────── LONELY HEART

chapter three

iii. Roots

MARLOWE CAME BACK TO THE TABLE WITH TWO BEER BOTTLES IN HAND, sliding one across the table towards the thankful blonde. Hailey nodded her head towards her, taking a sip of the bottle.

It had been another long day at the office and the pair had decided to go out to Molly's to recap and end the day on a high note.

The two of them had been spending more time together outside of work more often in the month Marlowe had settled upstairs in Intelligence. She was gaining traction in the Intelligence unit one step at a time, becoming more dependable in field work and her technical skills. Marlowe was thankful for the warm welcoming she had been given, gaining more and more field knowledge from the unit's point of view, not just as a uniformed officer. Hank Voight ran things a little more differently than traditional police guidelines, living up to the rumors that he ran things his way even if they were under a magnifying glass by the Ivory Tower.

Hailey sighed as both of their phones buzzed on the table, Marlowe looking up at the screen of hers to see a notification from Homicide.

"What do they want?" Marlowe asked, grumbling as she slid back out of her chair, "Especially this late?"

"I think their name says it all," Hailey remarked as she pulled her jacket on over her t-shirt.

"Okay, smartass."

They rode together in Marlowe's car towards the address they had been provided with, pulling into a vacant plot of land that was being used as a trash field behind a row of local businesses. Red and blue lights lit up the majority of the scene while uniformed officers were setting up spotlights around what they could only assume to be their victim under a white sheet. Other cops scoped the site with flashlights for surrounding evidence.

Marlowe put the car in park next to one of the police cruisers, both her and Hailey getting out of their seats. It was a breezy October night causing Marlowe to zip her leather jacket up over her chest as the pair entered the scene. Detective Jerry Hensley, the leader in the Homicide Unit, approached them as they stepped over the yellow tape cutting off the scene. He directed them to the body as they caught them up to speed, walking up to the white, plastic covering a portion of a pile of garbage.

"God..." Marlowe muttered after they peeled the sheet back to reveal the body, using her flashlight to look over their victim.

It was a woman, no more than thirty, and Latina. Her stomach was exposed with a wide gash spanning from one side to the other just below the navel. Marlowe suspected it had only been a couple hours since the time of death since rigor mortis looked like it had begun to sit in, confirmed when she turned to ask the medical examiner.

Another car pulled up to the scene behind them, parking beside Marlowe's. Antonio stepped out of the driver's side and his seventeen-year-old daughter Eva stood behind the opened passenger door. He approached the crime line after telling her to stay put, ducking under the crime scene tape where Hailey and Marlowe were waiting.

"Hey," Hailey greeted him, "Just talked to the homicide dicks. Homeless guy found her, no witnesses."

Marlowe gave him a tight-lipped smile, "Talk about a fine night."

"I was out with Eva," He glanced back over his shoulder at his car to where his daughter was now sitting anxiously in the passenger's seat, "I might have you talk to her later, Mar."

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion, "Why?"

"She thinks she's excluded from minority struggles because her family is well off," Antonio placed a hand on her shoulder before walking around her and Hailey to the body, "I'll tell you more in a few, let's get this over with for now,"

Marlowe scoffed, shoving her hands in her pockets, "Well, you're going to love this scene then..."

"Yo, Antonio, I heard you were back on the beat," Jerry greeted.

"How you doing, Jerry?" He asked in response, looking down at the white sheet before them.

"Better than her," Jerry shrugged before pulling back the sheet, Antonio cursing under his breath at the sight, "Cut the drugs out of her gut and threw her away like a piece of trash. Welcome to America."

Marlowe shook her head, staring at the prominent and deep gash along her lower abdomen, "Disgusting."

"Same M.O. as the Sinaloan Cartel," Hailey explained, knelt down next to Antonio, "They use young women that can swallow a key."

Jerry nodded, "That's why I texted you guys. Foreign drug mule is the last thing I need on my books."

"We're just following the smuggling angle," Antonio told him sternly.

Jerry raised his eyebrows, "Don't feel like picking up the trash, huh?"

"Oh, my God."

The four of them looked behind them to find Eva Dawson looking horrified and staring down at the deceased woman's body. Marlowe yanked the fabric of the covering from Jerry's hand and placed it back down over their victim. She followed Antonio over to Eva, glancing worriedly back at Hailey who was taking finishing statements and notes from Jerry.

Eva resembled Antonio in features, but otherwise she looked like her mother, Lara, in build and mannerisms. Marlowe found it hard to believe she was seventeen and getting ready to start college applications, having first met Eva and her younger brother, Diego, when they were just children.

"What are you doing?" Antonio asked his daughter, pulling her to the side, "I told you to stay in the car."

"Who is she?" Eva asked trying to peek around her dad.

He shook his head, still guiding her back to the car, "We don't know. Come on."

"Dad-!"

"Eva," Marlowe tried coaxing her, "You shouldn't be over here. We'll take care of it, just go home with your dad."

"Lolo," It was an innocent nickname, one that had stuck throughout the years, "He called her trash."

"He meant the case is trash," Antonio answered.

Eva still looked disgusted, "Because she's Latina?"

"No! Because these cases are hard to solve," He tried again to get her back to the car, "Now come on."

Eva resisted, digging her heels in the gravel, "But you're still going to try, right?"

"Eva, please..."

"You just said our job was to help other Latinos," She looked at Antonio then back at Marlowe.

The pair shared a disheartened look.

Antonio called to Jerry over his shoulder, sighing, "We'll take it."

Hailey gave Marlowe a confused look, but only got a shrug and shake of the head in return.

"Come on," Antonio placed a hand on Eva's back to guide her to the other side of the crime scene tape.

Marlowe watched the two of them leave the sight, crossing her arms over her chest.

She remembered being Eva's age and blind to the hindrances that her ethnicity came with. The Romero children had been fortunate to have grown up the upper-class side of it all, something their mother, Gloria, had not been so fortunate to have growing up or when moving to the states. It was not until she got old enough to understand that Marlowe found life as a Latina was beyond easy.

Two scenarios that came to mind is when she was just a girl and had witnessed her mother get harassed by a vendor for speaking Spanish one day in the market with another Latina, and when she was accepted into college she was asked by one of the white boys in one of her classes on why she was studying math and not running a restaurant in Pilson.

Hailey approached her side, the M.E. getting ready to remove the Jane Doe's body from the lot, "What was that about?"

"Let's go home," Marlowe ignored her question and pulled her keys from the pocket of her jacket, "This is going to be a long case."

THE NEXT MORNING, Marlowe arrived as usual and entered the office before the others. She placed her to-go cup full of scalding hot coffee down on her desktop and shoved her purse into the large bottom drawer before sitting in her chair. Shrugging off her tan, oversized coat, Marlowe settled in her seat and looked over the contents of her space. Her desk had piled up with folders and I.T. requests, all sorted into a file bracket at the end of her desk, making it less barren yet more organized than its last occupant.

She did find it odd that she was sitting in Greg's previous position, only doing more field work than he had. It got to her sometimes, and even a month after receiving her desk she had yet to look through the contents of the lower drawers.

Marlowe sighed to herself, staring at the wallet-sized photo sat in a small silver frame in front of the larger photographs next to her computer screen, the smiling face of a sharp-featured, brunette man holding up a large pint of beer staring back at her.

The others slowly started filtering into the office and Antonio enlisted her help with printing out photos sent from the medical examiner and presenting the case. Marlowe frowned taping up the woman's autopsy photo onto the whiteboard, alongside the crime scene photographs taken the night before. Antonio finished writing down pertinent information alongside the photos.

"Are you two ready?" Voight asked from the threshold of his office.

Antonio nodded, "Yeah."

Everyone either sat around their desks or stood to face Marlowe, Antonio, and the board.

"So our Jane Doe is Latina. Mid to late twenties," Antonio spoke, looking at the board.

"Her prints are not in the system, nowhere in our database," Marlowe folded her hands in front of her, still staring at the gory photos, "The M.E. is still processing the body."

Kim nodded from where she stood next to Al across from them, "But it appears she was a drug mule?"

"Yeah, and they had a problem recovering the product," Antonio jabbed his thumb in the direction of the photo showing the gash across the woman's abdomen, "So they gutted her like a farm animal. Dope's worth more than the carriers."

"Rigor puts time of death between six and eight last night," Hailey joined in, "Crime scene techs found very little blood on the scene, so she was killed someplace else, and then dropped here."

Hank nodded at the information, staring skeptically at the board, "Why's homicide passing this off on us?"

Marlowe glanced up at Antonio.

"I said we'd take it," He answered simply.

Everyone around them looked apprehensive at the admission.

Voight hummed and approached the board, "I bet Homicide was real sorry to see this one go..."

For a moment, Marlowe thought Voight might pull the case.

"All right," He started again after another moment, turning back to the team, "All right, send out patrol to canvass the neighborhood where the body was found. Check pod cameras, missing persons. This young lady didn't just fall from the sky."

Alvin spoke up, "I got a C.I. deep in with these cartel guys."

"Good," Hank turned back over his shoulder on his way back to his office, "Oh, Romero pair up with Antonio for this one, I'm still looking through recommendations for a tech assistant. Burgess, you and Al today."

Marlowe crossed her arms as she glanced around at everyone.

"Ah, it's a lovely game of musical chairs," Alvin commented as they broke off to get to work, grabbing his coat from his desk.

After Kim and Alvin left, Marlowe settled back at her desk, trying once more with running the woman's description through missing persons and through facial recognition software. She watched the screen intently, chewing at her thumbnail and zoning out in her thoughts.

It was going to be a hard case to crack, especially if it had to do with the cartel the unit had been working on tracking down for weeks.

Jay approached her desk, his eyebrows creasing together when she did not spare a glance in his direction, "Hey."

"Hm?" She blinked, his voice pulling her out of her doubts, "Oh, hey."

"Are you okay?" He asked, sitting at the end of her desk, and watching the still processing screen with her, "You seem preoccupied."

Shrugging Marlowe moved her scrunched hair back behind her shoulders, as she sat forward on her elbows on her desktop, "I'm alright, I just hope we can catch whoever did this. She was just tossed out like trash..."

Watching her sad facial expression, Jay nodded.

Marlowe sighed after the software on her computer came up with inconclusive results once again, making her kick at the desktop modem located underneath the desk. Jay glanced at her worriedly, but she did not meet his gaze. He and Kevin, who was passing by the desk when it happened, shared a concerned look.

Adam looked at his phone that buzzing at the end of his desk, "Hey, it's Kim. We've got a lead."

SITTING IN THE PASSENGER'S SEAT OF ANTONIO'S CAR Marlowe leaned against her arm that she had propped up against the window. They had picked up Kim on their way to scope out a bus stop known for drug mule activity, Alvin having joined Voight in a car on the other end of the lot, with Adam and Kevin not too far away.

She looked bored, staring at the pavilion connected to a rundown carwash where a rusty sign that said 'bus stop' hung on a banister.

"Having your daughter come live with you, that's a big deal," Kim said from the backseat, peering forwards between the front seats and looking at Antonio.

Antonio nodded slightly, "She and her mom... and her mom's new boyfriend... they weren't getting along. Eva's a good kid. Straight A's, top of her class."

"I was a nightmare when I was seventeen," Kim told them, earning laughs from both of them.

"I find that hard to believe," Antonio snorted.

Marlowe shook her head, snickering, "Kim, the worst thing you probably did was write or draw in textbooks."

"I was," The brunette disagreed, "I was a... I was a rebel."

A large white vehicle caught Marlowe's attention, passing through her peripheral, "Hm, what do we have here?"

All three of them set their gazes on a standard town bus with 'Airways + Parking' written in red and blue on the side. It pulled up in front of the car wash stop and its doors opened, passengers beginning to exit down the small number of stairs into the parking lot. Marlowe pointed out a young Hispanic woman stepping off the bus last, looking around nervously as she held her stomach.

"You see what I see?" Voight's voice came through the radio.

Antonio radioed back, "Copy that."

After the bus left the parking lot, a silver truck pulled in from a parking plaza across the street, driving up to the pavilion where the woman stood, now obviously staggering.

"That's our guy," Marlowe muttered, squinting to see the large man seated behind the wheel of the truck.

"Everybody take it easy. Just hold. Just hold," Voight radioed again, all of them watching the woman climb in the passenger's side of the truck, waiting until the door was securely shut behind her to speak again, "All right. Move in."

Tires from all of the vehicles squealed against the asphalt and their emergency lights flicked on. Antonio hit the accelerator, making Kim clutch the front seats and Marlowe grip onto the dashboard. Hank, Kevin, and Antonio pinned the truck into an immobile position near the end of the parking plaza, leaving the man nowhere to go.

A short and stout Hispanic man with long, dark hair that was pulled back into a low ponytail exited the driver's side of the truck, leaving the woman left alone in the truck as he booked it towards the sea of cars to their left. Hank shouted at them to get a move on, Marlowe already out of the car and sprinting after the man with Kevin and Adam right behind her. Her sneakers pounded against the cement beneath her and the length of her coat was whipping behind her as she ran, narrowly avoiding the oncoming cars exiting that section of the plaza.

The three officers chasing after the man ignored the honking of frustrated drivers, weaving in and out of the long row of cars next to them. The man before her took a quick and sharp turn, jumping up on top of the hood of a car and continuing to travel over the tops of the closely parked together cars.

"Romero!" Adam shouted from behind her.

"You've gotta be shitting me," She huffed, following suit, and leaping onto the hood of a nearby car.

Marlowe was only about two cars behind the man and gaining due to the long strides she was taking in the race to catch him. She had followed him over a substantial number of cars, with Ruzek and Atwater huffing as they raced down the center isle directly behind them. Just as she was about to jump onto the same car as their perp, he took a nosedive off the hood of it to avoid her grasp. A string of curses left her lips as she slid off the top of the car, her feet meeting the cement once more.

She stopped in her tracks as they approached a tall, metal fence that lead over into a neighboring yard, watching the larger man clamber back on top of a car parked against it and attempt to climb it. As he made it over the top with his leg dangling on the other side, a large dog ran up beneath him and began snapping its jaws at the hanging limb and barking loudly. A smirk tugged at Marlowe's lips as she watched him look down at the animal with frightened eyes and pause his movements.

Adam and Kevin joined at her side, looking up at the man amused.

"Ah," Kevin chuckled, looking between him and the dog, "I mean it's really your call, bro."

The barking dog continued to jump and try to bite at the man's leg while the three officers just stared at him, waiting for him to make another move. Slowly, he raised his hands in surrender.

Marlowe tugged him down off the fence by the end of his shirt, making him stumble to the ground. Adam helped Marlowe tug him back up to his feet and placed his hands behind his back, cuffing him. He let Marlowe take the lead, handing him back off to her to take back to their awaiting team.

Adam chuckled as Marlowe kept their perp still as he tried to struggle, "You run track, Romero?"

"And volleyball," She nodded, "Six years of it."

"Good job," Kevin praised and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Good job."

Shoving the guy forwards, still holding onto him by the chain that connected the cuffs together, she responded, "All in a day's work."

THE GUY'S NAME WAS WILLY, which only  brought some amusement to Marlowe's day, and the woman he had picked up at the car wash had a key of heroin in her gut. Marlowe was stuck around the bullpen with Antonio and Hailey to await the final report from the medical examiner while Jay and Voight interrogated Willy. They had been back at the precinct for a little over an hour, getting little information from their new friend.

"Will sounded so thrilled on the phone to inform us that the woman had passed a whole key of heroin," Marlowe chuckled, sitting on the end of Hailey's desk.

The blonde nodded, amused, "Ah, the magic of laxatives."

Both of them looked up as they heard the fax machine beep and begin to print. Marlowe volunteered to check on it, walking across the room to the printer and pulled out the papers that were laid out in the tray. Her eyes glanced over the words across the first page, her brows knitting together as she read over the section stating the official cause of death.

"Hailey," Marlowe did not glance up from the papers held in her hand, "You gotta see this."

Hailey looked curious as Marlowe approached her desk again, being presented with the documents, "What the hell?"

"According to the girl, all the mules are around fifteen. The DOA looks closer to thirty," Kim's voice got louder as she and Jay entered the bullpen from the back hallway.

Jay nodded, waving around a folder in his hand as he spoke, "And if there were drugs inside her, they would've cut down, not across, apparently."

"You know what else the cartel doesn't do?" Hailey asked in a sharp voice, handing Marlowe back the examination papers, "Rape drug mules. Just got the M.E. report."

Jay and Kim looked confused.

Marlowe tossed paperclipped the report together toward the end of her desk near where the pair had stopped to listen to them, "Our DOA had significant vaginal tearing and the COD was strangulation."

Antonio stood from his desk to look at the report too, "So the slice across her stomach?"

"A countermeasure," Marlowe shrugged, "It was done postmortem."

Voight strolled into the room listening to them talk.

Antonio looked appalled, looking between Hailey and Marlowe, "You're saying that someone raped her, killed her, cut her open to make it look like she was a mule?"

"Who's gonna cry over some anonymous Latina drug runner?" Hailey asked.

Kim looked down at her cell phone in hand, "Patrol just found bloody clothes in an alley near where the body was dumped."

"Hit it," Voight told her, "Take Kevin."

Antonio handed the report back to Marlowe who looked down at it with a look of disgust on her face. She was beyond appalled, quickly stuffing it into an empty folder at the end of her desk. Hank walked by her, giving her a once over before turning towards his office.

Jay grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and motioned to Marlowe to get her attention, "C'mon, you need a break."

"Break?" She asked, rolling her eyes, "Jay-"

"Unless you want your lunch to comprise of frozen peaches and stale office coffee," He retorted, motioning to the back exit, "Let's go."

Marlowe, for once in her life, did not have much of an appetite, but still complied while rolling her eyes. She dragged her feet slightly on their way down the back staircase to the lower level of the precinct. Jay noticed but he stayed silent as he held the door open for her, exiting into the back-parking lot where his truck was parked.

Fresh coffee and a meal were not going to fix anything, but Jay liked to think it was going to help cushion inevitable blow.

MARLOWE CAME TO REGRET EATING A FULL LUNCH. She was already upset about the case, but the revelation that their Jane Doe's actual name was Gloria made Marlowe's stomach churn. It was already sensitive to her racially, but the woman's name was the same as her mother's and the paper trail they were gathering came with an eerily similar backstory.

In the evidence Kim and Kevin had gathered in the alleyway not far from where the body had been dumped, they found an identification card as well as a paystub that gave them the address to where their victim lived. Antonio, Marlowe, Jay, and Hailey followed the manager of the apartment building up the stairs to the third floor, listening to the older woman mutter under her breath in Spanish.

"There's no law they need papers to rent an apartment," She told them, her accent prominent, as she let them to their victim's apartment.

"We know that, Señora," Antonio told her, pulling latex gloves over his hands, "How long has she lived here?"

The woman responded, "Six months."

"Do you know which bed is hers?" Marlowe asked as they stepped inside the small apartment.

She pointed to the one furthest to the small window that overlooked the streets below, "That one."

"This looks like blood," Hailey pulled a pair of light-washed jeans out of a pile of dirty clothes inside a hamper, large red stains covering most of the upper legs.

Antonio grimaced slightly, "Let's make sure to get those into evidence,"

"Ma'am," Marlowe looked up from the notebooks and photo albums scattered under the bed, "Did Gloria ever mention being threatened?"

"No, not to me. She kept to herself."

There was a clatter from the other side of the room, the four officers reaching for their holstered weapons. Jay pointed at the double doors of the closet, his finger to his lips. Slowly, Marlowe and Hailey stepped forwards and wrapped their free hands around the knobs. Hailey slowly counted down from three before they both threw open the doors of the closet.

On the floor of the closet, a small form clambered back into the wall. It was a small boy, no older than six that looked to be Hispanic and frightened at their presence. Hailey gently instructed for the others to put their weapons away as she knelt down to the boy's level.

Marlowe stared down at the child with soft eyes, holstering her gun on her right hip.

"It's okay," Hailey told him in a soft voice, "Who are you?"

The landlord looked sad as she answered for him, "That's her son."

It took them another half hour to gather up what they needed, Marlowe and Antonio driving the scared boy back to the district while Hailey and Jay went door to door in the neighborhood to ask questions. The boy would not talk to either Marlowe or Antonio, in English or Spanish, just stared out the window with a blank face.

Back at the precinct, Trudy took Oscar to ask him a couple questions and get him some food. Marlowe sat at her desk, staring at her hands while Antonio approached the board and taped a DMV photograph of Gloria onto the whiteboard. Everyone regrouped, compiling their information together and adding more notes to the board.

"Gloria Morales," He started, pointing at the young woman's face, "She came from Guatemala six months ago with her son Oscar. There's no border crossing, so she entered here illegally. Landlady thought she worked at some factory. Said she paid her rent on time."

"We canvassed the neighborhood," Hailey added, "Nobody wanted to talk."

Jay nodded from where he was leaned against the end of her desk, "Yeah, they're freaked out. They think anybody with a badge is trying to deport them.

"Hey, so the M.E. ran those clothes from the dumpster," Kevin entered the bullpen from the back hallway, taking a seat on the end of Adam's desk as he read from the papers he had in his hand, "Now the blood in the dumpster definitely matches our DOA, but they couldn't find any other evidence on the clothes."

"What about the blood on the jeans in the apartment?" Jay asked, arms crossed over his chest.

"That blood matches a pig," He flipped back through the folder in his hand, "Yeah. More precisely pig, cow, and lamb, believe it or not."

Adam shrugged, looking at the others, "Maybe she worked at a restaurant?"

Kim, who had been sitting at her desk, stood up looking at the notecard she had scribbled on, "Okay, I ran the old bus card that we found at the apartment. She took the 127 Blue Line every day to West 132nd."

Marlowe's brows furrowed as she turned her swivel chair slightly towards her computer, beginning to research all restaurants and factories in the radius Kim had given them. Chewing slightly on her chipped thumbnail, her eyes followed the curser of her mouse and read over the results on her screen.

"All right," Hank nodded, "so let's run every business within a mile radius of West 132nd. Let's find out where she worked."

Everyone else turned to their computers.

"There's only one large company around West 132nd-" Jay started, leaning back in his seat as he looked at his screen.

"One step ahead of you Halstead," Marlowe interrupted, "There's Bukowski Meat Packing Company, and it specialize in lamb, pig, and cow products."

"Boots on the ground," Voight told them, glancing over each of their faces, "Hit that factory."

ANTONIO LED THE WAY INTO THE BACK DOOR of the meat factory. Marlowe, Kim, Hailey, and Jay followed him inside a large white room with high-set windows and long metal tables in isles throughout the majority of the room. Many Hispanic workers dressed in long white coats and hairnets lined the tables, either cutting or packing product at their stations.

The workers looked startled at the group's loud and sudden presence.

"Policia!" Antonio announced.

Kim held up a photograph, "Gloria Morales! Did she work here?"

No one answered them, just looked between one another with wary gazes.

"Hey, look. We're not here to arrest anybody," Jay attempted to reassure, "Just help us out."

With yet another lack of an answer, they broke off to talk one-on-one with the workers. Each of them had a photograph of Gloria and questioned each worker on if they knew her or not.

It seemed like none of them were making headway until Kim came across a woman who seemed overly apprehensive to talk. Marlowe joined Kim's side, watching the thin woman glance worriedly between them and the photograph of Gloria Morales held out to her.

Marlowe pointed at the photograph with raised eyebrows, "Did you know her?"

"I just want to know if something happened," She told them nervously, now not meeting their eyes.

"Yeah, well, why don't we go somewhere we can talk in private?" Kim asked.

Shaking her head vigorously, "No, I can't."

"They're not going to talk to you," A deep voice caught their attention, "They're scared of cops."

It was a tall and round man, who was also Hispanic but without much of an accent. He was bald and wore a cap covering his beard. Marlowe cocked her head to the side at the smirk tugging at the man's lips, her eyes falling down to the large gold chain peeking out from under his coat with a charm saying 'paz' hanging from his neck. She stepped around Kim, her eyes never leaving his as Hailey raised Gloria's picture to him to look at.

"Do you know her?" She asked.

He scoffed, "No. Sorry."

Jay and Marlowe shared a look as the man walked away.

"Hey!" A booming voice echoed through the work room, and a man came rushing into the room, "What the hell are you guys doing barging in here like this? You gotta be frocked to be in here. I'm gonna get fined!"

He seemed to be the owner. A large white man with a long nose and looked to be at least in his fifties. His blue coat and hairnet had been pulled on crooked like it had been last minute, and he waved a clipboard around as he moved his hands as he talked.

"All right, everybody back to work!" He bellowed, "Basta! That's it! Break's over!" He turned to the officers looking at him with narrowed eyes, "Come on, come with me."

Antonio glanced back at the woman they had been talking to as they passed.

Marlowe scoffed, following Antonio out into a connected hallway, "Don't you love the way he talks to his employees."

"At this rate, I'll give him owner of the year myself," He retorted in a dry tone.

After being handed their own white coats to wear, Jay and Hailey went to interview other workers of the factory as the other three hung back to talk to John Bukowski. Marlowe was growing impatient with the man, who seemed to ignore their presence as he continues to sign off on deliveries and count stock as they stood there waiting for him to answer their questions.

"Gloria Morales," Kim presented him with a picture, "She worked here."

"I got three hundred employees. They all wear masks," He glanced across the room to a shorter man who was sorting produce onto shelves, "Michael!"

He passed them and handed the picture to the younger man, "Here's my son, Michael."

Michael Bukowski was shorter and thinner than his father. He had broad shoulders, short brunette hair, and a well-trimmed beard. He also wore a blue coat, over a neat button up and pressed slacks.

"You know this woman?" John asked him, looking at the photo.

"No," Michael shook his head, "I-I might've seen her on the cutting line."

Marlowe raised her eyebrows, "You sure?"

"Yes? Why?" He asked, "What is this about?"

"She was murdered last night," Antonio deadpanned.

"Oh my God," Michael muttered.

"That's awful. I'm sorry to hear that," There was no sign of remorse in John's voice as he handed Antonio Gloria's photo back, "Get in touch with her family. Let them know that we'll cover all the funeral costs."

Kim looked down at the field book she held in her hand, "According to OSHA records, you've been fined seventeen times in the last two years for unsafe workplace violations."

Michael's tone became snarky at Kim's words, "We paid all the fines-"

"I'll do the talking," His father interrupted him, waving him off, "English major, doesn't know that much about business. Not yet."

Marlowe watched Michael's back as he slowly walked away from the conversation.

"As for the fines," John continued, "We do our best to comply with thousands of meaningless regulations, and from time to time we fall short of this noble objective. Anything else?"

"You know, I get it," Antonio glanced around the room, "You hire undocumented workers. They do the worst jobs for the worst pay, and keep their mouths shut, right?"

Again, John did not seem to care at his words, "That's how immigrants make it, my friend. They do the jobs that other people don't want to do. And you know what? They're thrilled to have the work."

Marlowe looked between her companions in disbelief.

Antonio shook his head, glaring at the man "If that's what helps you sleep."

"Look, if you don't have a warrant," Tiredly, he waved them off, "Would you please leave?"

They left the area, going back in the direction of the work room. Marlowe's blood was boiling as she stuffed her balled-up fists into the pockets of her coat.

"Dig up everything we can on Bukowski, and run his alibi for last night," Antonio told kim.

Kim glanced up at him as they came to a halt, "Do you think he's a legitimate person of interest?"

"He's a legitimate prick, that's for sure."

Marlowe snorted, "You can say that again."

Glancing over his shoulder, she noticed the woman from the cutting line earlier loitering by a door at the back of the room. Nudging Kim with her elbow, she nodded towards the woman. Upon seeing that their attention was on her, the woman ducked into the connected room with both female officers in tow.

Both Kim and Marlowe discarded their white coats as they stepped into the locker room, Kim leading the way through the smile isles of beige lockers to find the woman.

"Hey," She greeted her softly, "Do you mind if we talk to you, por favor?"

The woman looked down at her feet, holding onto the door of her opened locker.

She was tall and thin, older than both Marlowe and Kim. Her skin was slightly darker than Marlowe's and had a ponytail holding back a mane of light-brown curls from her angular face.

Marlowe leaned against the lockers behind Kim, loosely crossing her arms across her abdomen, "Do you know something about Gloria?"

Glancing around to make sure it was just them, the woman spoke in a soft and nervous voice, "She's my sister. Did something happen? Why are you asking questions?"

Marlowe gulped and glanced at Kim, who was staring back at her.

Kim's shoulder's fell as she turned to the worried woman once again, "Your sister was murdered last night."

Marlowe's heart broke at the pain now etched into her face, "No. No, no..."

"I'm so sorry," Kim told her.

"I knew it, when she didn't come home," The woman began to sob.

Marlowe stepped forwards and sat her down on the bench, holding her hand as she joined her, "Can you tell us your name? Please?"

"Lucia," She answered.

Kim nodded, squatting down before them, "Lucia, please come with us. We really need your help."

Lucia shook her head, standing back up and going to her locker, "No, I can't."

"It's okay," Marlowe reassured her, "We're not worried about papers, we want to find who did this to Gloria."

Lucia looked over her shoulder with wide eyes, "Where's my nephew?"

Marlowe stood back to her feet, "Safe. And if you come with us, we can show you."

It took a moment for their words to register completely, but Lucia nodded. Marlowe and Kim looked relived, watching her grab her coat from her locker and shutting the door to it. Kim led them back out to where Antonio still stood waiting on them.

"Is she talking?" Antonio asked Marlowe as they all headed towards the exit.

Marlowe gave him a sad look, "She's our victim's sister."

They drove back to the twenty-first, escorting Lucia into the lobby and to the front desk where Trudy stood. She gave them a confused look, glancing at the worried woman behind them.

"Platt, this is..."

Kim was cut off by a happy, high-pitched voice from behind them, "Tia!"

"Oscar!" Lucia dropped to her knees, crying softly as the child ran into her arms, "Oscar! Estas bien? Estas bien?"

Trudy lowered her voice as she leaned over her desk to talk to them, "I just talked to DCFS."

"And?" Marlowe asked.

"They're going to put Oscar in a group home."

Kim looked as upset as all of them felt, "No. Why can't he go with his aunt?"

"She's illegal," Platt explained, looking past them sadly at the hugging family, "Which means we gotta jump through a bunch of new hoops."

Marlowe shook her head, rubbing her face with her hand, "How long is that obstacle course?"

"Too long to measure."

Antonio shook his head, "Hold them off as long as you can. Let me talk to a friend who works over there."

Trudy nodded, "I'll do my best."

They split Oscar and Lucia up once more, with the promise for a few more moments together after some quick questions. Upstairs, having already established a form of trust with Lucia, Voight had the three of them sit in with Lucia to get more answers.

Marlowe sat a glass of water down in front of Lucia, taking the seat diagonal from her, on Antonio's right and directly across from Kim.

"Did you see Gloria talking to anybody last night?" Antonio asked her.

Lucia shook her head, "No. I work days, she works nights. I almost never see her."

Kim leaned her side against the table, facing Lucia's side, "Is there anyone you know that wanted to hurt your sister Gloria?"

"I'm sorry," She shook her head, "I can't tell you what you want."

"Who are you afraid of, Lucia?" Marlowe asked her, "Is it your bosses? Is it someone else?"

"I need to make sure Oscar is okay," Lucia ignored the question, "That I can take care of him. That we can stay here as a family."

Antonio, Kim, and Marlowe all shared unsure glances.

"Look, we will do everything in our power to make that happen," Antonio told her, with nods from Kim and Marlowe, "But please, tell us what you know."

Lucia did not seem convinced.

"I will protect you," He told her with sincerity in his voice, "I promise."

Marlowe and Kim looked at one another then at Antonio, who did not break eye contact with Lucia.

Lucia's shoulder's sagged, and she began shaking her head, "I told Gloria not to go out with him. But she wouldn't listen! When she tried to break it off, he wouldn't take no for an answer. He got aggressive. Made threats."

"Who was it?" Antonio asked, but Lucia paused again, "It's okay. Who was it?"

"Michael Bukowski."

Marlowe set her jaw and looked at Antonio, "Let's go pick him up."

season five, episode three (part one)

published ── 07.22.20