Chapter 26

"I can try," Max responded, thinking how much this feisty Marine reminded him of his daughter. He closed his eyes for a moment trying to put himself in his own shoes almost forty years ago. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and began to speak, "My partner and I got the call while out on patrol. There had been a woman shot at the airport. We pulled up to find a crowd had already gathered. The woman had been shot once through the heart, there was no identification anywhere around: no purse, or wallet, or even luggage. The Coroner arrived to collect the body while we were questioning the people in the crowd. No one had seen anything. A family that arrived in a cab it seemed were the first ones to see the body. The wife and two children went inside so the wife could call the police, while the husband stayed with the body. That was when the spectators began to gather."

Max took a sip from the mug of coffee he had brought to the table for himself, then went on, "Steve, my partner, and I went back to the station to fill out a report. Meanwhile, the evening news had reported the woman's murder and that the police had no leads in the case. We were just finishing up our paperwork when the cab driver David Rollins came in. He told us about the Marine and where he had taken him plus the story of the kidnapping his passenger had told him about on the ride to the apartment building."

"Was the alley where the Marine's body was found behind that building?" Mac asked.

"No, it was several miles away," Woody told her.

"Then if Captain Manor's was killed at the apartment building, the killers would have needed a vehicle to transport the body there," Mac concluded.

"Another cab?" Woody guessed.

"No, moving a dead body in a cab is not something that would go without notice," Max stated.

"Okay then, they had to have their own vehicle," Mac nodded.

"Why do you think there was more than one adult in the picture, Mac? I am assuming you are not thinking the child was the other person you were talking about," Woody questioned.

"A Marine would not have gone into a situation like that without being on alert and even if he was unarmed it would have taken more than one person to get the jump on him."

"I had never put that together like that, but there were two twin beds in the apartment and both of them were unmade when Steve and I got there," Max added.

"What else can you remember about the apartment?"

"It was one of those cheap furnished places that you could rent for a day, week, month. No one was ever there long term. The furniture was sparse, two twin beds, like I said earlier, a couple of armchairs with a table between them. There was a small table with two wooden chairs near a counter that had a hot plate and an old coffee percolator on it. All of that was in the one room. Then there was a small wash room that had a shower, stool, and sink, there was hardly any room to turn around in there," Max reported.

"Was there anything at all that seemed out of the ordinary?" Woody pressed.

Max considered for a moment and then said, "It didn't seem important at the time, but there was one spot on the rug that seemed cleaner than the rest."

Mac and Woody's eyes widened and they sat up straighter in their seats. "Is it possible that place is still standing?" Mac questioned. "There would have to be so many "ifs" in play for this to work, but if there was even a chance that IF they had tried to clean up a blood stain and IF the building is still there and even IF they have replaced the carpet, but IF not the padding underneath it there might still be enough blood to test it. We might be able to match it to Captain Manor's!"

To be continued…