Chapter 3
"Well, this is getting much more complicated!" Rick said to summarize what they all thought. "I guess that now we'll have to find another suspect."
"Right now," Kate said as she was thinking aloud, "we will need to interview the rest of the group members. Vikram, check Scott West and Joe James Lee's connections to see if they had any contacts in common. Ryan and Esposito check out the lives of our two victims. Me and Rick are going to the morgue."
Rick and his wife headed directly to the morgue where Lanie was concluding the autopsy.
"So, who do you want us to start with?" Lanie asked "The first or the second victim?"
"Well, logically, I suggest we start with the first one!" Kate replied
"So, as I told you this morning, he was killed around ten o'clock. I was able to establish the cause of death: we caused him to OD. Indeed, I found traces on his esophagus that would prove that a tube was pushed down his throat to administer a mixture of drugs, including sedatives."
"Are we sure he didn't take them on his own?" Rick interrogated
"Yes, he certainly didn't take them on his own. Indeed, he took too much of it and after taking half the pills, he should already have fallen into a coma. I also discovered that our victim was put in the cage after he died. Nevertheless, I couldn't be more specific about the crime scene."
"What about the second victim?" Kate wondered
"He was shot twice in the head and died." Lanie said as she stood next to the second victim. "He died on the spot, but the most interesting thing is that there are some signs of struggle on his arms and scratches. I'll see if I can extract any DNA from the person who attacked him."
"Very good!" Kate concludes thoughtfully "This does not provide us with much information on the identity of the murderer of these two victims."
"I'll do what I can, I'll call you back if I have any more information, especially if I can find any DNA."
"Lanie, thank you so much!" Rick answered
"By the way," Lanie said as she moved closer to her two friends, "you know that maybe you should do a little less on this case. You could delegate. I mean, you're going to give birth in less than a month to my goddaughter so it might be a good idea to slow down a little bit and do some paperwork in your office until the birth."
"So, the two of you, I'm going to tell you different things." Kate said, starting slowly to rise in tension. "First of all, I'd like to remind you that I hate paperwork, so no! Secondly, I am a woman, so I have always had to prove that I was the best person to reach my position. That's how I work! Third, I am smart enough to know when to stop or delegate to protect my daughter."
"Kate, you don't always have to be strong!" Lanie said to her friends "You're the best and everyone knows you are! But I know you'll always do anything to protect your child, so if you tell me it's okay, I trust you!"
When Kate came back from the morgue, she sat in front of the whiteboard to debrief with her detectives on what they had found. Kate started the meeting:
"So, Vikram, did you manage to identify any common contacts between our two victims or other members of the group?"
"To be honest, that was pretty easy." The IT expert explained "I was able to connect to a server used by the different members of the group to communicate with each other. Nevertheless, most of them used pseudonyms, but I was able to identify two people: a Greg Holloway and a Lynn Parks. I asked some rookies to pick them up."
"Ok!" The young captain responded "Keep going this way and see if you can identify some other members. So, Ryan and Esposito, did you manage to find any information about the lives of our two victims?"
"Who do you want to start with?" Kate asked. "First or second victim?"
"First!" Kate quickly decided "Let's start at the beginning!"
"Scott West was born in Kansas and grew up in a peasant family." Esposito recounted "At the age of 17, he went to the University of Kansas to become a veterinarian. The strange thing is that he had a brilliant university career, but the day before his final exam, he left and moved to New York where he started working as an employee in animal shelter. Other than that, he's never married, has no children and we don't know him as a known affair."
"Concerning Joe James Lee, the second victim, we have a lot more information." Ryan continued. "He was born in a rich Texas family, the James Lee, who runs a large oil company. He grew up in Dallas and did brilliant studies in veterinary science. He founded his own clinic shortly after in Los Angeles, married a famous jetsetter and had two children. Nevertheless, exactly two and a half years ago, he left everything: women, children and clinics and moved to New York to create his group "Let's abolish shelters! " whose main success is setting fire to a New Jersey shelter."
"Do we have any idea why he gave up his whole life?" Rick asked
"No, we don't have any information." Ryan answered. "We were able to phone the victim's ex-wife and she was unable to answer us."
"Perfect!" Kate concluded. "Well, right now, we really need to interview the other members of the group. If our two victims walked into the shelter yesterday, it should be for a good reason! We absolutely need to find out why!"
An hour after that, cops brought the two members of the group they had identified into the meeting room. Ryan, who had been asked to question them, found himself facing a tall blonde woman and a skinny little man. He sat down in front of them and began to question them.
"So, do you recognize that you are part of the anti-shelters group?"
"Yes, we do!" They said at the same time
"When did you join this group?" Interrogated Ryan
"I joined the group one year ago." The young man replied. "She first became a member of the group six months ago."
"You should know that we are not going to question you about the various incidents involving your group. I'm only here to solve the murders of Scott West and Joe James Lee, so where were you last night during the evening?"
"Last night, we received a message from Scott on the chat we were using asking us to meet him at the group's office around 9:00 p. m." The young woman explained. "Apparently, they had information for us and had to give it to us urgently. Nevertheless, when we arrived, there was neither Scott nor Joe. So, we went to a bar for a drink and split up around two in the morning."
"Were you aware of what they intended to inform you?"
"This morning we realized that Scott had sent a study on the group's chat two weeks ago." The young man replied. "Apparently, there were seven times more animal deaths in the shelter he had worked for than in the rest of the shelters."