Two in a Million

Missing

Forensic evidence, to a detective, is fuel. It begins to propel the vehicle of a homicide investigation into motion. All cops want that one lead—be it a hair, a fingerprint, a dropped cigarette butt, anything—that will send them in a direction.

Any direction.

Detective John Souza

Homicide Detective John Souza, a serious man with a sharp eye for detail—Souza was one of those cops who brought his work home with him, no doubt about it—and dedication, a salt-and-pepper mustache and slicked back, black hair (shiny, same as Dean Martin during his Rat Pack days), arrived on the scene to the greeting of his colleague, Detective Sergeant Dale Caudle.

It wasn't hard to tell that the large house had money behind it—as did the family lying bloodied inside.

Burglary gone bad?

It had to be considered.

Who's to say a pair of drug addicts from the city hadn't watched the house, cased it out and, salivating at the fact that the family drove around in expensive luxury cars, played tennis and ate at the finest restaurants, decided to hit it. Maybe a few city thugs broke in and burgled the place. They thought no one was home. And when things turned ugly, well, what had to be done was, say, we panicked and shot them. We didn't mean it.

One murder turned into two ... two turned into three.

Fine theory—on paper. But where was the evidence of a burglary?