Chapter 19 #2
Liam had watched Sam fall into an easy rhythm over the past two days.
He took her to work each morning, met her for lunch, then they spent the evenings together.
The girls spent so much of their time in their bedroom that he and Sam didn’t have to do much acting at home.
So everything had been kept professional since the talk in the kitchen.
The fire station was a different story. They sat next to each other and did the typical new-couple things. Hand-holding and hugs. It had become almost natural.
He’d followed up with RPD a couple of times on the reports regarding the juveniles—the one who’d followed Sam and the girls in the mall, and all of his friends.
So far, they had what appeared to be two separate cases at first glance. The murder of Dr. Torres and the fire to cover it up, and the situation with the girls. But what if they were connected?
An email from the forensic pathologist popped up in his inbox. He clicked the attachment and read her official report. Dr. Torres had died from a single gunshot to the back of the head. He was dead when the fire started.
He saved the report to the case file and clicked over to the fire inspector’s report. Based on the burn patterns, an accelerant was used in multiple spots throughout the home. Chemical trace tests confirmed gasoline.
The question was, why had it happened at Sam’s house? Had he been lured there and ambushed?
They’d know more when forensics was done with Dr. Torres’s phone.
It had been damaged during the fire. He prayed that the memory chip was still intact and they’d be able to pull data from it.
Unfortunately, that took time. While they waited, he’d obtained warrants and sent them to the cell providers. More waiting.
His phone rang. Renegade Police Department.
“Liam Roberts.”
“Deputy Marshal Roberts, this is Detective Bridges with the Renegade Police Department. I was calling regarding your request for a criminal check on a juvenile by the name of Aiden Hamilton.”
Finally. Now he would have something he could work with.
“I got the clearance needed to give you the file.”
“That’s great. Email it over.” This could have been an email. A telephone call hadn’t been necessary.
“Normally I would, but I just got called to a homicide scene.”
A prickle raced up his neck.
“Unofficially, it’s your juvenile. I thought you might want to meet me there.”
His stomach sank. He logged out of the computer. “Give me the address.” After jotting it down, he said, “I’ll meet you there.”
Liam walked down the hall and rapped his knuckles on Sophia’s door. “Girls, we gotta go. Come on.”
He called Glover while he waited for them in the front room.
“Glover.”
“Please tell me you’re not busy.”
“Well, good news is I’m not. What’s up?”
“I need to go to a crime scene, but I have my juvenile witness and niece. Can you meet me somewhere, take them, and keep an eye on them while I deal with this?”
“Where we meeting?”
He gave her the address. “I think there’s a gas station on the corner a couple blocks up.”
“There is. I’ll meet you there.”
He disconnected the call just as the girls emerged from the room.
“Is everything okay?” Worry etched Isabella’s face.
“Yes. I’ve just been called in for a work thing. You two are going to hang out with my coworker Glover for a bit while I deal with it.”
“Okay,” they said in unison.
Liam transferred the girls to Glover’s vehicle and caught her before she could climb in. “You’re aware of the cover that’s been woven for this?”
“Yes. You and the witness are dating. How you managed to get Supervisor Howard to sign off on that is beyond me.” She smirked.
“I have no clue other than we didn’t have many other options. The girls don’t know anything other than that.” He wanted to make sure that Isabella didn’t know the truth. “Samantha thought it would be best if we kept her sister in the dark on the fake relationship.”
“Understood.” She nodded.
“I’ll touch base when I’m done here.”
Glover climbed into her SUV and pulled out of the parking lot.
Liam made it to the crime scene and checked in at the perimeter. A narrow gravel alley between two overgrown vacant lots. The ends of the alley were taped off, with officers standing guard. “I’m looking for Detective Bridges.”
The officer took Liam’s info, then pointed to a man in a black blazer and a pair of slacks, halfway down the alley. “That’s him.”
“Thanks.”
Liam made his way toward the man standing about twenty feet from the inner perimeter. “Detective Bridges.”
The detective turned around. He was a man close to retirement age. Salt-and-pepper hair with a receding hairline.
“Deputy Marshal Roberts.” Detective Bridges stuck his hand out.
Liam shook it. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“We’ve positively identified the body as that of Aiden Hamilton. The forensic pathologist is with the body now.” Bridges motioned in that direction.
Dr. Falleur from the coroner’s office knelt next to a prone figure clad in black sweats and a hoodie.
The buzzing of insects and the sickeningly sweet aroma of rotten meat intensified as they got closer. The body lay in an unnatural position, limbs askew. Not like a natural fall. He hadn’t been killed here.
“What have you got for us?” Detective Bridges asked.
“Based on decomposition and insect activity, I’d estimate our kid’s been dead two days.” Dr. Falleur looked up at the two of them, then turned back to the body. “Lividity and lack of blood surrounding the body suggests this is a body dump. Of course, that’s unofficially.”
“COD?” Liam asked.
“Unofficially, gunshot wound to the back of the head.” She stood up.
Unofficially was thrown around a lot at crime scenes. Just because it looked one way, didn’t mean it ended up actually being that way.
The victim could have been shot in the back of the head, but it could just as easily have been death by poison and a gunshot as assurance the job had been done. He’d seen it happen before.
“You think it could be the same caliber as the one from Dr. Torres?”
“You know ballistics isn’t my thing,” the forensic pathologist said. “I can say it was a medium-caliber weapon. As was the bullet that killed Dr. Torres. There doesn’t appear to be an exit wound. If there’s anything left, I’ll let ballistics handle it.”
Liam turned to Detective Bridges. “Keep me in the loop on this one. Not only does this kid connect to one of my witnesses, but my niece is also involved.”
“Will do. Let me get that file for you.”
Liam followed the detective back out of the alley and to his vehicle.
Bridges retrieved a manila folder and handed it to him. “I also emailed it to you after we hung up.”
“Great, thank you.”
Back at the office, Liam stuck his head in and checked on the girls. They were sitting at the conference-room table, watching something on Isabella’s phone. The table was covered in snacks.
He made his way to Glover’s office and knocked on the doorframe.
Glover looked up from the file on her desk. “Have a seat.”
Liam took the chair across from her desk. She grabbed a manila folder and stretched it across to him. “Take a look.”
“Here’s the juvenile file I was given on our dead kid, Aiden Hamilton. The forensic pathologist obviously can’t say for certain right now, but his death is similar to that of Dr. Torres, except for the fire.” Liam handed her the file he’d gotten from Detective Bridges.
He flipped through the manila folder on Dr. Torres. Glover had ordered a deep dive into his financials and business dealings. He was linked to a few limited liability companies in Colorado. “Okay, so Dr. Torres had some real estate investments in the area.”
“Yep. Now look at this.” She handed him a sheet of paper with a list of the recent arsons.
“Interesting.” Each one of the arsons was owned by an LLC that Dr. Torres was a member of.
“Do we think he was padding his pockets with the insurance money?” It was possible whoever he was working with had gotten greedy and didn’t want to share. “There’s no way he was actually the one setting the fires.”
Maybe a disagreement had gotten him killed.
“It definitely looks suspect,” Glover said. “We need to keep pounding the pavement and chase these leads down to find out who murdered our witness.”
“Okay.” He leaned back in his chair. “We’ve got arsons being set on buildings owned by a few different LLCs.
The only connection between the buildings and LLCs is this Dr. Torres guy.
Apparently he had agreed to tell them what he knew about the Shadow Syndicate in exchange for leniency on his other charges. ”
“Seriously?”
“Then he ends up dead in a property he owns under his real name, not one of the LLCs.” Liam shook his head. “Maybe they wanted him silenced.”
“It just so happens that the property is rented by a witness of ours, making our jobs harder in the process.”
“A witness who has been getting into trouble at school with kids suspected of starting the fires. One of whom is murdered similarly to Dr. Torres.”
“This is a tangled mess.” Glover looked at him. “Sounds like someone just making it look like it’s connected, but they didn’t check all the details, so it only seems like the same string of incidents on the surface—until you look deeper.”
“Yeah, but hopefully we’ll pull the right string and everything will unravel.” His mind wasn’t just on this as a US marshal. It was personal. He wanted to give Sam and Bella the peace they deserved.