“Autumn went apeshit. Threw out anything worth tasting in the fridge, banned salt and fucking butter from the house, and replaced it with food I wouldn’t even feed a goddamn rabbit.”
I chuckle remembering the disgruntled expression on his face. Something I made sure not to do at the time. Keith has to be getting close to fifty, and I’m sure the harsh reminder he’s not as young or healthy as he used to be comes as a blow. It does for most guys, myself included.
Case in point, the state of my body this morning after a scant three hours of sleep and mind-blowing shower gymnastics with Merry. I feel every muscle, but at least I have good memories as a reward. The only thing Keith has is a fridge full of lettuce leaves.
The entire encounter with Keith was a learning experience. Not only did he enlighten me on what it means to be a partner, he turned right around and showed me by trusting me with this information. He didn’t need to tell me to keep it to myself, I could figure that out on my own. It’s not my place to share, but it is my responsibility to have his back when needed.
I walk into the bullpen and see Blackfoot look up from his desk with nothing more than a nudge of his head to my, “Good morning.” It’s not until I grab myself a coffee and sit down he says anything.
“Did Doc talk to you about this Margaret McClintock?”
“Yeah, she filled me in on the way into town this morning.”
A sheet of paper sails across the desk toward me. It’s a police record for one Margaret Christina McClintock. The picture on the top left corner shows a brassy blonde with a face that probably was once very pretty but showed the damage of a hard life. As it turns out, the woman had been picked up more than once for prostitution and drug-related charges.
“Doc’s autopsy report is from the twenty-seventh of December. She estimated the vic to have died sometime on or around Christmas Eve.” He hands over another report. “Check out the date of that incident report.”
My eyes scan the document until I see the date, December twenty-second. The short paragraph describes the circumstances of the call but what catches my attention is the description of the vehicle Margaret and her companion were found in. The white GMC cargo van had been reported parked behind a business on Main for over half an hour with the two occupants inside. Since they weren’t actively involved in any sexual acts when the officer got there, they both got off with a written warning.
Blackfoot tosses another document on my desk.
“This is the john’s police record.”
Henry William McCarty is the name at the top of the page, and the headshot shows a dark-haired, gruff-looking young man. I lean in on the image.
“Are those acne scars?”
“Sure looks like it to me,” Blackfoot answers. “Mr. McCarty apparently had a few run-ins with our department, mostly drug-related.”
“I see that,” I comment, scanning over the page. “And what about the van?”
“Ran the plate and it is registered to a business in Aztec.”
“Stolen?”
“Somehow I don’t think so,” he says, a cocky grin on his face. “The company in Aztec turns out to be a crematorium. Nobody’s in the office yet, but we’ll find out soon enough if Mr. McCarty has permission to drive that van.”
I feel a rush of excitement, this could be major. If this lead pans out it would give us the van, a suspect, and a witness who can tie him to the vacuum sealer. It would also fit plausibly into the theory we toyed with early on that someone might be selling body parts. I’m not sure how all the pieces would fit yet, but we’d be a lot closer to solving this case.
“This could be big.”
Keith’s grin spreads wider. “Feels good, right? Getting so close you can taste it.”
“Still all conjecture until we get some concrete evidence,” I caution, my brain overriding the adrenaline starting to pump through my veins.
Blackfoot leans forward on his desk, looking a hell of a lot more energized than he has in recent days. “Maybe, but tell me you don’t feel in your gut we’re on to something.”
I can’t deny that and don’t try, but the truth is there are a lot of moving parts to this case, some of which may not even belong. One of which is the attack on Meredith’s dog last night.
In the woods behind her house they found a bloody knife, a gas receipt just steps away, and on a trail running behind the neighboring property, a pretty decent tire track.
“What happened to the evidence from last night?”
“Other than the tire print our crime techs are looking at, the rest went to the FBI. Gomez is hitting up the CBI lab first thing this morning and is gonna hang around for results on the blood. With any luck the perp will have cut himself on the blade. His team is following up on the receipt and is still trying to narrow down the list of Ward’s family members.”
“So what are we focusing on?”
“Connections. I’m looking into Margaret McClintock, Henry McCarty, and the van. You tackle Heath and Dunwoody, dig up what you can.”
This is the part of detective work you rarely see; the hours spent behind the computer or on the phone, researching, tracking down leads, analyzing evidence. Most of my time as a uniformed officer was spent out in the community where every day brings something new and, although not always particularly exciting, the variety kept it interesting.
I didn’t think I’d enjoy this part of the job as much, but I do. My mind is constantly at work, finding different directions to explore, and when you hit pay dirt, it turns out to be as satisfying as taking down a suspect after a lengthy foot chase.
“You’re gonna want to take a look at this.” I can’t stop the grin when Blackfoot lifts his eyes over the top of his computer screen.
“What’s that?” He gets out of his chair, rounds the desk, and leans over my shoulder to look at my screen. “Marriage license?”
“I thought his mother seemed young to have a son that age, so I looked into Dunwoody senior and discovered he was married before. To Jordan’s birth mother; Marilee Ward.”
I click on the second window I have open.
“She died when Jordan was just a kid. The minister remarried eleven months later.”
“Jesus. Tom’s little sister. I remember she was killed in a wreck. Alcohol was involved.”
The parallels with her son’s death don’t escape me.
Keith’s heavy hand falls on my shoulder.
“Good work, partner. Good fucking work.”
Meredith
“Lauren, can you close?”
I step back from the table and remove my apron and gloves.
Paul was able to dig up the samples for Margaret McClintock this morning and is running them to the lab, so Lauren is assisting me.
The reason my drowning victim, a healthy thirty-eight-year-old man, ended up facedown in the river when he was a strong swimmer, was because of a burst brain aneurysm. Like Philip, and also way too young.
His father and brother, who’d been fishing with him, pulled him out of the water and tried to perform CPR without success. I hope this information will bring the family some peace, since there’s nothing anyone could’ve done to save him.
I sit down at the small desk while Lauren tends to the body, and jot down my findings while they’re fresh in my mind. Plenty of my colleagues use a voice recording system so they can report their findings as they’re performing an autopsy, but talking while working is distracting to me. I prefer to file and then process information in my head before I share.