Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
The day was beginning to take shape in the right direction. Katie and McGaven headed back to their office after things were in place to follow Tom Grand. Before they entered their office, John headed them off.
“Hey, you two have a moment?” he called.
“What do you have for us?” said McGaven.
“Come and find out.”
“I’ll be right there,” said Katie. “Just want to drop these papers off.” She went into the office and dropped off the folder with photos from the interview with Grand and then took a moment to read their updated board.
She added Griffin Jr.’s trailer location and the murder scene along with making a note next to Tom Grand’s name.
She connected the four men: Tom Grand, Ian Griffin Jr., Raymond “Buck” Young, and David Young.
She knew there was more to these four men and their history than any of them were letting on, even though she had a difficult time thinking that Buck had anything to do with the murders or what was going on now.
“Hey,” said John from the door.
Katie smiled. With all the drama and the cases, she missed her quiet time with John. She gently pulled him inside and gave him a quick kiss.
“On the job, that’s not right,” he said, smiling.
“Thank you for yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah, you were sensitive and respectful. I know I was full of it. I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “That’s what I find attractive about you. Don’t forget all the things we’ve been through together.”
“C’mon, let’s see what you have for us.”
They joined McGaven and Eva in the examination room. McGaven had obviously said something funny because they were laughing.
“Okay… first,” said John, now the professional forensic specialist. “The blood on the bat belongs to both Meredith and Bruce Collins—most of the blood and hair belonged to Meredith Collins.”
Katie let out a sigh. That’s what she needed to hear.
It was enough evidence along with the Young brothers’ eyewitness accounts to have brought Bruce Collins to court—but even though he was dead they would still be able to close Meredith’s murder case.
Even though they didn’t have forensic evidence to conclude that he had murdered Misty too, the circumstances and eyewitness accounts of the Young brothers would close the case.
“However, with Misty Collins’s remains we couldn’t find any evidence to conclusively say Bruce Collins murdered her too.
It can be argued that mother and daughter holding hands was a pretty significant suggestion they were murdered at the same time.
” John sighed. “This was a very unusual case and surrounding circumstances.”
“That case can close now. It’ll be up to the county prosecutors on how they want to officially do so,” said Katie.
There was a moment of quiet as everyone digested the sad brutality of the case. At least they had solved part of it. Though they still had to work out who had tortured and killed Bruce Collins, and who had killed Ian Griffin.
John moved to another workstation where he pulled up the video image from the coffee place of the man in black. “Here’s the image you brought me, which was very grainy. Typical of these types of still images.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” said McGaven, staring intently at the screen.
“This is what appeared when the software cleaned it up.” He put the known image of Junior against the cleaned-up image from the coffee place side by side.
Katie was extremely surprised. They were looking at an image of a man in his early forties who bore more than a striking resemblance to Ian Griffin Jr. The image from the coffee shop made him look a bit older than in the original photo and his face was gaunt, his eyes looking like he had seen awful things.
“Wow,” said McGaven.
“So we now know the man in black is Griffin Jr. but we have to find him,” Katie said.
“And that’s why Officer Andrews is on Grand’s tail,” said McGaven.
“Sounds like you have your bases covered,” said John.
“Have you been able to find any matches on the bullet that killed Griffin Sr.?” Katie said.
“No. But if you bring me the gun…”
“The theory is that Griffin Sr. killed Bruce Collins, but we don’t have anything that corroborates that. Any idea what was used to scrape his bones the way they were?” she said.
John brought up a close image of Collins’s ribs. “These marks are deep and distinct, but I just can’t work out what was used to make them. His body had been beaten badly with all the broken bones. It must’ve been a slow death. Those deep scrapings on the ribs were done postmortem.”
“That shows a lot of rage if it continued after his death,” she said. “Usually something so violent is done by someone close, or someone he knew. Not to mention they tortured him first.”
“Torturing him for information?” said McGaven.
Katie nodded. “It’s possible.” She thought about it. “It bothers me. I understand his killer would be getting even for the murders of his wife and daughter. But if it was Griffin, how did he know? He reported them missing at first. Did he just suspect?”
“There are allegedly four individuals who knew what happened,” said McGaven. “Maybe one of them told Griffin.”
“The four boys,” she said. “We don’t even know for sure if all four of them were there that night.”
Back in the detectives’ office Katie finished updating the board. Looking at everything, she still couldn’t see what the motives were for the various deaths.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” McGaven said as he keyed up reports.
“We have all these horrible murders that have taken place from two decades until about six months ago—and that’s not counting Sydney Butler’s recent death.”
“Okay, that much we know.”
“But we don’t have a clear understanding of the motives behind the murders—besides Meredith and Misty Collins.” She looked at the list. “It’s like everyone wants something.”
“You mean like money or property? Family secrets?”
“It has to be more… I think there’s a bigger stake here.”
“What about Sydney, your uncle’s new girlfriend? Are you sure she’s a part of this?”
“I am.” Katie animatedly nodded. “She was murdered and her body dumped at Junior’s old place. Yes, she’s a part of it.”
“Maybe she asked the wrong questions?”
“Why dump her there, though?”
“Maybe he didn’t have time to hide the body in a better location, though I don’t think anyone goes around there anymore—a tin-trailer ghost town.”
“I just feel so bad for my uncle. He even admitted to me that there was something off about her—she asked too many questions about cases, apparently.”
“That’s rough. It’s going to take a special woman to grab his attention now,” he said.
Katie sat down and went through copies of photos taken at Roberts’ house from the underground secret room. “What first stood out to you when we were in Roberts’ secret basement?”
“It was creepy.”
“Old property maps of the area where the Collins family lived—and all the surrounding land too.” Katie looked at the board. “Do you think there was something planned there a long time ago or… there might be mineral rights?”
“Let me bring up the Collins property and see what happened fifty to a hundred years ago,” he said. “The bank owns it now, but it looks like there’s a lien on it.”
“Does that mean no one can buy it?”
“It usually means there’s some type of mortgage that needs to be paid off before the bank or investors will auction or buy it,” said McGaven. He read from his screen. “This seems strange. It looks like there was some type of activity on it in the past year.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. It’s unclear. There’s not enough information.”
“So what else would make a property worth a lot of money?” Katie looked at the photos from the old room. “Whoever dug those holes was looking for something. I can’t quite figure out what or why.”
“Maybe something in that room would answer that question. I saw all the files had been brought here,” he said. “That’s quite a project, going through all that old stuff.”
“Gav…”
He looked at his partner. “Oh, no.”
“I know we could have a couple of people from records do it, but they wouldn’t know what we were looking for.”
“The answer is no.”
“C’mon. It would be fast if we worked together.”
McGaven sighed loudly.
“Look, we’re making some headway now with the blood and hair match—and the photo of what the man in black looks like.” Katie moved closer to her partner. “It going to be a while before we hear back about Sydney and the trailer park scene.”
“I have Officer Andrews checking in every three to four hours—and his relief will take over.”
“And if there’s anything important that comes up, you’ll know immediately. Right?”
“There’s not a lot of room in there,” he said. “Going through old stinky stuff.”
“Pizza and endless coffee on me.” Katie smiled.
“Maybe we could have the boxes transported to your house. More room and Cisco.”
“I don’t want all that stinky stuff in my living room.” She laughed. “In about two hours?”
“Okay. But make it good pizza.”