“Captain Dempsey.” Owen, one of the crime lab techs, jogged over to him. “We’ve done all our preliminary processing and are ready to turn the body over.”
Time to find out if they had a dead local on their hands. Tanner prayed he wouldn’t be making a dreaded trip to the house of someone he knew to tell them a loved one had been killed.
He and Ronnie both joined the two techs as they reached down and rolled over the body. Ronnie let out a relieved breath. “That’s nobody from Risk Peak, right? Thank God.”
Relief flooded Tanner, too. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I don’t recognize—”
Tanner stopped. Because hedidrecognize the dead man, although it wasn’t someone from here. He let out a blistering curse.
“What?” Ronnie asked. “Is it someone we know?”
Tanner crouched down beside the body. “SomeoneIknow. Joshua Newkirk. He was arrested four years ago, and then he got out on early release six months ago. He’s from farther north in Grand County. Raped a woman there. I was part of the team who arrested him.”
And now, four years later, he was out and might have been on his way to attack Bree. The MO was similar. Newkirk had broken into the other woman’s house while she was alone.
Tanner stood back up. “Damn it, I told the parole board he should be kept in prison. That the risk of repeat offense was too high.”
Just like he’d said about Owen Duquette earlier today. Different parole board, same situation. It was hard to keep the community safe if they were going to continue letting offenders back onto the streets so soon.
Ronnie stepped back so the crime lab could continue their job. “Well, he won’t be attacking any more women now, that’s for sure.”
Tanner shook his head. “I can’t even pretend I’mgoing to lose sleep over Newkirk’s death.” Damn well not, since they’d found the man on Bree’s lawn.
“That didn’t give someone the right to kill him.” Ronnie shook his head.
Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. “No, of course not. We’ll bring that person to justice. But damn it, Ronnie, the guy was twenty feet from Bree’s door.”
Owen the crime tech looked up. “I don’t think this guy was planning to attack the lady who lives here.”
Tanner focused in on Owen. “Why?”
“I don’t know if this is going to make it better or worse, but this guy wasn’t killed here. There would’ve been a crap ton of blood.”
Ronnie raised an eyebrow. “Crap ton? That a clinical term?”
“I’m just saying that if this guy was stabbed here, there would be blood pooling around him.”
Tanner looked around. He didn’t see any blood, either. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“One option is that guy could’ve been stabbed closer to town and just made it this far before giving up the ghost, pardon the pun. We’ll look for blood traces and see if we can follow it anywhere. Might get lucky and lead us to the actual murder scene.”
“That would be highly useful. But there’s another option?” Tanner asked.
Owen’s brows furrowed. “Well, the body could’ve been placed here. Unless we find some sort of blood trace leading from somewhere, then I would assume that the body was dumped here by the killer.”
Damn it, that was almost as bad as thinking a rapist had been on his way to Bree’s house. “Why would someone dump a body here?” Tanner barked. “Specifically at this apartment?”
Owen shrugged. “That I can’t tell you. Maybe because it’s pretty far at the edge of town and this just happened to be a convenient place, but...” He trailed off.
He wasn’t going to like what Owen was going to say, but the younger man still needed to say it. “You can tell me, Owen. I’m not going to kill the messenger.”
“You only dump a body in someone’s yard if you want it to be found. Otherwise, there’s ten thousand acres of national forests all around us. Why not drag it in there and leave it? Could be years before anyone found him.”
“So it was some sort of message to her?” Ronnie asked. “Does she have any connection to Joshua Newkirk?”
Tanner shook his head. “I’ve got no reason to think so, but I’ll ask.”
“For what it’s worth—” Owen crouched down next to the body again “—it’s a lot more likely that this has nothing to do with her. Somebody could’ve killed Newkirk and just decided to dump the body here before going any farther. Like I said, her apartment is on the edge of town, so dumping it here, in the dark, makes sense. I’ll know more in a few hours.”
