Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(89)
Isabella’s pulse perked to life. “That’s a good sign.”
But Capelli adjusted his glasses, pausing to grimace at the image he’d pulled up. “Not as good as it sounds. The video shows these men entering the building and going up to the third floor on the elevator, but that’s all it shows. There are no security cams on the third floor, and all three men kept their heads down. No facials to ID. No distinguishing features. Just dark clothes and baseball hats with no logos, and no definitive proof that they did anything other than sneak in and ride the elevator.”
“Strike two,” Sinclair said, his frown growing deeper. “What about forensics in the apartment?”
“Still being processed.” Maxwell looked up from his desk across the open office space. “First glance though? No prints, nothing unusual left behind. Although it’s going to take them a while to go through everything because the place was so trashed.”
Great. Isabella didn’t know if that should make her feel hopeful or even more hacked off. “Okay, so let’s work backward. How about the fire? Anything new since yesterday?”
“Ah.” Hale leaned in, phone in hand. “Yes, actually. Autopsies just came back on both Angel and Danny Marcus.” She scrolled down, her eyes widening with interest and surprise as she continued. “Check this out. They both died of asphyxiation, and time of death is consistent with the approximate time of the fire. But neither one of them had any trace of smoke or soot in their lungs. Which means…”
Isabella’s heart slammed against her sternum as Hale’s words connected. “They were dead before the fire even started.”
“Exactly,” Hale said. “Tox screen shows high levels of heroin in both victims. Not enough to kill either of them, but—”
“Enough to make them drowsy and non-combative,” Isabella finished. Oh, Angel.
Hale nodded, sliding a sympathetic look in her direction before continuing. “Yes. No ligature marks on the bodies to suggest strangulation, but the ME did find small cuts and some bruising on the inside of both victims’ mouths that are telltale signs of suffocation. She’s officially ruling both as homicides.”
“That’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?” Hollister asked, but Sinclair shook his head, punctuating the sadness twisting deep between Isabella’s ribs.
“Not a very big one if we can’t link DuPree to the crime,” he said. “Talk to me about the scene.”
“The house is”—Isabella paused. Scraped in a shaky breath. Reset her determination—“was vacant and empty, just like that first fire scene where Kellan found the photos. This one was a foreclosure, supposed to go up for auction in about two weeks.”
Sinclair crossed his arms, shooting her a glance from the spot where he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in front of his office. “I’m sure it’s too much to ask that there’s a paper trail connecting DuPree to either property?”
Oh, if only. “Sadly, it is,” Isabella confirmed. “There’s no connection between DuPree and any of the previous owners or tenants, and he never owned or rented either house. He makes most of his on-the-books money in real estate, though, so it follows that he’d have a line on vacant properties.” She’d looked into his business dealings at length last week. They were clean enough to squeak from every angle. Unfortunately. “It’s possible he scouted empty houses and had Franco and the big guy, Rampage, keep the girls in these places.”
“It would explain the extra locks on the doors in both locations,” Maxwell said, and the idea gained momentum in Isabella’s brain.
“It would also keep DuPree’s name off any leases. If he paid other people to squat in these houses and do his dirty work for him, there wouldn’t be any way to put him or any of his associates there without witnesses.”
“In North Point?” Hollister let out an exhale tinged heavily with doubt. “Good luck. Nobody talks to the cops down there.”
Which DuPree had almost certainly counted on. Christ, he was as slippery as he was smart.
“Okay.” Isabella dipped her chin in thought, ordering and re-ordering the facts like the pieces to a puzzle as she tried to line up the edges and curves. “So we’ve got Franco and Rampage who are clearly on DuPree’s payroll. Any ID on the guy who called my cell phone? His voice wasn’t familiar.”
Capelli shook his head, his brows bent in concentration. “I pulled the records from the phone company, but the call was made from a payphone in the middle of downtown Remington.”
“They still have those?” Hale asked, and Isabella got the impression she was only half-joking.
Unfortunately, Capelli was all serious. “Only in the busiest parts of the city, and this one is about a block from Remington Hospital but just outside the reach of any city cams, so yeah, we don’t even have a snowball’s chance of figuring out who placed the call.”
“Great.” Isabella tugged a hand through her hair in frustration. DuPree was clearly meticulous. But there was no such thing as the perfect crime. There had to be something they could go by, some small slip-up that would turn into a big lead.
“There is something a little weird about this call, though.” Capelli sifted through the paperwork on his desk, coming up with the paper placemat where she’d recorded the grim details of her conversation in the diner. “Moreno, you’re sure you wrote down everything the guy said, word for word?”