“I don’t want all that stinky stuff in my living room.” She laughed. “In about two hours?”
“Okay. But make it good pizza.”
FORTY-FIVE
Tuesday 1600 hours
Katie left her uncle’s office to see how he was doing. He put up a good façade, 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.”
