Echo
T essman hit a Starbucks drive-thru for coffee on his way to meet Jackson and the client at the crime scene.
After being inside the day before and seeing the remnants of the death that took place, he didn’t blame the client for not wanting to enter yet.
Tessman had seen a lot of death, and had helped facilitate it.
In combat, it was one thing.
In a family home while children slept in their beds, it was another thing altogether.
One of the victims had been the same age as Wilson’s new daughter, Lilly.
That thought had gnawed at him since he’d left the crime scene house the day before.
His sleep hadn’t been restful.
Becca arrived in front of her sister’s home fifteen minutes early for her meeting with the two private investigators.
She sat on the hood of her car, waiting for them to arrive.
It was another unseasonably warm, sunny day.
The sun beating down on her felt good, especially on her bare arms. She wore blue jeans and a short-sleeved girly T-shirt, what had become her favorite outfit.
She may never go back to wearing suits.
For the first time since she was notified of their deaths, she felt hopeful, hopeful that what really happened in that house may be discovered.
When the police were investigating, it hadn’t occurred to her that they’d close the case declaring that Nick had done it, so she just felt devastated.
But knowing in her heart that he did not, she had to set the record straight as well as find who really did it and make sure they were punished.
Her sister and her family deserved some kind of justice.
A car pulled up and parked in front of hers, leaving a six-foot gap between them.
The younger of the two investigators got out of the car.
He walked up to her.
She noticed he held a Starbucks cup.
“Good morning,” Tessman said to her.
“Morning,” she replied.
She hadn’t said good since the murders.
“Tessman, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You got a first name?”
“Carter,” he said.
“But not many people call me by my first name.”
“Is that a military thing?” she asked.
“You and Jackson, as well as most of the men in your organization are ex-military, aren’t you?”
Tessman was more than a little surprised by her question.
He was aware of his lips tipping into a smirk-half smile, which he knew was his tell.
That was why he didn’t play poker.
“Why would you say that?”
She saw a little smile curve his lips.
It was cute. “Detective Davis mentioned it.”
“Yes, to answer your question. It’s a military thing.” He took a sip from his coffee cup.
“Which branch were you in?” she asked.
“Oorah! Marine Corps, ma’am,” he said with a grin.
She couldn’t picture this baby-faced man as a Marine.
She couldn’t stop the smile that formed, either.
It was the first time she’d smiled in weeks.
“How long were you in?”
He couldn’t tell her that technically, he was still in.
“All of my adult life and I’m thirty-five.” He saw Jackson pull up and park across the street.
“And here’s Jackson now.” He was glad.
His arrival stopped any further conversation.
Becca couldn’t believe he was thirty-five years old.
He didn’t look old enough to buy a beer in a bar.
“Thank you for meeting us here,” Jackson said to Becca as he approached her car.
She still sat on the hood.
“You’re welcome, but I’m still not sure I’m ready to go inside.”
“We get it,” Tessman said.
“The blood stains are emotionally hard to see.”
“But it’s important we ask a few questions, and you have to see exactly what we mean,” Jackson added.
She eased off her car and stood in front of them.
“One request. I don’t want to go into the girls’ rooms.”
Jackson laid his hand on her shoulder and nodded.
He understood.
They crossed the street and walked up the sidewalk to the front door.
Her heart pounded in her chest. For the first time, standing in the alcove under the front porch, Becca realized how secluded the front door was from the street.
She watched Jackson unlock the door with her set of keys.
He went in first. Tessman motioned her in and then followed.
Right in front of her was the first blood stain, which she knew would be there.
It was where Nick died.
And there was an odd smell in the house.
She couldn’t place it.
She assumed it was due to the blood.
“Everything is very orderly,” Jackson’s voice invaded her thoughts.
“Was this normal for this room to be so immaculate?”
Becca’s eyes scanned the living room and portion of the dining room she could see from the entry.
“Yes. Nicole was never one for clutter. She had no collections, no chachkas sitting around collecting dust.”
“And there were never the kids’ toys in this room?” Jackson asked.
“No, this was the one room they didn’t play in.”
“Let’s go through to the kitchen,” Jackson said.
“Look to the left as we enter and walk all the way through,” Tessman said.
“That way you won’t,” he began.
“I know,” she interrupted him.
The police had told her the exact locations of each body in the house.
She knew she sounded harsh.
“And thank you,” she added with a softer tone.
“It’s okay,” Tessman said with a nod.
“We’ve got you.”
She blew out a breath and then stepped around the blood in the middle of the walkway.
She strode quickly into the kitchen, making sure her eyes focused on the wall to the left.
Once she stood by the sliding glass door, gazing out at the backyard, did she breathe.
“The mess is below counter level,” Tessman said quietly.
He stood beside her.
“Thank you,” she said, turning her head to view him.
She appreciated that he understood.
“Was this room usually so immaculate?” Jackson asked.
He stood in the middle of the family room.
“On a school night? Unlikely. It would be partially picked up, but it wouldn’t be this clean,” Becca said.
“Did your sister make sure the kids brushed their teeth before bed every night?”
Becca couldn’t understand why that would be important.
“Yes, she was a stickler about their bedtime routine. Why?”
“No one brushed their teeth in the sinks after they were cleaned,” Jackson said.
“Either that or my son is the only slob out there. He can’t brush his without leaving a trace of toothpaste and splattered water.” He flashed her a grin.
“So, what does that all mean?” Becca asked.
“I wish I knew,” Jackson said.
“To me, it means someone cleaned this place up after the kids were in bed,” Tessman said.
“Did either your sister or brother-in-law clean when they were stressed or angry?”
“For that matter, was anyone OCD about messes?” Jackson added.
“No to both questions. Of the two of them, Nicole did most of the cleaning, but on a weeknight after the kids were in bed she’d be looking to have a glass of wine and wind down, not clean. It was a family joke that Nick didn’t even see the messes in the house or yard.”
“Did either secretly smoke cigarettes?” Tessman then asked.
“No,” Becca insisted.
“It feels like you’re asking me questions about another family.”
“The office upstairs was just as tidy as the rest of the house,” Tessman said.
Becca shook her head.
“No, the desktop was always littered with papers. Nick mostly used the office, and he was not a tidy person.” She thought for a moment.
“Could the police have tidied up after they searched?”
“Unlikely,” both Tessman and Jackson said together.
“But we can double check that with Detective Davis,” Tessman added.
“When were you over last?” Jackson asked.
“The Sunday before they died. We had dinner, and I stayed long enough to help tuck the girls in bed.” A sudden wave of sadness hit her.
She never would have guessed that night would have been the last time she saw them.
Her eyes filled with tears.
She took a moment to push the sadness down, to tuck it away.
She didn’t want to cry.
She’d rather be angry.
Anger was productive.
Sadness, she just wallowed in.
She swept a few tears from her cheeks.
“Sorry.”
“It’s completely understandable. Please don’t apologize,” Tessman said.
“You have the crime scene cleanup crew coming tomorrow, right?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, is that okay? You don’t need it in its current state longer, do you?”
“No. The police were all over this place. We knew it was unlikely we’d find anything they missed, but we wanted to see it for ourselves,” Jackson said.
“Here, we’ll return your keys.” He handed her set of keys to the house back to her.
He nodded towards the front of the house.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
“I’ll go ahead of you and close the kids’ bedroom doors,” Tessman offered.
“Thank you,” Becca said, truly appreciative that she wouldn’t get even an accidental glance within either room.
She again averted her gaze as they passed through the kitchen.
She gave the spot where Nick died a wide berth and then forced herself to climb the stairs.
They went first to the office.
Jackson and Tessman were correct.
The room was clean and tidy, too much so.
Though she did think that it was possible the police took every paper that was on the desk to go through.
That would account for Nick’s stacks of papers no longer being there.
“There were a dozen stacks of paper on this desk,” Becca said after looking the desk over.
She opened and closed all the desk drawers.
They were all empty.
“Do you think the police took everything from the desk?”
“It’s possible,” Tessman said.
“We’ll add that to our list of questions for Detective Davis. Now that they’ve closed their case, they should be returning anything taken from the home to you. We’ll find out when and if it’s okay with you, we’ll see if we can take a look at it first.”
“That’s fine.” Becca knew settling their estate was going to be a lot of work.
She needed everything back that was in this office to make that easier for her.
But she had hired these men, and she knew they had to see everything.
“But I would ask you go through it as fast as you can, please.”
“Of course,” Tessman said.
Becca took a look at the rest of the office.
The safe in the closet stood open and emptied of its contents.
She’d provided the combination for it to Detective Davis.
He’d given her a list of the items removed from it.
It looked accurate to her.
Next, they went to the master bedroom.
There were many footprints in the high-pile carpet that had otherwise been freshly vacuumed, Becca noticed.
She pointed it out to the two men.
“We noticed that when we were in here yesterday,” Tessman said.
Becca shook her head.
“This is all wrong. It wasn’t like this that last night I was in the house. This carpet should not have been vacuumed recently. Nicole rarely vacuumed up here. And their housecleaner only came once a month, on the first Tuesday, which was two weeks before they died.”
“Did the housekeeper have a key?” Tessman asked, knowing the police had already talked to the housekeeper.
“No, she let herself in with the garage code while they were at work. Nick and Nicole had an app on their phones that alerted them when the garage door opened and closed. Do you need to speak with her?”
“Maybe. We know that the police already did,” Tessman said.
They all stepped back into the hallway, intending to return to the first floor.
“Was this light over the stairs burned out when you were here last?” Jackson asked her, his hand flicking the switch on and off with no results.
“No, it wasn’t,” she said.
“The police didn’t mention anything about it.”
Tessman knew it was because the police rarely ran operations where they’d knock out all the lighting in the area to help conceal their movements, which was standard for SpecOps teams. He now understood that the experience they had given them a different perspective, which could help in cases like this.
His gaze caught Jackson’s, and the two men had a silent moment of acknowledging the same thought with a slight head nod to each other.
Neither man would voice the possible meaning of the malfunctioning light to Becca Elliot.
“Just checking,” Tessman finally said.
Becca doubted anything they asked was superfluous.
She sensed they were highly competent, which made her wonder exactly what they thought had happened to her sister’s family.
“What are your plans for the house?” Tessman asked her, breaking in on her thoughts.
She thought it was an odd question.
“After I’ve removed anything valuable and all family pictures and mementos, I plan to donate it to a woman’s crisis shelter to be used as emergency housing. I’ll leave all the furniture and furnishings in it, even the clothing and toys. Someone can use them.”
“That’s admirable,” Tessman said.
“This is already known as the murder house. I don’t think many will be flocking to buy the place.”
“You never know. People can be attracted to the macabre,” Tessman said.
“Yeah, I guess they can,” she agreed.
Jackson motioned her to go down the stairs.
They remained in the entry.
Becca Elliot’s gaze swept between the two men.
“What do you think happened here?”
Tessman and Jackson exchanged glances.
“We prefer not to speculate until we’ve reviewed everything,” Jackson said.
“I won’t hold you to any opinion you’ve formed,” she said.
“There are things here that are just off,” Tessman said.
“Like how clean the house is?” she asked.
Tessman nodded.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We have several more things to check out,” Jackson said.
“We’ll be in touch in the next few days.”
Tessman and Jackson walked Becca Elliot out.
After she’d driven away, Tessman got into Jackson’s car for the drive to the Illinois State Police Forensic Service Center on West Roosevelt Road in Chicago.
They had an appointment with Kai Nguyen, a civilian technician, who was also Becca Elliot’s source.
Brielle had already checked her out to confirm her identity.
She was who Becca Elliot said she was.
She’d been with the State Police Crime Lab for eight years.
Tessman went over Brielle’s report as Jackson drove.
“Kai Nguyen and Becca Elliot graduated the same year from Illinois State University in Normal. Becca Elliot graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice before she was accepted to law school. Huh? Makes you wonder why she went into a firm doing estate planning when it looks like criminal law was her original intention.”
Jackson chuckled.
“It shows how smart she is. There has to be a lot fewer headaches where she is than if she was with the DA or defending criminals.”
As previously planned, Tessman called Kai Nguyen when they arrived onsite.
She exited the building and met them at their car, sliding into the backseat.
Kai Nguyen was a confident young Vietnamese-American woman who had demanded confidentiality from them before she agreed to the meeting.
“I could get into a lot of trouble by talking to you,” she said after she was in the car.
“Becca will file a lawsuit against you personally if the police find out I talked to you.”
“They won’t,” Jackson assured her.
“We appreciate you being willing to talk to us,” Tessman added.
“Like I told Becca, the GSR pattern on Nick DeSoto does not support the conclusion that he shot three people. It supports the suicide, but not the murders.”
“She also mentioned lack of fingerprints on the weapon,” Tessman said.
“It was wiped clean,” Kai said.
“We only lifted prints in two areas. On the grip and trigger and along the top, where you’d grasp it to rack the slide.”
“And there were no prints on the magazine or the rounds?” Jackson asked.
“No, none.”
“And the police did not send to you a box with ammo in it to test for prints either?” Tessman asked.
“No. If they were recovered, they would have been sent to the lab for testing. They always are,” Kai said.
“I think the coroner screwed up on this one and the detectives assigned let it pass, and not just because Becca and I are friends.” She handed a flashdrive over the seats.
“Everything you need is on that. I copied the entire forensic file to it. It’s for your eyes only. I’m only doing this because I believe the real killer is out there.” She opened the door, intending to exit the vehicle.
“One last thing,” Tessman said, stopping her.
“Was there any injury to the webbing on Nick DeSoto’s hand between his thumb and index finger?”
“No, there was no slide bite.” She got out of the car and walked quickly back to the building.
Tessman retrieved his tablet from his backpack and plugged the flashdrive in.
He reviewed the files and gave Jackson a running narrative of what he saw in the files as Jackson drove back to the northwest suburbs and their headquarters.
He also read off the list of what was sent to the lab regarding this case.
There was no box of ammo, no gun case, no cleaning kit.
***
Due to what they found on the flashdrive, Tessman and Jackson made the request for an update meeting with Shepherd.
He set the meeting time for thirty minutes after they were due back at HQ.
They also contacted Brielle, hoping she had dug into the DeSoto’s accounts.
Earlier that morning, Detective Davis had dropped off the phones and laptop computers belonging to Nick and Nicole Desoto.
He’d also had a brief conversation with Shepherd, which both Tessman and Jackson were eager to hear about.
They settled around the conference table in Shepherd’s office.
Tessman handed the flashdrive to Brielle, who had her laptop plugged into the docking station that would project its contents onto the large television that served as a monitor on the wall.
“Kai Nguyen provided copies of the forensic files and reports. The tox screens aren’t back yet, but everything else is here,” Tessman said.
Brielle inserted the flashdrive and brought up its contents for all to see.
“The key points are there was no spare ammo, no storage box for the gun, or cleaning kit taken from the residence and we didn’t find one either when we searched,” Jackson said.
“And there are no finger prints on the magazine or rounds in the gun. Just two sets of Nick DeSoto’s prints on the grip, trigger and the racking slide. There were exactly five rounds fired,” Tessman added.
“The casings were found where you’d expect them to be in the house. No surprises there.”
“I’m finding no trace of the purchase of the weapon or ammo in any of their accounts. And there are no unaccounted-for large cash withdrawals from their bank accounts. I also checked every range in Wisconsin and Illinois. Nick DeSoto did not visit one at any point in the last six months,” Brielle reported.
“What else?” Shepherd asked.
“As Becca Elliot said, the forensic report confirms the GSR patterns and counts don’t support the theory that Nick DeSoto killed anyone besides himself,” Tessman said.
“And even that, after reviewing the lack of blood splatter at height where Nick DeSoto supposedly killed himself, the technician even concluded he had to be sitting on the floor when he pulled the trigger.”
“Maybe he realized what he’d done and was so distraught he collapsed to the floor before killing himself,” Brielle said.
“Shep, there’s a lot at that house that doesn’t make sense, including that location to kill himself, unless Brielle is right that he was so distraught that he just collapsed there. If not, Tessman and I can’t figure out why he killed himself there. And the place was cleaned, like vacuumed and sinks wiped,” Jackson said.
“Our client said her sister had a solid bedtime routine for her kids. They would have brushed their teeth before bed, but the bathroom showed no indication they had. The sink bowls were wiped clean.”
“There was no slide bite on the webbing between Nick DeSoto’s thumb and index finger. If he was an inexperienced shooter, I’d anticipate in the heat of the moment he would have gripped the weapon incorrectly at least once,” Tessman said.
“Another item that is noteworthy is that our client stated that her sister had a glass of wine after the kids were in bed every night. Not only was there no used wine glass anywhere in the house, not even in the sink, but there was no wine in her stomach contents. So, whatever happened in that house, happened right after the kids were put to bed, before she had the chance to pour her wine,” Jackson said.
“What else?” Shepherd pressed.
“None of the neighbors heard anything that night besides the thunderstorm,” Tessman said.
They’d interviewed all the neighbors the previous day.
“That’s bothering me. I don’t care how bad a thunderstorm is, the sound of a gunshot is distinctive and loud, louder than thunder. The neighbors may have dismissed one loud sound as intense thunder, but five?”
“Brielle, get a hold of the recorded lightning strikes and the decibel level of the thunder in the area that night from the weather service,” Shepherd said.
“I’ll get that data right after this meeting,” Brielle acknowledged.
“If Nick DeSoto wasn’t the shooter, a suppressor could have helped to hide the murders from the neighbors amid the thunder, but that’s a hell of a stretch that the murder was planned and held off until a thunderstorm was raging,” Shepherd said.
“Shows a great deal of patience by the murderer,” Jackson agreed.
“Even if it was Nick DeSoto.”
“And what about inside the house?” Tessman asked.
“If the police’s timeline is accurate and the two kids were killed in their beds first, Nicole DeSoto would not have thought the shots that killed the children were thunder. Even with a suppressor, the gunshots still would have been too loud inside the house.”
“We have more questions than answers,” Shepherd said.
“You spoke with Detective Davis when he dropped off the laptops and phones,” Jackson said to Shepherd.
“Yes, they didn’t find anything noteworthy, but Brielle is still looking at them. I asked if he could provide us with the forensic report from the crime lab,” Shepherd said.
“That way we can ask questions about what we already know without them suspecting the info was leaked to us. Davis is a good cop. He did admit there were a few inconsistencies that bothered him about this case, but he wouldn’t elaborate on what they were. He’s plowed under with the six other cases on his plate, including the politician’s murder, which he admitted has the brass all the way up to the mayor putting a lot of pressure on him to solve. The one thing he did say was that they couldn’t come up with a motive for anyone outside of the family.”
“Speaking of family, Brielle, did you track down either of Nick DeSoto’s siblings?” Tessman asked.
“No. I lost his brother, David DeSoto, six years ago when he was released from a prison in Florida after serving two years out of the five he was sentenced to for drug charges.”
“And the sister?” Tessman asked.
“Nothing. She’s been completely off the grid for nearly ten years.”
“So, she’s not in jail someplace?” Jackson asked.
“No, neither of his siblings are currently the guests of any state or federal jail or prison,” Brielle answered.
“And there are no reports of their deaths, either.”
“Okay, keep asking questions. You haven’t visited Well-Life Pharmaceuticals yet. Make that your next stop,” Shepherd said.
“Keep me informed of your progress.”
Everyone came to their feet, knowing this meeting was over.