Chapter 53
BALLISTICS MATCHED THEgun found at Baron’s property to the bullets that killed Costa and Swanson,” said Decker.
He was sitting at the Mitchells’ kitchen table with Jamison.
“Lassiter just called me. She sounded the happiest I’ve ever heard her,” he added. “And they also found all of the drug stuff in the pottingshed. They ran prints and matched it to Swanson. Baron obviously just left it there even after we told him about it.”
“So, Lassiter finally nails the Baron family,” said Jamison. “But do you believe he did it?”
“Anyone could have planted that gun there,” noted Decker. “And Lassiter found it pretty fast.”
“She never said where she found it.” noted Jamison.
“She told me later. It was in the gun room, in one of the glass cabinets with some of the other pistols.”
“So was he counting on the fact that hiding a gun among other guns was a smart idea?”
“Well, it didn’t turn out to be.”
“With all the grudges people here have against him, I don’t see how John gets a fair trial.”
“Hopefully he’ll lawyer up and they’llprobably end up changing venues for the trial.”
“What’s his story?” asked Jamison.
“That he knows nothing about the gun and doesn’t know where it came from.”
“Prints?”
“Lassiter said no. But it could have been wiped clean.”
“There are too many moving parts to this whole thing, Decker.”
His phone buzzed before he could answer. The calllasted a few minutes, with Decker mostly listening and asking brief questions. Finally he said, “Thanks,” and hung up.
“What’s going on?” Jamison said.
“That was Agent Kemper. I’d asked her about life insurance policies.”
“Why?”
Decker explained to her what he had discussed earlier with the DEA agent.
“So what did she find out?”
“Overthe last three years or so, nearly three hundred people in Baronville have died from drug overdoses. And about half had life insurance policies of at least half a million bucks. Quite a few had policies of over a million dollars.”
“My God, that’s almost one person dying every three days.”
“And that’s also a lot of money cumulatively. Kemper said the insurance companies hadinvestigated a lot of them, but apparently each of the policyholders she could find out about had undergone a medical exam and had no history of drug abuse. So, at least in those cases, the money was paid out to the beneficiaries.”
“Damn, so is that the new American dream? Sign a relative up for life insurance and wait for them to OD to cash in?”
“Let’s hope not.”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
Jamison said, “So what will happen with Baron now that he’s been arrested?”