PART III Chapter Twenty-three

PART III Chapter Twenty-three
Kate got the search warrant for the apartment the bank owned and told Megan to take a crew over and examine the apartment. Kate showed up at that apartment a few minutes after Megan and her crew began looking for evidence. 

They didn’t find any guns or ammunition, they also didn’t find any bloody clothes or any shoes that match the murder scenes. Megan found evidence of sexual meetings at the house. They had found several pairs of women’s panties with DNA present on them. Kate was sure that DNA would match Tim but that wouldn’t help prove murder in any way. 

Kate was starting to wonder if Christine had a hand in the murder’s to gain some kind of revenge. Kate thought Christine may have wanted to frame her husband for the murders to get him out of the way so she could spend time with the other man that had been seen coming and going from their house.

There were still officers who were staking out the home of Tim and Christine. They were working on trying to identify the man they had seen at their home. Tim had been present many times when the man was at the house so they gradually dismissed any thoughts of a romantic connection between Christine and the man. 

Kate was getting frustrated, they had executed several search warrants and still had no physical evidence as a result of those searches. In the process of watching Christine and Tim’s house, they followed the man when he left and when he ran a stop sign they pulled him over. They took his license and registration and made copies before returning them to his car.

A database search of the name on the documents told them that Alan Kroft was a brother to Christine. That ended any more speculation about any romantic connection with Christine and gave them a reason Alan was at Christine’s home. 

Kate decided to go back through the evidence they had and eliminate anything that didn’t point to murder. She thought Tim’s behavior was despicable but was not leading them to murder. They had found nothing that connected Tim to the murders except he had a relationship with the victims and was the father of the child being carried by Shannon. That was a suspicious activity but still didn’t offer any proof. 

It was possible that Christine had sought revenge and committed the murders but no forensics had been found in the home when they searched. They had even searched Christine’s car. It wasn’t named in the warrant but Christine had given them permission to look. Kate was now thinking maybe Tim’s connection to the victims may be just a coincidence. 

Kate waded through pages of evidence and notes, stacks of photos and bags of evidence. She thought maybe the murders were not connected at all, the only thing they had to connect the crimes was the relationship each woman had with Tim. The weapons were different and the methods were different. She looked at the photos noting they showed different crimes. Susan was shot in her own home and Shannon was shot upon returning home. 

While Kate sat at her desk among the piles of evidence, Megan stopped by with a thumb drive. 

Megan said, “This drive contains what Jordan recovered from Tim’s hard drive. There are a lot of sexually explicit photos but nothing that pointed to a murder.”

Megan also handed the cell phone records that had been plotting for a while. Tim’s cell phone was nowhere near either victims at the time of their deaths. Christine’s phone had also been plotted for time and location but also showed it was not in the same area as the victims. 

Kate was trying to figure out some other connection for the two murders that excluded Tim. There had to be a connection. Maybe the girls had a jealous boyfriend but there were not any male friends that were connected to both women except for Tim. 

While she was in Kate’s office, Megan told Kate she had another date with Jordan. Kate knew that meant she would be alone for dinner that night. Kate didn’t have a lot of friends on the force. Most of the people who worked with Kate respected her but she didn’t have many friends except Cindy who was transferring and Sean who was disabled and no longer on the force. Kate needed her own friends. It was becoming clear that Megan was working on living her own life. 

Kate left and stopped off for a salad on the way home and then decided to stop by the gun range to shoot for a while. She thought she could use the practice but she also knew it helped to relieve the frustration that had built from the stresses of the case. Kate put away the evidence box and left the station. 

Kate went to the gun range before going to get the salad. It was late afternoon during the week and the range wasn’t busy. There were two other officers in line in front of her. They were detectives Kate knew and had a good rapport with. She took an empty spot next to a man on the other end of the range. 

She took her stance and began to fire. It looked like all the shots were in the center of the heart area on the target. She brought the target closer to examine the strikes. Just as she thought they were all heart shots with a few in the head. She had one in the groin just for fun. 

The other officers had stopped by just as she brought the target up to view. They both commented on how good her shooting was. Kate was known throughout the station as a good shot and she taught self-defense classes as well. Those were facts that Megan had told her made men shy away.  

Kate left the range and stopped by for a salad before heading home. It was at her friend’s Italian restaurant and she knew Mario would make a salad that would be healthy and delicious. Mario Russo had always kept Kate fed in style and she knew the salad would be good. She decided she would eat at the restaurant before going to sit alone at home. 

The hostess recognized Kate when she entered and led her to her usual table. The hostess told Kate she would tell Mario about her visit. Shortly after taking her seat, Mario walked by her table and brought her a glass of wine he knew she was fond of. Kate told him she wanted a nice salad with his famous house dressing. It was a special vinaigrette that Mario created himself. It was well known and Mario saved it for special guests.

Kate finished her salad and thanked Mario for his gracious hospitality before walking to her car dreading the empty house that was waiting for her. She used to think nothing of an empty house when Megan was gone a lot but she had become accustomed to her daughter being there. Megan had become a friend and roommate and not just a daughter. 

Kate spent that drive to her empty house in thought about the evidence that had been collected so far and wondered how much of it wasn’t even connected to the murders. All of the evidence they had of Tim with other women was now completely unrelated. She was at a loss as to what really was relevant and what was just titillating filler. 

It was apparent that Christine was aware of Tim’s appetite for other women. Christine hadn’t seemed all that upset by that appetite. Maybe Christine didn’t feel threatened by her husband’s activities. Maybe Christine just wanted her to think she was okay with what was going. Maybe pigs could fly, she knew what ifs weren’t getting her any answers. 

Kate arrived home, entered her house, kicked off her shoes and took a seat in her easy chair with a folder full of evidence to examine yet another time. She looked through the contents of the hard drive that Jordan had undeleted and was amazed at the large volume of nude photos Tim had retained for whatever purpose that may be.

Kate wanted to get an identity on each of the women contained in the file collection she was going through. There were photos of Susan and Shannon mixed with the others. Maybe one of the women had become jealous and killed to reduce competition. Perhaps some of the other women had also been killed and just not surfaced yet. Tim may not be the murderer but somehow he and the women in the files were connected somehow. The one thing that would help with the identification was that Time had named the file folders each woman was in with her actual name. 

Kate marveled at how organized Tim had been, each girl had her own folder and all of the photos of her were in her folder. Kate looked through each photo and noticed the background looked the same. These girls were all photographed at the same location. The background looked very much like the apartment the bank had for clients. Kate would have Megan check for GPS coordinates embedded in the digital photo file, something most phone cameras did unless that option was turned off.

Kate looked through each file, one by one, trying to see if there was anything that stood out. It was clear that each of the women pictured was there with consent. There was no appearance of force or coercion to be found. Kate couldn’t believe these women would degrade themselves so willingly. In the collection of folders containing the digital images of the women, there was one document file. Its name was simply data. When Kate opened that file it contained names, addresses and phone numbers of every woman photographed.

It appeared to Kate that Tim collected the photos as a memory of the event. They seemed to be a trophy of his conquest. He could show his friends who he “bagged” and use the photos for bragging material. Kate surmised that Tim didn’t care if his wife knew about the women or not. Kate printed out a copy of the data list and made plans to interview each of the women on that list.

While sitting and going through the digital files, Kate had poured a glass of Jameson and sipped through each click. She printed out the list of names for future interviews. She would be looking for a jealous woman in the collection. Kate thought it was time to move the investigation in a different direction since the evidence found so far hadn’t been of help.