Page 1 of Power & Punishment

1

MIA

“Why can’t they ever find a dead body close to a good coffee shop?” my partner whines, cringing at the black sludge floating in his Styrofoam cup.

“I don’t know.” I shrug, ducking under the bright yellow police tape. “When we find the murderer, you can ask them.”

Keith scoffs at my no-nonsense answer like he typically does. A year of working together and he still treats every crime scene like a field trip while I’m forced to drag him back to reality.

Before we spot the body, our overeager medical examiner stops us. “Morning, Mia. Keith,” she says with a light blush coating the apples of her cheeks. Katy has been fawning over Keith for months now, but he’s oblivious like most men are. I do find it odd how she can blush after seeing someone’s remains sprinkled across the cement. Then again, it takes a certain kind of person to have the stomach for this work.

“Good morning, Katy,” I say, pulling on my rubber gloves. “What do you have for us?”

“It’s an odd one,” she says, leading us toward the dead body. “Single gunshot to the optical region with a clean entry wound, but we’re unable to find any blood spatter. Based on lividity, I’d place time of death between midnight and two a.m.”

“So, the body was moved?” I ask, eyeing the lifeless blob laying in the alley. The putrid smell of day-old garbage wafts around us, mixing with the other wonderful scents of the Lower East Side. After a while, everything melts together, and I forget what it felt like to inhale the smell of a dead body for the first time. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

“That’s my assumption.” Katy nods, kneeling next to the man and tilting his head toward us. “Here’s his wallet.”

Her hand hovers mid-air as she attempts to pass me the piece of leather.

I don’t take it from her because I already know who the victim is.

Even after years of missed birthdays and ignored calls that went straight to voicemail, he still looks the same way he did when I moved out of his house at thirteen.

“You okay, Esposito?” Keith asks, reaching around me to grab the wallet.

A sickening chill wraps around my body as I stare at my older brother’s corpse. The alley transforms, a foggy haze blindingly betrays my vision. For a second, I’m back in that parking lot watching a red, sticky river soak the concrete around my father’s lifeless body.

I screamed.

But nobody came.

“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat and shaking any lingering shock off my face. “Sorry, I thought it was someone I knew.”

My partner’s eyes stick to the side of my face. It’s pretty hard to bullshit a detective, but I’ve gotten good at lying over the last eight years. As far as he knows, both of my parents are dead, I am an only child, and I have no other close relatives.

Keith’s throat constricts, and for a second I think he’ll push for more, but thankfully he drops it and opens the wallet. “Vincent Russo. Age thirty-six from Brooklyn,” he says, pulling out my brother’s driver’s license.

I bend down, trying to stop my knees from shaking. If anyone suspects I have a connection to this person, the case will be ripped away from me.

But maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

I left my life behind because of the exact reason why my brother is lying lifeless on the asphalt. Everything ends the same way where we’re from.

“This isn’t the murder scene,” I observe, confirming Katy’s suspicion. “I’m assuming the uniforms didn’t find a bullet or a murder weapon.”

“Nope,” Katy says, crouching down beside me. “Once I get him back to the lab, I can try to determine the caliber and type of bullet.”

“Good,” I say, my eyes locked with the tattoo on the back of my brother’s hand. It was more of a brand, though. It showed exactly who owned you. “That tattoo is a Caruso mark.”

“You think this is gang-related?” Keith asks, peering over my shoulder.

“We won’t know until we find the primary crime scene,” I say, but I know I’m right. My other brother has one too. “Can you get a hold of your buddy in organized crime to see if he’s heard anything? We might be able to get a lead that way. And ask him if he knows the victim.”

There’s a good chance he does. The last I knew, Vince was still working for the Carusos. After Dad died, he sold his soul to them for extra protection. I guess it didn’t get him very far in the end. But unlike our father’s death, I might be able to find out who did this.

I smother that tiny sliver of hope before it gets too bright. I can’t get pulled back into all the suffocating grief again. Maybe that’s why I don’t have trouble looking at my brother’s body and keeping my emotions under control. Or maybe there’s something much worse wrong with me.