“Forest’s not a kid,” Connor asserted. “Trust me on that one.”
A few feet away, Horan from the coroner’s office was making her initial inspection. The blonde woman spared the Morgans and Duarte a glance. Connor smiled a hello and felt her eyes drop down the length of his body.
“You okay there, Morgan?” She nodded at his thigh.
He looked down at the tear in his jeans, dried blood sticking the ends of torn fabric to his skin. “Nah, I’m okay. Thanks though, Doc.”
“Well, if you need to get stitched up—” She grinned back at him, winking. “—any time.”
Connor looked around, examining the shop’s remains. Amid the organized chaos of forensics and the occasional uniform, he took in the scene, then studied the graffiti painted over the wall. The letters were tall and thick, uneven at the edges and splotchy. The neon paint was a lurid slap of bright against the dull beige plywood, and Connor noticed a tech carefully handling, then bagging, a green-splattered spray can.
The message was ugly, a warning to Forest or maybe just to the world in general. One Down, More To Go definitely wasn’t a love letter, but it didn’t shed any light on who’d slaughtered the contractor.
“He’s tall. Probably a guy.” Connor stretched his hand up, measuring the length of his arm against the height of the letters. “Keeks, come over here so we can compare.”
“We have the lab for that, but sure,” Kiki agreed.
“Wouldn’t hurt to know who we’re looking at.” Duarte gauged the differences between the two siblings’ reaches. “Definitely shorter than Connor—”
“A fucking Balrog is shorter than Connor,” Kiki sniped. “From the looks of things, based on average arm length and all of that shit, this guy’s about six feet tall. About there.”
“Educated. Or at least schooled,” the older man commented, inspecting the letters closer. “Everything’s spelled right. We’ve eliminated Forest, by the way. His financials don’t show a cash layout for insurance, and motivation wasn’t there for the father’s death.”
“Really can’t be Forest. His handwriting’s not this neat.” Connor studied the wall intently. “Guy took his time, like it was really important.”
“Even. Too even.” Connor’s sister lowered her hand. “The lettering anyway. Nothing street about them. More like a font than actual handwriting.”
“But the guy didn’t know how to work a spray can. Look at the runs and splotches. A tagger would know better, even a newbie.” Connor shoved his hands in his pockets. “Chances are he got paint all over his hands. Or gloves. Left the cans behind. Maybe prints?”
“If we’re lucky,” Duarte murmured. “Wouldn’t that be great?”
The urge to step in and pick up evidence was overwhelming. He knew better. Hell, he’d walked past mountains of evidence on raids and never felt the urge to investigate further than he’d had to, leaving the sifting to the clean-up crew. He broke down scenes all the time, working with on-call detectives to close out a case, but this time it was different. This time it was Forest’s life on the line.
“So we’re looking for a tall guy with neon-green hands,” Kiki snorted. “That eliminates the huffers. They go for gold and silver mostly, right?”
“Yeah, those have more toluene,” Connor remarked absently. “So Henry, think we can get hardware stores to tell us who bought two green neon paint cans if we don’t get prints?”
“This ain’t no fucking TV show, Morgan.” Duarte gave him a sarcastic low laugh. “What the hell does this guy have to connect him to Ackerman and Marshall?”
“Think it’s got to be both of them?” Kiki took pictures of the wall with her phone. “Following the money isn’t taking us anywhere. Ackerman’s the sole beneficiary—”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have a will,” Connor cut in. “His mother—the blonde you’ve got cooling her heels in lockup’s going to get anything Forest has if he dies suddenly. She’s got motive. And she was here.”
“Something doesn’t fit right. Didn’t see any paint on her. Not that we won’t look at her.” Duarte turned to look at the counter where Horan and her crew were delicately removing any evidence connected to the crime scene. “Marshall’s death was pretty clean, but the rest of it—it’s dirty.”
“He might have had time with Marshall. He’s scrambling around here. Marshall’s death wasn’t meant to be the main event,” Connor said softly. “If we shift the focus away from money and onto Forest, it makes more sense. Whoever’s pulling all this shit is doing it to terrorize—specifically Forest.”
“Then—what’s her name? Ackerman’s mother?” The senior inspector frowned and looked at his notes. “Ginger? That her legal name?”