Thicker than Water

by Danae Ayusso

  “Severe cases of domestic abuse where children were witnesses?” she pressed, as if she was checking them off of a list.

  “It’s rural Montana,” Colt reminded her. “Much like Alaska, alcohol, drugs, suicides, and domestic violence is heightened in comparison to metro areas, but rapes and murders are lower…in most cases, obviously Eureka is the exception for murders.”

  She nodded. “But of course.”

  “We checked with social services to see if there were any molestation allegations or cases that might point towards Pope, but nothing came of it.”

  She snorted. “That doesn’t surprise me. These aren’t sexual crimes, not in the least. If they were, each victim would have been raped…I don’t think pre or postmortem would have mattered. Have you checked into arson? I’ll admit it’s a jump from one extreme to the other, but it’s happened before.”

  Colt shook his head. “I’ll check into that for you, Detective.”

  She smirked. “Detective?” she scoffed. “Please. Try…” she caught herself. “Never mind. Arson to suffocation is a leap, but it isn’t like we have anything else to go on.”

  “Suffocation?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Don’t you have the reports?” she rhetorically asked. “Each victim was suffocated, displayed, and carved up. Suffocation via plastic bag is very old school and could be viewed as impersonal, but in my experience, asphyxiation by plastic bag is one of, if not, the most personal ways to asphyxiate someone.” She looked up from her notes to Colt. “What?” she asked when she noted the horrified look on his face.

  Absently he shook his head. “Nowhere in the reports does it say asphyxiation by plastic bag.”

  Cat’s face dropped. “I know, but there was no trace evidence in the nasal passages, no ligature marks from wrapping something around their necks, and simply smothering leaves trace evidence and bruises behind. There was no liquid in the lungs so drowning was ruled out. Very rarely do you find the bags with the bodies because they’re diagnostically valuable to the pathologist, but the signs, since there are none, clearly points to bag over the face. There are no bruises, fingernail marks, prints, trauma to the hyoid bone, and the larynx is free of damage. What I don’t get is,” she said, stretching out, making herself comfortable, as if talking about the murder and mutilation of five women was an everyday thing, “according to the autopsy reports there was petechial hemorrhaging in the lungs but none in the eyes. That isn’t normal in the least. Usually petechial hemorrhaging is most visible in the eyes. But in each of these cases, their eyes are eerily clear. Even under the nails are free of splinter hemorrhages.”

  Cat chewed on her thumbnail and tapped her index finger against the tip of her nose while deep in thought.

  Colt sat watching her in awe. He went from irritated to terrified, and now shocked to impressed. He knew she wasn’t talking for his benefit. She was simply speaking aloud in order to work through the case.

  He did the same thing.

  “Hmm…” she mumbled and blindly reached out and pressed the skip button on the phone and changed the song. “Sorry, nothing against Billie, but I need some Sammy, Frank, or Dean at the moment.”

  Colt nodded. “Of course,” he mumbled his agreement.

  Cat laid the photos out of victims two through five, keeping Vicks tucked away so not to make the evening even more awkward by busting out with pictures of Colt’s dead fiancée, and stretched out on her stomach and rested her chin in her hand. The new position caused the back of her sweatshirt to hike up slightly, revealing her barely cotton covered backside, and her feet kicked freely in the air behind her. Absently she twirled a lock of hair around her fingers as her eyes moved over the side by side pictures of each victim next to their postmortem picture from the M.E.

  “Healthy complexions, light but comparable to ivory or alabaster foundation…” her words trailed off before she snorted. “That’s a chick’s way of explaining it as if they’re at the makeup counter at Saks,” she explained, looking up at him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear your perp has a Snow White fetish.”

  Colt scoffed. “That’s not funny.”

  She smirked. “It is, kind of. According to Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen, the Queen said, ‘Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony.’ However, initially in Grims Tale it read, ‘Güldenes Haar, Lippen so rot wie Blut, Haut so weiß wie Schnee und Augen so schwarz wie Ebenholz.’ Snow White was a blonde with black eyes, but once Disney got a hold of her, Snow White was changed forever. Stop looking at me like that,” she said, playfully smacking him in the leg. “I used to play in the East Village…Ohio. That’s Midwest, right?”

  Colt laughed, and shook his head in resignation. “You’re a New Yorker, I get it.”

  She made a face at him. “It’s hard to keep up the routine,” she admitted. “My nanny was from Deutschländle on the Lower Eastside. Madre mainly hired a German to piss Padre off, but she knew it was safer than hiring a Sicilian that could be bought. Two and Three,” she said, pointing to the pictures, “don’t have naturally black hair. Their roots are lighter but just barely,” she said. “Still dark haired, just not black. The eyes, they’re all….not right,” she struggled to explain.

  Colt, unable to stand the distance between them anymore, stretched out on the bed alongside her, and mirrored Cat’s position. “What do you mean?” he asked, comparing Four’s living and post-mortem pictures.

  “See the eyes?” Cat said, pointing to the post-mortem picture. “They are white and eerily light blue, like mine. But the difference is Four’s eyes were naturally a shade of dark blue. I think…” she started but stopped and quickly flipped through the M.E.’s report. “The scemo didn’t take fluid samples from the eyes?” she choked, looking up at Colt with wide eyes. “What kind of ass backwards, backwoods hick do you have in your M.E.’s office?!”

  Colt sighed. “The FBI didn’t take them either, and they oversaw Three and Four.”

  “Fucking rookies,” she grumbled. “The eyes on each of them are a much lighter shade of blue than they naturally were. I’m thinking that in order to keep the Bride of God perfection the perp used a whitening agent on the eyes in order to remove the petechial hemorrhaging. That would have lightened, bleached-out almost, the white and inadvertently caused the blue to lighten.”

  Colt’s eyes widened as he gathered up the pictures and compared them; he hadn’t noticed that. “Holy…huh, the bodies didn’t smell like bleach,” he said.

  Cat shook her head. “You don’t have to use bleach,” she informed him. “Something that’s used as a lightening agent, odorless, and easily obtainable,” she said, mainly talking to herself. “Something completely untraceable… Ha! Sodium perborate,” she confidently told him.

  “And that is?”

  A smile filled her face. “Don’t they teach chemistry at whatever law enforcement academy you went to?” she teased, but he wasn’t amused. “It’s the same chemical used to lighten hair. It’s a form of hydrogen peroxide, in essence. It’s easy to find, untraceable, but can be real nasty if one has prolonged exposure to it. You still have Five down in the morgue,” she started, sensing Colt was getting pissed off for some reason, most likely because he didn’t notice it or think of it sooner, “so you can get a sample and check. As long as the body’s on ice, it shouldn’t break down and you’ll be able to test for it.” She reassuringly patted his cheek. “Don’t blame yourself, Fury. When something hits close to home it’s near impossible to look beyond it…” her words trailed off and she cringed. “That was rude of me.”

  He forced a smile. “Not really. You’re blunt, and I can appreciate and respect that.”

  “Did you need to talk?”

  He gave her a look. “I did more talking last night than I have in the last five years.”

  “That wasn’t an answer,” she pointed out.

  Colt shook his head. “I should be asking if you nee
d to talk. You’ve been cooped up with only Emma and occasionally Jimmy to talk to for, what, six months?”

  Cat shrugged. “I talk to Frankie, but he doesn’t have much to say anymore.”

  “You miss him,” he said.

  “Is it obvious?” she scoffed.

  “A little bit,” he agreed so she smacked him. “Abusive.”

  She smirked. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “I want to know,” Colt said, surprising himself with the admittance.

  Cat’s mouth promptly closed, and she shook her head. “Trust me, it’s better for everyone if you didn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t that be my choice?” he asked.

  She smiled and patted his cheek again. “Not this time, Detective.”

  Before midnight, a spring storm rolled in from the south, carrying with it warm air and heavy rain. The wind ripped through the trees, causing them to rake back and forth across the cabin’s metal roof. It was like nails down a chalkboard to Cat. Where she was from, no one had metal roofs, and the buildings filling each block broke up the wind so it was nothing more than an annoyance that blew your hair around. The louder she turned up the music to drown it out, the worst it seemingly got. She kept checking the security feeds on her cell phone, worried that the wind and rain would guise shadowy figures in the night. When the power went out, she scrambled out of bed and hurried to the living room, grabbing a Glock from behind a bookcase as she went.

  Colt watched her curiously, not entirely sure what to think or say, and followed her into the living room. “It’s just a power outage,” he assured her.

  Cat looked at him, her eyes wide.

  “You’re seriously losing it, aren’t you?” he said and headed towards the fireplace and stoked it with wood.

  “Shh,” she shushed him and flattened herself against the wall and pressed her ear against the blackened out window.

  Colt went to the kitchen and searched under the sink until he found what he was looking for: his old winter survival kit. “This past winter didn’t have too many northern winds, just heavy snowfall.”

  Cat looked his direction but couldn’t see him through the darkness.

  “The mountains along the border act as a windbreak,” he continued, “but along the south it’s valleys so the wind can pick up through them. When you have a cold front from the north that slams into a warm front from the south, you get thunderstorms and small tornados…they don’t build enough strength to do any damage because of the mountains and trees.” He pulled a battery-operated lantern from the survival kit, shook it for a minute before flicking the switch. The soft white light pouring from the bulb illuminated most of the kitchen.

  Cat lowered her weapon, her attention going between the darkened living room and the man in the kitchen lighting candles. “I didn’t realize that was under there,” she mumbled, feeling slightly foolish.

  Colt looked up at her as he reached under the sink and pulled something out then placed it on the counter. “I didn’t know that there was a Remington 870 seven-inch under the sink either,” he retorted and she smiled, biting her thumb. “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked with a smirk.

  She ran her free hand along the bottom of the eating bar and pulled free another gun, and set it on the counter. “It has a brother,” she said with a mischievous smile, and removed her hand from the Mossberg 500 seven-inch.

  Colt sighed, shaking his head. “I give up,” he said and she pouted. He pushed her pouting bottom lip back in then leaned on the counter.

  “I didn’t take you for the type that gave up so easily,” Cat said, carefully securing the Mossberg short-barreled shotgun back under the counter.

  “I gave up after the fourth victim,” he reminded her.

  “Gave up or took a timeout?”

  “There’s a difference?” he countered.

  “In my experience,” she said, looking up at him through thick lashes then smirked, “yeah, there is.”

  Colt shook his head; she was mentally exhaustive. He grabbed the rest of the candles and headed back towards the bedroom, leaving a trail of lit candles as he went and she followed, after stashing the Remington 870 back under the kitchen sink.

  Colt placed candles on the dresser, nightstands, and on the floor. Their flames danced wildly from each of his movements, casting moving shadows around the room but she wasn’t paranoid about what could be lurking in those shadows. Cat watched from the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest as she tapped the barrel of her Glock against her pouting bottom lip.

  This isn’t helping to keep the thoughts of mounting him from my mind, she mentally complained. But, by God, he has a nice ass.

  Colt straightened out the bedding before pulling it back and motioned towards the bed. “After you,” he said.

  Cat cocked an eyebrow. “Where do you think you’re going, Detective?”

  “The couch,” he informed her.

  She opened her mouth to correct him, that no, he wasn’t sleeping on the couch, but the words came out in a shriek when a loud crack of thunder sounded from above and shook the foundation of the cabin.

  Colt’s face dropped and he hurried over to her and pried her fingers from the gun before taking it from her. “Fine, you convinced me. I’ll sleep in the bed,” he said.

  Cat looked at him with wide eyes before a choked burst of amusement broke past her lips. “I’m good but not that good. Even I couldn’t stage a storm for my own deviant purposes,” she said with a shaky voice.

  He nodded with a small smile. “Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  She smacked him in the chest. “Okay, maybe I am that good,” she conceded and crawled up on the bed then made herself comfortable.

  Colt joined her and placed the gun on his nightstand, getting a raised eyebrow from the woman with her hand out expectantly. “I would say that there’s no need to be armed, but I know you have a gun under your pillow and in the nightstand, and most likely on the underside of the bedframe… Shall I continue?” he asked.

  Cat lowered her hand. “Am I that transparent?” she scoffed and flopped back in the mound of pillows and made herself comfortable.

  “Yes and no,” he admitted, joining her, making sure there was as much space between them as possible. “You’re not transparent in the least,” he continued when she huffed, “but what I do know about you makes the unexpected predictable…that made better sense in my head,” he grumbled the last part.

  Cat rolled to her side and looked at him.

  Colt laid on his back and glared at the ceiling, seemingly ignoring her.

  Surprisingly, simply looking at him in the soft candle light helped to put her at ease. His profile showed the ruggedness of his face, but it also showed little details that you couldn’t see unless you were looking at him from that angle. There was a faint white scar that ran along the underside of his jaw, another by the corner of his eye that was only noticeable when he glared—much like he was doing now—and the corners of his lips pulled down causing the bottom lip to pout sexily. The clef in his chin made him look slightly regal but pure Icelandic or Norwegian in heritage.

  Men like Detective Colt Fury didn’t exist where Cat was from.

  “You’re staring at me,” Colt grumbled.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  He looked over at her without moving his head and cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “Because you’re ignoring me, and I’m rather confident that I’m making you feel extremely uncomfortable and exposed… I remind you of her, don’t I?” her words trailed off to a whisper.

  Colt sighed and pulled his hands over his face in resignation before he rolled to his side and faced her. “Honestly?”

  She nodded, preparing for the worst.

  “Not in the least,” he said with a halfhearted chuckle. “Sure, your hair and eyes are slightly the same color, and you’re tall like she was. She wasn’t as tall, but she was taller than most girls. Vicks was soft spoken, delicate, and emoti
onally sheltered so she tended to overreact to things, was self-conscious…trying to get her to talk to me about what she wanted, and not what she thought I wanted to hear that she wanted, was like pulling teeth. Yes, she was sweet and kind, caring and warm, had a heart as big as a blue moon, but she wasn’t like you in the least.”

  Cat nodded and fought to keep the disappointment from showing on her face.

  “When I was younger, she was the voice that reassured me when no one else ever had before…my family was pretty messed up.”

  She snorted. “Trust me, I know all about messed up families.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “No.”

  “Figured as much,” he grumbled and made a face that caused her to laugh. “My dad was a pushover, mainly it was my mother who was doing the pushing, but he took it because he thought he loved her. She was the preacher’s daughter who was anything but Christ-like. She drank like a fish, beat on the two of us whenever the hateful words eluded her…which was often. When they died, most had commented that it was a blessing, but when the Reverend staked claim to me, all I got was condolences for the new living arrangement, not for the death of my parents. When the Reverend died, I didn’t really know what to do. I was still a kid in essence, was really messed up in the head—in everyone’s opinion—but Emma took me in without giving it a second thought. I was her grandson’s best friend and her granddaughter’s middle school crush so she took the chance. But ultimately it was Vicks who opened what no one else had ever opened for me before: her heart. Vicks reassured me that I wasn’t like my parents or grandfather, and that I was different and could be so much more than everyone said I could be. After a while I started to believe her. She was the first person I trusted and could open up to, for the most part. I couldn’t tell her of my dark past because I didn’t want it to upset her, but what she did know she didn’t judged me, not once...” His words trailed off and he shook his head. “I was wrong, you’re a lot like her in the fact that you get me talking and opening up without even trying.”