Chapter 6
“Police! Search warrant! Open up!” Rey called as he balled a fist and banged on the front door.
Dradon, holding the door ram, moved into position.
Steve stood opposite me, on the far side of Rey and Dradon at the front door, his service weapon drawn. Mine was out and at the ready for the moment the door went in.
The door lock clicked, and Rey and Dradon quickly moved back from the doorway. I brought my sights up onto the door as it slowly swung open. A woman, blond and about fifty, took a step out from the door. Rey grabbed her and pulled her toward him.
“What the…” the woman said.
“Who is in the house!” Rey barked.
“Nobody. It’s just me. What is going on?”
“Take her,” Rey said. He passed the woman off to Dradon and led us into the property.
“Police! Search warrant!” Rey again called.
There was no response and no noise from anyone attempting to flee. We quickly cleared the home, both upstairs and down. And unless someone had themselves a hell of a hiding spot, the mom was truthful in her statement that she was in the residence alone.
“Where is Keegan Sloan?” I asked.
“I… I don’t know,” she said. “Probably at work or his girlfriend’s.”
“Who is he to you?” I asked.
“He’s my son,” she said.
“Does he drive a nineties Honda?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s a gray Accord. Why? What is going on?”
I ignored the question and fired off more of my own. “Is it just you and your son that live here? No other adult males?”
“Adult males?” she questioned.
“Do you know of anyone that he might have possibly lent his car to?” Steve asked.
“Lent his car to? No. That’s not something he does. I mean, maybe Ally would use it, his girlfriend, if hers was getting worked on or something. But other than that, no. What is going on here? Why are you asking about Keegan’s car?”
“Ma’am, when was the last time that you saw Keegan?” I asked.
“Yesterday before I went over to the clubhouse. Maybe, like, seven o’clock last night. Why?”
I had the Midwest guys hang back, as it appeared that we wouldn’t be needing their help with a suspect, but I wasn’t ready to send them off entirely until we got a few more questions answered.
Steve and I went inside to have a more in-depth conversation with the woman, who told us her name was Sandra Sloan. We stood in her kitchen, and she hopped up on a barstool at her kitchen island.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” she asked. “What do you want with my son and his car?”
“Ms. Sloan, I’m going to tell you what I can, but unfortunately, it isn’t much,” I said. “Your son’s vehicle was used in a homicide this morning.”
“A homicide!” she snapped. “What!”
I held up a hand in hopes of settling her down. “The suspect, from multiple witness accounts and video evidence, does not match your son’s description. Witnesses put the man in his forties and of average height.”
“Keegan is twenty-four and six four.”
“We have six two on his driver’s license,” Steve said.
“Well, I don’t know when his driver’s license was issued with that on there, but he’s six four now.” She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen. “To hell with this. I’m getting him on the phone to see just what the heck is going on here.”
“Ma’am, please, just wait a moment,” I said.
She dropped her phone onto the kitchen island countertop and placed eyes on me—concerned eyes.
“We want to get to the bottom of whatever is going on as well,” I said. “But the first thing that we need to do is locate your son. Now, you said that he was probably at work or at his girlfriend’s. Where does he work, and what is his girlfriend’s name?”
She sniffed then snatched a paper towel from a nearby roll before blowing her nose.
“His girlfriend’s name is Ally VanHaren.
I have her number here.” She tapped the screen of her phone and continued talking.
“I don’t have her address, but she lives in some apartments in Coral Gables. Maybe a mile south of the airport.”
With the general location and her name, she shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
Ms. Sloan slid her phone toward Steve. I watched as he had a look at the number and jotted it into his notepad.
“Thank you.” Steve passed her phone back to her. “Do you know where this Ally works if we can’t get her on the phone or find her at her house?”
“She’s a bartender at some place on the beach,” Ms. Sloan said. “I’m not sure what place exactly, but I think it’s a nightclub. She works nights mostly.”
“Where does Keegan work?” I asked.
“He’s a mechanic at Willow Brothers Automotive on Northwest Sixty-Fourth. Just off the Palmetto Expressway a little north of the big golf course.”
I knew the area well enough to know the spot.
“And your son’s phone number?” I asked.
She gave it to us.
“Did something happen to him?” Ms. Sloan used her wadded-up paper towel to dab her eyes. “Do you… Do you think he’s—” She choked on the question before getting it out.
“It’s way too early to speculate on anything,” I said. “I mean, someone could have stolen his car and did this. He may not even know his car is missing. There are a ton of possibilities here.”
“We’re only about two hours into this investigation and are just trying to gather whatever information that we can right now,” Steve added. “As soon as we find him or learn something, you’ll be the first to know.”
“We are going to contact his work and girlfriend as soon as we leave here,” I said. “We’ll also get our tech guys working on tracking his phone.”
“Does your son have any kind of find-my-phone app that you would be able to access?” Steve asked. “Or anything like a GPS locator or similar on his vehicle?”
“There’s nothing on his car,” she said. “His laptop is probably in his room. Maybe you can track his phone location from that, but I’m not sure how any of that works.”
“Do you want to show us where that is?” I asked. “We were going to need to go through his room anyway.” With the warrant we already had, we didn’t need her permission, but there was no reason to rock the boat when she was being more than cooperative and things were moving along relatively smoothly.
She led us to her son’s bedroom, which we’d briefly had a look at when clearing the home.
The room, littered with clothing, looked like pretty standard fare for a twenty-some-year-old who was still living with his mother.
A pair of guitars were propped up in one corner.
The laptop sat on a desk. There were some headphones lying beside the computer.
A video game chair sat in the middle of the room and, from where it stood, appeared to be doing triple duty—it served as a chair for the computer desk and as a guitar stand as well as a spot where he could sit and play video games on the television hanging on the far wall.
The bed, to our left, was unmade. Empty soda cans and a half-full cup of water sat on a nightstand.
“Let me go and grab a couple evidence bags from the car,” Steve said.
I gave him a nod and had a better look around as Ms. Sloan stood in the doorway and watched.
I pushed around some papers that were on the desk to get a look, but the stuff mostly looked like receipts for car parts. “Was he supposed to work today?”
“His schedule always changes,” she said. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Does he hang around with anyone that’s maybe forty, forty-five years old?” I asked. “Maybe a buddy from work or something?”
“Not that I know of. I mean, some of the people he works with are probably around that age, but he doesn’t really hang around with any of his coworkers outside of work.”
“What about a Robert Mehen?” I asked. “Ever heard of him or heard Keegan mention him?”
“Robert Mehen?” she asked. “No, I’ve never heard of that name.”
I’d figured it was worth a shot.
“Who is that?” she followed up with.
“We believe that was the name of the victim this morning,” I said.
“Oh. No, I’ve never heard Keegan mention it.”
The victim’s name would probably be all over the news by the following morning, so I didn’t see much reason to withhold the name. The man’s next of kin would be contacted shortly, if Skip hadn’t contacted them already.
I walked to Keegan’s nightstand and slid out the lone drawer for a look inside—a pistol, some condoms, a vape pen, a couple of pocketknives, and random junk.
Really nothing out of the ordinary and about what I imagined would be in there.
My cell phone buzzed, and a quick look at the screen showed a text from Steve.
He said that he’d called the automotive shop, and Keegan was supposed to work that morning but didn’t show.
I dropped my phone into my pocket without relaying the message to Ms. Sloan.
It was too early to have her assuming the worst, and we needed more answers before sending her into a tailspin.
“Is Keegan’s father in the picture?” I asked as I slid the drawer closed.
“My husband, Keegan’s father, passed away about ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Steve walked into the room, and as he bagged the laptop and pistol, I continued my conversation with Ms. Sloan.
I asked if she could think of any place where Keegan would go if he was in trouble or maybe to hide out at—a weekend getaway they possibly owned or maybe a friend or relative’s house.
She had nothing to offer. I asked if he’d been in trouble in the past or maybe gotten involved with the wrong crowd.
She said that there was nothing of the sort.
I asked if he’d mentioned anything strange as of late—people following him or any threats. Again, she had nothing.
We wrapped up at the Sloan house about a half hour later.
I left my card with Keegan Sloan’s mother and said I would be in touch the moment I found her son or had any news for her.
We had Keegan’s girlfriend and coworkers to question, his phone to attempt a trace on, and the computer for our tech department to go through.
I hoped that I would have some answers for her, and us, before the day was out.