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And he was thinking how guilty Grant Warwick looked for murder.
By the time Quincy arrived at Warwick’s pricy townhome in Alexandria, it was after ten. He was surprised to see an Alexandria police cruiser parked in the front of Warwick’s house. Quincy exited his unmarked sedan and strode over, introduced himself.
That’s when he saw Regan Merritt standing to the side.
“What’s going on?” Quincy asked the cop.
“I was just about to call you. Ms. Merritt said you’re investigating the murder of the owner’s girlfriend, so would want to be here.”
Did she now? “What happened?”
“Ms. Merritt said that someone broke in tonight. Said the front door has signs of tampering.”
Quincy was more than a little irritated that Merritt had not only beat him here, to Warwick’s house, but that she was inserting herself into this investigation. “Could Ms. Merritt have done the tampering?”
“Couldn’t say, sir, but she called us.”
“Have you gone in? Cleared the place?”
“No, sir. I’m waiting for backup.”
“Is the house open?” Quincy asked.
“Ms. Merritt says she has the garage code.”
If Warwick was a suspect, searching the house was problematic. But if he was another victim, they needed to do a welfare check.
Quincy motioned for Officer Branson to join the Alexandria officer. “Clear the house, welfare check only. I’m going to call my boss and see what we can do by way of a search.”
“Roger that.”
The officers walked over to Merritt, who led them to the garage access panel, where she typed in a code. The door opened.
Dammit. Something was fishy and Quincy couldn’t figure out what. He went to call his sergeant.
Regan could tell the police detective was irritated, but she kept her face impassive and followed the barked direction of the responding police officers. She stayed outside, as told, though she itched to search Grant’s house herself.
After she and Charlie left Madeline’s house, she convinced him to go home. She went back to Grant’s townhouse, hoping that Grant would be there or she’d wait for him. She walked around and noticed the front door keyhole had telltale scrapes that suggested someone had picked the lock—or at least attempted to. The marks hadn’t been there earlier; she would have noticed. She called the police and waited.
She’d become more and more worried about Grant’s safety as the evening wore on, and no one had been able to reach him.
Detective Quincy approached her before the officers were done in the house. He said, “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see if Grant had come home. I planned to go inside, see if he’d been here since I left, but when I saw the front door was tampered with, I called 911.”
“You can’t see the front door from the garage here.”
“I walked around the perimeter of the townhouse first.”
“Why?”
“Looking for potential threats.”
“You said you left the Marshals Service. Are you with another agency?”
“No. I’m currently unemployed, by choice.”
“They must pay you a lot better than me if you can save up enough money to live for a year.”
