by Aiden Bates
Pete grinned. I'd like that. Maybe it was all just an illusion, but he was going to enjoy every minute of it.
...
Ozzy's insides quivered as he stood outside the entrance to Abused Persons. He should have had Robles do this, damn it. He should have asked Robles to get this information, and then he wouldn't have had to come down here with his hat in his hand to ask for a favor from Ryan "Pretty Boy" Tran. Okay, so they'd all had that day when they'd gone to the bar and had a few drinks. That was supposed to have cancelled out any bad blood.
If someone, or a bunch of someones, had treated Ozzy the way Cold Case had treated Ryan, a few beers wouldn't have cancelled out squat.
Still, Ozzy was supposed to be an adult. He was a combat veteran. He'd faced down the Taliban in Afghanistan and the men who would go on to become Daesh in Iraq. He shouldn't have anything to fear from a slender, pretty omega whose pregnancy was only just starting to show. Right?
He thought back to some of the stories Nick told, about the things Ryan could do when he decided the time for violence was upon him. Maybe he needed to rethink his strategy. Did Ryan like flowers?
He pushed the door open. It was best to just get things over with.
The department admin looked up from her desk. "Detective Morris?" She pushed her braids back over her shoulder and looked up at him.
Ozzy grimaced. "Does everyone know who I am?"
"You're the only one with an appointment at one o'clock to see Sergeant Tran, Detective. He's expecting you." She gave him a thin, professional smile and gestured to the open door of Ryan's office.
Ozzy thanked her and made his way over to the small office. It had once been a conference room, apparently, but when Ryan had been promoted they'd converted it. He sat behind his desk looking at his computer and drinking what looked like chocolate milk, but he looked up when Ozzy walked in. "Ozzy Morris." Ryan gave a quick grin. "How are things going, man?" He gestured to one of the seats on the other side of his desk.
"Not too bad. You know how it is. The cases are weird. The cases are always weird." He looked over Ryan's desk. It wasn't empty, because that would be impossible. There were piles of paper, and stacks of files, just like there would be on any other cop's desk. Ryan's stacks and piles, though, were neat. If Ozzy didn't know better, he'd think that Ryan checked them with a T-square.
"Ain't that the truth." Ryan chuckled. "They wouldn't be cold if they were easy. Nick said you've got a real puzzler this time around, though." He dropped a hand to his barely-there baby bump at the mention of his partner's name.
Ozzy shifted. Ryan's sandalwood scent did things to him. It had ever since the day he'd walked into the Cold Case office. Now, though, that effect had diminished. Was it because Ryan was pregnant? Ozzy didn't think that could be it. He was pretty sure that he'd still been interested in Ryan after he'd gotten pregnant, and he was definitely into Pete and Pete was very pregnant.
Oh. That had to be it. Ozzy's head was so wrapped up in Pete that nothing else really did it for him anymore.
"Yeah," he said, when he realized that he was expected to speak. "It's a really bizarre case. No clues at all, until we got the gun and then an anonymous tip." He explained the facts of the case to Ryan, and then he mentioned the anonymous tip. He'd sent the name to Ryan before, but he wanted to give the request more context.
"Huh. Okay. Well, your hunch was right." Ryan grabbed a stack of files. "Your girl Moriarty was underage for a lot of these arrests, and that would have gotten her a file in Abused Persons anyway. Her file is pretty extensive." He squirmed a little. "She's had a pretty rough life. And, ah, it kind of shows." He passed Ozzy two files. One was an older file, mostly filled with typed or handwritten forms. The other was a modern file with computer printouts.
Ozzy flipped through them. "Oh, geez. You weren't kidding."
"On the streets turning tricks by the time she was thirteen. Social services got her into care twice, but something spooked her and she ran. Turned up in Providence badly injured back in ninety-eight, and it was the start of a long road even further downhill for her." Ryan tugged at his collar. "She was broke from the medical bills, and she wound up hooked on opiates besides. When she couldn't get the prescription pills…"
"She turned to heroin." Ozzy shook his head. "Geez. You know, I can't even really judge her for it."
"Nah. I mean, it's not the best life choice that she could have made, no, but it happens every day. She's not the first, she won't be the last. If it happens to folks from good, stable families with strong support networks, how is a kid who doesn't have anyone to have her back supposed to resist it?" Ryan turned his face away. "Anyway. It looks like she's made a few attempts to get clean here and there, some of which were court ordered. Fun times." He thumped his hand on the second file. "We have a file for child neglect, and she lost custody of two children on a permanent basis five years ago because she just couldn't take care of them."
Ozzy slumped over. "Sometimes this job is really depressing."
"Right?" Ryan fell silent for a moment, staring off into space. Then he shook himself out of it. "She does have a current job, and no arrests since her last stint in rehab four years ago. She's working at a brew pub in Framingham." He passed Ozzy the notes with her current address and a note from the caseworker who handled her supervised visitation with her children.
"Thanks, man."
"Don't thank me yet." Ryan grinned. It looked a little forced, but at least he was making the effort. "I have here, for your viewing pleasure, the file for one Jeffrey Arthur Balsalmo, age nineteen, and known to our department since the ripe old age of two."
"Geez." Ozzy put the files down. "Please tell me that not everyone who comes through your department winds up coming through as a perp somewhere else."
"Of course not. People make their own choices, buddy. Some of them, like Ms. Moriarty, probably didn't have a lot of options, or didn't see a lot of options for themselves. Others, like the adorable cherub that your bank robber once was, made the choice to be what he was. He was a neglect case, plain and simple. Plenty of other neglect cases wind up fine. Other neglect cases might have their share of problems, but the vast majority of people who were neglected as children do not become homicidal bank robbers." He passed Ozzy the file. "It is something that they have in common, though. They've both been through the system, and through the criminal system, at a young age."
Ryan bit his lip, and then he opened Balsalmo's file again. "And Jeff didn't start out doing bank robberies."
Ozzy looked at the charge Ryan indicated. "Prostitution. Huh."
"Unlike Dawn Moriarty, Balsalmo was working for someone. He had a pimp by the name of Sierzant, Joe Sierzant. Back in the mid-nineties, all he did was pimping. These days, you could get an earful from the guys on the Organized Crime Task Force about him." He made a face. "We've managed to get some of his underlings, but we never did get anything to stick on him."
"Huh." Ozzy drummed his fingers against the top of Ryan's desk. "Thanks a lot for all of this. This is a huge amount of information."
"No problem. I just want to see some justice for a dead cop, you know?" Ryan grinned at him. "Say hi to everyone for me."
"Yeah. I will." Ozzy rose. "Even Nenci."
"Not him. You can toss him out in the dumpster with the rest of the trash for all I care." Ryan glanced back at his screen. "Have a good one."
"You too." Ozzy headed back to Cold Case with the files Ryan had pulled for him and a head full of questions.
Before he could research, though, he sent a text to Pete. We still on for tomorrow night?
You bet. The reply sent a little thrill through Ozzy's heart, or maybe it was just the fact that the reply came back so quickly. You up for a pub? I'm craving nachos for some reason.
I could do that, I think. Ozzy took a moment to exult over his date with the incredible Pete Nolan, Photographer, before he called up Dawn Moriarty's caseworker.
The caseworker told him that Dawn tended t
o be somewhat mistrustful of the police, and with good reason, but that she'd probably cooperate if the caseworker came along with him. He swung by her office to pick her up, and they headed over to Dawn's apartment in the hopes of catching her before work.
"I have to warn you," said the caseworker, Mary, "that Dawn isn't necessarily the friendliest of souls. She's got a good heart, but she hasn't had the easiest time in life and sometimes that's reflected in her attitude toward authority figures. Please don't lose your temper if she seems surly."
"I'm prepared for that, ma'am." Ozzy grinned. "I just want to get to the bottom of this case. She's not a suspect. I hope I can make that clear to her."
They found Dawn at home, relaxing a little before work. Dawn flipped out a little when Mary told her that she'd brought a cop over, but Mary managed to get her to calm down enough to come out to a Starbucks near the apartment. She wouldn't let them into the apartment, but she'd meet them in a public place.
Dawn Moriarty's skin showed the effects of her life, with more lines than her years should have allowed. Her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. The most surprising thing about her appearance was her size. She was short, maybe five feet tall, and solidly muscled. "I don't like cops," she told them both, in a sullen voice. "What do you want from me?"
Ozzy managed a little smile. "Ms. Moriarty, before we start, can I just tell you that you're not a suspect in anything right now? I get that you're suspicious of cops. I get that a lot. I don't blame you. I could wish it were otherwise, but you have your reasons. I'm not here to judge you or go poking my nose into anything, okay? I work for the Cold Case Squad."
Her narrowed eyes didn't relax. Neither did the set of her jaw. "And?"
Ozzy tried not to show his disappointment. "And I'm working on a case that's about twenty years old. We got a piece of evidence that's the first actual, physical evidence we have in the case. It's a gun. Here's the thing. The gun was used in a current case, by a guy who hadn't even been conceived when the old crime was committed. See why that's weird?"
She looked away for a second, and then back up at him. "What's that got to do with me? I ain't got a gun. Can't have a gun. Criminal past."
Ozzy shrugged. "I have no idea what it has to do with you. We put out a call for anonymous tips, like we usually would in a situation like that. Your name is the only one that had any ties back to the original crime."
Dawn slammed her hands down on the table and slid her chair back. "I thought you said I wasn't a suspect!"
"You're not. The gun was used in the slaying of State Trooper Tim Harbaugh. He ran you in once or twice, you probably don't even remember him." Ozzy watched her carefully. Was she going to do something unpredictable? He needed to be ready. "I just wanted to know who might have slipped us your name, and why. That might put us on the right path."
Dawn took a few deep breaths, almost like she was trying to stave off panic. "I don't remember no Harbaugh." She clenched her hands into fists. "I can tell you someone who would want you to come sniffing around my door, though. But it ain't because he wants to be a good little citizen and help the police."
Ozzy did his best to stay still and calm. "Who's that, Ms. Moriarty?"
"Joe Freaking Sierzant, that's who." Her lip curled when she said the name. "I can't prove that he's the one who gave you my name, but he's had it in for me for years. He's always hated me, and it's mutual. Bastard got my kids taken away from me. Bastard tried to kill me more than once, too. This is just one more way that he's trying to bring me down, sending the pigs to my door."
Mary cleared her throat.
Dawn had the good grace to look a little bit abashed. "Sorry," she muttered, shrinking into herself.
Ozzy's mind raced. He needed to play this very carefully. "You think that he would put your name in as an anonymous tip in a murder case just because of an old grudge?"
Dawn leaned back and smirked. She tapped the side of her nose. "Ah. See, I don't know any Harbaugh. I mean, for crying out loud, if I nursed that kind of a grudge against every cop who ever ran me in, that would be, like, serial killer type of stuff, right? And that's not me. I ain't never been violent. You can see it in my record."
"It's true," Mary added, glancing at Ozzy with obvious alarm. "Dawn might have her issues, but she's never been violent."
"No, your record doesn't suggest that you have been." Ozzy shook his head. "Like I said, Ms. Moriarty, you were never a suspect."
Dawn seemed to relax a little. "The thing is, Sierzant is. And he would have found it real useful to have a cop on the payroll. If Harbaugh wasn't willing to play ball, I could see Sierzant capping him, just to keep him from squealing."
Ozzy scratched at his chin. It sounded plausible. He hadn't heard that Harbaugh was having trouble in that area, but he still needed to go through and research Harbaugh's associates. "I see. Well, that's definitely an interesting area to pursue." He held out a hand for Dawn to shake. "Thanks for your help, Ms. Moriarty. If I have any more questions, is it all right if I give you a call?"
She hesitated, and then she nodded. "You're not so bad."
Ozzy gave her a card. "Just in case you need anything." They walked out of the coffee shop and headed over toward Dawn's building.
On their way over, a man came walking down the sidewalk toward them. Ozzy noticed his approach and saw him reach inside his jacket. He was able to intervene just as the stranger pulled out a gun and aimed it at Dawn.
Adrenaline surged through his system as he knocked the gun off target. He pushed Dawn and Mary out of the line of fire before he slugged the stranger in the jaw. The man fell to the pavement, and Ozzy pulled the gun out of his hand and slapped cuffs on him.
He dialed in to headquarters, breathing heavily. "This is Detective Ozzy Morris, calling to report an assault on a witness and an officer. Suspect is down, requesting immediate backup to my location."
Mary and Dawn held onto each other, staring at Ozzy with a mix of admiration and fear.
Chapter Four
Pete slept in on Saturday. He wasn't prone to that sort of thing. He had been once, back when he still lived at his mother's house, but living on his own had kind of rubbed that habit out of him. There was too much to be done. No one else was going to mop his floors or do his laundry. He guessed he could hire someone, but the thought felt ridiculous after so long.
Today, though, Pete wanted to get his rest. The house was in decent shape, and Pete wanted to be as awake as he could be for his date with Ozzy tonight. Not that he should be thinking about it as a date. No, Ozzy was just being kind to a lonely fool. That didn't have much bearing on Pete, though. Whether Ozzy had some kind of actual interest in him or was just being kind, he deserved the compliment of a conversational partner who wasn't falling asleep in his dinner.
Pete had planned to sleep in. He hadn't planned to sleep until noon. He guessed he needed the sleep. When he crawled out of bed, he fixed himself something to eat, keeping in mind his doctor's nutritional guidelines. The first thing he'd do once the baby was out was going to be go out for sushi. Okay, maybe he'd have to wait until he was discharged from the hospital and oh yeah, named the baby. But he was getting into a cab, right there at the main entrance to that hospital, and he was taking that cab to the nearest sushi joint.
After breakfast, he headed for the bath. He took his time there. He wanted to be clean and to smell good, instead of like old sweat and too much garlic. He also wanted to be relaxed. He indulged in a bath bomb, something else that was a rare bit of pampering for him. The soothing lavender scent helped to calm him, to ease his mind and his heart and his aching muscles.
He thought about staying in the bath for a few hours, until just before Ozzy came to pick him up. It was such a tempting thought, to hide out in there and let the soothing scent carry him away. Once an hour had passed, though, he knew he couldn't. There was still too much to be done. He had emails to answer, and dishes to put away. He could stand to clean the toilets, too, because what if Ozzy act
ually came into the house and needed to use them? It was fine if Ozzy thought that Pete was slutty and an easy lay—in fact, considering how long Pete had gone, a part of him kind of preferred that Ozzy think he was a slutty, easy lay—but he couldn't abide by the idea that Ozzy would think of him as a slovenly housekeeper. A guy had to have his pride, after all.
He cleaned the bathrooms, and he put away the dishes. Then he got dressed in a nice red button-down shirt that emphasized that he was pregnant, not the victim of a beer gut, and went to handle his professional business until the doorbell rang.
Ozzy was on time. Pete liked that about him. He was never late. A lot of guys had a lackadaisical approach to time, but Ozzy took other people's time seriously. "You look great!" Ozzy grinned when he saw him.
Pete knew he was blushing when he let Ozzy into the house. "Thanks. Sorry about the other day. Like I said, she just kind of showed up."