The Boys in the Church

by Chris Culver

  “Was your sister home when the man came in?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Have you seen her tonight?”

  “No,” she said again, shaking her head but not meeting my gaze. I stayed silent until she glanced up at me.

  “I’m here to keep you and your sister safe. You can help me do that by telling me the truth. Your mom didn’t have blood on her feet, so she didn’t make that third set of footprints. I think the tracks are Trinity’s. She walked through your stepfather’s blood, and then she walked down the hall. I think she checked on you. Where is she now?”

  “She wasn’t there,” said Mackenzie, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I swear. I haven’t seen her all night.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, so I straightened.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep working on this. You’ll stay in the car with Officer Carruthers. If you change your mind about anything you’ve told me, I’m more than happy to listen.”

  “I won’t change my mind,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, already opening my door. “I’ll be right outside.”

  I fought the urge to slam the door. The kid’s story made little sense, but I couldn’t force her to tell me the truth. The harder I pushed now, the more likely she was to shut down. My best option was to give her some space. We had every officer in the county looking for Trinity and Thad. I had to trust they’d be enough.

  For the next hour, I stayed on the front lawn and coordinated with the rest of the team. Delgado stayed home, but Special Agents Costa and Lawson came out. They even brought an FBI forensics team with them, which I appreciated. Darlene McEvoy, the woman who ran our forensics lab, was a terrific lab scientist, but she didn’t have the resources of the FBI.

  As the Bureau’s technicians searched, I talked to Officers Gary Faulk and Shane Fox, both of whom had spent the preceding hour talking to the neighbors. Two people reported hearing gunfire, but neither had called the police. Half an hour after the Bureau arrived, Agent Lawson joined me on the lawn with a sigh.

  “Your witness…she mention how her family makes a living?”

  I shook my head and furrowed my brow. “We didn’t get that far. Why?”

  He pursed his lips and looked at the ground.

  “What’d you find?”

  “A little over seven hundred grams of cocaine,” he said. “It was in the toilet tank in the master bedroom.”

  I brought a hand to my forehead as a dull ache spread through my gut. Like every law enforcement agency in the world, we made drug arrests every day. I couldn’t remember the last time we found that much cocaine in one house, though. At the street level, that’d be worth about a hundred thousand dollars. If the homeowners sold primarily to dealers, it’d probably be worth half that.

  “You find any money or guns?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “This might have been a robbery.”

  I swore under my breath. Even if they provided drugs to every dealer in the county, the family maintained a low profile. The home had never come up in our daily briefing, and I had never even heard rumors about a major dealer who lived with his wife and kids outside town. A guy capable of hiding in plain sight that well might have had enemies, but he would have had plans to deal with them.

  He might not have had plans to deal with a teenage daughter and her boyfriend, though.

  “Mackenzie lied about her sister being here tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah?” asked Lawson, crossing his arms.

  “If this is a robbery, it might be an inside job.”

  Lawson tilted his head to the side, considering.

  “So your theory is that Trinity and Thad killed Mark and Lilly for drug money. That would mean the footprints belong to Trinity, Mackenzie, and Thad.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He nodded to himself. “It’s worth considering. My techs got pictures of the prints. I’ll make sure those are available to your team. You might have closed your case already.”

  “First, I’ve got to find the kids,” I said, already trying to think of my next steps. I’d start by finding out what I could about their cell phones. If we could track those down, we’d have them before the sun came up. If they were smart and turned them off, we’d have a tougher job, but we still had options. They were kids, so they couldn’t disappear forever. I hoped we got them before they hurt themselves or anyone else.

  I hated cases like this. Even if we made an arrest, nobody would win.

  As I pieced things together, I glanced over to find Agent Lawson still standing beside me. He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he focused on the house.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Was there something else?”

  He hesitated. “You didn’t call Angela Pritchard.”

  I raised my eyebrows and considered him, unsure what he was getting at. “So I’ve told you.”

  “I’m pretty sure Delgado did. He was nervous about me looking at your phones.”

  “Being nervous about having the FBI look at your phone doesn’t make you guilty of anything. Maybe he was trying to protect me.”

  Lawson snickered. “He doesn’t need to protect you. You’re smart enough to use a burner when committing a crime. He’s not.”

  I allowed a smile to creep onto my lips. “The best compliments are backhanded.”

  We watched the house for another moment before he turned.

  “You heading home?” I asked.

  “To the hotel,” he said, nodding. He paused. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Feel free,” I said.

  “You’re a better detective than your boss, and he knows that. People like Sheriff Delgado don’t take well to playing second fiddle to someone better at their job than they are.”

  I nodded. “I’ve noticed that.”

  “If he goes down, he will take you with him,” said Lawson. “Take that how you will.”

  I thanked him, so he nodded and left. It wasn’t new information, but it reminded me of my place in this department. I’d worry about it later. I had a double homicide to investigate and two kids on the run. My career could wait.

  13

  I stayed at the house for another half hour. The FBI forensic technicians had bagged the evidence, but they hadn’t touched a pair of laptops found in the master bedroom. With both homeowners dead, I didn’t have to worry about invading someone’s privacy, so I put them on the tailgate of my pickup and fired them up.

  One looked like a standard family computer. The internet history showed visits to Netflix, Amazon, and Instagram, but nothing nefarious. The other laptop was password protected. St. Augustine didn’t have the resources to hire a dedicated computer crimes expert, so we’d have to either hire a consultant or ask the Highway Patrol’s computer forensics people to examine it when they could.

  In addition to the laptops, Agent Lawson had left me a spiral-bound notebook his team had found beneath the master bedroom mattress. It had columns of figures and dates and cryptic notes. That notebook would probably form the cornerstone of a major drug investigation. I hated getting it the way we had, though.

  I left Darlene McEvoy in charge of the house. Dr. Sheridan, our coroner, hadn’t arrived yet, but his assistant told me he was on his way. Someone from the Department of Children’s Services had already taken Mackenzie into custody. She’d need therapy after watching her mom and stepfather be gunned down, but at least she’d have a chance.

  I drove to Thad Stevens’s house and found a St. Augustine police cruiser waiting for me in the driveway. The front door was ajar, but Officer Bob Reitz came out the moment I knocked. Reitz was in his early forties and had long since lost most of his hair. He shaved the rest, making him look a little like Mr. Clean. His demeanor was quiet, but he could get loud when needed. I liked working with him. He was a good officer, and he took care of his family, which I respected a great deal.

  “Evening, Joe,” he said, nodding.

  “Hey, Bob,” I sai
d. “Are Thad’s parents inside?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but they’re not in good moods.”

  With their son missing and two dead people at his girlfriend’s house, I figured as much.

  “You mind sticking around? I’m not here to deliver good news.”

  He lowered his voice and craned his neck toward me.

  “Is the kid alive?”

  “I think so,” I said. “There’s a chance he’s my murderer, though.”

  Bob put his hands on his hips and sighed. “That won’t go over well.”

  “It rarely does.”

  Bob grunted. “Let me introduce you to the family. They’re inside.”

  Officer Reitz and I walked inside. The front room had oversized couches and a stylish coffee table. I followed the sound of whispered voices to the kitchen, where I found a middle-aged couple sitting around a round table with chairs for four. Both had thin faces and eyes clouded by exhaustion.

  Mr. Stevens stood when we entered. Mrs. Stevens stayed seated.

  “Did you find my boy?” asked Mr. Stevens.

  “No, but we’re looking for him,” I said. “I’m Detective Joe Court with the St. Augustine County Sheriff’s Department. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  Mr. Stevens cocked his head at me and narrowed his gaze. “What questions?”

  “Background questions so we can find your son,” I said. “Let’s sit and talk.”

  Mr. Stevens looked to his wife before sitting. The two resumed holding hands. Both had furrowed brows and watery eyes. I sat across from them and started by introducing myself and asking for their names and occupations.

  Mr. Stevens’s first name was Jerry, and his wife was Jamie. Both taught in the St. Augustine County school system, and they had lived in the county most of their lives. They also described Thad. He seemed like a good kid. He was on the high school baseball team and planned to go to the University of Missouri. Trinity and Thad had dated for over a year, and they complemented each other well. Thad was a dreamer, but Trinity kept him grounded. Jerry and Jamie seemed happy that they were together. I listened and took notes before diving into my own questions.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re still very early in this investigation, so my questions might seem strange, but they all have a purpose. Do you have any of Thad’s shoes?”

  Jerry looked to his wife before focusing on me again.

  “Why do you need his shoes?”

  “In case we find footprints or other identifying marks. It’d be helpful if we could get his toothbrush and a comb as well so we have a DNA sample.”

  Jamie hesitated but then nodded. “I’ll get what I can.”

  I looked to Bob. “Can you get evidence bags for me? Two paper bags for the shoes and two plastic bags for the comb and the toothbrush.”

  Bob agreed and then left. I focused on Jerry again.

  “We’re early in the investigation, so we’re still gathering information. Did you know Trinity’s parents?”

  Jerry brought a hand to his brow before shrugging.

  “I’ve met her stepdad at one of Thad’s baseball games. I never met her mom.”

  I flipped through pages of my notepad for a clean page.

  “Did you like the stepdad?”

  Jerry raised his eyebrows and then tilted his head to the side. “He seemed fine. It seemed a little strange that he’d go to a high school baseball game when he didn’t have a kid on the team, but he said he played ball in high school.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. “Did the other parents react to him like they knew him?”

  “No,” said Jerry. “Why?”

  “Like I said, we’re early in our investigation. We’re trying to put together a picture of everyone, so every observation here helps,” I said. “Did your son know him?”

  Jerry crossed his arms. “He’s been dating the man’s stepdaughter for a year.”

  I interpreted his response as a yes, so I nodded.

  “Did he like him?”

  Jerry’s lips flattened into a straight line, and his eyes went cold.

  “Ask him when you find him.”

  I nodded and forced a smile to my lips. “Do you have any guns in the house, Mr. Stevens?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “It’s a standard question,” I said, still smiling. “Do you keep firearms in the house?”

  “Why are you asking that?”

  His eyes bore into mine, and he leaned forward. Neither of us said anything until Officer Reitz walked back into the room with the evidence bags.

  “I’ve got the bags you requested,” he said. “Everything all right, Detective?”

  I didn’t respond, but I was glad Bob was in the room. He hadn’t shown any aggression toward me, but Jerry had fifty pounds on me and a substantial reach advantage. In the close confines of his dining room, he could hurt me before I could get my firearm out.

  “Do you think my son murdered his girlfriends’ parents?” asked Jerry.

  “I’m investigating a case,” I said. “Your son and Trinity are missing. Trinity’s parents are dead. If I don’t ask these questions now, a defense attorney will ask why I didn’t investigate alternative suspects when I take the actual murderer to court. I’m doing my job. If you had died, I’d be asking the same questions of your friends and family. So please answer my questions. Do you keep firearms in the house?”

  Jerry’s nostrils flared as he breathed. I counted to thirty before he opened his mouth.

  “Yes, there are firearms in the house. My son and I hunt. Is that a problem?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “How about pistols?”

  He hesitated before answering. “I owned a .45, but somebody broke into the house three weeks ago and stole it. They also stole two rifles and a shotgun.”

  “Were they secured in any way?”

  He uncrossed his arms and paced on the other side of the table.

  “Yes. They were in my gun safe.”

  “Who has access to your gun safe?”

  He paused and looked at me. “Do you even know what kind of weapon shot the Fosters?”

  “Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “But we’ll find out. Who could access your safe?”

  “A few people,” he said.

  I had interrogated enough people to know if I pushed Jerry much harder, he’d kick me out of the house.

  “I’m sorry to hear someone broke in, but I can get all the details I need from the police report.”

  He resumed pacing and shook his head.

  “There was no police report.”

  Missouri law didn’t require Jerry to report that someone had stolen firearms from him, but most people did so they’d have a report to file with their insurance company. Even if someone stole his guns, this didn’t look good for him.

  “I understand,” I said, nodding. “If you’d like, Officer Reitz and I can file a report for you right now. Your insurance company might owe you some money.”

  “No, thank you,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “So you don’t want to help us in this investigation?”

  Jerry looked from me to Officer Reitz and then back to me.

  “Your officer told me my son and his girlfriend were missing and that her parents were dead. I’m not stupid, and I watch the news. I know who’s out there. You led me to believe the Apostate had abducted my son, but now you’re coming to my house like he’s a killer. I don’t appreciate that one bit.”

  He fumed, but I kept my calm.

  “I wish I could tell you what’s going on, but I can’t. Your son’s missing. Like you said, he’s got the name of an apostle. His girlfriend is named Trinity, another religious name. The Apostate might have taken him. The FBI is considering that possibility. I’m a local detective, though. I have to consider other theories, and I’m sorry to say this, they’ll cut close to home. Did you know what Trinity’s stepfather and mother did for a living?”r />
  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Would it surprise you to hear they dealt drugs?”

  Jerry blinked as he thought through the question.

  “I don’t know the first thing about that.”

  “Did your son ever mention it to you?” I asked. “In my experience, when the parents are involved in an illegal enterprise, their teenage kids know. In this case, if Trinity knew, Thad likely did as well.”

  He rubbed his chin and then shook his head.

  “You two need to leave.”

  “We need to find your son,” I said. “You can help us keep him safe. If he killed Mark and Lilly Foster, we need him to come in on his own. Even if he did something, he’s young, and he’s got a lot of life ahead of him. He’s seventeen, so he’s still a minor. The courts can expunge his record. He can go to college and have the life he deserves if he turns himself in.”

  I was laying it on thick, but Jerry considered it anyway. Then he swallowed hard and nodded toward the front of the home.

  “Please get out of my house,” he said, his voice so soft I could barely hear him.

  I waited for a moment to see whether he’d say anything else, but he didn’t.

  “We need his shoes and his toothbrush,” I said.

  “Then get a warrant.”

  It was almost a snarl. I stood and brought my hand down to hover near my firearm.

  “Okay, Mr. Stevens,” I said, nodding and speaking in a calm, deliberative voice. “We’re leaving now.”

  “Get out.”

  Officer Reitz and I backed up without taking our eyes from Mr. Stevens. Upon reaching the entryway, we turned and walked outside. Jerry slammed the door shut behind us and then threw the deadbolt. Reitz let out a relieved sigh and then glanced at me.

  “For a moment there, I thought he might hit you.”

  “Me, too,” I said, nodding. “You got anything pressing going on tonight?”

  “Just the usual,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “Then get in your car and park in front of the house. If anybody leaves, call it in and follow. If they get rid of evidence, I want you to document it with your phone. I’ll talk to the prosecutor and see whether we can get a search warrant.”