Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Katie left her uncle’s office to see how he was doing. He put up a good facade, but she knew he was upset by the situation. She updated him on the particulars of the cases. He was impressed they were making some progress, but it didn’t seem to alleviate his sadness.
Katie made her way back downstairs to the forensic area and went into the detectives’ office. McGaven was finishing up on some searches.
“Anything?”
“Not really. I was trying to track down the companies that had anything to do with the properties, but I’m hitting a brick wall.”
“Good, I was just in time.”
“Yay,” he said sarcastically.
“I ordered the pizzas and I’ll get a couple of thermoses of coffee from upstairs. Just in case… I also ordered a gallon of iced tea.”
“They’re delivering?”
“The front desk will text me when they arrive.”
The detectives went to the property area, which was on the same floor as their office.
It wasn’t large, but it was extremely organized.
The property clerk had left, so it was just Katie and McGaven.
There was an area with boxes from the secret basement neatly stacked, but it took up the better part of half the area.
“Oh, wow,” said Katie as she looked at how many boxes there were to go through.
“This looks like fun,” mumbled McGaven.
“And there’s more around the corner.”
“Can’t wait for that pizza.”
Katie grabbed the first archive box and took it to a counter. “Let’s get started.” She had to admit it was a daunting task, but they needed to find something that might shed light on why so many people in one family had been murdered. And what was so important about those properties.
On top of each was a list carefully written about the contents.
McGaven was correct, they did smell musty.
As Katie opened the first box, she saw mostly old books in brown leather.
The titles were about local history and some autobiographies of farmers and landowners.
She flipped through the pages and didn’t see anything that grabbed her attention.
It was interesting, though, and they should probably be in a library or an antique bookstore.
There were some markings in pencil she assumed were done by someone making notes.
“Did you find the answer yet?” said McGaven from the other side of the room. “If I get lost be sure to send in a search team.”
Katie’s phone alerted. “Pizza is here,” she said and left to get it.
Katie had to admit searching through the contents from the basement was tedious, and she was getting sleepy.
The items were mostly decades’ worth of maps, information on houses, and local history.
It was interesting, but there was nothing she could see that would help in the investigation to bring them closer to the killer and motives.
“How are you doing?” called Katie. She couldn’t see McGaven but could hear him moving boxes—along with a loud sigh once in a while.
“Oh, you know.”
“I don’t think these archives and antiquities are going to help,” she said.
“I don’t think so either.”
“We need to find something relatively recent. Like deeds, banking correspondence, or anything with the Collins name on it.” She put a box away. “I haven’t seen anything like that. Have you?”
“No,” he said with a mouthful of pizza.
Katie began looking through boxes and tried to find those with content listings that would indicate something more recent. She spent another fifteen minutes until she spotted something interesting. There were three boxes that listed items from the past decade. “Got something. Maybe.”
McGaven pushed boxes out of the way to join her.
“These boxes correspond with banking deeds. They’re old and incomplete but it might give us a better understanding.” Katie looked at the third box, which didn’t have anything useful. “Let’s put everything back as it was and take these two into the office.”
“Yay,” he said.
The detectives spent some time putting the property room back the way they had found it before going back to their office.
Katie set the two boxes on the table, then stood in front of the murder board.
It had good information and told a story, but not the ending.
She knew the land was a pivotal part of all of this. But how exactly?
An idea occurred to her.
“What about news stories?” she said.
“What stories?”
“If we take the dates from the bank information and deeds and so forth, and search that date in the news to find out what was going on relating to land in the county: real estate, investing, historical significance… And if anything occurred that would make those properties valuable.” She started organizing the pertinent paperwork by date.
“I like where you are going with this. It will take some time, but I’ll ask Denise to help with looking up historic events in that area of the county.” He checked his email. “Great. Here’s the preliminary findings from Junior’s trailer. Photos coming.” He printed them out.
Katie began looking at them. She was surprised by the shock she felt seeing the empty space where the trailer had slid down the hill into the creek.
It looked as if a tornado had come through.
But what interested her were the images of the other trailers and the crime scene with Sydney’s body.
It represented something… something to the killer.
She handed them to McGaven.
“Why would Sydney’s body be left at this location?” she asked. “She wouldn’t have driven there. Why was she brought all the way to the trailer park?”
“It was a place the killer knew she most likely wouldn’t be found—at least not for a while,” he said.
Katie looked at the photos of the bodies on the board. They were in order of death: Meredith and Misty, Bruce Collins, and then Ian Griffin. Who killed Ian Griffin? The question kept resonating through her mind. A single gunshot to the head. Could the gun still be found?
“What’s been bothering you?” said McGaven.
“It’s the trail of bodies and the sequence. We need to find the gun that killed Griffin. And I know it seems like it would be his son—but I don’t think so. I think they were close and had the same mindset.”
“Do you want to talk to retired Detective Ventura again? He might have more insight about Griffin’s character. Little details.”
“Yes, I think so.” She pulled down the photo of the remains of Bruce Collins. “Look at these injuries.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this before,” he said.
“When you see overkill like this, disproportionate damage, more than necessary to kill a victim, it usually indicates intense rage or even sadism. Bottom line, it’s extreme stress and uncontrollable anger.” She looked at the photo. “Look at the damage to the body and bones after death.”
“It would make sense that Griffin killed Collins because he killed his sister and niece. Even though the bodies hadn’t been found, it seemed he must’ve known about the abuse and that they were going to flee.
Maybe he was helping them… and when he found out they were dead he became enraged and killed Collins. ”
“Yes, that makes sense. But remember, Dr. Dean said the torture occurred multiple times. So that rage wasn’t in one moment. And looking at the body, it almost looks as if there was more than one person committing the act.”
“You think Griffin Sr. and Jr.? But Junior would have been around ten or so.”
“I’ve studied family murder cases where children were part of the killing and showed tremendous rage, especially if they had been abused or witnessed terrible abuses in the family.”
“The more I look at this photo, the more I’m inclined to agree with you,” he said. “Do you think that’s what we have here?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it’s a distinct possibility.” Katie grabbed her things along with one of the boxes, photos, and files.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“Home. I need to spend time with my uncle. And—”
“And you’re going to take work with you.”
“Yes. This case isn’t going to slow down and wait for morning.”