“Want to know what happened to your friend Nooley, Roz? He’s dead. Got a bullet between the eyes.”
Silence.
“That’s what happens to men who fail me. Who fail FreeNow.”
“I hear you.”
“I hope you do. I hope you hear me loud and clear. Because I expect you over here in ninety minutes. I’ll call in one of our techs. He’ll go through that woman’s computer and make sure she hasn’t sent the video anywhere.”
“Yeah, okay.” Fear had crept into Roz’s voice. “Ninety minutes.”
Stone punched off the call and threw his phone on the table.
Chapter 10
SPECIAL HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION INTO FREENOW TERRORIST ACTIVITY OF FEBRUARY 25, 2013
SEPTEMBER 16, 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Representative ELKIN MORSE (Chairman, Homeland Security Committee): So you entered the home of Morton Leringer along with his daughter, Cheryl Stein—and found that his alarm was not on. What did you then discover in that home?
Sergeant CHARLES WADE (Sheriff’s Department Coastside): Let me backtrack a little. There is a semicircular driveway in front of the house. As Mrs. Stein and I approached and went up the porch steps, I noticed drops of what appeared to be blood. When we entered the large foyer I saw more drops leading to an office to the right of the foyer. In that office I discovered the body of a man lying on the floor. He’d been beaten and stabbed. We later learned the identity of the victim. Nathan Eddington, a security technician at StarrCom, a company owned by Leringer’s ML Corporation. From that point I declared the house a crime scene, which would entail taping off the property and calling in techs to go through the house thoroughly.
In the meantime I escorted Mrs. Stein through the rest of the house so she could look for anything out of order or missing. I also checked windows and doors. A rear door to the garage had been broken into. It stood ajar, its lock mechanism bent and forced. There did not appear to be anything missing from the house. Other than what I’ve already noted, plus signs of a struggle in the office, it looked as if nothing had been disturbed. Morton Leringer’s car, a Mercedes sedan, still sat in the garage.
MORSE: What did you surmise from this evidence?
WADE: My best theory at the time was that someone had broken into the Leringer home while Leringer and Eddington were meeting in the office. The perpetrator may have surprised the two men. Judging from the defense wounds on Nathan Eddington, I’d say he put up a fight. Leringer was stabbed, but managed to escape. Perhaps he had time to get away while the perpetrator fought with Eddington. Leringer would have been running for his life, but he was already seriously wounded. Rather than head across the large house to his garage for his own car, he chose to go down the front steps to Eddington’s car and drive away. He managed to get some distance down Tunitas Creek Road before wrecking the car.
MORSE: In previous testimony you told this committee the car Morton Leringer was driving at the time of his accident belonged to Nathan Eddington. Correct?
WADE: Yes. We ran the plates after towing away the car.
MORSE: And that . . . Let me check my notes . . . You called Nathan Eddington’s home and spoke with his wife, who confirmed he’d driven the car to work.
WADE: Yes. When I tried to reach Mr. Eddington at his work—StarrCom—I was informed he’d left the office in a hurry and hadn’t told anyone where he was going. That’s the last we knew of his whereabouts until discovering his body. So our theory of a meeting between Eddington and Leringer at Leringer’s house, that meeting being interrupted by the perpetrator, and Leringer escaping in Eddington’s car—it all seemed to fit.
MORSE: How did you explain Leringer’s having Eddington’s car keys?
WADE: Actually that detail points to the crucial, hurried nature of the meeting between Leringer and Eddington. I surmised that in his rush to get into the house, Eddington had left the keys in his car.
MORSE: How would Leringer know they’d been left there?
WADE: I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe in his pain and fear he chose to run down the front steps and discovered Eddington’s keys in the car.
MORSE: Mere coincidence in this crucial moment, you’re saying.
WADE: Coincidence, providence—whatever you want to call it. That’s not so unusual. What would be more unusual is Leringer asking Eddington for his car keys while the man was being fatally attacked.
MORSE: My question did not invite sarcasm, Sergeant Wade.
WADE: None was intended.
MORSE: I’ll take that at face value.
Now, circling back to Mrs. Shire. What did the discovery of Nathan Eddington’s body, and your theory of the crime scene, lead you to believe regarding Hannah Shire?