Kerri glanced at the neatly aligned hangers in the closet once more. “I think we can safely assume the man liked all things in their place.” Neat and reserved.
The walls were a pale, almost white shade of blue. No shag carpet in this room. The hardwood floors were scuffed and scratched from decades of life. The bed, dresser, bureau, and night table were all crafted in the rock maple of the early to mid-twentieth century. Kerri remembered her grandmother having bedroom furniture exactly like this.
She went to the nightstand while Falco moved through the dresser drawers. Each drawer would be emptied and checked top, bottom, and sides; then the removed items would be replaced as they’d been found. They inspected between the mattress and box spring as well as under the bed. While Falco examined the floor for any loose boards, Kerri walked through the bathroom and checked the small cabinet and inside the toilet tank. There weren’t many other hiding places.
Back in the bedroom, she walked to the closet and started the process of examining every pocket in his wardrobe. When Falco finished with the floor, including scrutinizing the ventilation ducts, he joined her at the closet. The space was only about five feet wide and maybe two feet or so deep. Nothing like modern walk-in closets. Falco settled onto his knees and began checking the shoes lined in a well-ordered row along the floor of the closet.
The edge of something yellow caught Kerri’s eye. Whatever the glimpse of yellow was, it was at the back of the closet. She struggled to part the abundance of clothes. When the view to the back wall of the closet was cleared, she spotted several squares of yellow. Paper. A frown tugged at her brow. Sticky notes. Lots and lots of sticky notes.
“Have a look at this.” She held one side of the hanging garments back and waited for Falco to stand.
He reached for one of the notes. “Osorio.” He stuck that one back to the wall and snagged another. “Cross.” His gaze shifted to Kerri. “We need to get these clothes out of the way.”
They removed the items from the closet, piling them on the bed until the closet was empty. Most of the back wall was covered with sticky notes and photos and news articles.
“This is the case he was working on,” Kerri murmured, stunned by how much research the man had done into the Osorio cartel and potential connections to Birmingham. Most of the articles were about the cartel. Sticky notes listed names and locations. Dates. All sorts of information that likely tied together somehow but showed no logical order in its current context.
“We need to talk to Cross again,” Falco said. “If how many times her name appears here is any indication, she knows a hell of a lot more than she’s telling.”
“I picked up on that.” Kerri had suspected the woman was not being fully forthcoming.
Her cell vibrated. She dragged it from her pocket and read the text message there.
When are you coming home?
Tori.
“Let’s document all this,” Kerri said. “We’ll do a walk-through of the Kurtz home to see if there’s anything related to this, and then you go talk to Cross. I need to get home sooner rather than later.”
“Everything okay?”
Kerri had allowed this case to push the incident at her daughter’s school away for a while, but it was still there. Writhing and expanding in the back of her mind, warning there was a strong possibility that some aspect of her and her daughter’s lives was not ever going to be okay again.
“I don’t know yet. I hope so.”
6
7:30 p.m.
Devlin Residence
Twenty-First Avenue South
Birmingham
Kerri placed her weapon in the lockbox on her bedside table. Heaving a big breath, she peeled off her jacket and tossed it onto the bed. They’d found nothing to indicate anyone had been in the Kurtz home since the owner had left yesterday, headed to his place of business. Not a single sticky note or anything else regarding Cross or a drug cartel similar to what they’d found in Walsh’s closet was discovered. A forensic tech would do a sweep, and she and Falco would have another look.
But not tonight.
Most disappointing was that they had found nothing that even hinted at whatever had been happening between Kurtz and Walsh. No indication that Kurtz had been doing anything other than enjoying life or that he’d even known Asher Walsh.
The stop at Diana’s house was the same as always. Diana pretended she was great; the twins—her boys—were great. Robby, her husband, was great. The dance studio to which she’d dedicated her life building was great.
Everything was great.
Kerri wondered how much of Diana’s prescription medication it took to make everything great.
She rubbed at her eyes and reminded herself that she would probably need more than medication if something happened to Tori.
Rather than hide in her room and worry about all the things that were wrong in her life, Kerri made the short journey to her daughter’s room. She hadn’t said much on the drive home. Myers remained in critical condition according to the television news report she’d caught a glimpse of at Diana’s before the channel had been changed. She had hoped Sykes would offer an update, but no such luck. She should have known better. Her daughter was a person of interest in the case, which ensured Kerri was excluded from ongoing details.
She rapped on the closed bedroom door.
“Come in,” her daughter called in that resigned tone that said, You’re going to anyway; why bother knocking?
Kerri opened the door and walked in. Tori leaned against a stack of pillows on her bed, her laptop perched on her waist.
“Anything interesting on social media?” She’d done her homework at Diana’s. A crystal ball wasn’t required to know she was almost certainly searching for anything new about her injured classmate.
And maybe whatever gossip had cropped up about the incident.
“Nothing I want to talk about.” Tori closed the laptop and held it to her chest like a shield. “What’s up?”
Settling onto the side of the bed, Kerri studied her daughter for a moment. Same dark blondish-brown hair as Kerri. Same brown eyes. Tall for her age and thin. And smart. Tori was really smart. Far smarter than her mom or her dad had been at this age.
“Have you recalled anything about what happened that might affect the investigation?”
Tori stared defiantly at Kerri as if she hoped to back her off the subject. Not happening this side of the grave.
Admitting defeat, Tori muttered, “Someone in Brendal’s family posted on Facebook that her condition is unchanged. Critical. And she’s still unconscious. They’re asking for prayers.” She blinked rapidly to hold back the emotion shining in her eyes. “I don’t know why anyone would pray. All that praying I did for Amelia didn’t help one bit.” She glared at Kerri again. “I probably wasn’t doing it right. Maybe because I never really went to church much.”
The easiest way to release guilt was to heap it onto someone else. “Your father didn’t want you encumbered with religion.” Although Kerri had been raised in church and old habits died hard, she hadn’t disagreed with him entirely. “We can pray together if you’d like.”
“Forget it.”
For about five seconds Kerri allowed her daughter to stew in her latest excuse for why she felt so miserable. Then she asked the question to which she desperately needed an accurate answer. “Do you feel like what happened to Brendal was in any way your fault?” Kerri held her breath. She didn’t want to believe her daughter capable of this sort of violence—and she didn’t—but she did need to know what had happened.