Page 22 of The Crime of Intensity

“Shame your old lady doesn’t have a sister. I’d like a feisty woman with a great brain and a smart mouth for myself.”

“Could we focus?” Kathleen growls. “Why did Carville mention Davey was a certain way because of Iris?”

Dean instantly starts to rattle off details. “Eight months ago, a woman by the name of Anne Rose went missing. She was employed by Carville’s wife and Davey’s supervisor to be precise. I ran the name and–”

“She was murdered,” I state.

Dean starts to give her the details. “Her body was found three months ago. The case was closed. She was stabbed to death, they assumed it was a robbery gone wrong with the neighborhood she was found in and all. She was reported missing first, and found months later because the body was dropped in the sewer. Carville didn’t believe she was robbed. Anne and Davey were working on cleaning a house that night and had a huge fight. He was there when it happened. Davey left angry and Carville and Anne finished the job. Anne’s car was at the shop, so he dropped her off at her house. The robbery happened across town, not somewhere she would go. And for real, crappy police work. There was evidence that some of the injuries were post-mortem. Who would stab a dead person during a robbery? That’s a lot of anger right there.”

“So, Carville suspected Davey?” I question.

“A bit when she went missing, more when our father showed up at his doorstep. Especially when our father showed up telling him about Iris’s body being found after six years and asking questions about her son who’s now a person of interest in a serial killer case.”

“Was there any other information Atticus managed to get from Carville?” Kathleen asks.

“Oh yeah.” He pats the file in front of him. “Carville had no issues hanging out the family’s dirty laundry for all to see.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kathleen’s eyebrows scrunch.

I know my brother’s idiotic sentences and tell her, “It means the fucker was a fountain of information.”

“Then why not say that instead?” Kathleen grumbles.

The corner of his mouth twitches just before Dean continues to explain. “Carville knew Beth Bronson’s death wasn’t an accident when she was trampled. The reason Davey came to live with Carville six years ago was because Davey witnessed his mother kill Beth.”

“What?” Kathleen and I both grunt in sync.

“Major family drama at that ranch.” Dean shakes his head in disgust. “Turns out, Beth couldn’t carry any children due to medical issues. They fostered kids to try and fill a void. Unsuccessfully, but they liked the new angle of money coming in. Beth treated them like shit, just like she did Iris. Then the whole Arthur, Iris thing was brought to light due to Iris getting pregnant and things changed. Tension in their marriage, Iris left for a few years, had the kid and all…then she came back and, well, Carville said Beth fell in love with Davey because he looked like her husband. With Arthur choosing his wife, he never laid a hand on Iris again, which caused Iris to turn bitter and blame the kid.”

“Oh, that’s so freaking wrong,” Kathleen growls. “So, Davey witnessed Iris kill Beth, the one woman who treated him like a son, and he killed his own mother out of revenge?”

Dean shrugs. “Technically Iris went missing. Lucian and Arthur came running after they heard the screaming and Davey told them what went down. Iris was hysterical, screaming it was an accident and it was Davey’s word against his mother.”

“They decided to cover it up?” I grit, knowing where this is going with all the facts out in the open.

“That’s why Davey left,” Kathleen muses. “Changing his name because he had no one left at that ranch with those men ignoring his version of what happened.”

“And kill his mother before he left, let’s not forget about that little fact. He took matters into his own hands the way they handled everything after Beth’s murder,” Dean says. “Arthur and Lucian probably thought Iris ran because of what she did. They only reported her missing to cover their own asses in case someone came asking or whatever, who knows.”

We all fall silent when the waitress wanders our way to give all of us a refill then stalks across the room to a different table.

It’s then Kathleen says, “Okay, all of this explains motive and places huge arrows at Davey being our prime suspect, but do we have evidence to tie him to any of it? A headshot so we know who we’re looking for? Where the hell he is so we can bring him in?”

Finally, Dean slides the file he was keeping in place in front of him over to us. “Remember the body in the back of the trunk?”

I open the file and glance at the papers inside it when Dean continues to explain.

“Well, they had an intern making a remark about flossing the teeth of the body. According to the intern, he found a tiny piece of rubber from a glove in the victim’s throat. He wanted to check if there was any epithelial tissue caught by the teeth because the killer’s fingers were in the victim’s mouth.” Pointing at the papers he adds, “The intern was right. I had them run a check with Iris’s DNA and it shows the killer’s her kid.”

“He fucked up,” Kathleen whispers in relief.

“He fucked up,” Dean affirms. “We have the evidence to tie him to one murder.”

“The similarities in the killing of all the others will make any jury see him as the serial killer he is,” I state.

“Which still doesn’t answer my question as to where the fucker is right now.” Kathleen shoves the papers back into the file before sliding them back to Dean.

My brother nods. “Correct. Since we have a name, a face, and enough evidence to arrest him, I’ve already put an APB. Every officer will be on the lookout for a man matching his description. We might not know where the fucker is hiding, but we’re going to make sure he doesn’t have a lot of places to hide.”

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