“Marty said that he saw the man who had been following him come out of Bryce’s office. Which means he’d been in the building before. We need to get a really good description from Marty of this guy,” Brian explained.
“We did. But it wasn’t much help. However….” Eddie went to the door of Bryce’s office. “If this guy was in the office, then he most likely sat down, and if he did, then he touched the arm of the chair only a few days ago. And if he was in the office just yesterday….”
“He probably wore gloves of some sort to keep from leaving a trail, and Bryce wouldn’t think anything of it since this guy wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.”
Eddie could almost see the meeting. He didn’t know what the conversation was about, but he could see them in the office, their movements. The man standing in front of the desk, Bryce in his chair, then turning to get something out of the locked drawer in his desk. He imagined Bryce thinking he was in control as he pulled out what he leaned forward to get. Then he straightened up and came face to face with a gun. The shot must have been a surprise, but he hadn’t had much time to think about it. Bryce had slumped onto the floor, half in and half out of his chair, and then the shooter left, dropping the gun.
“We aren’t going to get much off the weapon,” Eddie said. “I’m willing to bet that the serial numbers are gone. The shooter wore gloves, and it’s completely untraceable.”
“We could see who might have sold it,” Brian offered.
“Good luck. The gun was probably bought in Seattle or Portland. Maybe even San Francisco. The fact that it was used here—and left—tells us we aren’t going to get much. We could run ballistics, but if the gun has been used before, it would only show that it changed hands. Otherwise, our shooter wouldn’t have left it.”
“That’s probably true, but we have to be sure.”
“I know. I’m just saying, we don’t need to push that to the front of the list.” Eddie closed his eyes and let the scene play out again. “But maybe we can test the arms of the chair, and this.” He lifted a baseball from a stand on the desk with a gloved hand.
“Why?”
“Because if you’re in here and you see one of these out of a case, your first instinct is to pick it up a look at it. So maybe our shooter did that.”
“But he probably wore gloves,” Brian said.
Eddie nodded. “I know. But humor me. We might get something off of it.” He slipped it into an evidence bag and sealed it. Then he turned away and stepped out of the office before grabbing a tissue from a nearby desk, just managing to contain a sneeze. “What the hell is in this place?” He sneezed again.
“Are you getting sick?” Brian asked.
“No. I was fine before I came in here.”
“We shut down the air-handling system so anything airborne didn’t get sucked up into it,” an officer said. It made sense, but Eddie’s eyes were watering, and he headed outside and into the fresh air, breathing deeply before he sneezed twice more.
“Is this an allergic reaction of some type?” Brian asked once Eddie got himself under control.
“It must be. Though I don’t know what it is. I’m allergic to mushrooms, but that’s all. I have to make sure they don’t get put on my pizza. I break out when I eat them. It isn’t a respiratory type of thing.” He breathed deeply as the reaction seemed to abate slightly.
“Stay out here. We’re almost finished.” He went inside as another officer came out, sneezing and coughing.
“That place is a mess,” he said as he stood next to Eddie. “I can barely breathe in there. It has to be contaminated with something.”
“I get that.” He didn’t want to go back inside, but it was his job. But instead of just going inside, he grabbed a mask out of the door of his car and returned to see that everything was being handled correctly.
“Marty,” Eddiecalled out as he came inside the house with Brian behind him. The scene at his office had been secured and the office closed as an active crime scene in case it was needed again.
“I’m in here. What’s going on? There should have been a bunch of work, but there was nothing. Is today a holiday that I forgot about?” He had his computer on his lap.
“Maybe, in a way,” Brian said, and sat down. Eddie did the same, concerned about how Marty was going to take the news they had. “I’m just going to say what we need to. We got a call this morning from one of the people in your office, and your boss, Bryce Prichard, was found dead in his office. We believe he was killed between seven and nine yesterday evening.”
“Oh,” Marty said. “Do you have any idea who killed him? Was he shot?”
“Yes. And we have an idea. It could very well be the person who was following you. But we aren’t sure.”
“What can I do to help?” Marty asked.
Brian cleared his throat, and Eddie closed his mouth, keeping himself from answering.
“We’re not sure. I know you gave us a description of the man you saw in the office, and we believe he could be the killer.”
“I gave you a good description. I can try again, but I don’t know how much more I can tell you.”
