“Why did he fire his gun?” Leo asked. “If he’d put his gun down, SWAT wouldn’t have fired.”
“I can’t answer that. Reaction? Panic? Fear? The core emotions that I mentioned—rage, love—that also would include fear. Fear is, in fact, the most elemental—primitive—emotion and drives us in ways we don’t always recognize. I suspect Mr. McMahon’s fear level was higher, he was reacting to everything he saw and heard, but he couldn’t make connections.”
“Wouldn’t people have noticed this?” Lucy asked. “Schizophrenia, for example, rarely hits older adults.”
“I don’t believe he was schizophrenic. But based on his actions, and the lack of a brain tumor, a severe hormonal imbalance impacted him. According to the preliminary report, his wife said she noticed a change in his behavior in late March or early April? Around Easter?”
“Yes,” Lucy said.
“I would look for some sort of trauma in the weeks—maybe months before that. We couldn’t find any physical evidence, but I’m going to study the brain with more sensitive equipment.”
Julie said, “I’ve also asked for a full genetic profile. If his genes told his body to stop producing glutamate for some odd reason, that might contribute to the deterioration of his nerves. It would get worse over time.”
“Thank you for your work on this,” Leo said. “I want to tell his wife what happened, and even if we don’t know for certain, it sounds like it is likely a medical condition that spurned his behavior.”
“I won’t put it in writing yet,” Julie said, “but I’m leaning that way. But now for the big news.”
“That wasn’t big enough?” Tia said. “It’s more than I thought you’d be able to get from the corpse.”
“Not McMahon, but Paul Grey.”
Julie was practically jumping up and down.
“You know who the killer is,” Lucy teased.
“Yes!”
Lucy wasn’t expecting that answer.
“You have forensic evidence that proves McMahon killed him?” Tia asked. “I knew you were good, Julie, but you’re the absolutely best.”
“Yes, I am the best,” Julie said, “but McMahon didn’t kill Paul Grey.”
They all stared at her. Julie milked it for several seconds before Leo broke down and said, “Then who?”
“Grey killed himself.”
“How can you be certain?” Tia asked.
“Do you doubt me?”
“No, but—”
“It sounds like you doubt me.”
“We don’t,” Lucy said, “but Grey’s body was moved after he was killed. He didn’t move his own body.”
“No need for sarcasm, Agent Kincaid,” Julie said. “That’s your job, right? All I can tell you definitively is that Paul Grey killed himself. The angle of the gunshot wound is consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot. It’s very difficult to plan a homicide as a suicide and get the angle right.”
“Unless the victim is drugged.”
“Even then, it’s difficult, but yes, it’s possible. I’ve asked for a wide array of tests in case I’m wrong—but I don’t think I am. The victim will jerk, turn away from the gun, and the angle is generally straight-on—this was angled precisely, as if he was holding the gun. Plus, he had gunpowder residue on his hand and on his clothing. I’ve seen homicides where the killer attempted to make the murder look like suicide, but it’s actually harder to do in real life than it is in the movies. But I have another piece of forensic evidence. Well, it doesn’t prove suicide, but it does tell you where he was killed. He had glass embedded in the left side of his skull—I’ve sent it to the lab, but I’m pretty certain it’s automotive glass. I think he was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car, killed himself, the bullet went through—it was a three fifty-seven, which carries a wallop—shattered the glass, and he slumped against the broken window. Well, the glass didn’t shatter—it was safety glass—but it crumbled enough that a few chunks found their way into his head. Possibly when whoever moved him got him out of the car.”
“He killed himself,” Leo said, stunned.
“Yep, I’m one hundred percent positive. Well, I’ll say I’m ninety-nine percent positive. I had my boss run through it with me, and he concurs. No alcohol in his system. He hadn’t eaten for more than eight hours—my guess was a salad and steak, likely between noon and one the day he died.”
“Do you have time of death, too?”
“That’s harder. It was hot, humid, and his body was moved. But based on his stomach contents, rigor mortis, temp, and adjusting the best I can for the conditions at the McMahon house? He died between eight p.m. and midnight on Monday. I’d put it closer to eight, but we just can’t be positive.”
“This is—surprising,” Tia said. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“He killed himself and then what? McMahon moved his body?” Lucy said. “Why?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Dr. Moreno said, “but maybe that was the trigger. Seeing his friend dead snapped something in McMahon. Maybe he took his friend’s body to his house in a way to protect him—and then forgot. Thought he was meeting him. And then in his own way remembered that he was dead.”
“But there was no evidence on McMahon that he moved Grey’s body.”
“Not on his person. SAPD has his clothing and shoes,” Julie reminded him.
Tia said, “Grey killed himself, McMahon snapped, case closed.”
“No,” Leo said. “It’s not that simple.”
“Sometimes it is,” Tia said.
“This time, I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “We immediately assumed that Grey was murdered—largely because his body was moved, no gun was found at the scene, and it was a close-range head wound. Why would someone want a suicide to look like murder?”
“Insurance,” Tia and Julie said simultaneously. Tia continued, “Most life insurance policies don’t pay out for suicides.”
“Not just staging the suicide to look like murder,” Leo said, “but bringing the body to the McMahon house.”
“Which points to Charlie McMahon,” Tia said. “Maybe McMahon tried to talk him out of it, couldn’t, Grey dies, Charlie doesn’t want his wife to lose the life insurance policy, stages it to look like a murder.”
This was getting too complicated, Lucy thought. And considering McMahon’s state of mind at the time he took the hostages, she didn’t think he could formulate such a complex plan.
“We need to step back and take the investigation one step at a time,” she said. “I don’t think that McMahon could have done this, at least not after witnessing his behavior the day he died.”
“I’m inclined to agree with Agent Kincaid,” Dr. Moreno said. “Based on my preliminary findings, I believe that McMahon was in severe pain. Julie, his stomach and liver?”
Julie nodded. “The guy didn’t eat in more than twelve hours before he died, but he had six times the recommended dosage of aspirin in his system, and his liver showed early signs of Salicylate poisoning. I think he was eating aspirin like candy.”
“Did it give him any relief?” Lucy asked.
“I doubt it,” Moreno said. “And it may have contributed to his symptoms of paranoia and confusion.”
Tia said to Leo, “You solved your case, and if Moreno and Peters can point to a medical reason for McMahon’s actions yesterday morning, SAPD will close this case.”
“We don’t have proof that McMahon moved Grey’s body,” Leo said. “We don’t know where he killed himself, where his car is, or why he killed himself.”
“And what’s the crime? Tampering with a crime scene? Misdemeanor. Sometimes, a spade is a spade.”
“And sometimes, a conspiracy is a conspiracy,” Leo snapped. He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s been a long two days,” Tia said.
“I’m pursuing this,” Leo said. “There was something odd at Clarke-Harrison. They pretended they were being forthcoming, but it was all an act and we got nothing of substance from
them. When are you releasing the cause of death?”
“The first bullet was fatal on McMahon, the other two would have been fatal as well. That’s cause of death. We’re pending medicals, but that’s just paperwork. If there was a neurological or drug component, that goes to his actions prior to death, not cause of death—though we’ll add it to the file as a mitigating factor. As far as Paul Grey? Self-inflicted gunshot wound. My boss will sign it tomorrow and we’ll release it, but I can hold it until the end of the day. Who’s telling the family?”
“We will,” Leo said. “In the morning. It’s seven o’clock, we’ve been working straight through for twelve hours. Mrs. Grey already knows that her husband is dead—tomorrow morning is soon enough for her to learn how.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lucy rushed home after Leo brought her back to FBI headquarters, but she still didn’t arrive until nearly eight. Sean was dishing up the spaghetti.
She gave him a quick kiss. “I told you not to wait for me.”
“We were playing pool.”
Sean had bought a pool table when he found out that Jesse was going to be spending six weeks with him this summer. They’d all had fun with it.
“Nate won,” Jesse said. “I didn’t think anyone could beat my dad.”
Nate ruffled Jesse’s head. “It’s because your dad’s too cocky and thinks he can’t lose.”
“Not cocky, confident. And I don’t lose very often.”
Lucy could see Sean swell with pride every time Jesse called him dad. It made her doubly thankful that the Spades had been taken out of WITSEC.
“I saw that, Dunning,” Sean said.
“What?” Nate asked innocently. He scratched Bandit behind the ears while the golden retriever licked his lips and looked up at Nate adoringly.
“You’re fucking impossible,” Sean muttered and brought the bowl of spaghetti with his amazing meat sauce to the table. When it was just two or three of them, they ate on stools at the center island, but five required the kitchen table. Lucy could still count on one hand how many times they’d eaten in the formal dining room. Why even have it?
Kane brought over several beers and a basket of fresh garlic bread. Nate grabbed a bowl of Caesar salad.
“If you want to run upstairs and change or anything, it’s fine with me,” Sean said.
“I’m starving,” she said. “It’s been a long day, and the last ninety minutes we were at the morgue.” She sat down, glad to get off her feet.
“The morgue?” Jesse asked, sitting between Sean and Kane. “That’s like, both cool and totally gross.”
“Not that gross. I worked at the morgue for a year in DC. But it’s probably not appropriate dinner conversation.” Just what Sean needed, she thought: Jesse going home and telling Madison all about the violence and death Lucy surrounded herself with.
“Maybe after dinner,” Sean said. “I for one want to know what happened with that McMahon guy. The press wasn’t kind to him—he’s fired, his wife leaves him, he takes a bunch of people hostage.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Lucy said. She glanced over at Nate. He was dishing up, either ignoring the conversation or thinking about the shooting. Nate was a tough guy and had been trained in the military. McMahon wasn’t the first person he’d shot and killed. But every life taken, even if it was justified, scratched away at your soul. She was really glad he was here tonight. He might not realize it, but he needed friends.
They dished up and ate, chatting about the pool table, video games, and music. Nate was a die-hard country music fan, which irritated Sean—it was probably the only thing they argued about, other than Nate feeding Bandit scraps and letting him sleep on the bed when Nate house-sat.
“Truce,” Lucy said. “I’m stuffed.” She got up and started to clear the table.
“Jesse,” Sean said.
“Right!” Jesse jumped up and started stacking plates. Lucy came back to take them, and Jesse said, “I got it. I lost a bet today, I have KP duty.”
“KP?” She glanced at Sean.
“He lost, he has to pay the piper. In this case, rinse the dishes. It’s not like I’m making him clean the bathroom with his toothbrush.”
“Betting with a teenager. Good example there, Rogan.” She smiled and kissed him.
Kane got up to help Jesse with the kitchen, and Lucy, Sean, and Nate went to relax in the living room. She kicked off her shoes and curled her legs underneath her. Sean handed her a glass of wine. “My second glass? And it’s a work night. You’re a bad influence on me, Mr. Rogan.”
“You’ll sleep well.”
She sipped, put the glass down. Nate sat on the floor with Bandit. “There were some anomalies in McMahon’s brain, but no tumor. It’s something so unusual that even the neurosurgeon Julie brought in hadn’t seen it before. He won’t go on record yet, but he thinks that the nerves that connect the hippocampus to the rest of the brain were severely damaged, but he can’t imagine what caused it because there was no sign of physical trauma. The symptoms would be severe headaches and memory loss. Which explains not just a lot of what McMahon said to Leo during negotiations, but what the witnesses observed. His behavior suggested intense paranoia, but it may have been caused by whatever was going on in his brain—which was likely hormonal or genetic. Though I took advanced biology, this is way out of my skill set. They’re going to need a couple of days.”
Nate asked, “Did Julie tell you which shot was fatal?”
“The first, though all three would have resulted in a fatality. Does that make you feel better?”
“Not better or worse. I just wanted to know.”
She didn’t ask which shot was his—she knew he took the first shot, but the other two came simultaneously a second later. All three men had decided to fire at the same time, Nate was just faster.
“How’s Jagger?” Lucy asked. The SWAT team leader for SAPD had been shot in his vest.
“Fine. Bruised. He’s on mandatory leave, too. The guy should never have been able to get off a shot. If he was a better shot, he could have hit Ben in the head. Our headgear is good, but not bulletproof.”
“Now for the real surprise,” Lucy said. “Paul Grey committed suicide.”
She explained what Julie had said, and that they were now perplexed about who would have moved his body. “The other consideration,” Lucy said, “is that someone forced him to kill himself.”
“That would be hard—unless someone he cared about was in jeopardy,” Sean said. “Still, self-preservation is hard to fight.”
“Everything we know about Paul Grey was that he and Charlie had been friends since college, Charlie hired him eight years ago and he relocated here from Los Angeles, and he was a smart, quiet researcher. But something was going on with him, and I think he planned to kill himself. He paid Charlie’s debts—the bar fight that they were in two weeks ago. Immediately before that, he met with someone—we believe it was Charlie’s former research assistant, but we haven’t been able to locate her.”
Sean rubbed her leg. “You just have to ask.”
“Maybe I will, but our cyber team is on it. Yes, you could do it faster, but they’ll find her.”
“So he killed himself,” Nate said, “and someone moved the body to McMahon’s house? Who? Why?”
“Maybe McMahon himself, but so far there’s no evidence of that. SAPD is processing his clothes and truck—if a body was moved in his truck, they’ll find trace. Until then, we follow the path wherever it leads.” Lucy glanced toward the kitchen. The water was running and Jesse and Kane were talking, though she couldn’t see them from here. She kept her voice low and asked Sean, “Did you talk to Jimenez?”
Sean nodded. “He’s going to pull the camera feed from that corner. He may or may not give me the information.”
“He can’t legally share it,” she said.
“Unless he thinks there’s a direct threat.”
“What did you tell Jesse?”
“I’m not lyi
ng to him.” Sean glanced over to make sure Jesse wasn’t in hearing distance. “I called Madison and asked if she hired someone to check up on me and Jesse. She didn’t.”
“You what? Sean—I would be furious if I were her.”
“She didn’t, and she wasn’t mad—she was apologetic that I would think she would do something like that. But I wouldn’t put it past Carson. I didn’t suggest it to her—I don’t think she thought of it—but he doesn’t like me.”
“Big surprise there,” Nate said.
“I called Dean.”
Lucy didn’t know if that was the smartest move, either. “Dean can’t have you involved with Spade’s probation.”
“I know—but I don’t trust Spade, and something about the tail yesterday—it just felt like him. His attempt to unnerve me or something.”
“Which it has.”
“Not like he thinks.”
“Why now?” Nate asked. “And not three and a half weeks ago when Jesse first came?”
“Good question,” Sean said. “Maybe he thought I would know it was him. Or maybe—and I’ve thought about this—he has been keeping an eye on us all along but I didn’t notice.”
“That’s doubtful,” Lucy said. “You’ve been hyperaware of potential threats because you weren’t allowed to view the threat assessment.”
“True, but maybe it wasn’t overt. Or maybe he’s getting worried because Jesse’s having fun or Madison is mad at him. When I went to pick Jesse up in Sacramento, the tension was pretty thick between them. Madison was all ready to defend him—even after she knew the truth—but time may have helped the truth sink in. I’m really just guessing here.”
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