“Well, great. There are two bodies in the basement.”
“Burned?” Sam asked, pulling protective gear over her clothes.
Marcus shook his head. “A little singed around the edges. They were buried in the basement in a shallow grave, a layer of thin-set concrete on top of them. The fire burned hot around them, the area looked wrong to the firefighter who was down there. He jabbed it with his pick, it cracked apart easily.”
“If they were buried, I’d assume the fire was set after they were dead.”
“I think you’re right. They’re pretty far gone, a couple of weeks at least. Smells pretty nasty down there.”
“Okay. Taylor, you want to come?”
“No,” she said, but she’d already pulled on booties and purple gloves, secured her hair back. McKenzie waved her on, motioned toward the crowd. He was going to check what people had seen first.
Simari excused herself to go run the perimeter of the scene with Max, just in case there were any more surprises.
Marcus said, “I’ll walk you in. They still have a couple of hot spots, but they were able to get here quickly. I do have one witness, said there was a piece-of-crap car that’s usually around that’s missing. Said the kid who lived here drove it. They can’t remember the last time they saw Merritt Senior.”
“Be sure you get the registration records for the car so we can put out a BOLO. So Schuyler Merritt was here today. Damn. We were so close.”
“We usually are. Watch your step here at the front, it’s still a little warm.”
The inside of the house was a muck of wet, charred carpet, a distinct line of demarcation where the fire had burned, running its course around the rooms from the basement into the kitchen. The smoke damage was extensive-the house would be hell to get cleaned up. Though if the owner were dead, that wouldn’t be an issue, at least not right away.
The air was smoky still, deep with the scent of burned wood and plastic. Taylor covered her mouth with her gloved hand and coughed, followed Marcus down the sooty staircase.
She could quickly see why nothing much had been burned-the only thing in the basement was a large gun cabinet. Stone and metal weren’t the best conductors for fire-while the wood in the house had charred significantly, the rest was in decent shape.
The floor had a hole dead center. The two bodies lay side by side, features destroyed by advanced decomposition.
“Jesus. Can we ID them?”
Sam circled the hole, then reached down and touched the wrist of the body closest to her. “Yes, there’s plenty left. Teeth might be the quickest and easiest, if you can find their dentist. They’re missing a finger each, by the way.”
“From the fire? They burned off?”
Sam squatted down for a closer look. “No, a straight-edge, maybe shears? They were forcibly removed.”
“Good grief. Marcus, are there personal effects that made it through?”
“Yes. I’ll go up and see what I can find. The den wasn’t touched by the fire, and it looked like there were some checkbooks and stuff on the desk.” He looked relieved as he walked away.
McKenzie came down the stairs a moment later, eyebrow raised at the scene.
“Neighbors say the boy has been coming and going a lot over the past few days. It’s all gossip up there- apparently Merritt kept to himself. The woman left, got remarried, took the girl with her, left the boy here. He was gone for a while-that would be the reform school-but he’s been back for about three weeks. No one had seen the father for about that time.”
“That time frame fits with the level of decomp I’m seeing here,” Sam said.
“Any idea how they were killed?”
“Yep. Come here and take a look.”
Sam had the head of one of the victims in her hands. Taylor leaned over the grave, she twisted the head to the side. “Gunshot wound. Both of them. Left temporal lobe. Small caliber pistol.”
“At least we know what kind of weapon he has,” Taylor said. “I can imagine that if a boy with a gun walked into your bedroom and told you to take a pill he was holding, you might be inclined to do it.”
“I think you’re right,” McKenzie said. “That does make sense.”
Taylor looked at him. “So where is our boy Raven now?”
Fifty-Two
June 19, 2004 Northern Virginia Baldwin
B aldwin was sitting in Goldman’s office. His personal problems could wait. He was finally focused the way he needed to be on this case. He sent a prayer upward, that the families of the fallen girls would understand. It would be nice to get their absolution, though he’d never forgive himself.
Gretchen Rice had been gone for less than twenty-four hours. There was hope, a chance, that she was still alive. This was it. Their last attempt, a last-ditch effort to nail Arlen to the wall. Despite the shifts watching him, he’d managed to get another little girl.
Baldwin had sifted through the files again and come up with the same answer. All the roads led to Harold Arlen. He knew there was evidence out there, real evidence. The thought made a flash of heat burn in his chest-he was still furious with Charlotte. What was she thinking? They could solve this case, close this case, without cheating. And to do that, they had to search Arlen’s house again. Slowly, carefully, methodically. This time, he was going to be in on the search. They’d missed something before, and by God he was going to help them find it.
Goldman finally walked into the office and handed him a sheaf of papers.
“The new warrant just came in. You think we’ll find something this time around?”
“I can only hope. This is merely a formality. But I need to be sure. I want to cover every inch of that house, let my people have a chance to see it all firsthand. We missed something. And another girl was taken because of our negligence.”
Goldman looked at him, brows knit tightly across his forehead.
“Dr. Baldwin, you know that’s not the case. You’ve been doing this a long time. You know you’re not responsible for them. Arlen, if it is Arlen, is responsible. This is his fault, not yours. You didn’t kidnap and kill these girls.”
“Either way, I want to find Gretchen, and I want to be able to get her home to her parents in one piece.”
“That’s what we all want.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Baldwin drove up to Great Falls with Goldman. Geroux, Sparrow and Butler were already outside of Arlen’s house, waiting for them. Charlotte was off the radar, and that was good. She hadn’t called in, and he didn’t care. He didn’t want to deal with her right now, with the bombshell she’d dropped in his lap. He needed to focus on getting Gretchen Rice back alive.
He’d made an appointment to come in and talk with Garrett Woods late this evening. He’d take Garrett to dinner, expose his secret over steak and whisky, hope for the best. Garrett wanted to know what the meeting was about, knew instinctively there was something wrong, but Baldwin had purposefully been vague, wanting to wait until the search was over today. He had a good feeling about this. He wanted to be able to go in to his boss and lay a victory at his feet before he admitted his actions.
The affair with Charlotte was a huge mistake, and Garrett would help him decide what to do next. Then, he could take whatever steps he needed to rebuild the trust of his team. Because they weren’t stupid people. He got the sense they all knew what had been going on with him and Charlotte-there’d been enough sidelong glances and whispered conversations. Sparrow had been especially aloof with him for the past couple of days. Yes, this was the right course of action. He’d fall on his sword, and they could all go back to work without the specter of Charlotte hovering around them like a well-dressed, insistent ghost.
