Page 26 of Deathmarch
“It’s fine. Thanks.” Harper looked through the kitchen window into the black night. “What are the neighbors saying?”
“Saw nothing, heard nothing,” Mike told him, the camera glued to his face. “Figured they’d spot the cruisers and be running over to find out what’s going on, so I went and talked to them first thing. Didn’t want them to trample any possible clues outside.”
“Find anything?” Harper asked without much optimism, considering the weather. “Tire tracks?”
Mike confirmed his low expectations by shaking his head, while Chase said, “I was first on the scene. Nothing but fresh snow by the time I got here.”
Since he and Mike had the kitchen in hand, Harper headed for the living room, careful not to step into any blood as he passed the body.
He swore under his breath. Chuck Lamm was stranger than most, but he hadn’t deserved a violent end. Since Broslin PD hadn’t been able to prevent his murder, they’d do the next best thing: see to it that justice was served.
“Anything obvious missing?”
“TV, DVD player, ham radio all in their places.” Chase kept on brushing powder on everything in sight, perhaps a little too diligently. “Haven’t had a chance to process the rest of the house yet. We went around to make sure nobody else was in here, but that’s about it.”
Harper spotted a worn leather wallet on the side table next to the sofa. He stepped closer, but didn’t touch it. No powder residue meant Chase hadn’t dusted it for prints yet.
“Found his wallet,” he said.
“Empty?”
He caught glints of green from the fold. “Doesn’t look like it.” He crossed the room, mentally recording its details. Everything old, worn, but undisturbed. There hadn’t been a fight in there either. “Have you checked Lamm’s prepper stash?”
“Canned food and bottled water stockpiled in the basement,” Chase told him. “Arsenal of guns locked in gun cabinets.”
“Did you see a safe?”
Mike walked in behind him, camera in hand. “No. But we weren’t searching for one.” He began snapping pictures of the living room. “Did you really find a pile of gold bars? Leila said.”
“Half a million dollars’ worth.”
“Holy shit.” Mike let loose a wolf whistle, then grinned. “So, a leprechaun—”
Chase cut him off. “Don’t even think about it.”
“You think Allie Bianchi and her father did it?” Mike asked without missing a beat.
“Father is dead,” Harper said. “Boot print out there is too large for Allie, but just because Tony is gone, it doesn’t mean she didn’t have an accomplice. My money’s on someone local.”
“Because Lamm let him in?”
“That,anda random stranger wouldn’t have known that Lamm kept gold on the premises.”
“Most locals wouldn’t either,” Chase put in. “How did you know to check on Lamm?”
“Last time he came into Finnegan’s, he told my father to keep his money in precious metals for the upcoming apocalypse. Gave him some flyers on where to order, how to set it up for home delivery instead of having it sent to a lockbox in a bank. Because when the apocalypse hits, the banks are going to be closed. So, no sense in keeping anything there.”
“Huh.” Mike scratched his chin. “Never thought about that.” He wrinkled his forehead, nodded, then went back to snapping pictures.
Harper did his best to remember more of Lamm’s visit. “He said a hundred-gram gold bullion was worth around sixty-five hundred. Said to order plenty of silver dollars too, because food would have to be bought when the chili cans ran out, and it would be too dangerous running around the countryside with gold bullion, not to mention how would anyone make change?”
Mike moved to the opposite side of the room for a different angle. He lifted the camera back to his eye and aimed it at the body on the kitchen floor. “Lamm’s gold brought him plenty of trouble. No apocalypse needed.”
A shame,Harper thought. “I’ll finish my initial walk-through, then I need to head back to the station.”
He left Mike and Chase to their work and searched the three small bedrooms—nothing special in any of them, worn-out furniture, ancient brown carpet. Lamm spent his money elsewhere.
The walls were blank, no artwork to hide a safe, so Harper moved on to the laundry room. No sign of a safe there either.
