Blackmail and Betrayal

AN: Surpisingly, I am still alive… no rabidly insane fangirls stormed my house and did bodily harm to me. (Although I think a few threatened to do so….)

Hope you all enjoy! We are really close to the ending!


Chapter 19


Sasuke stood in front of the large cork board which had been mounted on the wall of his living room. He sipped at the drink in his hand as his tired eyes roved over the various pictures and notes pinned in place.

Most of the furniture had been pushed to one side of the room except for his armchair which now faced the board. A white fiberglass folding table sat to one side covered in file folders and his computer. The small stylish computer desk had fortunately vanished with the rest of Sakura’s belongings. Perched on top of his CPU was a certain scruffy looking fox plushie that Kakashi had brought to him shortly after he had received the case files.

He shoved a hand through his ebony hair, noting as he did so that he needed to get around to getting it trimmed sometime soon. Actually he had been meaning to for some time but he always seemed to forget the thought five minutes after he’d had it.

He heard the lock on his door click over and smoothly transferred his drink to his left hand and pulled the 9mm from his shoulder holster even as he turned sideways to the door to provide as small of a profile as he could.

Kakashi stepped inside to see the barrel of a handgun pointed directly at him, dead black eyes staring at him from behind the sights. There was a brief, tense moment where the gun didn’t waver before it was lowered and then holstered.

“I see we’re in good spirits today,” Kakashi commented as he closed and locked the door behind him. He set down the small handful of envelopes he was carrying on the bar which separated the kitchen from the living room. He then stripped off his coat and set it on the back of the couch but left the scarf wrapped around his face. His nose was still cold from being outside.

“Hn,” came the expected response as Sasuke turned his attention back towards the display in front of him.

“How’s work been?” Kakashi walked over and deftly plucked the mostly empty glass from the pale-fingered grip.

“You know, there are other glasses in the house,” Sasuke grumbled as his eyes followed the colored strings connecting pictures and notes together in some mad facsimile of a spider’s web.

Kakashi finished pouring himself a drink and leaned against the back of the “sacred” armchair, ignoring the sharp gaze that suddenly tried to pin him down.

“How’s work been?” he repeated.

Sasuke’s eyes reluctantly left their vigil over the chair and glanced once more at the board. “Nothing new to report. A few more leads eliminated.” He shrugged casually, but his eyes had taken on a familiar feverish gleam.

“I meant at the precinct.”

“Oh. Lost another partner,” he answered absently.

“I assume you mean another one requested reassignment?”

Sasuke gave a disinterested grunt which Kakashi took as an affirmative response.

The older man took a deep, bracing breath which immediately alerted Sasuke to the topic before he began speaking. “Sasuke, have you thought about-”

“No,” came the unequivocal response.

“You know you really should think about a vacation. You’ve been at this for months. I noticed you got another postcard from Vegas.”

“I really wish you would stop picking the lock on my mailbox. Almost as much as the one on my door,” Sasuke said irritably, casting a glare over his shoulder.

“Nothing better to do. This is the third one so far, someone must really want you out there.”

“I’ll make sure to call and remove myself from their mailing list,” he grumbled before turning around once again.

“A break might be good-”

“I’ll take a break when they’re dead. Or I am.”

Kakashi stared at the other man’s back for a long moment. He abruptly turned and went over to his coat.

“Leaving so soon?” a sarcastic voice asked. Underneath the sneer however, Kakashi could hear both relief and disappointment.

“While I am sure you’re eager to get rid of me, I have something for you.” He reached inside of his coat into the large interior pocket and pulled out a thin DVD jewel case.

“I was able to get a hold of the surveillance camera footage from the surrounding buildings as well as several pieces of footage from the press cameras. I thought you might want to go over it in case you can catch something that Ebisu’s men missed.”

Sasuke stared at the small square of plastic as if it were an extremely pissed off rattlesnake. He didn’t know if he could handle seeing that scene again. Not when it already played before his mind’s eye on a nightly basis.

His hand trembled slightly as it hesitantly took the offering.

Kakashi looked up at the numerous photos which had red “x” marks through them. Maybe now Sasuke was ready to listen. “Can I offer you a bit of advice, detective?”

Sasuke looked up from the DVD case at the one eye boring into his own. His sarcastic reply died on his lips under the intense scrutiny.

“You’re obviously close to this case and it’s muddled your thinking,” Kakashi announced bluntly but not abrasively.

Sasuke’s eyebrows immediately furrowed and his lips pulled back to deliver a snarled defense.

“Shut up. I’m not done yet.

“You’ve gone about this backwards. Yes, circumstances can give you suspects but evidence leads you to the correct one. You’ve gotten your suspects lined up, ready to blame any one of them at the first sign of guilt. But you’re trying to force your evidence to back up your judgment. You’re not looking at the evidence and letting it take you there.”

Kakashi shook his head. “You know better than this. You would never have handled a case like this as a detective. You don’t know who is guilty for sure, so look at the evidence first.”

The older man downed his drink in one swallow. “And stay off the booze, it isn’t helping you any.”

Sasuke watched in silence as the other man walked over and grabbed his coat before exiting through the door.

Sasuke frowned as a slight uneasiness went through him. Kakashi didn’t speak to him that candidly very often and Sasuke couldn’t help but feel he had somehow disappointed the man when he did. It was the same feeling he’d gotten when he had faced his father after he’d done something particularly stupid.

He glanced at the bottle of whiskey on the bar by the pile of mail but turned away. He grabbed the original file folder that had come from the FBI and sat down in his armchair to re-examine it. Maybe he could find whatever it was that Kakashi seemed to think he was missing.

As he flipped through the file, he found his first set of notes. He skimmed over them, realizing that there were some questions and observations on there that he had never gotten around to addressing. He also noticed that interspersed with increasing frequency were the names of suspects. The names were soon followed by notations and he could see how his train of thought shifted to the men he felt were responsible and away from the shooting itself.

Maybe Kakashi was right.

Sasuke scowled. Maybe Kakashi was full of shit. Ebisu and his men did the initial investigation. There wasn’t much evidence to gather and they had to work with what they had. How could Kakashi expect him to find things that the FBI-

‘Why hadn’t anyone been interviewed in the building that the shooter had allegedly used?’

Surely they had questioned the security guards or the receptionist about any suspicious characters or activities that they might have seen. He could see where someone made a notation that “nothing out of the ordinary had been witnessed” but there were no names, no transcripts, nothing.

His eyes continued to scan the documents, his own and those provided to him and found other minor discrepancies. If they had been as thorough as to DNA test the blood on Naruto’s clothes, why hadn’t they been as thorough in investigating the area?

There was a detailed autopsy report, but the pictures were in a sealed manila envelope that Sasuke had yet to work up the courage to open. He didn’t want his memories of Naruto’s body to be tainted by blood and incisions and chest cavity examinations. He assumed that the pictures of the bullet would be in there as well since it had been retrieved from the body but again he didn’t want to sort through the other images to find it.

At the late hour that is was, his only other option was to watch the DVD that Kakashi had brought.

The first several files were press clips showing the shooting. It both hurt and infuriated Sasuke to watch the scene play out over and over again in front of him. If only he had been there. If only he could find the ones responsible.

The next few files were from security cameras near the courthouse. Each file played for a few minutes but he was unable to tell where the shooter had been hidden. He watched for a few more minutes before ending the uninformative playback.

After staring blankly at the monitor for a few minutes, he opened up his internet browser and typed in “Google earth” to bring up the satellite maps. He zoomed in on the courthouse area and quickly printed up the surrounding buildings. Once done, he taped the different pages together and then started marking the camera angles on his makeshift map.

The blind spot was small, only covering a few feet at the edge of the building rooftop, but enough for a shooter to sit there quietly with a rifle and wait.

The building itself didn’t have a camera that showed the roof, most of the exterior cameras showed the entrances with only a few interior ones showing the elevators and foyer. Sasuke pulled up a file from one of the exterior cameras and watched closely. The man had to have exited the building somehow.

There was no sound but he could see everyone react to the gunshot. The police officers in the area immediately drew weapons and went for cover, scanning the face of the building. A group of FBI agents also pulled their weapons but charged the building. Two men were left at the doors while the others ran inside.

Sasuke watched as the two at the doors quickly funneled people trying to exit over to the cops who then took their names and checked their ID’s. According to the time stamp down in the corner, it was ten minutes later that the feds reappeared and left the building. The two men at the doors stayed to process the people in the building with the cooperation of the cops but the others quickly moved to some SUVs parked to the side.

Something about the whole scene bothered Sasuke.

It would have taken more than ten minutes to secure the building and do a room by room search for the killer. The building itself was about ten floors and there was no way they could have searched each floor in a minute.

Frowning in confusion, Sasuke sat back in his chair and let his eyes roam as he tried to work through the clamoring facts swirling in his brain. What he really wanted was a drink, but he resolutely denied himself. He needed a clear head, not a comforting numbness at the moment.

His eyes landed on the sealed manila envelope containing the autopsy pictures. Hesitantly he reached out and picked up the large, brown packet. Shaking fingers pried up the metal tabs and lifted the flap. Upending the package caused glossy, full-color photographs to spill into his hand.

His eyes immediately shied away from the vast expanse of red before him, not really wanting to see Naruto butchered like so much meat on a block. He set the pictures down on the table in front of him, still refusing to look, and got up to go to the kitchen. He poured himself a drink and took a large swallow, letting it burn down his throat and settle into his stomach before forcing himself back towards his work table.

Standing there he downed the rest of the glass before setting it to the side of the files and easing himself back into his chair. He slowly pulled the photos toward him once more and then let his eyes fall.

Bright blond made the rest of the picture seem too dull, too grey. The skin beneath was ashen in comparison. The sutured “v” of the coroner’s cuts stood out in stark relief, causing Sasuke’s eyes to burn hotly.

He quickly flipped the photo to the bottom of the stack. The following pictures were better. Yes, they showed the open chest cavity, but there were no headshots and Sasuke could pretend it was someone else’s innards being exposed to the world. At least until he got to the one where the wider camera angle caught the swirling tattoo covering the bluish pale abdomen.

Sasuke dropped the small stack of pictures, watching as they slid and scattered over the papers covering his table like something almost alive; something alive and sinister and intent on showing each and every detail of Naruto’s death in full color gore.

Sasuke spent the rest of the night on the other side of the room, finishing off the bottle in front of him. The alcohol in his system effectively obscuring the fact that a photo of the bullet had not been amongst the pictures.


Sasuke blearily blinked his bloodshot eyes open, immediately taking note of the aching pain in his shoulders and neck. He lifted his head to find himself on a stool at the bar of the kitchen where he had apparently fallen asleep after having gotten drunk. Unfortunately it hadn’t been enough to forget the eight by ten glossies of blood, bone and raw meat.

He quickly searched out where the two black eyes were staring at him blankly from across the room, reassuring himself that the shabby little fox was safe and where it belonged. It was probably rather pathetic of him, but it had become a morning ritual that he was unwilling to break. It was a physical reminder of his goals and why he was pursuing them.

His lids slid shut against the light pouring in from the curtained windows and he rubbed a hand over his face, trying to stimulate himself into at least a facsimile of awareness. The only thing it really accomplished was letting him know he needed to shave.

He put both hands on the bar, intent on pushing himself up when his gaze caught on the postcard that Kakashi had once again mentioned. However, unlike the others he had thrown away, this one had writing on it.

Can't believe this place out here, it's awesome.
I'd call but I can't find the opportunity, the casino
Keeps me busy all night long.
You'd love it out here!

Drop a letter and maybe we can talk!

Sasuke frowned down at the postcard. The hand-written message could still have been a part of a direct mail advertising campaign similar to the type that always sent personalized email messages. But still. It really didn’t make any sense and wasn’t in a style that was typically used for that type of marketing.

He didn’t know anyone in Vegas, did he? He found himself wracking his brain but coming up with a blank. Shaking his head, he shoved the mail aside and dragged himself into the shower to wake up and prepare for the day.

His day progressed like it usually did. He followed leads, investigated crimes and criminals and sent in his evidence to be analyzed. He had to admit one of the perks of being in the new precinct came in the form of the forensic specialist Shikamaru Nara. The man was a genius at what he did, if you could get him to do it.

At the moment, Sasuke was trying to track the elusive man down since he wasn’t answering his cell phone. After a thorough search of the forensic shop he was directed down to the coroner’s office where Nara was supposedly consulting with Chouji Akimichi.

Sasuke found the two of them sitting near a stretched out stiff having a relaxed lunch.

Shikamaru looked up and sighed at the sight of Sasuke frowning at him. “I swear I’m going to quit one of these days,” he mumbled. “Or at least transfer to a small town where they don’t get excited constantly.”

“Nara,” Sasuke said in exasperation, “I need that report so I know who to arrest, dammit.”

“The Anderson woman is guilty,” Shikamaru said in a tone that indicated that he was doing Sasuke a favor by expending the energy to explain it to him. “She was the one writing the blackmail letters to her husband and had him deliver the money to the drop off where her boyfriend was to pick it up. The husband stuck around however and confronted the boyfriend who then killed the husband.”

“The envelope?” Sasuke prompted.

“She licked it. Has her DNA all over it,” Shikamaru informed him before taking another bite of his pastrami sandwich.

Sasuke was silent a moment as he arranged the facts within his head. His eyes strayed over to the dead body where he saw a pink straw stick up at an angle out of the corpse’s chest.

“Nice, huh?” the coroner said, spotting where his gaze had landed. “The poor chump was down on his knees when he was offed hence the angle of entry.”

Sasuke’s brows furrowed slightly as he pictured the autopsy photos sitting on his table at home. There had been one that showed the exact same technique being used to show the bullet’s damage channel.

Only the straw had been sticking straight up, perpendicular to the body.

“I have an autopsy report from a case I am working on. Do you mind taking a look at it for me?” he asked distractedly.

Akimichi smiled in a anticipatory manner. “Depends on what I get out of it.”

“I’ll bring take out from the barbeque place down the street,” Sasuke offered. Chouji’s love of all things grilled in thick sweet sauce was common knowledge in the department.

“Ohh! Deal,” he said with a big grin, his eyes already turned inward to imagine succulent baby backed ribs, shredded pork and slow roasted beef dripping honey barbeque sauce.

Sasuke nodded absently before quickly exiting through the doors.

The two men looked at each other, shrugged and went back to their lunch.

Sasuke’s boss, happy to finally make an arrest, didn’t comment when Sasuke left early for the day. The detective quickly went home and gathered up his materials. There was an excited churning in his gut, an anxiousness that told him he was close to something even if he wasn’t sure exactly what.

He paused when he started to pass the bar and stared at his mail indecisively. Giving into to the nameless impulse, he set his files down and grabbed the postcard as well as the phone. After finding the address and phone number of the casino featured on the front of the postcard, Sasuke dialed them up to have his address removed from their mailing list. He was transferred several times until a woman came on the line who could help him.

“Could you spell your last name?” she asked after he had made his request.

Scowling slightly, he did so.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “Sir, have you ever visited us before?”

“No, I’ve never been to Vegas.”

“Sir, we don’t have you on our mailing list. We only carry people who have visited us and have received a player’s card to keep track of their points for their benefits. Are you sure that the advertisements were from us?”

“It was a postcard with a picture of your casino with the words “Wish you were here” written on the front,” he explained. “I’ve received three of these things over the last few months.”

“Oh! On the back there should be a few numbers in the lower right hand corner. Could you read those off to me?”

He flipped the card over and did so a bit impatiently.

“That item number comes from our gift shop. It was obviously sent to you from a previous customer of ours! I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more!” she said in a cheerful voice. “Thanks for calling and we hope to see you sometime in the future. Perhaps your friend can convince you to come visit us!”

Sasuke muttered something absently in response before hanging up the phone.

Someone had deliberately sent the card to him. Frowning down at the small piece of heavy paper, he slipped it into this file folder before once more gathering his materials. It seemed that Nara would have something else to do for him.

TBC