Perhaps seeing something in his face, Darnell continued, “I get help now, the department is gonna put me on leave again. I can’t do that. This is all I got, man. We wrap this up, they’ll go easy on me.”
Vaughn wasn’t sure if it was deliberate or just habit, but Darnell’s hand dropped to his holster—his service pistol was back in place—and he adjusted it slightly.
“Okay. After this case. I just want you to get better, Darnell.”
“Me too.”
Vaughn had his doubts. Some people lived inside their tragedy for so long that it fused to them, became their identity. Even if they wanted out—forward, backward, anywhere—it was impossible. Like telling a kleptomaniac to stop stealing. A pyromaniac to stay away from fire.
Vaughn hoped it wasn’t too late for his partner.
In the car, he gave his partner an update on some of the work he’d done himself last night while nursing a bourbon, though most was Delaney’s doing.
He omitted the latter, figuring that mentioning the PPD officer would only trigger Darnell.
Trigger...Why was his gun in bed with him?
“Got an address for Treadman,” Vaughn began, then fired off the details, bullet-point style. “Have the names of three more victims, still working on the rest. Nothing remarkable about them. No links to the university. Nothing notable about the victims’ footwear, either. No crushed fruits. Don’t think that they walked far. I made a list of the most likely locations they would have parked and walked to the barn from.” Vaughn reached into his pocket and passed Darnell a sheet of paper torn from his notepad. His partner gave it a once over. “I figure we go by these places after we finish.”
“Finish with what?”
“Visiting Aaron Treadman’s house.”
“Delan—”
“Don’t say it.”
Darnell didn’t.
“What about the barn?”
Vaughn shook his head.
“Nothing there. The high-tech router made everything digital untraceable. No luck contacting the owner of the LLC either. To be honest, I’m surprised someone hasn’t scooped the barn up yet. Property taxes haven’t been paid going on three years.”
As Vaughn pulled up to the address that Delaney had provided him with after doing some social media research/doxxing he realized he had misspoken. Aaron Treadman didn’t live in a house but an apartment. Not exactly in the best part of Trenton, New Jersey, either.
Low-income housing, high crime rate.
Considering that Aaron’s last job on record had been as a Princeton security guard, this wasn’t surprising.
They located the superintendent, a chain-smoking man who looked to be in his mid-sixties, with a shaved head. Asked about Aaron.
From the looks of it, the complex only had a couple dozen units, thirty at most. This bode well for them, and the super, who introduced himself only as Dale, knew Aaron. Didn’t seem concerned that two PPD detectives were asking around, which was telling about the area.
“Never had no problems with Aaron. Was late a couple of times with rent, but always paid in the end. Can’t say the same for some of the other tenants.”
“Can you take us to his apartment?” Vaughn asked.
“Sure.”
They technically needed a warrant to enter Aaron’s apartment. But if the super let them in, then all was fair game.
Aaron’s apartment was on the second floor, toward the south end of the building. It was too small to have an elevator, so they took the stairs.
Darnell made a point to indicate some drug paraphernalia—a spent syringe, a broken glass pipe, burnt sections of foil—in the stairwell, ensuring that Dale noticed this, too.
“Some tenants prop the entrance open with a brick when they go for a smoke. Forget to remove it afterward. They’re not supposed to, but...”
