With excitement written on his face, Royce popped his head around our office door. “The slugs could very well be from the same gun. I dropped them off at Forensics an hour ago, and they just called back. They all appear to be consistent with a nine-millimeter handgun.”
“And I’m still betting that handgun had a silencer on it. There’s no way seventeen shots could be fired into Kim without the neighbors hearing it. Those row houses have common walls,” I said.
“True, and silencers and suppressers are regulated, registered, and taxed. The problem is they’re legal in forty-two states, so finding someone who may have used one with no evidence to prove it would be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Royce said.
I groaned. “There sure as hell isn’t anything easy about this job.” Seconds later, my phone rang. “That has to be Tom. It’s been more than thirty minutes.” I answered and heard good news on the other end. Tom said the software estimated that the pawnshop murderer was six foot six.
“That’s awesome. Now to be one hundred percent sure that—”
Tom cut me off. “There’s no such thing as one hundred percent, Mitch. There’s always room for error, and that’s why the results are estimates.”
“Okay, to satisfy my curiosity, I’m going to see if Royce will let me run out to the cemetery, find that headstone the man was standing against, and measure it. You can use your software for that, too, can’t you?”
“Probably.”
“Wait, I have a picture of him on my phone. Will that work?” Rue asked.
“That’ll help, but we still need to have a height for the gravestone to plug into the system. Email me the photo for now. As soon as you get the size of the gravestone, it won’t take long. I’ll have that mystery man’s height within twenty minutes.”
I was on pins and needles as we waited for Royce’s okay. He had left his office to go over the pawnshop’s financials with Lawrence and Bentley. Until he was back, we didn’t have anything else to follow up on.
“Let’s grab a coffee. I’m too anxious to sit still.”
“Yeah, I’m good with that. So even if the man at the cemetery is the same man who killed the pawnshop couple, how does that get us any closer to him?” Rue asked as we walked to the breakroom.
“It doesn’t, but it probably confirms that he’s Kim’s killer too. If that’s true, then we can work both murders as one case and have the entire department working together on it.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
I dropped a handful of change into the coffee machine and waited for my cup to fill. Rue did the same, then we headed to our office. We caught Royce in the hallway and asked about a quick trip to the cemetery. He said yes. Continuing down the hallway, I heard the familiar ringtone on my cell phone and stepped up my pace. Somebody was trying to get in touch with me. By the time I set the coffee cup on my desk and picked up my phone, the caller had hung up. I checked my recent calls and saw that Marie had tried my phone.
“It’s just Marie. She probably wants me to grab something from the store on my way home.” I made a quick call back to her. “What’s up, Sis? Do I need to pick up something for supper?”
“No, just wanted to ask if you know a man named Rob Thurston.”
“Rob Thurston, huh? Doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”
“A man was just here asking about you. Said he was an old friend from college and was hoping to catch you at home.”
“Nope, can’t place him. Did he say he was coming back?”
Marie sighed. “Mom’s yelling that she can’t find the remote. Anyway, um, no, he didn’t say he was coming back. He said he was passing through.”
“Okay, no biggie, I guess. So you don’t need anything from the grocery store?”
“No, we’re all set. Tonight is take-out fried chicken with all the sides.”
“That sounds good. See you around six.” I hung up, left the steaming coffee on my desk, and asked Rue if he wanted to go along to get that measurement off the gravestone.
“Do you think you can pick out the right one?”
“Yep. I know exactly where we and Mr. Sunglasses were standing. We’ve got to get that height back to Tom right away. The question is, do we have a tape measure?”
Rue began digging through his desk drawers. “I know I have one of those pocket-sized ones. I just have to find it.”
“Well, hurry up. We need to know if we’re dealing with one killer or two.”
After searching his desk drawers without luck, Rue found the tape measure in a pencil cup on his desk.
“Let’s go,” I said. “As soon as we have the height, I’ll call Tom, and he can get started. It shouldn’t take him more than a half hour to have the results back.”
We rushed off, stopping only at Royce’s office for a second to tell him we were on our way. The drive to the cemetery would take ten minutes, then we would have another five-minute walk to get to the headstone. From there, we would take the measurement, call Tom, and give him the number. By the time our night shift crew got in, we’d have a pretty good idea whether the two murder cases were connected.
We arrived minutes later and got as close as possible to the grave, using the lanes that weaved through the cemetery.
I parked, and we headed in that direction. As we closed in, I pointed. “That’s the stone right there.”
After reaching the granite grave marker, Rue pulled out his tape measure and stretched it from the top to the bottom of the stone. “Looks to be fifty inches tall.”
“Good enough.” I made the call to Tech and relayed the message to Tom, then we returned to the car. By the time we arrived at the precinct, it would be only a few minutes before Tom would have a number for us.
Once back and inside our office, I took a seat and stared into the cold cup of coffee that I’d left on my desk. It didn’t look desirable anymore. My phone rang, and like a bolt of lightning, I reached for it and answered. “Cannon here.”
“Mitch, it’s Tom. I calculated the height of the man based on the gravestone.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And you could be on the right track. It looks like Mr. Sunglasses is about six foot six, just like the pawnshop killer. There aren’t many people that tall, and to have two people pop up, one committing a crime and the other watching the funeral of a crime victim… I don’t know, Mitch. My gut says he’s one and the same.”
“I agree. Can you zoom in on Rue’s photograph? I know it’ll get blurry, but is there anything you can do to try to get a decent image of that guy’s face?”
“I’ll try, but no guarantees.”
“Understood, and thanks, buddy.” I hung up and let out a sigh of relief. “We may be getting somewhere, Rue. I’ve got to update Royce, and the night shift will be starting soon. We’ll tell them what we’ve learned today, and then it’s time to hit the road. Fried chicken is calling my name.”
Rue rubbed his stomach. “Yeah, I’d rush out, too, if that kind of meal was waiting for me.”
I raised a brow. “What’s on your dinner menu?”
“Microwaved burritos and corn chips.”
We walked to Royce’s office, told him what Tom had come up with, then headed to the briefing room. Our night crew filed in one by one. The shift change meeting would begin soon, and we had plenty to discuss.