The Investigators, Inc. Best Friend Murder Case. Chapter 9. Theories.

Marchetti was fuming after the Black Wolves retaliated for his shooting of Rock and John, but the fault was his own. He had no reason to attack the Wolves like that and the whole purpose was to kill Aari, the leader of the Black Wolves. Fortunately Carine was there and holding Aari’s hand to keep him safe the whole time that he and Marchetti, along with his two bodyguards, were having what was supposed to be a neutral talk. That is something that rival organizations will do on occasion, and they will respect the neutrality. So, I had told Aari to attack Marchetti fast and hard so he would understand that he made a foolish mistake which would not be tolerated.

Meanwhile, back with us at the chateau. “Steve, I need Kat right away,” said Samantha, “or we will lose John.” I immediately called Sky and told her to bring Kat back right away, and why we needed her. She had Kat back within less than a minute. Apparently John had been shot twice close to his heart and Samantha was able to remove the one bullet, but the other was so close to his heart she didn’t feel that it would be possible to remove it safely and John would likely die.

So, Kat kept John alive while Samantha removed the bullet. I have known John since my very first case, although at that time he was not a friend, but rather an enemy. It was through him that I received the “Nowhere” drug that plagued me for so long. But, at one point when I had been charged with murder he came forward with information that proved my innocence, even though he was wanted by the police at the time. However, Baldwin’s lawyers helped him and kept him out of prison. He then had a real change of heart and joined the Investigators, becoming one of my best friends.

Samantha said Rock was hit with more bullets, but none were as serious as with John, but it will be a long recovery for both of them. That’s going to be hard on Rock, he doesn’t like lying around doing nothing, he’s even worse than me as far as that is concerned. I’m hoping that Marchetti learned a lesson and that he will keep away from us now, but somehow I doubt it. However, he doesn’t know that the Black Wolves and us are together, but he still might be angry enough now to take it out on our teams. So everyone will need to be very careful right now.

The police don’t want us getting involved with Marchetti himself and they would like us not to put too much pressure on his organization either. We are here to find out who killed Vincent, Carmen’s husband, but instead it turns out we are looking for the killer of both Vincent and Carmen, since Carmen turned out to be Courtney who is Carmen’s twin sister who was doing her own investigative work to find out what happened to her sister who disappeared a year ago. It’s obvious who ordered the killings, though it is highly unlikely that Mr. Marchetti actually did the job himself, one of his men did that.

But which one is the question, and the answer is most likely Dimitri who is known as the Lizard. Or, it might have been Vincent himself that murdered his wife and buried her in the basement of their home. I’m actually leaning toward the latter explanation. From what Courtney has told me about her sister, I think she was getting increasingly uneasy about what was going on in their home and told this to Vincent, possibly telling him a lot that she wanted it stopped.

She may have even threatened to go to the police and tell them about Mr. Marchetti. That would be enough for Vincent to get nervous and say something to one of Marchetti’s men. Then Marchetti tells Vincent to get rid of his wife, or both Vincent and Carmen would die. That could have made Vincent decide it was better to kill his wife, than for him to die as well. Then, for whatever reason, Marchetti decided it was time to kill Vincent too.

Perhaps Vincent was getting nervous and nervous people can be a problem for a criminal organization because it means that perhaps they have decided to work undercover for the police, or for a rival organization. That’s when Dimitri shows up and kills Vincent. It all makes sense, but, how do we prove such a thing? We did get a DNA sample from Courtney and it matches the remains we found in the floor of the basement. So, we know that is Carmen buried there and we are presently getting permission to remove Carmen’s remains and bury them in our cemetery.

Courtney liked that thought. She has also asked if she can stay with us and join the Investigators. She likes what we do, especially that we help people who can’t afford to pay for the service of a private investigator. Courtney did take some course in police investigating back in the US where her family is from originally, but she failed the final exam. However, she would like to try going through our course and training, so I told her we would do that. I also told her we don’t make things easy for anyone, everyone gets the same training and must pass the same tests. She understood that and still wanted to try.

I decided to call Rossana again and tell her my theory, which she agreed with, and that surprised me a bit. I also wanted to know what we could, or could not, do now. One problem is the police have infiltrated this organization and have two men working in high positions now. One of them our team has met already and his name is Giorgio, so we have to be careful not to kill him or the other man whose name is Anthony.

Rossana sent me a picture of him but I would have to distribute this one carefully so it is not found on any team member that might get captured. But for now, it looks like all we can do is go after the Lizard, which is Dimitri, unless Marchetti sends his men after us, then we can defend ourselves. Courtney was fine with that too since all she wanted was to find her sister and if she had been murdered, then try to find the murderer. She agreed with me that it was likely Vincent who killed Carmen and he is now dead.

Meanwhile, back to Italy. Since Kat was here I gave permission for Jennifer to take Kat’s place as leader of the Wildcats. No one would know the difference anyway. While they were in the restaurant having breakfast, in came Dimitri and six men with him…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.