Chapter 11 The Older Generation

Jones and I were on our way to look into a lead for a cold case when I got the call. A new body was found in the suburbs and they needed us on the scene. Jones and I made our way there as soon as I got the call. In my short time as a detective, I've learned that I hate murders in the suburbs. There were too many prying eyes from neighbors. And the media liked murders in the suburbs.

When we got to the crime scene, we were met by an officer who automatically came up to us.

"You our detectives?" she asked as we made our way to her. I looked around the street before looking at the house.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm Detective Jones, this is Detective Barnes. What are we looking at?"

"Two vics. Floyd and Marlene Ambler. Both of them were sixty-three and married to each other. Both of them retired. The house was ransacked, so we're thinking burglary gone wrong. We're waiting for family members to show up to see if anything was taken. They were both killed by two gun shot wounds. Floyd had one in his leg and another in his throat. And Marlene had two straight to the chest," the officer explained as she led us inside.

"Any homes around here have security cameras?" I asked.

"A neighbor across the street has a front porch camera. They're looking through the footage to see if they can see anything," she said.

"Well this is sad," Jones said when we walked into the house. I saw what he meant. Two streaks of blood from different areas of the living room met in the hallway leading back into one of the bedrooms.

"They were an elderly couple," I said. "They didn't deserve this to happen to them."

"Will you let us know when the family shows up?" Jones asked the officer. "We'll need to ask them some questions."

"Of course," the officer nodded.

Jones and I made our way to the bedrooms, making sure not to step in the blood. I looked inside everyone bedroom as I passed. Once to the back bedroom, I saw the bodies. Floyd was further into the room, half hidden by the bed and Marlene was left right inside the door. CSI was already looking over the bedroom when we entered.

"Hey, guys," I said after I looked around. "Find anything useful, yet?"

"Only a beautiful woman who just walked in," a CSI said as he stared at me. I gave him a blank look.

"I thought she asked for something useful?" Jones asked. I didn't know if he was trying to get the CSI back on track or insult me, but at the moment, I didn't care.

"The man has injuries reflecting self-defense," another CSI spoke up moving towards Jones and I. "And if you look in the garage, you'll see workout equipment. He fought back against whoever did this."

"A sixty-something year old man still working out? That's weird," I said.

"I'm a sixty-something year old man who still works out," Jones said.

"That's different, though," I said. "You do it for your job. He was retired."

"What else have you found?" Jones asked in a monotone voice.

"Well obviously they were dragged in here," the second CSI continued. "They were killed in the living room. There's some bullet holes in there from where the assailant missed."

"Thanks. And you," I pointed at the one who tried to flirt with me, "respect your authority figures. And don't flirt with them. You're not going to get anywhere that way. I may be younger than you, but I am superior to you."

"Got it, ma'am," he muttered. He didn't bother to look up at me as he spoke. Must be embarrassed.

Jones and I exited the bedroom, and went back to the living room. I looked around the room once more. The pools of blood were on opposite ends of the room. I looked between them and then the blood drags.

"Can we talk to the officer who first came on the scene?" Jones asked a CSI who was in the room.

He nodded and exited the room, returning a minute later with a fat officer with a large, grey mustache. The officer smiled at Jones and I. The CSI went back to what he was doing.

"You're the one who was first on scene, Nicks?" Jones asked the man.

"Yessir! Heard the call over the scanner. I was on patrol nearby and came ASAP," he said with a booming voice.

"Who was the one who found the body and called 911?" I asked.

"The weekly gardener," Nicks said. "Said that Mr. Ambler always came out and said hello and talked to him for a while every time he came by. And when he didn't come out, the gardener went into the house to check on them. He saw all the blood and called 911 automatically. Poor fellow wanted to do the lawn work still."

"Do you know all the details that have been found out?" I asked.

"Sure do, little lady. Want me to tell ya?" Nicks asked.

"Yes please, start from the beginning, please," I said.

"Well the guy came in from the backdoor," Nicks started. "A total of ten shots were fired. Four into the bodies, six missed completely hitting different points in the room. Neighbors said that they heard what sounded like balloons popping at around eleven-thirty last night. So we can infer that's when they were killed."

"None of them thought that was odd?" I asked.

"There was a birthday party happenin' in a backyard down further down the street at the time," Nicks said. "And since the street is a dead-end and the party was down at that end, it's possible that they never went down that way. So we're sure that no one at the party saw anything."

"Have we gotten the footage from the neighbor?" Jones asked.

"Police sent it in to try to get a clearer look, brightenin' it and stuff like that," Nicks said. "They can see something running away from the house, but they haven't got a clear picture of the perp yet."

"Anything else that you can tell us?"

"Nope, told the both of ya everything that's been found," Nicks said.

Jones and I went around the neighborhood to talk to the neighbors for the next hour. We learned that the Amblers were a normal elderly couple. They were active in the community, kind to everyone on the street. They even stopped by and wished the boy whose birthday it was a happy birthday.

After an hour, the family arrived. Jones and I went up and talked to them. The family consisted of a man and woman and two teenage boys. The boys just stared at their grandparents' home. The woman cried into her husband's chest. The husband was trying to be strong by holding back his tears.

"Hello, my name is Detective Anastasia Barnes. This is my partner, Detective Hank Jones," I said. "First, I want to say how sorry we are for your loss."

"You're going to catch whoever did this, right?" the younger of the boys asked tearing his eyes away from the house to me.

"What can she do?" The older one snapped to his brother. "She's not much older than us. And she's not that fit. She can't do anything to catch the guy."

"Jonathan!" the woman snapped. "Stop that. She's only trying to do her job."

"Besides, she's got a partner," Jones said. He stepped up next to Jonathan and slapped a hand on his shoulder. Jonathan winced under Jones' strong grip and looked up at him with a worried gaze. "Why don't we go talk somewhere else, Little Man?"

Jones led the boy to the other side of the street by the shoulder. I turned back to the rest of the family. They were busy watching Jonathan walk away with Jones.

"We've talked to the neighbors and learned what kind of people they are," I said taking back their attention. "They seem like the type of people who would be everyone's grandparents."

"Well since we live over an hour away, we try to come down often. But my parents treated all children like they were their own grandchildren," the woman said.

"We believe that this was a robbery gone wrong," I said. "Did your parents have anything of extreme value in the house?"

"They had a hidden safe in the house," the woman said. "But no one knew where it was except my parents and my older brother. I have no idea what's in it."

"Grandpa told me once that they had cash in their safe," the boy spoke up.

"Did he tell you how much?" I asked.

"No. Jonny asked him how much was in there, and Grandpa just laughed saying we would have to wait until he was dead to find out," the boy said.

"Did they have a lot of money? They were retired, right?" I asked.

"Yes, they were retired. I knew that they were well-off, but we never talked about that sort of thing," the woman said.

"Kellie's brother Jonah is in charge of their estate. Only he knows a close estimate. He's driving up from Sacramento right now," the man said.

"Can you let me know when he gets into town?" I asked. I pulled out my wallet to grab a business card. "I'll need to talk with him as well."

"Of course," the man said as he took the card from me. "When is your partner going to be done talking to our son?"

"When he gets what he wants from him. Also when he thinks that he respects us - or me, I guess," I said with a sigh.

We watched as Jones towered over the boy and the boy shrink in on himself.

"Can I see your gun?" the younger boy asked out of no where.

"My gun? Why?" I asked.

"Because it's cool," the boy shrugged.

"Lewis, don't ask that," the boy's father said as he slapped the boy lightly on the back of his head.

"Okay, fine," the boy sighed. "Can I see crime scene?"

"Once we get everything we need out of there and it's cleaned up," I said.

"How old are you? I'm thirteen and my brother is seventeen. And you don't seem much older than him," the boy rattled on.

"I'm twenty-four."

"Are you single?"

"That's enough, Lewis," his father said more sternly.

"What Cousin Blake is her age and single. I'm trying to do him a favor," Lewis said.

"Detective Barnes has a very hard job with a lot of hours," Jones said from behind me. I jumped and turned to see Jones with his hand on the shoulder of Jonathan. "Even if she wanted to date, there wouldn't a lot of time to actually date. Now go over to your parents."

He walked over to his parents and Jones told them to call us if they needed anything. We then got into Jones's car and began to drive back to the station.

"The punk told me that his grandparents had a safe with cash in it," Jones said.

"The other teen said the same thing," I said. "Also the mom said no one knew where it was. Did anyone find a safe?"

"Nope. So maybe the perp took it," Jones shrugged.

"Or the vics are just really good at hiding it," I shrugged.

"You know they were pretty young to have grandkids in their mid-twenties like the younger one said," Jones said.

"You have grandkids, right?" I asked.

"Yeah but my grandkids don't act like punks like him."

Jones went on to talk about how the youth of today didn't know respect like older generations did. As he continued to rant, my phone rang.

"Detective Barnes," I answered the phone so I wouldn't have to continue listening to Jones.

"Well about time I heard your voice again. It's been to long, Sis."

"Lance! How are you?"

"I'm great, Ana. I was just wondering if you're busy tonight?" he asked.

"Except walking Murphy at the park, I have absolutely nothing planned," I said.

"Same park as usual?"

"Closest park to my apartment."

"Why don't I meet you there? We can hang out tonight, I'll even order us pizza," Lance offered.

"Do you want to invite EG or your fiancé?" I asked.

"No, I just want to spend time with my baby sister. And that scruffy dog of yours," Lance laughed.

"Okay, Lance. I'll be at the park at seven-thirty," I said. "Does that work for you?"

"Yeah, it does, Sis. I'll meet you there."

"Bye, Lancelot."

"Bye, Anastasia."

"Why do you call him by a nickname until you say goodbye?" Jones asked after I hung up.

"It's a dangerous world. My brothers and I made a promise to each other that if we think we're in danger, we call each other. And if we call each other by our nicknames at the end of the conversation it means we're in danger," I said.

"Has it worked before?" Jones asked.

"Yeah, once EG was at a party that didn't end up being what he thought it would," I said. "He called Lance and he automatically knew to go pick him up."

"So let's say you were on a date. Your date was acting weird, you would call your brothers and it would sound like a normal conversation to the guy, but your brothers would know to come get you," Jones said.

"Yeah. My dad was the one who came up with the idea," I said.

"Let's have something like that. At the end of a call if I call you anything other than Kid, I'm in trouble."

"And if I call you Hank, I'm in trouble."

"Deal. Now don't get me started on the way the new generation dresses."

I groaned and began to hit my head against the headrest as he continued.