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“Hey,” John said. “This place is a good investment. And you hardly have to pay anything.”
“It’s a good investment for you,” Toby said, rolling her eyes. “You own the building and I’m sure you’ll sell it for a fortune. The rest of us risk our lives every time we leave the house.” She must have realized what she said because she gasped and covered her hands with her mouth. “Oh, God. That’s what happened to Cami. It could have been any of us.”
“It looked like Cami had an overnight guest when we were looking through her room,” Jack said, looking at John. “When was the last time you slept with Cami?”
John wiped his hand over his face. “This is surreal. I stayed at her place Monday night. I was gone to dinner on Tuesday night, like I told you before. I drove Toby and Will to work Tuesday morning and brought a change of clothes with me for dinner. Toby said Cami was sick, so I didn’t see her all day. You can check my alibi easily enough.”
“We will,” Jack said.
“Sheriff.” Phil Olson was one of the crime scene investigators, and he stuck his head out of the kitchen to get Jack’s attention.
We followed him into a spacious commercial kitchen that had been newly renovated with stainless-steel appliances, black countertops, and black-painted cabinets with modern silver pulls on each door. It was sleek and expensive and modern, and it didn’t go with the rest of the house at all. If I had to guess, I’d say John’s apartment looked a lot like this kitchen.
“What’s up, Olson?” Jack said.
“We’ve got a knife missing from the block,” he said. “That’s a nice set. Expensive. Knife that’s missing is about nine inches with a serrated blade. It would match the other steak knives.”
“Perfect,” Jack said.
Three sets of eyes looked at us curiously when we came back in the living area. “Are there any dishes in the dishwasher?” he asked.
“No,” Will said. “I unloaded it when I got home from work. It was my night for kitchen duty.”
“Whose night was it Tuesday night?” Jack asked.
They all looked at each other. “It was Cami’s,” John said.
Jack looked down at his phone, and I could see from the corner of my eye he was requesting a warrant for the entire house. The knife missing from the block meant we had probable cause to search every room. And because the knife was small, it meant we’d be able to look in every nook and cranny.
“You all need to vacate the premises until we clear it for you to reenter,” Jack finally told them. “A deputy will escort each of you out. You can’t take anything with out. Leave your laptops, files, and vehicles. The whole premises is on lock down.”
“Wait a minute,” John said, getting to his feet. “You will need a warrant to start searching our apartments. We’re entitled to privacy. And until you get that warrant you can’t confiscate any of our personal belongings.”
“Good thing they’re not being confiscated,” Jack said, smiling. “This is an active crime scene investigation. We have the authority to shut this entire building down, and that’s what we’re doing. We will not enter your private domiciles until I have the warrant in hand, but you won’t be entering them either. Don’t leave town. You’ll all be contacted to come down to the station for an informal interview. I suggest you cooperate so you can all come home sooner.”
Will looked toward his bedroom door again, the color draining from his face. If I were forensics, I’d start with his room.
Jack and I did a pass around the building where Cami Downey lived, hoping we’d get lucky and find an alley full of blood and a knife. We found nothing but a dumpster, two abandoned cars, and a broken chain-link fence. There was a closed garage where I assumed John and Kevin kept their vehicles. Jack got one of the deputies to open up the garage so we could take a look inside.
“The BMW must be John’s,” I said. “No wonder it’s been broken into. He’s kind of asking for it in this neighborhood.”
“That’s a privileged kid,” Jack said. “He owns this building, fancy car, political aspirations and he already has the connections to get him where he’s going.”
“Maybe Cami was upsetting the apple cart, or she knew something that could upset his future plans,” I said.
“Yeah, I like him for it,” Jack said. “Just for the reason that we’ve known a hundred guys like that, and they never become better people as they get older.”
Jack shined his flashlight inside the car, but there was nothing but white leather seats and a pair of sunglasses sitting on the console.
“We’ll pop the trunk and make sure he’s not hiding anything obvious,” he said. “And then we’ll tow the car to the station so the team can go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. Someone had to have transported her the night she died to dump her in the creek.”
The deputy handed Jack the keys to the car and he popped the trunk.
“Nothing,” I said, looking inside. “Not even a tire iron or a scrap of paper.”
“Yes, almost like new,” Jack said, slamming the trunk closed. “If anyone can find something, Cheney can. I’ll make sure she gets assigned to this one. We can’t do anything outside tonight. I’ll have a team come back first thing in the morning to get started on the perimeter and to start doing door-to-doors. And I’ll have another team start searching up and down the creek. It’s only a four-mile stretch.”
“How far are we from Gambo Creek?” I asked, getting back into Jack’s truck.
