She agreed with that. “We need to do a full rundown on the kid’s whole family,” she stated. “The father—who is actually the stepfather—and the mother. His birth father died years ago. The stepfather had been the only father those two kids ever remembered having. The kid himself stated he didn’t have any friends, at least none that lasted into jail.”
“Does he have any other family though? Any uncles or cousins? Anybody with a rap sheet? Anybody that’s bad news?” Colby asked. When nobody replied, he snapped, “Then check it out and get back to me.” He left the conference room.
With that, they all split up, grabbed a character out of the family tree, and started a hunt. As she sat down to look at the mother, Rodney walked over to her. “There’s an uncle with a rap sheet,” he noted. “And it’s the mother’s brother. The trouble is, he’s dead.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Are you thinking he had something to do with any of these?”
“No,” he replied thoughtfully, “but I do agree with you. I think it’s somebody close to the Lord family.”
Kate nodded. “Either somebody close to the kid and his family or somebody who’s followed him, like a fan of his work.”
“We never did ask him if he got any letters.”
“He told me that he did. How he got marriage proposals even.”
“Do you think this is the work of a woman?”
“No,” she denied flatly. “But nobody said all the marriage proposals were from females either.”
“True enough.”
She reached for her phone and contacted Rick Lord. He answered, saying, “It’s my only day off in like ten days, Detective.”
“We have some more questions. Can I come over and talk to you?”
“Jesus,” he moaned. “Do you have to?”
“Yeah, I have to,” she snapped. “This is important.”
“Fine. Why don’t we meet somewhere else? My dad is having a bad day.”
She thought about it, except… “I also need to talk to your mom,” she stated slowly.
“Oh no, she’s got enough on her hands.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Hell no,” he yelled. “You leave my mom out of it. I’ll cooperate with whatever you need, but keep her out of it.”
“Why don’t I just come there, and we’ll talk outside.”
He hesitated. “Fine,” but a surliness in his voice came clearly through the phone.
“Hey, we’re just trying to solve this.”
“Yeah, I wish you’d put this much effort into it last time,” he snapped. “When are you coming?”
“We’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” she said.
“Fine.” And he hung up.
“He’s not happy about it, and he wanted to meet somewhere else,” she explained to Rodney. “I guess his dad’s having a bad time.”
“And with good reason,” Rodney noted.
She hopped up. “I’ll go talk to Rick.”
“And what is it you’ll ask him?” The sergeant raised an eyebrow, as he joined them in the bullpen.