CHAPTER TEN
Jessica squirmed and groaned in her seat. Faith felt a flash of irritation so powerful that she had to force herself to look straight through the window lest she snap at Jessica.
It wasn’t Jessica’s fault that it was taking the warrant so long to go through. The judge had called them twice during the night for clarification, and both times, the conversation had ended with a reluctant, “I’ll think about it.”
Now, as morning rapidly progressed to late morning, Faith was beginning to fear it wasn’t coming.
They just didn’t have enough evidence. Meadows was a well-documented nosy neighbor, lodging complaints no fewer than fourteen times in the past five weeks and too many times to count over the past year.
That actually worked against Faith’s assertion that he was a suspect.
He wasn’t picking on the victims specifically.
He wasn’t singling them out. He didn’t have any special animosity toward them.
He was just an equal opportunity prick who happened to come across the two of them in relatively close proximity to their murders.
“Anything?” Jessica asked.
“No. Nothing.”
Jessica released an exasperated sigh. “Look, I don’t mean to be a brat, but—”
“We’re not leaving. Not until we get that warrant.”
“Faith, we’ve been here all night. He hasn’t left his house.
He hasn’t even poked his binoculars out since we got here.
He hasn’t stepped into his backyard or front yard.
He hasn’t used his fireplace because we didn’t see smoke, so he’s not trying to burn evidence.
Look, he was an asshole, but he didn’t really do anything that screams he was a suspect, did he? ”
“We need to check his house for a weapon. I realize that he’s a weak lead, but he is a lead. Right now, he’s the only lead, and you know as well as I do that sometimes weak leads turn out to be the right leads.”
Turk groaned, and Faith glared at him. “You know that too, boy.”
Turk blinked at her, then looked at Jessica sympathetically.
Faith sighed. “Come on, guys, we can’t give up on this. I know he’s hiding something. When I asked him if we could take a look inside, he freaked out. He wasn’t just angry anymore; he was scared.”
Jessica nodded. “Okay. I trust you. If you say we need to see this through, then we’ll see this through.”
Her phone rang, and when she saw the number, her eyes brightened.
She answered. “Hello? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, that email works. Wonderful, thanks so much.” She hung up and rolled her eyes to the sky.
“Oh, thank God! That’s Justice Phuc. She signed the warrant. She’s emailing us a copy right now.”
“Thank God,” Faith echoed, starting the car. “Let’s go.”
She nearly spun the tires pulling across the street and up to Meadows’s house. She opened the door at the same time as she set the parking brake, then rushed up the porch, Turk and Jessica scrambling to catch up.
She pounded her fist on the door. “Brian Meadows, this is Special Agent Bold! I have a warrant to search these premises! Open the door now!”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Meadows called from inside. He opened the door a crack. “Can’t you just leave—”
“Do you want to open the door the rest of the way, or do you want me to open it for you?” Faith asked curtly.
Meadows’s lips trembled. “I didn’t do anything illegal.”
“Sure.”
Faith grabbed the door and yanked it firmly.
Meadows released the door, and Faith realized the chain wasn’t engaged when nothing snapped off.
Jessica stuck her phone ahead of Faith and quickly said, “This is the text of the warrant. You have a right to read it, but we are searching the property now.”
“Fine,” Meadows said, screwing his face up in a pout. “But I’m doing nothing illegal.”
Turk trotted past him, nose to the ground, sniffing. Faith stepped after him, looking around the home.
The place was spotless. Impeccable. Even the furniture seemed freshly oiled and polished. Faith was pretty sure she could find a speck of dust if she spent enough time here, but it would take a few hours.
Everything was perfectly organized. The bookends on the mantle above the fireplace were a precise one centimeter from the opposite edges.
The TV remote sat in the exact center of a TV Guide, which sat on the exact center of a TIME magazine, which sat on the exact center of a photo album, which sat on the exact center of the coffee table.
The dining room table sat on little furniture doilies to prevent the legs from scraping the hardwood floors.
Meadows followed Turk, wringing his hands. He no longer seemed like an angry old man but like an anxious, fastidious old maid. “Oh… Please tell him to be careful. Can’t you put him on a leash?”
“He’ll be careful,” Faith promised. “Did you clean this place last night?”
“I keep it clean,” he snapped. “Have for my whole life. Just… Look, I didn’t do anything illegal!”
“You keep saying that,” Faith said, stepping into the kitchen. “It makes me think that you might have done something illegal.”
Turk sniffed at the cabinets and appliances. He didn’t react to anything within, but Faith opened them and checked just in case. She’d do a more thorough inspection later. Right now, she just wanted to see how Meadows would react and note places where he seemed unusually concerned.
He seemed unusually concerned every place Faith touched.
Each time she opened a cabinet, he released a soft cry and rushed forward as though to prevent her from disturbing the perfectly stacked, perfectly organized pots and pans within.
When she opened the refrigerator, he actually closed his eyes and whimpered, going stiff as a board.
No wonder he was so nosy about his neighbors. He couldn’t handle a single thing being out of place.
He finally showed some sign of an abnormal reaction when Turk started up the stairs. He cried out and rushed after the dog, moving quickly enough that Faith thought it prudent to intercept him. He struggled in her arms and called, “It’s not illegal, it’s not illegal!”
“What’s not?” Faith asked. She nodded at Jessica and her partner started up the stairs after Turk. “What’s not illegal?” she asked Meadows.
He struggled for a moment longer, then sighed. “I keep an eye on my neighborhood,” he said. “I’m a concerned citizen, and I have a right to ensure that I live in a safe and respectful neighborhood.”
“I feel like you’ve told me this already,” Faith said. “Tell me what up there is so important that you have to insist that it’s not illegal. Will I believe it’s illegal?”
“Faith?” Jessica called. “You need to come see this.”
Faith frowned. Meadows was white as a sheet. She definitely didn’t want to leave him alone. “Bring it down here.”
“All right.”
A moment later, Jessica returned downstairs, carrying a stack of paper. Meadows was trembling like a leaf, lips working as he watched.
Faith stared coldly at him. “You want to tell me what I’m about to find?”
“It’s not illegal,” he whispered hoarsely.
Turk trotted downstairs and positioned himself between Meadows and the door, so Faith released him and looked at the papers Jessica carried. Her eyebrows raised. “Why Mr. Meadows. You’ve been a very busy boy.”
“It’s not illegal,” he insisted. “I’m just exercising my right as a concerned citizen.”
Faith flipped through the papers. Detailed recordings of what Meadows termed “violations” were recorded along with extensive photographic evidence of Iris Caldwell’s and Mark Peterson’s crimes. He had been following them for weeks, starting from the dates of his first complaints against them.
“I have a right to record what I observe in public places,” Meadows said. “It’s not illegal.”
He didn’t have a right to take pictures of people without their consent, but Faith wasn’t here to quibble over the small things.
“You’ve been following our victims,” she said.
“Including to the dog parks where they walked their animals and where they were both killed.” She lifted her eyes to him. “Care to explain that?”
“It’s not… I didn’t kill them. I was watching them, yes, because they needed to be stopped.
Iris Caldwell’s dog barked all night long.
She was a nuisance. Mark Patterson allowed his animal to walk off a leash where he could maul anyone to death at any time.
It wasn’t safe. The police should have done something to stop them, but they didn’t, so I was taking it upon myself to gather evidence of their illegal activity so that the police would have ample reason to ensure that they complied with all applicable safety laws. ”
He kept his eyes averted from Faith as he rambled. His lower lip pooched out like a child who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“I’m going to give you one more chance to be honest, Mr. Meadows,” Faith said softly. “Do you have a gun? Maybe a .22-caliber pistol that fires ceramic bullets.”
“No, ma’am, I have no firearms on my property. As I said, I have the right as a God-fearing American to bear arms per the Second Amendment, but that is a right I choose not to exercise.” He frowned. “What’s a ceramic bullet?”
Faith and Jessica shared a look. “Call Meyers,” Faith said. “Have him send some people over to perform a more thorough search. Turk, find the gun.”
Turk barked firmly. He was very attuned to the scent of gunpowder, and it was next to impossible to clean a firearm well enough to remove all traces of that odor.
Faith handcuffed Meadows, who trembled like a leaf but didn’t resist. “At this time, Mr. Meadows, you are not under arrest, however for your safety and mine, I am placing you in handcuffs—”
“Oh, spare me,” Meadows spat. “You don’t have to go through the rigamarole.
I get that you’re going to keep me tied up until you finish digging through all my stuff.
Got it all organized and exactly where it should be, and now some assholes are going to tear it all up because some bitch and some asshole can’t keep their goddamned wild animals at home where they belong. ”
He continued to mutter under his breath as Faith checked the living room carefully, looking under furniture and along the baseboards and floors for any sign of a hidden compartment.
Jessica headed upstairs to look there, opening the back door first so Turk could look through the yard.
Meadows didn’t react to any of it. The fight had gone out of him after Jessica found those notes.
When Faith’s search failed to turn up anything of interest, she sat on the easy chair across from Meadows and said, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you had an innocent reason for fixating on these two, one of whom wasn’t even close to being your neighbor.
You mind telling me why you spent so much of your time focusing on them?
Of all the things you could have been doing? ”
Meadows lower lip trembled once. Then his eyes narrowed.
His face hardened, and when he lifted his eyes to Faith, his voice was firm.
“People think they can do whatever they want. They don’t care how their actions affect other people.
They don’t care about being proper or sensible or following the rules put in place to make society safe and fair.
They just do whatever they want. It’s not fair.
It’s not right. They should be punished.
Wipe that look off your face. I didn’t punish them.
I just wish someone would.” He looked past Faith at Turk, who was sniffing through his flower planters outside. “It’s just not fair.”
“Not worth killing them over either,” Faith pointed out.
Meadows didn’t reply. He just continued to stare at Faith, scowling deeply.
Faith sighed and got to her feet. “If we find a weapon on this property, Mr. Meadows, we’ll be pursuing charges.
I’m going to be honest.” She nodded at the papers on the coffee table.
“That might be enough to get them with or without the weapon.”
Meadows chuckled bitterly. “Whatever.”
“Not to the family of the dead.”
A wisp of something that might have been humanity crossed Meadows’s eyes, but it was gone before it had a chance to alight. He was too wrapped up in his own sense of right and wrong to bother with a trivial matter like murder.
Faith pushed her emotions aside and waited for the police to arrive and finish the search. Either they would find something that would prove Meadows was involved, or they wouldn’t.
In the latter case, Faith would have to let Meadows continue to be an asshole just like he had to let Iris Caldwell’s dog bark and Mark Patterson’s dog walk without a leash. She wouldn’t have a problem with that.
But letting their killer roam free where he could harm someone else? She very much had a problem with that.
So, for that reason, she prayed, Please let us find something. Please let us find that gun.