Page 16 of Unhallowed Murder (A Paranormal Halloween #2)

Chapter Fourteen

Ronnie called the prosecutor on the way back to the station to see if she had enough for a warrant to search his house.

“What are we looking for?”

“The murder weapon, or anything else that might prove he killed his girlfriend.”

She laughed. “Tell your men to get with Corey and get me a better list, and I’ll see what I can do.

Assaulting an officer when told you wanted to question him might be enough, but…

” She blew out a breath. “You already know I can’t get one because your gut says he did it.

” A pause. “It’s enough to get my attention, though.

Why is it always the husband or boyfriend?

It’s enough to make a girl stay single. ”

Ronnie could’ve stepped into the bathroom, managed a partial change , and fixed her face, but she needed her jaw and cheek to flower into a full bruise. She popped a few aspirin to help move things along, because her shapeshifter genes would make her heal faster even if she didn’t change .

When she walked into her murder room, her men had her little scuffle with Griffin playing on a continuous loop. She rolled her eyes and made a beeline for her office, but Eye of the Tiger started playing, and she couldn’t help but smile. “Get back to work! Henderson, Myers, Corey — in my office!”

“He played football and baseball in high school,” Corey told her when he walked in.

“Worked a number of odd jobs before taking the exam to work for the federal government at twenty-one. He went to work for the post office, sorting. He was married six months later, divorced three years later with one child, and his wife pregnant with another. Griffin roughed her up at six months pregnant, put her in the hospital. She filed for divorce before she was even released from the hospital, along with a request for a restraining order, which was dropped before it made it in front of a judge.”

“How does he have a carry license with domestic violence charges?”

“Nothing stuck.”

“Where does the ex-wife work?”

“She’s remarried. Works for her husband. He’s an artist and she’s his manager. ”

Ronnie blew out a breath. She might learn something from the ex-wife, but probably nothing immediately useful, and Ronnie needed to get to this guy before he came to his senses and lawyered up.

“Okay, so he has supervised visitation for his own kids, but he’s in charge of other people’s kids at church. Did he ever marry again?”

“No. Looking through social media, he’s only been at this church two years, and he left his last church because it was no longer a good fit .”

Ronnie immediately knew she needed to talk to that pastor to find out what’d gone wrong. Corey read her face and set a piece of paper down with the name of the church, the name of the pastor, and a phone number.

It took a few minutes to get him on the phone, and Ronnie dove straight in.

“Pastor Davis. I’m Lieutenant Woods with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, and I’d like to ask you some questions about Mick Griffin.

I won’t take up much of your time, and I hate to do this over the phone, but I just need a quick rundown of why he left your church and started going to another, please. ”

“I don’t like to speak badly of any of God’s children.”

“I understand, sir, but I’m trying to establish a pattern, so even if you just hit the high spots, it will help me immensely.”

“When we reorganized our youth division, we had too many Sunday school teachers, and so he was no longer needed. Also, our new youth director became assistant coach to a retired schoolteacher who’d coached for a local high school, so we didn’t need Mick’s help there, either.”

Ronnie read between the lines. They’d had problems and needed to get him away from the kids, but the preacher wasn’t going to put the church in legal jeopardy by admitting a teacher or coach may have gotten rough with some kids. That was okay for the time being. It gave her a starting point.

“Okay, Pastor. I may need to talk to you in person and hear more details than you’re willing to give right now, but you’ve confirmed a suspicion. One more thing, if you can tell me when he joined your church, and which church he’d come from?”

“I can do that. Give me just a minute.”

He must’ve put her on hold, because she heard nothing for a moment, and then a woman picked up and gave her the dates and previous church. Ronnie wrote them down, did the math in her head, and realized he’d only been at that church a year and a half.

“There’s something else, Ma’am.”

The woman sounded hesitant, and she spoke softly. Ronnie’s hackles went up, but she merely said, “Yes? What else?”

“He went to Cancun with a girl he met at church, and she died while they were on vacation. Was found floatin’ in the swimmin’ pool. The Mexican police ruled it a drownin’, and since she didn’t have no family, she was cremated down there, so no one would have to pay to ship her home.”

“Thank you for that information. It isn’t in any of my paperwork because it happened outside the country. What’s your name, Ma’am?”

Ronnie got her information, hung up, and turned to Corey. “How do we even try to find information about women he left the country with who didn’t make it home?” While he considered the question, she lifted her phone and called Perry’s extension.

“Are you deep into something?”

“What do you need?”

She told him what she’d found, and he said, “You need me to keep following the trail back, see what churches he went to, and find someone gossipy at each church to give me dirt.”

“Yes, please.”

She saw him push away from his desk as he said, “I’m on it. I’ll phone anything big I get into Corey.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.”

Ronnie sensed a change in the room, and saw Commander Frost marching through her murder room. She stood when he entered her office.

“Commander.”

“Lieutenant. When are you going to let the men handle the bad guys who weigh twice what you do?”

She rolled her eyes and grinned. “He killed her, Sir. Now I just have to prove it.”

“Gut, or do you have something tangible?”

“Motive, means, and opportunity.”

He lifted an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. “I’m going on my gut again, Sir. Please tell me you aren’t going to keep me out of the box?”

“No, we need you in there, but you can’t be alone with him.”

“He’ll be handcuffed, and I took care of him the first time, I’ll take care of him again if he acts up.”

“And you’ll piss him off to get a reaction, right? He’s going to act up again because you’ll make sure he does.”

She grinned and shrugged. “Whatever works, Sir.”

He sat in a chair across from her, and she sat, too.

“Tell me.”

It was an order, and she went through what she knew and what she assumed, and pointed out she wanted to get to him sooner rather than later, and not let him stew so long he asked for his lawyer. He stood with a nod.

“You think it’s more than the two women?”

“There’s a damned good chance. I’m going to try to nail him on Wendy Abrams today, but we’re going to have to dig to see what else we can find.”

“Okay. Let’s work on getting enough for a search warrant. I assume you have someone sitting on his house to make sure no one cleans it out for him?”

She nodded, he nodded, and he was gone.