Page 122 of State of Alert

“It’s a bit of a stretch to picture teenage girls arranging their mother’s murder.”

“They were at war with her. Full-blown, bloody war. They couldn’t move without her approval, which they hardly ever got. They’d learned to be sneaky to get around her unyielding rules. I don’t think anything about them is ‘normal teenager’ by any definition of that term.”

“What does the dad say?”

“What you’d expect: ‘They’re children, and it’s obscene to even consider they had anything to do with this.’ But he was kind of punched out of the whole situation with the mom. Bothgirls pleaded with him to intervene on their behalf, and those pleas went unanswered as far as we could tell.”

“I’d like to get him back here and dig a little deeper into what he knows before we go full-on in that direction.”

Sam didn’t think that would help, but she wasn’t about to question him. “Will do.”

Back in the pit, she asked Freddie to call Frank and ask him to come back in.

“What’s the plan?”

“Malone wants us to talk to him some more and get a feel for whether there’s anytherethere.”

“Ah… Okay…”

“I agree, but he’s the boss.”

“Making the call.”

“I’ll write up the affidavit for the warrant on the girls’ financials.” Sam went into the office, shut the door and sat before the computer to collect her thoughts. Anything to do with writing or reading was challenging for her due to her dyslexia, but she was determined to put their case, such as it was, on paper to persuade a judge to grant the warrants.

She put her fingers on the keys and began to type, having learned to just let the thoughts and words flow and not worry if they were correct until the story was on the page. Freddie would check her work for any mistakes.

This past Sunday, Elaine Myerson was found dead in the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom in her home on Webster Street Northwest in the Crestwood neighborhood. The medical examiner has determined that she died as the result of a single blow to the back of her head, we believe from a baseball bat that was recovered by CSU from a dumpster six blocks from the home. The bat, which had blood and hair stuck to it, is being processed by the lab. We have fully investigated Mrs. Myerson’s life, spoken to her husband, daughters, brother, coworkers, therapist and neighbors. Throughout our investigation, we learned of significant strife…

“Is ‘strife’ the right word to describe what was going on in that house?” she asked herself. “Not really.”

…we discovered that Elaine was essentially at war with her daughters, Zoe, 17, and Jada, 15. To give some context, when Elaine was twenty, her sister Sarah, age 17, was abducted in the family’s Manassas neighborhood while she was walking home from a friend’s house. Sarah’s naked body was found six weeks later. The autopsy showed she had been sexually assaulted while held captive and had died recently. The killer was never found, but the case remains open, with the original detective still actively pursuing new information. Needless to say, the trauma of this incident stayed with Elaine. We were told that she wasn’t sure she wanted children because she feared being overprotective to the point of absurdity. However, her husband, Frank, very much wanted children, so they had two daughters. As the girls matured toward young adulthood, Elaine resisted their desire to be independent, to have jobs, boyfriends, ride in cars with peers, etc. By all accounts, the situation in their home had escalated to “warfare,” especially since Zoe now had a boyfriend. At the time of the murder, Mr. Myerson was at an all-day work event. His alibi has been confirmed. Zoe was at the Arlington home of her boyfriend, Zeke Bellamy, and their phones confirm their locations at the Bellamy house for the entire afternoon.

Like a bolt of lightning from above, an idea hit her that had Sam standing and heading for the door. “Freddie.”

When he stood to see what she needed, she tipped her head to bring him into the office.

“What’s up? Do you need help with the narrative?”

“No, but something just occurred to me that I should’ve thought of before now.”

“What’s that?”

“What if Zoe and Zeke left their phones at Zeke’s house and went to Zoe’s to deal with her mother?”

“I suppose that’s possible, but would kids think of doing that?”

“Go ask Archie to look at the history on their phones andsee if there was an unusual lack of activity. Also see if there are any true-crime fans among the three of them.”

“On it.”

Every cell in Sam’s body buzzed as this theory took hold. Ithadto have been the daughters. No one else would’ve wanted Elaine dead. If the surviving family members were to be believed, no one else had access to the house. No one else was at “war” with Elaine. No one else was motivated to do whatever it took to get the person causing them nonstop grief out of the way.

Sam was seated at her desk when Freddie came to the door. “Frank said the girls took the car to visit friends, so he doesn’t have a ride. I told him I’d send Patrol to pick him up. He wasn’t thrilled about that, but I let him know it wasn’t optional.”

“Good job. So the girls are out and about?” Sam asked herself where she would’ve been shortly after her mother was murdered. It would depend on when in her lifetime it happened, but she probably wouldn’t have been out with friends right after, even if it had occurred during their long estrangement.

“He said Zoe was taking Jada to Ali’s before she went to see Zeke.”

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