Jack and Morrie were behind the bar. They were both looking at him after he completed his scan. They were also both moving down to the end of the bar where Colt always sat, around the curve so his back was to the door to the office, his vantage giving him a full view of the bar.
Colt slid onto a stool and Morrie asked, “Off duty?”
“Yeah.”
Morrie twisted, bent then pulled three beer bottles out of a glass-fronted fridge. Jack moved to the shelves, grabbing the bourbon and three glasses. Colt found his mind wandering to what he’d learned yesterday, the insignificant but unknown fact that Feb did yoga. That piece of information had slid into his brain half a dozen times in the last two days, pissing him off because he didn’t know that about her. And it bothered him he didn’t know. What bothered him more was that it bothered him at all.
Morrie uncapped the bottles, placing them on the bar with a dull thud. Jack put ice in the glasses then poured the bourbon, using the beverage gun to shoot a blast of Coke in Colt’s before sliding the glasses around. The one that was cut went to Colt, the two straight shots, one went toward Morrie, Jack picked up the last and downed it in a gulp.
This was unusual. Jack liked his bourbon and was smart enough to sip it. He was also smart enough to play his cards close to his chest and almost always did. This act exposed his mood to anyone who knew him and it made that weight in Colt’s gut shift disturbingly.
Colt nabbed the beer by its neck using two fingers and took a healthy pull.
“We good?” Morrie asked.
Colt’s eyes moved around the bottle to his friend. He dropped the beer to the bar.
“Not really but Feb’s over it and Feb doesn’t have much to do with me so I got no call to be pissed at you.”
Morrie’s lips thinned but he remained silent.
“We’ll talk about that shit later. Tell us about Pete,” Jack demanded and Colt turned to him.
Colt would have paid money, big money, not to be having this conversation. But he respected these men and they needed to know so he did what was right even though it felt shit and, when he was done, he knew he’d feel even more shit.
Still, he let go of the beer and took a sip of bourbon before he started.
“Pete was done three days ago. Why no one told his mother, I don’t know. He was the first that we know of.”
Jack took a sharp breath into his nostrils.
Colt kept talking, “We’re exchanging information with St. Louis. Murder was mostly the same, ‘cept Pete was awake when it happened and the killer did him at home and left him at home. He fought his attacker but the guy got a swipe to the back of Pete’s neck, probably when he was running away. It incapacitated him but didn’t kill him. He dragged Pete back to his bed and did the same as he did to Angie. Took off the clothes he was wearing, all of ‘em, unlike Angie, and delivered blows to the groin, up through to the abdomen, near to the heart. The bed, the floor, the walls, covered in blood.”
Jack and Morrie held his eyes, couldn’t tear theirs away. Colt had seen that before, mortified fascination, hearing words that felt like acid going in your ears but you couldn’t stop listening.
Colt went back to his beer and took a pull before he went on. “Boys spent a lot of time at Angie’s yesterday and today. Results are comin’ in. Angie wasn’t much of a housekeeper and she had a lot of visitors. We’ll be siftin’ through the shit we took from her house for awhile. Got a couple of hits, guys she had who left DNA or prints and have records but they’re unlikely. We’re lookin’ at them. Cory says he left her place around one o’clock. Said she was still pretty hammered when he left. Can’t know, it’s likely she doesn’t take the time to make her bed, but it looks like she slept there and the killer took her from there, though no forced entry, but her purse was there, her car keys, her car out front. Angie wasn’t a walker, she went somewhere, she’d take her car, even drunk. Toxicology came back. We’re guessin’ she’d dosed herself, probably needs to, way she lives her life, to get sleep. Had some over-the-counter sleep aids by the side of the bed, what amounts to four of them in her blood. Dose is usually two so she was either out our seriously groggy when he took her.”
“Thank the Lord,” Jack muttered.
Colt went on. He had a lot to say and he wanted to get it done, he wanted to get home, he wanted to sleep, he needed to be rested for whatever shit the next day would bring.
So he kept going. “Killer left Angie’s body exposed, he’d planned the show. Probably dressed her before he took her out but no bra, no underwear, no shoes. Pulled her top up to show her breasts, yanked her skirt up around her waist. No blows from the weapon except to her groin and abdomen.”
Jack and Morrie remained silent then again there was nothing to say to these grim facts.
“Displaying the bodies the way he does, naked, in Pete’s case, exposed, in Angie’s, hacking into their privates, this is an effort at humiliation,” Colt paused, the feeling of shit intensifying as he said, “a gift to Feb.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Morrie whispered.
“This has crossed state lines,” Colt told them. “The Feds are movin’ in. Already talked to them. Tomorrow morning got a meeting. Feds have called Quantico. The profilers are comin’ from Virginia first thing.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Morrie asked.
Colt had never worked with the Feds but he knew some guys who had, went to conferences, read shit about it. Sometimes they could be a pain in the ass. Most of the time, fresh eyes and that kind of experience were welcome.
Colt welcomed it.
“It’s good,” Colt said, “but I’ve already informed them of Feb and my history. I’ll be takin’ a step back.”
“You need to be working this, son,” Jack said, using the tone he always used with Colt. The tone he used with Morrie, the tone he used to use with Feb; that father’s tone that Colt never heard from his own Dad. The tone that said Jack believed in him, believed he could do what needed to be done, believed he’d do it right, believed no one could do it better.
“I don’t take a step back myself, they’ll push me back,” Colt replied. “They don’t care this is my town. They care about catchin’ this guy and makin’ him stay caught once they do. They don’t need and won’t tolerate anything that might jeopardize that.” No response and Colt gave them both a look. “Sully will be the local primary and I’ll still be workin’ it.”
“Least that’s something,” Jack remarked.
“We got more,” Colt told them. “Chris canvassed. Surprisingly that time in the morning no one saw some guy hacking away at Angie. Still, Chris got two witnesses who report they saw a silver sedan, they didn’t note the make and model. They thought it was an Audi or Mercedes, no license. They saw it pulling out of the alley around the time of the murder.”
“That ain’t much,” Morrie said.
“Better ‘n nothing,” Jack replied.
Morrie nodded and looked at Colt. “If Pete was killed three days ago, and Feb got that note the day Angie died, did we miss something? What –”
“Everyone knew what Pete did to February,” Jack noted. “He had no reason to explain.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Still, the killer left a calling card in St. Louis,” Colt told them.
Both men’s eyes turned to him.
“St. Louis PD couldn’t understand it, already knew they had someone who was seriously whacked in the head, but they didn’t get the message until I told them,” Colt said and Jack and Morrie stayed quiet so he gave them the news. “Bloody scene, carnage, but on Pete’s nightstand was a pristine bouquet of flowers, no blood on them, set there after the mess was made,” he paused, before he clipped out, “tulips.”
“Fuck!” Morrie hissed.
Tulips were Feb’s favorite flowers. Colt used to buy them for her every birthday even though they cost some cake, finding tulips in October. Florist had to special order them. He bought them for her on Valentine’s Day too. In her bedroom when she wa
s a teenager, she had a big picture, white background, a spray of pink and white tulips in a vase displayed over her bed.
Colt kept speaking, giving them information to take their mind from the disturbing thoughts about how well this guy knew their daughter, their sister. It wouldn’t take much to know Feb liked tulips, you just had to pay attention but you also had to be close.
“Dead end on the flowers. He’d arranged them himself, bought the vase at Pottery Barn and fuck knows how many Pottery Barns are around the St. Louis area, not to mention he coulda gone to any mall between here and there. No prints on the vase, no stickers or residue left. He coulda got the flowers from anywhere, seein’ as they’re in season. Spring’s here.”
Colt used to buy her tulips in spring too, just because you could find them easy, they were all around and she liked them. To this day spring meant tulips to Colt and sometimes when he wasn’t paying attention and didn’t have control of the path of his thoughts, he’d see them, at a grocery store, in Janet’s Flower Shop window, and think, I’ll pick those up for Feb, before he could stop himself.
“Is Feb in danger?” Jack asked and Colt looked at him.
Jack was trying to keep those cards close to his chest but the hold he had on them was far from steady.
“Can’t say,” Colt replied, “but the Feds, especially the profilers, they’ll know more.”
Jack nodded. He didn’t like it, but he nodded.
Colt moved on to different business. “Sully and I went down Feb’s list. Five names. We had the chat.”
“They gonna keep quiet?” Morrie asked.
Colt thought about these visits. They were short and they were all the same, every one of them. The news was met with amusement, the upsets history, so slight they were barely remembered. Then Sully and Colt gave them more information and the amusement died and the fear set in. He wasn’t surprised at the end response. Two of them said the same exact words, “Poor Feb.”
Not, “Oh my God,” and not, “Poor Angie.”
Angie was known, she managed to hold down her job but by most of the townsfolk she wasn’t respected, she was tolerated. Some may have felt sorry for her but most simply didn’t think about her and, when they did, they didn’t think much.
Feb, that was a different story.
“They’ll keep it quiet, for how long, don’t know,” Colt answered then he caught his friend’s eyes. “You need to move back in with Delilah.”
Morrie grinned. “Shit, tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”
Colt shook his head, Morrie wasn’t getting it.
“Far’s I can tell February loves few people in this world. Jack, Jackie, Jessie, Meems, their families, your kids and you.”
Morrie’s grin faded.
Colt continued. “Angie and Feb had a stupid, teenage girl fight years ago and Angie bought it. You think Dee might not be on that list, this guy thinks he’s takin’ care of Feb’s business, this guy thinks Dee hurt you and, through that, hurt Feb?”
Colt watched Morrie’s entire frame grow tight.
“Talk to her, move back in with her, explain it,” Colt pushed. “You need me to come with you, I’m there. She’ll let you move in, least until this is over.”
“You got time tonight?” Morrie asked.
“All the time you need,” Colt answered.
“Let’s go,” Morrie said.
“Hang on two shakes,” Jack said, his eyes on Colt. “This business is pressin’, so I’ll let you two go. That don’t mean we don’t got shit to talk about.”
“Jack –” Colt started.
“I saw what I saw in that bathroom, Colt. We all did,” Jack stated.
He could guess what Jack thought he saw. What Colt saw and felt leaking into his shirt was Feb crying her eyes out at the death of some jackass that beat her to shit and tore the last bits of February Owens away. Not that there was much left after whatever caused her to turn, but they were there. They’d come out once in awhile. After Pete was through with her, they vanished. Only the jaw tilt was left and rarely her laughter wouldn’t be guarded and you could almost hear the old Feb in it. But that was rarely and only happened when she was with Morrie’s kids. Not with Morrie, her parents, even Jessie and Meems. Not that he’d seen and, he hated to admit it, but for two years and any time she was home the earlier fifteen, he’d been watching.
“Due respect, Jack, you think you saw what you wanted to see,” Colt told him.
“Due respect, Colt, I saw what everyone saw. You experienced what you had to experience to hold yourself back,” Jack returned.
That pissed him off.
“Not me holdin’ back.”
“You been holdin’ back for twenty years.”
“We aren’t havin’ this conversation,” Colt declared.
“We are, just not now. You and Morrie got a daughter-in-law of mine to protect. See to that, we’ll talk about this later.”
Colt bit back his response, Jack meant too much to him to say what he wanted to say. They still weren’t going to have this conversation, now, tomorrow, next week or ever.
Colt nodded anyway.
Jack nodded back.
“Let’s go,” Morrie was impatient.
Colt took another pull from his beer and slid off the barstool, repeating. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Three
Puck
“I’m Agent Warren, FBI.”
He was good-looking, Agent Warren, and he knew it.
He extended his hand to me and I took it. He probably had dozens of handshakes he’d practiced over the years. This one was firm but reassuring.
“This is Agent Rodman,” Agent Warren motioned to the man at his side, yin to Agent Warren’s yang.
Warren was mocha-skinned black, bald, his thick, long eyelashes declaring that he shaved his head rather than lost his hair, his tall frame was lean but not slight. Rodman was white, showing signs that he needed to lay off the donuts, was obviously balding and didn’t hide it and had the widest, most brilliantly gold wedding band I’d ever seen in my life.
Agent Rodman’s handshake was just as firm and just as reassuring.
They were not my enemy. They were here to help.
This was good to know.
I saw movement out the corner of my eye and Colt and Sully were walking up. It cost me but I caught the jaw tilt before it even began.
“Colt,” I said when he made it to me and Sully’s body jerked at my word.
Colt didn’t move, his expression revealed nothing. Even so, his eyes were locked on me in a weirdly intense way that made me fight back a squirm.
“Feb,” Colt said back.
“Sully,” I said to Sully, noting he looked a bit better and his voice, when it said my name, wasn’t near as nasally.
“Feb.”
Neither of them called me February which I was surprised about. I thought in front of the FBI they’d want to appear official.
Then I realized I was not February to them in front of the agents. I was Feb, they knew me. I was one of their own, a citizen of their town but more than just some unknown someone they’d sworn to protect.
That was good to know too.
“You should know, Ms. Owens, that Lieutenant Colton has bowed out of the investigation,” Agent Warren, clearly Speaker for the FBI, put in smoothly.
This surprised me too but I didn’t hide that surprise because underneath it was an irrational fear that was impossible to control.
Therefore I also didn’t catch my response.
“Why?” My tone held clear accusation. I meant it to and it was directed at the Speaker for the FBI.
I watched Warren’s dark brows draw together over his girlie eye-lashed eyes. “Lieutenant Colton explained you two have history.”
I doubted Colt had explained that history thoroughly but I also didn’t care.
“He’s a good cop.”
“That’s not in question,” Warren stated.
“In fact, him stepping aside on his own
proves your statement true,” Rodman spoke for the first time.
I wasn’t comprehending nor did I want to.
“He’s a good cop,” I repeated.
“Feb,” Colt said but I didn’t look at him.
“He could prejudice the case,” Warren told me.
“He wouldn’t do that,” I informed Warren.
“Maybe not but we can’t take that chance and he doesn’t want us to,” Warren replied.
It was then I realized what I was saying, what I was doing and that I had no clue what I was talking about.
So finally, I shut up.
“Lieutenant Sullivan is local primary,” Warren said. “Colton will be kept informed and will remain on the case in a consultative capacity.”
He was giving me FBI-speak, in other words, I had no fucking clue what he was talking about with his “consultative capacity” bullshit and I couldn’t ask him, not now, not in front of Colt and not ever to anyone because if they told someone else how much I wanted to know and what that said about how much I wanted Colt on this case, they might jump to conclusions that weren’t right.
I didn’t like it much but I kept quiet.
“There are a few more people I want you to meet,” Warren said. “Then I’m afraid we’ll have to take a fair bit of your time this morning.”
The FBI had taken over the conference room which was a glass walled room to the side of the bottom floor.
The Police Station in town used to be the town library before they built a bigger library that was modern and situated closer to the schools. The Station was an old, handsome brick building. They’d made the front of it look like an old time police department including two black light poles sitting on the wide cement railings at the bottom of the front steps on top of which were big, round, white lights with the word “Police” written on their fronts.
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