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CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

EDMONDS, WASHINGTON

TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2023

4:00 P.M.

On Monday morning, when a sleep-deprived Raymond Horn went to work, he had been looking at a case that he had gotten all wrong, and which seemed to be dead in the water. As he and Monica had been chasing video footage and cell tower pings yesterday, he had thought the best they’d be able to hope for was a warrant to search the phones that had appeared on the towers prior to Chuck Brewster’s death.

Now, on Tuesday afternoon and only a little over thirty hours later, he and Monica had zeroed in on an actual suspect. With an arrest warrant for Marc Atherton in hand, they were in the process of boarding an Alaska Airlines flight from Everett’s Paine Field to Orange County’s Santa Ana Airport.

It hadn’t been an easy thirty hours. There had been all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to jump through before the RAV4 in question could be towed from SeaTac to Edmonds PD. Once in the impound yard’s garage, Ray and Monica had waited on the sidelines while CSIs went through the vehicle with a fine-toothed comb. With nothing unusual visible to the naked eye, the process seemed to take forever, but eventually Luminol won the day. Nothing of evidentiary value was found in any of the obvious places—on the car seat, the steering wheel, the rearview mirror, or the gearshift. But finally, using infrared light, their careful search turned up tiny traces of blood-transfer smear on the underside of the driver’s-side door handle and a similar one on the inside surface of the driver’s-side seat belt.

Both stains showed evidence of having undergone additional wipe-downs by Enterprise garage attendants. Most likely they had assumed they were dealing with some kind of food spillage rather than human blood.

“So what’s the deal?” Ray asked when the lead CSI came to let him know what they’d found.

“It may be easier to get a DNA profile from the stain on the fabric than the one on the door handle. What do you want us to do?”

“Remove both and take them into evidence,” Ray replied, “but try getting a profile from the seat belt first, if that seems like a better bet.”

“Will do. Is there a rush on this?”

“You’d better believe it. Once you have them bagged and tagged, Detective Burns and I will transport them to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab.”

They had done just that, with Monica Burns once again at the wheel. At the lab, they had handed over their evidence and were assured that it would be given the highest priority and subjected to Rapid DNA testing.

Ray Horn didn’t put much store in that. He remembered all too well a time not so long ago when it had taken weeks or sometimes months to get a DNA profile. Much to his chagrin, on the way from south Seattle back to Edmonds, Ray’s lack of sleep from the night before finally caught up with him, and he dozed off in the car.

It was after two in the morning when he finally got home. Mona was fast asleep when he crept into the bedroom and slipped into bed. His alarm was generally set for 7:00 a.m. Thinking he had earned a bit of a sleep-in, he turned it off before sliding under the covers. As a result, he was still out cold at 8:05 a.m. when Gretchen Walther, the crime lab’s lead DNA tech, called on his cell.

“Got it!” Gretchen announced when he answered.

“Got what,” Ray growled, “a profile?”

“No, silly,” she shot back. “We’ve got a match off the seat belt!”

Ray Horn sat bolt upright in bed. “To whom?” he demanded.

“To your victim, Charles Brewster,” Gretchen announced.

“You’re kidding.”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

“No, of course not. Sorry. Thank you so much.”

Before hitting the shower, Ray called Monica Burns’s cell. She sounded bright-eyed and chipper. “Where are you?” he asked.

“Where do you think? It’s after eight. I’m at work. Where are you?”

“Still at home. I overslept. But the crime lab just called. DNA from the seat belt is a match to Chuck Brewster.”

“We’ve got him, then, don’t we,” Monica breathed.

“We’ve got Marc Atherton,” Ray returned. “But it’s pretty clear he didn’t act alone. We need warrants for Atherton’s phone and for that burner as well. I’m on my way in, but can you have the requests typed up by the time I get there?”

“On it,” Monica said.

And Ray knew she would be. Heading out of the house, Ray passed Mona, who was up, dressed, and sitting at the kitchen table, working her daily crossword puzzle.

“Breakfast?” she asked.

“Just coffee,” he said, grabbing one of their travelers.

“You’ve cracked the case, haven’t you?” she said.

He stopped short and looked at her in surprise. “How did you know?”

“I can tell by the stupid grin on your face,” she said with a smile.

“Cracked it, yes,” he replied. “Now we have to finish putting the pieces together.”

“In other words, I’ll see you when I see you?”

“Exactly.”

On his way to the department, Ray realized that when it came to handing out cop wives, he was very lucky. And once at the office, he had to admit he’d been lucky, too, in drawing Monica Burns as his partner. By the time he got there, she had the requests for warrants typed up and awaiting Ray’s signature. There were five in all—a request for an arrest warrant on Marc Atherton and requests for searches on four separate cell phones—Marc Atherton’s, Joel Franklin’s, and Adam Brewster’s, along with that unidentified burner.

“Have you ever met Judge Gordon Parks?” Ray asked as he finished signing the last of the warrant requests.

“I’ve heard the name, but I’ve never met the man in person,” Monica replied.

“Then it’s high time you did,” Ray said. “When you need warrants in a hurry, he’s your go-to guy, so come on.”

It was only a three-block walk from the Edmonds PD headquarters to the judge’s chambers, where Judge Parks lived up to his advance billing. Minutes later, they came away with all the requested warrants.

“What next?” Monica asked as they headed back to the department.

“First, we turn the device warrants over to the Tech Unit so they can get started on those. Then we need to talk to the chief and see if he’ll let us travel to Huntington Beach.”

After a quick side trip to the TU, their next stop was Chief Nelson’s office.

“You’re sure this Atherton character is your guy?” the chief asked.

Ray nodded. “We believe he’s the one who wielded the knife, but we don’t think he acted alone. TU is working on the cell phone data right now. We’re hoping that will give us a clearer picture about the identity of his co-conspirator. For starters, however, we want to go to Huntington Beach and take Atherton into custody.”

“How soon?” Chief Nelson asked.

“As soon as possible.”

“All right,” the chief said. “Go on back to your desks. I’ll call down to Huntington Beach PD and let their chief know he’s about to have an out-of-town arrest team land on his doorstep.”

Ten minutes later, Chief Nelson stopped by Monica and Ray’s shared cubicle. “You guys are good to go,” he said, dropping a Post-it containing a phone number onto Ray’s desk. “Once you have an ETA, give this number a call. It’s the direct number to Huntington Beach’s homicide squad. Ask for Eduardo Ortega. He’ll be your boots on the ground.”

In the past it might have taken days or even weeks to obtain requested cell phone data. Fortunately, Don Wilson was a personable kind of guy who had developed one-on-one working relationships with folks from various phone providers. In this instance, luck was with them. By noontime, Don had obtained both call and text data for all the phones in question. The call histories themselves told an interesting tale. There were plenty of calls between Adam’s phone and Joel’s, and none at all between Adam’s and Marc’s. There were some calls from Joel’s phone to Marc’s, but when it came to the burner? There were dozens of incoming calls that had been placed from the burner to Marc, but none at all the other way around.

Monica was quick to note that and point out the implications. “It’s straight out of the cheater’s handbook,” she said. “Joel was free to place calls on the burner whenever he wanted, but he didn’t want incoming calls from Marc on that to arrive at inconvenient times.”

“Like when Adam Brewster was at home?” Ray asked.

“Exactly,” Monica said with a nod. “The same thing happened to me. I suspected my ex might be cheating, but I didn’t have any proof. Then one day while he was in the shower, I checked his pants pocket and found his burner. Outgoing calls only when I was home. Two-way calls when I wasn’t. I threw him out of the house that very day and filed for a divorce the day after that.”

Ray had known Monica Burns was divorced, but he’d never before been privy to any of the details.

“You think maybe the two of them are having an affair?” Ray asked.

“I’d be willing to bet on it,” Monica said, “but why would the two of them decide to murder Chuck Brewster?”

“I think Joel saw the possibility of a big payday. He knew that Adam was in the process of mending fences with his father—perhaps even pushed him to do so because Chuck Brewster was loaded. If Chuck was out of the way, and if Clarice went to prison for his murder, there’s a good chance that the bulk of Chuck’s estate would end up going to his biological son, which, since they’re married, would also put all that wealth inside Joel’s sphere of influence.”

“So, motive, means, and opportunity?”

“Yup,” Ray said. “Sounds like a home run to me. How soon can we be on a flight to Huntington Beach?”

Monica quickly went to work making travel arrangements—flight, hotel, and car rental. She booked them on a flight from Paine Field in Everett to Orange County leaving at 4:33 that very afternoon, and she found rooms at the airport Embassy Suites. Ray was fine with all of it.

Once the travel arrangements were in place, both detectives headed home to pack. “Remember,” Monica reminded him, “as police officers, we can carry concealed weapons on the plane, but we’ll need to go through an extra step of security to make that happen. See you at the airport.”

By 3:30 they had filled out the proper concealed weapon forms, cleared security at Paine Field, and were waiting to board. That’s when Ray finally got around to calling the phone number Chief Nelson had given him.

“Detective Ortega, Huntington Beach Homicide Squad. I’m assuming this is one of our visiting dignitaries?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m Detective Ray Horn. Sorry I didn’t call earlier. Detective Burns and I will be flying into Santa Ana Airport this evening, arriving around seven thirty.”

“What do you need and how can we help?”

“We have two subjects, and we’ll need locations for both of them. Marc Atherton is most likely the muscle. We have an arrest warrant on him. We suspect that Joel Franklin, the husband of our homicide victim’s son, is the mastermind, but we don’t yet have enough for an arrest warrant on him. The thing is, once we take Atherton into custody, we’ll need to make sure there’s no opportunity for any communication between him and Joel.”

“Gotcha,” Detective Ortega replied. For the next few minutes, Ray brought his counterpart into the picture. By the time the briefing was finished, he and Monica had boarded the plane, and the flight attendants were preparing to close the doors.

“Okay,” Detective Ortega said. “While you’re in the air, we’ll do our best to locate and put unmarked surveillance on both individuals. Give me a call as soon as you’re on the ground. Will you need transportation?”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Ray said. “We’ve got a rental. See you when we get there.”