CHAPTER FOUR
"It’s good to see you again," Detective Moore said as she held the door open for Alison to enter the building. "How are you doing?"
Alison stepped inside and unzipped her jacket. She’d been shivering as she walked from her car to the office building, but was blasted by a wall of hot air as she entered.
"Honestly, I’m tired of answering that question," Alison said.
"I’m sorry, I—"
"No, it’s fine," Alison cut in. "I don't mean to be short with you. It’s not anyone around me, just…"
"Yeah," Moore said.
No one needed to say it. Howard Mills was still out there somewhere.
They knew his name, address, what he looked like, and just about everything else about him, but they didn't know where he currently was. Alison hadn’t been able to live her life for twenty-two years as she chased down what had felt like a ghost. She’d become ever more restless over the past two weeks as she waited for the call that would bring the relief.
"I want to see the crime scene," Alison said. "That’s all I want to talk about right now."
"We can do that," Moore said, quickening her step to lead Alison toward the stairs. "Did you get a chance to look at the file?"
"Yeah," Alison said. "I’ll admit that I would have looked at it, and I might not have given it much of a second thought, even with how brutal the murder was, but he was a friend of my boss and mentor. My friend. I’m committed to the case, and I want you to know that it’s mostly because of Victoria, my boss, and also to keep my mind off other things. I won't be distracted unless—"
"We don't need to talk about it at all," Moore said as they ascended. "You’re here, and I’m glad. When you need to go, you need to go. So, initial thoughts?"
"Do you have the crime scene photos?" Alison asked. "I read the initial report from forensics, but I want to see it for myself."
Moore noted. She opened the folder she carried and pulled out a stack of photos, handing them to Alison.
Alison had been to numerous crime scenes and had perused hundreds, possibly thousands, of crime scene photos, but some still caught her off guard. These photos did, but only for a moment before her mind began spinning.
The zoomed-out photo showed Richard Langford sitting in his office chair, which was pushed back from the desk. His arms were draped over the sides of the chair, his head lolled to the side, eyes open, lips slightly parted. His chest was covered in blood and a handwritten note.
No, it wasn’t only his chest. Richard wore dark pants, making it hard to see the stains in the black fabric, but there was a slight sheen in some parts.
The same with his jacket. Blood had splattered on his face from when he had been stabbed multiple times in the chest. The autopsy hadn’t yet been completed, but the report stated at least a dozen stab wounds.
They reached Richard’s floor, and Alison stopped looking at the photographs and looked instead at the office layout. It was mostly open-plan, with some individual offices off to the side. Richard’s was one of those, marked by the forensic tech swiping the doorframe for prints.
"No real security," Alison said as they walked toward his office. "I didn't see anything downstairs or up here that would have stopped someone from entering. You said he was killed last night, and I’m presuming late? He was the last person in the office?"
Moore and Alison stopped by the office door.
"That’s how it looks. Either the killer entered once everyone else had left, or it was someone else in the office.
We’re talking to everyone who was working yesterday.
We can be relatively sure that we’re looking for someone who was targeting Langford specifically and not someone opportunistic. "
"Yeah, I’d second that," Alison said. "With them coming to the office late at night, and the note that was left, this feels personal."
Allison went through the photos again, finding the one that showed a close-up of the scrawled writing.
No more lies! No more excuses!
Was Langford lying about something? Had he made excuses? From what Alison had gotten from Victoria, that didn't sound like Langford. Still, Victoria admitted that she didn’t know him all that well and that they were more professional colleagues than best friends.
"Who found him?" Alison asked.
"Addison May," Moore said. "She was the first person in the office this morning, and she walked into…well, who you saw in the photos. The door to his office was hanging open, and it was pretty hard to miss."
"Yeah," Alison agreed.
"Give us a minute?" Moore asked the forensic tech.
She nodded and stopped brushing for fingerprints, leaving the doorway and making her way toward the window that overlooked the street. Moore produced a pair of latex gloves for Alison, then a second pair for herself.
They entered the room.
Langford’s body had been removed earlier that morning, but the chair and bloodstains were still there. Blood had pooled around the body as it had sat on the chair after death, some dripping down to the floor beneath, and more splattered on the walls to either side and even the desk in front.
Alison held up the photograph of the dead body. She went to the chair and moved it back to the same position where it had been found, matching it to the marks in the bloodstain below.
"The chair was facing the desk," Alison said.
She moved to the side of the chair, then slipped between the desk and the chair.
She looked behind her to where the chair sat on the other side of the desk, then noticed dirt on the wooden surface.
"The killer was on the other side of the desk and leaped up onto it.
It was as if they were a wild animal, which fits with the stabbing frenzy. "
Detective Moore approached the desk and looked down at the dirt that had come from someone standing on the top of the work surface.
"So, what, or who, are we looking for?" Moore asked.
"Someone came here late last night to kill Langford," Alison said. "The office was empty at the time, but there’s no sign that Langford was attacked and forced into the chair. It’s almost as if he had the killer in his office.
The killer was on the opposite side of the desk at one point, then jumped onto it.
To me, that suggests they were talking with Langford before attacking him. "
"So, it was someone he knew?" Moore asked.
"I can't say for sure," Alison admitted. "It could have been, but then, it could have been someone who was there to talk with him, or that’s what he thought was happening. Victoria spoke about victims’ rights advocates.
Someone among them might want to hurt Langford.
Still, whoever came here, the scene presents like Langford was at ease, as if he didn't know he was about to be attacked. That doesn’t help much, but it does mean the killer might not have been known to him.
Although he must have been known to the killer. "
"The note?" Moore asked.
"It was personal," Alison said. "The killer is accusing Langford of lying or making excuses. That’s obviously the reason Langford was killed. The killer believes Langford is in the wrong."
"They must have believed that quite strongly to leave him how they did," Moore pointed out.
"The killer is motivated," Alison agreed. "That’s for sure." She glanced again at the blood stains on the floor and the splatters on the wall. "Whatever Langford did, I believe the ferocity of the murder makes our job easier. We might need to dig deep if it’s something that Langford tried to hide, but there has to be something there. If the killer knows what that something is, we should be able to find it. I say we start with the victims’ rights advocates and go from there. We’ll be looking for something big, something that deeply impacted and affected the killer. "
"I’ll get—excuse me." Detective Moore took out her phone and answered it as she left the room.
Alison looked back at the desk. She’d seen prison and coldness before in killers, but this was something more unusual: unbridled fury. The killer had leapt up onto the desk and then jumped down onto Langford like a predator attacking its prey.
"Hey," Moore called from the doorway. "We need to go."
Alison knew from the tone in Moore’s voice and the tightness in her jaw that they weren’t just going back to the office to look into Langford.
There was an urgency in her voice. If there were more relief in her voice or on her face, Alison would suspect they had found the killer or knew where the killer was.
No, this was another body.
***
"Patricia Holland," The officer told them.
The three of them stood outside an apartment building.
"She was found this morning by her boyfriend, who had come over with breakfast," the officer continued.
"He’s not a suspect?" Alison asked.
The officer looked up as if he could see through the walls and into the apartment where Patricia had been killed.
"Yeah, you see," the officer said with a sigh of resignation. "The boyfriend is also married, and he was pretty adamant that we shouldn’t contact his wife. It wasn’t until we cuffed him because he was so evasive that he became more compliant.
Anyway, we called the wife, and he was at home all night.
She thought he had left for work, but apparently, this is a little detour he often makes before work during the week.
Not what he expected when he turned up."
"He had a key?" Moore asked.
"He did," the officer confirmed. "He went into the apartment, found her on the floor, covered in quite a lot of blood, and called the cops immediately. Well, right after vomiting in the hallway, so watch your step when you go up there."
"Do you know who she was?" Alison asked.
"Not personally, no, but she had ID in the apartment, and the guys back at the precinct put together a quick file for you coming down. Is it true that you just came from another like this?"
"We believe so," Moore acknowledged. "Who was she?"