be prescription, but anything beyond that would be premature.” Natalie stood, nodded to her two assistants indicating she was ready for the body to be transferred to the morgue. She followed along as the body was moved, snapping off her gloves and removing her plastic booties once she was outside.
Following her down the steps, he observed the firefighters were emptying and rolling up their hoses. Portable lights were being hauled to the end unit, and he grinned, recognizing the arson detective standing nearby.
“Good to see you, Sean.”
Sean McBride turned to the side and threw his hand out in greeting. “Carter, good to see you, too. I wondered who they’d call in for this.”
He dipped his head toward the burned, hole of the end unit. “You’ve been busy lately.”
“That’s a fucking understatement,” Sean agreed.
“Is Jonas around? You still partnered with him?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah. He’s over there getting the lights set up. We’ve got extra and can send some over to you, too.”
“Thanks. I was just going to call for some.”
Sean held his gaze for a moment, and asked, “What do you think?”
His hand moved to the back of his neck, squeezing some of the tension away. “Medical examiner didn’t see any signs of fatal injury, and I’m not seeing any signs of violence. I’ve got several cases dealing with drug overdoses of homeless persons, so this may just add one more to my load.”
“Hell, you probably see more of my brother right now than I do.”
“You’d be right.” Sean’s brother, Kyle, was a detective with the HCPD, working with the Drug Task Force. “We’re both working the homeless drug cases. Up to our ears in this shit. We’re checking with some of the homeless shelters but it’s a slow go.”
“Hey, I’ve got someone who could help. You might want to talk to my sis—”
“Excuse me, Detective, but where do you need these?”
Carter and Sean were interrupted with the arrival of the portable lights. Sean directed the ones he needed for he and Jonas to gather evidence in the burned-out hole of the first unit. After a quick clap on the shoulder, Carter walked back into the unit where the body had been discovered, setting up several lamps for him, as well.
With more illumination, he turned around in a slow circle, his gaze searching the room. The walls dripped with water. The ceiling was dark with smoky soot. The floor gave no signs of evidence as to the identity of the deceased or his life here in this abandoned townhouse. The kitchen cabinets and sink had been removed, and Carter considered that the entire block of houses had probably been gutted of anything considered valuable.
He crossed the room while pulling on a new pair of gloves and opened the door to a small closet. Inside, he discovered a cardboard box. Snapping several pictures, he knelt closer. The top of the box formed a shelf, containing a crumpled paper sack. Carefully opening the sack, he found several plastic baggies, all empty except for one which contained bread crust. The paper sack had a large PB written in black marker on the outside. He placed each item into an evidence bag, labeling them.
“Whatcha got?”
Looking over his shoulder, he smiled at his sometimes partner, Rachel Seas, stepping into the kitchen, jerking her head to avoid a water drop falling from the ceiling. At over eight months pregnant, he knew she would soon be out on maternity leave.
Before he had a chance to answer her question, she added, “I never thought an empty room could be a mess, but hell, this is nasty.”
He chuckled as she walked closer, peering around him to see what he was bagging. “There was nothing in the room other than the deceased. The ME just left with the body but showed me a bag of pills that were tucked in his coat pocket. This is the only thing I’ve found in here, so far.”
“Any ID?”
He shook his head. “I was just getting ready to go through the other rooms to see if I could find any other evidence that might tell us who he was or what he was doing here.”
“Could’ve just been looking for a place to sleep.”
Nodding, he silently agreed. Leaving Rachel to continue looking around the small first floor, he walked upstairs, finding it much like the downstairs. Shining his light around, he saw the space was completely empty. The bathroom cabinets and fixtures were ripped from the walls. The upstairs windows were broken and water on the floor kept him from seeing if the dust had been disturbed before the fire next door. He continued around each room but found no evidence that anyone had been there recently
After a thorough search, he walked back downstairs, where he found Rachel as empty-handed as he. “Nothing?”
“Anything on the floor would have been washed away with the fire hoses. Upstairs?”
“Same. I found no evidence that he or anyone had been upstairs.” Carter stretched his back, feeling, as well as hearing, his neck crack. “I’ll take what I found in the pantry to the lab. I’ll get the rest from Natalie, and hopefully we’ll be able to get an ID along with cause of death.”
She lifted an eyebrow and grinned. “Are we going to hit the homeless shelters again?”
“Yeah, even if we haven’t had much luck with the last two.”
Patting her stomach, she said, “Since I’ll be on maternity leave soon, I hate to leave it all to you. Hopefully, we’ll get a break soon.”
“Are you sure that little one doesn’t want to wait longer to arrive?” He pretended to grumble and watched her fight a grin.
The two stepped out of the back door and walked past the charred walls of the first unit. Its interior was well lit from the portable lamps, and he spied Sean and Jonas kneeling, scraping bits of evidence into jars. While they might have much more evidence to collect, he did not envy them. The serial arsonist plaguing Hope City was not going to be easily caught.
Walking to the perimeter, he offered a chin lift to the police officer standing watch. Ducking under the yellow tape, he bypassed the few reporters who had gathered for information about the arsonist.
Placing his evidence in the back of his SUV, the young face of the deceased stayed vividly in his mind. If he truly was homeless, Carter wondered who would mourn his passing. Certainly not the media, clambering for headlines. With the recent, high profile murder of one of Hope City’s richest men, Carter knew his unidentified body would receive little interest or fanfare. Slamming the door of his SUV, he also slammed the door on those thoughts. As far as he was concerned, the young man who died alone, possibly after doing nothing more than finding a warm place to sleep, deserved Carter’s full attention. And that’s what he’ll get… My full fuckin’ attention.