Page 29 of Quiet Protector
“So, she was murdered?” Harvey asks, catching the gist of our theatrics.
“Yes.” Dr. Maude nudges her head to Carlyle’s body lying lifeless on a gurney. He’s been deceased for so long, his head still sits at the odd angle the rope contorted it to. “As was he.”
“Carlyle was also murdered?” Harvey asks, once again joining our conversation. I’m glad as I am so shocked, my words aren’t working. “We believed Carlyle hung himself where he did because it was directly above the shallow grave of his wife.”
Dr. Maude shakes her head before moving toward the early toxicology reports. “According to this, Carlyle had traces of tetrodotoxin in his stomach contents.”
“Pufferfish is a delicacy in Japan, could incorrect preparation be the cause of his death?” I’m not a fan of fishy dishes, but I sampled pufferfish a few years ago when Phoenix dared me to. He was a risk-taker long before Joey died, but it grew substantially worse after his death.
Dr. Maude once again shakes her head. “That wasn’t the only traces of poisoning we found in his stomach. It was as if someone googled the most poisonous foods and plants, and hit him with near-lethal combinations as often as possible.”
With me needing a few seconds to decipher a possible reason for prolonging Carlyle’s death, Harvey’s years of service get a chance to shine. “If he were dead, the disability checks would have stopped coming. Keeping him alive, although sick, kept the money coming in.”
“Quite possibly,” Dr. Maude says through twisted lips. “I’ll have a full workup to you by the end of the week. Perhaps sooner if you can supply me with a list of toxins to search.”
Hearing Dr. Maude’s request as readily as me, Harvey dips his chin in farewell before heading for the exit. I fall into step behind him a second later.
“Were any domestic disturbances reported at the Shroud property around the time of their deaths?” I ask Harvey while climbing into his truck. Yes, I said climb. His truck is one of those big-wheeled vehicles that short-asses like me need a step-ladder to enter.
Harvey shakes his head while firing up his truck. “I went back over three decades. No reports at all. Not surprising, though. They live too far out for neighbors to hear their screams.”
With his honest comment gurgling the greasy egg and bacon burger I scarfed down while waiting for Dr. Maude to do a preliminary autopsy on the female corpse found by the forensic team late last night, I keep my mouth shut during our drive back to the Shroud family ranch.
Even with the area being guarded by over a dozen members of the local sheriff’s office, our silent descent down the long driveway is oddly eerie. The Bureau has stumbled onto many houses of horror since it was founded, but I have a feeling the Shroud ranch will top the cake on their previous cases.
After pulling in at the front of the property, Harvey locks his eyes with mine. “I’ll start on the sheds while you go through the house. If Carlyle was moved from the house to the barn, some kind of help was needed. He wasn’t a slim man by any means.”
After lifting my chin, acknowledging his request without words, I hotfoot it up the front porch stairs. The agent side of me wants to head straight to the kitchen, certain the food scraps on the floor will have traces of the poisons Dr. Maude is chasing, but the right side of my head, the intuitive part, directs me to Megan’s room instead. It’s as sterile as a psychiatric hospital, making it the ideal place to store dangerous goods.
I dip my chin in greeting to a deputy at the door before snagging a pair of gloves out of the box at his side. CSI officers are still working the scene. They’ve removed a majority of the photographs from the walls, so now they’re working on the ceiling.
With them occupied, I move for the room Isabelle, Hugo, and I discovered two days ago. It reeks of bleach and instigates horrid memories of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gregg in the operating theaters years ago, but I keep moving, knowing my job will forever come first. And no, I’m not referencing my position in the Bureau.
“Has anything been removed from this room?” I ask a young techie who’s digitally categorizing the space as Hunter did yesterday morning.
She peers up at me with her big almond-shaped eyes out in full force before shaking her head. If the width of her pupils is anything to go by, she’s brand-spanking new to the job.
After nudging my head to the door, I ask, “Can you give me a minute? I work better in silence.”
Her headshake switches to a nod as she stands to her feet. “I could probably do with a breather. This is a little creepy.”
I purse my lips to hide my smile. Creepy is much too blasé of a word for what could possibly be going on here.
Once I’m alone, I stand in the middle of the all-white space before slowly pivoting around to take in each surface with due diligence. Most agents would move straight for the physically visible stuff before deepening their search. I prefer starting at the other end. When dealing with a deranged person, you must think outside of the box.
A few minutes later, my head slants to the side. A seam of drywall tape is running down one wall. It wouldn’t have been visible if it weren’t for the faintest portion of afternoon sun breaking through the storm clouds above my head.
“Can I borrow that?” I ask a male CSI officer who’s holding a box cutter. Nick’s photographs were glued to the wall, meaning they have to be sliced off the wall along with the drywall’s plaster.
After handing me the cutter, the crime scene investigator joins me inside the room, halving its space with his broad shoulders. “What are you looking at?”
“Can you see the seam?” I outline the area I’m fixated on before twisting my torso back to face him. “All the drywall in this room is from a continuous sheet… except that one.”
I can tell the exact moment he spots what I’m referencing as he purses his lips. “Do you want the pleasure, or shall I?”
“I’ll cut while you photograph. If the amount of bleach in this room is anything to go by, and the fact we have missing children, we’ll want to get everything on tape.”
“All right.” He grabs a video recorder off a kit just outside of the room before firing it up. The light on top of the recording device bounces off the stark white walls, blinding me, but mercifully, it also highlights the seam I’m about to slice through.
