Unjustified by Valerie Kossew Dunn

Author:Valerie Kossew Dunn [Dunn, Valerie Kossew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781491795057
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2016-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

14

THOUGH DINA NEVER COMPLETED HER 911 CALL from Augusta Scott's house, the East Haven emergency switchboard operator had been able to pinpoint the location of the call. In response, an East Haven patrol car had shown up moments after the discovery of Scott's body. And despite the fact that the Scott murder had taken place in East Haven, and could have come under local jurisdiction, the East Haven Police Department agreed to a joint investigation with the State's Major Crime Squad. In the first place, there was an apparent link between the Mitchell and Scott homicides. Also, Barrett, Blaustein and Gardner of the Major Crime Squad had been the first law enforcement officers on the scene. So the local and state police departments joined forces and for the sake of efficiency, the Chisholm command center was transferred to a conference room in the East Haven Police Department. Blaustein and Gardner were assigned to head up the joint investigation assisted by East Haven Detectives, Charlie Latima and Josh Seymour.

Josh Seymour was an old-timer who had not been promoted in years and did not expect to be. In contrast, Latima was young, ambitious and bucking for promotion. He saw the Scott murder as exactly the sort of high profile case that could boost his career and he made no secret of the fact that he resented the intrusion of the State cops. Blaustein did not need to be hit over the head to recognize the signs. He knew all about out-of-joint noses. He had met a lot of cops like Latima. So, summing up the situation immediately, he made a point of including Latima and his partner in all the official briefings and he involved them in every aspect of the investigation. He did not have time to worry about backbiting. But he made sure when parceling out team assignments, that Latima was kept out from under his own feet.

For the sake of efficiency, Latima's crew was assigned to question the beachfront residents and to comb the beach for clues. Their first find was a broom found at the high water mark about a half-mile from the Scott house. It was quite new and still bore the tag of a local hardware store. As new brooms aren't customarily discarded on wintery beaches, the cops figured that it may well have been used to eliminate all trace of the perpetrator's footprints. The broom itself yielded no answers however, not even a useful fingerprint. But it did turn out to be Augusta Scott's broom. At the local hardware store, the owner remembered selling it to her.

"A nice lady. Real pleasant. Such a shame," The storekeeper said, shaking his head. "She was a real do-it-yourselfer. She came in here for one thing or another damn near every Saturday morning."

The questioning of Scott's neighbors likewise turned up little. With one exception, most of them had been away at work when Scott was killed. The exception was a retired school teacher who had walked her dog along the beach that morning.

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