⋆° დ ༄ RISKY BUSINESS
chapter fifty six. forty caliber bread crumb.

Maxine was at a diner with her sister when she gets a call from Al saying there was a shootout and Jay was involved.

Max arrives at the crime scene where she sees Al backing an angry Jay up against a cement column trying to calm him down. "I don't wanna see your face again, do you understand?" Jay shouts.

"Easy" Al says.

"Al, he was ducking, man" Jay breathes out.

"I don't care about him. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm not hit. I'm alright. I'm fine"

The brunette runs over to them and pulls her partner into a hug and says, "Jay, Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just glad you're here" Jay says, as he buries his face into the girl's neck, and wraps his arms around her waist. Not caring about anything at all right now.

"Looks like they left behind a .40 caliber breadcrumb" Roman says, walking over to the group. Jay lifts his head up from Maxine's shoulder and says, "I shot one of them. He must've dropped it."

🪩🪩🪩

After getting back to the district, Maxine and Jay both walk into Voights office and Max closes the door behind them.

"You're not taking me off this" Jay states, with his hands on his hips.

"I'm gonna do whatever I feel is right for this unit, Jay" Hank says, leaning on his desk. Jay looks surprised and points to his coat jacket and says, "this is terry's blood. I saw the guy who shot him. You need me"

Hank looks over at Max who is looking at the ground then back at Jay and says, "Okay. But anytime I or Max tell you to sit on the sidelines, you're gonna sit, you understand?"

Jay nods then looks at Maxine, so they can leave.

~~~

Hank and Maxine sit in interrogation with Brianna Logan who says, "my family warned me about getting into this business"

"You're a lawyer?" Voight asks. Logan nods and says, "I am"

"What did you practice before getting into the marijuana trade?"

"Corporate law."

Max raises an eyebrow, "Bit of an unconventional jump, wouldn't you say?"

"I was under the impression you were investigating a robbery, not me." Brianna says.

"We have to check every box."

Brianna scoffs and says, "the federal government classifies marijuana as a controlled substance. So, I don't have access to our country's banking system. That's why every week, I deposit a quarter mil cash into a safety deposit box at chase. So, I really don't think I'm gonna steal from myself."

"Who else knows the bank route?" Hank questions.

"Just my security team. And since one of your own, Jay Halstead, is in charge of that, I think we can rule out that angle."

"We're gonna have to run background checks on all your employees." Max says.

"I already do that"

"We understand, but we haven't. What about any disgruntled employees"

"I pay three times the minimum wage to all of my workers"

"You can imagine a lot of gangs aren't happy" Hank says. Al walks into the viewing room where Jay is and says, "got a call from med. Terry didn't make it. Massive hemorrhaging. Listen, man, I want you to take some of those vacation days we never use. Get your head right"

Jay looks at the ground, a thousand thoughts roaming his mind and he walks away.

~~~

After Voight leaves interrogation, Maxine asks Logan a couple more questions, while waiting for a uniformed officer to escort her out.

Jay walks down the hall, as Brianna is about to leave who says, "hey. I just heard about Terry. I can't help but feel responsible for what happened to him"

"You're not. I am"

From afar, Hank watches as Brianna grabs ahold of Jay's hand and says, "please tell Terry's wife that I'll take care of all funeral costs."

"He was a marine, so he'll get a military send off."

"Okay" Brianna whispers. Max walks over to the two from interrogation and notices how Brianna is holding onto Jays hand and he pulls it away as the brunette says, "Jay, we got something off the gun"

"You should stay low until we find these guys" Jay tells Brianna, "Just in case" then he walks away.

"If there's anything I can do..." Brianna says.

"I'm sure we'll have more questions."

"Thanks" Brianna says before walking away.

"I got the lab to do a rush order, and they managed to pull a partial print off the clip inside the .40 sig that was left at the scene." Mouse says, as he tapes a picture onto the whiteboard, "now, it came up matching to a one Joesph 'joey' Ortiz"

"Ortiz?" Kevin says, "yeah, he's a known member of the Insane King Lick crew. They don't sell drugs. Their MO is to follow cartel mules with large amounts of money after big drug deals, then they rob them"

"Hmm" Hank hums.

"Sound familiar, Jay?" Adam asks. Jay nods his head and says, "yeah"

"Alright. Put out an investigative alert on Ortiz. Have patrol saturate all known areas him and his crew frequents" Hank says, then turns to jay and quietly asks, "look, I gotta ask. You sleeping with this woman?"

"Brianna?"

"Hmm"

"No. And even if I was, what would that have to do with anything?"

"Alright. One more time. You sleeping with her?"

"No"

~~~

After finding Ortiz, Jay and Antonio start questioning him but he's not giving anything up. Saying he doesn't know anything.

Maxine walks into interrogation and says, "Jay, you're gonna wanna see this"

As the three detectives walk back onto the bullpen surrounding Mouses desk, Erin says, "turns out Ortiz's cousin, Sasso, was a runner for the cartels, and was going to give Ortiz up for robbing their cash drops. So it looks like Ortiz was just giving him a gentle reminder to keep his mouth shut."

"Okay, so I pulled this from a Zac's beef parking lot up on Clark and Ridge" Mouse said, bringing up video surveillance footage onto his computer, "now if you look at the time code on the actual footage, it's just six minutes before Jay got lit up."

"I don't know, bro. I don't see Ortiz and his boys making it from Ridge down to Van buren in that kind of time" Kevin says.

"Ortiz still could've set it up" Jay says.

"No. That .40 sig was left there on purpose to mislead us." Hank states.

"Oh, well, the DNA from the blood splatter at the robbery scene came back inconclusive" Adam says, walking onto the unit with a file in hand and drops it on the desk, "doesn't match any offenders in the system. And the '96 Chevy that was lit on fire, pushed over the overpass. Stolen from a junkyard a week ago."

"We didn't get anything from the shell casings?" Jay asks.

"No. All clean. No prints. Every last one" Mouse says.

"Alright, kick Ortiz." Hank says.

"No, I'm not done talking to him." Jay says.

"Well, he's not our guy. His cousin isn't gonna press charges. So kick him"

"Jay, talk me through this route again." Al says.

"There's nothing to talk through. We change it up every week." Jay says.

"Alright, what was last week's route?"

"Al, man. We've been over this."

"Did you or your guys discuss the route with anyone else?" Hank questions.

"For the 10th time, no"

"Well, they found out somehow, so someone must be talking" al says.

"Or listening" Hank suggests, "Al, go down to your basement, dig up your old equipment. I want you to sweep that dispensary."

"Sweep for bugs? We should be taking a harder run at Ortiz" Jay says sternly.

"Jay, take a step back or go home. It's your call" Hank says and Jay walks away.

~~~

Maxine is sitting at her desk, watching her partner who is being really quiet as Adam walks onto the bullpen with a file in hand and walks over to the whiteboard and says, "we got serial numbers off the bugs we found in brianna's office. Called all the spy shops in Chicago. Guess who paid for them?"

"Briannas soon to be ex husband Jason Logan" Al says, taping his picture onto the board.

"I got his work address. JMC fittings on West Augusta."

"Go pick him up" Hank says, as Jay grabs his coat and leaves then Voight looks at his daughter, "hey, make sure he doesn't break anything"

Maxine nods her head and says, "yeah"

🪩🪩🪩

Jay and Maxine walk over to Jason who is welding something and the male brunette taps on his shoulder and when he turns around, Jay shows him his shield.

"Can I help you?"

"We need to talk" Max says.

Jason Logan leads the two detectives to the break room and he sits down and says, "I have nothing to do with Briannas dispensary being robbed"

Jay slams his hand on the table and says, "the dispensary wasn't robbed. The cash drop I was in charge of was. And a man died."

"You think I'd pull an armed robbery for over a quarter mil and show back up here for shift?"

"We know you're suing her for alimony in your divorce settlement" Maxine says.

"I admit there is no love lost between me and Brianna. I mean, the whole idea for the dispensary was mine." Logan explains.

"Oh, okay. So, you think you got squeezed out of a business deal that would have put you in a high tax bracket?"

Jay takes out a piece of paper from his coat pocket and sets it in front of Jason and says, "maybe that's why you bought the bugs that we found in Briannas office. That's illegal wiretapping. More importantly, that means you heard our cash drop routes to the bank. So, along with your partners in crime, you're looking at a homicide."

"Whoa, I didn't bug her office. I hired a PI to help me with the alimony case. He's the one watching Brianna, to get her to pay up for sexual abandonment."

Jay and Max look at each other and the female brunette asks, "for sexual what?"

"Abandonment. I wanted her bugged cause I knew she was cheating on me"

"So this PI, he's monitoring the calls?" Jay asks.

"Listen, I maxed out my credit cards cause he promised me I'd get a better settlement if I found dirt on her."

"We're gonna need the name of this PI"

"And until that checks out, we're detaining you down at the station. Get up" Maxine says, "you got cuffs?"

"Yeah" Jay says, handing the cuffs to his partner who starts to put them on Logan.

"Thanks Jay"

"Your first name is Jay? Jay Halstead?" Jason asks.

"Yeah, why?" Jay asks, stuffing his hands in his front pockets.

"Heard to many times on the tapes about how Brianna wants to screw you"

Maxine raises an eyebrow at her partner as they walk Jason out.

🪩🪩🪩

Back on the unit, the team surrounds the whiteboard as Jay tapes up a picture of the PI and says, "This is Frank Amerson. He's 51. He used to work as a bail bondsman. Now he's a PI making his bones spying on cheating spouses."

"You know, I read that something like 73% of men mess around on their wives" Adam says.

"Where'd you read that?" Al asks.

"Playboy" Adam says and the team laughs.

"They took out the centerfold, right?" Kevin says, "what's the point?"

Adam fist bumps Kevin and says, "look my point is, Amerson lives in Oak Park. Makes a good living destroying marriages. I mean, why get into armed robbery?"

"I've seen a 65 year old woman killed over a 2 dollar lotto scratcher. We're talking six figures here." Erin says.

"Yeah we need to grab him up" Jay says.

"And I think we should take a breath. Do our own counter surveillance. See if we can make a concrete connection to this robbery" Hank says.

"Look, I can be up on his phone in, like, two minutes." Mouse says.

"Alright, won't take long. Antonio, you and Ruzek get eyes on this Sam Spade" Hank orders.

~~~

After finding Frank Amerson, he gives up a name. Colin Briggs. So they set up a meet between the two to capture Briggs which they did and they bring him down to the cage where he's handcuffed to the railing and Jay about ready to beat the living hell outta him.

Once Antonio told Jay and Hank that they found the rest of the crew they head back to the bullpen as Kevin says, "so, this car that Colin Briggs was driving belongs to 61 year old Jacob Seeley. He lives in Will county. He has a house right outside of Joliet."

"And I did a search figuring the car was stolen, but it wasn't reported. And guess who Jacob Seeley is the father of?" Mouse says.

"Brendan Seeley. He did a stretch in Pontiac for a string of armed robberies where he used a hammer. Guess who his cellmate was? Colin Briggs." Erin says.

"These are the Seeley brothers." Adam says, pointing to three pictures on the board, "alongside Brendan is Larson and Carl. All three have priors for weapons violations in Joliet."

"That's him" Jay says, "Brendan. that's the guy who killed Terry"

"Looks like we got our crew" Dawson says.

"Want me to call Will county sheriff?" Maxine asks.

"Tell 'em we're on our way" Hank says.

🪩🪩🪩

Hank, Al, Jay and Maxine quietly and slowly walk inside the house of the Seeley brothers.

Once they have Larson Seeley in custody, Jay and Al start to walk up the stairs to find the other one, when they hear glass breaking and find Brendan Seeley jumping out the window to get away. Jay starts running and Max looks at Hank who nods, and she follows after her partner.

"Police! Stop!" Jay yells.

Jay follows Brendan into a warehouse with his gun and flashlight drawn. A minute later, Maxine runs in to see Jay stabbing Brendan in the leg with a metal rod, then takes his gun and points it at him, putting his foot on his throat.

"Jay" Max breathes out, as she lowers her gun, "Don't do it. It's not worth it"

Jay lowers his gun and takes his foot off of Brendans throat and walks away.

🪩🪩🪩

"Jay" Brianna Logan says, walking into her office. Jay looks up and says, "we recovered your money. Minus about 10 Grand that Briggs and his crew burned through"

" I don't care about the money. I'm just glad you're okay. Is the guy that shot Terry? Did you get them?"

Jay nods his head and says, "where he's going, he's never going to see the the sun again"

"Terry's wife, um, whatever she needs. Any medical expenses around the baby...I'll take care of it"

"That's great. She'll really appreciate it" Jay says, standing up.

"Um, hey, so that dinner at Maestros, it still stands, the offer. Could use somebody to talk to"

"I can't. I'm sorry"

"It's okay. I get it."

Jay then hands Brianna back her safety deposit key and says, "you're gonna need this. I'm going to get you the names of a couple really solid cops. Guys that need the extra money"

"Okay"

"Thank you" Jay says before walking away.

🪩🪩🪩

"Thank you for coming with me" Jay says, as he and Maxine leave Terrys funeral. Maxine gives her partner a tight lip smile and says, "of course. You know I always have your back. No matter what"

Jay brings his partner into a hug, "thank you. For always being there for me, Max. Even when you don't have to be"

🪩🪩🪩

Jay walks into Voights office and says, "Uhm, I just wanted to come in and say thank you for keeping me on the case"

"Well, right now, you're gonna take a weeks medical leave." Hank says.

"I appreciate it, but I'm fine. Really"

"It's not open for discussion. I had a little help with that decision"

"What?" Jay asks and Hank points to Maxine, who was walking onto the unit. "It was Max"

"Thanks"

"I've been meaning to tell you, I'm lucky to have you in my unit." Hank says and Jay nods and walks away.

Maxine watches Jay walk into the locker room. She follows in after him and sees him slide down the wall onto the floor, crying.

Max brings him into her embrace, "it's gonna be okay, jay. I'm here for you...always. And I am so proud of you for getting through this"

authors note;

you gotta admit, jay and max are the best sort we duo 😭