Page 58 of Every Last One
Luis hit pause while they spoke.
“Pamela could have simply been a tool to get her inside,” Sandra suggested.
“A gun would do that,” Kreiger inserted.
“And she probably didn’t want the alarm raised too soon,” Sandra said.
“Luis, could I get your help?” Brice began.
“Whatever you need,” Luis said.
“Could you send the clippings of this video to the FBI’s Science and Technology Branch? We’ll see if they can enhance any images of this woman and run them through facial recognition databases.”
“Sure, just give me their info,” Luis said.
Brice rattled off Agent Lakisha Hester’s contact details.
“Well, I wouldn’t be holding my breath on this woman having a criminal past. The rest of them didn’t,” Kreiger said. “But now that we have the earlier video, run back through it and find out when she came into the hospital. From there, we can track her backward through CCTV in the area. It might lead us to her origin point and her identity.”
“I’ll let Agent Hester at Tech know to expect an email from Luis and ask about this at the same time,” Brice volunteered.
“The MPD is fully capable of doing the same,” he said. “But knock yourself out.”
Sandra was on board with trying whatever they could to get this situation to end peacefully. But speaking of something that was guaranteednotto end that way… “If you will all excuse me, there’s a call I need to make.” Assistant Director Rowe was going to lose his shit when he heard Maddox was shot.
THIRTY-TWO
3:10 PM
Eric had the backup officer take Celeste Barrington in for uttering threats. Not particularly satisfying because it left the gunwoman in the boardroom unidentified. He called Lieutenant Coleman to inform him and was given a measure of good news. One of the hostage takers was ID’d as Carmen Feeney. Neal told Eric to bench a visit to Radcliffe and go to Feeney’s residence immediately. He had provided the address and confirmed a search warrant for the house and one for Feeney’s electronics were in place.
Eric rang the bell, and no one answered as expected. He pulled out his lock-picking kit and worked the lock. He was opening the door seconds later.
The place smelled of hickory bacon, and Eric realized he hadn’t eaten much today with all the running around he’d been doing. From the front door, he could see most of the main level. The living room, kitchen, compact dining space, and a hallway that branched off to the right.
He looked down at the carpet and wiped the bottom of his shoes but kept them on. After locking the door behind him, he set out into the house.
Feeney was tidy but not excessively so. Some hair tumbleweeds drifted across the hardwood, and there was a dirty glass on an end table in the living room. The kitchen was clean aside from the frying pan used for the bacon sitting on the stovetop, the cooled grease white inside of it.
Her bed was made, and the top of her dresser was clear except for a picture frame, a navy-blue jewelry box, and a ballerina figurine. The latter didn’t exactly speak of a person who would go into a hospital armed with a gun to terrorize people.
Eric inspected the photograph in the frame. It was of Carmen Feeney with a woman in her sixties. Eric would guess from the striking similarities between them, it was most likely Feeney’s mother. Both were sitting on a bench smiling despite their sterile surroundings. The wall behind them was a dingy cream. It wasn’t a selfie as their arms and hands were both visible in the shot. Someone had snapped this of them.
He finished up in a room being used as a home office. There was a small, round, pine dining table serving as the desk with two matching chairs around it. A bouquet was in a vase next to a laptop, and there was a stack of papers on the makeshift desk. A florist card poked out between a few orange lilies that had yet to open. They likely hadn’t arrived more than a day or two before.
Eric plucked the florist’s card to read the note and find out the name of the sender.
Hope these brighten your mood. Love, C.
“Huh.” The message suggested Carmen had been feeling depressed or stressed out recently. Had that led to her walking into Founders Hospital with a gun? And who was C?
Eric gloved up and flipped through the papers on her desk. Most of them were collection notices, and those that weren’t would be headed there soon judging by thePast Duestamps.
He drew his gaze to the floor where there was a round garbage bin. It was mostly full, but he knew from working crime scenes, next to a person’s electronics, garbage was a treasure trove for investigators.
He lifted it up to the table and rooted through it. There were some tissues but most of it was paper, either bunched up or ripped apart. One torn piece had the Founders Hospital logo on it, and that had him hunting for the rest of the puzzle. He laid the fragments out on the table, and the entire picture emerged. Carmen Feeney owed the hospital a hundred thousand dollars, and her account was being forwarded to collections for nonpayment.
Had Carmen Feeney been ill at one time? But as he asked himself this, his mind flashed on that framed photograph.
