Page 41 of Heart of a Hero

A wider smile crept across his face as the memory of her teasing promise returned. He was thrilled they’d get another chance to be alone again this next weekend, but the thought of planning an overnight somewhere—just the two of them—was already taking root in his mind. Maybe if she could arrange for someone to watch the girls, it could happen sooner than he thought. The idea filled him with a quiet anticipation, one he couldn’t shake as he tried and failed to concentrate on his work.

Brad looked over their desks and lifted his brow.

“What?” Mark asked, narrowing his eyes.

Brad chuckled and shook his head. “Nothin’, man. Just nice to see you smile?—”

“Stowe. Robbins,” dispatch called over the radio. “Get ready to roll out.”

Mark scrubbed his hand over his face as they pulled into the driveway of an older house along a narrow lane. The worn planks on the side were weather-beaten, and a few shutters hung slightly off-center.

“I’m getting fucking tired of this shit,” Brad said, looking out the windshield. “This is not the typical house that someone would consider breaking into. And what the preliminary report said, how the hell did the thieves know they would get cash here?”

“That’s why I keep trying to figure out the randomness of these break-ins,” Mark grumbled.

Once knocking on the metal frame of the screen door, the inner door opened, and they were greeted by a gray-haired manwho appeared to be in his sixties. His expression was etched with a scowl even as he invited the detectives inside. “Come on in. I’m Walter Carter. Let me see to my wife.” He turned away from them and faced a woman standing next to the kitchen counter.

Once they entered, Mark immediately noticed the older, worn furniture. The exception was a recliner sitting in the corner that appeared new. His wife walked into the room on unsteady legs, and her husband moved to help ease her into the chair. “You know the doctor said you should use your walker, Caroline,” he admonished gently.

She snorted and shook her head. “I’m not going to start using something as a crutch. Maybe when we go out, I will, but not now,” she replied stubbornly. As she looked up at the detectives, her scowl matched her husband's. “Honest to God, Detectives. We don’t hurt nobody. We help people when we can, and now somebody comes in here and robs us! Tell me how that makes sense!”

Mark and Brad quickly discovered that the Carters had driven across the bay for a doctor's appointment earlier that morning. “I had back surgery over two months ago,” Mrs. Carter said. “This was one of my regular scheduled doctor visits to see the surgeon.”

Mr. Carter shook his head and said, “Just the dumbest luck that somebody breaks in while we’re not here.” He looked at the detectives and said, “We don’t go many places, so how the hell somebody took a wild guess that we wouldn’t be home, I don’t know!”

“Don’t be daft!” Mrs. Carter bit out. “Somebody knew we were gone.”

Prescription drugs had been taken, and like the previous break-ins, forensics found evidence of a broken back door. There were not many pills in the narcotics bottle she had, and sheadmitted she had only taken a few when she’d first come home. “Don’t like the way they make me feel,” she said.

“Ma’am, who knew that you had a doctor's appointment today? Neighbors? Relatives?”

“Are you implying that my good neighbors or my relatives came in here and robbed us?” Her voice was filled with righteous indignation.

“No, ma’am, not at all. But a simple word mentioned somewhere—a church group getting prayer requests about someone’s surgery… a neighbor bringing food… There are ways that someone might find out when the house will be empty.”

Mr. and Mrs. Carter looked at each other before he admitted, “My sister goes to the Baptist Church down the road, and Caroline has been on their prayer list, so it’s certainly not a secret that she had surgery and therapy and doctor's appointments. Hell, the visiting nurse and therapists from the county know. And we have a neighbor who brought food the other day.”

At the mention of a visiting nurse, Mark's head snapped up from where he’d been staring at his notes. “Visiting nurse?”

“Yeah. She comes by and helps coordinate all the therapy and doctor appointments. Um… Karen something.”

“Drummond,” his wife provided. “Karen Drummond.”

A slither of nerves moved along his spine when he heard Karen’s name coming from a victim’s lips. Not bad… but uncomfortable, like a wool sweater that made the wearer itch.

Brad looked down and checked his notes. “So, the only things you’re missing are the prescription pills and cash that you kept in your nightstand?”

“Yes, our prescription pills are kept on the kitchen counter so we can remember to take them when we get up in the mornings. I don’t like to go to the bank too often, so I usually withdraw some cash once every couple of months in case I need some. Idon’t like carrying it in my wallet, so I have it in my nightstand drawer. Can’t imagine how somebody went straight to it but guess maybe that’s a common place for people to keep things.”

As Brad continued asking questions, Mark began thinking about past cases, but he locked down any more uncomfortable thoughts until he got back to the station and looked at the other files.

Once back in the station, he sat at his desk, pulled up the files, and started to review the information.

Before he had much time to peruse the information, Colt called a meeting. He, Brad, Aaron, and Sam met with Pete and Jeremy, two of the members of the drug task force in the county. “I wanted to call this meeting and include Pete and Jeremy because it seems like in almost every case of break-ins, one of the common themes had to do with prescription drugs. I wanted to get their input.”

Pete offered a shrug, then shook his head. “It’s hard to say what might be going on. Certainly, prescription drugs have been taken from almost every one of these break-ins, but the amounts of drugs taken would not constitute a way for anyone to make much money just from those.”

“Do you think the prescription pills taken are just ancillary? And perhaps it’s the other items in the home that are first and foremost what the thieves are after? Cash. Cards. The gun,” Mark asked.

---