“For those who don’t know already, Mac and Dana were dispatched to a probable accidental death of an elderly gentleman, a Mr. Clay Mullins, who was hit by a train a couple of nights ago. It was his house that burned down this morning. Said house was supposedly under watch by the local P.D. for warrant application. We received the call around 2:00 a.m. The dwelling was fully engulfed, further complicating the case Mac and Dana were working. The old guy was apparently worth a bundle in real-estate assets among other things. Jump in here, Mac or Dana, if you have anything to add.”
Mac stood up and turned around to face the other detectives. “Thanks, Sarge. We started the death investigation at the request of the D.A. in St. Helens. Like Sarge said, we have an older gentleman who was struck by a train while traveling a packed gravel path from his home to the rail yard, where he’d worked for years and still visited daily. His assumed wealth and some of the circumstances surrounding his death are puzzling. We have more people of interest than Bayer has aspirin. There’s a railroad employee who has no love lost for the old guy.” Mac shrugged. “The guy stiffed us on an interview, by the way. In addition, we have real-estate types looking to buy the land, one of which suggested to Clay’s daughter that she have the old man declared incompetent. Also, we have a local kid we caught burglarizing the place just hours before it was torched. There’s an estranged son who turns up out of the woodwork to lay claim to his old man’s estate then turns up dead in the home, and there’s Clay Mullins’s attorney, whose name seems to be popping up all over the place.”
Mac went on to tell them about the second victim. “Dana and I just came from the medical examiner’s office. Dr. Thorpe says he took a blow to the head, which apparently killed him before the fire had a chance.”
“Is the identification confirmed?” Kevin asked.
“A tentative positive right now. Doc Thorpe expects to have the confirmation this evening. He had picture I.D. in his wallet. His sister—Clay Mullins’s daughter—lives on the south side, but we haven’t made next of kin yet. We’ll wait for the positive tag from the M.E.”
“Any space aliens or Elvis sightings?” Philly leaned back.
Russ snuffled.
“Sorry, Phil—that’s your department,” Mac quipped. Then getting back to business, he said, “We understand from Mullins’s daughter that there is a maid, but we haven’t been able to hook up with her as yet. She apparently has a son with ties to the guy who burglarized the home the night before the fire—a local druggie by the name of Tyler Cohen. We caught him coming out of the house while we were getting a description for the warrant affidavit.” He glanced at his partner. “Fortunately, Dana apprehended him.”
“How come she caught him, Mac? What were you doing?” Russ grinned, seizing the opportunity to embarrass Mac. He knew perfectly well what had happened.
Dana flashed Russ a dark look. “Mac was the suspect’s primary target in the attempted assault. Believe me, he had his hands full with a flying garbage can lid.”
“That and the fact that Dana runs like greased lightning,” Mac added. “She’s pretty handy with her stick too.” Mac was surprised at the real sense of pride he felt in his partner.
Kevin gave him a knowing wink. “You got anything else on this guy?”
Mac cleared his throat and continued. “Yeah. Cohen admitted to hearing about the old man’s death and thought it might be a good opportunity to steal a few things for drug money. At any rate, the case keeps getting muddier.” Turning to Dana he asked, “Did I cover everything?”
“I think so. We have a very long list of people to interview. Hopefully those people will give us a clearer picture of what we’re dealing with. We still don’t have the physical evidence of wrongdoing on the Clay Mullins case, but it’s looking more suspicious all the time.”
Sergeant Evans thanked them. “As Mac and Dana indicated, this supposed death investigation has grown legs. As you know, we found a firearm on the victim in the fire. I had the gun dropped off at the lab. Jacob Mullins purchased and registered the gun two weeks ago. Wain Carver took a quick look at it and agreed that it had been fired recently based on the powder residue in the barrel and the missing cartridges from the magazine. He’s going to give it the once-over and take a test fire for the IBIS database, see if it’s been used on a past crime. It’s hard to get a bullet out of those .22’s in good shape, but if anyone can do it, Carver can.”
Frank pulled a photograph from a pile of paperwork and displayed it to the group, which was an enlarged snapshot of a latent fingerprint. “Now, the guy who stiffed you and Dana on the interview?”
“Dan Mason,” Mac acknowledged.
“This print belongs to your Mr. Mason. Our I.D. Bureau lifted it off the chrome handlebars on Mr. Mullins’s scooter before it was logged into evidence. Dan Mason has an extensive criminal history for assault fourth degree and fraud, mainly bad checks and identity theft. Looks like the two assault arrests are D.V. related, both dismissed—although it was enough to get his prints on file.”
“Domestic violence, huh?” Jan sneered. “Dismissed because the punk intimidated his wife not to testify, I’ll bet.”
Mac sat at attention, adrenaline charging his tired bones. So the guy had a record. Why was he not surprised?
“I’ll get a workup on him, Sarge,” Kevin offered. “See what I can find out on the computer.” He’d been taking copious notes. “This Mason guy would be my next stop if I were you.” He directed the comment to both Mac and Dana.
“Just what I was thinking,” Frank agreed. “I want you and Dana on this guy until you find him. Bring him in on a material witness hold if he won’t cooperate.”
“You got it, Sarge.” Mac could hardly wait to get on it. No wonder Dan Mason hadn’t made the interview. He could see the guy getting mad enough to beat up Clay Mullins, then put the old guy under the train to hide his crime. The train would hide any damage he might have done.
“Philly and Russ, I want you two on the kid Dana and Mac corralled last night. Find out where he went after he was released. Question him on the arson,murder deal. The sheriff ’s office should have a good address for him. And see what you can turn up on Mullins’s maid. Do you guys have a name?”
Mac consulted his notes, but before he could flip back to the page where he’d written it down, Dana had it. “Rita Gonzales.”
“Check and check,” Philly answered.
“Jan, I need the cause and origin confirmed on this fire ASAP.
You want to update the group on the fire and contents of the house?”
“Sure, Sarge.” Jan stood up to brief them. “Most of the house and the contents are a total loss, though there may be some recoverable stuff in the basement. I recovered what I think will be accelerates from the entry on the riverside, but it will be a while before the lab confirms my suspicions. With the discovery of the body and Polo’s hit on the evidence we seized, I went ahead and wrote a two-page search addendum to Mac’s affidavit and received a telephonic warrant in case we recovered something that wasn’t listed in the initial warrant.”
“What kinds of things did he have in the house?” Dana asked.
“Old railroad documents, artifacts, all of it related to railroads.
The place was a museum.”
“So it’s all lost?” Dana seemed genuinely concerned.
“Not all,” Jan said. “Fortunately, the concrete construction of the basement, along with the asbestos in the sub floor, protected some of it. The fire department arrived in time to saturate the flooring. It’s charred and burned through in places, but a good portion of the floor remained fairly intact. Some of the items can be cleaned up. Luckily the detached garage had more of the same that was undamaged.”
Turning to Frank, she added, “I’m waiting on the lab so I can help out if you need me, at least until the next call comes in.”
“Why don’t you help Kevin with a little background work? We still need info on Jacob Mullins.”
“I have
a couple of things to add.” Mac opened his notebook.
“Jacob, assuming he’s the victim we found in the fire, had a business card for a local attorney by the name of Addison Shaw. Shaw happens to represent his father’s estate, so that may be why he had the guy’s card. We have a grand jury subpoena for Clay Mullins’s medical and financial records, although we haven’t served it on any accounts or bank resources as yet. We mainly got the subpoena so the M.E. could get hold of the medical end.”
“I’ve ordered up an Equifax from headquarters and am in the process of seeing what kind of debts or accounts Mr. Mullins held,”
Kevin offered.
“You okay with all that, Kev?” Frank asked. “You’re signed up for quite a bit of work.” He winced and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Sorry, Kev. I probably shouldn’t have asked in front of everyone.”
Kevin smiled good-naturedly. “No problem. I’m fine. I’ll let you know if it becomes too much.”
“I’ll get that workup on both father and son by tomorrow.” Kevin glanced at Mac then turned around to look at Dana. “With Jan helping, we should have it whipped in no time. You guys think of anything else, just let me know.”
“Guess that fire pretty much messes up our finding anything that tells us why Mullins left his house the night he was killed,”Russ mused.
“Actually, Russ, we do have one item.” Mac thought about the small black bag. “We have a medical bag we’re certain belonged to Mullins. It had his insulin and syringes in it. We recovered it from Mr. Cohen. The kid thought he was ripping off the old man’s stash of drugs and hoped there’d be something saleable in it or something that would get him high. We have it in temporary evidence right now and we haven’t had time to go over it thoroughly.”
“I’ll have the evidence technician run it to the lab in the morning to test the vials and dust for prints.” Frank added, “Anything else?”
No one responded. Probably because they all had assignments and weren’t looking to get more.
“Okay, one more thing. Nobody works past eight tonight. We can pick this up in the morning unless something significant turns up. You’ve all had a long day already. You won’t do anyone any good if you’re too tired to think or you stack up a car.”
“I second that.” Mac punctuated the comment with a yawn. “Hey, partner.” Mac eyed Dana. “Let’s go get Mason. It’ll do me good to see that scumbag behind bars.”
“You got it. I knew there was something amiss with that guy the minute I saw him.”
SEVENTEEN
DO YOU WANT TO CALL OUT THERE FIRST or try to catch Mason at work?” Mac thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he waited at the take-out window of the espresso cart. He’d been working more than twelve hours, and he needed a caffeine jolt badly.
“I vote we surprise him,” Dana said. “A call will just alert him and he’ll take off again.”
“Assuming he went back to work. With his record, he might have decided to split for good. Especially if he had anything to do with Clay’s death.”
“Hmm. True. I guess we’ll soon find out.” Dana reached for the iced latte Mac handed her: a twenty-ounce almond soy latte with four shots.
Mac had ordered a four-shot latte as well—going for the raspberry concoction. He handed the gal a ten-dollar bill and told her to keep the change, which wasn’t much.
The drink, with whipped cream on top, wasn’t going to do his waistline any good and he grumbled about it.
Dana laughed. “Try going without the cream.”
He grinned. “That’s the best part.”
“Are you serious about losing weight, Mac?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I have an idea. Why don’t we put a photo of Philly on the dash? He’s a great reminder of why you don’t want to let yourself go.”
Mac grimaced. “Thanks, but the last thing I want to do is look at Philly’s mug all day. Besides, he’d just tease you about having a thing for him.”
“Yikes.” She took a sip of her coffee and set it in the holder. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m revamping my workouts and my eating habits as soon as we put this case to bed. Maybe I’ll go on that low-carb diet. I figure I only need to lose ten—maybe fifteen pounds.”
“Diets don’t work. You need to go for the lifestyle change. I have a great plan if you want to see it.”
“Thanks, but I’ll handle it.”
“Okay.” She said it as though she fully expected him to fail.
Humph—he’d show her. Within a month he’d be back in top physical form.
Forty-five minutes later they pulled into the Terminal 9 parking lot and headed for the office.
They introduced themselves and showed their badges to the receptionist and asked to talk to Mason.
“Dan Mason.” The clerk checked the duty roster. “He was scheduled to work today but called in sick.”
“Sick, huh?” Dana tossed Mac a disbelieving look. “We need to talk with him about Clay Mullins’s death.”
The clerk wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Wasn’t that awful? Dan has been taking it pretty hard. We all have. Poor old Clay.” She frowned. “Then to have his house burn down. You guys are OSP detectives?”
“That’s right,” Mac answered.
“But it was an accident, wasn’t it?”
“We don’t know whether the death was accidental or not at this point. That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
“Oh, wow.”
Mac leaned against the counter, making eye contact. “You could help us out by giving us Mason’s home address. Like my partner said, we need to talk to . . .”
She shook her head before Mac could finish the sentence. “I can’t give out that kind of information. Company policy.”
“Can I help you with something?” The guy they had talked with the morning after the wreck came up behind the secretary. He’d apparently overheard their conversation.
Mac explained the situation. “We need to talk with Mr. Mason, and it would be a big help if you could give us his address.”
His lips turned up in a half smile. “I’ll be happy to give you Mason’s address and personnel file, detectives. Just as soon as you show me a subpoena.”
Mac straightened. “We were hoping to catch him here. He was supposed to meet us yesterday afternoon.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons. I can’t help you with that.”
Mac clenched his jaw but managed to keep his uncomplimentary comments to himself. It ticked him off royally when people refused to cooperate. But then he wasn’t exactly expecting an open door.
“We might be able to set you up with our attorneys,” the man offered.
“Forget it.” Mac stalked out of the office with Dana close behind.
“What now?” Dana folded herself into the passenger seat.
“Call information—see if they can give you an address and phone number. I’ll call Kevin. He should be able to locate an address through the power bill records.”
Mason wasn’t listed in the book, and the address Kevin had on him at this point was an old one putting him in Eugene. “I’ll keep looking,” Kevin had told them. About the only thing they had come up with was the vehicle description and license number of the car registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles, listing only a post office box for the address.
At seven-thirty, Mac and Dana gave up. The interview with Mason would have to wait until the following day—if they were able to secure an interview at all. Mac had a feeling the guy was long gone. On the way out of town, he put a call in to the Patrol division, asking them to keep an eye out for Mason’s vehicle. “If you find him, bring him in for questioning and give me a heads-up.”
“Wonder how Philly and Russ are doing with Tyler.” Dana sighed. “I hope they had better luck with him than we did with Mason.”
“One way to find out,” Mac said. “Let’s give them a call. See if they need
help.”
Dana grinned. “Like they’d admit it. I can’t believe Russ would make a big deal out of my taking that kid down.”
“I think Russ is threatened by you. I’ll bet if you’d been with him out there, you’d have outrun him by even more than you did me and he knows it.”
“You think?” Dana laughed.
Mac put in a call to dispatch asking to be connected with Philly.
“Yo,” Philly answered right away.
“How’s Operation Tyler Cohen coming? Dana and I are about to head back to Portland and wondered if you needed some help.”
“In your dreams, glamour boy.”
“So you found him?”
“Not yet, but we will.” Philly grumbled. “How’d you guys do?”
“Nothing yet.” Mac told him about their snag with Terminal 9.
“All we got so far is a list of places Tyler likes to hang out. Video arcade, the pool hall, and the state park—so far we got nothing. No one’s seen him—or if they have, they aren’t telling us about it. Word is the kid and his druggie friends like to hang out along the rail line. They spend the day shooting up and breaking their empty beer bottles. We’re heading in too. Figure we’ll be able to track him down easier in the daylight.”
“Good idea. We could all use some rest.”
He hung up and turned to Dana. “I hate giving up on Mason. The longer we wait to catch this guy, the more miles he can put between us.”
“Do you really think Mason skipped town?”
Mac shrugged. “Maybe the lawyers got to him and told him to steer clear of us.”
“We’ll find him in the morning.” Dana yawned. “Right now I’m too tired to care.”
Once Mac dropped Dana off, he called Kristen. He wasn’t sure why. His call could have waited until morning. And probably should have.
“Hey, Mac.” She sounded tired.
“I’m sorry for the late call. I was just on my way home and . . .”
“And you wanted to swing by and see me, right?”
He smiled at the hopeful tone in her voice. “What I wanted,” he said, “was to know if you made a positive ID on the guy we pulled out of the fire.”
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