Jesus Christ. No wonder Manning wanted Kennedy’s head on a platter. The only surprise was that everyone Kennedy had ever met wasn’t ordering off that same menu.
It had been a long time since Jason had been this mad. So mad that he was standing in an empty office ranting to himself. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever been this angry in his entire life.
“You’ll break me. Wow. You are something else, Kennedy. Just be glad I’m not interested in breaking you, you asshole.”
He took a couple of calming breaths, plastered a pleasant smile on his face, and went to find Officer Courtney.
“Sorry to interrupt. What’s the protocol for the evidence room?”
“Oh! Well, biological samples are stored at State. We don’t have the facilities here. Guns, money, and narcotics are kept in a locker, and only the chief has the key. All other physical evidence is kept in the property room.”
“You don’t have a computer program for inventory control?”
“We’ve been talking about it, but we’re a small department and those programs are pretty expensive.”
“Sure,” Jason said. “It’s the same everywhere. And who has access to
the property room?”
She looked confused. “Any officer who needs access.”
“Is it procedure to return or purge adjudicated items?”
“Adjudicated? Oh! Well, it depends. We try to return valuable property when we can. We don’t really have a firm policy in place. Of course, you’re really asking about the physical evidence collected during the Huntsman case. That’s all upstairs. We won’t ever dispose of that. I think we all feel it would be a kind of…sacrilege.”
“Yes,” Jason said. “Can I get the keys to the property room?”
“Of course.” She opened a drawer and handed him a key on a ring. It was that easy. “We may not be computerized, but everything is organized and labeled. Older cases in the back, new cases in the front. Cases waiting to go to trial on the metal shelf to your left when you walk in.”
“Thank you.”
He took the stairs fast. He was not hiding what he was up to—and if he had been, hiding in plain sight would be the best way to go—but he was conscious that it was probably better to fly under the radar on this. He hadn’t needed Kennedy to tell him that much.
Jason reached the second floor and walked quietly down the empty hallway.
He was still very angry, his heart pounding hard, his hands a bit unsteady as he let himself into the property room, closed the door, and turned on the light.
If Kennedy had not been such a complete bastard, if he hadn’t threatened him, Jason probably would have waited till he got back to Kingsfield. He wouldn’t have liked it, would have continued to think Kennedy was paranoid, would have given Kennedy an earful, but he wouldn’t have deliberately launched himself on a collision course.
If Kennedy thought he was going to break Jason career-wise, he was in for a rude awakening. And if he was talking about physical assault, well, bring it on, old man. Bring it.
He needed to stop thinking about Kennedy and focus on the job at hand.
He studied the crowded shelves, boxes neatly labeled with case numbers and the last names of the victims. He had to give Kingsfield PD—or maybe Officer Courtney—credit. This was an exceptionally clean and well-organized property room, and Jason had been in a lot of property rooms over the years.
He moved down the aisle of shelves, scanning labels.
There it was. Corrigan.
He swallowed. Lifted the box gently down. He carried it to the table in the front.
If he was correct, if the charm he had found with Candy had originally belonged to Honey, someone had removed it from the property room. And even while security measures here were pretty lame, the cast of actors was relatively small.
Jason lifted the lid off the box.
The first thing he saw was Honey’s pink sweater, and that initial glimpse seemed to suck the air right out of his lungs. For an instant it was as though she stood right in front of him. He had not expected to remember…so much. Or be so moved by the memories. It took him a second or two to steel himself. He went swiftly, carefully, through the items one by one: sweater, scuffed sneakers, a copy of The Real Freshman Handbook, a Big Gulp cup, a yellow beach towel with purple sea horses.
Her swimsuit with her blood and other DNA evidence would be stored at State Police evidentiary lockup.