Chapter 427: The Hoodlum Eager for Credit

Chapter 427: Chapter 427: The Hoodlum Eager for Credit

As they left the interrogation room, the young officer taking notes sighed. "I didn’t expect this one to go so smoothly. I thought it was going to drag on for a while, like before."

Sean Hughes shook her head, explaining in high spirits, "Not exactly. That Gary Dawson, he’s got a bit of an old-school gangster mentality. Once he’s made up his mind about something, he doesn’t change it easily.

If his wife hadn’t decided to abandon him—and been the first to suspect him—it would’ve completely broken his spirit. Getting anything out of him wouldn’t have been nearly so easy."

To put it bluntly, she had won by exploiting an information gap.

She made each of them believe the other had been the first to betray them and talk.

Only by shattering the trust between them could she pick them off one by one. That made things much easier.

But there was no need to explain all that.

"Alright, you’ve been working nonstop with me for a while now. Go get some rest," Sean Hughes said, patting both of their shoulders. "We’ve got a tough fight ahead of us once we catch the others!"

’As for me?’

She’d gotten so much information out of Gary Dawson, including a lead on the "Big Sister." She had to organize it as quickly as possible and hand it over to Evan Keller and the others.

She also had to strategize on how to make the arrests.

Boss Yorke was currently abroad, so catching him wouldn’t be easy.

And all the new leads needed to be sorted out quickly. After all, time waits for no one!

Sean Hughes rubbed the bridge of her nose, then patted her cheeks a couple of times to wake herself up before heading to the office.

As soon as she walked in, she saw Heath Hale and Hayden Shaw, each with their own team, standing inside.

Heath Hale was looking over a file. Beside him, one of the officers who had been with Sean on the Gary Dawson case from the start was briefing him and Hayden Shaw on some of the details.

"You’re here!" Sean Hughes said, walking up to them excitedly.

’Good, they’re here! Now someone can share the workload!’

"Good work. Hayden Shaw and I will take over some of your caseload. Go get some rest," Heath Hale said with a nod to Sean Hughes.

Sean Hughes didn’t object. She handed them the confession she’d just obtained, her finger tapping emphatically on the two words: "Big Sister."

Heath Hale immediately noticed her gesture. He looked down, and his pupils contracted sharply.

"You suspect...?" Heath Hale looked up at Sean Hughes. He didn’t say it outright, but everyone present understood what he meant.

Sean Hughes nodded with conviction. "Exactly. It’s who you think it is."

The captain, who had been standing silently to the side, watched them speaking in riddles. He took a few steps back, and only when he was sure he was out of earshot did he nod in satisfaction.

’Judging by how secretive they’re being, this must be about a major case.’

’To avoid having to write more reports and sign more NDAs later, I’d better keep my distance!’

Heath Hale quickly scanned the part of the confession about "Big Sister," his expression growing grave. "This is serious. I’ll report this part to the Chief. We need to wrap up the rest of this quickly, too. Once Evan Keller makes his arrest, we’ll interrogate them all together. We might be able to get something more."

Lately, the Chief had been working with other precincts to thoroughly investigate major cases in their jurisdiction, and they’d found that "Big Sister" was connected to a significant number of them.

Either her subordinates were starting trouble with a complete disregard for human life, or they were killing people for sport to satisfy their own sick pleasures.

Even though they had taken down many of Big Sister’s domestic operations over the past year, if they didn’t cut off the head of the snake, an endless stream of trouble would just keep coming.

Now that he had a new lead on this "Big Sister," Heath Hale had no intention of letting it go.

"Right! Gary Dawson’s confession has pretty much laid out the entire case for us.

We’re just missing a few key details, which we’ll have to get from his wife," Sean Hughes said, pointing to the documents in Heath Hale’s hand.

Gary Dawson might not have been in the inner circle, but he knew plenty. Combined with what the police had already uncovered, they now had a solid grasp of the situation.

"I get it. With this confession, I can get the rest of what we need out of her quickly." After flipping through all the documents, Heath Hale had a clear plan in mind.

Zoe Sawyer and Sean Hughes had already cracked the hardest part. The rest would be much easier.

"Time is tight. I’ll take a proper break after we’ve wrapped up the case.

Coach Hale, I’ll leave the rest of the interrogation to you. This is a perfect chance for me to take a team and bust those small-time gambling dens Gary Dawson ratted out," Sean Hughes said, cracking her knuckles in excitement.

Making arrests would be the perfect outlet for the pent-up anger she’d accumulated during Gary Dawson’s interrogation.

Heath Hale knew exactly what Sean Hughes was thinking, but he didn’t object. Once he confirmed she was physically up to it, he approved her request.

Working with officers from the local precinct and using information from informants among those already arrested, they busted most of the small gambling dens in the area within a few hours.

They also rescued numerous victims who had been put up as collateral after their husbands or fathers took out loans from loan sharks.

"I don’t remember Gary Dawson giving us this many addresses. Is it possible he held something back?

What if there were ambushes waiting at those locations?" Sean Hughes frowned, her expression grim as she looked at the files and the new notes she’d just made.

If that was the case, then how many of the addresses he gave for the buyers of the young women were real? Were there other ambushes waiting for them?

If backup hadn’t arrived in time, and if these punks hadn’t been so disorganized, the dozens of extra locations might have caught them completely by surprise.

One of the punks squatting on the ground with his hands over his head looked up excitedly when he heard Sean Hughes. "Officer! I know something! I know!"

’I’m just a low-level punk, just a lookout. My crime isn’t that serious.’

’If I give them something useful, maybe I can get a lighter sentence!’

’When I get out of prison, I’ll just skip town. As long as these guys don’t know where I am, they can’t get revenge on me!’

Hearing the voice, Sean Hughes and the nearby captain both looked over at the punk squatting a short distance away.

"You know something?" Sean Hughes walked up to the punk, her expression and tone skeptical.

The punk raised his hands and slowly got to his feet.

"Before, when Gary came by to collect a debt, I was outside and overheard him on the phone with some guy.

He was talking about sending some disobedient woman to a remote mountain area, to let the people there ’teach her a lesson’!"