Dead End

by Susan Sleeman

  He texted the pictures to Nick.

  Found this router at the address you gave me.

  Not much good to me unless you can bring it back.

  No can do. Will need a warrant for that. No probable cause.

  Then get some, Nick replied.

  If only it was that easy. Reed took pictures of everything in the space as he exited and then jogged back to the car. “Found a router hooked up to cable. Nothing else.”

  She swiveled to face him. “I know you can’t do anything, but I could have Nick come over here to access it.”

  Reed shook his head. “That could jeopardize the investigation.”

  “So what do you want to do about it?”

  “I’d love to get an agent to babysit this place, but I doubt there’s anyone free for a detail.”

  She lifted her gaze in what he was coming to recognize as her thinking pose. “I could hire Blackwell Tactical to do it. I’m sure Gage will have someone here soon.”

  A good idea but… “They’re probably not cheap.”

  “We get the friends and family discount.” She chuckled, made the call, and raised the phone to her ear. “Gage, it’s Sierra again. I need to hire your team.”

  She explained about the warehouse and money transfer, and then listened. “Yes. Twenty-four hour surveillance.”

  She felt silent. “Perfect. They can stay at my condo when they’re not watching the building.”

  Stay with her?

  “I’ll text you the address.” She ended the call and looked at Reed. “He’s sending Riley and Sam.”

  Right. Probably two big strapping military macho men. Here. Staying with Sierra. “I take it you know these guys.”

  She nodded. “But Sam’s a woman. I think I mentioned her. She’s the team’s forensic specialist and Emory’s friend. She’ll take day shift and spend the night at my place.”

  Reed let out a quiet breath and hated that he’d been jealous again, but he was, and it was time to face facts. He wasn’t just attracted to this woman, he’d developed serious feelings for her. And there she sat, typing on her phone, oblivious to him.

  He knew she was attracted to him, but for the most part she seemed quite content to do her job and ignore him. Or she was keeping her vow of not dating guys and only treating them as friends. He wasn’t one to dwell on things he could do nothing about, but she was worth dwelling on. Worth finding a way around her objection to getting involved. And worth burying these jealous feelings before they made him do something stupid.

  She shoved her phone into her pocket. “Okay, so what next?”

  “Next we pay a visit to Vasily Kuznetsov at his official business address. But we wait for your friends to get eyes on this place first. In case we spook him, we don’t want him to send someone to grab the router.”

  19

  The Veritas team was gathered around the conference room table by the time Reed got Sierra back to the center for the update meeting. He held the door for her, and she smiled her thanks up at him. The ease that he’d seen with Chad and Nick finally seemed to flow between them, too. He grinned back at her and couldn’t for the life of him stop. She didn’t move and didn’t seem to want to end their connection either. When he glanced at the others, they all looked at them. Not only looked at, but assessed. Reed was used to such inquisitive looks from other law enforcement professionals, but these guys took nosy to a new level.

  Blake was the only one who seemed focused on the investigation. He stood at the whiteboard, a list of leads or forensic finds written in black marker. “We’re just about to begin. If you’ll take a seat, I’ll start with the items I’m responsible for.”

  Reed trailed Sierra to two empty chairs and pulled one out for her. That earned him another smile, and he couldn’t resist it.

  “Seriously, you two,” Nick said. “Give it a rest.”

  Sierra cast Nick a confused look, but Reed totally understood what Nick was seeing between them. Instead of getting mad at Nick’s comment, Reed was glad—it meant he wasn’t imagining this connection with Sierra.

  Blake tapped the word ledger on the board. “A copy’s in the hands of a forensic accountant. He started on it right away and now we wait.”

  Blake put a red check mark next to the item and pointed at Eddie’s Golf Partners. “I called the top three guys Eddie golfed with. Nothing new, I could head back to Seaview Cove to conduct a face-to-face interview, but I doubt it will help.”

  Reed was thankful to have a former LEO on the team as he could be sure Blake had conducted thorough interviews. “Then let’s check it off.”

  Blake marked that item as well and then tapped the line item that said Eddie’s Business Partners. “Okay, Nick, you’re up.”

  “From what I could gather, and it was a lot, he was flying solo except for his accountant. Not even a business manager. The rental checks went to a lockbox in Portland, and the accountant managed that box. So he handled the intake of cash and Eddie handled the outflow.”

  “Separation of duties—a solid accounting principle on the surface,” Reed said. “Yet Eddie still managed to take money.”

  “How’d he allegedly do it?” Sierra asked.

  Reed ignored her allegedly comment. “He created bogus vendors that on paper looked like they provided services required for managing the rental properties, issued checks to these businesses, then deposited the checks into accounts he opened.”

  “And how long did it take for him to amass the $250,000?” Grady asked.

  “Less than a year,” Reed said. “He managed exclusive properties up and down the coast that commanded three grand a night or more in rental income during peak season and brought in six million in rental income in a year.”

  Maya shook her head. “I should’ve sold this place and bought beach rental properties.”

  Reed’s phone chimed, and he glanced at the screen. “Serial number of the gun found at Barnes’s cottage didn’t match anything in the system.”

  “So it wasn’t recovered by police and used in a crime,” Grady clarified.

  “That’s right.”

  Blake crossed the item off the board. “Back to you, Nick.”

  He sat forward and rested his hands on the table. “Nothing else in Eddie’s background, but Reed gave me a copy of Eddie’s hard drive and I’m just getting started on that.”

  “Since computers often give us some of the best leads these days,” Blake said. “Let us know the minute you find anything.”

  “Will do. I also have Caulfield’s Apple Watch. My guys have imaged it and are reviewing the data. I can tell you that his heartbeat stopped recording yesterday at nine p.m.”

  “Fits with Dr. Albertson’s assessment of rigor on the scene,” Reed said. “I’d hoped she could do the autopsy today, but she’s swamped, so it’ll occur tomorrow afternoon.”

  Blake moved to a separate whiteboard and wrote Ira Caulfield and Apple Watch below it. “I haven’t been looped in on this murder yet. We’ll finish with our follow-up on Eddie and then work this one.”

  He moved back to the first board and tapped social media. “What have you found, Kelsey?”

  “Eddie has both a business and personal Facebook account, but he didn’t post much or often on his personal account. He did list rentals on the business page on a regular basis, but it honestly looked like he had some automated software that posted those as they were all identical except for the property. I doubt a person could have done that for a long time without changing at least one thing up.”

  “I don’t know of any program that would post rentals specifically, but he could’ve had custom software created,” Nick said. “I’ll look for that on his computer.”

  “Our techs didn’t notice that, but I don’t know if it makes any difference as the posts stopped when he took off,” Reed said.

  “Or was abducted,” Sierra added.

  Reed nodded, and then remembered he’d never mentioned to Sierra that he wondered if the brick dust connection
to Caulfield could mean Barnes killed Caulfield. But Reed wasn’t about to bring that up here before talking to her in private about it.

  “Any other social media accounts besides Facebook?” Blake asked.

  “Not that I could find.”

  “We didn’t find any either except for LinkedIn,” Reed said. “He has a business listing there, but he wasn’t active on the site.”

  Blake checked off Social Media and tapped the word Phone. “I reviewed the call logs in Reed’s case file. Other than the burner phone Reed mentioned, I didn’t see anything unusual on the list. It’s of interest, though, that the last person Eddie called was his accountant. Now that Caulfield’s dead, the call might be more significant. And obviously, I didn’t get a chance to interview Caulfield.”

  “We never located his phone, but I should have his LUDs by end of day.” Reed didn’t bother explaining LUDs, the common term used by LEOs that stood for Local Usage Details.

  “Sierra dragged me out of bed at zero dark thirty to come take his computer into evidence before anyone else did, and we’re imaging it now,” Nick said.

  “Okay, hold up.” Blake moved to the other board. “Let me get this written down.” He wrote fast and glanced at the other board. “Update us on forensics, Sierra.”

  “We have a few strong items, and to keep Blake from becoming a human ping-pong ball, I’m going to stick with Eddie for now. I recovered blood from the whale that I mentioned. Emory’s running DNA on it now. I’ve also given her swabs from the ledger and gun.”

  “The whale, ledger, and Glock will finish running tonight,” Emory said. “But DNA for the whiskey bottle, all glasses, and the single hair found at his office have completed. Eddie’s DNA is on two of the glasses and the whiskey bottle. And the really big news is it’s his blood that you found in his office.”

  “So Eddie was the injured party?” Sierra clarified as she looked at Reed.

  Emory nodded.

  “Which means he could’ve been abducted.” Sierra gave Reed a pointed look.

  He nodded at the possibility, but they had nothing to substantiate it.

  “I also recovered a second DNA profile on two glasses along with the hair,” Emory continued. “I didn’t get a match in law enforcement or military databases for any of it.”

  Reed was disappointed in the results but wouldn’t let it show.

  “FYI, there was only one DNA source on the ledger.” She smiled up at Blake. “I also don’t want to see my sweetie running between boards, so I’ll stick with Eddie’s items.”

  The tough guy blushed as bright red as the marker in his hand.

  “Someone help the poor guy out before he combusts from embarrassment,” Nick said.

  “And on fingerprints,” Sierra jumped to his rescue. “Eddie has a very unique arch in his profile so I was able to quickly eliminate his prints from the ones lifted at the cottage and his office. Reed has submitted the others through AFIS.”

  Reed nodded. “I put a rush on them, but you all know what a rush is in the law enforcement world.”

  “Glacial speed,” Maya muttered.

  Reed took no offense at her statement. She was right.

  “And last and most interesting,” Sierra said. “I found brick dust in the treads in both Eddie’s and Caulfield’s shoes.” She told them about her theory on the findings. “Nick is looking for potential places where they might have met.”

  “My algorithm is running, but so far no hits.” Nick frowned. “And I wouldn’t hold your breath. It’s probably going to take a real human to search the Internet for this. With everything else my guys and I have been tasked with, we don’t have time for that. I did trace the wire transfer of Eddie’s money back to a local address owned by Vasily Kuznetsov.”

  “Sierra and I visited the place today.” Reed shared what they’d found.

  “And I hired Gage’s people to sit on the place,” Sierra added. “Riley and Sam are on the way here. Once they’re in place, Reed and I will talk to Kuznetsov.” She looked at Nick. “Can you get me a list of all properties in Kuznetsov’s name? I want to check them out for brick dust.”

  “Sure thing. Is that top priority, or are the computers and watches?”

  She looked at Reed.

  “I’d say Caulfield’s electronics will yield more than following the brick dust lead. It even trumps Barnes’s computers as our techs have scoured that already.”

  Nick changed his focus to Sierra. “You concur?”

  “He’s probably right. Do Caulfield’s computers and watch first.”

  “Will do.” Nick leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “And you should know, there’s not a single military or former military member in Caulfield’s neighborhood. Not even a child of any of the residents. But maybe Sierra’s sketch running in the media will break this investigation open.”

  Sierra frowned. “I feel so dumb for letting the guy leave.”

  Just the thought of her near this Ranger who could be Caulfield’s killer made Reed see red. He wanted to demand she be more careful. Instead, he curled his hands in fists under the table and made sure his tone remained neutral. “You didn’t know he was a potential suspect, and even if you tried, you couldn’t have stopped him.”

  Sierra nodded, but was watching him carefully. Had he failed to keep his tone level? Let in some of his angst over her being alone with a potential killer?

  Blake moved to the other whiteboard, thankfully taking her attention. Blake glanced at Emory who was smiling at him. They were obviously in love and also respected each other. A very important component in a relationship.

  He took a sideways look at Sierra. Did she respect him? He couldn’t say. Not with how he’d cuffed her in Barnes’s office and perhaps the way he couldn’t just take at face value that Barnes wasn’t guilty of embezzlement. Reed wanted to agree that Barnes had been abducted and someone else stole the money, but despite the things this team had uncovered, none of them cleared Barnes of the theft or of Caulfield’s murder.

  “I’ve been talking with Dr. Albertson about the woman found in the hot tub,” Kelsey said.

  Reed shifted his focus to her. “It’s officially a woman, then?”

  She nodded. “Her hyoid bone was broken. That, along with the belt we recovered from the tub, leaves us to conclude that she was strangled.”

  “At least that was a whole lot quicker than being trapped in the hot tub,” Maya said.

  “Agreed,” Kelsey said and looked at Grady. “Can your team examine the belt and see if you can find anything unique about it?”

  Grady nodded. “Don’t hold out hope though. Belts might be great weapons for strangulation, but unless you can get DNA or prints or it has a custom buckle, belts rarely return anything unique that leads to a killer.”

  “And in this case, prints were obliterated by the long exposure to the heat,” Sierra said.

  “Now that we know it might be the murder weapon, I can swab for DNA,” Emory said. “DNA can survive in water, but it will degrade over time, and in hot water like this tub? Odds aren’t good that I’ll find anything.”

  Kelsey nodded, her eyes narrowing. “Our biggest issue right now is identifying the woman. As Emory said, due to exposure to such high temperatures for so long, we aren’t able to reliably get DNA. The hair might still be viable. I’ve taken a bone and tissue sample and given them along with hair to Emory. If anyone can find DNA in those samples she can.”

  “Thanks for your confidence in me, Kels,” Emory said. “And the DNA finishes running early tomorrow from the blood recovered by Caulfield’s body and the hot tub area, plus the woman’s hair recovered in Caulfield’s bed.”

  She looked at Blake. “Sorry to send you back to the other board, but I can also compare Caulfield’s results to the unknown DNA found at Eddie’s house and cottage.”

  Blake smiled at his fiancée and went back to the other board to jot everything down.

  “If the DNA doesn’t give us the woman’
s ID,” Kelsey said, “we can also try tracking her bikini. But honestly, it’s brand-name ready-to-wear, and I doubt that will yield much.”

  Sierra frowned. “So how are we going to find out who she is?”

  “Good detective work might give us the answer,” Reed said. “If it’s Caulfield’s girlfriend, the woman’s name could very well show up in his emails, phone, and other communications.”

  Maya curled her fingers in fists on the table. “If this woman was his girlfriend, how could he have left her in the tub for that long? That’s just disgusting.”

  Sierra shook her head. “It really was gross.”

  “The belt might mean the killing wasn’t premeditated,” Grady said. “Like he grabbed whatever he could find. So if he killed her in a fit of anger, he might not have had a clue how to dispose of the body so he just kept putting it off.”

  “Maybe so,” Blake said. “But that’s all speculation.”

  Reed looked at Kelsey. “If we can get the girlfriend’s name and her dental records, can we do a dental match?”

  Kelsey nodded. “Yes, dental radiography matching is a good possibility here. We recovered every tooth.”

  “I talked to Caulfield’s daughter and son this morning,” Reed said. “They don’t know her last name so they’re not going to be of any help in IDing her.”

  “Let’s not lose hope,” Emory said. “The DNA could still pan out.”

  “And if none of this works?” Grady asked. “Knowing you, Kels, you must have something else you can do.”

  “Isotope analysis might work.”

  “Explain, please,” Reed nearly demanded as he was getting frustrated from hitting dead end after dead end in finding Barnes.

  “I’ll take shavings of her tooth enamel and bones, and will analyze chemical traces in those shavings for lead, carbon, and other elements. This information can give a surprisingly detailed history of diet and environment.”

  Reed stared at her. “Not sure how that will help.”

  “Elements come in different versions, called isotopes, and they vary by mass. Geographic locations have characteristic percentages of these isotopes in rocks and soil. They’re a kind of signature. Geologists have been documenting these signatures in databases for years. We can use the mass spectrometer to read the signature of elements from her bone or teeth and match it to a location. This will confirm if she’s from the area or not from around here. And if not, we’ll have a place to look to compare with missing persons reports.”