The Eustice Murders (Complete)

*Chapter 12*

Sam parked the car and the guys made their way back into the station, passing detective Sarah Brookes along the way.

"Afternoon," Sam greeted her, attempting to put an end to the hostilities. She stopped in her tracks and gave him a rather unfriendly look without offering any kind of vocal response. "How's the investigation going? Any luck with the hotel stabbing?" Sam persevered, trying to be as friendly as he could.

"Are you serious right now?" she snapped with a sharp tone in her voice. "Like stealing the one case from us isn't enough you now need to try and muscle in on a second one?"

"I'm sorry I wasn't....I didn't mean....oh, never mind." Sam abandoned his attempt at explaining his motivation for asking and continued on his way back to the office, although as he walked away he could almost feel the angry stare coming his way from the irate local. Hank looked the other way as he walked passed her doing all he could to prevent himself from laughing at his partner's misfortune. Sam opened the office door and slumped into his chair, closely followed by Hank, who was still grinning from his partner's encounter. "Yeah, yeah, ok don't say it," Sam grumbled as he saw the look on Hank's face. "Was worth a try though, I mean they can't hold this grudge against us forever surely?"

"Who knows mate, who knows." Hank smiled as he poured himself a fresh coffee before firing up his laptop. "Now then, where were we? I think at least one of us needs to look into that warehouse."

"Agreed," Sam nodded. "I was looking into the other shareholders for the blue Coast Inn to see if any of them have any other dealings with Drummond."

"Ok, I was going to check out the other employees at Apex for the same reason."

Sam thought about this for a moment. "To be honest," he began, "there's something about that hotel that bothers me, I don't know what but my instincts are telling me to keep looking into that."

"I'm happy with that," Hank replied, "my gut feeling is that Apex is going to be a dead-end anyway, so I've no problem stepping away from that for a while."

"Done deal then," Sam smiled. "You pick up the warehouse and I'll keep digging into the hotel." They both agreed and got stuck into their respective tasks. They hadn't been searching for long when Captain Beesley knocked on the door.

"Hey guys how's it going?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, research, research, and more research," Hank told him.

"Yeah, it's slowly piling up," Sam added.

"About that," the captain responded, "I know it was a fresh scene and all that but I couldn't help but feel bad about not being able to answer any of your questions earlier today so ever since I got back I've been looking into the warehouse." Hank sat upright listening intently while Sam looked on longingly, cursing his bad luck.

"What did you find?" Hank asked.

"The warehouse itself is owned by a rather large company named Diabridge Enterprises and up until seventeen days ago, it was rented out by electrical wholesalers. They're still operating, however, they've just moved to a smaller premises; I've got some details on them including their new address here." The captain dropped a piece of paper onto Hank's desk. "I'm guessing they were using it as a storage facility rather than a shop itself," Captain Beesley explained.

"Oh, nice one," Hank smiled. "I was literally just looking into that myself," he said, pointing towards his laptop.

The captain nodded. "I thought one of you would be, I was hoping to catch you on your way back in from the scene but I was busy at the time. Had a couple of things I needed to deal with first," he told them.

'"No problem, that's a great help thank you," Hank told him. The captain looked at the whiteboard on the wall and scanned his eyes over the notes they had made.

"Good stuff," he said, nodding at each of the detectives in turn. "Anything else you need, you know where I am," he added before making his exit from the office.

"Wow, he really doesn't miss much does he?" Hank questioned.

"No, not at all," Sam answered with a slight frown. "Speaking of which, what plans have you made for tonight?"

"None at all why? What are you thinking?" Hank swiveled around in his chair curious as to where this was leading.

"Just thinking of staying on for a couple of hours or so, nothing too late but enough to make it look better when we disappear early tomorrow," Sam suggested.

"Oh, I see what you mean; yeah I like that, good thinking. After today's events, I was worried I wasn't going to get to see the wife at all this weekend but I'm happy with that," Hank replied.

"Hopefully everything will be fine," Sam told him. "If anything crops up this afternoon or tomorrow morning, I'll see if I can cover it."

"Thanks, bud, I appreciate it," Hank beamed. They both smiled at each other before returning their attention back to the computer screens.

"Well, I guess I can close that down now then," Hank chuckled, referring to the search on the empty warehouse he had just begun working on. "I'll give them a ring instead to see if I can find out if anyone has been cleaning the place."

"It's about time one of us got some luck on this case," Sam conceded before muttering the words, "Lucky bastard," under his breath.

Hank picked up on it straight away though and burst into full-on laughter. Sam shook his head but smiled at the same time. After recomposing himself, Hank picked up the phone and dialed the number on the sheet of paper the captain had given him.

"Hello, is this...," Hank started, and soon Sam tuned him out till he heard the muttered, "thanks, and goodbye."

"Any luck?" Sam asked after he had hung up the call.

"At the moment, no," Hank explained. "They are using a cleaning company but no one we've come across to before. I did ask who they have used in the past though, and they're going to get the accounts people to look into it and call me back tomorrow," Hank said, leaning back in the chair.

"Nice one," Sam told him.

"I suppose until they get back to me I may as well go back to checking up on the Apex guys," Hank said, tapping away on his laptop once more.