Emory drove to the back of the Algarotti factory and parked by the receiving area, next to two sheriff’s cars. Jeff pointed out the yellow tape encircling a small area in the adjacent woods, and the two surmised that was where the sheriff had been dragged. They walked into the factory through the wide-open rollup door and found three deputies talking and looking around. Emory knew two of them well. The third was Deputy Harris, the one who had kicked him out of his father’s office the other day.
“Hi guys,” Emory said with a wave. “Can you bring me up to speed?”
The youngest deputy hurried to block their path. “You can’t be in here.”
Deputy Loggins, a short man about the same age as the sheriff intervened. “You two haven’t met?”
“Not officially,” Emory responded.
“Harris, this is Emory Rome, the sheriff’s son. Emory, this little know-it-all is Deputy Harris, our very first college graduate on the team.”
Deputy Harris shook Emory’s hand. “Nice to meet you, but you shouldn’t be in the crime scene, even if you’re family.”
As the other two deputies snickered, Emory displayed his badge. “I’m with the TBI.”
“You’re the TBI agent?” Deputy Harris nodded at his co-workers. “They told me you were the son in real estate.”
“My dad only has one son.”
Harris glared at the other deputies, who were now belly-laughing. “Thanks guys.” He extended a hand to Jeff. “I guess you’re his partner.”
Jeff neither confirmed nor denied, but he shook his hand. “Jeff Woodard.”
Deputy Harris explained, “We’re working as fast as we can to document everything so they can open this area back up.”
Jeff asked, “What have you found so far?”
The deputies took turns pointing out where Sheriff Rome and the foreman were attacked and reconstructing their theories of how the events had played out. When they finished, Emory snapped some pictures with his phone and glanced at the double swing door that led to the wide hallway and the large, unmarked door he had tried to open the day before. He asked the deputies, “Have you searched anywhere else?”
One of the deputies pointed toward the rollup door to the outside. “We roped off the area where your dad was found, but we haven’t had a chance to investigate it yet.”
Deputy Harris chimed in with, “I did notice whoever put him there took the time to sweep over his tracks with a branch, so there are no usable footprints.”
Emory raised his hands out to his side. “What about the rest of the factory?”
“What about it?” Deputy Harris asked.
“The whole place is a potential crime scene.”
The deputy looked at Emory like he was stupid. He pointed with the palms of his hands to the floor. “The crime scene is over here. Both victims were attacked here, and then the sheriff was dragged outside.”
“There could be other victims somewhere in the factory,”
Deputy Harris shook his head. “I already thought of that. No one is unaccounted for.”
“According to who?” asked Jeff.
“The owner,” Deputy Harris answered. “He also told us to confine it to the immediate area where the incident occurred and to get it done as quickly as possible so they could reopen the dock.”
“Victor might be able to account for all the employees, but my father wasn’t an employee, and he was attacked here. There might be someone else. We need to search the whole factory for other victims.”
Deputy Harris took Emory aside to tell him, “I know this is emotional for you, given your connection to the victim.” He waved an arm toward the other deputies. “We’re all upset about what happened to the sheriff. But you need to put your emotions aside. If you did, you’d understand we don’t have a right to search outside the immediate crime scene without a search warrant.”
Maintaining listening distance, Jeff butted in to ask Deputy Harris, “Do you want to be responsible for someone dying just because you refused to look around?”
The deputy sighed and crossed his arms. “Fine. I’ll see about getting us a warrant.”
While the deputy radioed for a warrant, Jeff led Emory away. “Okay, spill. What are you up to?”
“Taking a page from your book.” Emory pointed to the double doors. “Down that hallway is a locked, unmarked door. Even the foreman didn’t know what was on the other side.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. It could be nothing, but my gut’s nagging at me.”
Jeff nodded. “That’s good enough for me. I’ll call Victor to see if we can get a key by the time the search warrant arrives.”
Forty minutes later, Deputy Harris returned with a search warrant in hand.
Emory’s first question was, “The warrant’s for the whole building, correct?” When Deputy Harris nodded, Emory headed for the unmarked room “Good. I know where to start.”
Deputy Harris tried the doorknob. “It’s locked.”
Jeff told him, “I tried tracking down the key, but no one here has one for this particular room.”
“No master key?” Harris asked.
Jeff shook his head. “I’ve left messages for Victor and his assistant, but they haven’t returned my call.”
“Then we’ll search the rest of the place and come back. Give him more time.” Deputy Harris led the other deputies away, but Emory and Jeff stayed behind.
Emory banged a fist against the door. “Dammit!”
Jeff touched Emory’s back. “It’s okay. It shouldn’t take long for them to get back here.”
“Patience is not one of my virtues.”
Jeff dropped his hand and examined him. “From where I stand, you have plenty of virtues.”
Emory fought back a smile. “This door’s pretty solid. And wide. We need a way to open it in case we don’t get the key.”
“Why don’t I just pick the lock?”
“You can’t do that. Anything we might find would be inadmissible.”
“We could just take a quick peek and lock it back.”
Emory hardened his face. “No.”
“Fine. So what does the TBI do when you need to look inside a place and there’s no one to let you in?”
“Assuming we have a warrant, we follow the knock-and-announce policy and then wait a reasonable time for a response. If none is forthcoming, we have the right to forcibly enter.”
“So it’s better to break the door down, cause all that damage, than to pick the lock and cause none?”
Emory shrugged. “It’s the law.”
Jeff knocked on the door. “Hello? Emory Rome from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation!”
“What are you doing?”
“Knocking and announcing,” replied Jeff before returning his attention to the door. “I have a warrant to search the premises. Open up!” He asked Emory, “What’s a reasonable time for a response?”
“Usually fifteen seconds or so.”
“Keep listening, and I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
Jeff didn’t answer as he disappeared behind the double doors leading to the receiving area. He returned a moment later with a crowbar in hand. “I found this near where the forklifts are parked. Has anyone responded yet?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s been more than fifteen seconds.”
Emory hesitated but took a step back. “Go ahead.”
Jeff placed the beveled end of the crowbar into the crack between the door and the jamb, and he wrenched the door open, separating the door knob housing from the wood in the process.
After turning on the light, Emory’s shoulders slumped. The room was rectangular, forty feet by twenty feet. It contained several industrial shelves filled with file folders, outdated computers, countless ledgers and even boxes of floppy discs.
Jeff said, “Well, I’m not sure what we were expecting to find, but I’d have to say this is disappointing.”
Emory nodded. “It’s a records room.” He took out his phone and snapped photos of the entire area.
“Why are you taking pictures? There’s nothing to see.”
“Experience. You don’t always spot the clues at first glance. This gives me a chance to review the scene later for anything I might’ve missed.”
Jeff pointed to the floor. “There’s something odd. Tire tracks.” He looked back at the door. “I guess it is big enough to drive a forklift in here.”
Emory took pictures of the tracks and followed them to a wall lined with shelves.
The next moment Victor pounced into the room like someone catching an unfaithful lover in the act of betrayal. “What are you doing in here?”
Without missing a beat, Emory answered, “Investigating the assaults that occurred at your factory.”
Victor pointed to the floor as the deputies entered the room. “They didn’t occur here!”
Jeff chimed in with, “‘Here’ is a subjective term.”
Deputy Harris handed Victor the warrant. “Mr. Algarotti, we obtained a search warrant to see if there were any other assault victims on the premises.”
Victor told him, “There’s obviously no assault victim here.”
Keeping a calm voice, Emory responded, “Mr. Algarotti, we had no way of knowing without checking it out. We did call you and left a message.”
“I needed a nap, for god’s sake! Excuse me for not answering the phone for a couple of hours during the most stressful week of my life!”
Emory headed to the door, followed by Jeff and the deputies. As Victor walked out, he noticed the damage caused during entry. “Look what you did to my door!” He pointed an angry finger at Emory. “I’m sending you the bill for the repair!”
Emory followed Jeff down the hallway, but slowed his pace so he could hear Deputy Harris apologize to Victor.
Victor took one more look at the room and muttered, “Huh,” before flicking the switch.
“What is it?” Deputy Harris asked.
“Nothing,” said Victor “Just funny how places seem bigger when you’re younger. I used to come to this room all the time. My first job here was filing, among many other menial tasks.”
In the receiving area, Emory and Jeff talked for a moment to the other two deputies before going to the place in the woods where Lula Mae found her husband the previous night. They ducked under the yellow crime tape and hadn’t taken a step before noticing the compacted snow where Sheriff Rome had been left. Emory took pictures of the ground, including the patch of red snow from the wound at the back of the sheriff’s head. He looked at the natural spring behind the barbed wire fence, which was just a few feet away.
Jeff pointed to the ground. “Over here.”
Emory joined Jeff and saw numerous tracks in the snow. “Coyotes.”
“Look how close they got.”
Emory’s eyes shot to where his father was found and retraced the short distance from there to the tracks. “I’m going to kill whoever did this to him.” He began walking back to his car.
Jeff hurried after him. “Where to now?”
“You’re not going to like it.”