He took the card and nodded. “I have to get back to work.”
“Thank you for your help.” Bree held out her hand.
Kent shook it, then took Matt’s. Kent gave him a wary eye, but he also accepted the handshake.
Back in the SUV, Bree gave the steering wheel a light punch. “I really hate asshole cops.”
Matt shrugged. “There will always be assholes in every walk of life. It’s part of the human condition, unfortunately.”
“I know, but sometimes, that garbage behavior makes our job even harder.”
Matt pulled out his phone. “On the bright side, you gave Kent a positive experience—and we got an important piece of information.”
Bree started the engine. “Let’s check with the realty company and see if anyone was scheduled to be at the vacant house yesterday.”
“Already on it.” Matt made the call. He had their answer in a few minutes. Lowering the phone to his lap, he said, “There were no showings scheduled for that house yesterday. In fact, no one has been to that address for any reason for months. The property has generated no interest.”
“Let’s go back and expand the scene to include the house next door.” Bree turned back toward the crime scene.
She parked at Spencer’s house, and they walked up the driveway of the vacant house.
“I found a footprint impression in the grass over there.” Matt pointed to the area staked out with crime scene tape about thirty feet away.
“Here’s a partial tread.” Bree squatted at the edge of the driveway. “It looks like the vehicle parked crookedly, with the outer edge of the tire in the mud here.”
Matt crouched beside her. “It’s only a small slice of tread.” Juries loved forensic evidence that reminded them of an episode of CSI, but in the real world, criminal investigations weren’t as sexy.
“Not enough for a tread comparison.” Bree straightened.
Matt stood. “But now we know where the killer parked.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bree leaned a hip on the conference room table, blew across the surface of her steaming coffee, and studied the murder board. Todd sat at the table, his laptop open in front of him. Matt paced the narrow space behind the chairs. Folders and papers lay in stacks on the long table.
The victim’s driver’s license photo smiled back at Bree. Spencer had been a good-looking man, but there was something about him that put her off. She glanced at the next picture, Spencer with his face shrouded in plastic wrap. She imagined his last moments, and cold horror sliced through her. She shook off her revulsion and studied the picture. “Why so many layers of plastic wrap? A few would have been sufficient, but the killer kept wrapping until Spencer’s features were unrecognizable.”
“It wasn’t to conceal his identity,” Matt said. “Or they would have moved the body, not left it at the victim’s own house. Sometimes killers cover their victim’s faces if they don’t want to be reminded of who they killed, but I’m feeling the opposite here, as if the killer’s intention was to obliterate Spencer as a person.”
Bree could imagine the killer winding the plastic around Spencer’s head, over and over, filled to the brim with determination—and rage.
“The overkill could have been driven by emotion,” she added. “Anger, resentment, jealousy . . .” She took a deep sip of coffee, and the liquid burned her tongue, but she welcomed the heat sliding down her throat. “Which brings us to the women in Spencer’s life. We know he was active on dating sites. Let’s start with Avery Ledger. She found him. What do we know about her?”
While she waited for Todd to pull up the information, Bree pinned Avery’s photo to the board with a magnet.
Todd turned to his laptop. “Her background check is clean. She’s had some minor acting roles, but her main employer is Get Fit Apparel, where she works as a social media content creator. The company maintains office space in Scarlet Falls. Her commute is about ten minutes.” He scrolled. “As far as the timeline goes, she said she left work at five. I called the office. No one could confirm the exact time she left, but the manager said it was probably around then.”
“Spencer was dead by five thirty. How long would it take Avery to drive to his place?”
“Maybe another ten minutes,” Todd answered.
“That only gives her another ten minutes to incapacitate and kill Spencer.” Bree picked up a dry erase marker and wrote out Avery’s timeline.
“What if she went straight to Spencer’s house from work?” Matt suggested.
Bree rolled the timeline around in her head. “The scene didn’t feel rushed. Let’s see if we can get some kind of physical confirmation of the time she left her office—as well as a photo to see if she changed clothes, et cetera. A few minutes either way could make a difference in the timeline. The company probably has parking lot or video surveillance cameras.”
“I’ll send a deputy,” Todd said.
Bree filled him in on the package-delivery development. “I wish he gave us a better description than SUV or minivan, probably white, but that’s all he would commit to.”
“Better than being overly sure of himself and incorrect,” Todd said.
“This is true,” Bree agreed. Nothing was worse than bad information that sent the investigation in the wrong direction.
“Too bad the tire tread was insufficient.”
Rarely did one piece of obscure forensic evidence break a case. Most police work was boring drudgery: interviewing witnesses, comparing statements for discrepancies, writing and reading reports, studying photos, logging every small piece of evidence in hopes it all pointed to the same suspect. Investigations were largely built on meticulous paperwork and painstaking attention to detail.
Matt spun on his heel. “Avery Ledger drives a Prius, and she would have no need to park next door. She was supposed to be at Spencer’s house.”
Bree tapped on Avery’s photo. “Who is to say she did it alone? Maybe she had help.”
“It’s possible.” Matt paused, his head cocked. “The murder would have been an easier job for two people, that’s for sure.”
Bree turned away from Avery’s photo. “Do we have Spencer’s phone or financial records yet?”
“No,” Todd said. “But the warrants were signed first thing this morning. They’ve been forwarded. Records should start coming in later today.”
Some companies were more cooperative than others. Banks, as highly regulated institutions, tended to be hard-asses about dotting i’s and crossing t’s.
Matt leaned over the table and opened a manila folder. “The techs opened Spencer’s fire safe. He kept physical copies of his tax returns inside. There is no business listed. His only income came from his job at Electronics Depot.” He shifted papers. “Looking at the invoices from his kitchen reno, unless he had some sort of windfall, I expect to see some deep debts on his financials.”
“His brother did say Spencer lived above his means.” Bree drank from her mug.
Matt stopped and rubbed his beard. “His tax returns verified he’s worked at Electronics Depot for years. There’s no self-employment income listed.”