Killer Winter

by Kay Bigelow

  When she returned to the living room, she was once again in control, but just barely.

  “The casualty list is up on a screen in the other room if you want to take a look,” Leah told Peony.

  Peony looked as if she was reluctant to find out which of her friends and colleagues had died in the bombing. She got up and walked slowly into the other room. When she came back into the living room, it was clear she was holding back tears.

  “You lost friends?” Cots asked.

  Peony nodded. She looked like she was only barely holding it together. Cots went to her and put his arms around her. That was all Peony needed to let loose a sea of tears.

  Cots was surprising Leah. She had no idea he could be compassionate. Peony was proving how sensitive she still was if she could sob at the loss of a colleague killed in the line of duty. As a cop, Leah woke up every morning knowing this might be the day that she or others would be killed, and it had hardened her over the years. She watched as Cots held on to Peony until her tears subsided. When Peony stepped away, she said, “I’m afraid I snotted on your shirt.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’ll wash out,” he said, smiling at her.

  They all heard the electronic ding of one of the screens in the other room being updated. They went in to find the casualty list had been updated. Davidson’s name had been removed, and thirteen additional names were moved from the presumed dead column to the confirmed dead column.

  “How many people will be on the list?” Cots asked.

  “A hundred twenty-four, if everyone was present. Can you keep me and Peony on the dead list? It would give us more freedom to work if the bad guys don’t know we’re still working the case.”

  “Yeah, I can do that easily enough. They removed Davidson’s name.”

  “I saw that. She must have reported to HQ that she was in the field.”

  “And yet, your name remains.”

  “Davidson might have thought I returned to the building.”

  “Didn’t she know you and Peony were going to be working off-site?”

  “No. I hadn’t told her yet.”

  “We figured you’d have to move us out of the precinct,” Peony said. “I bet she’s assuming you hadn’t found a place yet. Do you want me to contact her?”

  “No. Let that dog continue to sleep. I want to see where all this ends up. I sure hope someone is looking hard at Weston for this bombing.”

  “Why?” Cots leaned against the doorframe, looking curious and calm.

  “He’d be my first suspect in the bombing if it was mine to investigate, because he hated being transferred out of the Forty-fourth, and he hated me for doing it.”

  “Isn’t it yours to investigate?”

  “Yes and no. Yes, because it may be related to the slaughter in the field somehow. But it may not be. It may be that Weston went off the deep end when I reassigned him to the Eighty-sixth,” Leah said. “We need to stay focused on the killing field murders, and if we find evidence that the bombing is somehow associated with our case, then we can investigate it. Until then, the bombing belongs to the cops assigned to investigate it.” She smiled. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep my eyes on the bombing as well.”

  “I know humans can be violent for no reason, but I can’t believe anyone would kill over a hundred people they knew and worked with to get even over an assignment they didn’t like,” Cots said.

  “You don’t know Weston. If you did, you’d believe it in a nanosecond,” Peony said.

  Leah agreed with her, but she’d been a cop too long to be surprised at any murderer’s motive for killing. “Cots, run a search for Weston. Let’s see if we can locate him. Also, run a search on Bishop Cohane and see if you can find anything below the surface we haven’t come across yet. Can you teach Peony how to run Weston’s numbers? Maybe we can find him via his devices.”

  Cots nodded and led Peony back into the electronics room.

  Leah returned to the living room and sat staring at the murder board. It wasn’t giving her anything but more questions to answer. Her mind rushed from thought to thought about the case. She examined each one and either rejected it or made a note of it. She finally gave up trying to make something out of nothing. She’d have to have patience to solve this case. Without wanting to, she let her mind wander to the bombing of the Forty-fourth. Some of the dead cops had been her friends for twenty years. She’d been invited to their weddings, raised a glass over the births of their children, and grieved with them over the loss of mutual friends in the line of duty. Now she was the only survivor of that group of friends. Who was she going to go drinking with to talk about the good old bad times?

  Fifteen minutes later, Cots came out of the electronics room.

  Leah quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, not wanting Cots or Peony to see her grieving for her friends.

  “Leah, I’m very sorry for your loss. I can’t know what it’s like to lose that many friends and colleagues all at once. If you need some time alone, this can wait. But I’ve got something for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I took the liberty of running Weston’s financials on a deep search—”

  Leah forced herself to focus. She wanted to approach things methodically. “Hang on a second. Try to access the ME’s account and see what he added to his report. I want to know if all the evidence was destroyed. It should be on the main cop server.”

  Leah glanced at Peony, who was standing in the doorway, and saw her eyebrows had shot up practically to her hairline, probably shocked anyone could access confidential and secret police files. Leah didn’t tell her any eighth grader with a scintilla of computing skills could do it.

  Cots nodded. He was smiling. He must have seen Peony’s reaction, too. As the investigation progressed, Leah knew Peony’s eyebrows were going to get a good workout.

  Chapter Five

  “The ME reports that all the killing field evidence at the Forty-fourth was either destroyed or compromised.”

  “What’d you find on Weston?”

  “He’s been receiving payments from the same offshore account for nearly six years, but he’s made a hell of a lot more money than Davidson. As of Monday, he’d received payments of $720,000 over those six years. Two hours ago, his account was $250,000 richer.”

  “Someone paid him to bomb the Forty-fourth.” And I’ll make sure he pays for that!

  “Looks like it.”

  Leah thought about the ramifications and variety of options in front of her. “Cots, make an anonymous call to the commissioner’s office. Leave a message for her saying Weston’s responsible for the bombing of the Forty-fourth. Tell her to look at his financials for circumstantial evidence, and see if you can email them to her in an encrypted file of some kind, so we can make certain she gets the information we want her to have without them finding out we’re the ones sending it to her. Have you located him?”

  “Not yet.”

  Cots returned to the electronics room when he heard the ding of one of his computers. He was back a few seconds later.

  “Weston just purchased a ticket on this afternoon’s off-planet shuttle to Panai.”

  “Make sure the commissioner has those details, too. The very least we can do is keep him here while the investigation is ongoing.”

  “Why would Weston kill cops?” Peony asked.

  “The reasons are legion. He could be getting even for past grievances. The people who deposited the money into his account may have wanted to destroy evidence and disrupt the investigation into the murders in the field. For all we know, he may have destroyed the Forty-fourth just for fun. There are a ton of reasons he could have done it. And hell, we’re not even sure he was the one who did. We’re assuming.”

  “He’s one sicko cop,” Peony said with conviction.

  “That’s putting it mildly.” Leah sighed and turned again to the board to focus on the case that was hers.

  She studied the boards, trying to put the pieces tog
ether. The people behind the murders in the field and the bombing must be feeling pretty good about how things are shaping up. They had killed the cops assigned to the murder investigation. They had destroyed at least some of the evidence. What would I do next if I were them? If I were smart, I’d stop there. If I were dumber than shit, I’d do something else. But what…Oh, my God.

  “Cots!” Leah yelled.

  He rushed into the living room looking around for the danger he assumed was there since she’d yelled for him. “What?” he demanded.

  “Cots, call Scotty and tell him to take all the killing field’s evidence with him and get out of the lab. Peony, call the main switchboard at the MSI lab and tell them there’s a bomb and to evacuate immediately.”

  “How is Cots going to pull that off?” Peony asked as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  “Cots and Scotty go way back. Make the call.”

  She didn’t tell her Scotty was an alien passing for human. Or that Scotty and Cots had been boyhood friends on their home world of Devaria. She wasn’t sure Cots knew she knew about the two men’s connection, and it wasn’t her place to give away that information anyway.

  Two hours later, the news began reporting a second bombing. This time it was at the police crime lab. The morgue was located in the same building. The newscaster said a casualty list would be delayed by as long as a few days while officials sorted the already dead at the morgue from those working in the lab.

  “Scotty’s safe. He doesn’t know where to go, though, and he’s scared.”

  Leah didn’t miss the relief in Cots’s expression, and she too was glad Scotty was safe. “Go get him. Contact Quinn and see if she’s got a safe house available. Put Scotty there, if she does. Leave the evidence with him.”

  “Thanks for not leaving him in the wind. And for figuring out where they’d hit next. Damn good call.” Cots gave her a nod before going to see to Scotty.

  “Who’s Quinn?” Peony asked. “Wait,” she said as she looked around the condo, “that’s not the Quinn, is it? The real estate mogul who’s worth billions?”

  Leah was impressed at how fast Peony put two and two together to figure out Quinn was the “real estate mogul.” Hopefully, she wouldn’t try to figure out anything further. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Wow. You know her? Cots knows her, too? That’s so radical!” Peony gushed.

  “Monitor the news channels,” Leah told Peony, wanting to get her focused again. “I want to know the minute they post a list of the dead and missing in the crime lab to see who’s on the list. Hopefully, Scotty’s name will be on the list.”

  “On it,” Peony said, mimicking Cots.

  Leah sat in a chair in front of the privacy windows, seeing nothing as she concentrated on the bits and pieces of information they already had. Occasionally, she’d make a note on a pad of paper she’d rested on the arm of her chair.

  Peony returned to the living room a few minutes later.

  “Boss, how did you know the lab was going to be the next target?”

  “I didn’t know for sure. It seemed logical, however, that if, and that’s a big if, Weston and his friends were getting rid of the investigating team, they’d want to get rid of any physical evidence as well. It also potentially ties our cases together, which means I’m looking at it from every angle. I know pretty much all the cases going on in that precinct, and there wasn’t anything bigger than the killing field murders.” She shook her head. “We don’t know anything for certain, so we need to try to get a step ahead, even if we’re not completely sure it’s the right step to take. I went with my gut.”

  “Oh. Right,” Peony said, clearly taking that information in as she turned to go back to the secure room.

  Leah continued to think and jot down notes, glad that Peony had asked the question. Questions helped her verbalize and sort through her thoughts. Cots was back within the hour.

  “Scotty’s safe,” he said as he removed his coat and gloves.

  “Good. Did he manage to get all the evidence out with him?”

  “Only the partial hand and the reports from the DNA guys for sure. He told me a bunch of other stuff, but it went over my head.”

  While Leah doubted that what Scotty had told Cots had, indeed, gone over his head, she didn’t need to know those details yet. When she needed to know, she’d ask Scotty.

  “He’s in one of Quinn’s houses?” Leah asked.

  “No. I put him at one of mine. It was faster and easier than going through Quinn and her people,” Cots said.

  Leah was surprised Cots owned multiple houses, but shouldn’t have been considering his close ties to Quinn. It made sense, too, to put Scotty into one of his own homes rather than bother Quinn with the problem.

  “I’ve got some more searches for you. I want you to run searches on these people,” Leah told him as she handed him a piece of paper.

  There was only one name listed. Peony Fong.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning Leah was awakened by a nightmare where she was running from someone too shadowy to see, but someone she knew was going to kill her. Quinn rolled over and snuggled into her back and held her tight, murmuring, “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you. Go back to sleep.” She tried to return to sleep, but it evaded her. She finally got up, took a shower to wash away the remains of the nightmare, got the coffeepot going, and returned to studying the murder board.

  Leah continued running over the information they had. There wasn’t much, not nearly enough. She wondered why no one had claimed responsibility for the killings in the field or for the bombings. Does it mean those responsible don’t have an agenda they’re working from or toward? If they have no cause, then why the killings? Are they trying to hide something that required the very public bombing of a police precinct?

  “Weston’s been found. He’s dead,” Peony said, coming into the living room. “Murdered.”

  “Where?”

  “Near the space port. His throat was slit. The news is reporting it now.”

  “I made the call to the commissioner’s office while I was looking for Scotty yesterday. She said she’d order Weston picked up ASAP. Obviously, they weren’t in time,” Cots said, coming in behind Peony.

  “Do you know who she gave the order to go get him?” Leah asked.

  “The chief,” Cots said.

  “I wonder if the cops sent to pick him up were on the same payroll as Weston or if they found him already dead?”

  “Why do you ask that, Boss?” Peony asked.

  “If he wasn’t already dead, why would clean cops slit his throat? Wouldn’t they want to bring him in and go to trial to prove he’s a rogue cop and not every cop on the force is dirty? Plus, Weston probably knew too much about other dirty cops. One of the higher-ups was bound to get rid of him when he went rogue. I’m not naïve enough to think there aren’t dirty cops at the top of the ladder. And if the chief chose the cops picking Weston up, I wonder if he knew they were dirty? God, I hope not. I hope the chief is clean.”

  “The cops sent to pick him up will say they found him dead. It will be hard to prove otherwise, won’t it?” Cots asked from the doorway. “Here’s the report you asked for earlier.”

  “Thanks,” Leah said, taking the blank folder from Cots. He motioned to Peony and they left the room as Leah quickly scanned the report on Peony. Her attention was taken from the information on Peony by the newscaster on the vidscreen.

  A reporter’s voice intoned almost robotically as the camera panned over the still-smoking debris of the former police station. “Yesterday’s bombing of the Forty-fourth Precinct was an old-fashioned bombing,” the reporter said. “It was caused by a van filled with explosives being detonated near the entrance at the side of the building, which is used almost exclusively by the police. The blast leveled the building and left a crater nearly twenty feet deep.”

  “I’d say that was overkill, wouldn’t you?” Cots asked.

  “Drude, Cots! Don’t sneak up on m
e like that! You’re lucky I don’t have my weapon. You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days doing that.” She’d learned a valuable lesson on the subject when she was a rookie cop. She’d run past an armed robber she’d been chasing, and he came up behind her and had a knife at her throat before she even sensed he was there. Luckily, her partner had finally caught up to her and grabbed the perp’s knife hand and had him on the ground in a flash. Since then, she always paid attention to who was behind or around her.

  “Sorry, Boss,” Cots said.

  “Do you think Peony knows I’m married to Quinn?”

  “She may not know you’re married, but she’s sure you’re sleeping together.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Boss. She’s cool.”

  “Good. By the way, we need to let the cops assigned to the case follow the clues we’ve given to the commissioner. We need to focus, and stay focused, on the murders in the field,” Leah said. “If we really do find a link between our case and the bombings, and I think we will, then we’ll start following that angle more closely.”

  Leah returned to staring at her murder boards. She wasn’t seeing them because nothing had changed. Rather, she was wondering how she was going to connect the bombing of the Forty-fourth and the killing field. She thought they were connected, but she couldn’t see the thread linking them yet.

  When Quinn arrived home at eight, she was carrying enough takeout food to feed a small army. “I figured you guys would be hungry.”