Chapter Text
Arriving at the depot, the seasoned detective Lee stepped through the doors as the burst of air hit his face.
Going up to the counter, Lee met with a woman wearing a necklace with a large centerpiece.
Flashing a smile, Lee began talking to the woman, Linda, goes by Madonna at night, as he explains the reason for his visit.
It came to the NYPD’s attention that Linda’s Honda was listed as stolen.
Linda’s face dropped as she immediately explained that it had been stolen, but she found it a block from where it went missing.
“Ma’am, you know you still have to call us, right?” Lee points out how even if Linda successfully found her vehicle, she would need to make it known to the police, else they would regard it still as stolen.
Seeing her mentally cursing herself, Lee hears Linda thoughtfully explaining why she didn’t tell the police about the recovery, “I… forgot, I was working at my second job… and I didn’t get off until 3.”
Profusely apologizing for causing Lee to come out this way, Linda freezes when Lee told her how she would need to come down to the police department where she filed the report and file another one where it tells the department that she had since recovered the car.
“Can it wait?” Linda asks him.
With a straight face, Lee states with a dry, “No. It can’t.”
Like Colombo, Lee got Linda to mutter about how she regretted “lending the car” to Orville.
Once she went in the back to tell her manager how she needed to go on break early, Lee relays this to Finch.
“Much obliged, detective,” Finch thanks him.
Lee shrugs, “It’s this or jury duty.”
With the information provided, Finch was able to find footage of Caesar in Linda’s Honda approaching a housing complex one street over from where he took it.
Once he parked the Honda, Caesar went through the doors of the housing complex, and hadn’t come down for over an hour.
Upon emerging from the housing complex, Caesar looked bloody, and he didn’t get back inside the Honda, instead walking off in a direction of the nearest subway station.
There weren’t cameras inside the housing complex, so Finch didn’t have footage of what happened to Caesar.
Going through the tenants, Finch found difficulty since it was evident the tenants didn’t have proper IDs.
His attention was briefly turned towards Edith coming through the door of the HQ with drinks and a bag of food she obtained from the to-go window downstairs.
“Perks of living above a bar,” she smiles as she walks through the HQ towards the table.
Getting up from his chair, Finch goes over to the table as Edith sat down containers of their orders and their respected drinks.
“You weren’t missing much. But I hit a snag,” Finch frowns.
Handing him his drink, Edith asks about the snag.
“Well, it would seem Caesar got into a fight, but I don’t know with who,” Finch informs her what little he found when going through the footage and records.
With the tenants having fake IDs and there being no footage inside the housing complex, Finch didn’t have anything.
“If he visits prostitutes, what other vices does he have?” Edith tries giving an idea on what reason Caesar went into the building.
Slowly nodding, Finch went over to the desk and quickly typed something on the keyboard.
Expectedly, there were complaints lodged against the housing complex involving allegations of drug peddling and prostitution.
“So, he meets with Linda, takes her car over to the housing complex, and gets into it with a drug dealer?” Edith tries explaining the timeline as Finch returns to the table.
As he settles into his spot, Finch responds with a sigh, “It does seem like it.”
With his order in hand, Finch thanks Edith as they sat around eating their lunch.
While eating, Finch uses a tablet to check Caesar’s finances and saw him withdrawing at least a thousand dollars the night he visited Linda.
But Finch doesn’t think it was for her.
Well, not all of it, at least.
He checked hers and found she deposited three hundred bucks the following morning after her encounter with Caesar.
“Seven hundred bucks buys you some potent narcotics,” Edith thoughtfully says.
Checking the footage of Caeser leaving the housing complex, again, it didn’t look like he had anything on his person that Finch saw.
“I doubt he used that much in a short period of time, too,” Finch didn’t believe Caesar used seven hundred dollars' worth of drugs in one sitting.
Even if he did, he wouldn’t have been leaving the housing complex for hours.
If he did buy the drugs, it would be evident the way he walked with eyes moving miles a minute for any sign of officers or anyone.
Yet, he looked bruised and bloody leaving the housing complex.
“Maybe he gambled it away and got beaten for poor sportsmanship?” Edith suggested another theory on what happened to the remaining amount.
If not drugs or another woman’s company, then there’s a possibility of a gambler’s den somewhere in the housing complex that caught Caesar in a whirlwind that resulted in what they see.
“Hm, his finances don’t reflect a habitual gambler,” Finch notes.
No sporadically high withdrawals, anything suggesting Caesar has a gambling addiction.
“Consider my interest piqued, then,” Edith furrows her brow as she shoves a fry into her mouth.
They continue to eat until Finch receives a phone call from Lee.
“Hey, we got a problem,” Lee informs Finch.
Wiping his mouth on a napkin with a free hand, Finch inquires, “What seems to be the problem, detective?”
He lowers his free hand as Lee told him, “They found Caesar hanging.”
Aghast, Finch asks, “When did this happen?”
He heard back, “Don’t know until they get him sent. It must have just happened after I talked to Linda.”
Thanking Lee for telling him, upon hanging up his phone, Finch relays what Lee said.
Shocked, Edith wonders, “How the hell did that happen?”
Standing up, Finch replies, “That I don’t know, but it is concerning.”
Going over to the computers, Finch checks to see that news spread fast with reports of Caesar dying already posted on the internet.
TO BE CONTINUED… The Fall of Caesar