Major Crimes Mysteries
The Family McCoy
Chapter 5
As Sharon stood in the living room of this house, she couldn't help but wonder why such an evil had happened to this family. She was lost in thought surveilling and attempting to take in every nook and cranny of the living room until it was seared into her memory.
She didn't hear Provenza walk up behind her. "Commander." Provenza called to her. Sharon didn't respond. "Commander." Provenza repeated and put his hand on her shoulder. Sharon jumped and turned to face him with a startled look on her face.
"Sorry Commander. I didn't mean to scare you." Provenza said. "We are ready to get going." He continued. Sharon lightly took a small portion of his hands in the tops of her fingers and gave a slight squeeze.
Sharon smiled at him. "You're fine, Lieutenant. I shouldn't have gotten so lost in my thoughts. Just trying to fathom what happened here and why?" she replied.
Sharon was thankful for the way her relationship with her number two in command had worked out. If anyone would have told her during her first days as head of Major Crimes that she would have the relationship with Lt. Provenza that they had today, she would have scuffed at the suggester as being mistaken. First, their pseudo coparenting of Rusty helped them to overcome their dislike of one another. Then, her relationship with Andy and being forced into spending time with each other because Andy would have it no other way pushed their animosity for one another to the background. Andy would have it no other way. Sharon felt when Andy fell from the car when a suspect was trying to get away from him and then Andy's heart attack were the tipping points. The relationship improved at lightening speed following Andy's surgery and they found themselves collaborating more and more on the running of the Major Crimes unit.
What Sharon always found funny was their inability to lose formality in calling each other by their ranks when they were in a professional setting or at a crime scene. Each called other team members by their first names. Provenza and Sharon called each other by their first names when out with Andy and Patrice. They even called each other by their first names when they would have personal discussions within the walls of Sharon's office, but the second it was any professional setting, the rank always came back. Almost as a reminder of where they were. Like either of them needed reminding.
Kendall walked past with Dr. Morales discussing evidence that still needed to be collected for the Medical Examiners' office. Dr. Morales looked at Sharon and gave a slight smile. Just a small gesture to try to lighten up a very sad night.
Provenza began to give the background of what happened to bring police to the residence as they were climbing the stairs.
"At 11 pm, a call came in through 911 there was a fire at this residence. The call was made by the neighbor, Jason Walkmire, who Buzz and Amy are currently interviewing." Provenza started.
He then continued. "Fire responded to the fire and saw Mr. Walkmire attempting to put out the fire with a garden hose. They were able to quickly extinguish the fire due to Mr. Walkmire's quick response, as well as the perpetrator's mistake of closing off all air supplies to the fire by closing doors to the room. While this room has sustained heavy damage, it didn't move as quickly as it could have. Lucky for us, our perpetrator isn't an arsonist."
"Any way, Fire walked the house to see if any other fires were going in any of the other rooms and found our bodies upstairs. All were clearly dead, so we were called in." at the time Provenza finished what brought all of them to the scene, they were at the top of the stairs.
Provenza lifted his arm towards the opening of the doorway indicating for the Commander to step in. She followed his direction and stopped the second she stepped into the threshold.
Leaning up against her headboard was the McCoy's oldest daughter, Katey. Fifteen-year-old Katey had a bullet wound in her forehead and her eyes had remained open. If the bullet wound and crime scene wasn't so obvious, it would look as though Katey was simply sitting in bed. At first, the team wondered if she had been staged, but later found her phone near her and determined she was watching You-tube videos at the time the killer entered her room.
Sharon walked up to the body without hesitancy. "This wound doesn't look like a close up shot." She said. "No Commander. It doesn't." Provenza told her. "It looks as though the killer never even left the doorway." He continued. "That would have to mean that our shooter is experienced." She spoke as she looked at Provenza. "Yes, ma'am." Provenza responded with clear concern. The team left the room and allowed CID to continue their much-needed work of collecting any evidence even considered of small relevance.
The team walked about five feet down the hall to another open doorway. This room belonged to the McCoy's second daughter, eight-year-old Beth. Sharon couldn't help to notice how sweetly the room was decorated for the little girl. Unlike Katey's room which looked like that of a teen age girl, Beth's room looked like a princess could live there comfortably. It was complete with a princess bed and a reading nook complete with an armchair and ottoman. It was clear Beth loved reading because she had several bookshelves containing books from numerous genres and lengths. Posters of young adult book covers hung in professionally matted poster frames on her walls.
Sharon walked over to the bed. Unlike her sister, Beth had been asleep when their killer entered her room. Beth had a simple single gunshot wound to her head. She felt no pain when she died. Unlike her sister, she didn't see death coming. Sharon looked intently to see if there was anything CID had missed, not wanting this killer to go free because they missed anything.
Broken out of her intense focus by Provenza's clearing of his throat, Sharon turned to look at him. "We have one more child victim, Commander. Please come with me." Provenza told her. Sharon did as she was told, and the rest of the team followed them both without uttering a word.
Provenza and the team walked across the hall to the open door. All stepped inside to a room decorated for a very young child complete with a toddler bed. Sharon gasped as she saw a small lump lying under covers with a pillow over the head of the child. Sharon, Provenza and Andy walked over to the bed. On top of the child's head was a pillow that had a clear bullet hole in it. Sharon shook her head as Andy removed the pillow. Under it was a child about three years old. She had been sleeping with her thumb in her mouth at the time of her murder. She had a single bullet hole in her head that unless one saw the blood in her curly blonde hair would simply assume she was asleep. She was so peaceful looking that the team thought she looked like an angel.
The silent sadness in the room was broken by Andrea starting to weep. "We have to find the monster who did this to these beautiful children." She abruptly turned on her heels and walked quickly out of the room. "Mom, I am going to go find her." Rusty told Sharon. "This isn't like her. I need to make sure she is ok." Sharon agreed. Sharon had never seen such an outburst from Andrea before, but Andrea voiced what she knew the rest of the team was thinking. Sharon refused to put the pillow back over the child's head.
"Let's go to the final room, Commander." Provenza said. The team stepped next door to the final room. Kendall and Morales were examining the body of Rebecca McCoy whose face had been beaten in so badly, she had been unrecognizable. She had died from blunt force trauma to the head, but Kendall also found a stab wound to her chest remarkably close to her heart if not in it. It was clear from her defensive wounds that Rebecca McCoy had fought with her killer but lost the fight. Her husband had a much kinder death. Like the others in the house, he died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Only Katey would have been awake to see her killer before being shot. The others were clearly sleeping before being shot.
As Sharon stood looking at the differences in the murders, she heard Kendall yell out "Wait! What do we have here?" and call Morales over. Sharon turned her focus to see what they were looking at.
"Commander." Morales said. "It looks like we could possibly have the killer's DNA. It looks like someone spit on Mrs. McCoy."
End of Chapter