“I can’t figure it out,” he offered. “My mother loved the theater, and she loved the arts. My father… he funded her enjoyment.”
“Did she go to the National Theater?” Elizabeth asked. Then she waited.
“Yes. We all did. We have box seats there, and we’ve seen just about everything they put on over the last ten years.”
Again, they were back at the starting point. Here were two more people who were connected to that troupe.
“Did your father donate money?”
“Yes, he did all the time.”
Bingo.
There was their tie.
Elizabeth was really looking forward to seeing that play. Afterwards, she had some really uncomfortable questions she needed to ask Selma Roth. While the woman thought she’d be using them as free publicity, they were going to use her to find a killer. She was either neck deep in this mess, or she was being framed.
It was going to be interesting.
“Can I see him?”
“Who?” she asked.
“Marco.”
She knew he was cracking under the pressure. “I can let you see him for a little before they transport him.”
“Do you have proof it was him?”
She pointed at her lip. “He’s going to jail because he hit me, not because he’s the killer. I’ve yet to prove that.”
He laughed.
“You think that’s funny?”
Peter shook his head. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but he’s the only family I have left. I’d like to call the family attorney. I need to save my father. I lost one, and I can’t lose the other.”
If nothing, they healed someone’s heart. If they weren’t killers, that would be in the plus column. If one of them was the maniac, they’d just been fooled.
She slid her phone toward him. “If you know the number, I suggest you dial it now.”
He picked it up.
“You’ll find the killer, right?”
She stared him in the eyes. “I always do. People think they’re tricky, but in the end, I always win. Breaking the law never works out.”
He nodded and dialed.
Elizabeth gave him that moment. She hoped he wasn’t the killer.
If he was…
He was one hell of an actor, and she was losing her edge. She actually believed him.
Chapter Fifteen
With the interviews done, it was time to get to the morgue and talk to her team. Hopefully, one of them had something she could use. Other than the two men upstairs, they didn’t have a definitive suspect.
Hell!
They didn’t even have the sex of the killer. This far into the investigation, not knowing that was a sign that they were slipping behind.
This was a tricky one. Someone was pulling the strings, and she was getting irritated by it.
Yes, she knew the cases she’d be taking were harder, but there was something about this one that didn’t add up. It was leaving her with a bad taste in her mouth.
Her gut was screaming.
She felt like she was looking in the wrong direction.
Oh, and she was worried it would end up like the last case—with her nearly dying.
No one wanted that.
Before she could head into autopsy, she was met outside the morgue by her two agents. They were parked outside ‘Autopsy Suite One’, and they didn’t look happy.
Great.
This was going to make her even crankier. She could already tell.
“Ma’am,” they said, standing from their positions to greet her at her approach.
“If it’s bad news, ‘Seaton Squared’, I may flip my shit. There’s your one and only warning.”
Neither batted an eyelash.
While they knew she was serious about it, they couldn’t make miracles. They could only do their jobs, and they knew she was aware of that.
“Spill it.”
If they were intimidated by Callen and Ethan standing behind her, they didn’t show it.
“We have been working on the two things you asked us to handle.”
“Okay, what?”
“We pinpointed Derek Zanders, but he went back under,” Brody offered, turning his tablet around to show her the video footage. “When we got a hit on his credit card, we headed to the scene to see what was happening.”
“Okay, continue.”
“He was picking up supplies.”
Elizabeth watched him walking from the store to the parking lot. They couldn’t see the vehicle he was getting into, if he even had one. He could be on foot.
“Did you check other cameras in the area?”
“Yes, and he’s not on them. We think he headed into the gully, and off radar.”
She could believe that.
The man was Cracker Jacks, but with a whole lot of extra nuts in his box.
“Okay, so we lost him. That doesn’t make me happy, since Merry and Boone are wearing a bull’s-eye.”
It didn’t please them either.
They loved Merry.
“He’s not staying at a hotel. We’ve sent BOLO’s to them. He’s definitely laying low. He’s got to be squatting somewhere that he can move about on foot.”
She thought about it.
They were probably right.
“Tomorrow, I want you to canvas around Merry’s neighborhood. Find a place that would be able to fill his criteria. He’d want to watch, he’d need to be close, and he’d want to have a place to hide out at night.”
They could do that.
“If he’s buying food, he’s planning to dig in and lay low,” Ethan offered. “It’s the first time he’s used his credit card in a while, right?”
“Yes, Deputy Director.”
“To me, that shows desperation and possibly a side of cuckoo.”
Elizabeth glanced over at him. “It turns me on when you use technical jargon like that.”
He snorted. “Your state of arousal is duly noted, Elizabeth.”
She winked at him.
“Well, considering what he did to her car, you have to assume that he’s not all there,” Callen offered.
She doubted he was all there to begin with. Merry had found herself a cop who likely had some sort of PTSD or a mental issue that had slipped by his psych evaluations. Their jobs were hard, but he was out of his damn mind. She didn’t believe, for a second, that he’d been damaged by being a cop.
The man should never have been given a badge or a gun in the first place. She’d seen his file.
He was a ticking time bomb.
“Tomorrow, find me something. I need my tech back in the field, and she’s not focused as long as someone is trying to use her as a target.”
They saluted.
“Before you run away, lovebirds, what did you find out about Selma Roth and her band of merry men?” she asked.
Brody handed her a paper with a list of names. She scanned it.
“And these are the ones you tagged?” she asked.
“Yes. They’ve had criminal histories, they’ve been less than stellar when it comes to being upstanding citizens, and a few of them have some interesting things said about them on social media.”
That worked for her.
She was going to trust her team.
Elizabeth had to believe in them.
Tonight, she was going to go over them with her lust monkey and love muffin. It looked like they were going to be busy. With six names, they’d each have to do some in depth research.
What else did she have to do?
It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a busy life.
Play with her kids.
Nurse her ME back to sanity’s health.
Deal with her father-in-law and his new relationship.
Sex up two hot Native men.
Yeah, her schedule was light. One day, going home from work to relax would actually mean that.
Yeah, probably not.
“Thank you, ‘Seaton Squared’. Head out.
Don’t forget to hit up all the businesses around Merry’s neighborhood in the morning, and then walk the actual neighborhood.”
“On it, boss.”
They escaped before she dumped more work on them. Both agents knew what she was like when they were working a case.
“Well, so much for naked Twister tonight in our bedroom,” Callen stated.
Ethan laughed. “I was thinking Charades. They are so much more fun when her breasts are out.”
She stared at them. “Yeah, I love getting into weird positions on a plastic mat while your man bits dangle over me.”
They both stared at her but had nothing to add to it.
It was so damn funny.
“Come on, Laurel and Hardy. We have an autopsy or two to get results for, and then maybe I can have something to eat. I’m starving.”
Yeah, come to think of it, they hadn’t eaten either.
Inside the morgue, they found Tony standing on a table, Chris beneath him and everyone clapping.
She didn’t know what the hell to think.
Had her whole team lost their minds?
Was this finally the breaking point, and they were having one hell of a breakdown?
“Uh, does anyone care to explain?” Elizabeth asked. “Why does Tony have scrubs on his head like hair, why is Chris on bended knee, and why the hell isn’t everyone finding me a freaking killer?”
The tone in her voice made the techs scatter.
Tony and Chris, they knew better. She wasn’t at the melting point quite yet. They had time.
“We were enlightening the room with our rendition of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.”
She stared at them. “What? Come again?”
“You know...but soft! What light though yonder window breaks. It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”
She shook her head. “Lunatic.”
“You’re just jealous,” Chris said. “We know the whole thing, and you’ve been out beating down people.”
“For your information, I do know that scene.”
They rolled their eyes.
“Dare you.”
She sighed.
Elizabeth knew how to shut them up, and fast.
“O freaking Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, you pedophile poaching child molester, Romeo. Deny thy father, and let’s run off and create illicit sex acts, you perv, and we’ll have to change our damn names. Thank God! I won’t be a Capulet because no judge in the free world will marry a grown man and a child.”
Chris laughed. “Point taken, boss lady. You hate ‘Romeo and Juliet’.”
“I thought you’d get it. Now, how about you drive this autopsy bus into the information garage before you both find yourself hitchhiking to Unemploymentville for the duration of your lives?”
“That would be awkward since I already live in Bossville,” Chris stated.
“When are you moving?” Tony asked as they both pulled on latex gloves before getting down to business.
“He’s not,” Ethan stated. “Chris is staying.”
Tony glanced over. “I want to move in too. I bet the parties there are rockin’.”
“NO,” they all said together.
“Come on! Now all three of you are playing favorites,” he teased. In actuality, he was glad Chris was settling in to his new norm. The man was much calmer—Elizabeth, family, and therapy had a lot to do with that.
“The first man to give me something keeps his job.”
Chris jumped in.
“They were definitely murdered, and I’ve managed to narrow down time of death for you. They didn’t die instantaneously.”
She didn’t think so. In the past, all arsenic poisonings they handled were over time. Elizabeth didn’t think this one would be any different.
“Explain,” she said, hopping onto the metal table. She needed something, and soon.
“Merry checked the levels, and they were definitely poisoned, but twelve hours before. Arsenic isn’t fast acting. It slowly destroys the organs. At some point, during the day, they were dosed.”
That was interesting.
“So the body placement?”
Chris continued, “The killer had to know when they’d drop dead, and he had to be watching. If I was investigating this one, I’d say he stalked them all day, snuck into the house to place a few trinkets like the antique poison bottle and the handkerchief.”
She agreed.
“Go on.”
“They died where they were. He didn’t likely touch the bodies. There was blood beneath the husband. He vomited up copious amounts of blood as he was dying. She didn’t. Symptoms won’t be the same in all people, but they both had the Mee’s lines on their nails. That’s the dead giveaway.”
“Okay, so we need to look at a different timeframe to see if the two men’s alibi’s work.”
“Yes.”
She glanced over at Callen. “Can you go upstairs before they transport Marco Deltoro and find out where he was around noon?”
“Can do.”
“Also ask his son. We need to check on his new alibi. This killer might have assumed that the poison would act instantly. When it didn’t, they might have screwed up.”
Callen left.
“How was it consumed?”
“Well, that’s going to be the hard part.”
“Why?”
“Because if it was in food or drink, the body processed it, and we don’t have the stomach contents. All I found was normal stomach acid and bile in their stomachs. I’m going to guess and say that they didn’t feel well and skipped dinner. There was nothing present.”
“Ethan, can you check their financials? Maybe they ate out for lunch.”
He began typing on a tablet.
“What else, Christopher?”
“It was a damn painful way to die.”
To her, any way of dying was going to suck. She’d come close enough to it enough times to be an expert on that one.
“I have something,” Ethan stated.
“What?” she asked.
“There are a bunch of hits on a credit card. It was for the Union Market.”
She sighed.
“The biggest Farmer’s market? Really? That’s not going to help me. They give out about a million samples of apple cider this time of the year. Our killer could have grabbed a bottle, followed them there, and then poisoned them before disappearing.”
“And there are no cameras.”
Well, this sucked.
“That’s ingenious,” Tony offered.
“I’m glad you’re impressed by our serial killer, Tony. This is EXACTLY why Christopher is my favorite. He may think it, but he knows not to say it out loud.”
Chris wiggled his eyebrows. “Yes, yes, I do.”
Tony laughed.
“So, that’s a dead end.”
“Well, at least we figured out how,” Ethan offered.
“Yeah, our killer dressed up and played a role. I get it. He or she likes drama.”
Callen returned, and he wasn’t smiling.
“What?”
“Marco Deltoro had an alibi. He said the Cochrans were out shopping, and he had to run around and pick up dry cleaning, groceries, and other stops.”
She closed her eyes. “Where?”
He rattled off the locations. They were on the opposite side of the city.
“Do we have confirmation?” she asked.
“Yes. I checked his bank statements. He was using the debit card there. He was issued one by the family.”
“Awesome. So basically, I have nothing.”
They all heard the frustration.
They got it. They all felt it too.
“What if we’re overthinking this,” Callen asked. “What if it’s as simple as it seems. One of the actors is killing people.”
She handed him the list. “We’ll find out.”
“I’ll help you if you’d like,” Chris offered. “I’ll be free tonight.”
Merry raised h
er hand. “Boone and I need to talk to you,” she said.
“What’s going on?” Elizabeth asked.
“I need to get some things from my place.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Yeah, you’re not going there,” she stated. “I’ll go.”
Now her husbands were the ones laughing, and it wasn’t in amusement.
“Yeah, no, you really won’t,” Ethan stated.
Callen agreed. “You’ve already taken a bullet once. We’ll go and get you anything you need.”
Merry blushed. “Uh, yeah, I don’t really feel comfortable with either one of you digging around in my underwear drawer,” she stated.
Tony opened his mouth and Elizabeth pointed at him. “If you even go there, I’ll shoot you in the ass. Then you can explain how it happened to Jaxon.”
He started laughing. “It’s a tough room tonight.”
Ethan reassured her. “If you’ve seen one pair of panties, you’ve seen them all.”
Callen knew the hilarity was coming. Tears filled his eyes as he started laughing.
“Ethan Jackson Blackhawk! Are you out of your damn mind?” she asked. “I just told Tony I’d put lead in his ass, and you go and say that?”
“Okay, we won’t be digging in your britches,” he teased, using the southern accent his wife had just whipped out to put him in his place.
“I’ll go,” Boone offered. “One of you can join me, and that way no husbands die in the making of this calamity.”
That was the best idea any of them had.
“Besides, I like digging in her panty drawer.”
“BOONE!”
It was fine with Elizabeth.
“Merry?” she asked, when she noticed something was off with her tech.
“What?”
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked. “You look a little pale,” Elizabeth offered.
Boone looked worried.
“Cher, are you sick?” He began clucking over her like a mother hen.
It was sweet to watch.
Chris came to the rescue with a tongue depressor. “Open your mouth.”
She did.
“Have you been taking your iron?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Your tongue is smooth. You may be anemic. Up that iron and increase your B vitamins. You’ll be okay in a day or two. Or you can start eating liver.”
Act of Blood (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 16) Page 40