“Interesting.”
“Well, the kid served ten years, has been out for five more, so has got to be in his early thirties by now—yet somehow he’s stillthe kidto me, the kid who got caught killing his sister when he was only sixteen. And he’s stayed clean, as far as we know,” she muttered.
“Interesting.”
“Only the two siblings in the family,” she stated, “so, if the parents believe the son had nothing to do with her death, they must have welcomed him back with open arms.”
“Of course. That’s what would give them a sense of family again.”
“I did ask the parole officer about this because no way her torture and subsequent murder could have happened to her without some place where she could have been held for a period of time, right?” Rodney nodded. She continued. “According to the file, the police believed the original crime was actually committed in the family home.”
“I’m not sure how that works.” Rodney frowned, looking through his copy of the file. “Looks like they sold that place and moved to a different one.”
“Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t stay in the same place where I found my daughter murdered,” she muttered. Kate brought up the address where they used to live. “Look at that. It’s empty—currently slated for demolition.”
Rodney nodded. “Looks like it’s part of a rezoning area for a commercial development. That house is going down, and some mall or something is going up in its place.”
“Hmm.” She looked at her computer screen a moment longer. “I’ll call and see if we can get in there.” With that, she quickly dialed the number for the current property owner and explained who she was.
The woman on the other end replied, “Well, the building is slated for demolition, but we probably won’t get to it for about three weeks.”
“I’m looking for permission to go in and to take a look at the old crime scene.”
“You really think anything will still be there?” she asked in avid fascination.
“No, I don’t think so, but I do want to go take a look, just so I can see it myself.”
“Why would you want to do that?” the woman asked in disgust.
“You’d be surprised what we can think of when on the scene,” Kate replied.
After a moment of hesitation, the other woman stated, “I have to clear it with my boss.”
“Yeah, you do that. And who is your boss, by the way?”
“I’m not allowed to say,” she answered, her voice turning cagey.
Kate rolled her eyes at that. “Fine. Get back to me, please. I’d like to get out there today.”
“If not today, then tomorrow.”
“It has to be at least tomorrow.” With that, Kate hung up, turned, then looked at Rodney. “It is slated for demolition. This woman is looking to get permission from her boss.”
He snorted. “I just printed out the family history, work, employment, everything else we had on the daughter.”
“Good.” Kate nodded. “It’s always interesting when we have a case that connects to the current one because, right now, we only have the victim to go by. We’re still waiting for an ID on her.” Just then her phone rang. She picked it up, checked her Caller ID, and smiled. “Hello, Dr. Smidge. Do you have any news?”
“Cherry Blackwell. At least according to the ID on the breast implant.”
“Cherry Blackwell. Thank you.”
“I’m sending through her file too,” he added. “She was given knockout drugs. The pain would have kept kicking her awake, depending on the dose he gave her, it’s cumulative, and it looks like she had quite a bit. But some of it’s already out of her system. I would suspect repeated doses,” he noted.
“Good enough. I’m just waiting on your report, and thanks.” She hung up, turned, and looked at Rodney. “Cherry Blackwell. That’s our victim. The report is coming through now.”
His computer dinged at the same time hers did, as the reports landed in their in-boxes. She looked it up.
Rodney ran the information on her implant through the database. “We have the name of her doctor.”