by Aiden Bates
Doug cringed, but he took Mike up on his offer. He knew that he could use the rest. He packed up his things and walked home, stopping by a little soup place to pick up something to eat first. Once he got home, he texted Ray to let him know where he was, and then he crawled into bed.
He'd only intended to take a short nap, and then get some work done from home. When he woke up three hours later, with Ray kissing his cheek, he groaned. "At least the headache's gone."
"Headache?" Ray raised an eyebrow. "You didn't tell me you were feeling poorly." He took off his shoes.
Doug blushed. "It was just a headache. I'm a little tired." He moved over a little, so that his alpha could come to bed once he got his clothes off.
Ray didn't lose any time. "Is it the pregnancy? Or something else?"
Doug pressed himself up against his alpha. Having Ray's bare skin against his was the best thing in the world for him right now. "It's the pregnancy, on top of six cases, on top of the fact that my father is one of those six cases, on top of moving, on top of a major lifestyle change." He chuckled and nuzzled Ray's neck. "It's a lot."
Ray frowned, but wrapped Doug up in his arms and the blanket. "Six cases? You shouldn't have six cases. I mean there's a killer on the loose!"
Doug laughed at him. "Ray, Alpha, there's always a killer on the loose. Usually two or three. But there are still other people who need defending, and that's my job. Catching killers is not my job." He wrinkled his nose. "It's not even my forte. It's yours."
Ray narrowed his eyes. "But don't you care that someone's out there killing women?"
Doug backed away. "Of course I do. I care enough that I'm participating in the investigation as much as I can. I'm not a cop, Ray. I'm not a detective. That's not my skill set. That's not what I've been trained for. I have some skills, sure, but they're geared toward exoneration and not toward confirmation of guilt." He sighed and rolled over onto his back. The sheets there were cold against his skin.
Ray bit his lip. "But you've already done so much. You can't back away now."
Now it was Doug's turn to narrow his eyes. "No one's backing away from anything, Ray. Did you think that I wasn't working other cases before? I have been, the entire time. Dad's is one of two that I'm doing pro bono. The other four are paying cases. I have to devote the same amount of attention to each one. And I have been. I just found out that I'm getting dedicated staff to help today.
"It's great that you guys, on your squad, can say, 'Okay, obviously this case takes top priority because it's an active serial killer and hey, that's kind of bad.' Getting that killer off the streets is for the benefit of public safety. That's literally your job description, Ray. But I certainly can't stand there in front of a judge and say, 'Hey, you have to postpone this case. I get that it is also a murder trial, but I couldn't prepare my case for this guy because I was busy chasing down a serial killer, which by the way is not what I'm being paid for, it's just important.'"
Ray sat up. "I'm sorry. I thought you got it."
"I do get it, Ray. I get that it's important to catch this person. And I want to catch this person. It's just also important to make sure that an omega doesn't go to prison for enforcing his right to bodily autonomy. Or that a mother doesn't go to jail for defending her daughter from an attacker. Or that a woman whose mother-in-law accused her of killing her own baby can be safe from that kind of malice again." He wanted to sit up too, but he didn't. He stayed where he was, because he was exhausted. "Your work is important. My work is important too. We should both be able to respect that."
Ray rubbed at his own head, a strained expression on his face. "I get that, I do. I'm just… I can't really wrap my head around this. This is the case your father got set up to take the fall for. If this were another state, Alabama or Texas maybe, he'd be waiting for the needle. How is this not your top priority?"
Doug did sit up now, galvanized by his anger. "It is my top priority. And you just haven't been paying any attention at all if you think that it doesn't weigh on my mind every minute of every day. That doesn't change the fact that I have a job to do, and that it is a very different job from yours. I'm willing to help where I can and when I can. I'm not willing to just sit there in the station on reserve and stare off into space until you need me. That's not what you actually expected, is it? Because I know you know better."
Ray hopped out of the bed. "No. It's not what I expected. I just… I don't understand how you can go from working on a case with your father, and your father's freedom, to working on another case even knowing that there's someone else on the loose killing more people!"
"Because there's nothing else that I can do!" Doug shouted back. "I can make suggestions to you, but I can't do the legwork for you unless I'm dealing with my client—and no other suspect from this case can be my client, because I've helped you. I answer your questions, I make suggestions, and it's up to you to act on it. There isn't anything else that I can do to help you find the real killer! So stop acting like I'm shirking or being a bad son by doing my actual job and continuing to be employed through this whole nightmare."
Ray turned on his heel and headed out to the kitchen. Doug buried his face in his hands for a moment, and then he lay back down and pulled the covers up. He wasn't up for this.
Ray came back twenty minutes later. He carried a tray table with a salad, soup, and bread on it. "I'm sorry, he said. "You're right. I was being an ass. You were so good at finding all of that stuff to exonerate your father I got used to having you involved with the case. "
Doug melted. "I love you." He sat up and let Ray settle the tray table over his legs. "Are you going to join me?"
Ray relaxed. "Yeah. Give me a minute." He kissed Doug's head and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Doug leaned back against the headboard. They hadn't fought before, but if they had to fight it was good that they could handle it well.
***
Ray looked up at Oliver through bleary eyes. "Hi," he said, in a tone that he knew sounded flat.
"Hi." Oliver sounded far too cheery for this hour of the morning, or at least for this hour of the morning without more coffee. "You're looking unusually flat for this time of day, Detective Langer. What's wrong?"
"The movers broke the coffee pot in transit." Ray scowled. "I was pretty sure that Doug was going to cry, at first. Then I was pretty sure that the owner of the moving company was going to cry by the time that Doug got done with him."
Oliver smirked. "Having a lawyer in the family has its advantages."
"Sometimes." Ray nodded. "Sometimes." He wrapped his hand around his coffee mug and brought it to his lips. "The upside is that we've got a new, fancy coffee station on its way, thanks to the moving company and their abject terror of what a pregnant omega lawyer in need of a caffeine fix can do. The downside is that it won't be there for another few days so I have to wait until I get here for the coffee to kick in."
"I see." Oliver took a step back. "Well, I might have some good news to offset that morning bearishness of you alphas."
"I am not a bear. I'm a perfect image of civility." Ray sipped from his coffee again and flipped Nenci off as the older detective made his way to his seat. Nenci, without knowing the story, responded in kind. "But I would love to hear your good news."
"Excellent." Oliver handed Ray a file folder. "I've identified your victim, thanks to the hand found at the scene. The victim is Michelle 'Shelly' Kerry, forty-six, of Freetown. Mother of three, and supervisor at the post office. Her oldest son, age seventeen, reported her missing two nights after she was found."
"Thank you." Ray blinked a few times. The son had only reported her missing after she'd been gone for two nights? What was up with that? "Anything on that hat?"
"No DNA, but we did find a little bit of hair. The hair is light gray and curly, most likely belonging to a male. There wasn't any skin attached to the hair, so it fell out naturally. It wasn't pulled." Oliver shrugged. "It's enough to rule out a suspect with different hair. I
t's not enough to say definitively that 'Yes, this is definitely the man who killed Shelly Kerry.'"
"Thanks, Oliver." Ray watched Oliver leave the room, casting a lingering glance back at Nenci. Nenci pretended not to see.
He got up and went over to the whiteboard, bringing his coffee with him. Once there, he erased "Jane Doe" from the last place on the timeline and wrote Shelly Kerry in her place. Nenci made a face. "Okay, now we're back at the original MO," he said. "Kerry wasn't a hooker, she was a postal worker."
"And she was in a position of power over men." Ray tapped the marker against the whiteboard as he thought. "I'll have to go and make the notification. That's probably my least favorite job. Nenci, can you do some legwork on Kerry here and make sure that she's part of our guy's pool? I don't want to get caught up in more copycat drama."
"Sure thing." For once, Nenci didn't have anything snarky to say.
Ray grabbed Tessaro on his way in and dragged him along for the ride. He didn't technically need backup for this, but he didn't want to face family notification alone. Tessaro got that, and he didn't try to back out of it or anything.
They drove down to Lakeville, and to the Lakeville-Freetown Unified High School. When they explained the situation to the principal, the principal was more than happy to find them a private conference room where they could make the notification. He also pulled the school counselor out of a meeting to help. That would be good; the boy would need all of the help that he could get.
Sean Kerry was brought in by the principal ten minutes later. His large blue eyes were guarded, and he held back from entering the room fully. "This is about my mom, isn't it?" he asked.
"It is." Ray swallowed. "I'm very sorry to be the one to tell you this, but we identified some of your mother's remains. They were found last Wednesday."
Sean's face ran through a whole range of emotions. "Last Wednesday?" he said, once he'd shown shock, and sadness, and the horror that could only come when a stranger said that they'd found "part of your mother." "Why am I only finding out now?"
"We had to identify her by fingerprints." Ray tugged at his collar. "You only reported her missing on Friday, and coming up with matching prints isn't instantaneous, even though television makes it look that way sometimes." He rolled his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I know this is a shock to you."
"How do you know anything about it?" Sean spat his words like bullets.
The counselor put a hand on Sean's arm. "He's just doing his job."
Ray stepped forward. "It's a legitimate question. My omega lost his mother the same way. They—I—arrested his father for the crime two years ago, but it looks like he's either not guilty or we have a copycat on our hands, because he's locked away in Shirley. We're working to catch him right now."
Sean sneered. "Yeah? How's that working out for you?"
Tessaro's grin was tinged with sadness, but it was still a solid grin. "I like him. I will personally sponsor you for a place at the Academy, Sean, if you can pass the background check. I just like your spine."
Ray nudged Tessaro with his elbow. "It's not working out as well as we'd hoped, given that he's out there and he's still doing this. But we're narrowing the suspect list. And here's the thing, Sean. We got closer to him this time than we've ever gotten before. It's cold comfort now, and I get that, but that's more physical evidence than we've had. We're going to get him this time."
Sean flipped him off. "That's going to bring my mom back? Keep my family together? They already stuck my little brother and sister in foster care. You know that, right? They broke up my family because you couldn't find this guy before he got to her." Now he pointed at Ray. "That's on you!"
Ray bowed his head. "It is on me." There was no use denying it; it was true, after all. He could see the fluorescent lights reflected in Sean's wet eyes, but Sean wouldn't show weakness in front of him. "We thought we had our man. And we were wrong. Help us fix it."
The counselor whipped her head around to stare at Ray. "He's seventeen and he just lost his mother!"
"I know." Tessaro put his hands up in a placatory gesture. "I know. Believe me, I know. And we don't want to traumatize the boy further. The thing is, we do want to stop this guy before he kills again. That means we might have to ask some difficult questions, questions we don't want to ask. But it will help us to narrow down the number of people who could have done this."
"Fine." Sean pulled out a chair and slammed himself into it. "What is it that you want to know?"
Ray pressed his fingertips together. "Okay. Please understand that no one's accusing you or your mom of anything here. We just need to understand her and her patterns better, so we can figure out what happened."
Sean waved a hand. "Whatever."
Ah, to be a teenager again. Ray swallowed. "Your mother's body was found on Wednesday night—going into Thursday. You didn't report her missing until Friday. Why is that?"
Sean blushed a deep, rosy shade of red. "Um. I feel like I shouldn't talk about this." Then he sighed. "But it's not like she's alive to be embarrassed by this now. Mom was the best mother in the world, okay? But she was lonely. After Dad left, she didn't date much. She poured her energy into us kids. And we're grateful." He glared at Ray and Tessaro. "Don't get me wrong. We're very grateful. She just… sometimes she'd get lonely, and she'd go out looking for some company. Just for the night. She only started that once I was old enough to look after the others for a night.
"I might not see her in the morning. When she didn't come back on Thursday night I got worried, and then on Friday morning after she didn't answer the phone I called police. They took my brother and sister away and left me hanging." He shook his head.
"I'll see what I can find out about your brother and sister." Ray squirmed. "Did you ever meet the men your mother liked?"
Sean laughed. "Shows how much you know. After Dad left, Mom came out. She liked girls. She had a bar that she liked to go to down in Fall River."
"I see." Tessaro nodded. "Did this cause her any problems?"
"Well, she left the church. The priest wasn't a big fan of sin, as he called it, and of course Mom had the double sin whammy. She was divorced and she was a lesbian. She had been a pretty regular churchgoer, too. She had a lot of friends who were still regulars at St. Dominic's, although some of them started to fall away from that church as they saw how Mom was treated."
Ray and Tessaro exchanged glances. There was that St. Dominic's connection again. "Did your mother have any run-ins with this man?" Ray reached into a file folder and brought out a picture of Dick Tolbert.
"Who, him? Yeah, once or twice. He'd kick up a fit if a woman at the counter at the post office didn't address him as 'sir' every time she spoke. And he really hated it that she was the one who came out when he demanded to speak with a supervisor." Sean chuckled, a wicked grin splitting his face. "I hate that guy. You know he hits his wife, right?"
The counselor nudged Sean. "That's rumor and speculation."
"I'm a volunteer at the hospital, Ms. Sands. I know. I've seen her come in, okay? I've seen her records. Nobody, and I mean nobody, falls down the stairs that much." He shook his head. "Mom tells me that Dick Tolbert is the kind of man that I should watch, so I know who to not be like."
"Sounds like good advice." Ray nodded and put the picture away. He pulled out another one. "What about this one?"
"Oh, Lord. Mr. Gagne." Sean shook his head. "I mean yeah, he's a good teacher. He was fine with me, anyway. My little sister had him down at the middle school and Mom finally had Gina transferred from his class. A whole bunch of the mothers did. I think that it was the time he told them, 'Your job is to make babies, clean the house, and shut up about it,' that did it for them." He shuddered. "I mean don't get me wrong, free speech and all, but no one has the right to talk to another person like that."
"No." Tessaro shook his head. "Did they have any confrontations, or was it all behind the scenes?"
"Oh, they had plenty of confrontations. The principal down
there had a meeting with all of the girls' parents from Gina's class, and didn't tell them that Gagne showed up. Do you think that Mom was intimidated? Oh, hell no." Sean snickered. "Gagne even got into her face and started screaming, but she wouldn't back down. Told him that she'd faced real evil, and he wasn't a drop in the bucket."
"Interesting." Ray put the picture back. "Look. I know I'm not your favorite person right now, but I want to make sure that you're as okay as you can be. Like I told you before, my omega's been through this. Would you be interested in talking to him, maybe in a week or two? He's been there, he knows what you can expect and some tricks for coping."