Missing in Miami

Chapter 14

Blake and I went to Howard Edwards’ house, we arrived just as the coroner did. The forensic team was already on scene and had started to process the house. We followed the coroner to the bedroom, where Edwards body was spread across the bed.

I asked the coroner, “any guess on how long he has been dead, Doc?”

He picked up Edwards’ hand, “he not completely cold yet, until I take his temperature, my guess would be less than two hours.”

I elbowed Blake and nodded my head toward Edwards’ left hand, Blake looked and asked, “what?”

I said, “the pill bottle.”

Blake shrugged, “yeah, the captain said he had pills in one hand, and bottle in the other, so?”

I said, “a brown bottle with a red cap, doesn’t that look familiar?”

His eyes went wide, “shit, it’s the same kind of bottle we found in Jesse’s bag.”

We told the forensic team about the bottle and told them to compare it to the one we brought to lab. We did a quick walk around the rest of the house and went back out to the front lawn to talk to the housekeeper. She was leaning against one of the patrol cars that was at the scene.

I introduced myself and asked, “what time did you arrive this morning?"

She said, “at 10:00, just like every day, Mr. Edwards is my 10 o’clock, it takes me about 1 to 2 hours to clean his house.”

I asked, “did you notice anything unusual when you first entered the house?”

She shook her head, “no, I always start in the kitchen, I do the dishes, then to the main bath, that takes about half an hour. I do the bathroom off his bedroom next, that’s when I found Mr. Edwards.”

“Do you have a key to enter the house?”

She said, “no, there is a keypad on the lock, Mr. Edwards gave me the code to get in.”

“So, the front door was locked when you arrived?”

She sighed, “yes.”

I asked her a few more questions, she was clearly upset, and it was obvious that she had nothing to do with Mr. Edwards death. Two other pairs of officers walked up to us, they had just come back from talking to all the neighbors. They told us that none of the neighbors had noticed anything strange this morning. I wasn’t surprised, this was a very exclusive neighborhood. Most of the people here believed they were the center of the universe and if it didn’t directly affect them, they didn’t pay any attention or care. They brought Edward’s body out and headed to the morgue, Blake and I went back to the station, we would have to wait for the coroner to complete the autopsy find out the cause of death.

Blake said, “do you want to make a wager that Edwards didn’t kill himself?”

I nodded, “but someone wants us to think that he did.”

***

Rob was watching as Chuck was pacing between the front door and his office, pausing only to make or take a phone call every few minutes. One of the other guys was always out on the front porch of the house, they would switch off every couple of hours.

Rob sat down next to Alex, Alex asked, “what do you think is going on?”

Rob shrugged, “I have no idea, but they sure are nervous all of the sudden.”

Alex nodded, “yeah, maybe the cops are closing in on us.”

Rob said, “I hope so, I can’t believe the rest of these guys are happy to be here.”

Alex agreed, “yeah, I noticed that too.”

Rob asked, “where were you before they brought you here?”

Alex shook his head, “it was some big hotel downtown.”

They continued to talk about the last few days, Alex even admitted that he may have fallen for Omar, and he didn’t know how to feel about it.

***

We got back to the office, Ollie greeted us, “I have good news and bad news, what do you want first?”

I rolled my eyes, “ok, hit me with the bad.”

He sighed, “the judge turned down the search warrant on the apartment building, he said we didn’t have probable cause.”

I said, “yeah, I knew that was a long shot, we do need a better reason than Wayne Harding telling us he thinks something shady is going on there. What’s the good news?”

He grinned, “I have the house we are looking for narrowed down to 10 houses, I was right, it is one of those in the country. I have requested the names of the property owners from the assessor’s office, I should have it by the end of the day. I’ll bet one of those houses is owned by Howard Edwards.”

I smiled, “good job kid, let me know as soon as you get that list.”

Blake said, “yeah, way to go Ollie.” He turned to me, “I think I’ll give Wayne Harding a call, now that his boss is dead, maybe he can get into some of his records.”

I nodded, “yeah, that’s a good idea, we really need to know who leased that top floor.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for calls from the assessor’s office, the coroner and Wayne Harding.

Wayne Harding called first, he told us that the Edwards Group’s lawyers had just told him that he should cooperate with us, and he was in the process of going through Edwards’s files, trying to locate the information on the lease of the top floor of the Regency. He would call back as soon as he found anything. The coroner had just wrapped up the autopsy and would have his report ready first thing in the morning. Ollie said he would also have the list he was waiting for in the morning. The captain told us to go home and get some rest.

I nodded, “yeah, that’s probably a good idea, I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

Lucy greeted me at the front door as we went through our daily ritual. I let her out the backdoor as Lucas gave me a kiss and my rum and Coke.

He asked, “how’s the case going?”

I took a big drink and said, “good and bad, we finally get a name of a person of interest and a couple hours later he turns up dead. We have another lead on possible location, and we can’t get a search warrant. The good news is we have narrowed another location down to ten houses.”

Lucas said, “wow, you have had a busy day.”

I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a hug, “yes I did, I need a shower, care to join me?”

He gave me a kiss, “try and stop me.” He returned my hug, “damn Drake, you are so tense, I think you also need a massage.”

I gave him a grin, “well, if you insist.”

We washed each other clean as we kissed and fondled each other, I was anxious to get to the message. We dried off and went into our bedroom, I fell face first down on our bed. Lucas climbed on top of me, his hard cock nestled into the crack of my ass. He ran his hands up and down my back, then his magic fingers began to knead my shoulders. I groaned as I felt the tension leave my entire body. Lucas was soon using his whole body to rub mine, leaving me totally relaxed. He started to kiss my neck and ran his tongue in my ear, nearly causing me to pass out. Have I told you that he really knows how to push all my buttons? He kissed his way down my back, he paused to give me a kiss on each of my cheeks. He pulled my hips up slightly and pulled my dick back to give it a good sucking. He licked my balls and continued on to tongue my waiting hole. I reached back and spread my cheeks as he pushed his tongue in and out, getting my ass ready for that amazing cock. He had me begging for his cock at this point, he gave my pucker one final lick before he aimed his rigid pole at my winking manhole. Lucas leaned forward as he sank in until his nuts were tight against my ass cheeks. I moaned as he began to piston in and out, he was hitting my love button with every stroke. From the sounds he was making, I knew Lucas was getting close. I flexed my ass muscles a couple of times and was rewarded with the warm creamy seed that Lucas squirted all over my guts. Once he had his last spasm, I rolled over to give him a deep passionate kiss. I pushed him onto his back with his legs straight in the air. I gave his cock, balls and ass the same treatment that he had given mine a few minutes before. My cock was ready to burst, I moved into position and slowly pushed in as we once again began to make out. Lucas held onto my ass as I moved in and out, I watched his eyes roll back in his head. I like to fuck him in the missionary position, he always makes the cutest faces. I felt my nuts tighten as Lucas pulled me in as tight as he could, a second later I was painting his love tunnel with my creamy man seed. We collapsed into a heap, our sweaty bodies just seemed to meld together. Once we caught our breath, we took another quick shower and cuddled together and drifted off to sleep.

I got up early the next morning and was making scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast when Lucas walked into the kitchen.

He gave me a kiss, “good morning, Drake, I love the smell of bacon in the morning.”

I returned the kiss, “and I love the smell of you in the morning.”

I filled our plates as Lucas poured us each a cup of coffee, we sat down and ate our breakfast. When we finished, we cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Lucas reached into the pocket of his scrubs and pulled out a pill bottle and set it on the counter.

I asked, “where did you get that?”

He asked, “where did I get what?”

I pointed to the counter, “that bottle, the brown one with the red cap.”

He looked at me confused, “from the hospital, I had a headache yesterday and didn’t have any aspirin. I went to the pharmacy, and they gave me some, this is the bottle they put them in. Why?”

I asked, “is that the kind of bottles all pharmacies have?”

He said, “I guess so, I mean the bottle is the same, but each hospital has a different color cap. My hospital has red, Faith Regional has Blue and I think Miami General uses white. Why, what’s going on?”

I said, “we found a bottle just like that in a shaving kit that belongs to our suspect, and another one at the scene where our other suspect killed himself.”

Lucas’s eyes went wide, “do you think someone at my hospital is giving your bad guys drugs?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, but I am going to have to look into it.”

I took the bottle and went straight to the narcotics squad, I told them where it came from and how it was related to my case. They told me that they already had an open case, Lucas’s hospital had reported a discrepancy in their pharmacy a couple weeks ago and they were close to making an arrest. They would keep me posted.

I filled Blake and Ollie in on the pill bottle, as the coroner walked into my office.

I said, “morning Doc, what’s the verdict?”

He handed me a file, “well, Mr. Edwards had traces of drugs, but there was no alcohol in his system.  I am still waiting for the results from the toxicology tests, but I am sure it will probably be the same drug that you found in that beer bottle.”

I asked, “so why did the drug kill Edwards and not our other victims?”

Doc said, “Edwards was twice the age of your victims, he had a bad heart, and he was also given 6 to 8 pills, I would guess your victims were only given 1 pill. That would just knock them out for a few hours.”

Blake nodded, “just as we thought Ridge.”

Ollie asked, “do you think that Jesse got to Mr. Edwards?”

I shrugged, “that’s a possibility, maybe he was getting back at him.”

The coroner said, “if this Jesse guy did do this, he had some help.”

I asked, “what do you mean?”

He said, “I found bruising on his arms, and around his chin and neck area. Like he was held and forced to swallow, while he was given the drugs. If I had to guess, there were two guys holding him, while a third forced the pills down his throat. It’s all there in my report.”

I said, “thanks Doc.”

He waved as he walked out, “no problem, just doing my job. Now you get the hard part, figuring out who did it.”

Blake said, “What do you think Ridge, are they tying up loose ends.”

I nodded, “yeah, it would appear so.”

Ollie was on his computer, he said, “oh good, it’s here.”

Blake asked, “what’s here?”

Ollie sent the list to the printer, “my homeowner list from the accessor’s office.” He came back and was looking through the list. He asked, “what should I be looking for?”

I said, “see if Howard Edwards owns any of those houses, then check all the names for anyone who has a criminal record, we’ll look at them first.”

Blake said, “well I guess I better make a call to Wayne Harding to see if he found anything yet.”

The captain walked in, he said, “you may want to want to go to St Joseph’s Hospital first.”

I asked, “why, what’s going on?”

He said, “a couple of patrol cops just came upon a fight, two thugs were kicking the shit of a guy. As soon as the thugs saw the cops they took off and left the guy lying in the alley. The thugs got away, and the ambulance is taking the other guy to the hospital right now.”

Blake asked, “what does this have to do with our case?”

Captain said, “the guy that was getting beat, matches the description of Jesse Synder.”

Blake looked at me, “yep, tying up loose ends.”

I nodded, “let’s go.”

We arrived at the hospital right after they had taken Jesse into the ER. The nurse told us that he was unresponsive, and we had to wait until the doctor said we could talk to him. We got a cup of coffee and waited for about an hour. While we waited, Blake tried calling Wayne Harding, he was in a meeting and Blake was told he would call as soon as he was finished.

The doctor finally came out to talk to us, he said, “we have him stabilized, but he is in very critical condition. We had to induce a coma, there is severe brain swelling. I can’t tell you for sure when he will wake up, or even if he will wake up.”

 

To be continued…