HOMESTAY 005

Mariah Sullivan took a deep breath as she walked briskly into Long Beach Ca. Police department with Kinner on her right.

A man, about Dwayne's height, pure masculine with great body-build built for security work showed up at the reception waiting for them. As soon as he saw them approach a slight smile grew on his lips; the one that didn't seem obvious and he waited till they reached him.

"Mariah" his voice was gentle but bright

"Tucci Derek" Mariah acknowledged and stretched a hand to meet his grip "My God, you've grown taller" she said jocularly

"A man's got to do what he's got to do." He shrugged then, turned to Kinner "you must be Shawn Riers Kinner. Mariah's told me a lot about you"

Shawn only nodded

"So, what do we have?" Sullivan turned the discussion around as they walked briskly down the corridor of working police men to Tucci's office.

"A third body has been found. It belongs to Peter Myers. Same M.O as the other two" Sullivan bit her lips down in frustration. "Forensics are still working on it" Tucci added, stretching a file at Mariah. She took it and flipped through the pages, seeing the gruesome death these people had to go through.

"Dismembered?" Mariah raised a brow

"Yes." Tucci said sharply "his face was brutally stabbed we couldn't identify his body until we ran a DNA and some prints. Autopsy shows there was struggle at a point in time" he cornered his desk and sat on his seat, offering Mariah and Shawn seats opposite him "but something is really strange about this case. All vics ran their home stay by different websites and we have different stories but one of these websites correlates"

"With the Willards?"

"Yes. Now, we have a lead that the Willards did a home stay at a house not far off from Old-Gravel where Dwayne's baby brother got missing. A Barry Briggs now live there with his wife and three kids and guess the agent that sold the house to them?"

"Same Agent in charge of the Gordon properties" Kinner ripostes

"Jannie" Mariah stood to her feet. "Place a search warrant on the houses and Jannie, bring her in for questioning, meanwhile, I would check out the vics at the morgue"

"Very well then, I will ask Griffin to take you" Tucci pressed a button on his table "Sergeant Griffin..." Was the only thing he said and in a couple of seconds, Griffin showed up at the door. "Take them to Hakeem" and Griffin lead the way.

"Are you thinking what I am thinking?" Kinner whispered to Mariah. "It is back. It is back and it is  here to take more people away"

 "Yes, it is here but this time we won't let it..."

"Take anyone away? We already have three down, brutally killed, dismembered, stabbed..." Kinner pointed out.

"No, we won't let it get away this time. And we are going to catch it in time. Nothing is going to happen to Jessie, if that's what you are worried about. We'll find him and by the way, he is somewhere out there probably making a fool out of himself"

"What are you going to tell Dwayne?" Kinner's question hit her. He was right, she still had to explain things to Dwayne. "... That his baby brother that you hate so much, who probably stuck more brawns than brains could probably be dead by now..."

"Stop. Right now, I don't need this Kinner. Dwayne isn't the problem. Jessie is. So, stop being sentimental right now and get a grip of yourself. Jessie is not the Willards - he is simply Jessie"

Mariah took longer strides and cornered into the lab. The place was cool, ventilated and smelt of the sterility that she hated so much. She stood by a stretcher and waited for Griffin to get the person in charge. She saw him say something to a tall, slender and dark man who was assessing her from a distance and the man behind her. Kinner was right. If she had a sense of responsibility at all, she needed to tell Dwayne what possible danger Jessie could be in but Kinner was such a bastard that he rubbed everything in her face.

She mulled over it for some time but got interrupted by the tall-slender-dark man who she'd figured out to be the 'Hakeem' before he even spoke his name.

"Hakeem" he addressed himself, stretching a hand towards Mariah.

"Sullivan, Federal Bureau of Investigation" she met his grip and withdrew almost immediately.

"Kinner" Shawn also introduced himself and Hakeem led them to a stretcher that carried something draped over with white cloth.

"Gloves" a blonde lady approached with two pairs of rubber gloves just in case they might touch anything and without exchanging words, they took it and wore it firmly around their hands.

"Here are the remains of Peter Myers" Hakeem prepared them for what they might see but they were detectives, people who had probably seen more gruesome and weird sights than any other person. He unveiled the corpse and to their shock, it was barely even a corpse and more of pounded beef.

"See here..." Hakeem pointed to a blue-purple line on the neck of the vic "shows strangulation. The vic somehow got off..." He showed them same marks on the fingers of the victim "so, there was a scuffle. The vic loses balance, falls, slams his head real bad..." Shows a crack in the skull that seemed muddled with other stab wounds "... and becomes tipsy giving our guy leverage. Picks up a broken bottle and stabs the face of the vic continuously."

"Out of rage" Mariah added "we are dealing with a psychopath" she moved around the body "other vics, do they have stab wounds on their faces?"

"Nope but, strangulation marks, yes." Hakeem explained "the vics also appear to be overdosed with some kind of sedative, liquidated their bellies gradually."

"So, our guy here actually sedates them, then hangs them" Kinner raised a brow "look. Aren't these holes?" Kinner prodded the deep wound at the heel of the corpse.

"Yes. After sedating them, he drains their blood, removes their limbs and hang the rest of their bodies." Hakeem pointed out

"That is weird." Kinner sighed

"He has done that for three, he's got four more to go. We need to go now." Mariah shot the flap of her phone open and pressed it to her ears "Tucci!" She sounded urgent. "It's time to pay Mrs. Gordon and Barry Briggs a visit"

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Knock! Knock!

"Who's there" an old voice reached them from across the door.

"Detective Kinner and Sullivan. FBI." They tendered their badges towards the peep hole and after many seconds, an old lady opened the door. She was carrying a poodle in her left hand and a walking stick in her right.

"Linda, the COPS are here" she yelled as soon as she opened the door and after a moment, a young pretty lady showed up at the door. She seemed to be drying her hands on a towel. Perhaps she was busy in the kitchen when the old lady called.

"Detective Kinner and Sullivan from FBI. We have few questions for you Mrs Gordon can we come in?"

"Sure, come in." The young lady ushered them inside. Kinner's head was already doing a straight calculation as soon as he stepped inside. He was trained to be like that.

"My name is Linda. Can we help you detectives?" The lady asked

"Yes. We are investigating a missing person case." Kinner brought out a photo of Jessie "have you seen this person before?"

Both ladies took glances at the picture before turning puzzled glare at Kinner "No, we haven't seen him before. Why?"

"Okay. Why don't we start by asking about your house at Old-Gravel Road?"

"Yes. That house, it belonged to my husband" the old lady croaked "it has been up for sale for about a year now. Nobody wants to buy it"

"Do you have an Agent in charge of the house?"

"Yes. My daughter-in-law. Jannie. She is taking special care of the place. Is there a problem detective?"

Mariah passed a glance at Kinner. Something was not adding up. "Daughter-in-law?" Sullivan queried

"Yes. Ever since my Son died and was buried there and since she is into real estate, she wanted to sell it to the right people so, they would take care of it."

"Is there a problem here detectives?!" Linda was becoming cautious.

"Your house was on a website called fandango and it was up for a home stay. The information we got from the website was that the house belonged to "A Donna and Peter Craig that were off to Dallas for an anniversary and their son, Steve..."

"But the house belonged to Jack, my husband" the old lady's voice was feeble in protest

"Well, your house was up for home stay and it hosted this young man and his brother for a night and the very next morning, this young man was nowhere to be found. So it's either you know where this young man is, or your daughter-in-law knows"

"Are we talking about a murder case here?" The old lady trembled but before Sullivan could respond…

"We don't know!" Yelled Linda. She turned fiercely to the old lady "I knew Jannie was using that house for something else! She shouldn't be trusted."

"What are you talking about?" Kinner asked and Linda went silent.

"You said Jannie was using the house for something else" Mariah pressed. After keeping mute for many seconds, Linda broke as anger zoomed in her brows

"That house belonged to my Mother. When my mother died, she willed the house to my father. His dream was to make the house an orphanage but Jannie wanted it. The family had too many debts so, she put it up for sale." Linda shook her head "I knew she had hidden agendas like leasing it out secretly. But I don't think she is capable of murder... She just got greedy." Linda went mute again and tears rose to her eyes.     

"For how long has Jannie been into real estates and what agency does she work for?"

"From what she told us, seven years and the agency is Connell and Bright"

Kinner took notes and glanced at Sullivan who steadied her breath before talking "people have been disappearing and its either we find their bodies or not. Out of seven, we've found three dead bodies and there is a slim chance others might be alive so, if anything comes up, please let us know" Sullivan said stretching a card towards the old lady. She took it from them and nodded quickly "we'll look into Jannie and we'll let you know what we find"

"Thank you detective" Linda said voicelessly and Mariah nodded in acknowledgement.  Linda escorted them outside.

"Let us know if anything comes up" Sullivan said again as she was about stepping into her vehicle and Linda nodded.

Kinner settled into the driver's seat and strapped himself in before igniting the vehicle. He glanced at Sullivan who propped her elbow against the window and rested her head in her palms. "I feel like they are hiding something" he croaked but Mariah didn't respond. He took a slow reverse out of the premises before hitting the highway with speed. "Do you actually believe they are broke?"

Mariah turned to look at him "What did you see?" she knew Kinner, he was always right when it came to investigation, suspicions and crime scenes. He could accurately judge a scene from the smallest piece of evidentiary threads

"One, the shelves were lined with pieces of fragile china. Now those fragile china are antiques and each cost nothing less than sixty thousand dollars"

"Those old things?" Sullivan raised a brow

"You have no idea. My wife wanted one for our anniversary. I couldn't get it so, I ended up spending the night out at NYPD." Kinner paused to verify the impression he created on her "Two, on the table, there is an open bottle of scotch and at the far end on the shelf, there were three bottle of Scotches"

"Point?" Mariah raised a brow

"You know how much those costs."

Mariah nodded. She knew that even before Kinner spoke but first, she needed to know what Jannie was up to, the Gordons were not straight up; she knew that too but she preferred that Kinner did the talking. She was making more calculations in her head than Kinner.

Her phone vibrated against her pocket again and she retrieved it, shot the flap open and pressed it to her ear.

"Sullivan"

"We've got Jannie here" Tucci's voice reached her from over the phone.

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