Katie hurried through the forensic division and it was fired up with voices and movements. It was as if it had come alive while she was sleeping. Voices carried down the hallway from the examination area. She knew they had to solve this case soon; otherwise, the construction project might be on permanent hold, and the county really needed this facility if it wanted to offer its first responders the best training possible.
The door was wide open to exam room one and she walked in to find it full of evidence. It was clear there was alot of work to do to figure out what it all meant. The skeletal remains of Meredith and Misty Collins were carefully laid out front and center, and a large folding table was wedged up against the left wall of the room with the trap from the construction site lying on top. Between SWAT officers and the help of patrol, they had been able to bring part of the trap, including the mechanisms, fake foliage, and tripwires. There was a partial limb cut in two pieces lying side by side where small metal pins were lodged. It was going to be interesting to see what forensics came up with later in the day.
“Hey, sleepy head,” said McGaven, appearing to be in a good mood.
Her partner always had a way to make her laugh. “You need to interrogate my alarm clock.”
“It’s good you’re here.”
John looked away from a computer and gave her a smile.
Eva, his forensic technician, sat on a high stool, studying two large computer monitors. “Morning,” she managed to say as she was lost deep in thought. Her short blonde spiky hair had tinges of pink on the ends. “Cool,” she uttered more to herself than to the group.
“I’ll be ready later today to update you,” said John to the detectives.
“Great,” said Katie.
“That works,” said McGaven. “We have some leads and people to talk to this morning.”
Katie left the forensic room and entered the investigation office. She immediately noticed there were new folders neatly stacked on the corner of their working table. She dropped her briefcase and jacket on a chair and then quickly picked up the files. Scanning through them, she was delighted to see they were the background information on all the construction workers and a list of who was absent that day. Except for two people with a couple of arrests for crimes of trespassing anddrunk and disorderly, the crew seemed to be responsible, hardworking employees. It listed all their residences, including the two men who were absent during the finding of the bodies.
Katie was updating the board with the details of the drone footage and the coordinates where the trap was located. She pondered the two main areas and the gravesites as her mind wound back to talking with Buck. Why would he risk being found or his way of life being jeopardized to tell her the little he had? There must be more to it than what he let on. And why now, when he could have let someone know even before the bodies were found?
“What’s up?” said McGaven.
Katie turned to him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve been talking and you’ve been lost in thought. So I thought I would ask what has you so immersed that you didn’t hear me.”
“Just thinking about what Buck said… and what he didn’t say.”
“Fair enough. Hopefully his prints will come back soon.”
“I can’t figure out why he would tell me to do an ancestry check on the Collins family, specifically Bruce Collins. He made it seem like all the answers would fall into place.”
“They might.” McGaven looked at his partner. “You look spooked.”
Katie softly bit the side of her lip, which was customary when she couldn’t fix something into a puzzle they were building. “The idea makes me unsettled. Not like I fear for my safety, but like there is something more at work… something unusual… as if cracking open the Collins family will have all these dark secrets tumbling out.”
“Wow,” he said. “I’ve never seen you like this. We’ve definitely had weird before…”
She nodded. “I know. There’s just something else going on I can’t work out…”
“Well,” he said. “Let’s get started.”
Katie joined her partner. “Who do we visit first?”
“With all this”—he gestured to the neatly printed-out results from the two construction companies: Crowne & Miller Construction, and East California Demolition and Construction—“everything seems okay on paper, Nothing jumps out. But I think we need to talk to the supervisor and excavator driver.”
“I agree.” Even though she really wanted to know more information about the forensic findings, they had to chase down everything else they could.
“There’s an office not far from here for Crowne & Miller Construction. Road trip?”
“Let’s go,” she said.
When the detectives reached the office it wasn’t what they had imagined. They pulled into a nice parking lot lavishly landscaped with blooming flowers, grass areas with benches, and green foliage inserted into everything, making it feel like they were at a luxury home. The office was not large, but it was a two-story building and tucked in an area that wasn’t visible from the road, making it seem like a best-kept secret in some type of high-end neighborhood.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” said McGaven.
