Break the Silence (Detectives Kane and Alton)

Twenty-Five

Rushed off her feet, Jenna sat in on the interview with Dirk Voss, the security guard from the college. She’d given Kane the lead as he’d spoken to the man on the phone earlier.

“Run through your routine for locking up; what do you do from, say, seven.” Kane’s face was void of expression.

“Let me see, I’m in the office until eight thirty, when we both go on patrol. We split up and do a general walk-through. After, we come back here, have a cup of coffee, something to eat, and then we go out again around eleven to lock up the amenities areas. Then we come back here. We stay here most of the night unless we have a perimeter alert or something similar.”

“So, the office was unattended during the camera blackouts at around nine, nine thirty on both nights the fatalities occurred?” Kane lifted his gaze.

“Yeah, seems so, we didn’t see anything wrong.” Voss frowned.

“Run through what you do before you lock up the gym and pool.” The nerve in Kane’s cheek twitched. “What precautions do you take to ensure nobody is locked inside?”

“I usually go in, check the pool, walk through the locker rooms and the gym areas, then lock up.” Voss frowned. “I’m not irresponsible.”

“So, what happened the night Pete Devon died?” Kane leaned back in his chair and gave him a stare that could freeze an ocean. “Seems to me you should’ve found Devon in the pool, maybe in need of resuscitation. Instead, we have a dead body floating in the water all damn night.”

“I wanted to get back to the office to catch a TV show.” Voss dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“Go tell that to his parents.” Kane looked at Jenna. “Is there anything else, ma’am?”

Jenna stood. “No, get his statement then cut him loose.” She used her card to open the door and headed back to her office.

It was a little before five by the time Jenna had gotten all the necessary search warrants and permission from Alex Jacob’s parents to search his vehicle and possessions at the house. Their probable cause had been flimsy for Pete Devon’s drowning but Jenna had offered the judge two alternatives. The first, as a member of the football team living in Lyons’ house, Devon had become a person of interest in the rape of Chrissie Lowe, and secondly his suspicious death had sent up a red flag. As his cellphone records and personal possessions could hold crucial evidence in both cases, the judge had agreed to allow them to search the entire house on the off-chance Wolfe picked up some trace evidence. Warrant in hand, she waited for confirmation that Rowley had the contents of Devon’s locker secured in the evidence room, and then she left with Kane for Lyons’ house.

“I figure it’s going to be difficult, finding the last person to have seen Devon alive. I mean, with the number of students milling around campus at night.” Kane maneuvered his truck through town and out onto Stanton Road. “It would’ve saved the grunt work if we’d asked the dean to put an announcement over the loudspeaker at the college.”

Jenna turned in her seat to look at him. “Yeah, it would’ve saved time, but it could also bog down our investigation with hearsay. We don’t have the manpower to interview everyone who was on campus both nights.” She watched the darkening forest flash by and tried to keep the cases separate in her mind. “I sure need to get the three cases laid out on the whiteboard. With the number of clues piling up, it will be easy to overlook crucial evidence.” She sighed. “It’s never this difficult; we usually have random murders and a list of suspects but these cases are all intertwined. It’s hard to keep them all straight in my head, as in who was where with whom at what time, because it seems to be the same group of people.”

“It certainly revolves around the football team.” Kane glanced at her then returned his attention to the road.

“I figure we investigate Chrissie’s rape separately for now.” Jenna leaned back in her seat. “Finding out where it happened and who raped her is crucial. Let’s hope we find something we can use tonight.”

“I remember the layout of the room. It was Lyons’ bedroom in the image for sure.” Kane grimaced. “Problem is, believing the rape is the motive for killing two players may be a mistake.”

“How so?”

“It’s too easy.” Kane frowned. “Chrissie was a freshman; who on campus would care enough to kill for her apart from Stein?”

“No one.” Jenna shrugged. “Phillip Stein is our only suspect. I still think we need to look at the cousin.”

“Yeah, he’s a maybe if it’s a revenge killing but we can’t overlook Jones and anyone else who might have a beef with the players.” Kane turned onto Pine Road.

Jenna frowned. “Or the coach.” She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. “Hmm, we have two pivotal players removed from the team right before the start of the season. It might be payback.”

“And successful teams do get a ton load of enemies.” Kane turned onto the driveway leading to the house and continued along the forest-lined driveway. “It looks like we’d better include the coach in our inquiries but he isn’t liked so we’ll have a list a mile long.”

Jenna pointed ahead at the small parking lot. “Ah good, Wolfe is here. He’s bringing a piece of Chrissie’s clothing so Duke can have a sniff around.” She turned to look at Duke, who was sitting up in the back seat in his harness. “I’m starting to love that dog.”

“That’s good, he kinda likes you too.” Kane pulled up beside Wolfe’s van and slid out. “I’ll grab Duke.”

Jenna climbed down from the cab and met Wolfe. “I figure we take as many images as possible. If we can locate the rape room, it will at least be a start on the Chrissie Lowe case.”

“Sure. I’ll be looking for evidence in the Devon case too, so we’ll need media devices, anything he would have social interaction with, online gaming for example. We’ll need to look at both the football players’ deaths from every angle. If I discover it’s homicide, who had it in for them?” Wolfe dragged his kit out of the van. “I figure these could be hate crimes, and if they are, who hated the shiny boys on campus enough to kill them?”

Jenna nodded. “That’s a good point. We discussed the cases in the truck but as everything is happening so fast, we’ll need a meeting to brainstorm these cases and get everyone on the same page. Even if you’re not convinced the last two deaths are accidents, the killer is trying to make us believe they are, which brings us back to the question: did Chrissie commit suicide or was she murdered?”

“I’m leaning toward suicide right now and I haven’t made a determination on the other cases yet, Jenna; they may be tragic accidents.” Wolfe looked perplexed. “Okay, what did you come up with?”