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He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the woman sleeping in his bed. What did he know about her other than what he’d read? Already she was changing his opinion of her. After the massacre, Kara had been placed in her aunt’s care even though Faiza and her younger sister, Zelda, had never been particularly close. Nor did she have children of her own, but Faiza had been determined to claim custody of her young niece, and Tate wondered if all of her sudden concern as an aunt had more to do with the fortune attached to her young charge than the girl herself. And though Kara spent most of her time with Merritt and his wife, that marriage had never been rock-steady and Faiza had put an end to any furthering of the relationship at least until Kara came of age. Throughout it all, Faiza and her live-in boyfriend Roger Sweeney had taken residence in the McIntyre home on two acres in the West Hills of Portland and as far as Tate could tell, Faiza had control of Kara’s inheritance.
But that was about to change. Kara was about to come of age to inherit, according to the copy of her parents’ will that Tate had found in Margrove’s files. Well, make that Kara and Jonas, as they were the only surviving children of Samuel McIntyre.
He rubbed his chin and thought. Was it possible that the homicide of Merritt Margrove didn’t have so much to do with Jonas McIntyre’s release from prison as it did with Kara McIntyre coming of age to claim her inheritance?
Was this why Margrove was killed?
Or was he grasping at all-too-thin straws?
Kara stirred, turning over and cracking open an eye. “What time is it?” she asked around a yawn.
“Five.”
“Oooh. Too early.” And she rolled over, the dog shifting and protesting with a quiet growl before settling down again just as Tate’s cell phone vibrated on the desk and Connell’s name appeared on the screen. With a glance at Kara burrowed beneath the coverlet, he snagged the phone and hurried downstairs and through the door to the vestibule, where he hoped he wouldn’t disturb her.
“Hey,” he answered. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to give you a heads-up. I did a series of background checks on people associated with the McIntyre Massacre. A deeper dive.”
“And?”
“A couple of interesting things.”
“Such as?”
“There are several people with records. First off, the older girl Marlie’s boyfriend at the time—Chad Atwater? He’d got caught stealing from his grandfather, if you can believe that, but of course the charges were dropped, the family refused. Painkillers, the grandpa’s gun and some cash. Then, about the same time, an assault charge was filed by another kid at school. Both were juveniles at the time, records sealed, but most of the reports suggest Chad was the aggressor in a fight over a girl that escalated. Supposedly the two were friends and the fight was over a girl who just happened to be Marlie Robinson.”
Tate thought about it. He’d known the kid had some trouble as a teen, but what teenage boy came out of high school unscathed?
“There were drugs involved, steroids mainly and alcohol, of course. The fight was all hushed up by the parents, nothing more than a ‘scuffle,’ I think is the way Chad’s father described it, but Chad smashed the other kid’s face to a pulp on the steering wheel of his Mustang and the kid had to have stitches and plastic surgery. Once again, Chad skated, his parents bailed him out and from that point on he kept his nose clean.”
He leaned against the back wall of the vestibule and stared through the glass doors to the dark morning beyond. He’d never really considered Atwater as a serious suspect. “Why would he slaughter an entire family?”
“Don’t know. Can’t speculate. Just giving you the facts. But there’s one more wrinkle with Atwater. He had a girl on the side.”
“So he was furious that someone came on to Marlie, but meanwhile he was seeing someone else.”
“They were teenagers, what can I say?” Connell said. “Her name’s Brittlynn Cadella. She was all of fourteen at the time. They ended up marrying the minute she turned eighteen. So now she’s Brittlynn Atwater.”
Tate hadn’t known this. “Did Marlie Robinson know that he was seeing someone else?”
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
“Huh.”
“There’s more,” Connell said. “Another shady character. Roger Sweeney. The aunt’s boyfriend?”
“What about him?”
“He’s got a record, too. First of all, he had a dishonorable discharge from the Marines. Pulled a knife in a bar fight, cut someone pretty bad. The victim survived, but barely. And then five years later, more trouble. In Nashville. Didn’t get along with members of his band. Accused one of them of stealing and they got into it. The fight got physical and Roger pulls a knife, cuts the guy, might have done more damage but the third member of the trio puts a stop to it. He had a pistol.”
“So, in an about-turn, that guy brought a gun to a knife fight.”
Connell snorted. “The upshot was that no charges were filed. They both get stitched up, but Roger is out of the group. That’s about the time he migrated to Portland and took up with Faiza Donner.”
“But again, why would he kill the family?”
“Robbery gone bad? The family didn’t like him? Faiza wanted her share? Again, I’m just spitballing here and I have no facts to bear any of this out. This was just a first deep dive. I’m still checking out Silas Dean, Samuel’s business partner, as well as the exes: Walter Robinson, Leona McIntyre and Natalie Brizard.”