by Aiden Bates
He logged into his computer, as per usual, and went to go get a cup of coffee while his computer decided to think about warming itself up. When he got back to his desk, he found his supervisor, Lt. Devlin, at his desk. "Hey, sir," he greeted. He looked at the guy beside his boss, Oliver from the lab. "Hey, Oliver. How's it going?"
Oliver straightened his tie. "Not so bad. Not so bad at all. And yourself?" He looked around. "I don't see Detective Nenci here today."
"No, he's out on a case." Devlin didn't smirk at the kid, but he knew. Everyone knew how the poor kid felt about Nenci.
"Oh." Oliver's face fell for a second, but he covered admirably for himself. "Anyway. We've come to talk to you about the bullets used by the ringleader from that gang of bank robbers you fought with on Tuesday."
Ozzy frowned and set his coffee cup down. "Wait. That's not a cold case. That's a very hot case, and one that should be closed considering we have four dirtbags in custody." One of the dirtbags had a broken jaw too, courtesy of the handsome and charming Pete Nolan, Photographer.
That card was still right there on Ozzy's desk, all but burning a hole into it.
"You're right. The bank robbery isn't a cold case. The bullet, though, comes from a gun that was used in a homicide twenty years ago." Oliver's eyes lit up.
"Twenty years ago?" Ozzy shook his head. "If that kid is nineteen years old I'll eat my own shoe."
"Why do you think we're down here?" Devlin rested his fingertips on Ozzy's desk. "That cold case is the murder of a state trooper. Trooper Timothy Harbaugh, to be specific. There's no way that Jeff Balsalmo killed a state trooper three months before he was even conceived. We deal in the real world, here, not in science fiction. Your job is to figure out the connection, and hopefully to solve the case." He bent down and grabbed a box off of the ground.
Ozzy accepted it. "No pressure though." He winked at Devlin. His boss knew him well. The pressure would be no problem for Ozzy; it was his bread and butter. "Let's do this."
"I'll leave you to it." Devlin tapped the top of the box and headed back to his office. Oliver handed him the forensic report, cast a longing look at Nenci's seat, and followed suit.
Ozzy opened the box. There, on the top, was a folder containing the case summary as it stood when the case had been left cold. There wasn't a lot of information or evidence to be seen, even though every stone they could think of had been overturned when Harbaugh had been murdered.
Tim Harbaugh had been middle aged, a family man. He'd been out on patrol one night, doing his bit to keep the state's highways a little safer, when he'd been shot in the head during a routine traffic violation. The bullet had entered his brain through the back of the head, much as the bullet that had ended George Bergeron's eighty-four years earlier this week.
That was interesting. The killer, who could not possibly be the same person, had used the same weapon to kill two apparently unconnected men in uniform in the same way.
It was also interesting that a trooper, who was a trained professional, had been shot in the back of the head. There were minimal signs of a struggle. Dogs on the scene hadn't picked up anything, so the killer had escaped in his own car. No one had bragged to anyone else, or at least to anyone else who spoke about it, about killing a statie. There was no indication about the race, height, or gender of the killer.
Ozzy pulled out a notebook. There were no witnesses to the crime. There had been no real suspects. Harbaugh's line of work brought him into contact with a lot of people, but there hadn't been anyone who seemed to stand out as bearing an exceptional grudge against him. If he'd put someone away for a serious crime, Ozzy could see it, but they didn't tend to get a murderous vendetta over a speeding ticket.
The typical procedure was to make binders for everything, every witness and every suspect. In this case, there was no one to make binders for.
He tapped his fingertips on the desk and blew a raspberry. There had to be something he could do. Harbaugh hadn't shot himself in the back of the head and sent his own ghost to pass the gun to some kid.
Maybe he needed to start at the end and work back to the beginning. The end, of course, was Jeff Balsalmo and the bank robbery. Ozzy started up a to-do list. He needed to speak to the detectives investigating the robbery and murder. He would need to talk to the suspects, of course. And he would need to look into George Bergeron's life, to see if there had been some way that their lives had intersected.
He stared at the card from Pete Nolan, Photographer. Photographers were good witnesses, as a general rule. They noticed things. He picked up the phone and called before he could lose his nerve. "Nolan Photography, this is Pete." The voice that came back was clear and strong.
"Pete, hi, this is Ozzy. Er, Detective Morris, from the other day." Damn it, Ozzy was smoother than a thirteen-year-old asking someone to a dance for the first time. How could he mess up so badly?
"Detective Morris. Hi, how are you?" Pete sounded both relieved and nervous at the same time. "Is everything okay?"
"Me? I'm fine." Ozzy chuckled. "How are you and the baby? I wasn't so gentle when I pushed you out of the way."
"We're fine. Doc said she's perfect in every way. I'll have a bruise for a little while, but better that than the other option, you know?" Pete huffed out a little laugh. "How can I help you today, Detective?"
"Ozzy, please." Pete's voice did things to Ozzy that Ozzy didn't even have words for. "Listen, something's come up about… ah, about what happened the other day. We think that the robbery might be linked to another crime, and I was wondering if you might be willing to go over what happened again in some more detail."
Pete blew out a long stream of air. "I mean, I've already gone over what happened with some detectives, and some guys from the FBI, but yeah. I could do that. I work out of my house in Sudbury. I don't have any appointments until tomorrow. If you wanted to come out here today, that would be okay."
"I could be out there around one. Just email me the address." Ozzy wondered if Devlin would be all that disappointed if he went out and rolled around in the snow or something before he went, just to cool himself down.
"I'll do that. I'll see you at one."
"See you then." Ozzy hung up and took a few deep breaths. Then he called the FBI agents investigating the robbery, and the Department of Corrections to make an appointment to speak to all of the prisoners.
The Feds were surprised by the connection to the cold case, but they were cooperative. "Any help we can give, it's yours," they promised. Ozzy had every intention of taking them up on it.
He did a little bit more digging into Balsalmo's background while he killed time waiting for one o'clock. Balsalmo was a career criminal already, at only nineteen. He'd spent more of his young life in various forms of prison than he had breathing free air, and by the time he was fifteen he was pulling down adult time. Usually Ozzy wasn't a big fan of juveniles doing adult time, but in this case he figured it was justified. There were charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery… the list went on and on.
Something had driven him to that, but Ozzy couldn't be distracted by that now.
He couldn't find much about George Bergeron either. He found a military service record that indicated the old man had served in Korea, and some old employment records from some of the mills in the area. George was survived by children, grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. He would be buried beside his wife, who had been lost to cancer five years before.
According to Agent Newsome, Bergeron had only taken the job to keep himself busy and get out of the house after the death of his wife.
That depressing note impelled Ozzy to get out of the office and head up to Sudbury. February wasn't exactly the happiest month in New England anyway; thinking about Bergeron's fate wasn't going to help.
Pete lived in a nice, good-sized Dutch colonial near the middle of Sudbury with what was probably a decent chunk of property once the snow melted. "I guess photography pays better than I thought it did," Ozzy
muttered to himself. He followed the driveway up to the shoveled walk and rang the doorbell.
Pete opened the door. He looked a lot better when he wasn't wrapped up in a coat and trying to cover his mouth and nose. Golden blond hair framed a heart-shaped face, in which huge, dark brown eyes stared out at the world. "Hey," he greeted. "Left the assault rifle in the car, I see."
Ozzy laughed. "Yeah. Well, you know, I'm kind of hoping that it's not going to be necessary out here in the Sudbury tundra."
"You never know. I didn't think I'd need it at Framingham Bank either but here we are." He let Ozzy into the house, which was lovingly decorated. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?"
"Coffee would be great." He followed Pete into a beautiful gray and white kitchen, where it turned out that coffee had already been made. "So. The reason I'm here is that the gun the ringleader used is the same gun that was used in a cop's murder twenty years ago."
"And you're a cold case detective." Pete grinned. "I get it.'
"You're a smart cookie. So the cops who were speaking to you before, they were looking to prove a case now. I'm looking for clues that might link anything that happened earlier this week to what happened twenty years ago."
Pete shook his head. "Yeah, I mean, I'll try. You'll know better than I would about how useful it'll be."
"I guess my first question is, how into the robbery did they seem to be?" Ozzy leaned forward and wrapped his hands around his coffee mug.
"I'd say they expected to make a clean getaway. I saw how pissed they were that the clerk tripped the alarm." He shook his head. "They killed her too."
"She survived, actually. It's going to be touch and go for a while, but if she's lucky she'll make it." Ozzy squirmed. The poor woman would have problems for the rest of her life, even in a best-case scenario, but at least she was alive. "What about the killing?"
Pete shuddered. "Jeff had one of his underlings choose the victim. He lingered by me for a while, but ultimately chose the security guard."
"Oh." Ozzy closed his eyes. "Oh my God. Pete, I am so sorry."
Pete bowed his head. "It felt very unreal. I don't think that it mattered to Jeff which one he picked. He said I'd be next. He told the underling to make it count. But I don't think he bore the security guard any specific ill will. He wasn't a good guy in a bad situation. He was a cold man, who didn't care about anyone."
Ozzy put a hand over Pete's. "They're going to pay, Pete. They're going to jail. They're not getting out for a very long time, and they're not going to be able to get near you ever again. I can promise you that."
Pete gave him a shy little smile, and Ozzy pulled his hand back. He'd crossed a line, and he knew it. Pete almost certainly had someone else protecting him. He didn't need Ozzy's help.
Chapter Two
Pete looked around the bedroom. He could have painted it himself. He wasn't sure that breathing in paint fumes was going to be the best plan for the baby, though, and it wasn't like painting was exactly fun work to begin with. As a general rule, Pete was a pretty self-sufficient guy. He liked to do things for himself and not spend money if he didn't have to. He was willing to open up the purse strings here and there for some things, though, and one of them was painting while six and a half months pregnant.
He heard the door downstairs open. The security system beeped and then went silent as the new arrival punched in the right code. It had to be his brother. His mother had a code, but never used it. No one else had a code.
Just as Pete expected, Angus's auburn hair appeared around the doorframe just before the rest of him. "Hey, big bro." Angus slouched into the baby's room and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Looks good in here. You going to let Mom's designer do the interior?"
Pete rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not going to let Mom's designer do the interior." He scoffed. "Come on, dude. Really? It's not like she's going to need much stuff. She's going to need a changing table, a crib, and a diaper bucket. Oh, and someplace to put her clothes." He shook his head. "She doesn't need an antique Venetian glass vase to knock over onto her own head when she starts to crawl, for crying out loud."
Angus nodded at the wisdom of this. "Probably not. But don't you think that will be a little impersonal? Kids need to be free to express themselves and stuff."
"They do. And once she's got a self to express I'll be sure to let her express that stuff. Right now, I know she kicks a lot if I play Shostakovich. I don't know if that means she's super into Shostakovich or if that's her little fetal way of saying Please make it stop and play Foster the People, Daddy." He shrugged.
Angus shuddered. "Perish the thought. Mother hates pop music."
Pete shook his head and pulled a tape measure out of his pocket. "Mom thinks that central heating is dangerously innovative, dude."
"I think you're being unfair. I mean, yeah, she's a little set in her ways, but that's just her. She's used to doing things a certain way, and we just have to accept it, you know?" Angus leaned against the wall where the changing table would go.
"I accept it just fine. I also know what I'm dealing with and where to set my expectations." Pete stood up. "So what brings you by?" He slipped out of the baby's room and led his brother back downstairs. He didn't like letting other people into the baby's room, not before she'd gotten here. It felt gross, almost violating in a weird way.
"I just wanted to check in." Angus followed Pete down to the kitchen. "I mean, you went through something kind of scary. That's got to be traumatic, right?"
Pete closed his eyes and pushed back against the memory of the gunman coldly saying that Pete would be next. "Yeah. It was. It's over now, though, and they should be spending a good long time in jail."
"You hope." Angus tapped his foot on the linoleum and watched as Pete started water for tea. "I mean, what if they walk on a technicality?"
"I don't know. The cops on the scene were pretty serious about making sure that all of the i's were dotted and everything." He reached up into a cupboard for two mugs. "Isn't bank robbery a federal crime anyway? You don't see a lot of people walking when they're up on federal charges, not on technicalities."
"I don't know. I'm still uncomfortable." Angus squirmed. "Mother and I were talking it over, and we think you should move back home."
Pete laughed out loud. "Right." The only thing that kept that from being a disaster was his secure knowledge that no one would ever actually want that.
"No really." Angus' pale face got red when Pete laughed at him. "It's obvious you're not safe here. You can't keep yourself safe, and you can't keep your daughter safe. If you'd found yourself an alpha it would be one thing, but as it is you need someone to take care of you."
Pete scrounged through another cabinet for tea bags. "And who exactly is going to do that, Angus? Mom's never taken care of a goldfish without an army of staff, and you have an assistant even though you don't actually have a job."
"That's not the point." Angus jabbed a stubby finger at the table. "Home is more secure. We have a wall, we have a gate, we have security staff. No one will be able to get to you, and you'll be able to raise your daughter in safety."
Pete smirked and folded his arms across his chest. "And when I'm working?"
"Well, you're quitting your job." Angus waved a hand, like he could sweep away everything that Pete had accomplished over the years.
Pete shook his head and turned his attention to the dry dishes in his dish rack. "Like hell I'm quitting my job. It's my job. It's what I actually do. I'm not about to quit it."
"But you were attacked!" Angus' dark eyes were as round as saucers.
"No. I was one of several people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn't singled out." Except when I was. He took a deep breath and pressed on. "I'm not going to just let myself get locked away because someone else made bad life choices, okay? I like my job, and it's important to me that my daughter sees me working." The kettle whistled, and he poured tea for both of them. "So how are things with you and Keith?"
<
br /> "Oh. We split up." Angus made a face and looked away. "He wanted us to get a place together."
"Angus, you're twenty-six. It's okay to get a place of your own." Pete knew that he might as well have kept his mouth shut, but it kept the conversation away from him and his own situation so he pushed the issue.
Angus recoiled. "Ugh. No. And who would wash dishes? You might have some kind of a… a sick fetish for used food, but the rest of us are much more sensible about these things. No, no, no. I'm staying with Mother. Love me, love my living arrangement."
Pete sighed and wrapped his hands around the mug. "Someday you're going to regret having given up those opportunities for love. You're going to get tired of waking up cold and alone."
"Okay, but you went after it. You went after it, and you wound up cold and alone anyway. You're just cold and alone with dirty dishes and a baby on the way, whereas I have clean dishes every time and no baby." Angus flashed him a smug look and sipped from his tea. "Damn it!"