Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) (7 page)

Sarah cocked a brow.
“Just because I enjoy my husband to the fullest extent does not make me any different from the rest of them.”

Keegan
grimaced at the first incision. “While you’re doing that do you mind if I review Cody’s results?”

Sarah nodded
towards the computer behind her. “I’ve got almost everything for him. I’m still waiting on toxicology to see if there was anything out of the norm. I don’t think there’s going to be anything strange show up but you know how it goes.”

Keegan hummed saying she heard the medical examiner as she scrolled through the rep
ort. There were a few broken bones that had been documented, all of them from past injuries. The ultimate cause of death for Cody was severe blood loss from the wound at his throat most likely. The defensive wounds on his forearms and hands suggested his was fighting back before he gave up and curled protectively around his son.

There had been a total of four bite marks. One on his arm, two to the throat and the last one was located on his ankle. From that bite his mobility became limited due to a torn ligament. Whoever was after Cody wanted him to hurt and
they wanted him dead.

Claw marks were present across the chest and down his abdomen. His flesh was torn to ribbons in some places. The only thing not making sense was why
he was injured as much as he had been. If Alice was home then she would have put herself in between Cody and the attacker. It would have been natural for her to
need
to protect her mate.

Glancing over at the autopsy table at Alice Keegan wondered why she hadn’t received most of the injuries. Cody took the brute of the attack and Alice, it could come down to the fact that she had begun to shift so some of the wounds had healed but as the supernatural she wouldn’t have let Cody
get hurt as badly. Not if he had Connor in his hold.

“This is starting to not make
any sense, at all.” Keegan murmured as she started to read through the report again.

“It hasn
’t made sense for the past hour.” Doctor Biggerson agreed.

“The parents are here. I figured you would like to get a chance to talk to them and maybe answer any questions that they have that I couldn’t answer for them.” Cassidy rubbed a hand over his head and waited for Keegan to decide whether or not she’d accompany him.

“Lead the way,” Keegan gestured for Cassidy to show her where she needed to be. They walked on the outskirts of the homicide desk area and she ignored the stares she received from the other detectives. What ever Matt told them or didn’t tell them shouldn’t matter to her. All that mattered was they worked together when the cases required them to and got their jobs done.

Cassidy knocked on one of the conference rooms before stepping through and holding the door open for Keegan. Keegan could pick out Alice’s parents without having being introduced to them. Alice definitely resembled her mother more than her father. The other gentleman in the room had to of been Cody’s father. His fingers were gnarled with arthritis but he sat quietly waiting for whatever information they would give him.

“Mister Barr, Mister and Missus Hathers, this is detective Keegan Morne. She’s the detective partnering up with homicide from the supernatural investigative unit. She’s here just in case you have questions I can’t answer for you.” Cassidy took a seat across the table from them and Keegan took the empty seat next to him.

“Do you have any idea of who did this to our children and grandchild?” Mr. Barr asked. His gray hair looked like he had been tugging the strands with his hands and couldn’t bother to straighten it out afterwards.

“We’re following a few different avenues,” Cassidy explained. “We were hoping you might some insight as to who they had been having trouble with?”

Mr. Barr shook his head as did Mr. Hathers. Mrs. Hathers on the other hand, Keegan felt that she knew or felt like there was something that they should know.

Stepping in Keegan asked, “Did they have any complaints about anyone? Even if it seems small to us it could have lead down this path.”

Mrs. Hathers frowned and her hands clenched into fists. “It’s that alpha of hers. She hasn’t said a good thing about him for the past year and they basically left the prowl. That’s not normal. Something isn’t right with him.”

Mr. Hathers covered his wife’s hand with his own. “Every pack is different. You know that.”

“But that isn’t right!” Mrs. Hathers wailed before she covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry detectives but I know that man had something to do with their death. When a shifter pulls away from their pack it’s the alpha’s responsibility to bring them back into the fold but he hasn’t. Something isn’t right there.”

“Honey,” Mr. Hathers started but his wife held up a hand to show she wasn’t having any of it. There wasn’t a need to comfort her.

“Did you have any questions that we could maybe answer for you?” Cassidy asked them.

“When can we bury them?” Mr. Barr asked.

Keegan glanced over to Cassidy before she answered them. “It’ll be a little more time. I’ll e-mail Dr. Biggerson and get into contact with you as soon as you’re able to have services for them.”

“I just don’t understand why this happened. It doesn’t make any sense.” Mrs. Hathers mumbled to herself as Cassidy took their details down. He reassured them that if they had any questions they could call either homicide or SIU and they would be glad to answer them.

Keegan watched as they all left the conference room before turning to face Cassidy. “If you get that to Dr. Biggerson she’ll get into contact as soon as she’s done.”

He nodded before standing, “You think she might be onto something? Talking about the alpha and the prowl like that?”

“I think that no alpha would let his members start to leave the prowl like they were. The more people you have the more power you hold. He wouldn’t let them go that easily.” Keegan explained.

“
You’re going to talk to him, right? I don’t think he’ll be too happy talking with any of us.” Cassidy pointed out.

“That’s where I was headed before this. I’ll e-mail you whatever details I come up with as soon as I can.” Keegan told him as she straightened out her jacket. She was about to leave the room when Cassidy grasped her elbow.

“Matt told me.”

Closing her eyes for a moment Keegan took a deep breath to keep her cool. “He tell anyone else?”

“No. And for what it’s worth, I may be an asshole but I know you aren’t like
that
. You’re a cop. I might not understand how you work but you get shit done and you put the bad guy away. That’s all that matters to me. Got that?”

Keegan smiled at him, “Thanks. Let me know if you come up with anything.”

“Will do,” Cassidy ushered her out of the room, “Now go get some work done. We don’t need lazy people in the building. It makes the rest of us look bad.”

After Keegan finished with Cassidy and the parents she went to visit Bryton Anderson, the alpha of the local leopard prowl at the coffee house he owned,
The Jumping Bean
. The coffee house was small and broken off from the nearly identical shop faces in the shopping center. It didn’t matter that it was almost three in the afternoon, the parking lot and the drive-thru were crammed full of cars.

“You think he’s actually going to talk to us?” Leeroy asked as they got out of the car and headed towards the entrance. “I mean, two members of his prowl were just murdered. He might be a little busy trying to calm the natives and making sure that they don’t do anything crazy.”

Keegan shrugged, “If he wants to find their killers he’ll talk.”

Leeroy held the door open for her and the entire coffee house went silent as they walked in. Keegan looked at the angered faces and knew that there weren’t any humans inside the building. The entire prowl was here.

Bryton Anderson emerged from the back of the building. Carmel colored skin had turned pallid and his eyes were bright amber yellow as he stalked forwards out of the crowd. “May I help you?”

Both Keegan and Leeroy automatically grabbed their badges for identification as Keegan introduced them, “I’m Detective Keegan Morne and this is Leeroy from the SIU. We’re hoping to have a moment of your time Mr. Anderson?”

Bryton grabbed their badges and inspected them for a long moment before he fixated on Keegan. “You I will speak to. Leeroy may wait for you up here and anything he would like to drink is on the house.”

Keegan looked over at Leeroy to see if he was okay with the arrangement. He looked miffed about
it but if it was the only way they could speak to him then it would have to do.

“I’ll be waiting then.” Leeroy sent a good natured smile towards Bryton before heading towards a window seat and settling down from the duration.

Keegan followed Bryton through the maze of tables and they finally reached the furthest table in the shop. Bryton motioned for the members of the prowl that were sitting to leave. Keegan waited silently as they scooted from the booth and headed towards the front of the shop.

Bryton gestured for her to sit.
“I apologize if we seem a little on edge today detective but when a family of my prowl gets murdered it does make the rest of us upset. What would you like to speak with me about?”

Keegan set her notepad on the table and grabbed the pen out of her shirt pocket before beginning. “Did you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm the Barr family?”

“Inside the prowl?” Bryton asked. His eyes grew wide and furious that the investigators could think that someone in
his
prowl could do something so vile.

“Not necessarily inside the prowl,” Keegan amended. “It could be someone that they had been having trouble with, mean
ing human or other supernatural beings.”

Bryton tangled his fingers together before humming underneath his breath. “I haven’t heard of any troubles with anyone inside of the prowl. If there had been, I would have taken care of the issue, or issues, before it have gotten this far. As for any trouble
s going on outside of the prowl, I’m not going to be much of a help to your investigation detective. Both Cody and Alice have been less than present at any meetings that we have held. It’s understandable with a new child but I haven’t had much one on one time with either of them since they found out that Alice was pregnant.”

“Are there any members that are closer to the Barrs that might have any idea of something going on that could have prompted something like this?”

Bryton narrowed his eyes before he shook his head, “Like I said, they haven’t been all that present in prowl activities since they found out Alice was pregnant and even less so since Connor was born.”

Keegan was a little taken aback by what Bryton was telling her.
She might not know much about shifters and specific group behaviors but she knew enough that something didn’t seem right. She knew that werewolves spent copious amount of time together. They thrived on it. Even from what she had learned about dragons from Gary, she knew that he needed to be able to spend time with other dragons. It calmed him. To have an alpha just be okay with two members of his prowl to drift away didn’t seem right to her.

“I see the wheels spinning detective,” Bryton smirked, “a prowl is nothing like other shifting communities. Leopards by nature, as you should know, are solitary creatures. Just because we are partly human
that doesn’t make us all that different. There are some of us who thrive on community but some, like the Barrs, did better on their own. I am not going to take that from them. Especially when they are building their own family. Did I check in with them? Yes, that’s my job. Did they have friends within the prowl? Yes but they weren’t close enough to actually want to share their lives with anyone. Did they have enemies? What supernatural doesn’t? But whatever answers you are looking for, I am not much of a help because like I said, the Barrs were more solitary than the rest of us.”

Keegan rolled her lips together and nodded. She knew when she was being told to leave and she wasn’t going to push it in a coffee house full of shifters who were more upset than calm. She passed Bryton her card before she stood. “Well thank you for time. If there is anything else you can think of just give me a call. Any little detail can be of use in an investigation.”

Bryton stood and reached out to shake her hand. “I’ll call if I can think of anything.”

“Have a good day,” Keegan nodded before she turned to leave. Leeroy was already standing by the time she made it to the door.
They didn’t speak to each other until Keegan was clear from the parking lot and had passed the next few blocks.

Leeroy was the first to speak. “I take it Bryton wasn’t helpful?”

Keegan shook her head. “I think I have more questions than I had before going in there.”

             
“Like what?” Leeroy prompted.

             
“According to Bryton, the Barrs weren’t as involved with the prowl as other members were. He claimed that it was because they were starting their own family but I get the feeling that something isn’t quite right with that. None of it seemed right.”