Page 22 of Night Watch
“Yes.” She stared at her hands and one by one lifted her fingers and pulled them apart as the thought of her dad potentially being murdered sank in. “You think Waldron would ask her or his kids to kill him?”
“Could be, or she could have decided to do so on her own,” Clay said.
“Poison fits with a woman’s MO,” Erik said. “They’re more likely than men to use poison to commit murder.”
Kennedy still couldn’t believe they were really talking about this. “So, you think she somehow found out where Dad lived and poisoned him?”
“It’s a possibility we can’t rule out,” Erik said. “And we would be remiss if we didn’t at least consider a correlation.”
“So you think this pyramid scammer, what’s his name—Harrison Waldron—might be behind all of this?” Brendan asked.
Erik shrugged. “We need to look into him, which might include visiting the prison and talking to the guy. And finding out who’s been visiting him.”
“I’d be glad to take a quick trip to Texas to do that,” Drake said. “Can use some of my tricks from fugitive apprehension to see what I can find out about him and his family. And I can find out who’s been coming to see him. Maybe he contracted someone for a hit.”
“Pardon me for saying this.” Brendan faced Kennedy. “But are you considering exhuming your dad’s body for further testing?”
She gasped.
“It’s too early to consider that,” Erik said. “Even if we wanted to do it, we don’t have any legit reason to do so.”
“I don’t know,” Drake said. “I think a good lawyer could make a case for it to see if Silas had the same drugs in his system as Wanda.”
“Let’s first get the autopsy report for Silas to see which drugs were tested for and what else they found,” Erik said.
“I have a contact at the county ME’s office,” Brendan said. “I should be able to get the complete report.”
“Great.” Erik noted that and added Drake following up on Waldron on the board in red ink. “Wanda taught chemistry part-time at PSU and did pharmaceutical research full-time.” He changed his focus to Kennedy. “Go ahead and tell them about your mom’s current research project.”
Kennedy felt his eyes on her as she shared her mom’s work. “I think this is more likely why she was murdered.”
“Ifshe was murdered,” Drake said.
There was no good response to that. “I think it’s a better line of inquiry than the WITSEC aspect or even her teaching.”
“I don’t know,” Clay said, a half-smile on his face. “Plenty of students these days might think murder would be a good way to solve a grade issue.”
“You joke, but there was a guy at UCLA who killed his professor over grades a while back,” Aiden said.
Erik wroteMotiveson the board and listed out three items beneath it.CounterfeitPharmaceuticals, WITSEC,andBad Grades.“These will be our investigative priorities until we find something to change them.”
“Like, maybe the information on Silas’s autopsy or on Waldron,” Drake said.
“Exactly,” Erik said. “Or the forensics from Wanda’s place. We just came from Sierra’s lab. She’s recovered footprints and fingerprints plus a stray hair. As of now, we have no way to run them against law enforcement databases, so I’ll be calling PPB.”
Drake narrowed his eyes. “Hopefully they’ll cooperate and run the prints for us.”
“I’ll do my best to make that happen.” Erik drilled his gaze into Kennedy. “At this point, it’s logical to assume the break-in at your mother’s place could be related to either of your parents’ deaths, and that’s the direction I’ll take this investigation unless we discover something to change our focus.”
Kennedy nodded, but her stomach clenched. With her work on crime scenes, she could easily imagine the things that could happen to change the focus. Things that might include the intruder coming back and ending her life.
Erik sucked in a generous gulp of air outside Drake’s condo before heading inside. Wouldn’t do for his closest brother to figure out that Erik’s emotions were whirling like the blades on the helicopters he liked to fly. Sure, everyone in his family would know he had to be uneasy, but they didn’t need to know the extent of his lingering pain.
Shoot,hehadn’t even known until he’d seen Kennedy again. After she split with him, she’d transferred to another university, and he hadn’t seen her again. Except in his dreams. And honestly, most waking hours, too, for a very long time.
He’d be out in the quad and think he saw her. Charge over to talk to her and startle some unsuspecting woman. That went on way too long.
He didn’t even date seriously again until recently, when Aiden’s wife Harper set him up with her friend, Grace. They went out for a few months—until he discovered that Grace cheated on him. The breakup was painful but didn’t hurt as badly as it should’ve. Meant he didn’t care all that deeply for her. Still, it told him women couldn’t be trusted. At least not easily.
