Chapter 22
I left the furniture store office and walked outside. As I did, I saw Halloway walking toward me from the far end of the building. I waited until he reached me.
“Where is this shit show?” the captain asked.
“Behind the dumpster,” I said and started in that direction, which was where I was headed before seeing the captain. “The guy is on the other side.”
As we walked over, I could see Colt’s head sticking up above the dumpster—he had to have arrived as I was talking to the Evan guy who had called in the body. The captain, getting his first look at the man, cursed beneath his breath.
“Anything standing out to you, Colt?” I asked.
Colt, who’d been snapping photos, let his camera hang from the neck strap.
He pulled in a big breath. “I mean, yeah, we have all kinds of stuff here. The guy wasn’t killed here.
Judging by the envelope addressed to us, I would venture to guess that whoever killed this guy has some message for us.
With that, we can pretty much assume that this isn’t your average murder and body dump.
I don’t see any defensive wounds on the guy’s hands, so this was probably some surprise attack.
I can see some blood through the tear in the bag but can’t give you any cause of death until we remove the bag. ”
“What do you make of the garbage bag?” the captain asked.
“I would guess for transport,” I offered. “So the guy wouldn’t bloody up whatever vehicle he was moved in.”
“I would think the same,” Colt said.
“What’s the plan here?” Halloway asked.
“We’ll get Skip or one of his guys out here and get this guy back to the medical examiner’s office. We’ll start the processing there.”
While the captain and Colt spoke, I had a look into the dumpster.
Right at the top was a crumpled-up box from a pack of cigarettes, the same as what our 911 caller smoked, and right where the empty pack was supposed to be to confirm his account.
I didn’t normally try to immediately confirm or disprove witness accounts before we even began investigating, especially with a body still on scene, but felt it necessary at the time.
Simply put, Evan Coker didn’t act the way that my twenty-some years of law enforcement said he should.
I thought back to Kincaid telling me that he was either in shock or socially awkward.
I didn’t pick up much on the former, as he had no problem answering questions, but the latter was a certainty.
There was also a chance that he had some mental health condition or was somewhere on the autism spectrum, which could lead to unwarranted suspicion. Time would tell.
I walked to Halloway’s shoulder and mirrored the captain, who was staring at the man’s body.
“What are we doing with the letter?” I asked.
“We’ll get it removed at the medical examiner’s, and I’ll process it back at our lab,” Colt said.
“I want to know what it says,” the captain said. “Like, now.”
“It needs to be opened in a controlled environment,” Colt said.
“I know, I know,” Halloway said. “How long are we thinking?”
“A couple hours,” Colt said. “I’m going to finish my photos, and then we’ll get the body out of here.
We aren’t doing anything here on scene. This guy is going back to the ME’s office as is.
We’ll remove the bag there and see what we can get as far as answers to COD, TOD, identity, etcetera.
Then we’ll get this envelope to the lab, and I’ll start on it right away. ”
“All right,” Halloway said. “Let’s get to doing what we have to do.”
Colt gave the captain a nod and returned to snapping photos.
Halloway motioned for me to follow him. “Let’s walk and talk,” he said and started down the alley and away from the scene.
“Donaghy said that you were talking with the guy who called this in,” the captain said. “What did he say?”
“He said he went out back for a smoke,” I said.
“Went to the dumpster to toss his empty pack of cigarettes and saw the body. He ripped open the bag, thinking that the man could have possibly been alive and suffocating. Then he reached in to check for a pulse but felt the man was cold or dead or whatever. He called 911 right away. Then went inside and told his manager. Some other warehouse guy before that.”
“Dammit,” Halloway muttered.
“What?” I asked.
“Those three people probably told a dozen more by now—the rest of the employees here know. And they probably all told another handful of people each.”
We made a right at the end of the alley and walked toward the parking lot at the front of the store.
“And as we speak, every person who has heard is spreading the word about a body with a letter stuck to it addressed to the police. This place is going to be crawling with news vans in an hour.”
“There’s a chance they didn’t say anything,” I said.
I figured that was wishful thinking, but the captain’s sideways glance said that I knew better.
“I mean, it is what it is. It’s not like we haven’t worked a case with the press and public on our butts before.”
“Yeah,” Halloway said. “But we have a pair of unsolved cases that were all over the news getting as cold as cold gets, and now this. It’s going to get bad if we don’t have some results quick.”
“Heard,” I said.
We’d reached the captain’s car, and he pulled open his driver’s-side door.
“Get that body out of here. Get us some answers,” he said. “Call me the second we know something. I’m going to see about getting a press conference scheduled before the evening news. I want to get ahead of this.”
I would have preferred to have a little in the way of leads or evidence before we started going before the cameras, but the captain’s tone said that he wasn’t looking for input on the topic.
“I’ll call you as soon as we have anything,” I said. “I’m going to go look at what, if anything their cameras caught.”
Halloway ducked into the car. I headed around the building then into the warehouse area where Donaghy and Rey stood with another pair of officers.
I glanced toward the office that the Evan guy was in, and he stared out at us.
Officer Wester was in the room with him, I imagined getting the written statement wrapped up.
“What’s going on, Rey,” I said.
“Another day, another dollar. And a homicide vic in a bag with a letter stuck to his chest.”
I gave him a lift of the eyebrows and a nod. “Did you have a look at the video?”
“Yeah, I was just telling these guys. Nothing,” Rey said.
“Well, at least nothing back here. The camera in the back that was aimed at the loading dock, and the dumpster where this happened, has been out for a week or two. There is a camera on the side of the building, but that didn’t give us anything at all.
The front parking lot camera picked up a handful of vehicles overnight passing through.
None of the tags are visible, but maybe some of the tech unit guys can do something with the footage. ”
“You know what’s amazing?” Donaghy said. “That in this day and age, with everyone and their mother having a thousand cameras everywhere, whenever there is a crime and camera footage is needed, the damn cameras don’t work or don’t catch anything.”
He had a point.
“I want to look at the video anyway,” I said. “Where do I go, or who do I need to talk to?”
“I can show you,” Rey said.
“All right.”
“Did you want me to put any of these guys on anything, Harrington?” Donaghy asked.
“You can ask Colt,” I said. “But I would think that walking the alley and checking the other dumpsters and tree line for anything tossed would probably be a good start.”
“On it,” Donaghy said and walked off.
Rey led me to the far side of the warehouse, through a doorway and into another smaller stockroom. An office with glass windows sat in the back corner with the door open. I could see a guy wearing a gray polo shirt seated at the desk inside.
“This is the warehouse manager, Todd,” Rey said.
Rey poked his head into the office, told the Todd guy who I was and that I needed to look at the security video, and pointed me in.
“Give me a shout if you need anything,” Rey said. “I’m going to give the guys outside a hand.”
“Yep. Thanks,” I said.
I stepped into the room, and my phone vibrated against my leg as I did. I slid it out to see a text from Donaghy. The message was a single sentence—Channel 12 is out front.