by Aiden Bates
Ryan bit his lip. It was true that the government had been pretty ham-handed about the busing crisis. That feeling of economic malaise had probably played a far greater role than any of the history writers gave anyone credit for. At the same time, he knew damn well that it hadn't been fear of economic collapse that unscrupulous politicians had used to whip up the people against the children being bused into their neighborhood.
"So," Nick said, delicately inserting himself into the conversation. "Tell me about Maureen. Is there any truth to the rumor that she was pregnant when she died?"
Leanne bit the knuckle of her finger. "She was. She told me when she got her test results. She was just fifteen, you know? She was too young to have a baby, and she was definitely too young to bring that baby into the world in South Boston the way it was back then. I told her not to tell anyone else. I said to go somewhere and get rid of it. I told her not to even tell the daddy."
"Did she do that?"
Leanne hesitated for a long minute. "I have no idea. I liked James. I think that if he'd known, he'd have tried to do the right thing by her. That would've been a disaster. I mean, his family wouldn't have accepted her any more than hers would have accepted him. His sister was nice enough, we got along well enough to talk to, but the rest of them kept trying to get him to date girls from the neighborhood." She looked away. "I think that they were afraid of what would happen. And they were right, of course."
"What about her brothers? What was their relationship with her like?" Ryan leaned forward, pen at the ready.
She sighed. "She and Steven got along great. They liked all the same things. She and Will, though—Will thought of himself as some kind of authority figure. As far as he was concerned, his word was law, and he'd go to pretty great lengths to enforce that. His mother was kind of a non-entity, just smiled and nodded a lot, so I guess he felt that he had to try to lay down the law at home. Maureen, on the other hand, well, she didn't accept Will's authority over her. It didn't matter what he did. She wouldn't take it."
"What exactly did he do?" Nick asked.
"Oh he'd smack her around. One time he beat her up so bad that the school filed a complaint with DCF. Oh, was Old Man O'Neal mad about that. They all got the belt for that one—Maureen, Will, and even their ma." She shuddered. "I remember that night, when I came over, Maureen was an absolute mess. Her face was a mess from the beating she took from Will, and then there was the mess from the belt. She looked at me with her one good eye at that point, and she said, 'Just you wait, Leanne. He'll get you but good.'
"I didn't believe her, of course. I was going to be different. Will loved me. He wasn't going to be like my dad." She shook her head. "Was I ever wrong."
Ryan remembered the photos from Leanne's hospital visits. "I'm sorry."
"So am I." She bowed her head. "What's done is done, though. Can't be undone. No use poking at it, I say. I got out. I got what I needed, and I'm happy now. I got my daughter, and my grandkids, and I've got my own little duplex down in Stoughton. He can't hurt me anymore."
"Are you at all concerned for your safety, ma'am?" Nick put one of his huge hands over hers. "He's very angry right now."
"No." She shook her head. "I'm not. He won't come after me. He knows better. He knows that he can't bully me anymore." She rose. "I hope that was helpful to you gentlemen. If I can be at all helpful to you in the future, please let me know."
Ryan passed her a card. Nick did the same, and they saw themselves out. They got back into Nick's car and headed back out to Framingham. Neither of them spoke until they got past Cambridge, though.
"You know what stood out about that conversation to me?" Ryan turned to his boyfriend.
Nick pressed his lips together. "She seemed to genuinely mourn for Maureen, but it wasn't immediate. It was old grief."
"She knew that Maureen had been dead. She didn't have the same story as her daughter, where she'd thought Maureen had just run off." Ryan shook his head. "That really bugs me, man. It really doesn't sit well with me."
"No." Nick sighed. "Me either. She knows who killed Maureen, and she's covering up for them." He tapped his hand against the steering wheel. "She's got something on them, too. Something that's going to stop Will from coming for her."
"Wish to hell I knew what." Ryan slouched in his seat. "I can't help but feel like we're this close." He held his hands a few inches apart. "We're missing something, and I hate that."
"We'll get there, babe." Nick took his hand. "We'll get there, and then we'll party like rock stars."
Ryan laughed. Party like rock stars, indeed. Cops didn't party like rock stars. They filed paperwork, poured themselves an extra cup of coffee, and moved on to the next case.
But if he and Nick could maybe head back to one of their places, and maybe pour themselves a glass of wine, they could have their own celebration back at home. That would be a great way to celebrate, wouldn't it? No raucous night at a bar with a bunch of alphas, but just Ryan and the alpha he loved.
They had a lot of work to do to get there, though. At least they'd have the weekend. He couldn't wait.
***
It had taken a lot of work, between Nick and Ryan, to look into who might have had access to the Maureen O'Neal crime scene when she'd been buried. They had the advantage of having a date. They knew that James Townsend was killed on November 5, 1976. They knew that Maureen O'Neal had been killed sometime after that, and sometime before November 8, 1976, when Rosa Acker—Townsend at the time—had reported her as missing.
That narrowed down the time frame that they had to search, which only sort of mitigated the sheer amount of red tape and foolishness that the pair had to slog through. There weren't a lot of reasons for anyone to be digging on a historical site like Dorchester Heights, but utility work was one of them. The only problem was that different utilities had changed hands more than once over the past forty years, and not all of the records had kept pace.
They'd gotten a judge to give them warrants as soon as the crime scene was discovered. That got the ball rolling right away, so the records that were available in electronic format started to trickle in not long after they got started on the case. The specter of a human remains find on a job site made a lot of organizations very cooperative.
Legacy records, on the other hand, were a different matter. Clerks didn't mind running reports in a computer system, but digging through forty years of records that might or might not have been well kept was another matter entirely.
They'd been digging through the records as the case dragged on, and as they trickled in. They arrived by courier, and by special delivery. The clerks for Boston Edison, and for Boston Gas, and for the MWRA duly sifted through four decades’ worth of history and pulled anything that related to South Boston from 1971-1980.
It was boring work. Nick didn't care about a curb cut on L Street in 1972. He just didn't. He probably would have cared in 1972, had he been alive and living in south Boston. He fit neither of those categories, and so he put those files to the side and turned to other work every time that something came up.
Nothing relevant to the case came across either of their desks until the Thursday after the interview with Leanne O'Neal. It was Nick who found it, as he sifted through the endless pile of photocopied notes on his desk. He read the scrawled notes. He read them again, and he called Ryan. "Listen to this," he said when Ryan picked up. "'November 4, 1976. Archaeologists signed off on powder magazine. Placed plywood across entrance. November 6, 1976. Checked lines. No sign of leakage. Plywood looks discolored, but cannot be due to leakage. Will re-bury site in the morning.' Ryan, we know that she died on November fifth."
Ryan let out a semi-hysterical giggle. "Holy crap. That's amazing." Then he sobered up. "That means she died the same night as James."
"She might have seen it." Nick choked back a sob. That wouldn't do him any good. "We have to nail these guys."
"We're going to, Nick." Nick could hear the steely determination in his lover's voice. �
�We're absolutely going to nail them. But we have to make sure we get them with an airtight case, right? No wiggle room. I want them, when they hear the handcuffs click, to hear the nails on their own coffin."
Nick chuckled. "I love the way you think."
They already had plans to make another long weekend of it. They made an appointment to discuss the case for two hours, putting it on their calendars and everything. "This way," Ryan told him with a teasing smile, "we have an alarm that tells us to stop arguing and get with the warm and fuzzy feelings."
Nick wasn't sure how to respond to that. On the one hand, he was all about getting on board with the warm and fuzzy feelings. On the other hand, he didn't like the idea that Ryan assumed that they would fight if they discussed the case. That didn't bode well for their longevity as a couple.
Then again, they weren't going to work on the same case after they closed this one. They grabbed takeout from a little Italian place near Ryan's condo complex and sat down to hash it out. "So," Nick began, as Ryan got plates and knives and even wine. "What are we thinking?"
"I'm leaning toward the brothers." Ryan slid into his seat. "I like the father for it, honestly, but he sent them both away after the fact and stayed here. He wouldn't have sent them both away if it was him and the older one. He'd have let Steven stay where he was."
Nick made a face. "Okay, I hate that. I don't disagree with you; I'm ninety-nine percent sure you're right. The thing is, Steven was only thirteen at the time. We have to make a jury see one hundred percent sure, not ninety-nine, that a thirteen-year-old boy could kill a sister that he was apparently close with."
"You're not kidding." Ryan rubbed at the back of his neck. "I mean, we obviously have to go and talk to him. And I don't think that he was the mastermind. I saw a lot of this back when I was in foster care, actually."
Nick raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You saw a lot of thirteen year olds taking a baseball bat or a lead pipe to their sisters?"
"Not a lot." Ryan smirked. "But we've heard already about how Steven would follow Will's lead. And we've heard how Will was very willing to use violence to establish his authority over Maureen. My guess is that he did the same to Steven, but I could be wrong." He took a bite of his linguine and looked over at Nick. "We can speculate all we want, but we have to be able to prove it."
Nick chewed on his calamari for a second. "We're going to have to talk to the witnesses again. Rosa. Leanne. Maybe Katherine, although I'm not sure how much more she'll be able to tell us."
Ryan nodded. "And we'll have to talk to Steven soon. I mean, I'm sure that Will has already gotten to him, but we still need to speak with him and hear what he has to say."
"Soon." Nick looked off at the wall for a second. It was hard to concentrate on the case when he had Ryan right there in front of him. "I kind of want to let him sweat, you know? And I'm not sure that he'd agree to talk with us, not if Will's already gotten to him."
"Maybe." Ryan put his fork down. "I kind of feel like we have to try. I mean, he lives apart from his brother, so it should be very possible to at least get a few words in." He leaned forward, clearly ready to say more, and then he leaned back. "But you could be right. I mean if he's spent, what, fifty-three years being dominated by Will, a couple of cops saying, 'Hey, tell us everything' probably won't cut the mustard."
"We'll get there. We just have to do it at the right time, with the right evidence." Nick touched Ryan's hand.
"Yeah." Ryan smiled a little.
They finished their dinner and relaxed on the couch for a little while. Nick sat on the couch while Ryan stretched out on his back, resting his head in Nick's lap. Nick loved how Ryan was completely comfortable with physical contact, without a hint of body-shyness or shame. So many omegas that he knew were socialized to be ashamed of who they were, or to try to hide their sensuality. Ryan owned all of it, with a kind of easy pride.
Nick carded his fingers through Ryan's dark hair, which earned him a happy little sigh and smile. He smiled down at his lover. "You look so beautiful like this," he murmured. "Just relaxed and content, hanging out here with me. I like this."
Ryan's eyes shined up at him. "I like it too." His cheeks darkened as he blushed. "It's not something I'm used to, but I could get there." He reached up and stroked Nick's face. The pads of his fingers ran feather-light against Nick's cheekbone. "Especially if you keep looking at me like that."
"Like what?" Nick grinned.
"Like I'm something you cherish."
"You are." He pulled Ryan further up, so Ryan's head was cradled in his arm. That made it possible for Nick to kiss him, which he did. The kiss started out languid and adoring, but turned passionate and demanding after only a few seconds. Their love was still new, after all, and they had all the time in the world.
Nick slipped his hand underneath Ryan's shirt as his tongue explored Ryan's mouth. He liked to see Ryan's beautiful body, of course, just as he knew that Ryan liked to be seen. Right now, though, Nick wanted to explore without the visual cues. He wanted to run his hands over the tiny, solid swell of Ryan's pectoral muscles, tease the little nubs of his nipples. He wanted to appreciate the tautness of his abs and the smoothness of his skin, just with the touch of his hand.
And he wanted to focus on the way that Ryan's skin heated up underneath that hand. Ryan's scent had always aroused him. Ryan's beauty was something that even Nick's colleagues acknowledged. Either of those things could turn Nick on at the snap of a finger, and he didn't mind. What really got him going, though, was watching—and feeling, and hearing—Ryan's growing arousal.
Ryan's skin had been dry when they started. As they kissed, and as Nick rubbed his hands along the long lines of Ryan's torso, his body got warmer and warmer. A light sheen of sweat broke out on his skin, and he finally had to break the kiss to take off his shirt. He met Nick's eyes for a moment, and then he went over to the front windows and closed the blinds.
Nick chuckled. "Are you planning a whole no-clothes weekend, Ryan?"
Ryan just winked and kicked his pants off.
Nick grabbed him and mouthed along the long line of his neck. "God, you're amazing," he growled into his omega's ear. "I need you."
"I'm yours," Ryan told him and pressed his body into Nick's.
"Upstairs," Nick told him. "Bedroom."
Ryan grinned and scurried up the stairs. Nick watched him go, appreciating the curve of his ass, before he grabbed Ryan's discarded clothing. He knew his mate would be restless if the clothes stayed scattered.
By the time he got upstairs, Ryan had turned down the covers on the bed. The sheets were clean and new, the lube and a strip of condoms waited on the nightstand, and Ryan waited in the center of the bed. He waited on his knees, sitting back on his feet with his hands on his thighs. His eyes were lowered, but he looked up through his lashes at Nick to show eyes glittering with anticipation.
Nick was already tearing at his own clothes. Ryan hadn't had to lay a hand on him and all he could think about was getting inside of him.
Ryan stayed still until Nick approached the bed. "What do you want, Nick?"
"I just want you." Nick stroked Ryan's cheek and kissed him. "You look excited." He ran a finger up the vein on the underside of Ryan's hard cock.
"Yeah." Ryan let out a long, shuddering breath and closed his eyes. "I've been thinking about this for days." He looked up at Nick. "I don't like waiting."
"Me neither." Nick gently bent Ryan over, so that his ass was presented in just the way that Nick liked. "I'm going to get you ready, okay?"
Ryan wiggled himself. "Please."
Nick laughed and grabbed the lube and a condom.
He stretched Ryan out as efficiently as he could without risking injury. The last thing he wanted was to hurt this incredible man beneath him, but he didn't get the impression that Ryan was willing to wait all that long either. The eager cries, the groans and moans, and the begging told him that Ryan needed more than what his fingers could provide.
When
he finally rolled on the condom, slicked himself up and pressed inside, he had to admit that Ryan wasn't the only one who needed it now. The tight heat of Ryan's body was a blessing; it was bliss. Maybe someday they'd be able to do this without the barrier between them, but to be honest he was perfectly satisfied with everything he could feel right now. The walls of Ryan's body enveloped him, taking him in and accepting him as part of himself.
He set up a vigorous rhythm. That usually worked for both of them, although there were moments when they both wanted something a little gentler. Ryan seemed to be just fine with this, though, and the position let Nick get deep inside his mate. He thrust again and again, losing himself in Ryan's cries of bliss until he felt Ryan's body clench around him.
