7. Your Wins

SEVEN

Your Wins

McGill had a beer, a boot to the edge of the coffee table that was covered in a mess of pictures and reports, and had turned on the fire, because, like Rus, he knew this was the only chance he’d get, so he was going to live it up, and it wasn’t even his room.

“The copycat thing, the AD is going to be cool with you being here,” McGill said.

“I need you,” Moran said. “And I don’t mind making a call to share that.”

“The Bureau Chief isn’t going to want anyone here but you,” Bohannan said. “It’s not going to be an issue. What’s going to be an issue is containment. The local media is already sniffing around. They know we have a body. And Misted Pines is on radar, so they’re hungry. You were right. Your guy can’t know anyone is using his MO.”

“What’s this?” McGill asked.

Rus looked to McGill.

“He’s made threats, credible ones, that he can remotely detonate something, somewhere, he hasn’t said where for obvious reasons,” Rus told him. “But wherever it is, it’s going to cause damage, in property and human lives, if we get too close or do anything he doesn’t like.”

McGill wasn’t enjoying a taste of the good life anymore, he was staring at Rus.

“He’s communicating with you?”

“He leaves me notes with the bodies.”

“Jesus, fuck,” McGill bit off, taking his boot from the coffee table and sitting up.

“This is why I knew it was a copycat,” Rus explained. “Details have gotten out. Too many. That’s the one we’ve kept to ourselves. Everything in Misted Pines was done by the book. But they didn’t know that, so they couldn’t include it.”

“How do you know the threats are credible?” Moran asked.

“I tested it after body seven, saying something coded that only he’d get during a press conference,” Rus shared “He got it. I wasn’t done with the presser when a small bomb went off in a park in Alabama. It was a risk I didn’t like taking, orders from on high told me to go for it. They were convinced he was bluffing.”

Everyone in the room wore understanding expressions.

Sometimes, they didn’t get it right, and with the stakes they played, getting it wrong had terrible consequences.

“Fortunately, only a dog was injured. The little guy didn’t make it. His owner was hit with some shrapnel but was fine. When all was said and done, the locals blamed it on a faulty gas line. But we knew it was him because, at the time of the explosion, the FBI switchboard got a call from a landline in a house in Maine. The man who called asked, ‘See?’ and hung up. When local agents stormed the house, there was no sign of him. We found out later the owners were in Europe on vacation. And as usual, he left no trace.”

“Okay, first, allow me a moment to shiver that there might be random bombs anywhere in the US this guy can detonate on a whim,” McGill remarked.

Rus was right there with him on that, he lived that shit every day.

“So okay, now how do you know he’ll be pissed someone is using his MO?” McGill asked.

At that, Bohannan entered the conversation.

“Because, among other things, he’s a malignant narcissist. The world revolves around him. He’s never wrong. He’s the best at everything. He feels he has carte blanche to live his life as he sees fit without question. He’s extremely proud of his crimes, and because he is, someone copying them will infuriate him. Not only does he get off on the fear, control and pain his victims feel, and the physical acts of violation, this is his art. Someone usurping that is going to threaten his dominion. He probably spent years on sexual assaults his victims were too terrified to report before he ratcheted that shit up and began bludgeoning. He can’t have just anyone making it look easy.”

McGill nodded to express he took that in while Rus marveled at the fact Bohannan had such a close bead on the guy after only an afternoon with the file.

Bohannan kept going.

“Rus is his victim too. He knows Rus is frustrated. He knows Rus wants to stop him. And by threatening to cause even more harm, he knows he’s controlling Rus and forcing him to experience fear. This guy turns Rus’s eye with a crime the Crystal Killer didn’t commit, he’ll take it as a violation. He feels like he owns Rus. No one takes what’s his until he’s done playing with it.”

Bohannan looked to Rus, and when he did, he didn’t appear happy.

“They should have pulled you off the case on the first note. This guy should never have had anyone to manipulate.”

Rus was surprised Bohannan had this reaction. He knew that wasn’t the way they rolled.

“So an agent has to start from scratch with each new victim?” Rus asked, watching Bohannan carefully. “It stymies an investigation and gives him what he wants because, if every new agent has to take time to get up to speed, he has more time to get away.”

Rus then told him what he had to already know.

“Plus, as uncomfortable as it is, it’s good he thinks he has a relationship with me. He’s communicating, and in doing it, could give something away.”

“It’s too much pressure on you,” Bohannan returned.

There was something else there. Something Bohannan was getting from the file that he wasn’t sharing.

However, Rus sensed it wasn’t the time, or maybe they weren’t in the company, to press it.

“You know the job, if you can’t take the pressure, you get out of the game,” Rus replied.

“Yeah, I know the job, which is why I got the fuck out of the game,” Bohannan retorted.

“And this is why, once we find who killed Brittanie, I am too,” Rus shared. “The problem with that is, I know the Crystal Killer isn’t going to let me go easy. And I have a daughter.”

The room went dead silent.

“So, yeah,” Rus said into the void.

“Right,” Moran started then moved them past something no one in that room had any power to do anything about that evening. “Let’s deal with what we can deal with. The press.”

“Stick with limited information released,” Bohannan declared.

“I got that, Cade, but how do I keep the maid, and the desk clerk, and Brittanie’s own mother quiet if someone offers them their thirty-second interview of fame?” Moran asked.

Rus reached to a piece of paper and shook it, reciting the details of the report written on it. “The maid, Gentry Anderson, found the body, exited the room, and called 911. Your deputies were there within ten minutes and entered next. The owner arrived after some time and wasn’t allowed to enter the room. There’s no indication in this report anyone entered except the maid.”

He looked direct to Moran before he concluded.

“And you yourself made the excellent decision to order the exterior cordoned and shielded so no one could see in while the scene was investigated. Is that not true?”

Moran nodded his head. “It’s true. The maid went to the desk clerk after she called it in. He wasn’t there and she was flipping out, couldn’t find him. Even though she knew he had a habit of being at the vending machines getting cookies because, apparently, he’s prone to taking random breaks that included eating cookies, which could be a result of the fact he also took random breaks to smoke weed.”

“So we only have to keep the maid quiet,” Rus said.

“And Melanie and Dakota Iverson,” Bohannan added.

“They don’t need to know the specifics,” Rus stated.

“No, they don’t,” Moran agreed.

“So it’s the maid,” McGill finished it.

Moran pulled out his phone in order to get someone on making sure the maid kept to herself.

“Cin give you anything useful?” Bohannan asked.

“The use of her office and scheduling service. She’s setting up interviews tomorrow afternoon with her staff.”

Bohannan’s lips in his beard curved. “Unsurprised.”

“Brittanie babysat for her,” Rus told him.

The lip curve faded. “Fuck.”

Moran stopped texting, so Rus looked to him. “She wants us to convince Melanie Iverson to release the body to her.”

“I don’t know the woman well, but on first impression, I suspect the minute Iverson knows Cin wants her, Iverson is going to dig in, when before, she probably couldn’t give two shits how her daughter was laid to rest,” Moran told him. “She’d do this for no other reason than to be a pain in somebody’s ass.”

“We’re gonna have to finesse that.”

Moran’s brows went up. “You told her we’d get Melanie to release Brittanie to Cin?”

“I told her we’d do what we could. But somehow, we’re going to get her to relinquish claim to Brittanie so Lucinda can take care of her.”

Moran and Bohannan exchanged a look.

Rus would be worried about this if they didn’t know Lucinda. Therefore, they knew she was the kind of woman who found ways to wrap everyone around her finger.

Considering what he was doing for her was innocuous, and he knew they all knew it would be for Brittanie, he didn’t mind they thought she’d gotten the twist on him.

“I think it’s important for her to know how much a funeral costs,” Bohannan suggested.

Yes.

It was best for Brittanie.

“And she needs to understand the state will handle it if the body isn’t claimed,” McGill put in.

“Right, so we got a plan on that,” Moran said, then shared he was done with it by getting into the most important topic of the night. “Now, anyone have any fucking clue why someone would copycat kill a woman in my town? Is this just some sick fuck? Or is it something else.”

“My call, something else, and still definitely both. You want her dead, and you want to get away with it, it’s a good plan to kill her in a way suspicion is going to turn in another direction that is nowhere near you,” Bohannan suggested.

“So she steals a few boyfriends,” Moran replied. “Who hates her so much they do that to her? It takes planning. It takes effort. It takes follow through. It’s grisly and it’s personal. We won’t know what we got until the coroner makes her report, so all we got right now is that it’s gotta be a guy.”

“It’s cute you’ve never heard of a dildo,” McGill ribbed.

Moran wasn’t in the mood to make light of the situation, even to take the edge off.

He proved this not only by not shoveling it back, but by what he said next.

“You saw her. It’s overpowering her. It’s tying her up. That wasn’t sexual assault. It was sexual brutalization. And she checked in herself, and so far, we’ve had no indication she has lesbian or bi tendencies. So she checks in, odds are she’s meeting a guy and that guy is our perp. She hits a motel out of town that doesn’t have security cameras, it’s probably a married guy.”

“I wouldn’t know, but I suspect some married men don’t feel guilt at taking in a burlesque show,” Rus remarked.

“Cin’s list,” Moran said.

Apparently, Dickerson had briefed his boss.

“It’s all we got right now,” Rus replied. “Along with the ex-boyfriends.”

“List?” Bohannan asked.

Rus filled him in.

After he was done, Bohannan nodded and muttered an approving, “Good.”

“So we got that, interviews with family, staff who might know something, and fuck all else,” Moran bitched.

“It’s more than I have on the Crystal Killer,” Rus pointed out. “And I’ve been working that for years.”

“You’ve looked into the plastic sheeting?” Bohannan asked.

Moran jerked up his chin. “Any store that sells it in that amount anywhere in the county, which is one store, has not sold that amount to anyone,” Moran told him. “We’re pushing out to other counties. But I’d guess it was bought online.”

Rus jumped in.

“Any joy on the crystal?”

Moran shook his head. “On the other hand, there’s a lot of New Age shops in the county. We’ve shown the picture around. No one remembers selling that particular one. We’re going to cast a wider net on that too.”

“How are you on warrants?” Bohannan asked McGill.

“We’re working on the bank, we’ll have it tomorrow. Another couple of days for her bank to get us data. Credit cards and cell will take longer. She’s in the queue to get a tech guy to work on her laptop. I hope to have access to email soon.”

Rus already knew this because it was part of his morning briefing before he even got to the scene.

But while McGill was sharing, on mentioning the ex-boyfriends, it hit Rus unusually belatedly that a couple of guests to their party hadn’t showed.

“Your boys coming?” he asked Bohannan.

“About that,” Bohannan replied.

He said no more.

Fuck.

“Let me guess, Jace doesn’t know he’s out, like you suggested, and Jesse is with his brother,” Rus said.

Unfortunately, Bohannan’s response to that was valid.

“I think we can all agree that our first instinct upon learning a woman who shared our bed got dead, especially what they did to Brittanie, we’d do something about it. I’m giving them a day to realize this is a stupid play. Then I’m reining them in.”

“I want to see him sometime soon,” Rus demanded.

Bohannan nodded. “I’ll make that happen.”

This didn’t break up their party, but since there was nothing more they could do that night, Bohannan led a team-building exercise, which was essentially shooting the shit so they could all get to know each other better.

McGill had a long drive home, since he lived in Seattle, so he left first.

Bohannan had a beautiful woman who was at home, so he left second.

Rus was travel-weary, and he needed a fresh start in the morning, so he didn’t give indication he wanted to bond further with his new partner.

No slight was taken, Moran knew it before Rus had to say it.

He was on his way out when Rus broached their last topic for the night.

“The Bureau isn’t going to pay for this room, Harry.”

“I know. Tonight is on my department. The remainder of your stay is sponsored by Cin.”

Shit.

That felt good when it shouldn’t feel anything.

“She contacted you?”

“She contacted Polly, who contacted me. She wanted you moved here from wherever you were staying, not knowing Polly put you here to begin with. Though, once Polly got a call from Cin, she changed your reservation to a suite.”

Of course she did.

He’d barely met Polly and he knew he liked her.

“I’m not sure that’s going to fly,” he noted.

Moran looked him dead in the eye and advised, “Man, take your wins where you can.”

And on that sterling piece of advice, that was the end of the discussion and the evening, because, after Moran clapped him on the shoulder, he walked out.