by Aiden Bates
Robles could handle it. He didn't have a lot of imagination, but he was diligent. He would explore every possible avenue until he got to his answer. He'd follow the procedure right down to the last letter, and that would be the end of it.
Then there was Tessaro. Tessaro's case was messy. How someone could have been shot forty years ago, in full view of five people, and still be a complete unknown was something that Sam couldn't quite understand. Something fishy was going on there, but Tessaro would get to the bottom of it. The case was messy, but Tessaro was messy, and they were well suited.
Sam and Morris had just finished up cases. Sam's had come to a satisfying conclusion. Morris' had been a little bit less satisfying. It had been a case of self-defense. None of them thought that a jury would see it that way, though. They'd given the suspect the number for Langer's omega, who was a damn fine defense attorney. If he couldn't sway the jury, the poor lady was hosed.
Sam shook his head at himself. Since when had he become the kind of guy that gave a crap about what happened to suspects? The woman had killed her husband, and then she'd concealed the crime for twenty years. Self-defense didn't matter. At least, it hadn't mattered, for a long time. Now it did, and he wasn't sure that he liked the change.
The change had happened, though, and he couldn't pretend that it hadn't. Oh well. There wasn't anything that he could do about it now but shake his head at himself.
The door to Cold Case opened, and two people walked in. The first was Nina Burton, who ran the lab here in Framingham. The second was someone Sam didn't need to open his eyes to recognize.
The first time that Sam had met Oliver Wesson, he'd gone tearing down to the nearest health food place to sniff at each and every one of their essential oils until he could identify the exotic, enticing scent that emanated from the handsome, slender omega. When he'd finally found it, he'd almost passed out. Myrrh. He'd never met, or even heard of, a myrrh scent for an omega. And he wanted more.
Of course that scent would be attached to the omega whose workstation was next to Sam's son. Why would life be any easier than that?
He kept his eyes strictly on Burton as the pair disappeared into the conference room with Lt. Devlin. He didn't want to stare. He didn't want to give the impression that he was some kind of creepy old man, even if he was.
Tessaro scratched his head. "Did Oliver get a new haircut or something?"
Sam shrugged. "I have no idea." It wasn't a lie. He hadn't looked. He didn't want Oliver to have gotten a haircut. He'd had enough fantasies about running his hand through that hair, gripping it tight—
"Nenci!" Devlin poked his head out of the conference room. "If you'd be so kind."
Sam choked on his own tongue. Tessaro and Robles snickered under their breath, but Langer just gave him a sympathetic glance. Sam ignored them all and grabbed a notepad and pen. He didn't want to go in there. He didn't want to be in such a close space with Oliver Wesson, not if he couldn't touch.
He dragged his feet, but he walked into the conference room.
Devlin closed the door behind them. The scent of myrrh was overpowering, but Oliver's eyes were on the file in front of him. Nina Burton, though, glowered up at Sam while he took his seat. "Detective Nenci," Devlin said. "How much do you know about the Cooper Block Fire in Salem, Massachusetts?"
Sam snorted and accepted the folder that Devlin passed to him. "I know that it was a little bit before my time, sir. I'm not actually fifty yet, and that fire happened more than fifty years ago."
"Two points for Nenci." Devlin grinned. "You do remember it, then. Mr. Wesson, maybe you can fill us in on some of the details."
Oliver cleared his throat and glanced around. Whose bright idea had it been to stick an omega in a closed space with two alphas? The poor guy's heart had to be beating a mile a minute. "The building, while it occupied several different lots, was really just one large building with multiple entrances. It had a single owner, multiple retail establishments on the ground level, and approximately fifty apartments on the stories above. It was replaced with a similar establishment, with better sprinklers, the next year. That structure partially burned in 1992."
Sam frowned. "Was that fire also arson?"
"It was, and it was also fatal." Devlin spoke up when Oliver looked down and away, pink coloring his high cheekbones. "The first fire killed fifty people—one for every apartment, although they weren't quite so evenly distributed. Thirty of the deceased were children. Some of the doors had been barred to prevent escape. The building's owners, the Coucher family, initially faced charges for that obstruction, but it was shown that the doors were blocked from the outside and hadn't been before the fire.
"The fire in '92 was similar. It had a lower death toll because of the improved sprinkler system. The Coucher family apparently learned from history, because that system had been upgraded within the past five years. Security cameras around the building showed a masked figure attempting to seal the building shut, but the camera feed was cut not long after that. Ten lives were lost that day, to include two firefighters attempting to save children."
Sam bowed his head for a moment of respectful silence. "I remember that one, at least. I was new to the force then. My kids were still new, too. My omega, Chris, was horrified by the whole thing. He was terrified that something would happen to me on the job." Instead, something had happened to him. Sam wasn't going to mention that, though. He wasn't even going to think about that if he could avoid it.
"The thing is," Sam continued, scratching at his beard, "this seems very…” He frowned. "This seems very strange. It seems like someone has it out for the family, like an old-style vendetta. Is the property still in the family's hands?"
"No." Burton shook her head. "It's on the ghost tour though." She rolled her eyes. "They sold it to the City at a loss after that, and the City built some offices on the site and used the rest for a park. The Coucher family left Salem, both in terms of business interests and personal property. Their commercial properties have continued to suffer from a spate of fires, not all of which have been proven to be arson. Under the circumstances, though, I think it's a safe bet."
"We can't bring charges for safe bets, or admit them as evidence in court." Sam scowled at her. "So let me guess. We're re-opening the cold case, because we think that we can get something from the old evidence."
Oliver cleared his throat again. "With all due respect, sir, we can. We didn't have the GC-MassSpec in 1967. We didn't even have it in 1992. It existed, but the technology has improved and it's become much more accessible. Forensic evaluation of arson scenes has come a long way in the past few years. Even the invention of the Internet has improved things tremendously, because consultation with a specialist or details about a similar fire or case are simply a click away." Oliver's silver eyes gleamed for a moment. "Arson is never easy to solve, but it has become so much more solvable in the past ten years alone."
Sam made the mistake of meeting those silver eyes, just for a moment. He wanted to reach out and touch that smooth skin. "Okay, sure," he said after what he knew was a moment too long. "But the thing is, Oliver, there's so much more to proving it in court than chemical formulae and emails to professors."
It was the wrong thing to say. Burton turned to Devlin. "Are you sure that we can't get Morris on this case instead?"
"Morris is available to help out, but he's not going to be the lead on this case." Devlin ignored Burton's comment. "It's a difficult choice to make, but I think that Nenci's the right man for this job. I happen to agree that this has all of the hallmarks of a vendetta, and he's definitely the one who has the patience to tease out the little connections between the crime scenes. He's also the one who's going to find the crimes that are retaliatory. It would be unusual, to say the least, to have someone kill fifty of a family's tenants without any kind of retaliation whatsoever. It's pretty much unheard of to have someone kill fifty of a family's tenants and then kill eight more, without there being anything in between to spark tha
t second killing."
Sam's mouth went dry. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, sir?"
Devlin nodded. "This is going to be an unusual investigation. Arson investigation is tricky, and Oliver's our best arson investigator. He's got a lot of great contacts at the state fire marshal's office, thanks to his work there, and he's a very gifted investigator when it comes to the analytical side of things. You and he are going to work together to get to the bottom of this feud and arrest everyone responsible."
Sam scowled. "He can't actually arrest anyone. He's not a detective. He's not a cop. He doesn't have a badge. He doesn't have a gun." He looked directly at Oliver. "Do you even know how to use a gun?"
Oliver shrunk into himself, and Sam felt like he'd kicked a puppy. "I've had adequate ballistics training, sir. I know how to aim and how to fire, how to load and how to check a gun to see if the gun is loaded. I haven't explored beyond that and I don't care to."
Sam threw up his hands. "Sir, don't get me wrong. Oliver's fantastic in the lab. I wouldn't trade his work for ten thousand lab techs. I just think that it's a big mistake bringing omegas out into the field. Bringing omegas out into the field who don't have any kind of field training, who can't protect themselves if things go bad and who might make things worse, is just foolish. Sir."
Oliver hung his head. "It's true. I don't have any field experience or training. I haven't sought it, either."
Burton snarled at Sam. "You're even worse in person than the rumors suggested."
Devlin held up a hand. "You know, Nenci, I understand what you're saying. I do. You're concerned about Oliver's safety, and of course your own. No one's suggesting that we give him a gun, and Oliver's shown plenty of good judgment. He's not going to go grabbing for a gun and looking to play hero."
Oliver managed a sad little grin. "Not my place, sir. I'm here for science. That's all."
Devlin folded his hands on the table. "The fact of the matter is, Detective Nenci, that if we want to solve this case, we're going to need a lot of science to back it up. We'll need more of a hands-on approach from the forensic team than we ever have before. Oliver was chosen for this task because of his consistent display of good judgment and because of his extensive arson experience. You will work with him, and you will get the conviction. Do I make myself clear?"
There was no wiggle room. There was no getting out of this. "Crystal, sir."
Devlin stood up. The others stood with him. The meeting was over. "Excellent. Good luck; keep me posted."
Burton and Devlin left the room. Oliver hung back for just a moment. His perfect pink tongue moistened his lips. "If it's any consolation, sir, I didn't ask for this. I'm sorry they forced me on you." He scurried away after his boss.
Sam hung his head again. Oliver clearly thought that the problem was him, instead of the situation. Sam could understand why. He'd shot his mouth off again, and now that beautiful and delicious-smelling omega looked almost ready to cry. That was on Sam.
Well, it was better that he thought that Sam was an asshole. It was better than thinking that Sam was some kind of pervert. He sighed and got up from the table. He had a lot of prep work to do before they could get started on the project.
Chapter Two
Oliver stared at the screen before him. It had taken him a week to come up with this data, although maybe it shouldn't have. Nina had taken some of his lab duties away from him for the duration of the case, but not all of them. Oliver still had to do the work for the Cold Case crew, and nothing short of a major disaster was going to get him out of processing rape kits to help whittle down the backlog.
But he'd carved out time to do his own digging, since the case was on his plate and he'd received no communication from his partner. Whatever issues Nenci had with him, or with omegas, or with arson cases, or with the moon being in Sagittarius, someone needed to resolve this case. If it wasn't going to be Nenci, it was going to have to be Oliver.
It seemed logical to start with Coucher family properties. Oliver didn't doubt that the Coucher family were participants in a feud, just as Nenci had said. After all, Nenci knew all about the darker side of human behavior. Oliver didn't. He knew about science. He knew about logic. The Coucher family might have been equal participants in the fight but Oliver didn't have any clues on where to start with their opposite number, so he would have to treat them as victims for now.
He'd have plenty of data to keep him busy, that was for sure. Not all Coucher properties were easily identified in public records as such. Oliver had been forced to dig deep to find them. Some of them were owned under real estate partnerships, or as part of a limited liability corporation with a weird name. Most of those were fine. As a general rule, the more obscure the connection to the Coucher family, the safer the building was. More of the properties owned under that type of hidden pattern of possession seemed to have come into the family's portfolio after the year 2000, which prompted Oliver to take a look into the family's personal records.
Just as he'd started to suspect, there had been a major death at about that time. Albert Coucher, the paterfamilias, had died in his sleep. The family and its fortunes had passed to his son, Bill. It must have been Bill that had chosen the new tactic of hiding the family's possessions. It had been successful. There had been ten fires in the two years leading up to Albert's death alone. There had been two fires in the first decade after Bill's accession, and only one after that.
Fires were only one source of property damage, however. On a hunch, Oliver had done a search for floods. There had been plenty of floods in buildings that were owned by the Coucher family, caused by "faulty" pipes. Oliver could see just from the pictures that the pipes had been sabotaged.
Another expansion of his search found more damage. "Faulty" wiring caused electrical accidents that led to the deaths of four men, seven women, and two children. Carbon monoxide leaks led to hospitalizations in four different buildings, and three deaths. Gas leaks resulted in two explosions. Cars slammed into two buildings, resulting in structural integrity issues.
Oliver sighed and shook his head. The crimes had taken place over the course of fifty years. Everything had passed unnoticed under the eyes of state authorities and the police, possibly because they happened in different jurisdictions all over the North Shore.
Even the Couchers hadn't said a thing. If it had been one or two accidents, Oliver could understand that they might not even realize that there was anything deliberate about what had happened. The way that things played out, though, even a goldfish could tell that this was criminal. That alone told Oliver that the Couchers were up to something bad.
Jake craned his head around the wall separating their cubicles. "Hey, buddy, what's up?" He glanced at the morass of tiny print on Oliver's monitor. "Dude, what the hell? That's like something one of the actual cops would come up with. Not, you know, part of our job."
Oliver squirmed. If Nenci could see this, he'd flip his lid. Oliver wasn't a cop; he shouldn't be trying to do a cop's job. "I know, I know. It's just that this case needs to get finished, and I don't know if there's been any progress on it. So." He waved his hand at the screen. "I mean it's easy enough to zoom in on a section, if some of it's looking too small for your geriatric eyes to see."
Jake scooted his chair over. "I'm like a few months older than you, whippersnapper. Don't get all uppity on me now. You've done a lot of work on this. What've you found?"
Oliver stretched his neck back. "It's more like what haven't I found. I haven't found the other half of this equation. I haven't found who the Couchers are feuding with. I haven't found who they've got such a beef with that fifty people get killed in one day and it just keeps on going from there. And I haven't found out what sparked the whole thing." He massaged little circles into his temple. "I have found that owning a whole bunch of property apparently makes you a target. And that digging into this stuff is duller than watching the GC-MassSpec work."
"Ouch." Jake chuckled and then nudged Oliver out
of the way. "You know, I don't actually mind this sort of thing."
"You don't?" Oliver couldn't help the look of disbelief he gave his friend.
"Nah. I wanted to be a cop more than I wanted to breathe, actually. Wanted it like burning. I figured that I'd be a detective, just like my dad." He shook his head. "He was having no part of it, of course. You know how he is. My other dad got killed when an omega cop was supposed to be watching him, and now all omega cops are flighty irresponsible tools. I'm surprised he didn't block me from getting this job, just out of spite. But hey." Jake's lips twisted upward in a kind of grin. "That's not the point. The point is that I don't mind doing this kind of digging. So I'll trade you. If you'll handle the blood spatter analysis on this crime scene for me, I'll see what I can make out of this data you've already pulled out, and see what I can't get for you too."