Chapter Twelve #3
“Once there, he and his dog, Shadow, who is missing by the way, settled down. Oh, and he loved that dog, and never would have abandoned it.”
She let him continue.
Elizabeth had a bunch of people who reported to her, and each team worked differently. She was accustomed to how they did their jobs.
“Anyway, they heard someone upstairs. Talking. He was saying weird shit to someone.”
That piqued her interest.
“Like what?”
He shared.
“He was saying something along the lines about how they were all his now, and he could keep them forever.”
Well, shit.
That was definitely a cuckoo talking to his collection.
Oh, that was interesting and also terrifying because currently, they were in possession of this person’s collection. At some point, he would lash out.
Big-time.
“So he likely was killed because he overheard something?” Mac asked. “That’s shitty. Pardon my language, Ma’am.”
She didn’t mind.
That was mild considering what came out of her piehole.
“Yeah, it sounds like he’s cleaning up. He might have been left there simply because a security team rolls by, and he didn’t want to risk it, or he was going to go back to handle it later. Who called it in?” she asked.
Tora pulled up the phone log.
“Someone who works for Farmington Security.”
Well, that tracked too.
Devon Slater had given her that company name.
“That’s the same security people we heard monitor the area for the new owner. Tomorrow, I’ll likely be following up with them, or I’ll put Alex on it.”
He found it a little odd that there was no ‘and Corbin’ involved in that.
“Anything else?” Elizabeth asked Alex.
He continued.
“The homeless group cared about him. They gave me this,” he said, reaching into his messenger bag and passing the box to her.
When she opened it, they all saw the medals. That immediately made her heart hurt.
“Jesus Christ,” she said softly. “He was a hero.”
That pissed her off that he’d died this way, and that he was left there like trash in an abandoned building.
Alex agreed there.
“I told them we’d make sure he got the burial he deserved.
They think it was whoever stole his kidney, since he woke up without it one day.
He went to the ER, and I called there to get the paperwork.
They sent it over to me, and nothing looks out of place.
He came in, was stitched up, and when they did an ultrasound on the fresh wound, he had one less kidney. ”
Elizabeth closed the box and passed it off to Ivan, who would make sure it was kept safe until she could get Jonathan Miller’s body released for burial.
She was to the point.
“It’s not in his VA records,” she admitted. “We assumed he went to a local facility. As for his medals, I’ll get him buried in Arlington, and have his body shipped there, after doing a family notify personally,” she said. “I’m working on finding them.”
Alex wasn’t shocked.
He knew Elizabeth loved her some soldiers.
“Do we think that the kidney thing is tied to it?” he asked. “If it is, that explains the eyeballs in a jar. This whole thing is wild, but if that is a collector, and Jonathan got a little too close to his trinkets, it would explain why he was killed.”
She contemplated it, as their food was put in front of them, and they all began eating.
“It might be,” she said. “That’s how it’s tracking for me. I think it’s a case of wrong place and wrong time. Only, we’re early into this. I’ll need more time to see if it’s that, or something more. We’re hoping there’s some DNA on him that will help us.”
That was what they were all hoping for, too.
Elizabeth wasn’t done.
“I can tell you what we came across,” she said.
They all listened.
Elizabeth pointed at her partner in this, and he went first, updating them.
“We interviewed the new owner, Devon Slater. He’s on the up and up. The president vouched for him. He inherited this mess when his father died mid-real-estate deal. He’s been trying to get it torn down, or to build apartments, but the city council is making it a nightmare.”
Well, that matched up to what Alex said.
“He’s frustrated and had no idea there was a locked room, so we’re no further with that,” Gene said.
“We confirmed with Tony that the skulls are between two and three years out of the grave, with newer ones tossed in. So this person has been doing this a while,” he stated.
“That’s our timeline we’re looking at, so if anything key pops up in that time frame, be wary. ”
Alex got it.
From where she sat, Tora chimed in, hoping that was allowed.
“How long has the new owner had the building?” she asked.
Callen answered because Gene was chewing.
“Last year, he inherited everything post-daddy’s death. When we hit him with this, and what we found, he was horrified. He offered to pay for anything tied to the deaths because he felt horrible about Jonathan Miller and the victims. He’s cooperating.”
Elizabeth agreed.
“He replied appropriately. There was anger at the council dragging its feet, so he couldn’t put plywood up to keep people out, and horrified by the eyeball situation. His attorney was a completely different story.”
That had their attention.
Gene continued.
“Yeah, the attorney was a piece of work. His name is Larry Springer, and he was being incredibly difficult. He didn’t want us talking to the man he worked for either.”
They all lifted brows.
“That’s suspicious,” Mac said.
They were aware.
Elizabeth needed someone working on that, and she knew it wouldn’t be Corbin and likely not Alex when she finished speaking to him.
“Yeah, it is. That’s why I want the two of you to start researching Larry Springer, and also Bill Farmington’s company next. I want to know who works for him, and what their pasts entail because it’s convenient that they found the body in an abandoned building that they only have to drive past.”
She had a point.
It was odd.
“We’ll handle that for you,” Mac admitted. “I’ll make sure we do a deep dive.”
That worked for Elizabeth.
“Partner?” she said, cueing hers in.
Gene continued.
“After dealing with the attorney, we then went to the cemetery, and in case you’re wondering why Ivan looks uglier than usual, we had issues there. Jeffrey Von Gunter was NOT amused by us.”
Ivan stared at him.
“You too, Gene?” he asked. “Really?”
It made him laugh.
Then, he explained, since the two cops were looking perplexed as to what he was saying.
“Jeffrey Von Gunter is the caretaker, and when he thought we were going to violate the graves and flowers, he kicked the hell out of four of us. Ethan got hit, Elizabeth went flying, Raphael took a shot to the balls, and Ivan…he didn’t move fast enough and got punched in the face.”
Alex whistled.
“All four of you? One guy took out two Feds and your security?”
Elizabeth was well aware.
Only, they were missing an important fact.
“In our defense, he was like six eight, three hundred eighty pounds, and had hands the size of dinner plates. He went from zero to crazy in two point two seconds. It escalated fast, but he was put down once he started his shit.”
That didn’t sound good.
For anyone.
“Isn’t he the logical choice as a suspect?” Tora asked, sharing charcuterie with her partner. “You know, since someone is digging up bodies under his nose?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“He would be, except he only does a patrol of the cemetery at nine, and at dawn. That leaves a lot of hours in between for this person to do their dirty deeds. It’s a big freaking place,” she admitted.
That it was.
Elizabeth continued.
“On top of that, and trust and believe, I don’t rationalize much when it comes to suspects, but this is different.
Ethan, and I, think he’s developmentally delayed.
Possibly fetal alcohol syndrome when he was born.
He’s got some issues, definitely. I don’t want to call him slow, but he is a little off.
That doesn’t fit for us. From what we’ve seen, the person behind all of this is methodical.
They likely started with the ‘grave robberies’.
It wasn’t as much to get the gold, and watch, but to see how everyone reacted.
How the cops did. How the groundskeeper did.
How the church did. He was watching and learning. ”
Well, that sucked.
“We didn’t want to arrest him, so we sent him home to mommy so we could have access to the cemetery if we had to dig people up. No one wants him going nuts on them. That wasn’t fun, and I don’t want to shoot an innocent person.”
Yeah, seriously.
Elizabeth continued.
“What we do suspect,” she began, lowering her voice so people around them wouldn’t hear, “is that the person behind this is either killing the people and then waiting to dig them up to use for his gross fun, or watching the cemetery and getting his ‘victims’ that way. We won’t know until we get ID, and see if they match the eyeballs to the names on the list.”
Well, that was gross.
Definitely.
“And if the names match the eyeballs post ID?” Mac asked, curiously.
And here was where it got ugly.
“We have to get warrants to dig up a whole lot of bodies. Once we do that, the cat is out of the bag for the media, and for this killer. I’m betting he never expected that to happen, so he’s going to escalate to try and stop us.
We’ll be in danger. Already, I’m worried that someone will get hurt. So, watch your backs.”
Tora glanced over at her partner.
“Can I crash at your place? Or want to come to mine?” she asked. “We can research there.”
He nodded.
“You have a dog. Let’s do your place. When you bring him over to my place, he gets fur everywhere.”
She laughed.
“Point taken.”
Elizabeth was curious, and she recalled what Chris had told her about the two detectives.
“Okay, I gotta ask. This is because if I do hire you, I need to know in advance. Are you guys a couple or…?”
They both laughed.
“US?” Mac asked, amused. “No. We’re a couple of nuts, but not that kind of couple.”
Tora also shook her head.