Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) (18 page)

Keegan felt her heart drop from her chest to her stomach. She remained quiet hoping that Janelle would reveal something else about her son. That she would plainly state that Bryton was talking about the people who had b
een killed and how he did it. It would wrap everything up with a nice tidy bow on the top. But she didn’t have that luck. Instead Janelle stood up and shouted for a guard.

She looked down at
where Keegan was still sitting. “You came to the wrong parent Morne. I may be proud of my boy now but I ain’t telling you shit from here on out. You’ll be lucky if Burton tells you anything. Last I heard he was stuck up in the infirmary of the men’s ward with a tube down his throat because someone decided to crush his wind pipe.”

The door slid open with a heavy clank and the guards placed shackles back on her ankles before leading her from the room and back towards the cells. Keegan stood up and stared after the woman. The words they exchanged might be enough for a judge to grant her a warrant for Bryt
on’s arrest. She knew one thing, Bryton Anderson knew what was going on with these murders and had been leading SIU and homicide on a wild goose chase. That was stopping tonight. From here on out he was the focus.

“Please tell me that isn’t a complaint?” Keegan started as she dropped into her chair and set her bag in the bottom drawer of her desk. Matt dropped it on Keegan’s desk before he leaned over a file bin and flipping the pages to what he wanted to show her. “The bite marks weren’t a match to Ethan Newton’s.”

“That’s not the worst news is it?” Keegan compared the pictures and internally felt a victory for her suspicions. The first time she had approached Bryton, Ethan had been sitting next to him in the coffee house.

“The word is,” Matt licked his lips, “Ethan is tight with Bryton. Not in the traditional bro way if you understand what I’m saying but he isn’t the only one. Cassidy got the low down from the woman who runs the coffee shop, Lane Smithson. Apparently the mornings after full moons things get interesting in The Jumping Bean. Bryton is picky with who he shows his affections to or who sees him sharing said affections but there are two people who get the most attention.”

“Ethan Newton and who else?”

“A woman named Elaine Phillips.” Matt rolled his lips together and watched Keegan’s reaction. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped a fraction. “Except lately, she hadn’t been too found of the attention she had been getting. She had a fiancé and even if most shifters are handsy with each other she didn’t want the alpha in the prowl touching her the way he was.”

Keegan let out a heavy sigh.
“How long has it been obvious she didn’t want him around her?”

“Four months but he wasn’t letting he
r go without a fight apparently.” Matt shrugged.

“It could explain why the vict
ims allowed their killer to get so close to them.” Leeroy’s voice broke into their conversation. Keegan looked up to see him still focused on the paper work in front of him and pen scribbling furiously across the paper but he continued talking. “If he was their alpha they wouldn’t have any other choice but to trust that he hadn’t meant them any harm. Even if he broke into their homes they wouldn’t be thinking the worst of him. They would be thinking that he was there to help them.”

“Exactly,” Melinda agreed.
“If my alpha showed up in my house I’d be thinking someone was going to hurt me and he was here to help me. No matter that he broke into my house. I wouldn’t be thinking he was there to hurt me. It’s instinctive to just trust your alpha because you’re supposed to be able to.”

Keegan
scrunched up her nose trying to make sure Matt understood what they were trying to get across, “He’s their alpha. He’s not supposed to attack them. They might be shocked he broke into their homes but he would know when they were home – most pack or prowl-mates know each other that intimately.” Keegan added for Matt’s benefit. “So when the Barr’s found him in their house what were they supposed to think? That he was there to hurt them? No. Once they realized that the reason he was there was for harm, they didn’t have much time to react. On the other hand, we have reason to believe that Elaine knew she was in trouble the moment she set eyes on the intruder. Whichever form they approached her in. She would have instantly been on edge seeing Bryton at her place. She wasn’t submitting to him like he wanted her to.”

“
What about her fiancé? The leopard who we believe to have crashed the crime scene? Where has he been since all this has gone done?” Matt added in wonder.

“So
we find him,” Leeroy suggested. “He might have a little more insight as to how Elaine felt and how the prowl ran. Because his girl was murdered, he might be more inclined to give us the information we’re looking for.”

Keegan
nodded and turned towards Matt. “Have your guys been keeping eyes on Bryton?”

“Not that you gave me any particular reason but yes they have.” Matt leaned back in his chair, his knees bumping against Keegan’s thighs. “What’s go
ing on that you didn’t have the time to tell me?”

“I went
and spoke with Janelle Anderson.” Keegan pulled up the searches she did on Bryton before she left earlier. “I needed to see if what my gut was telling me about Bryton was right. So I went to the source, his mother. Who is a very hateful woman I’m just going to throw that out there.”

“What did you get?” Matt nudged Keegan’s thigh with his knee to get her to move on.

“Both of Bryton’s parents were convicted of murdering a shifter but before they actually made their way to capital murder they were charged with numerous misdemeanors. Things like vandalism, harassment and so forth. So I wanted to see if they had any influence on whom Bryton is today. I think we have our guy.”

“So a
shifter is going around killing his prowl because his parents were hate mongers?” Matt asked dubiously. “That isn’t going to fly so well in court. You know that right?”

“He k
eeps in contact with his mother.” Keegan ticked off the points on her fingers, “He writes to her, calls her and she eggs him on. The Anderson’s manipulated Bryton into thinking he had dirty blood when he was younger. She even said he was stupid after he was attacked and shifted. The way he grew up until his parents were convicted and he was sent to a state home, suggests that he would hold some of the same beliefs. And I know, in my gut, that he is behind all the murders. He is the monster killing these shifters.”

“But why?
” Matt leaned back in his chair. “Why would an alpha kill his prowl members? That doesn’t make any sense, even if he were prejudiced against supernaturals. Numbers mean something in packs, don’t they? It’s power or something?”

“
More members mean you hold more power,” Keegan nodded. “But you have to see it the way he sees it. The Barr’s conceived a child, a half-breed, with dirty blood. Elaine refused her alpha. Alphas don’t experience refusal like that often. That anger threw him over the edge.”

“It’s not enough,” Matt’s voice had grown soft. “Judge
Rollins or Judge Malone will say that it’s all a crack pot theory. We need more than your gut feeling Keegs. We don’t really have any evidence against him.”

Keegan tapped a pen against he
r desk in frustration. “I know and I also know that Bryton Anderson is our guy though. He’s killing his prowl off one by one. The people who don’t do his bidding and the people who don’t hold the same beliefs he does, he kills.”

“We’ll keep eyes on him. Maybe we’ll get something more that we can go to the judge with for an arrest warrant. Until we get that solid piece of evidence and not just circumstantial stuff then we can’t make a move
on him.”

The plastic casing around the pen cracked in Keegan’s palm, “This blows.”

“We need to find Elaine’s fiancé, like Leeroy suggested. Maybe then we’ll have more to go on. Having the testimony of a prowl member could go a long way Morne. You and I both know it.”

“Then that’s where we focus,” Keegan nodded. “We need to talk to her friends to see if we come up with anything.”

“That’ll have to wait until the morning,” Matt groaned as he twisted in his seat and cracked his back. “Nine at night really isn’t a good time to go knocking on doors, especially when someone’s friend is dead. The parents weren’t much help on the answers front when they came in to ID the body. Just shocked they their baby girl was actually, ‘one of those things’ and she didn’t bother telling them she had been changed.”

“I agree with your human.
” Leeroy absently commented as he began packing his bag. “I’m going home, getting some sleep and then we can interrogate people. I’m fucking exhausted.”

Keegan shook her head. They all were exhausted. Coming in early the last few mornings, even earlier since
the Barrs and Elaine had been murdered, trying to find some sort of lead they could grab hold of and stop any other people from getting killed. All she wanted to do was drop into her bed and sleep through the night. Hell, she’d love to sleep past the crack of dawn and not rush to slurp down her coffee.

“
You are a very smart man Leeroy.” Matt yawned into his hand. “And I plan to follow your example and head home.”

Keegan couldn’t help the bright smile when Leeroy’s eyes widened in shock from Matt’s statement. It wasn’t every day a homicide cop was friendly to any one in the Spook Squad but it seemed things were slowly changing. Keegan doubted that any of them would actually mind the change in the morning.

Matt kicked the toe of his shoe against the brick building, kno
cking caked mud off of his shoe. “Do you think they’ll actually know anything about her or do you think it will be like the people who thought they knew the Barr’s? The information they did give wasn’t really all that helpful.”

Keegan shrug
ged and pulled her coat tighter. “Maybe it was our questions that weren’t right. But at a doctor’s office this size and the amount of employees someone was bound to have heard or spread some gossip around the place. For all we know Elaine could have met her fiancé here.”

“Look at you, all positive and shit.” Matt chuckled as he mirrored Keegan’s stance.

“Places like this always give up some kind of information.” Keegan tucked her hands deeper in her pockets. “It’s like a grown up version of high school.”

Matt stood up straighter, unfolded his arms and plucked his bad
ge from his belt. “Well I hope you are right Morne, it looks like the Calvary has arrived.”

A woman and a man walked bundled up in coats towards the door eyeing the detectives wearily. It took a few moments for Keegan to introduce them and it
to dawn on the two employees why there were there waiting for them.

“You’re here about Elaine, aren’t you?” The woman’s voice was soft and she sounded exhausted as she unlocked the door ushered everyone in behind her and reset the alarm.

“That’s right Miss,” Matt prompted her for her name standing awkwardly by a children’s play station.

“My nam
e is Olivia and that is Jesse. Everyone else will make it in by eight.”

“Do you mind if we talk to you while you’re opening up and hopefully get out of your hair?” Keegan rubbed her hands together and let out a relieved sigh when Jesse turned the thermostat so the heater would kick on faster. 

“Sure,” Olivia nodded as she unwound the scarf around her neck letting loose a mane of long blonde hair. She led the detectives through the waiting area and into the nook that was used for reception. Both Olivia and Jesse went straight to work; pulling patient files and setting them in the correct bins and checking the answering service. Keegan and Matt decided with a quick look who they would speak with. Keegan would speak with Olivia while Matt spoke with Jesse.

Keegan pulled a rolling chair around a desk an
d sat down in it next to Olivia. “Did you know Elaine well?”

“She was my co-worker and sometimes we would hang out with each other side of work but I did
n’t know she was a supernatural.” Olivia answered. “Not that it would really matter but I can understand why she didn’t disclose that working in a doctor’s office. Patients really can be jerks about that stuff. Jesse gets it because he’s gay and Elaine would have gotten trouble because she was a supernatural. You ask me she was good at her job and that’s what truly matters in a health facility.”

Keegan couldn’t agree with Olivia more. It didn’t matter that you were different. All that really mattered was that you did your job the best that you could.
“So did she ever talk about having problems with anyone? Was she stressed out about something the last few days before her death?”

Olivia set the file in her hands down with a mournful sigh. Keegan watched as the warm hazel eyes filled with tears and immediately went for the tissue. “I knew something was wrong. She always came in impeccable you know? But lately she didn’t bother curling her hair like she usually did. She didn’t put on make up and she looked like she never got any sleep.
She looked rough and once the patients start whispering you can’t really ignore it anymore.