Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (the reading list .TXT) 📕

When Dr. Montgomery arrived, he’d no doubt see a glow from his bedroom. Brooks had no plan how he’d subdue the man, at least initially, but he didn’t care.

“Everything is set up for you, Brooks,” Madison’s raspy voice called from the darkness. “All you have to do is finish him tonight and you will have satisfied my hunger…our hunger.”

Brooks couldn’t find it to smile at the pasty child, however he did acknowledge her by looking her way. Her faded outline pressed against the wall; almost sucked into the wall.

Headlights flashed across the wall and Brooks grabbed his gun and hid behind the door, ready to strike. Dr. Montgomery took his sweet time entering the house, and Brooks had thought for a moment that he called the police, jeopardizing everything he’d worked for, but there was no sense of urgency coming from the doctor.

Montgomery made his way up the stairs untied his tie and unbuttoned his shirt as he did. Brooks could hear him let out a sigh and talk to himself from the other room.

“Christie, do you know how dangerous it is to keep the fire burning when you leave?” Brooks could tell he was on the phone. “Maybe it was Rachel then. Whoever it was, they’re going to be paying the deductible when this entire house goes up in flames. Was your nephew here or something? I don’t know. I’m going to put it out. Bye.”

He entered the room and turned on a lamp. Before he saw Brooks from behind the door, he walked to the fire and shook his head in disbelief.

From behind him, a voice said, “Good evening, Doctor.”

Chapter Forty-Two

“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” I said, scooping up my coffee from Harlow’s desk. “Follow me.” She logged out of the server and shuffled her papers.

“What’s this about?”

“I thought of something last night. In the cabin.”

“Well…?” She was impatient, but I was quickly on the move to Benjamin’s lab.

“Those names from the hairs,” I continued. “There’s a lot more to it than we thought. I cross-referenced the name Samuel Ingram with all of his criminal records, and the guy is no saint.”

“Meaning? Benjamin said it was a partial match of some sort. He wasn’t sure what the deal with it was. He told me it could be something like an incubation error. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.” She pulled my shoulder and I turned around.

“I think the match was familial.”

“Wait…you mean, the hair was a relative of Samuel Ingram?”

I nodded. “I think so. I don’t know. I need to talk to Benjamin.” I pushed the door into the lab, but there were three men in overalls with paint rollers, going over the white walls with a slightly darker white.

“What is going on here?” I asked.

“We’re…painting,” responded one of the men without looking up. “We started last night, but we’re finishing it up today.”

Benjamin walked through the door and waved for us to come over.

“Why are they painting our lab?” Harlow asked.

“We still haven’t spent our money yet, so the Commissioner is getting us all kinds of new things.” Benjamin looked excited. “Computers, microscopes, even windows.”

“Why is the lab shut down during several murder investigations?” I asked bluntly.

“Oh, it’s not shut down. I moved some of the instruments to my office. It’s a little cluttered, but it’ll still work.” We followed him to his office. “Full of questions today, are we Detective Trotter?”

“Yeah,” I responded. “And I have one more. What can you tell me about Samuel Ingram?”

He thought for a moment, then said: “One of the hair guys right? We found hair in the Maise trailer drain and at first I thought it belonged to this guy, but now I’m not so sure.” He turned on his computer screen and pushed some buttons to make it respond. “Bear with me, now that we’re getting all new stuff, they’re really taking their time when we request information on the old stuff.”

I looked at Harlow and shook my head.

“Ah,” he finally muttered. “Here we go. Yes, Samuel Ingram was killed in Paducah, Kentucky after a fight with a guy…who obviously had some martial arts training. Rodney Eller was a jujitsu trainer at a local gym.”

“Now, what about the DNA? What can you tell me about it?”

“I thought you were looking into the other guy…what was his name? Claxton?”

“We were, but not anymore,” I said, though we never took Claxton seriously. “Bradley Claxton was a low level criminal type. Got caught no matter what he did. Not a mastermind serial killer, that’s for sure.”

Benjamin scoured his computer screen and placed his finger up to it. “Here, the DNA was fully processed from the hair. Looked like just enough of a hair to get what we need, honestly.”

“What about it?”

“It’s not Samuel’s; that much I know,” he continued.  Harlow and I both looked at him. “Oh yeah, and also because he’s long dead.”

“What else?” I asked, more impatiently.

“It’s similar to the DNA we had from Samuel Ingram during his time in the system. This match is likely a family member. I’d say a close one, too. Maybe his child. Brother. Nephew?”

“So you can tell it has the Y chromosome?”

“That was the first thing you learn in medical school, John. Yes, I can tell the DNA is a male.”

“So, our killer is a relative of this Samuel Ingram guy?” Harlow asked, enthusiastically.

“This means that a relative’s hair was found in the Maise trailer,” I said.

“We need to get back to our desks and begin looking up other family members and check arrest records. Harlow, you and Welker work on looking up any Ingrams in Lincolnshire and surrounding areas. I’ll look up all known relatives of Samuel to see if there is anything