by Danae Ayusso
Colt leaned against the edge of the desk and opened the thermos Cat sent him with and took a drink. His eyes widened and he looked at the thermos in his hand as if it was a magical decanter of caffeinated happiness.
“Is something wrong?” James asked.
“I’ve obviously been making coffee wrong for the past twenty years,” Colt said before taking another drink. “I don’t think that burying my nose in the past will make it become clearer, and if anything, it’ll burn me out quicker. Is that what you want?” he countered; Colt knew the only way to keep James from pouting was to be bluntly honest and indifferent.
“No,” James mumbled. “I’m just worried about you…where’d you stay last night? I stopped by your place on the way in but your truck was still there and the place was cold.”
Colt shrugged and unwrapped the sandwich Cat had made him and took a large bite.
Heavenly. Emma would say to marry this woman.
“You look like you have something on your mind,” James said, moving around his desk and took a seat.
“Just enjoying breakfast,” Colt assured him between bites. “It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten something other than venison and quail eggs for breakfast, that’s all.”
James nodded, not believing him in the least.
“I’m concerned that his M.O. is changing,” Colt said, balling up the wax paper, longing for three more of the amazing bagel sandwiches. “Usually the bodies aren’t located in completely remote areas. No one in their right mind, no local anyway, would be jogging down that stretch of road, and yet, the body was placed there only hours before Miss Rogers took her run. Why is that? What changed?”
James shrugged. “Maybe he’s getting lazy.”
Colt gave him a look. “Lazy?”
“Okay, reaching,” James admitted. “Maybe Cat has something to do with it.”
“No,” Colt answered quickly. “I think, that perhaps, the dumpsite was specifically chosen so Miss Rogers could find the body. It’s too coincidental, if you ask me.”
“How so?”
“Miss Rogers is a creature of habit,” Colt said. “Runs that same route along Elkhart Drive every Sunday; a different route on Monday, a different route on Tuesday, a different route on Wednesday, a different route on Thursday, a different route on Friday, and a different route on Saturday,” he explained . Colt and Cat had talked about it last night. “Either Pope is broadening his horizons,” he said, trying to keep the thought from his mind, “Or he’s like every other man in Eureka who has seen the out-of-towner running the back roads in spandex.”
James chuckled. “She has an ass on her, that’s for sure.”
Colt refused to think about that; it was arousing, to say the least. “I hope he doesn’t switch to blondes,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Worried about Cat?” James pressed, cocking an eyebrow.
“No, not in the least,” Colt answered honestly. “If he changes M.O., then I’m done. I can’t…emotionally and mentally, I can’t handle trying to unravel more than what I’m already trying to unravel. It would break me.”
James’ face dropped. “It’s okay. We’ll get through it and catch him this time. I promise.”
Colt looked at him curiously. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because we’re both older,” he said as if it was obvious, and Colt rolled his eyes. “You’ve had time to recover emotionally and mentally from Vicks’ death and you’re ready to tackle this head on. Am I right?”
Colt shook his head and looked out the glass door of the office to the bullpen. “I’ll never be over Vicks death. I loved her, will always love her…I don’t think that any man who has truly loved a woman could ever boast of simply being over them. Yes, I know that Vicks would want me to move on and to stop wallowing. It’s a sound suggestion. But it takes time. Five years isn’t long enough…” his words trailed off as he realized something. Loved. I said I loved Vicks. Not that I love Vicks. I…I’ve never said or thought that before. I have always said love but saying loved, the acceptance that she’s gone and never coming back, came naturally. Why am I suddenly dismissing her, what we had and should have had?
“You seemed rather cozy with Cat last night,” James said, pulling his attention.
Colt’s brow furrowed. “Cozy? She owed Mickey a drink since she broke his nose and I offered her a ride. I sulked and they played pinball. How does that, in your mind, Jimmy, translate to cozy?”
James smirked.
“Need I remind you that Cat is blonde and has dark eyes? Neither of which do anything for me…not that I’m looking,” he quickly added the latter. “Yesterday was a rough day that turned into a rough night, which is turning into an even rougher morning,” he said and motioned towards the bullpen with his chin as the Hubbards entered the station.
“You want me to do it?” James asked but sounded less than enthusiastic at the idea.
Colt shook his head. “Don’t get up,” he retorted and headed out of the office, closing the door behind him.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard, this is Detective Fury,” Jack introduced, thankful that someone came out to notify the next of kin.
“Where is our daughter?” Mr. Hubbard demanded.
Colt shook his head. “Can you please take a seat?” he said, motioning towards Raven’s empty desk.
“No, where is my daughter!” Mr. Hubbard demanded.
Colt swallowed hard. “Yesterday a jogger found, what we believe to be, your daughter’s body off of a secluded road just outside of the city limits.”
Mrs. Hubbard choked, and her husband struggled to keep her upright.
“When possible, we need one of you to make a positive identification,” he continued.
Mr. Hubbard shook his head. “What happened to her? Was it some kind of accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Colt said. “The FBI will be here tomorrow, and they will assist with the investigation.”
Mrs. Hubbard sobbed hysterically, but Mr. Hubbard was strangely calm. “This has happened before,” he surmised. “My daughter isn’t the first. That’s the only time the FBI gets involved. I’ve seen enough episodes of Law and Order and CSI to know that the FBI just doesn’t show up for a single murder-”
“Murder?” Mrs. Hubbard shrieked and started weakly hitting her husband. “Take that back! Joanne wasn’t murdered! It’s not our baby. It’s not our baby!”
Mr. Hubbard looked to Colt.
“She was murdered,” Colt confirmed. “Your daughter was the fifth victim.”
“Five?” Mr. Hubbard choked, losing his composure.
Colt motioned for Raven to come over. “This is Deputy Shadowdancer, and she will take you over to the Medical Examiner’s office to identify the body when you’re ready. With your permission, we’d like to sit down with you and your wife once the FBI arrives to take a joint statement. If you remember anything before then, please make a note of it. Even the most insignificant detail could be of importance.”
Mr. Hubbard pulled his wife into him and nodded before following Raven from the building.
Colt pulled his hands over his face in frustration. “I could have done that better,” he grumbled under his breath. He could have handled that a lot better, and been much more professional, but it had been years since he’s played detective. It had been years since he had to tell someone that their child was dead. It had been years since he felt the longing to crawl into a woman’s arms and have her hold him while he complained about his day, and that was exactly what he wanted to do. It was only nine in the morning, but Colt was ready to throw in the towel and crawl into Cat’s arms and spend all day on the couch just talking. Never had he wanted to do that, especially with a woman who wasn’t Vicks, but he hadn’t even done that with Vicks either so it was unsettling that he was feeling it now.
“You okay?” James asked.
“Yeah, I just...I need to walk the site again,” Colt said.
James scratched his head. “You don’
t want to go over the reports first?”
“I have the goddamn reports memorized,” Colt snapped at him. “What’s the point in going over them? Has anything changed? Has any new evidence been presented? Have any witnesses come forward?” his voice grew louder and louder with each question. “The only thing that has changed is me! Okay?! If I can’t stop him, no one will. And then what? More and more parents have to bury their daughters?! Husbands, brothers, fiancées, have to keep burying those they love because some sick sonuvabitch...” his words trailed off and he shook his head and pushed his falling hair out of his face.
The remaining deputies hurried out of the office. They didn’t want to get in the middle of the very private, well overdue, venting that was being made very public.
James glared at him. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s been haunted by this? I lost my sister, my best friend, brother, sanity…the only people that mattered in my life he took away from me. And why? What was the purpose of it?!” he shouted, getting on his toes in an attempt to close the height difference between him and Colt, but he was still two inches shy.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Colt apologized, cautiously pushing James back. “Jimmy, I’m tired and this is resurrecting all of the nightmares I’ve spent the past five years trying to bury and forget. When Pope abruptly stopped, a small part of me was grateful because it meant that I could start to heal, start to forget, and start to attempt to move on with my life. Vicks was all I knew. She was that calming presence that I felt...well, calm around. After dealing with my parents and that drama, my grandfather and his non-stop pessimism and abuse, she was all I had that made me believe that I was better than them, that I could be good and be the man that my dad wasn’t strong enough to be, that my mother constantly said I could never be, and not be the loser that my grandfather tried to beat out of me. All I knew was taken from me, and now he’s trying to do it again. You and Emma are all I have left,” he whispered.
Very rarely did Colt lose his temper, in fact, he made it a point to never lose it because that would prove that he wasn’t like his mother or grandfather, but mental and emotional exhaustion was starting to take its toll on him.
“I’m not going anywhere, Colt,” James assured him. “And neither is Grandmother...she’s too damn stubborn to die.”
“Gee, thanks,” he grumbled.
“Like this?” Mickey asked, hanging up the last photo.
Cat looked up from the report in her hand to the bookcases surrounding the room that were now covered in crime scene photos, pictures of each victim, a map of Eureka with pushpins marking each location a body was found, and post-it notes encircling the room creating a timeline. “Very nice,” she said. “They trained you well, Probie.”
Mickey blushed. “No, you did. Did you need anything else?”
She returned her attention to the report in her hand. “I am assuming that Detective Fury has lent me your local expertise for the day.”
A smile consumed his face. “No, but I’m yours!”
Cat chuckled. “Child, I’d break you. You were born and raised in Eureka, correct?” she asked, changing the subject.
His smile fell, but he nodded.
“You’re familiar with the case?”
He sighed. “Sadly, yes. Everyone on the force is familiar with it…hell, everyone in town is, for that matter. Not much happens in Eureka so when it does, everyone knows.”
Cat had figured as much.
“Tell me about the first crime scene,” she said.
Mickey hurried over to the bookcase representing the first victim. “This dumpsite was the only one not considered rural,” he explained, motioning to the crime scene photos. “Remote and rural are two totally different things in Eureka. The whole area is rural by big city standards, but remote are the locations that are closed due to weather conditions, seasons, lack of population within so many miles…make sense?”
Strangely, it did.
“Continue,” she said with a nod.
“The first site was off of a main road and regularly maintained by plows. Victim one was also the only one not centered in a clearing. She was off to the side of the road, a few yards from the shoulder. The scene was trampled by the first responders...because she wasn’t unknown it caused a conflict of interest.”
Cat looked up at him. “Explain that.”
He shrugged. “Victoria Lake, victim one, was Detective Fury’s fiancée and the now Sheriff’s twin sister.”
Her eyes widened. “Conflict of interest to say the least,” she agreed and was instantly saddened because of Colt, James and Emma’s loss. “What do you know about the Lakes?”
Mickey looked at her curiously. “Why?”
“Because in order to get a non-objective opinion about them, of why they were targeted and the first in a series of murders, you have to look at it from an outsider’s perspective,” she explained. “You said so yourself, the first scene was trampled and possibly all evidence was lost because it was a local who was known in the community and on the force. I’m an outsider. I have no ties to Eureka, the force, Detective Fury or Sheriff Lake. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “I never thought of it like that. Victoria, or Vicks as everyone called her, was a teacher at the elementary school. Her students loved her, parents adored her, and the town really liked her. Col...Detective Fury and Miss Lake had been together since middle school. But when his grandfather died when he was in his teens, Mrs. Paterson took him in and raised him with her grandchildren: Vicks and Jimmy.”
Cat took note as she absently walked around the room. “Why did Detective Fury live with his grandfather?”
“Well...” Mickey started then gnawed on his bottom lip, hesitant to tell her. “Detective Fury’s parents were killed in a car accident when he was younger. According to the report, his parents were fighting and got distracted, then overcorrected because of an animal in the road and rolled the vehicle. They drowned in the spring thaw at Nhn Pinkham Creek Road...they went over the bridge. The only family Detective Fury had left was Reverend Jefferson, his mother’s father. The Reverend was a mean old bastard that ruled with an iron fist of discipline. Never did he spare the rod. The church eventually got tired of the complaints about Reverend Jefferson whipping the Sunday School students for being too loud or for just being kids and removed him from his assignment. The Reverend forced Detective Fury to live off of the land in the cabin on the mountain with him, but the state forced him to keep the Detective in school. It was Mrs. Paterson who was an advocate for his juvenile rights...at least that’s what the rumors say. When Reverend Jefferson fell through the ice while ice fishing a few years later, Detective Fury went to live with Mrs. Paterson and the Lake children.”
It was the professional side of Cat that made her ask more, but a small part of her wanted to know as much about Colt as possible.
“The Lake children, why were they with their grandmother?” Cat asked.
Mickey huffed. “Their parents died when they were eleven; house fire.”
“Eureka has a very bloody history,” she commented.
“Every place does,” he said. “You have a history, don’t you?”
Cat cocked an eyebrow. “There are four things you never ask of a woman: her age, how she is in the sack, how many people she’s slept with, and of her past. Remember that, Probie.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” was his automatic response.
“Good,” Cat said and looked at her watch: quarter to five. “Let’s go over the second victim.”
****
“You seem distracted,” James said.
Colt looked up from the file in front of him. “I’m not. I’m just looking over the report.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that,” James said and flopped down in the chair opposite of Colt. “When did you have time to write up the witness statement?”
“I didn’t get much sleep.”
“Uh huh,” James said skeptically. “The report is
ridiculously detailed, and the penmanship is much nicer than what I’m used to seeing from you.”
Colt rolled his eyes. “When you can’t sleep, you focus your efforts elsewhere.”
That was partially a lie; Cat had the report already written up for him before they left for the bar last night. He was impressed with it, but he honestly expected nothing less from her.
“Look, Colt, I’m worried about you,” James said.
“I would be suspicious if you weren’t,” Colt retorted. “Jimmy, I’m fine...as fine as can be expected. You can’t expect me to jump up and down giddy like a kid in a candy store because Pope’s back. It’s taking all of my conscious effort to keep from having an anxiety attack simply from being around people again. It’s going to take some time, and the case is a good distraction.”
James forced a smile. “So once we catch him, you’ll stay in civilization and not run back to the mountain?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. One day at a time, Jimmy. Just like A.A.”
James groaned. “Shut up. You don’t drink and you know it.”
“Sometimes I wish I did,” Colt admitted and pulled his jacket on. “Tomorrow I’ll interview the parents of the latest victim. The father will prove to be more useful than the mother; he’s seen enough episodes of CSI and Law and Order to know that every little insignificant detail can mean something.”
“I’m surprised you know what CSI is.”
Colt gave him a look. “I looked it up,” he grumbled under his breath and James laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Jimmy.”
“Did you need a ride?” he asked as they headed towards the exit.
He shook his head. “No, I borrowed Miss Rogers’ vehicle. She mentioned I could use it when she confided to Emma that she was shaken up about finding the body. Miss Rogers was going to stay in and try to shake the images from her mind.”
Again, he was partially lying, but he promised Cat that he’d keep her name out of it as much as possible so that was what he was going to do even if it meant lying to his best friend.