PART II Chapter Twenty-two
Kate and Cindy left Elizabeth’s apartment and headed back over to John and Mary’s apartment to question him about the partnership with William and the lawsuit he had filed.
Kate and Cindy knocked at the door of John and Mary’s apartment but there was no answer. An elderly woman walking by asked if she could help them.
Kate said, “We need to talk to John and Mary Webber.”
The woman replied, “Oh, I am sorry, they moved out.”
Cindy asked, “When did that happen?”
The woman replied, “About a week ago the best that I remember.”
Kate thanked the woman and told Cindy that maybe they should go talk to the manager. It might be a benefit to look around in the apartment.”
They contacted the manager who let them inside the empty apartment. Kate and Cindy split up to look through the apartment faster. There were still items thrown around. It was obvious that the apartment would need to be cleaned before it could be rented again. Kate wasn’t interested in the discarded bottles and cans, she was looking for other clues.
Cindy called out, “I’ve found something.”
Kate went into the bedroom where Cindy had been looking and Cindy showed Kate a stain. It was inside the closet of that bedroom. The spot was red and appeared to be blood but they would have to get a forensics crew to verify that. It looked like a transfer stain, as if it came from something else that transferred it to the carpet after some sort of contact..
Kate made the call to the station for the CSI crew to come out and work the scene. The closet was empty. If there had been any blood stained clothes they had been taken with their owner or discarded. They looked around for any sign of places where items could be hidden. They still hadn’t found the murder weapon but Kate knew that it wouldn’t be left behind here.
The CSI crew arrived in under a half hour and Kate grabbed Cindy and told her to step aside with her and let the crew do the jobs they were trained to do.
Cindy said, “I will feel better about stepping aside when Megan starts working and we have someone there we know we can trust.”
Kate replied, “I don’t know of anyone on the team we couldn’t trust. I think they all do the job they are supposed to do.”
Kate and Cindy watched while the crew loaded items into plastic bags. The investigators swabbed the stain on the carpet and added that to a plastic bag.
Kate knew they had a good motive since they discovered that John Webber had been a partner with William and John wasn’t happy with the arrangement that led them to court. If the stain they swabbed from the carpet turned out to be the victim’s blood, they would have a good case. If they could find the gun it would be an even better case. Kate knew that the blood stain only put John or Mary in the apartment after the victim was shot, it didn’t prove an actual murder.
Kate called into the station and asked for them to put out an APB for John and Mary Webber.
Cindy said, “We could go by the local post office branch and see if a change of address form had been filled out.”
Kate replied, “Since they were smart enough to run, it is doubtful they would be dumb enough to fill one out, but we can still go check.”
Kate left the forensics crew to finish up their processing of the scene and took Cindy to the closest post office in the area to check to see if a change of address had been filed.
Kate and Cindy went in together to check for the change of address and just as Kate had suspected, no change had been filed. Kate thanked the teller but they left with exactly the same amount of information they came in with.
Cindy asked, “What do you think the CSI guys will find at the apartment?”
Kate replied, “Not much. They knew we would find out about the partnership and they got out of there. They wouldn’t leave anything behind they knew we would look for. No gun for example. You can bet they took that with them.”
Cindy responded, “That was what I thought as well. I figured aside from that transferred blood stain that probably came from a shoe we won’t find anything else. I figured they took the gun with them or tossed it in a river somewhere.”
Kate said, “They probably took the gun, figuring they may need it for protection along with their trip. They may have figured we would discover the partnership but that doesn’t prove murder and that blood stain in the closet was small and they may not have even noticed it. But even the stain doesn’t prove murder, it just tells us one of them was in the victim’s apartment after he was shot. We will have to prove it was while he was being shot.”
Cindy replied, “Too much time has passed to find any gunshot residue on either of them. Any bloody clothes may have been destroyed by now as well. We need to find the murder weapon on them.”
Kate decided they should drive by the apartment building where their murder victim and his suspects had lived. She wanted to see if the forensics crew was still working. The CSI van was no longer parked out front and Kate assumed that meant the crew had completed working the scene. She knew that since there were no furnishings the investigation of the scene would be quick.
Kate suggested they go back to the station to see what the lab was working on and what if anything they found there. The captain was there when Kate and Cindy walked through the front door.
The captain said, “Tell me about that blood stain found in the suspect's apartment.”
Kate said, “It was a small stain and it was a transfer stain like when you put something with blood on it against the carpet. If the lab confirms that was the victim’s blood that should at least place the suspects in the apartment after the victim was shot.”
The captain said, “The lab guys found a full trash can in the garage and they brought it back to go through everything inside the bags. The lab guys said there were three bags of garbage inside their can. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that something was there.”
Kate and Cindy kept busy, they knew the lab would take a while processing what they had so they decided to go back to the apartment building to see if any other tenants could tell them about John and Mary Webber. They didn’t figure on finding out much, it was more just killing some time while they waited for the lab to complete its processing of the contents of the Webber’s apartment.
They went to each apartment but nothing new turned up. They heard that the Webbers were quiet people and stayed to themselves, except for spending time with William Duncan. Most of the residents said there seemed to be a connection between the Webbers and William but they didn’t know exactly what that connection was. They did see William and Mary going out together on what seemed to be dates but they didn’t know what that meant either.
One of the neighbors said that the Webbers had mentioned a few times about having a family that lived in South Carolina, Spartanburg to be specific. They felt like they could blend in with a small town population.
Cindy and Kate gave their thanks and decided to keep that information for the moment while they waited on the lab to finish. Kate thought if the blood stain proved to be the victims they would have grounds to pick the couple up, wherever they found them.
Kate got a call from the station while she and Cindy were on their way back. It was the captain.
The captain said, “The blood stain you guys found did match the victim. They also found a couple more things. There was a receipt from “The Shooters Box” for thirty eight caliber shells. The thing that was really interesting was they found a band-aid that had DNA on the pad side that we will have to find a sample to match to and on the front side there was gunshot residue and some blood splatter that matched the victim.”
Kate said, “It is pretty clear that the band-aid was wrapped on the finger of whoever shot our victim. I think we have ample reason to try to locate the Webbers. I think we can get the police in Spartanburg to help us locate and apprehend our suspects.”