“It depends on if someone heard anything, saw anything,” he said.
At that, the detective frowned. “We have spoken to several of the people in these nearby businesses, and nobody heard anything.”
“Of course not. That’s the way of it, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
Weston held his thoughts to himself, but he wondered if anybody had seen Angel. Was there any strife with the lawyer? What kind of a person was he? These were all things he would take the time to find out. The detective unlocked the door and motioned inside.
Weston stepped in and stopped. “Did you guys make this mess?”
The detective stepped in behind him and frowned even more. “We shouldn’t have,” he said. “This isn’t normal.”
“It wasn’t like this before,” Weston said, as he turned in a slow circle. “All the files have been dumped upside down. Even if the killer were looking for something, why would you dump it like that?”
“Frustration? Rage?” The detective frowned as he pulled out his phone and calling forensics to see when they had been here last.
“The crime scene tape was down, correct?”
“Yes, the scene had been cleared.”
“Do we know if this guy had any other relatives besides Angel?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I haven’t been working the case.”
At that news, Weston just lifted an eyebrow. “Are there that many detectives here?”
“Yes and no,” he said. “We’ve had two call in sick today.”
Weston took a quick look around, wondering just what this was. To him it looked like rage. Somebody expected to find something, and, when they didn’t, they decided to trash the place. Or they did find something, but it was something they didn’t want to see.
He wondered what the lawyer was like. Was there any chance he was supposed to draw up the agreement and make sure it was not quite legal? That would be shitty on Angel’s part.
But he didn’t know what kind of a person she was. Unfortunately she was a ship that passed him in the night. They rocked the boat for a few hours, and that was it. He couldn’t regret it now because Sari was the result, but it was certainly not something he even vaguely remembered. And that made him feel sad.
He squatted beside a stack of files on the ground. He didn’t recognize any of the names. He didn’t touch anything but continued to search through the material on the floor. Surely something was here. He found a pack of matches off to the side from a Vegas hotel. He studied it because it was of particular interest, since it was on top of the files. If it came from Angel, that meant she had been here, either before or after this destruction.
When the detective got off the phone, he had information. “The technicians were done yesterday. The crime scene tape was removed afterward, and the office was left locked.”
Weston nodded, then pointed at the matches. “Angel lived and worked in Las Vegas,” he said. “If those are from her, she’s been here since this was done or was here at the time.”
The cop squatted beside him and nodded. “What purpose would she have for searching through these records and leaving them in such a mess?”
Weston replied, “Either she was looking for something and couldn’t find it, or she found something and didn’t like it.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, I’ve got the team coming back, so make sure you don’t touch anything.”
“You know I won’t.” Weston walked through to the private office in the back, where he’d seen the body and saw bloodstains still on the carpet. He looked with a new insight because now all the information around this killing had changed.
“Do we know what the weapon was?” Weston asked.
“No, not for sure. A small handgun we assume. I’m still waiting for the autopsy to come back.”
“So a gun that could be purchased almost anywhere,” Weston said.
“There’s more. The lawyer had a license himself and kept a gun on the premises. It’s the same caliber he was killed with.”
“Has it been found?”
“No,” he said, “but it seems likely it may have been involved, one way or another.”
“So somebody comes in here with ill intent. The lawyer pulls the gun to protect himself. Then they end up killing him with it?”
“It could play that way,” the detective said. “Again, what’s the motive?”
“Somebody wanted help,” Weston said. “And either the lawyer didn’t like it or didn’t like the price.”
“That sounds familiar,” the detective said. “I was here for an hour after the body was removed, going through everything, but I didn’t find anything of interest.”
“So you didn’t expect this aftermath?”
“No.”
“Even now I don’t see much point. An awful lot of case files are here, but depending on what he specialized in—”
“Mostly estates,” the detective said. “We’ll have to go through this paperwork, make sure nothing’s missing. But we won’t know on a lot of this if parts of the files are missing.”
“So, like wills?” Weston said, turning to look at him.
The detective frowned and then nodded. “That’s possible. He had a legal assistant, and we spoke with her yesterday. She wasn’t sure what she was even supposed to do at this point.”
“I’d like to talk to her.”
“And what would you ask her?”
“I’d ask about any estates in the process of closing, and any clients or others who were disgruntled over a will.”
“I did ask some of that but not all of it. Given this, I think more questioning needs to be done.” The detective brought out a notepad and wrote down notes as he walked around the office, but Weston didn’t bother too much about that.
“The next thing to question is, did this lawyer have anything to do with the wills for Grant and Ginger?”
The detective stopped, looked at him and said, “I have no idea.” He pulled up his phone and started talking, “I think it’s time I contacted that assistant again.”
When a woman answered on the other end, he identified himself and told her the office had now been broken into, and paperwork was strewn everywhere. He
