Greenman and Holmes have worked together before. There aren't too many suspicious deaths in Loudoun County, but when you work in homicide investigations for a decade you get to know most of the players.
"We're standing in a pasture at a horse farm outside Middleburg. We've got a dead victim inside an Alfa Romeo, early 20s. Could be an accidental OD, or maybe a homicide."
"What makes you think you've got a drug overdose Rob?"
"He’s slumped over in the driver seat in the middle of a pasture. Rogers found a small baggie with several patches in his pocket. We think they’re Fentanyl patches. We've had them turn up in several drug cases and there's been at least one other OD with Fentanyl fairly recently. It’s one of the new drugs of the year.”
Holmes moves his head left and then right, while peering into the driver’s side area, still holding the phone to his ear. “I wanted to call you before we did anything else, like move the body, especially if you wanted to come to the scene."
"Just take as many pictures as possible before you move the body. And have forensics sweep the car for every type of fiber or anything else in case it isn't…”
Holmes interrupts. "But here’s the thing. Why would he drive to the middle of the pasture? Why not just have your high with your buddies in the house?"
"Yeah, that’s strange. What about the farmhouse? Did he live there?"
"Yep, but his father lives in town. When the 911 call came in, the father was notified, and now he's here looking for answers. We're gonna interview anyone that lives or works here.” Holmes says.
"I'm not going to come out. I'll get everything during my autopsy. Sounds like an overdose. Get the background on the kid from his dad and any other witnesses, and I may make some calls to his doctors to see if he had any history of drug abuse.”
"Gotcha Doc. We'll be in touch later."
"He's not coming," Holmes tells Rogers. "Just wants us to do our thing. Get forensics out here and I'll go interview the people at the farmhouse."
As Holmes starts to walk away to confirm the terrible news with the kid's father, he stops and turns back to Rogers. "Do you think it's a coincidence that it was raining really hard when this kid OD'd last night?"
"I dunno, why?" Rogers asks.
"Well, any experienced killer knows that a hard rain is perfect for washing away the evidence.”
"What the hell’re you saying Holmes? That somebody staged this?" Rogers asks sarcastically.
"Just sayin' that it was raining hard as hell last night. It's a little weird that he’d do Fentanyl in his car moments after leaving his house and end up in the middle of a horse pasture. We need to see who he was with last night. If he’d been going to see his honey, for example, then I might…" Holmes trails off.
Rogers looks up from his notebook. The car door is propped open and the kid’s lifeless body is still slumped where it was found. "We’ve got no evidence of anything except Fentanyl patches. We’ve got no footprints, no evidence of another car in or out of here. Don’t ya think we need a sliver of something to suggest foul play?”
"Just wanted to float it out there.”
Holmes looks over toward the farmhouse. This is one of the worst things about this job, he decides. People die. Parents need to be told. Holmes begins his long slog over to the farmhouse and sees a couple of forensic technicians walking across the pasture toward the sports car. Recognizing both, he waves. He replays the short sequence of events in his mind.
A 911 call came into dispatch from the farm. The caller identified himself as "Zander, a good friend of Kent Perless.” He said that when he went out to feed the horses at the crack of dawn like he always does he saw Kent's car in the middle of the pasture. He had no idea why it was there. After trudging through the field, he was shocked to see Kent slumped over in the driver's seat. He claims he reached over instinctively and touched his neck and felt nothing, so he ran back to find his cell phone and called 911. After that, he called his friend’s dad, Kyle Perless, who is now sitting with a younger kid and another man on the set of five steps leading up to the porch.
A female deputy from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s office walks toward him as he approaches the house.
"The guy over there with the short ponytail says he’s the father. His name's Kyle Perless. The young man beside him called 911, Zander Hickson. Says he works here part-time, and the other man works here in the stable. Manuel something, can’t recall his last name."
"Thanks, let’s see what else I can find out." Holmes says in a whisper.
The older gentleman stands up and begins to take a few steps down off the porch. Holmes looks him in the eye and waits until they are a conversational distance from each other.
"Sir, my name is Detective Holmes. They tell me you may be the father of the young man in the Alfa Romeo?”
“Zander says it’s Kent. Can I see him?” Kyle Perless asks.
“Mr. Perless, I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now. Maybe you would like to sit down inside first because the news is not good.”
The reality of the situation suddenly overwhelms Kyle Perless. He plops himself back down on the steps and places both hands over his eyes and forehead. The sound of a grown man sobbing is something Detective Holmes hates to hear. But his job has taught him to hide his own emotions and maintain a professional demeanor around grieving family members.
“Would you like to go sit down inside so I can ask you some questions?"
“I have questions for you. My only son is gone. Are you going to find out who did it?" Kyle’s voice is quivering. He is valiantly trying to hang on, but big tears wet his cheeks.
"Let's go inside. I think it will be better."
Perless slowly stands up, turns around and leads the detective inside to the kitchen table.
"Mr. Perless, we always consider homicide in a suspicious death like this, and we’re going to look at it from all angles. However, there’s no obvious sign of foul play, and we found some evidence that suggests he may have taken some drugs. Did your son have a prescription for any pain medications?"
"That's insane! My son did not abuse prescription drugs. I worked with him regularly at the café, and there was no sign of a drug problem."
"Most parents don't think their son or daughter could possibly be abusing drugs. It's a very difficult thing to imagine…"
"My son may not have been an angel. He may have smoked pot. But that’s it. No way was he doing harder stuff. What do you think he was taking?"
Holmes decides he's not going to disclose the specific type of drug found with the victim. That is a particular card that needs to be held back. There are many advantages to not immediately disclosing key details of an accidental death or homicide.
"The only thing I can tell you right now is that we found some signs of drug use.”
"You’re really not going to tell me what drug you're claiming he OD’d on? Don’t I have the right to know? My kid’s dead out there! Someone is responsible."
"We’ve talked to the medical examiner and he’s going to do an autopsy. Then we’ll transfer the body to the funeral home of your choice. We’ll do everything with the utmost dignity and respect for your son. Now I'd like to ask you a few questions that might help us. Is that okay with you?"
"Yes, of course."
"Good. First of all, this fellow Zander. Is he a good friend of your son's?"
Chapter 49
Holmes
"Did you know of any money issues between Zander and your son?"
"Huh-uh. We provided Zander a place to stay in exchange for helping out with the horses. They were best friends, surely he’s not involved in this. I do have the farm up for sale but I don't think that means anything."
"Any other person been here in the last 24 hours, or anyone else that you think I need to know about?" Holmes asked.
"None that I can think of. My son worked regularly at the Café Loco that I own. You could talk to some of the people there. Oh, he did befriend Amanda Michaels,
the Hemispheres survivor."
"How did he meet her?" Holmes asks, trying to process that strange fact.
"He started volunteering at the hospital before she was a patient. My wife used to be a doctor there, so we have deep ties there."
Holmes listens carefully to what people say because you never know what might roll your way. The thing about his wife captures his interest. He continues to jot a few notes down on the notepad.
"What happened to your wife?”
"She passed away from breast cancer a number of years ago."
"Terribly sorry about that. Just horrible in light of the situation."
After asking permission, Holmes examines all the entry doors to the house, finding no sign of forced entry. Then he circles the entire exterior perimeter of the house, and meets Kyle again on the front porch.
“Who’d know about your son’s whereabouts for the last 24 hours?”
“He was with Amanda and her family at the Kennedy Center Saturday night, he worked at my café during the day yesterday, and as far as I know he was here at the farm last night. His friend Zander may know more.”
"I’d like to take a look at your son’s room, do you mind?"
"No problem." Kyle gets up from the kitchen table and starts leading Holmes toward Kent's room. The detective asks him to wait a moment as he walks back out on the porch and asks a forensic tech to join them.
The bedroom door is open and Kyle steps inside, followed by Holmes and the female forensic tech carrying a plastic box in her rubber gloved hands.
Holmes notices rock-and-roll posters on the wall, a bookcase with all kinds of books, more books scattered near the nightstand, a number of guitars and musical instruments on a rack, and an old-style turntable. The bed is partially made. He spies a laptop with its lid closed, still plugged in. The door leading to the adjacent bathroom is open a crack, so he lightly taps the door open and takes a look. Certainly not well-cleaned, but not unusual for a kid in his 20s without a maid or parental cleaning service. Holmes walks back out of the bathroom, carefully surveying everything.
“Your son was, uh, into music?”
“Oh yeah, he’s quite the guitarist and songwriter.”
Holmes notices the present tense of his language. That’s something that a lot of family members do when absorbing a sudden and untimely death.
“Learned from you?” Holmes asks.
“I was a songwriter and I play a lot of instruments. I helped him learn guitar, although he really didn’t want my input once he got to be a teenager. More recently we’d played together a little, mainly at my café. He had his own band, Paris VA, with Zander and another kid.”
“Kathy and her team’ll get formal pictures and search for fibers and fingerprints. I’d like your permission to retain his laptop so we can analyze the data on it. We’d also like to analyze the cell phone found on the front seat of his car. That okay with you?”
“Sure. Please let me know what you find, okay?”
“We will.”
Holmes notices one of the two windows in the room is cracked open a couple inches. “Do you know if that window was open all night or if someone just opened it this morning?”
”No idea.”
“Would it be unusual for your son to leave a window open?” While asking, Holmes carefully checks out the window sill, careful not to touch anything. He also looks at the floor for marks or scuffs, but doesn’t see any. However, he notices that both of the floor vents to the HVAC system are closed.
“Probably not unusual, since we don’t have any safety issues out here,” Kyle responds.
“Do you have central air here?”
“Yeah.”
Holmes entertains the thought that the victim’s death may not have occurred inside the car, but his partner’s skepticism of any foul play quickly leads him away from that notion. He looks at the wall and sees some handwritten index cards with pithy notes and quotations. He scans some of the books stacked on the bookcase. Freud, Shakespeare, Fahrenheit 451, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Kool-Aid Acid Test, Life of Pi, The Catcher in the Rye.
Holmes decides to have a look at The Catcher in the Rye, and flips through some of the pages randomly. He notices careful underlining in two different colors.
“Are these your son’s books? Did he read all these?” he asks.
“Oh yeah, he’s a very inquisitive kid.”
The detective picks up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because he’s familiar with Hunter S. Thompson and knows that he glorified drug use. Again, certain portions have yellow highlighting. Holmes randomly focuses in on one page. Thompson is talking about ether and various drugs as he and the attorney are speeding down the highway.
"How long did your son have the Alfa?"
"About three years. He loved that car."
“I’m sorry to have to ask this, but where were you last night and this morning before you got the call about your son?”
“At the café until closing time, then home. I watched some television, slept. I was getting ready for work when they called.”
“Kathy, put some tape on this door and do your thing. Take some of the books with highlighting and any diaries or journals you find. We’ll return them later, Mr. Perless, along with the laptop.” Holmes heads out of the bedroom followed by Kyle.
"Here's my card. I'm sure I’ll want to talk to you further, and if you think of anything, please give me a call. Do you have a ride, and can someone be with you today?"
“I’m okay, but thanks.”
Holmes puts his card in Perless' hand, nods slightly and walks down the front porch stairs out toward the investigators still with the Spider in the pasture.
"Did you look at his phone yet?" Holmes asks Rogers when he gets back to the car.
"Yeah. There's nothing on it since a day ago, which is a little weird isn't it?"
"Is the rest of the data still on it?"
"I haven't had time to do a detailed analysis. I did look through his pictures, and there are some of Amanda Michaels and the Kennedy Center, probably at that Healing Heroes thing. What’s he doing with her?”
“According to the dad, they were seeing each other. We've got company," Holmes says, spotting a news truck with its satellite high above it on the two-lane road.
"What's our story?" Rogers asks.
"Not a word about the Fentanyl patches. Just that it's a suspicious death and we’re looking at all angles. Until we hear from the M.E. we can't mention overdose.”
"Gotcha."
"His dad doesn't believe his kid abused drugs. But we've heard that one before, haven't we? I’m going to talk to the friend who called 911.” Holmes then walks back toward the farmhouse and sits on the porch on a long outdoor sofa. He begins talking to Zander Hickson who has made no effort to leave the porch.
"I'm really sorry about your friend. I feel terrible for you and for his dad."
Hickson stares straight ahead.
"I know this is hard for you, but can you tell me how you realized something was wrong this morning?"
Zander proceeds to explain how he was heading to the stables and saw the Spider totally out of place in the middle of the pasture. He describes the horror of going over to the car and finding his friend with his head bent forward in the front seat of the car with no pulse.
"Any reason you can think of that Kent would get in his car in a driving rainstorm and drive it into the grass?"
"No idea," Zander says.
After thoroughly covering things, Holmes closes out the interview and hands Zander his card.
“Call me anytime with questions or information.”
Holmes walks back toward his colleagues still working on the car. He stops 20 yards away and again thinks about the situation. Zander doesn’t give off any vibes that make him suspect. Sure, it’s totally conceivable the kid overdosed. But to think this kid could be wasted and drive across the pasture and moments later just collapse on his steering wheel? Strange, really strange.
“Should we impound it?” Holmes asks.
“Why? Everything points to an overdose, so why bother?”
“I guess you’re right.”
Chapter 50
HQ Summons
Franklin had worked closely with the CFO of Hemispheres defending the company during the 9/11 case. Nonetheless, he had only been to corporate headquarters for two meetings. This time he was personally summoned to discuss the numerous cases arising out of the Quarryville crash.
Franklin’s legal team had worked up a long, detailed evaluation of the company’s liability defenses based on the preliminary information relating to the cause. Part of the evaluation also included what the government was doing and what its preliminary findings were. Based on this data, Franklin contended that the cases were highly defensible, and he further outlined that the passengers’ families would have great difficulty proving the precise mechanical cause of the crash. Finally, he noted the company could argue the possibility of sabotage.
Exiting the elevator on the 31st floor, Franklin introduces himself at the reception area. After flipping through some magazines and the Wall Street Journal for a couple of minutes, the receptionist tells him that his meeting will be convening in the main conference room one flight up. He takes a circular staircase up to a massive conference room. Upon entering the room, he exchanges pleasantries with CFO Andrews and is surprised to see the airline's CEO, David Merland, as well as a couple of executives that he is not familiar with. Darn, he should have studied the officers’ pictures before he came. They all shake hands, and he sits at one side of the immense table and immediately removes several files from his briefcase.
“Mr. Franklin, thanks so much for coming today,” CEO Merland says.
Sensing that he should immediately outline some points of the formal evaluation he already provided, Franklin jumps in as soon as the CEO stops speaking. "Great to see all of you. I think the headline of this meeting is that these cases are highly defensible and we look forward to…"
Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller Page 16