rubbed my temples. "Damn it!"

I called him 7 times and each time it went to voicemail.

"Pearce he said mole," Ross said. "In team. Our team has a mole. Someone has been helping Dante! A FBI, DEA, or CIA agent has been helping Capaldi! "

"Speaking of Capaldi I got the autopsy report," Esposito produced it from his jacket. I snatched the file and read it over.

"It's not him. It's not his MO," I handed the file over to Ross. "In all the murders he'd been affiliated with the victim either bleed out from the wounds of a gunshots or stabs, then dumped. James's neck was snapped. This suggests the murderer wanted him to die quickly or shut him. Dante's kills have been all about suffering. And also the word. All the other carvings have been in English. This one in Spanish?"

"Maybe he was just adapting," Esposito suggested.

"Dante doesn't speak any other language than English and Italian," I answered.