"Why isn't the captain working on getting other cold case files that match this profile?" she said.
"He wanted us to meet first to see if you agreed with me I guess. I don't know. It's not my problem, I don't work homicide."
"Why don't you?"
"Don't want to."
"You're obviously good at what you do Rian. You're wasting your talent and skills working cold cases."
Rian shrugged. "It's my talent, skills, and life to waste, not yours."
Leann stared at her for a minute and quietly closed all of the files. "I'll get with the captain in the morning and let him know what we came up with."
~
Rian poured a ice filled glass of whiskey when she walked inside her tiny one bedroom apartment. The walls were dark and bare and the place was scarcely furnished. A shabby brown couch sat along one wall and a TV was across from it on a small stand. She sat on the couch and kicked her shoes off. The first sip was always the hardest, once she was past it the rest were swallowed easily.
Chapter Eight
"Hey Leann I heard you and the Ice Bitch worked on my case last night," the detective said as he spit into the paper cup.
Leann looked up from the autopsy she was doing and rolled her eyes. "Yes, Carl, I worked with Detective Casey last night. The captain asked us to put a few cases together and see if we could find some forensic similarities."
"How did that go?"
"She's actually very smart. I think we may have a serial killer on our hands. If I'm right you will want her on your side," she said. She made some notes on her file for the current body on the slab next to her.
"She's a hot-headed federal agent that has the personality of a wet mop. I'm not wasting my time with her. You can befriend her all you want, just give me the info you have for my case," he spit in the cup again.
"The captain didn't give it you?"
"No, he said to see you."
"Uh huh, are you sure he didn't say see Casey?"
"I don't give a shit, you were with her I'm sure you have the same info."
"Carl, have you ever wondered why she's the way she is? I mean who retires from the FBI while they're in their thirties with so many years ahead of them?"
"I don't care. She pissed away her career that's not my problem."
She shook her head. "I didn't want to work with her either after the way she's treated everyone around here, but she's not as bad as you guys make her out to be. Maybe it's because she's smarter than all of you put together," She slammed her desk drawer open and handed him a small notepad. "Everything's in there."
"She's a dyke you know. I'd watch out if I were you," he said on his way out.
"And you're a dick so what," she said to the empty room.
~
Rian walked into the M.E.'s office after lunch with two cups of coffee in her hand. She set one in front of Leann and took a sip from the other. "I figured you'd need this if you're as tired as I am."
"Thanks." Leann smiled.
"Have you talked to the captain today?" Rian asked.
"No, why? Carl Quinn was in here this morning giving me the third degree. I'm assuming the captain's making him follow your lead." She took a long swallow of the hot coffee. Her body thanked her.
"Oh really, I haven't heard about that. I'm sure he's pissed. He thinks I'm as dumb as a soup sandwich," she smiled thinly. Nothing could make her fully smile the way she used to.
"Boy does he have a rude awakening coming then," she laughed.
Rian shrugged. "Not my problem, anyway I came over here to see if you knew they were exhuming Monica Hillenbrand's body this week."
"You're shitting me." She took another sip and set the cup down. "How did they get a warrant for that?"
"I guess the captain called the family and told them we may have a new lead and need to check for additional evidence that may have gone unnoticed then because of technology or some shit. Anyway, the family agreed to it."
Before Leann could say anything her office phone rang. She answered quickly and after a minute she hung up. "Looks like I have to be at Sacred Heart Cemetery Thursday at eight a.m."
"I'm going too. Until there is definite proof these shootings are the same person I am still on the case because it's technically a cold case," Rian said.
"What happens when everything falls into place? Are you going to work the active case?"
"I don't work homicide," Rian said coldly.
"Don't you want to be involved? I mean if this is really the same person you are the reason we are this much closer to solving the case."
"The captain has called in favors to multiple cities asking to speed up the cold case file search that I asked for a few days ago. So, I'll have my hands full matching other cases to our profile if we get any other random victims. Which, I have a strong feeling we will."
~
Three days later, Rian was standing in the same spot with a surgical mask over her mouth and nose to help quell the stench of the dead as she examined the entrance and exit wounds on Monica Hillenbrand's head.
"Definitely a .308," she said as she made some notes on her notepad she kept in her jacket pocket.
"I agree, it measures almost exactly the same as Oscar Woodburn, our current victim. Do you still think the range is shorter?" Leann asked.
"Absolutely. Our shooter was no more than fifty yards away. I'm going to go ahead and say I'm almost positive she was the first victim. He was nervous, almost missed his mark. That's why the shot is so high above her forehead and into her hairline."
"Did you work as a profiler in the FBI?" Leann watched Rian's body involuntarily move away when she mentioned the FBI.
"No."
"You seem to know so much, that's why I asked."
"It's all part of the training. Unless, you work internet crimes or something like that, otherwise you go through homicide training and profiling."
"So, you worked in high-profile homicide cases then?"
"No." Rian said without looking at her.
"Okay?"
"Leann, obviously you haven't caught on to the fact that I don't talk about the FBI or my involvement with the bureau."
"I understand that, Rian. I was just asking what kind of cases you worked," she said with a shake of her head.
"Organized crime," Rian almost whispered.
Leann looked up at her. Rian's skin was pale and she looked like she was lost in thought. She wanted to ask a hundred questions, but decided to move on and let Rian fight her ghosts on her own.
"So, the captain has three other random shooting cases that are being sent to us. I should have them by this evening," Rian said.
"Looks like another long night," Leann grinned.
"You don't have to work them with me if you don't want to. It'll probably take all night."
"I'm sure the captain will call and order me to anyway, so it's not a problem. We should really find somewhere else to work besides that tiny little office of yours and mine smells like formaldehyde at the moment."
Rian swallowed the lump in her throat. "My apartment isn't much bigger and it probably smells too, but I guess we can meet there. I'll text you the address when I get the files."
"Okay, I'll pick up a pizza and beer or something," Leann said as Rian nodded and left the room.
Rian sat at the rickety desk she called her own and stared at the ceiling. She knew there was nothing wrong with working with Leann at her apartment, but she still felt weird about having someone else in her private space. Maybe working with Leann was a good thing. She needed some kind of humanity in her life. All she'd been doing for the past three months was working and drinking herself to sleep most nights. She never went anywhere. Her meals were all take out or drive thru. She'd even lost weight from eating unhealthy. She needed to move on, she just didn't know how.
~
Leann wasn't shocked when she walked into the tiny apartment. She barely knew Rian Casey, but she expected the apartment to be cold and empty like
the shell of a person that lived there. She wished she knew what Rian's story was. In some ways, the reclusive detective intrigued her. There was a story there somewhere buried deep inside Rian. She'd researched as far as she could and barely scratched the surface on Rian's life before she moved to Portland. Leann pictured her as a vibrant, thriving woman that took the lead and never followed.
"Thanks for bringing dinner. I was starving," Rian said. They'd been working for three and a half hours on the new cases.
"You're welcome. From the looks of your kitchen you don't have many meals here, or they are all take out."
Rian nodded. "Something like that."
Leann flipped her notepad to a new page. "What do you think about this victim in Eugene?"
"The same thing I think about all three of them. They are too random to be connected, yet they are similar in a number of ways. I think he's been working the state for at least three years and with every victim he gets a little better, a little cleaner."
"Two of them are .30-06 caliber and not .308. Why do you think that is?" Leanne asked.
"Easy, he was either trying a new caliber on his own terms, or he did it to keep the authorities guessing. As long as these shootings keep getting reported as random acts of violence he knows he's getting away with it. It's a game. He shoots someone and watches the news to see how it's handled. After a number of months, I think he just decides it's been enough time and he goes somewhere else and does it again. We have five cases that span over three years. My guess is he's hitting two a year. Not enough to cause a flag, but enough to keep himself satisfied with the hunt." Rian didn't notice Leann staring at her.
"Why do you think he chose Oregon? Wasn't Illinois the state Perry worked in?"
Rian shrugged. "Could be any number of reasons. Maybe he's from here. Maybe he did a report on this state in second grade." She almost cracked a smile but hesitated when she looked up into brown eyes staring at her from a few feet away. She knew that look and the burning sensation deep down that came with it. Rian cleared her throat and focused her eyes on the files spread across the table in front of her.
"Did the FBI teach you how to read people too?" Leanne said when Rian purposefully looked away from her.
"You'd be surprised at what the FBI taught me. Most of its classified and can never be disclosed." Rian's voice sounded hollow. It frustrated Leann to see some light trying to break through only to be extinguished before it reached the surface.
"How long have you been retired?"
"Maybe we should call it a night. I think we've got everything we need here. I'll get it to the captain in the morning," Rian said as she stood up and stretched her sore back. She was getting too thin, the belt around her waist was holding on to her hipbones for dear life.
Leann walked towards the door, but stopped short of opening it. "Rian, I can't make it go away, whatever darkness you have haunting you, but I'm here if you ever want to talk about it."
Rian watched her leave and wiped the lone tear that was threatening to fall. Every time she thought about the FBI she thought about Ari. Leann's obsessive curiosity was driving the darkness that Rian was trying so hard to let go of.
Chapter Nine
Rian was surprised when her phone rang with a Washington D.C. area code. She almost didn't answer it. Section Chief Walsh was in town and wanted to meet for lunch. She wanted to say no, but she named a time and place and showed up willingly. After the morning she'd had dealing with the captain and Carl Quinn she actually looking forward to seeing a familiar, friendly face.
"How's life on the other side of the country?" Philip Walsh asked when he sat down in front of Rian.
"Its life, I guess," she said. "Why are you here?"
"I can't come check on my best agent and see how you're doing?"
"I'm not an agent anymore," her voice faded to a whisper.
"Once an agent, always an agent," he said firmly as he slid a file across the table.
"What's this?"
"New development on Fiorino Canturri. I thought you might want to see it."
She slid the file back. "I'm not interested in Canturri, not anymore."
"This may change your mind."
"Damn it, Walsh, I'm not in the bureau anymore. I don't care what's in that file or what the latest news is. If you catch him I'll see it in the news. I'm trying to move on with my life. I don't need this right now." She stood to leave and he opened the file and slid it towards her. She jerked back so hard she knocked her chair to the floor. Ari's beautiful face was staring back her.
"Is this some kind of sick joke? You bastard," she yelled.
"Sit down, Rian!" he said firmly. "The woman in that picture is Arianna Canturri, Fiorino Canturri's daughter."
Rian shook her head no. She closed the file and pushed it away. Her blood was boiling. How dare he come to her with some crazy claim. If Ari was related to that cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch she'd know it. She worked day and night on his case for two years. She practically knew when the man took a shit. There was no way he had a daughter, and it definitely wasn't the same woman she was planning to spend the rest of her life with and watched die slowly in her arms.
"Arianna Canturri left Argentina. Well from the reports I'm getting she ran away from her father sometime before she met you. Apparently, she fled to the States and hid away in a coffee shop using the alias Ari Turner."
Rian picked the chair up and sat down. "There's no way, Walsh. She knew I worked in organized crime. She knew I traveled to Argentina and Brazil. If that's true why would she be with me?" Rian hung her head in her hands.
"I don't know. Maybe she was working for him. I know you kept your files and laptop with you all the time. Do you think she ever got into it?"
"Don't go there Walsh," she growled. "My Ari was sweet and innocent. She wasn't working for that monster. There is no way it's the same girl."
"When I got the information from the crime scene after she died I noticed a few discrepancies so I dug around. Ari's finger prints led me to a match in International Crimes. I sent a DNA sample and it matched as well. Your Ari was Fiorino Canturri's daughter. I'm sorry."
"She wasn't working for him. I'd bet my life on it. No way," Rian said as she stared out the window.
"Somehow he found her and that may have led him to you."
"Are you saying he killed her because of me?"
"If she wasn't working for him and he found out she was lying down with a federal agent, yeah he probably thought she had become a threat."
Rian wiped the tear that rolled down her face. "Why are you telling me this? Why now? She's been dead for six months."
"I need to know if there is anything you may have told her, or that she may have found. We have to stop him."
"You came here and turned my life upside down and all you can say is do I have anything that will help your case," Rian shook her head. "I knew you were heartless, but this is low even for you, Walsh."
"I did everything I could to help you from the moment I got the call," Walsh gritted his teeth.
"All you care about is that damn agency. Well, that agency can go to hell," Rian stood up. "You have everything I ever had on Canturri and his organization. As far as I'm concerned the information you brought here should never have been disclosed to me." She walked a few feet and turned around. "You should never have told me, Walsh."
~
After a handful of glasses of whiskey Rian dried the tears from her face and opened the locked file box she kept under her bed. She spread the pages around the dining room table and began sifting through the case that ran her life and potentially killed the only person she'd ever loved. A person that may have double-crossed her. A person that lost her life because of her.
Rian had learned a few months before Ari's death that Canturri had a daughter with a maid that was killed after she tried to flee with the child. Rian had no idea how old the child was or her name. He also had a son named Valentino that was working as one of his second hands and l
earning the business. Rian assumed since there was no trace of the daughter that she possibly died when the mother died.
Rian stared at the piles of papers and pictures littering the table. She couldn't understand how someone could kill their own child. She picked up the satellite picture of Fiorino Canturri walking out of his compound.
"I'll kill you myself if I find out you did this to her because of me," she said as she silently vowed to continue her work on his case. It was her job to bring him down and he took the most important thing in her life away from her. She wouldn't stop until he was where he belonged, whether it was behind bars or six foot under the dirt didn't matter to her anymore.
Chapter Ten
Captain Burke flipped a page in the folder he was holding as he rocked in his squeaky chair. Rian made a mental note to sneak in there with some spray grease. The squeaking was like nails on a chalk board to her. She watched him pick his teeth and rub his hand across the scruff of five o'clock shadow that was already starting.
"You make some good points here, Casey, but I just don't know. It's similar enough to be the same person but so random and vague that the theory you have here seems pretty farfetched. If I were a gambling man," he put the folder down and looked at her, "I'd go with my gut here, and my gut's telling me there's a chance it could be the same person, but I don't see any link to Jacob Perry. He's dead and gone anyway, so that doesn't really matter. This is what I'm going to do, I want you to work with Quinn on this and see if you can come up with a pattern to follow."
"Captain, with all due respect, I work cold cases. Shouldn't Quinn be working this case with someone else since it's active?"
"At the moment, the case is cold anyway. Besides, you seem to know a lot about the cases and if your theory is right Quinn will need your knowledge. Most detectives would jump on the opportunity to work an active case and a potential serial killer at that."
Love Loss Revenge Page 5
