Thicker than Water

by Danae Ayusso

  There was none.

  Cat processed the scene, improvising as she went along in order to write up her findings before Colt got back. The plaster wasn’t setting up because of the cold temperature outside, so Cat embraced her inner Montana girl—she would never admit to anyone that she might indeed have one—and made a tent around the prints with a tarp from Colt’s workshop then moved some flat stones she’d set between the burning logs in the fireplace in the living room on the ground around the prints and enclosed the area.

  “It’s a mini-sauna,” she chuckled under her breath. “And to think, Frankie flipped me so much merda about watching MacGyver and CSI. Who’s laughing now?”

  While the molds set up, Cat continued around the cabin looking for other footprints, but she didn’t find any. Obviously that window was chosen for a reason, and that reason turned her stomach: the slit in the curtains gave an unrestricted view of the bed.

  “Either someone was peeking simply to peek, or they got more than they expected to see and that isn’t going to end well for either of us,” she mumbled. “I don’t think Vicks was the catalyst to Pope and his body count. I think Fury was. Vicks disappeared the night she was going to give herself to him. She was taken before she could talk to Fury about that so he didn’t even know. But someone else did. Her journal mentioned a couple of people who she trusted, even one that she was having feelings towards at work, which was making her feel guilty since she was with Fury. Possibly one of those people she discussed her relationship with inadvertently said something to Pope and that’s what caused his drastic actions...but why the other women? They had no apparent connection to Fury other than they were locals and knew him simply because the town population is only a thousand people on a good day. Perhaps Pope saw them as replacements for Vicks since they all looked alike. If that indeed is the case, and all possible Vicks replacements were taken out… Five was obvious, she was the means to get Fury off the mountain. But why Deputy Shadowdancer? That one doesn’t make sense in the least,” she said with a huff. “Icing a cop always draws unwanted attention, even more attention than a homicidal sociopath would want... Unless she found something and he knew she did!”

  A smile filled her face.

  “I need the file on Six,” Cat beamed, fighting the urge to run into town to get it. She checked her cell phone. “Only five more hours until Fury gets home...home? Oh God, we’re a married couple, only now we’re having the sex that the old married couple wasn’t having. That’s just great, Rossi.”

  “Talking the case out loud, or talking aloud what we are?”

  Cat jumped, startled, and spun around with gun pointed. “Mannaggia, Fury. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Colt smirked and held up the file up in his hand. “I thought you’d like some reading material.”

  “I was just contemplating running to town to get it,” she admitted.

  He nodded, thankful that he brought it to Cat instead of having her venture to town to get it.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, waving her back towards the door.

  “We’ve been compromised,” she said and motioned for him to follow her. “I went to get some wood so I didn’t freeze to death until my human heating blanket got back and discovered prints. Someone saw us last night, and possibly the other nights that we’ve been together here, but I don’t know who. That might have been what caused Pope to go after Deputy Shadowdancer, but I have a theory on that one as well, hence why I needed the file.”

  Colt followed her with wide eyes, not entirely sure what to think or say about what she deduced.

  When they stopped in front of the window with the trap over the ground in front of it, his head tilted to the side.

  “What is my hunting tarp doing out here?” he asked.

  “I had to MacGyver a hotbox,” Cat explained, pulling the side of the tarp back. “It was too cold to harden the plaster I made...I kind of blew up your kitchen. I’ll clean it up when I get done out here. Promise.”

  He nodded. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it. What is that?”

  Cat touched each mold and was confident that they were firmly set so she carefully pulled on the sticks she placed towards the toe and heel of each and freed each then scrutinized one of them while Colt looked at the other.

  “This can’t be right,” he said. “I’ve never seen tread like this before.”

  “I have,” she said. “Men’s size ten Altama combat Vulcanized boots. They are used in response situations and K-9 tracking.”

  Colt looked at her—he was confused, in awe, and doubtful—then he raised his hand. “Why are you so certain it’s that?”

  She expected no less from him; any decent detective would question such a specific answer.

  Cat showed him the bottom of the mold. “See the traction? The Altama boot has very specific tread patterns: smooth, oblong indentions evenly spaced around the perimeter. It’s a ten-inch black all-leather combat boot with coated aluminum speedlace system and lug sole. I had a pair of them when I was in S.W.A.T. I didn’t like them, they are a pain in the ass to get on, but some of the veterans swore by them. Good news, they’re very specific and not common, especially in Montana. Bad news, you don’t have enough to get a warrant to serve the authorized Altama dealers in order to get a buyers list, which you’d need since they’re an official manufacture of tactical equipment for the Department of Defense and are tight lipped about their customers.”

  Colt nodded his understanding. “You’ve once again impressed me, Rossi.”

  Cat shook her head. “You would have found that out just as easily by running it through AFIS for boot treads,” she said with a smirk.

  “Yes, I suppose I would have. But I was referring to your Montanan ingenuity when it came to improvising at a crime scene in order to process it. Is there anything you can’t do?” he asked.

  “Emma says I’m exceptionally good at blowing up a kitchen every time I enter one. Case in point, yours looks like hurricane Rossi hit it.”

  Colt chuckled. “Yes, you are exceptionally good at destroying a kitchen, I’ll give you that. Come on, let’s get you inside and I’ll get a fire going while you go through the report on Six.”

  While Colt put his kitchen back together, Cat made sure that each window was completely covered and secured. She didn’t feel as safe at the mountain cabin because she hadn’t gone through it as she had the cabin at the Paterson estate.

  “What security measures do you have here?” Cat asked, turning to regard him.

  “Not many since you were the first visitor at the cabin since my grandfather died. Jimmy only visited me in the workshop since that was where I spent nearly all my time; I haven’t been in there much since heading back down the mountain. The exterior walls are all solid Ponderosa Pine with clay and acrylic based chinking. Between the exterior and interior walls are insulation boards covered in drywall then lots of woodwork...I got carried away and didn’t care for the look of the drywall. It lost the esthetic, I suppose. The walls are thick enough that they can stop a M40 bolt-action sniper rifle...I checked it myself. The windows are all triple paned for insulation and treated with bullet resistant glazing. I dug out the base of the cabin and replaced it with cinderblocks and crossbeams since it was sinking on the western side, effectively removing all accessibility to under the cabin. The root cellar entrance is fifty yards from the cabin and hidden by an earthen cover and metal bars across the door to keep Chelsea out.”

  “Chelsea?” Cat interrupted, cocking an eyebrow.

  Colt smiled, that sheepish smile he has when he just got caught in a lie. “You met her. The bear.”

  She glared at him. “Stronzo! You knew that bear...I will address that later,” she warned and he smiled wide. “So, this cabin is rather secure?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re as paranoid as I am, huh?” she surmised.

  “Pretty much,” Colt admitted. “Everyone I’ve ever cared about had been taken from me. T
he only thing I had left to lose was myself, and it’d be a cold day in hell when I’d just lay down and let them take me without a fight.”

  Cat smirked. “Just when I think you couldn’t get any sexier,” she said. “But I’m still kicking your ass over the bear incident,” she warned and flopped down on the couch with a quilt and the case file on Six.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Colt said with a heavy drawl and she fought to keep from smiling.

  Once the kitchen was back in order, Colt joined Cat on the couch and took her feet in his lap and rubbed them while she flipped through the initial findings.

  Cat shook her head.

  “What are you thinking, Rossi?” Colt whispered.

  “Honestly?” she asked and he nodded. “She fought back like a champ. There are defensive wounds that none of the others had. If Pope slacked on the cleanup as he did with disposal and presentation, we might find something: hair, skin under her nails, fingerprints, anything. The ligature marks on the wrists were made by a hand,” she said, placing her hand over the photo. “They’re slightly larger than mine but smaller than yours. That actually helps if you think about it. It means that he’s slender in build and between five-eight and five-ten…eleven on a good day. Unlike penis size, hands are dictated by body size.”

  Colt rolled his eyes; she only explained it like that because of the, rather awkward for him and overly amusing to her, conversation they had earlier while she watched him get dressed for work.

  “To the untrained eye it looks as if it was done by an entirely different person,” she continued. “All of Pope’s signs are there, but it lacks his finesse and artistry.”

  He didn’t want to, but he had to ask. “What do you mean?”

  She held up the picture of Raven, and he looked away from it.

  “Man up, Fury. This is Six. No longer is it Deputy Raven Shadowdancer. Got it?”

  Colt grumbled something unintelligible under his breath before he looked at the picture.

  “See how the crown of thrones is shoved so deeply into her skull that it bent them? Pope’s M.O. is always to have them just barely in the flesh so it doesn’t ruin the final artistic expression. This just made a bloody mess that is gruesome, not beautiful like the others. Her eyes weren’t bleached out, regardless of them being brown to begin with, so the petechial hemorrhaging is clearly visible, and they aren’t evenly glued back. Her ankles weren’t crossed; they were just hastily bound with barbwire. The M.E. says that she had sex within the last forty-eight hours and it was consensual...did she have a boyfriend?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Colt answered.

  “Something to check into,” she said. “Also, the Dei Sponsa carved into her chest looks like hell. There is no finesse to it in the least. Either this is a copycat trying to hide a body amongst those of a homicidal artisan, or something’s seriously wrong.”

  Colt pondered her assessment for a moment, and as usual, he couldn’t find fault in it. “Let’s say you’re correct on the something seriously wrong thing,” he said, “and this is Pope, why the change?”

  She shrugged. “Could be anything really. And if it is him,” she smirked, “he messed up.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s right handed,” she said, holding up a picture of Raven’s mutilated chest. “We didn’t know that before.”

  He looked at the picture, but couldn’t see past the mutilated flesh.

  “See how all of the slices angle towards the left?” Cat explained. “Before they were perfectly perpendicular and evenly carved, as if he was…come here,” she said and stood. “On the floor,” she ordered and Colt gave her a look but complied.

  Cat straddled him and pushed him back. “Hold your arms out as if you have been posed.”

  Colt did as she asked and she laid a piece of paper on his chest and took a pencil in her right hand and leaned over him and carefully, taking her time, drew out the words Dei Sponsa.

  “Someone’s happy to see me,” she teasingly sang as she finished the last letter.

  “Yes, I’m usually happy to see you,” he agreed, getting an eye roll in return.

  Cat held the paper up. “See how even it is? I’m left handed so it looks like hell, but the point remains. If it were a scalpel instead of a pencil, each stroke would be even and their depths would be uniformed—that’s his signature. Now, if I were pissed off,” she said and flipped the paper over and hastily wrote Dei Sponsa out with her left hand then held it up. “See the difference?” she asked and flipped the paper over. “In control sociopath, not in control sociopath…he took his frustration out on her chest with his knife—I think he might have abandoned the scalpel on this one… How soon before you have to head back to the office?” she asked.

  Colt smirked, thankful for the subject change at the moment. “I take it you’re happy to see me?”

  “Sadly, yes. I’m always happy to see you,” she admitted and stretched out on top of him. “I’m not used to that. Usually I’m the one sneaking out of bed before he wakes up and am the one that doesn’t return his calls. I’ve been checking the clock every twenty minutes and counting down till you came home. That isn’t normal for me, Fury, and I don’t know if I like it or not… Why are you smiling at me like that?” she demanded.

  He shook his head. “I don’t need to hear those three words from your lips to know that you feel them. It’s okay, and sadly I can’t stay long.”

  Her bottom lip pouted out.

  “Then again, I’m already on Jimmy’s shit list so I might as well make it well worth it,” he said and leaned up and kissed her pouting bottom lip before softly biting it.

  As Cat scrambled to get his uniform shirt un-tucked, Colt slid his hands in the back of her panties and cupped her backside, causing her to shiver in anticipation—she loves the fact that he’s an ass man. Losing patience with his buttons, she ripped his shirt open, causing buttons to fly across the room before she started on his belt.

  “That’s the third uniform of mine you’ve ruined,” he scolded, squeezing her backside hard enough to leave bruises.

  “You can spank me in a minute,” Cat informed him, struggling to get his pants down.

  “It’d be easier if I didn’t have boots on,” he informed her as he watched her try to strip him.

  She glared at him. “A little help here?”

  “I did most of the work last night,” Colt amusingly reminded her and her nostrils flared—they both knew he was lying. “Sorry,” he instantly apologized when she threw one of his boots at him. “Allow me to make it up to you?” he offered and crawled over to her.

  Cat looked at him suspiciously. “How do you suppose you’re going to do that?”

  He smirked and cocked an eyebrow, kneeling in front of her. “I have one idea, since we didn’t get to it last night.” He hooked his fingers in the sides of her panties and started tugging them down her hips, one inch at a time, kissing the newly exposed flesh as he went. Cat giggled when he hit the spot on the front of her hip where she’s ticklish, and her hips bucked away from him, knocking into the side of the couch, pushing it back and knocking over one of the end tables in the process.

  Cat groaned and covered her reddening face with her hands.

  Colt, not entirely sure if he did something wrong or not, waited for some sort of explanation. “You’re mad?” he reluctantly asked.

  “No. You found it,” she grumbled. “The one spot where I’m ticklish,” she said with a huff.

  He chuckled, pulling her hands from her face. “Okay, I’ll try to keep from touching that spot in the future.” He looked around her to the couch then the floor beyond and he sighed. “I think you broke one of the molds.”

  “Huh?” she asked and spun around.

  Instantly, every Italian profanity she knew flew from her lips as she stormed across the room to the turned over table. One of the footprint molds had landed on her discarded coat, but the other missed the soft landing and smashed to the floor, breaking into five pieces.r />
  Colt reluctantly followed and braced himself for the fury of Lieutenant Rossi; it was a rookie mistake to not put them away properly in an evidence box.

  “Huh,” Cat said, her head tilting to the side. “Now that’s interesting.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She bent down and picked up one of the chunks of hardened plaster. “And to think, if I weren’t ticklish in the one spot you decided to give special attention to, we would have never found what else the mold encased.”

  Colt squatted down next to her and looked at the broken mold. “What is that?” he murmured, eying the thin, polished flat oval of turquoise sticking out from the jagged chunk of plaster.

  Cat looked over at him. “Fury, I’m going to lay it out for you in plain English, but you have to promise me that you’ll keep a level head. Agreed?”

  He didn’t want to, but he hadn’t a choice.

  “Agreed,” he grumbled.

  “Pope knows who you are and he knows that we’re hitting the sheets,” she said pointblank. “I hate to tell you this, Fury, but this is all about you.” She stood and headed across the room to the bed and started to pull some clothes from her duffle bag.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Colt understood very well, but he didn’t want to believe it.

  “One of those stones was found at Five’s dumpsite. That is what Deputy Shadowdancer was working on. I think she figured out where the stone came from and most likely that’s what got her killed.”

  Colt shook his head; it wasn’t possible. “Rossi, you’re just grasping at straws that aren’t actually there.”

  Cat gave him a look as she pulled a long sleeve shirt over her head. “No, Fury, I’m not. That bastard stood there outside the window and watched us make love,” she hissed, pointing towards the window. “One of those stones was left at Five’s dumpsite, not on purpose I’m guessing, and now he accidentally left one here. There’s no way that it’s coincidental. He knows about us…about me! I know what set him off.”

  “Really?” he scoffed, folding his arms across his chest, trying to feign irritation, but he was actually on the verge of throwing up.