“I’m taking your advice,” he told her. “The kids are going to be home for at least a week. I’m not going near the office while they’re here.”
Danni gave him his key back the day of the funeral and had not seen him since. Apparently the kids had gone back to their own lives.
“Anything we can use?” Danni asked Allan.
“Nope. The coroner may come up with something if they had sex but the place is clean as usual.
Just then there was a commotion outside.
“Somebody found something!” Danni heard an officer say. It was a little after six and the sun was just rising. She followed the crowd out of the apartment and into the backyard toward a thicket of woods. The group were all professionals so they moved slowly, not wanting their peers to think they were excited or anything. A few feet into the thicket she saw Sam Jeffries standing over something and directing traffic. As she drew closer, she heard his voice.
“Be careful getting it out of there. If there are prints, we don’t want to smudge them.”
Two men were on their knees on the ground, carefully moving the dirt away from the object. Allan pressed forward to see what it was. Danni followed.
There on the ground, obscured slightly by some plants, was a large bowie knife: The handle was carved in the shape of a gargoyle!
Chapter Thirteen
Back at the station, forensics did the fingerprint analysis on the bowie knife and found a match from the NCIC computer. Five members of the SWAT team accompanied six members of the task force, including Danni, Allan, and Sam Jeffries, to Thomas Felton’s apartment to pick him up at eleven o’clock that morning.
When they were sure all the exits from the building were covered, Sam rang the doorbell to Felton’s apartment. After that, he moved back as the SWAT team positioned itself in place to break the door down after allowing a reasonable period of time—not more than five minutes—to pass. Danni sidled next to Sam just in case. She knew where his gun was holstered. If Felton opened that door in the next minute or so, Sam might decide to just blow his head off.
Felton did just that: Without even asking who it was, he opened the front door dressed in his skivvies. Two of the SWAT team members grabbed him immediately and forced him to the floor on his knees with his head smelling whatever sweet aroma the carpeting was emitting at that moment. Sam had the honor of reading Felton his rights. It was good to keep him occupied.
“Thomas Felton, you are under arrest for the murders of Vanessa Brock and Pedro Diaz. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, an attorney will be provided for you at no cost to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”
One of the uniformed police officers had a small handheld camera focused on both Sam and Felton, memorializing the event. No need to fuck up a good arrest with a procedural violation. Felton nodded his head.
“You need to respond verbally,” Sam told him. For a moment, Danni thought Sam might just kick Felton in the head. He was positioned perfectly and Felton’s head just hung out there like a soccer ball.
Come on, answer! Danni said to herself. Just answer the damn question before he loses it and kills you right here and now!
“I understand what you said to me but I’m innocent,” Felton replied. “I didn’t kill anybody. You’ve got the wrong man.”
“We’ll see about that, dickhead,” Sam answered. “You’re going down. And don’t be fooled: that cocktail they give you up in Raiford—it may be quick but it’s awful painful. They just paralyze you so nobody can tell.”
Danni looked at the officer holding the camera. Unfortunately, he’d caught it all on tape, including Sam’s diatribe. They’d have to explain that away down the road. She slipped her arm around Sam’s as the SWAT guys started to move Felton to a police vehicle.
“Come on, Sam. It’s all over,” she said.
“It won’t be over until that son of a bitch is dead. And it won’t even be over then,” Sam said. “It won’t be over till I’m dead and my kids are dead and all those other kids’ families are dead. Then it will be