"What did you see?" Brian asked immediately upon seeing Nick enter his office. Nick sighed and sat down at one of the chairs across from Brians desk.
"Well I got bored and decided to move in for a closer look," Nick confessed, not wanting Brian to force it out of him. "There was an open window at the side of the house. I stood outside it and I could hear everything that was going on."
"They didn't see you did they?"
"No. No one saw me."
"Good. So what did you hear?"
"Nothing much really. McLean basically gave them his condolences and they were on there way."
"That was it?"
"Basically. April and Howie got into an arguement and left but not before Howie told McLean to stay away from his sister."
"How did he sound? Was he angry?"
"He sounded really pissed, but I couldn't see anything because I was trying to keep out of site," Nick explained.
"Do you know what he meant by 'stay away from his sister'?" Brian questioned.
"No, he didn't really give a reason. I guess it's because he's been working with us and he doesn't want anything to happen to his sister."
"Maybe but we shouldn't assume anything," Brian informed his partner.
"So what are we gonna do now?"
"I don't know," he sighed. "I'll be right back stay here."
"Alright," Nick replied as Brian made his way out of the office. Brian quickly made his way to his cousins office.
"Kev, you need to do something for me," Brian stated from the doorway, making Kevin look up from his desk.
"Sure, what do you need."
"Run a background check on a Howard Dorough."
"Is that the guy you have helping you?"
"Yeah," Brian answered relcutantly.
"So is there any reason why you have me doing a background check?"
"My partner saw him go to McLean's house and he said something didn't seem right," he explained.
"We don't know what he was doing there..."
"Nick listened in on them," he interrupted. "He heard a minor argument, nothing serious and I just have a gut feeling about this."
"Why was Nick there?" Kevin asked.
"I don't know. He said that he wanted to do something."
"Was he seen?"
"No."
"You do know that what he did was dangerous right?"
"Kev, I know that but there isn't anything that we can do about that now. I told him not to do that any more unless ordered, but you know what, this just might help us with this case."
"I'll get you the check as soon as I can," Kevin said.
"Thanks Kev." Kevin nodded and Brian made his way back to his office.
"What happened?" Nick asked as Brian walked back in.
"I talked to my cousin, he's going to run a check on Howie."
"Why Howie?"
"Because the check we did on McLean came back clean and now I just have a gut feeling about this guy. I just want to check it out."
"He doesn't seem like the type of guy that would have a record," Nick commented.
"Yeah well sometimes things aren't as they seem and I thought you would have figured that out by now. There are a lot of people out there that don't seem that they are the type to have a record but they do. You see this stuff on tv sometimes when they talk to people that knew these murderers and stuff and they all say 'he seemed like a nice guy.' Don't be fooled by that," Brian warned.
"Alright," Nick replied. "What are we going to do if something turns up?"
"I don't know, it depends on what we find."
"You think we'll find anything that is of some substance?" Nick questioned. Brian looked Nick, thinking about his question before answering.
"I have no idea," Brian answered honestly.
"How are we going to treat this guy if there is something in his past?"
"Most importantly, we can't let him know that we're on to him. We would have to treat him just as we have been so that he doesn't find out that we know something," Brian explained. "From that, we're just going to have to wait and see how things go."
Chapter 14