Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5) Page 15

  “We’ll take three cars,” I said.

  “Ride with me?” Noel said.

  “Out of luck, I’m riding with Kurt.”

  Riding with Noel meant priorities for things like coffee and food, which were all good, but he also thought we should be an item, and he wasn’t Delta A and the Doyle abduction was in-house, meaning I wanted to be able to speak freely with my team. And Noel had an annoying habit of keeping secrets. Or not telling me all he knew. There was another reason. I needed to concentrate on the present situation and didn’t want to cloud my mind with discussion about the Chad/Mac dilemma. I closed that thought down and pushed it to the back of my mind.

  Working now. Doing what I’m semi-good at: chasing bad guys and attracting aberrations.

  Lee, Sam, and Kurt were waiting by the elevator.

  “Noel,” Lee said, shaking his hand.

  Sam followed suit, restraining himself to a regular handshake. Impressive. Kurt was last, and movie star cool. I was in trouble and I knew it. The trick now was to keep everyone else from guessing. Some days I could still hear him telling me how he felt about me that day in Lexington. I pretended I’d forgotten a lot of the events from that episode. It was an acceptable memory slip considering I was suffering from a form of amnesia at the time. Pretending was much safer than acknowledging feelings and other such nonsense.

  “We’re rolling on a crime scene at one of Campbell’s properties,” I explained as we headed down in the elevator. “Hope everyone has warm weatherproof clothing. The forecast is not good. We could be in for some stormy weather.” Both metaphoric and real storms were a possibility. I looked at Noel as he leaned back on the elevator wall. “Noel is joining us. He’ll be taking his car.”

  Once we were in our cars, I made a conference call. Delta A only. Another good reason to insist NCIS Special Agent Noel Gerrard took his car.

  “The flash drive that came with the picture of Campbell contained a copy of ‘Maria Nay’ and that contained a cipher from Campbell.”

  I listened to the collective intake of breath. No one spoke, so I carried on, “It may be that Campbell is one of us and that his involvement in Doyle’s disappearance is more to save her life than to harm her.”

  Another sharp intake of breath.

  Sam spoke, “That’s risky thinking.”

  “Yes, it is. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I believe him until it’s proven he’s not helping.”

  “Let’s say he’s a scum bag abductor until we know for sure he isn’t,” Lee replied.

  “Fair enough,” I agreed. “Nor is John Brown the most reliable witness here. His address is fake. Creative but still fake. I’m not holding out much hope for his name either.”

  “What is it about Campbell that makes you think you can trust him?” Lee asked. “Bearing in mind you and Kurt were looking for a Peter Parker.”

  Good point. Spiderman turned out to be Campbell.

  I took a deep breath. “Trust might be too strong a word, Lee. I’m not distrusting of him. As for why? He mentioned a list Tierney has. A safe list. My name is on it. He knew that.”

  “He’s involved with the CIA?” Sam said.

  “The plot just thickened,” Kurt said. “This is Delta only?”

  I nodded and said, “This is specific Delta A only information.”

  Forty-five minutes later we rolled in behind two police cruisers. Lee and Sam pulled in behind us and Noel behind them. I headed to the house and the officer waiting on the front steps for me.

  My mood darkened with every passing second.

  The weather changed for the worse. A storm front gathered momentum. A rumble of distant thunder followed a flash of lightning.

  “Agent Conway, I’m Officer Dylan James,” he said, shaking my hand.

  “Good to meet you,” I replied. I turned to Kurt. “This is SSA Kurt Henderson.”

  They shook and nodded at each other.

  “I was first on scene,” he replied to me. Good to know. It meant it was his scene.

  I searched my pockets and came up empty. No gloves. It was odd that I’d forgotten to put a few pairs in my pocket before I left the office.

  “Gloves,” I said, holding out my hand. A pair of latex gloves landed in my palm. I pulled them on, letting the latex snap against my wrists. Blue disposable bootees were passed to me. Leaning on the wall seemed the best way to tug them over the soles of my cowboy boots.

  “Let’s do this,” I said. “Talk me through it.”

  Dylan held up the crime scene tape while I ducked under, and then followed me.

  “It looks like the occupant surprised an intruder in the living room,” he said pointing into a room. “Mind your step.”

  I glanced down as I entered. Taking care, I walked down the hallway in the house. There was a trail of blood from the front door to just inside the living room. Blood soaked into the carpet in palm-sized irregular pools. Kurt and I stepped around the bloodstains as we entered the room. On the floor lay a battered disfigured body.

  The walls and furnishing bore splatter. Streaks of blood ran down the windowpanes. It was one very vicious attack that took place.

  “The blood-soaked carpet near the living room door and the trail down the hall, what caused that?” I said. The body was about eight feet from the doorway and there was no blood leading up to it or away from it.

  Dylan shook his head. “I don’t know. If you look at the blood spurt and the pooling near and under the body, it looks like she bled out where she lies.”

  “Kurt? Another victim, maybe?”

  He nodded. “It’s possible.”

  I scanned the room, taking in the scenario. It was my feeling that there was another victim. I could feel myself drifting, watching the attack on the woman play out like a movie.

  Senseless, brutal, terrifying.

  I pulled myself back to the scene in front of me.

  “Murder weapon?” Kurt said.

  Dylan pointed to a lamp and a large kitchen knife.

  “The lamp appears to belong here and the knife is from a block on the kitchen counter.”

  “There is either another victim or the assailant was injured,” Kurt said.

  I crouched next to the body, looking for signs that she’d fought back. There were none.

  “Who are you?” I whispered to the battered body.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Name, please.”

  “Mary Southey.”

  “We will find the person who did this to you, Mary,” I said patting her shoulder with my gloved hand before I stood up.

  “Mary Southey, Sixty-seven, widow living with her friend, moved here five months ago,” the police officer said.

  “Where is her friend?”

  He shook his head. “No sign of him.”

  “Him?”

  “Yes, ma’am, George Foster, aged seventy-two.”

  “You think maybe he could be the other victim?” I tried hard to keep the condescension from my voice; up until I figured there was another person involved, he’d done well being in charge of the crime scene.

  “I wouldn’t like to say, ma’am.”

  I bet you wouldn’t.

  “Did you conduct a perimeter and house search when you arrived?”

  “I checked the house, ma’am.”

  “And? Any sign of Mr. Foster?”

  He appeared flustered. “Not that I could see, ma’am. I was on my own.”

  “Is this your first homicide?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I sighed. “You and I will talk about this but right now I need to try and locate Mr. Foster.” I pulled my phone off my belt and called comms to request paramedics at the scene. For all I knew Foster could be alive.

  Dylan paled and hurried away. Kurt and I split up and searched the house. Foster wasn’t hiding inside.

  “Storm cellar?” I said with a nod of my head toward the back of the house.

  “If he went around the house there should be some kind
of trail,” Kurt replied.

  We went out the front door, watching for signs that a wounded man had left the house. “Transfer,” I said pointing to a dark mark on the grass where blood had transferred from shoes or clothing, rather than having dripped from a moving person.

  Kurt and I hustled around to the right of the front door, following the occasional dark stain leading to the storm cellar. It was at the back of the house. Smears of blood trailed across the door.

  I stood aside.

  “On three,” Kurt said. “One, two, three.”

  He flung open the cellar door, letting light flood the dankness below. I could see a shape, face down on the ground.

  “FBI!” I called. The shape didn’t move.

  Kurt holstered his weapon and ran down the stairs. I followed him

  “Looks like he fell after shutting the door,” Kurt said. “No one’s head should be at that angle. He felt for the man’s pulse. He looked up at me and shook his head.

  Damn.

  Kurt and I rolled the man over onto his back. Cloudy dead eyes stared at nothing. His blood-soaked clothes told of his encounter with horror. Unlike the lady of the house, George had defensive wounds on his arms and scraped knuckles. He’d put up a fight.

  Kurt went through the man’s pockets, found his wallet, and passed me his driver’s license. Confirmation that he was George Foster. I crouched beside George.

  “Don’t suppose you can tell us what happened, George?” I waited, just in case he could tell me. Because stranger things have happened. That was when I saw something in his hand. “Kurt, is that a cell phone?”

  I pointed at his right hand. Kurt pried the object from the dead fingers that encased it and threw it to me.

  “His phone.”

  “Oh, George, did you take pictures?” I whispered, unlocking the phone and scrolling through the image files. “You did. Good man.” There was more joy than I expected in my voice as I found pictures of the assailant and a vehicle.

  “Look,” I said to Kurt handing him the phone. “They’re not great but I don’t think that’s Campbell. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, doesn’t look like the man in the photo we have, but then, it’s blurry.” He scrolled to another photograph. “What about the car?”

  I looked at the picture of the car. It wasn’t in front of the house. It was up the driveway, not far from where we were in the cellar. A dark red sedan. I could just make out the very edge of what could be another vehicle in front of the house, that vehicle was blue and looked like a much bigger vehicle.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “Okay, there were two vehicles. Campbell may or may not have killed the couple.”

  “Reasonable doubt?”

  “Yes.”

  I climbed out of the cellar and went to find Dylan. Sirens wailed in the distance reminding me I’d called for paramedics. I called comms and said they were unnecessary and they should send a medical examiner instead. As I hung up, the siren stopped.

  Dylan was pacing up and down in front of the house. “Where’d you go?” he asked.

  “We found George. He’s dead.”

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry.” Dylan stepped backward and made to remove his hat but knocked it from his head. “I’m sorry. I should have looked for him …”

  I picked up the hat and handed it to Dylan. He took it and seemed to be struggling with whether or not to put it back on his head.

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference if you’d looked for him or not, he broke his neck falling down the cellar steps.”

  “But I should have―”

  I held my hand up to stop him. “And next time you will,” I said with a small smile. “We learn and we apply that knowledge, that’s how this works. You will never fuck up like this again.”

  He nodded. I knew it’d take him a few weeks to see it my way. I knew that, because he was good and he cared. His fingers worried the rim of his hat.

  “I’m sorry.” Dylan said.

  “Another point, when you arrive at a scene like this, call for paramedics. Just in case you get a live victim.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What now?” Dylan asked.

  “Put that hat on your head, officer, you’re working this scene.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “An FBI crime scene unit will be here soon. Until we know otherwise, let’s consider this as part of my case.”

  He nodded. “We canvassed the neighbors. A man and woman were seen entering the property. A neighbor identified them as Iain and Maria Campbell.” He flipped through notebook pages. “Next door neighbor, Mrs. Gillian Jessup, eighty-two, says she thought our victim, Mary Southey, knew the visitors.”

  “She identified them as Iain and Maria Campbell?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Well, that makes him more than just an ex-boyfriend and yet we found nothing to indicate a marriage in any of our searches.

  “Which house?”

  He pointed to the house on the right.

  Mrs. Jessup had a good view of the front of Mary Southey’s house. She might also be able to tell me why she described Iain and Maria as married. I pulled off the gloves and bootees, rolled them inside out and handed them to Dylan.

  “I’ll be right back,” I called over my shoulder. “Kurt, can you carry on here?”

  “I got it,” he called.

  Mrs. Jessup’s front door opened before I knocked.

  “Mrs. Jessup?” I said showing my badge.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I’m Special Agent Ellie Conway. Can I ask you some questions about your neighbors, Mrs. Southey and Mr. Foster?”

  “Come in, dear, we’ll talk in the parlor.”

  I followed her and her Zimmer frame along the hallway and into a cozy room filled with well-polished dark furniture and thick, deep green velvet drapes. A faint smell of lemon Pledge held an undertone of lavender. The room smelled like an elderly woman. It wasn’t unpleasant and it wasn’t hiding a death. It was comfortable, warm, and inviting. I opened my notebook and was ready with my pen poised.

  “Did you see the visitors to your neighbor’s home today?”

  “Yes, I did. I was out getting the mail when a car pulled up out front.”

  Even better.

  “Do you know what type of car?”

  She shook her head. “No, dear. It was big and blue that’s all I know.”

  “Sedan or four-wheel drive big?”

  “Yes, one of those big truck things that people get about in these days. Not a pick-up, no. More fancy than that.”

  “Was it clean?” Rentals are always clean.

  “Now that I think about it, no, it wasn’t. There was dirt up the sides and on the front.”

  “Was it raining when they arrived?”

  “No. We’re not expecting rain until late today.”

  “Have you seen the woman before?”

  “Of course, dear. Iain and Maria lived next door for a year or so before they moved away. They rent the house out, you know?”

  “They were married?”

  “I assumed so, Iain introduced Maria as Mrs. Campbell.”

  I wrote that down.

  “Did Mrs. Southey know the couple?”

  “Yes, she seemed to, although I don’t remember them ever visiting before. A property manager looks after the house for Mr. Campbell. He doesn’t come out here as general rule.”

  “Any idea why they came out today?”

  “No, dear. They didn’t stay long. Iain called out when he left and said Mrs. Southey wasn’t home.”

  “Was she home?”

  “I didn’t see her go out.”

  I sensed that Mrs. Jessup was the unofficial neighborhood watch. “Did you see any other cars this morning?”

  Mrs. Jessup looked thoughtful for a few moments. “I saw the yellow car that Mrs. Fendalton down the street drives, go by my place. It’s her market day.” She stopped talking. I figured I was out of luck. “Come to think of i
t, I did see another car. A dark red car. I don’t know who was driving but I thought it pulled out of Mrs. Southey’s driveway.” She smiled. “I must’ve been seeing things. Two visitors at once are unheard of next door. She has never been very social, bless her heart.”

  “Do you know when that would’ve been?”

  “It was before I saw Iain and Maria arrive. I think the red car left as they were just going inside.”

  Interesting.

  “Who was out in the street this morning when Iain Campbell came?”

  She rattled off the names of four neighbors and their addresses.

  “Were the Campbell’s carrying anything when they left?”

  “Yes, Mr. Campbell carried a big bag. A pack. He used to go hiking when they lived here. I thought maybe he’d left something in the attic.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Jessup. I wish my neighbors were as vigilant as you.” I shook the woman’s hand. “I’ll let myself out. You stay in the warmth.”

  I walked with decorum from the house and back over to her neighbors, fighting the urge to run back with my findings. Kurt was waiting in the hallway.

  “Anything?”

  “She thinks Campbell left with a pack. Even commented that it may have been left in the attic when they moved out.”

  “Let’s find out what else is in the attic,” Kurt replied. We walked down the hallway looking up, trying to locate the trapdoor. It was out in the laundry room. “What else did she say?” Kurt pulled a ladder down from the ceiling. I passed him the flashlight from my belt.

  “A dark red car may have left not long after Campbell arrived.”

  “Before someone killed the occupants or after?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what we need to find out. Campbell is in a big blue car, maybe a four by four and it was dirty. So he’s ditched the white rental,” I said.

  “The blue four by four could be his personal vehicle rather than another rental. He could’ve been off-road recently.”

  “That’s what I thought, I’ll get Sandra to search for vehicles registered to Campbell. We might get lucky. What I don’t get is why Maria went with him. Although the neighbor told me Iain introduced Maria as his wife when they used to live out here.”

  “That’s interesting. I take it you mean you don’t know why Maria didn’t or hasn’t contacted her brother and called off the hounds, if Campbell is the good guy in this scenario?”