Laurie searched through an unrelated missing person case, a fifty-seven-year-old man who hadn’t turned up to his work on board a local fishing boat three weeks ago. Everything that could be done had been done, and Laurie signed the investigation off. The missing man had no immediate family in the States; a brother in his native Puerto Rico had been notified but hadn’t responded beyond an email of acknowledgment. The fisherman would become another name to add to the list of thousands of people who went missing nationwide each year, and Laurie sighed as she filed away the report.
“Laurie,” mouthed Remi, nudging her as he took a call on his cell phone. “Hey, Alex, what’s up?” he said into the phone, as Laurie looked on. “Hey, that’s great. You saw him go into this apartment?”
“We’ve got him,” he said to Laurie as he hung up the call a moment later. “My contact at the apartment building in Houston saw Glen Harrington enter the building five minutes ago.”
“What are we doing sitting here, then?” said Laurie, shutting down her laptop.
It was a relief getting out of the building. Remi coordinated with local officers in Houston, who had been instructed to detain Glen Harrington if he left the apartment block.
As they drove along Seawall Boulevard to the causeway, it was apparent from the steady stream of traffic leaving the island that notice of the evacuation had already been announced. Many lowlying areas of Houston were also on standby, and there was concern that an evacuation order might be issued in the city as well. The last thing Laurie wanted was to get cut off in Houston. She needed to get in and out as quickly as humanly possible. As they approached South Houston, she switched on the inbuilt siren and lights, and they made the apartment building twenty minutes later.
One of the concierge team met them inside and showed them live video footage of the hallway outside Glen’s Houston apartment, which was one of three on the penthouse level. “Fancy,” said Laurie. “You’ve had eyes on that door since you called Detective Armstrong?” she asked the doorman.
“Ain’t looked up once, ma’am.”
“Keep up the good work. Call us if you see Mr. Harrington leave before you see us arrive on his floor.” The doorman returned to the screen as if his life depended on it.
Although an APB was out on him, Glen Harrington wasn’t an official suspect. They weren’t there to arrest him, merely to check on his safety and to ask him a few more questions. Yet as she and Remi stepped into the elevator, cheesy Muzak accompanying them on their upward journey, Laurie felt as if she was in the eye of the storm. Glen hadn’t absconded for no reason. At best, he’d kissed his daughter’s eighteen-year-old girlfriend. What else he’d got up to with her was anyone’s guess. Whatever the reason for his disappearance, Glen Harrington had shown himself to be unpredictable, and unpredictable people could be dangerous.
The elevator pinged to a stop, the strained cries of a lounge bar version of Lionel Richie’s “Hello” still assaulting their ears as they made the short walk to Harrington’s apartment.
Laurie unclipped her gun holster as she knocked on the door. She gave a count of ten before nodding to Remi, who produced the all-access card the doorman had given him. The light on the door flashed green and Laurie stepped into the apartment building, her hand ready by her holster. “Mr. Harrington?” she called, securing the hallway before seeing the shape of Glen Harrington on the floor of the living room.
Rushing to his side, she dropped beside his prone body and searched for a pulse. Even as she did so, she knew it was an empty gesture. Glen Harrington stared at the ceiling, wide-eyed, flanked by an all but empty bottle of Macallan Rare whisky. The syringe he’d used to inject the poison that had taken his life hung from his arm like a weird appendage.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Laurie moved away from Glen Harrington’s corpse and told Remi to secure the room. She scanned the area for a sign of a potential suicide note before retreating into the hall, where they called Houston Homicide and waited for the CSIs to arrive.
In a perfect world, Glen Harrington would have left a suicide note detailing the murder of Grace, which would tie in perfectly with the forensic report they would be receiving at some point soon. That would be determined later, but for now, as was seemingly always the case, all they could do was wait.
And plan what she would say to Sandra Harrington.
The Harringtons’ relationship may have been all but nonexistent, but losing her husband so soon after her daughter would still pour on one more thick layer of trauma.
She hated to think how much worse it would be for her if Glen had killed their daughter.
Although everything pointed to death by suicide, homicide couldn’t be ruled out. Laurie updated the lead detective from Houston PD’s homicide squad, Kevin Estrada, as his team and the CSIs arrived ten minutes later. She knew Estrada from previous joint investigations. In his early fifties, his hairline seeming to have receded a couple of inches since the last time she’d seen him, Estrada had the look of someone under permanent pressure.
“I heard about that beach murder,” he said. “Same MO as the Randall killing from sixteen years ago?”
“Something like that. This is the dad,” said Laurie, who then updated the detective on Glen Harrington’s recent indiscretions.
If Estrada was shocked, he didn’t show it. “Looks like suicide to me,” he said, “though it could be staged that way. Anyone want him dead?”
“A few young women I know. His daughter’s girlfriend was arrested yesterday for assault on one of his conquests, but I’ve already checked on her whereabouts.”
Estrada’s eyebrows knitted. “His daughter’s girlfriend assaulted his teenage lover?”
“You’re getting it. The lover was also his daughter’s ex-girlfriend.”
Estrada winced as if the situation’s soap opera calculus was giving him a headache, then gave his head a little shake as though putting that all aside for the moment. “Work troubles?”
“Probably. News was already out on his affairs with young work colleagues. It wouldn’t be long before the press found out about his dalliances closer to home.”
Estrada shook his head. It didn’t pay to get too judgmental in this line of work, but his disgust was evident. “Happy to hold up things for you here. I’ll let you know if we find a note. I imagine you want to get back before that hurricane hits?”
“Thanks, Kevin, appreciate it. We are still looking for the murder weapon that killed Grace Harrington,” said Laurie, summoning Remi, who’d finished interviewing the last of Glen Harrington’s neighbors in the apartment building.
Laurie would usually have stayed until Glen’s body had been recovered from the apartment building, but Estrada had been right about beating the storm. After a deviation in its course across the gulf, the latest update had it making landfall in Galveston at some point tomorrow evening, and by the time they reached the island, what had started as the suggested evacuation of the West End was now a mandatory evacuation of the whole island. The northbound side of the causeway was already close to standstill, weary travelers inching along every few minutes.