Home Sweet Murder Read online

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Mois said as he shook Hunter’s hand and then, surprising the doctor, gently placed his other hand over their grasp. “Is your wife here?”

  “She’s on her way back from Hawaii. I called her with the…I told her what happened. Have you learned anything yet?” Hunter asked, his voice rising. “I mean—who did this? Why? How could this have happened to us?”

  The doctor’s face went red and he could feel his shock finally giving way to anger—or rather, fury.

  “We’ve got a lot of good people—experts in their fields—examining the scene,” Mois said with calming authority. “And they’ll be able to tell us a great deal in the coming days. I know you want answers, but right now I’ve got to ask you a lot of questions. I’m sorry, I know it’s painful.”

  “Of course, yes—anything I can tell you,” Hunter said in a desperate voice.

  Mois briskly pulled out his notebook but, realizing he needed to ease into this, paused and took a seat on the back of the ambulance next to the doctor.

  “Why don’t you start by telling me about Tom?” he suggested. “What did he like to do? Who were his friends?”

  William Hunter just stared at the ground for a long, uncomfortable beat.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he said with choked, renewed shock. “It’s just—hearing him referred to in the past tense. I guess we have to get used to that…”

  The doctor then cleared his throat and began talking quickly, as if it were the best way to keep his emotions in check. “Tom’s in the sixth grade, a great student. Pretty much straight A’s. His favorite subjects are—were math and science. He played soccer and basketball at the YMCA. He loved video games, chatting with friends online. He had a lot of friends, the whole neighborhood…”

  Hunter’s torrent of words trailed off; he seemed at loss as to what else to say or how to say it. After a moment, he said quietly, “He loved chili fries. They were his favorite food.”

  There was another long, painful silence, the doctor clearly overwhelmed with grief. Mois gave him a moment, then stood up and faced him. “Can you think of a reason why anyone would enter your house? Are you known to keep a lot of money in the house? Do you owe money?”

  Mois knew this his abrupt change of topic was a risk but it worked. The blunt questions seemed to throw the doctor a lifeline, it gave him something to address directly.

  “No, no I don’t!” Hunter said empathically. “I don’t keep cash in the house. Or guns. Or prescription drugs. I don’t gamble. I have no debts, no unstable family members. Claire doesn’t give a damn about jewelry. They could have taken whatever they wanted from the house—I don’t care! Why did they have to kill my boy?”

  “We’ll find out. I assure you we’ll do everything we can to get to the bottom of this,” Mois said gravely. “What about your housekeeper, Shirlee? Ever had concerns about her or her family members?”

  “No!” Dr. Hunter said in a shocked tone. “Shirlee’s been with us for years—she’s a grandmother. She’s one of the most responsible people I’ve ever known.”

  “Even perfectly responsible folks can get involved with the wrong people or…activities. Mrs. Sherman had over eight hundred dollars in her purse,” Mois said. “That’s a lot of cash to be carrying around. Do you know why she would have that much?”

  Hunter shook his head helplessly. “No…no, I don’t know. Was nothing taken from the house?”

  “It doesn’t look like it, but we’ll need you to look around and give us a definitive answer on that,” Mois said. “And I’m afraid we’re going to have to remove some items. Like Tom’s computer. It might give us some information. Kids these days have a whole online life that we parents don’t really know about.”

  Hunter sighed. “Whatever you need. His books, his games, his phone. It doesn’t matter. It’s all just stuff. The only thing we care about has already been taken from us.”

  As the doctor fought to tamp down another rising sob, a fit man in a blue Nike track suit warily approached the back of the ambulance. He gave Hunter a look of pained concern.

  “I’m—I’m so sorry, Bill,” he said haltingly to Hunter. “I—I can’t imagine…I’m just so sorry.”

  Hunter nodded appreciatively but seemed unable to speak. Seeing his distress, the man turned to face Mois.

  “My name is Paul Medlin. I live three houses down,” he said anxiously. “And I think I saw something.”

  Chapter 6

  The knives sticking out of the victims’ throats.

  Mois couldn’t get the images out of his mind. Even as he busily filled out the endless forms related to the murders, those shiny pieces of polished metal flashed in front of him.

  He shook his head to refocus and attacked the paperwork with renewed vigor. There was always so much to do, so many possible leads to follow up, never enough time to do it all. Mois was soon so deep in thought that he didn’t even notice Sergeant Teresa Negron standing in his office doorway.

  With her flawless mocha complexion and huge brown eyes, the sergeant could easily have been a runway model—were it not for her petite five foot four stature. She was often teased about her chic wardrobe; today, a butter-smooth tan suede jacket, black jeans, and killer heels. But her stylish appearance belied a serious do-not-even-think-of-messing-with-me vibe.

  “Ahem—you need to get home, pardner,” she finally said.

  Mois nodded without looking up. “You hear about the Dundee killings?”

  “Murkowski filled me in on the basics. I’m trying to close out the Sanders case. Lots of homework tonight,” Negron said as she shifted under the weight of the Prada bag slung over her shoulder and the stack of files clutched to her chest. Since she had moved into Mois’s division a few months earlier, the two had developed a rapport. Checking in at the end of their shifts had become a habit.

  “By the way, Mois, you do know it’s nearly nine o’clock, right?”

  The detective glanced at the wall clock. He’d promised his wife, Lisa, that he’d try be home in time to at least say good night to their son even if he couldn’t always join the family for dinner. And after what he had seen earlier that evening, it seemed extra important to keep to that vow.

  As Mois started to hurriedly collect his things, Jim Murkowski—an intense-looking cop with a thatch of dark red hair—stuck his head in the door.

  “Quick update,” Murkowski said. “An officer on the Dundee scene talked to a neighbor. Says he saw a ‘strange’ car driving up and down the street at least twice this afternoon.”

  “How was it ‘strange’?” Mois asked. “Rap music thumping? Nude chicks on the mudflaps?”

  “Ha-ha. No, just a silver or gray SUV,” the younger cop said. “It was strange to this guy because he didn’t recognize it as a neighbor’s. I guess these people keep close tabs on who comes into their hood.”

  “Good,” Mois said. “Civic snobbery may be useful in this case. Don’t suppose he noticed the license plates?”

  “No luck there,” Murkowski said as he ducked back out into the hall.

  “A car description, that’s something, anyway,” Negron observed.

  “We got a physical description, too,” Mois reported. “A neighbor walking his dog saw a strange man in the hood. An ‘odd, dark-haired, olive-skinned’ man wandering around—stumbling, possibly drunk. Seemed lost or like he was looking for an address.”

  “Hmmm, olive skinned?” Negron asked. “Hispanic? Middle Eastern? Greek?”

  “Dunno. I sent a sketch artist over,” Mois said, grabbing his coat. “Be here eight thirty sharp tomorrow, we got a lot to go over.”

  “You might say ‘please’ once in a while, pardner,” Negron said with mock testiness.

  “Please!” Mois shouted over his shoulder—and then nearly ran into a woman in an aqua-colored health care jumper being escorted down the hall by Murkowski. The younger cop gave Mois a “heads-up” nod as he presented the woman, who had red-rimmed eyes and was clearly distressed.r />
  “Detective Mois, this is Kelly Wedgewood, Shirlee Sherman’s daughter,” Murkowski explained. “She was good enough to come down and give us some information on her mother. Sergeant Blake thought you’d like to meet her.”

  Mois darted a glance at Negron, then the wall clock. Though he hesitated for a moment, Mois knew this would have to be one of those nights when Danny wouldn’t see his father.

  “Of course, thank you for coming in,” Mois said as he put down his case. He did a quick inventory of Kelly Wedgewood’s appearance: pale skin, straw-colored hair that hadn’t been styled in a while, a permanently tired-looking face. This was a woman who probably worked as hard as her mother had.

  “I really can’t stay,” Kelly said with a catch in her throat. “I want to help, but my daughter is at a friend’s and she’s very scared and upset. She—she loved my mom so much.”

  “Ms. Wedgewood has given us a lot of background on Mrs. Sherman,” Murkowski said. “No arrest record, no history of drug use, no sign of connections to criminal activities of any kind.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would do this!” Kelly gasped, fighting back tears. “My mom has five grandchildren. She never thinks of herself, only others. She works literally every day of the week.”

  Mois nodded sympathetically then hesitated a moment. He knew he had to pose his next question carefully.

  “Your mother had a great deal of cash in her purse. Can you think of a reason why?”

  As renewed tears welled up in her eyes, Kelly wiped them with the back of her hand. Negron stepped forward with a box of tissues.

  “That’s probably just the rent money,” Kelly said. “She owns a small apartment building. It’s not in a very good area. Most tenants pay in cash. Sometimes even in coin rolls.”

  “Has she ever had any disagreements with her tenants over money? Or maybe complaints about noise, fighting?” Mois asked.

  “Not really. They’re mostly undocumented immigrants; they don’t look for trouble,” Kelly said with a glance at the door, clearly aching to leave.

  After a few more questions, Mois assured the woman that she’d been a big help and Murkowski escorted her out. Negron gave Mois a wry frown.

  “Not a lot to go on, huh?” she said.

  “None of this makes a bit of sense!” Mois exclaimed. “It wasn’t a burglary gone wrong. It wasn’t a home invasion by some meth head. Apparently, this was a deliberate killing. Someone purposefully came to that house today to kill two of the most vulnerable and blameless victims imaginable: an eleven-year-old boy and a grandmother. What possible motive could there be?”

  Under Mois’s frustration, Negron detected uncharacteristic anger.

  “It happened, so there has to be a reason, Mois,” she said reassuringly. “And we’re going to do our job and we will eventually find out who and why. But you may miss a few ‘good nights’ with your son.”

  “Yeah,” Mois sighed in agreement. “And I’m getting off easy. The Hunters are looking at a lifetime of missed nights…”

  Chapter 7

  Mois marveled at how burglars pulled off their stealth.

  Not wanting to wake anyone, he had gently unlocked the front door and tried to quietly step into the foyer of his home. Instantly, the door let out a screaming whine and a floorboard moaned painfully. Some nights you just can’t win, Mois thought.

  A light was on down the hall in the kitchen. Mois figured Lisa had left out some dinner (and probably a terse note reminding him of his broken promise). As he walked past the darkened family den, he saw Danny was seated cross-legged playing a video game. The boy was silhouetted by the TV screen; the earphones clamped onto his small head were so comically oversized it looked as though they were attacking him. The thought amused Mois, until the horrific crime scene from earlier in the evening came back at him.

  He tapped his son on the shoulder. Danny looked up with a quick smile but quickly turned his attention back to his game. Frowning, Mois pulled off the kid’s earphones—chaotic music and shrill game sound effects poured out.

  “What are you still doing up?”

  “Hold on, Dad! I’m beating Charlie!” Danny said in a loud stage whisper. “And Mom’s asleep so keep it down.”

  Mois plopped onto the sofa behind Danny and watched as his son maneuvered through a battle of animated monsters. He’d attempted to play a game or two with Danny in the past, but the pace was just too frenetic and the scoring system completely bewildering. As his son shifted his body around to match his screen moves, Mois was struck again by Danny’s resemblance to Tom Hunter: slender, nerdy oval-framed glasses, even wearing a striped T-shirt.

  Finally, Danny either scored a major victory or was blown all to hell—it was difficult for Mois to tell which—and tore off his earphones.

  “Why are you still up?” Mois asked again.

  “Mom said I could till you got home—long as it was before ten thirty.”

  “Was she mad?”

  “Naw,” Danny said with a yawn. “She heard something bad happened today and said you’d be working late. She wouldn’t tell me about it. Even though she knows I can just look it up online.”

  Mois smiled; it was like Lisa to figure he’d need to see his son this night. He felt a pang of guilt at thinking she might nag about his lateness.

  Suddenly, a dialogue box popped up on the TV screen. Seeing it, Danny quickly typed back a message: “LOSER!”

  “What are you doing? Who’s that?” Mois asked.

  “I told ya, Charlie. He’s pissed that I won. Again!”

  “Charlie from Little League? What’s he doing up so late?” Mois asked, hating himself for sounding like an uptight and uncool parent.

  “It’s not that late. Matt’s playing, too.”

  Mois thought for a moment. “Hey, tell me something: say you and Charlie wanted to talk privately—without Matt listening in—while all three of you were playing. Is that possible?”

  “Dad, you’d do that mostly on a computer,” Danny said impatiently, adults’ tech ignorance always a trial to him. “There are online public and private chatrooms, and you can talk to whoever you want. Long as they want to talk to you. But yeah, if you’re playing Xbox with your friends, and don’t want to get up, you can use Xbox Live chat.”

  A number of scenarios ran through Mois’s mind. He quickly took out his cell phone but, with a glance a Danny, kept it in the palm of his hand.

  “Okay, up to bed, sport.”

  Mois watched as Danny methodically put away his game and quietly closed the TV cabinet doors. As Danny headed out, he turned to look at his father.

  “How bad was it today, Dad?” the boy asked in a hushed voice.

  Mois paused. He rarely shared the details of his job with Danny; he wanted his son to have a childhood, to be unaware of the potential horrors out there for as long as possible. But it was 2008, a different world; Danny probably knew a lot more than Mois had at his age.

  “Very bad, Dan,” Mois answered.

  “Yeah…I kinda thought so,” Danny said with concern. He gave Mois a small smile. “Love you, Dad.”

  Touched, Mois gave his son a wink and a thumbs-up. When the boy was out of the room, he again took out his phone. He hit Negron’s number and, as it rang, he went out into the kitchen.

  “Really?” the sergeant immediately complained. “I literally just walked in the door. It’s nearly eleven o’clock!”

  “Yeah, sorry, but I’ve got a potential angle I gotta run by you,” Mois said excitedly. “My son tells me that online video gamers—people who don’t know anything about each other—can chat while playing. Perfect setup for a predator to cultivate a relationship, right? Maybe a pedophile met Tom Hunter online and tracked him down.”

  There was a silent pause while Negron turned the idea over.

  “Interesting,” she said. “It fills in your motive blank. But wouldn’t the guy have tried to meet up with the kid somewhere else? Coming to the house in the afternoon was a big risk—wh
y would he assume the boy would be home alone?”

  “Maybe Tom told him he would be after the housekeeper left. Remember, this guy could have posed as someone Tom’s own age,” Mois said, pacing the kitchen.

  Negron was silent for another moment. “Well…let’s get IT to dig into the boy’s computer. I think they can cross-reference anyone he played online games with against anyone he met in a chat room. We’ll have to see if the kid had a cell phone, too.”

  “Yep, do it. First thing in the morning, okay?” Mois demanded.

  More silence came from Negron, more pointed this time.

  “Sorry,” Mois sighed. “Please.”

  “You got it, pardner.”

  Chapter 8

  “Fifteen cuts on the neck. See here? They form a pattern starting on the left front side.”

  The coroner tilted Shirlee Sherman’s head to show the path of incisions along the dead woman’s neck.

  Mois was surprised at how detached this technician—Dr. Thad Chen—was acting, considering his youth. He looked like a college kid, what with the skinny jeans he wore under his lab coat and his hipster haircut—shorn on the sides, long on the top. But Mois thought Chen already had the seen-it-all demeanor of an older, more experienced technician. Then again, Mois mused, detachment was probably essential to this particular job.

  “Fifteen cuts?” Mois asked. “That almost doesn’t seem possible. Or, well, necessary.”

  “Yeah, he used just about all the real estate he could find,” the coroner dryly noted. “The cuts get wider as they progress and finally culminate in this big C-shaped puncture.”

  “But why so many?” Mois asked as he jotted a note onto a small pad.

  “No idea. He probably got the job done on the second or third incision. Same with the kid,” Chen gestured over to the other gurney where Tom Hunter was laid out. “Five stab wounds in his neck, both his jugular vein and carotid arteries severed. It’s almost as if the killer poked around specifically for those veins. It’s almost surgical.”