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Clare got out of the car and tried not to walk like she’d barely slept. It wasn’t even six in the morning, but time would be limited for them to access this spot between PD detectives and further evidence collection. Follow-up look-arounds.
She stared at the laundromat, the front door slashed across with yellow police tape. “Wanna tell me why I’m at a crime scene at six in the morning?”
Peter winced. “I’d have brought you a cup of coffee, but…”
“This is a crime scene.”
“Too right.” Bob Davis, the head of her Cold Case department, sipped from a paper cup. “Wouldn’t want to turn your stomach with all the blood.”
Clare’s eyebrows rose. “Instead of me asking what that means, why don’t you fill me in while we go inside.”
Peter nodded. “This way.” He held a tablet under one arm and used a key to unlock the door. When the police taped up the crime scene, they’d also secured the entrances and exits so no one could sneak in. Like they were.
“Where’d you get the key?” she asked.
Bob coughed.
“Never mind.” Clare sighed. “Tell me why I’m here.”
“Right,” Peter said. “The man Katrina Mares identified as her captor is Aaron Crenshaw.”
Clare had received that name in her email, along with some basic information, last night just before midnight. Overnight, her people had done a full work-up on the guy and his entire life, then made a correlation to a crime at a laundromat for some reason. She’d tossed and turned all night, so she probably looked scary this morning. Barely presentable. Nothing like what her mother wanted her to be.
“And this?” she asked.
“Double homicide.” Bob motioned to a door at the far end of the front of store where rows of state-of-the-art machines sat, quiet and unused. The whole place smelled like detergent and fabric softener.
“Ah.” Clare glanced over at him as they walked. “The Estonians.”
He nodded. “Guess we aren’t going to get anything from them now.”
She sighed. For weeks they’d been surveilling the owner of this place, or his family, trying to figure out their connection to a cold case Vanguard was currently working. A young girl who’d gone missing years ago. The family had zero evidence until someone had seen the girl in the background of a commercial for a check cashing joint.
That led them to the crime family who owned that business.
“They own this place, too?”
“Connected, yeah.” Bob followed her, while she followed Peter.
The young man stopped in the hallway and looked at his tablet. His face had paled. He looked almost…
“In there?” Clare pointed at the open door, already spotting blood on the floor. When Peter nodded, she said, “Stay here.”
Might not be his first crime scene, or his first dead body. But Clare didn’t want Vanguard leaving evidence at a crime scene in the form of vomit—or anything else.
He nodded, a flash of relief in his eyes for a second.
She moved in front of him and looked at the office. Two desks, one facing her with the window behind it. One to the side, perpendicular. “The guy who runs it and the secretary.”
“We can close our cold case.” Bob’s voice was low. “After I take the parents to the morgue to identify her.”
“The secretary?” She wasn’t going to assume and be wrong just because she didn’t ask.
Bob nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets. “PD won’t give me anything, but Peter here called and they sent over a copy of the photo. We were able to tell them who we believe she is. Parents confirmed when we went to their house and showed them. They need to make it formal though.”
Clare didn’t want to get sidetracked by how the former police officer, who’d served the time he’d been given for his crime, now found himself being treated by those who had been his brothers. Who believed he’d betrayed them and the badge. Never mind that Bob’s daughter was an FBI agent in town, and his son-in-law-to-be was a Benson PD detective. “How long has the scene been here?”
“Day and a half.”
